On Sunday (8 January), hundreds of Jair Bolsonaro supporters stormed Oscar Niemeyer’s modernist government buildings in the Brazilian capital Brasilia in an apparent attempt to overthrow the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Ido Vock and Jeremy Cliffe in Berlin are joined by Alona Ferber in London to discuss who was behind the failed coup and what it means for the country, as well as the disturbing parallels between this insurrection and the one at the US Capitol two years ago.

Next, the team turn to Israel, where the new governing coalition, led once more by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (who is still on trial for criminal charges of bribery, breach of trust and fraud), has been busy pushing judicial reforms that his opponents say will erode the country's democracy.

They discuss his attempted reforms, whether the shift to the right is a continuation or a break for the country, and what this means for Israel’s foreign policy relations, particularly in the Middle East. 

Then in You Ask Us, a listener question asks why Ukrainian hero Stepan Bandera is considered to be so controversial by the country's allies.

If you have a question for You Ask Us, go to newstatesman.com/youaskus

Podcast listeners can subscribe to the New Statesman for just £1 a week for 12 weeks using our special offer: visit newstatesman.com/podcastoffer to learn more 

Read more:

Alona on the biggest winner in Israel's election - the far right.

Ido on Ukraine’s problematic nationalist heroes

Sarah Manavis writes the Brazil riots were openly planned on social media. So why was nothing done?

Oliver Basciano write the attack on Brazil's Congress had the aesthetics of a coup, without the danger

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Ahead of the publication of her new book, And Then What?, the first-ever EU high representative for foreign affairs and security, Catherine Ashton, talks to Jeremy Cliffe about the role the EU can play in international crisis, drawing on her experience in overseeing the union’s relations with Ukraine, Iran and the western Balkans. She also discusses the future of its ties to Britain and the US.

Read more:

The Ukraine war has made predictions futile

Iran’s regime won’t be easily toppled

Ten crucial questions about the world in 2023 

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Coronavirus cases have been rising rapidly in China since its government ended its restrictive “zero-Covid” policy last month. Hospitals are expected to be inundated with newly-infected patients.

Megan Gibson in London, Katie Stallard in Washington DC and Ido Vock in Berlin discuss why the country was so ill-prepared to lift its lockdowns and restrictions, where the responsibility lies, and the economic imperatives behind this decision, made in the depths of winter and before the Lunar New Year.

Next they turn to a rare admission by Russia’s defence ministry on Monday (2 January) that 89 Russian soldiers were killed on New Year’s Day after Ukraine hit a “temporary deployment facility” with US-supplied Himars missiles. The team discuss the consequences of the attack, as well as Vladimir Putin’s and Volodymyr Zelenksy’s respective New Year speeches.

Then in You Ask Us a listener asks for reading recommendations to better understand Ukrainian culture.

If you have a question for You Ask Us, go to newstatesman.com/youaskus

Podcast listeners can subscribe to the New Statesman for just £1 a week for 12 weeks using our special offer: visit newstatesman.com/podcastoffer to learn more 

Read more:

Katie on what China's devastating Covid outbreak means for the rest of the world

The Orphanage by Serhiy Zhadan

In Isolation by Stanislav Aseyev

Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov

The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine by Serhii Plokhy

Red Famine by Anne Applebaum

Bloodlines by Timothy Snyder

East West Street by Philippe Sands

A Loss. The story of a dead solider told by his sister by Olesya Khromeychuk

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Nearly a year since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the historian Olesya Khromeychuk speaks to Megan Gibson about how Ukraine has been perceived by the outside world, and why the country’s courageous resistance should not have come as a surprise.

They discuss the history of civil society movements in Ukraine, why Volodymyr Zelensky is a successful leader, and what support Ukraine needs now.

Read more:

Why the West underestimated Ukraine

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In her final episode on the World Review podcast, Emily Tamkin in Washington DC is joined by Jeremy Cliffe and Ido Vock in Berlin to look ahead to the stories that might dominate 2023 – from chaos in the US Republican Party to Russia's war in Ukraine, to a potential moral panic over the role of artifical intelligence – and the global impact they could have. 

Podcast listeners can subscribe to the New Statesman for just £1 a week for 12 weeks using our special offer. Just visit newstatesman.com/podcastoffer.

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You can keep reading Emily’s work on her substack.

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The New Statesman international team examine some of the most significant moments of 2022, from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to elections, including Viktor Orbán’s victory in Hungary, Jair Bolsonaro’s defeat in Brazil and the US midterms.

Emily Tamkin in Washington DC, and Jeremy Cliffe and Ido Vock in Berlin review their predictions for the past year – with Katie Stallard and Megan Gibson dialling in – and look at what they got wrong and right.

If you have a question for You Ask Us, go to newstatesman.com/youaskus

Podcast listeners can subscribe to the New Statesman for just £1 a week for 12 weeks using our special offer: visit newstatesman.com/podcastoffer to learn more 

Read more:

Emily’s seven predictions for the world in 2022

Jeremy’s ten crucial questions about the world in 2022

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As the contemporary rivalry between the US and China heats up, Katie Stallard speaks to the Cold War historian John Delury about the history of subversion and mutual suspicion between the two powers. They discuss Delury’s new book Agents of Subversion: The Fate of John T Downey and the CIA’s Covert War in China, the extent of US intelligence operations in China during the early Cold War, and the lessons for the future of US-China relations.

If you have a question for You Ask Us go to newstatesman.com/Youaskus

Read more: 

What Kim Jong Un really wants

Nixon in China: the complicated legacy of a week that changed the world

How Xi Jinping views the world

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Belgian prosecutors who were investigating allegations that Qatar tried to influence EU policy by bribing European parliament officials, have charged four people with money laundering, corruption and participating in a criminal organisation.

Emily Tamkin in Washington DC, and Ido Vock in Berlin are joined by the New Statesman's business editor Will Dunn to discuss the investigation which comes as the Gulf country hosts the World Cup, and how "sportswashing" benefits Qatar and the West.

Next, Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has been arrested in the Bahamas after prosecutors in the United States filed criminal charges. The team discuss why the company initially folded and the founder’s dramatic fall from grace, as well as wider the consequences for the crypto industry.

Then, in You Ask Us a question from, not a listener, but ChatGPT: How does racism manifest in AI, and what are the potential consequences for society if left unaddressed.

If you have a question for You Ask Us, go to newstatesman.com/youaskus

Podcast listeners can subscribe to the New Statesman for just £1 a week for 12 weeks using our special offer: visit newstatesman.com/podcastoffer to learn more 

Read more:

Will Dunn on the amateur sleuths who helped to bring down Sam Bankman-Fried

Will Dunn writes Sam Bankman-Fried exposes the moral conceit of effective altruism

Jonathan Liew writes the Qatar World Cup is a moral disaster – is it braver to step away, or step inside.

Ido Vock on why ChatGPT proves that AI still has a racism problem.

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As the International Rescue Committee releases its annual report of the countries most at risk from humanitarian crises next year, the NGO’s president, David Miliband, discusses the ways in which the international community is failing on international aid.

Miliband, the former foreign secretary, discusses the British government’s lack of a coherent foreign policy; why the world misses having the UK take its place on the world stage; the impact the invasion of Ukraine is having on other crises across the world; and how climate change is exacerbating disasters.

Read more:

Is Volodymyr Zelensky losing the support of the West?

Death and destruction: the humanitarian crisis of climate change

The UK was the only G7 member to cut foreign aid last year

Is David Miliband planning a political comeback?

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As NDTV is taken over by Gautam Adani, billionaire and ally of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, Emily Tamkin speaks to Raksha Kumar, a journalist who covers media freedom in India. They discuss the importance of NDTV and how it came to be under Adani's control. They also examine the role of television journalism in Indian politics, the vestiges of independent media in India, and why economic viability and journalistic integrity two are parts of the same conversation. They also consider how the media landscape has changed since Modi came to power in 2014.

Read more:

“I wish there was competition”: the executive editor of the Caravan on India’s troubled media

If you have a question for the international team, go to newstatesman.com/youaskus

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