The Global Focus

🔗 https://theglobalfocus.com/katalin-kariko-the-freedom-of-the-periphery/

For forty years Nobel Prize laureate Katalin Karikó's colleagues felt sorry for her but failed to dissuade her. With unassuming determination, perseverance and passion, she spent her adult life on a molecule nobody wanted, was demoted for it, and brought the world the groundbreaking discovery on messenger RNA that made the COVID vaccines possible. She describes her unique path and the science behind the vaccines in this in-depth interview with Reya von Galen for The Global Focus.Statements on health and medicine in this interview are the personal views of the guest. They are not medical advice. For questions about your own health, please consult your doctor.Katalin Karikó, "Breaking Through: My Life in Science", written with Ali Benjamin, Crown, 2023.

First female Prime Minister of a Muslim country · 1988–1990 · 1993–1996

🔗 https://theglobalfocus.com/no-order-only-disorder-a-conversation-with-hubert-vedrine/

Few statesmen of his generation have operated as deeply within the machinery of power or dissected it with such calculated realism. Hubert Védrine spent fourteen years shaping French foreign policy at the side of François Mitterrand before serving as Foreign Minister from 1997 to 2002. He belongs to a rare class of public intellectuals whose counsel is quietly sought by every French president across the political spectrum. In this conversation, Védrine delivers an analysis that challenges the foundational assumptions of modern Western politics. There is no world order, he argues, only a fragmenting, evolving semi chaos. He presents a world where the post war West was never an alliance of equals, but a system of European dependency under the American umbrella, a strategic dependency that de Gaulle alone refused. On Europe, immigration, and the survival of the welfare state, Védrine enters territory his own political family frequently prefers to avoid. He directly confronts the current dogmas of the intellectual left, arguing that institutional elites have fueled the rise of the populist right by mocking the public's attachment to national identity and mishandling migration flows. He pushes for strict control of illegal immigration at the source, while revealing that many of his left wing colleagues privately agree with his controversial stances but dare not speak them aloud.On the global stage, his assessments are equally direct. He breaks down an American populism that will outlast Trump, delivers a sharp critique of Benjamin Netanyahu alongside an analysis of the unprecedented generational shift among American Jews, and offers a realist post mortem of a Western hegemony that can no longer unilaterally impose its values on a fragmenting world. Having helped build the geopolitical landscape that is now shifting, Védrine examines the harsh realities of a world coming apart, and explains why it will never be put back together. Reya von Galen Hubert Védrine spent fourteen years alongside François Mitterrand at the Élysée, as diplomatic adviser, spokesman and finally Secretary General, before serving as Foreign Minister from 1997 to 2002, in Lionel Jospin's government of cohabitation under President Jacques Chirac. He now advises on geopolitics through his own consultancy and has devoted some twenty books to international affairs and France's place in the world. His most recent, "Après l'Occident ?”, written with the anthropologist Maurice Godelier, was published by Perrin and Robert Laffont in February 2026.

Rafael Behr has spent more than two decades watching British democracy from the inside. Guardian columnist, broadcaster, author of Politics: A Survivor's Guide.

In this conversation he examines what liberal politics got wrong, why populism keeps winning the emotional argument, and whether shared political reality is still possible. Brexit, Reform, Britain between Washington and Brussels — and what democratic anger can build rather than destroy.

Recorded 20 March 2026. The Global Focus.