The Debate

Israeli and Lebanese envoys appearing together on camera in the same room, that may well be a first. It's happening under the auspices of the US Secretary of State in Washington. Now if you’re rooting for peace… there's good news and bad news. The good news is that the Lebanese government’s never been so vocal in calling on Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah to disarm… and the US president has a real stake in reining in Israel if he wants his attempts to strike a deal with Tehran to bear fruits. 
The bad news... the fighting continues with Israel accused of the Gaza-style leveling of villages in southern Lebanon and Hezbollah refusing both surrender and disarmament. Will Israel set up for good, pushing boundaries like it did recently in neighboring Syria? A week ago, Benjamin Netanyahu was depicted as omnipotent with outlets like the New York Times reporting on how it was he convinced Donald Trump to attack Iran. If that was true, is it still the case? Or was last Wednesday’s daytime bombing of Beirut that killed more than 300 too much, even for Israel’s closest allies?
 
Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Delphine Liou.

Eurosceptics may come and go, but there's only one Viktor Orban. It took 16 years and Sunday's record turnout in Hungary to vote out the seemingly unbeatable far-right leader who once boasted of building an illiberal state. Why did the far-right idol of MAGA world finally fall out of favour? And not just by a nose: "The Hungarian people didn't vote for a simple change of government, but for a complete change of regime," boasts Prime Minister-in-waiting Peter Magyar. How will the once-ally-turned-pro-EU conservative turn his constitutional supermajority into a rolling back of Orban's consolidation of power?
We ask about the task at hand and reactions abroad – starting with Russia, on which Hungary depends for its oil and gas. How to handle the Kremlin?
The sighs of relief in Brussels and Kyiv are audible, what with Budapest no longer championing a coalition of Eurosceptics that includes France's Marine Le Pen.
But it doesn't mean Hungary will always be pliant, nor that hostility from bigger powers will magically disappear.
Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.

A most confusing Wednesday it was. In the space of six minutes, during a single press conference, the White House spokesperson first hailed the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, then called on Iran to reopen the world’s most oil-sensitive shipping lane. Five weeks of contradictory statements have bred wider uncertainty over the true contents of the ceasefire deal – and even who is party to it. Confusion moves markets, and in a war that has triggered the most severe energy crisis in decades, oil prices reflect that volatility: having fallen sharply on Wednesday, they have since climbed back above $100 a barrel.
And amid such turbulence, there are always those who sense an opportunity to profit.
We’ll examine who stands to gain, and how – whether this is simply smart investing, or something more troubling. With so much power concentrated in the hands of a single man, we’ll also ask whether greater scrutiny is warranted within the cabinet of Donald Trump, amid accusations that the line between national interest and personal profit may be blurring.
If it is oil producers such as Saudi Arabia and Russia, that is one thing. But what if it is the United States itself?
 
Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.

No apocalypse. Instead, an eleventh-hour ceasefire between Iran and the United States – one that is still being tested – with both sides claiming victory after five and a half weeks of war that may reshape how the world views them.
Meanwhile, there is no ceasefire in Beirut, where Israel has carried out its heaviest strikes yet on the capital, hitting multiple densely populated areas. Dozens are feared dead. Will Washington tell Israel to halt its operation against Hezbollah?
Then there is the Gulf. Even if the guns fall silent, it could take weeks – months, perhaps longer – to restore oil output to previous levels.
And finally, there is the ratcheting up of biblical rhetoric.
Faced with a regime where, for now, soldiers – not clerics – appear to hold sway, Donald Trump and his White House have issued the kind of doomsday threats more often associated with radical theocracies or rogue nuclear states. Will the world remember the threat to erase “an entire civilisation”, even if it never comes to pass?
 
Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.

Is Europe’s future on the ballot in Hungary? In Budapest, the US vice president is actively stumping for far-right incumbent Viktor Orban who trails in the polls ahead of Sunday’s general election. European politicians sometimes campaign for likeminded peers from neighbouring nations, but in this case, it is the United States openly taking aim at the bloc using the same talking points as Vladimir Putin’s Russia. 
We talk about whether JD Vance’s support helps or hurts Orban in the homestretch of a race where the 62-year-old populist has made a point of holding up the European Union’s €90 billion loan to Ukraine.
We also take a look at Orban's strategy and the opposition's claim that the prime minister attempted a false flag operation in neighbouring Serbia. 
More broadly, we assess how the nation of 9.5 million has fared under Orban’s 16-year rule. How has pushing Hungary as the avant garde of a white Christian anti-woke, anti-immigrant alliance served Hungary? And what is the opposition offering instead?
Produced by François Picard, Théophile Vareille, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente