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Affairs / Podcast

The Foreign Desk

​Presented by ​Andrew Mueller, Monocle’s flagship global-affairs show features​ expert guests ​and in-depth analysis of the big issues of the week. Nominated for ‘Best Current Affairs’ show and the ‘Spotlight Award’ in the 2022 British Podcast Awards.

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Why has Israel gone back to war?: As the ceasefire in Gaza falls apart, Tahani Mustafa, Nimrod Goren and Faysal Itani join ‘The Foreign Desk’ to weigh possible paths forward. Is Netanyahu even interested in peace? How will Lebanon fare? And as Trump, the Arab League and the EU push for their own ends, what will become of Gaza?

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5895 Apr 2025
35 min

Why has Israel gone back to war? 

As the ceasefire in Gaza falls apart, Tahani Mustafa, Nimrod Goren and Faysal Itani join ‘The Foreign Desk’ to weigh possible paths forward. Is Netanyahu even interested in peace? How will Lebanon fare? And as Trump, the Arab League and the EU push for their own ends, what will become of Gaza?

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★2 Apr 2025
8 min

Explainer 461: Marine Le Pen and the movable feast of far-right law and order 

This week Marine Le Pen was convicted of embezzlement and banned from seeking public office for five years. Andrew Mueller explains why the far right cares deeply about law and order – until its own is in the dock. 

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58729 Mar 2025
32 min

Is Erdoğan’s crackdown backfiring? 

Hundreds of thousands of protestors have poured onto Turkey’s streets after president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his authorities arrested Istanbul mayor and presidential candidate, Ekrem İmamoğlu. Since then, thousands more have been arrested, detained and, in the case of some foreign journalists, deported. So, what prompted the move? And, after 22 years in charge, could Erdoğan’s latest power grab prove a step too far? We hear from experts on the ground.

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★26 Mar 2025
8 min

Explainer 460: Jeffrey Goldberg has exited the war chat 

As the US government scrambles to explain why the editor in chief of ‘The Atlantic’ was added to a group chat discussing war plans, Andrew Mueller considers just how serious a security breach this is.

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58622 Mar 2025
38 min

Syria: Is this going to work? 

The unloading of Bashar al-Assad in December was a hopeful moment for Syria. The installation of his successor, jihadist commander Ahmed al-Sharaa, was a more nervous one. We discuss the mood among civilians with journalist Zaina Erhaim and Monocle’s Hannah Lucinda Smith, following the latter’s trip to Damascus in February. We also hear Slovenia’s foreign affairs minister, Tanja Fajon, who has met Syria’s interim president, and consider the implications for the country’s neighbours with Faysal Itani, the senior director of Middle East programs at the New Lines Institute.

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★19 Mar 2025
7 min

Explainer 459: Why has Rwanda severed ties with Belgium?  

Following Rwanda’s expulsion of Belgium’s diplomats this week, Andrew Mueller explains the European nation’s troubled history of involvement in Rwanda and the DRC.

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58515 Mar 2025
38 min

Nato’s frontline: the view from the Baltics 

‘The Foreign Desk’ speaks to leaders from Nato’s Baltic members about the vexing, existential questions they face: what happens if Russia strikes one of them? Is Nato’s Article 5 the unassailable security that it used to be? Is it worthwhile to keep telling Western Europe “we told you so”?

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★12 Mar 2025
9 min

Explainer 458: Why is Rodrigo Duterte being sent to The Hague?  

Rodrigo Duterte, the former president of the Philippines, has been arrested and sent to The Hague, where he will face charges for crimes against humanity. Andrew Mueller explains the former president’s bloody ‘war on drugs’ and its marked popularity with voters.

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5848 Mar 2025
37 min

Has the US given up? 

It is clear by now that Donald Trump’s second administration will not be a rerun of the first. Why has the United States tilted away from Europe? Is there any method to the apparent madness? And how should Europe adjust? Leaders from the CIA, Nato and the US military join ‘The Foreign Desk’ to sift through the US’s new reality.

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★5 Mar 2025
7 min

Explainer 457: What does Ukraine do now?  

What shape will the war in Ukraine take now that president Trump has paused all military aid? Andrew Mueller unpacks the nation’s prospects following Friday’s showdown in the Oval Office. 

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5831 Mar 2025
39 min

Russia’s ripple effect 

Russia’s rampage in Ukraine has had knock-on effects elsewhere, few if any of them positive. At the Munich Security Conference, Georgia’s president Salome Zourabichvili told us how she’s fighting Russian interference at home, and Belarus’s exiled opposition leader discussed how Moscow is underpinning her country’s tyrant. Leaders from the countries staring down the threat from the Kremlin join ‘The Foreign Desk’ to tell us how to defeat the menace at the gate.

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★26 Feb 2025
7 min

Explainer 456: What’s halting Germany’s defence? History. 

As security risks on the European continent rise and the US retreats from its historic role, will Germany be able to shake off its history and arm itself to meet the moment?

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58222 Feb 2025
39 min

Very well, alone? 

In the week following US vice president JD Vance’s explosive speech at the Munich Security Conference, European leaders scrambled to two emergency summits to consider the prospect of American detachment. In this special episode recorded at the conference, we reflect on this new reality almost exactly three years on from the invasion of Ukraine. We speak with current and former office-holders, including Pål Jonson, Sweden’s minister of defence, and Oleksii Reznikov, former minister of defence of Ukraine.

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★19 Feb 2025
6 min

Explainer 455: Mauritius’s money-laundering prime minister  

Former Mauritius PM Pravind Jugnauth was arrested last weekend after the country’s Financial Crimes Commission recovered suitcases full of banknotes worth over €2m. We explain why the scandal is not just bad news for Mauritius but the UK too. 

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58115 Feb 2025
38 min

Is Serbia OK? 

Between the infrastructure disaster that has sparked prolonged protests and the ongoing troubles with Kosovo, Albania and Nato, is Serbia OK? Andrew Mueller speaks to the country’s minister of foreign affairs, Marko Đurić, and our Balkans correspondent, Guy De Launey, for the view from the ground. 

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