The Real Story

This month President Putin of Russia was the star guest at the opening of the Winter Olympics in Beijing. But his trip to China was not just about showing support for the host country. He and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping issued an unexpectedly long statement pledging friendship with 'no limits' and no 'forbidden areas of co-operation'. Beijing and Moscow have maintained a stable relationship since the 2000s, a far cry from the bitter days of the Sino-Soviet split during the Cold War.

China has increased its gas imports from Russia and Russia has in turn allowed more Belt and Road investments in its territory. The two conduct joint military exercises, co-operate in exploring Arctic sea routes, and support each other on the world stage. Now, breaking with its previous ambiguity, China has expressed support for Russia's concerns over the potential future expansion of Nato, giving Moscow a significant boost in its border standoff with Ukraine. Russia meanwhile backs China's claims over Taiwan. Even though no formal alliance has been announced, experts see the new Sino-Russia pact as a clear challenge to the United States.

So how important is the agreement between Russia and China and what are the countries' longer term goals? Does Russia risk being dominated by China, which is soon to become the biggest economy in the world? And how will the evolving relationship between the two powers impact the future of the democracy-based world order envisioned by President Biden? Ritula Shah is joined by a panel of experts.

Producers: Junaid Ahmed and Paul Schuster

This week the French president Emmanuel Macron travelled thousands of kilometres across Europe in a diplomatic effort to avert an escalation of the war in Ukraine. He met Presidents Putin and Zelensky in Moscow and Kyiv, as well as German and Polish leaders in Berlin. Diplomats say Mr Macron has made himself a key interlocutor between the EU and the US on one side and Russia on the other. The crisis in Ukraine has galvanised France's alliance with the United States which was at a low point just months ago when Paris lost a lucrative Australian submarine contract to Washington and London. But at home - where the president is facing re-election, there’s scepticism over France’s close alliance with America. So what are President Macron's foreign policy goals? As the EU’s only nuclear-armed state, what role should France play in representing Europe’s broader interests on the world stage? And will Mr Macron’s diplomatic achievements improve his chances of winning a second term in April?

Ritula Shah is joined by a panel of experts.

As the Beijing Winter Olympics get underway in China this week the host city has reported its highest number of new Covid-19 cases in more than a year. The authorities have put in place a strict 'closed loop bubble’, isolating more than 60,000 athletes, officials and service providers from the rest of the country. China's firm approach to quashing transmission of the virus has been in place ever since the first outbreak in Wuhan. Detection of the virus typically prompts mass testing and can even result in entire cities being placed into snap lockdowns. Only essential travellers are allowed to enter the country and even then only after weeks of strict quarantine. Only a few thousand Chinese citizens are said to have died of Covid-19, a fraction of the number of lives lost in many other nations. But a recent report from the IMF has warned of an economic slowdown in China, blamed in part on the country’s zero-Covid policy. The approach has been welcomed by most citizens, but could public attitudes change if more of the country is forced to stay at home in order to combat outbreaks? Can China follow in the footsteps of other countries that have transitioned towards 'living with the virus'? And will the country have to wait for the next generation of vaccines before opening up?

Ritula Shah is joined by a panel of experts.

Growing fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine have prompted the US and UK to pull the families of staff at their embassies in Kyiv out of the country. Moscow’s forces have been amassing on Ukraine’s border for months prompting fears of a major escalation in a war that’s been underway since Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. Vladimir Putin says the Russian and Ukrainian populations are 'one people' and has blamed Nato’s expansion east for rising tensions. Joe Biden has warned Russia that an invasion of Ukraine would result in severe consequences for the Kremlin. So how likely is full-scale war? What is President Putin's strategy? And what is the likely end-game?

Ritula Shah is joined by a panel of experts.

The British Broadcasting Corporation is the world’s oldest and largest public service broadcaster. But as it prepares to mark its 100th birthday the organisation finds itself at a crossroads. The UK government has begun a review of the BBC’s long term funding structure with an aim of ending its dependency on television licence fees – effectively a tax on British owners of TV sets. The broadcaster's Director General Tim Davie says services and shows will have to be cut as a result of a funding gap arising from the latest licence fee deal. There are other challenges too. Young people are consuming less BBC content than their parents, preferring to rely on an array of different sources for their news and entertainment. So what should be the role of public service broadcasters in a world where information is curated by search engines and consumers gravitate towards streaming giants such as Netflix and Amazon Prime for their entertainment?

Ritula Shah is joined by a panel of experts.

While agriculture remains one of the biggest contributors to climate change, it is also most exposed to its adverse effects. Scientists say that extreme weather events will become more frequent and more intense as global temperatures continue to rise. In 2021, harsh winters, unseasonably warm summers, and sudden changes in rainfall affected food production around the globe - from the farmlands of Europe to the grasslands of Africa. There has been a jump in the prices of essential commodities like wheat and maize and traders are braced for more fluctuations. Climate risk is not only affecting farmers and their livelihoods, it is also exposing more people to food shortages. So what are the most pressing dangers and how can we protect our food supply from extreme weather events?

Paul Henley is joined by a panel of experts.

The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics will begin in 4 weeks’ time with more than 2,000 athletes from across the globe expected to take part. Officials have set up a bubble to keep arriving athletes and officials separate from the general population, all part of attempts to prevent coronavirus infections. Some health officials fear the increased transmissibility of the Omicron variant will pose a severe challenge to organisers and athletes can expect to face tougher restrictions compared to last year's summer Olympics in Tokyo. The games are also the subject of a diplomatic boycott by the United States and some of its allies. The White House says it wants to send a clear message that it disapproves of China's human rights record, including its treatment of Uighur Muslims and a crackdown on dissents in Hong Kong. China described the move as an attempt to politicise sport. So what will success look like for the Beijing Olympics? How effective will the Covid protocols be? And how much of an impact will the diplomatic boycott have on the event’s credibility?

Paul Henley is joined by a panel of experts.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that the stability of some countries’ financial systems could soon be at risk because of unregulated crypto assets. Cryptocurrencies and other digital financial products created using blockchain technology are proliferating. They’re largely free from the controls of governments and central banks, but also free from any significant regulation. The IMF believes “comprehensive, consistent and coordinated” global regulation of the sector is now needed to prevent contagion if major crypto assets begin to collapse. Myanmar’s opposition-led shadow government this week announced that it will accept Tether, a so-called stablecoin, claiming to be pegged to the US dollar, as an official currency - a way of bypassing the control of the country’s military rulers. Meanwhile, across the border in China, authorities are cracking down on crypto and pushing ahead with plans for the country’s own Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) which critics fear could mark the beginning of the end of anonymous transactions. So, is global finance undergoing a transformation? And are more stringent rules of the road necessary to protect consumers and avoid economic calamity? Ritula Shah is joined by a panel of experts.

Producers: Zak Brophy and Paul Schuster.

It’s been more than two decades since the war in Bosnia ended. It remains one of the darkest chapters in modern European history and cost over 100,000 lives. Since the Dayton Agreement was reached in 1995 a fragile peace has held, but last month the international community's chief representative there - Christian Schmidt - warned that conflict might return and the country is in danger of breaking up. Bosnia-Herzegovina's senior ethnic Serb politician, Milorad Dodik, has threatened to pull the territory he governs inside Bosnia out of state-level institutions including the army. The issue that drove so much of the war - Serb nationalism - now appears to be on the rise across the Western Balkans. Serbia has deployed armoured vehicles and aeroplanes along its border with Kosovo and is accused of stoking religious tensions in neighbouring Montenegro. So how dangerous is this moment in Balkans history? Are the EU and the US doing enough to diffuse tensions? And how much of the blame can be laid at the feet of Serbia’s ally Russia?

Ritula Shah is joined by a panel of experts.

The emergence of the Omicron variant has once again highlighted the difficulty in preventing the pandemic from spreading across the globe. Health experts have long argued that regions like southern Africa, where the variant was first detected, are prone to dangerous mutations of the virus when large groups of people are left unvaccinated. Only a tenth of Africa's billion plus population have received their first dose and the continent is yet to create its own Covid vaccines. African nations are reliant on vaccines from the international alliance Covax but the supply is far less than what's required. Meanwhile many on the continent have opted to pursue traditional remedies, with some denying the existence of the virus altogether. So what's the road ahead for Africa as it tries to overcome the pandemic? What sort of public engagement is required to reduce vaccine hesitancy? And how is the fight against Covid made more difficult by other health emergencies?

Ritula Shah is joined by a panel of experts.