The Debate

Making Ukrainians freeze in winter wasn't enough. A Russian strike hit a moving train on Tuesday in the northeastern Kharkiv region, killing six people. As the casualty toll on both sides approaches two million according to an independent study, we weigh the grinding effect of nearly four years of all-out war. 

Now that Iran's internet blackout is over, how many are dead during those 20 days? Nationwide New Year's protests were met with a new measure of ruthlessness. We ask about a death toll that could run into the tens of thousands and what this scale of loss will mean for Iranians both at home and abroad. 

André Luskrung-Pietri, strategic and economic commentator warning about timing and competitiveness. Kumar Ananda, business leader highlighting commercial opportunities and practical impacts. Chikuridan Viramani, development economist on India’s comparative advantages. Sandro Gozzi, MEP focusing on trade, geopolitics and Indo-Pacific strategy. They discuss the EU–India trade deal, risks, sectoral wins, geopolitical framing and business implications.

Just 17 days after the shooting death of Renée Good, masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis have again shot dead a US citizen, this time 37-year-old Alex Pretti. Again, there's video evidence to contradict official narrative that the victims were acting as domestic terrorists, along with a race to gather evidence before it can be tainted or destroyed, media echo chambers and a US president who watches from on high.

While the world waited on what Donald Trump would utter on Greenland on Wednesday, what if we missed the bigger picture? For 73 minutes, the US president, before an audience of traditional transatlantic allies in Davos, hurled invectives and insults while doubling down on what's now official US policy: the assessment that Europe is a continent in civilisational decline; implying that it's overrun by non-Christians and non-Whites. How do Europeans respond?

André Lezucuk-Pietri, chair of the Joint European Disruptive Initiative, shares insights from Davos on geopolitics and Europe’s tech sovereignty. Lucas Chancel, co-director of the World Inequality Lab, analyzes Trump’s remarks on trade and the dollar's vulnerabilities. Tarek Krim, tech entrepreneur, discusses Europe's dependency on U.S. technology and the urgent call for digital sovereignty. The conversation reveals the tension between corporate interests and the need for a coherent European strategy amid rising trade tensions and a potential tech cold war.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor and expert on authoritarianism, delves into Trump's retributive actions and the hollowing of institutions. Anne-Lauren Bujon, a magazine editor and advisor, highlights the chilling normalization of militarized tactics and the erosion of legal constraints. Journalist Damien Alou examines how social media shapes political messaging, pointing out the dangerous reliance on viral content for policy decisions. Together, they dissect how Trump's influence reverberates across global politics, pointing to a troubling blend of power, grievance, and spectacle.

So much for appeasement. The same Europeans who held their nose and swallowed their pride when the EU agreed to Donald Trump's tariffs last summer can no longer ignore the obvious – that there are limits with a president of the United States who tends to treat them as vassals, not allies, or even as adversaries for pushing back on its White nationalist brand of nativism.

US President Donald Trump had started his Wednesday pondering military strikes against Iran before pouring cold water on the concept, even expressing doubts that Iranians would accept as leader the late shah's son. In a sign of how fast a news cycle can flip, Iran's foreign minister expressed his assurances in English on Trump-friendly Fox News. After a ruthless response to nationwide protests, has the Islamic Republic once again seen off an existential challenge? 

There was no Oval Office made-for-TV drama as US Vice President JD Vance joined Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the foreign ministers of Greenland and Denmark this Wednesday. We ask about renewed pressure by the Trump administration on Copenhagen to hand over that Arctic dependency.