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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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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Episode	Date	Description	Download	Play
587	29 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.	Download Share X Facebook LinkedIn LINE Email	Play
★	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.	Download Share X Facebook LinkedIn LINE Email	Play
586	22 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.	Download Share X Facebook LinkedIn LINE Email	Play
★	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.	Download Share X Facebook LinkedIn LINE Email	Play
585	15 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”?	Download Share X Facebook LinkedIn LINE Email	Play
★	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.	Download Share X Facebook LinkedIn LINE Email	Play
584	8 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.	Download Share X Facebook LinkedIn LINE Email	Play
★	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.	Download Share X Facebook LinkedIn LINE Email	Play
583	1 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.	Download Share X Facebook LinkedIn LINE Email	Play
★	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?	Download Share X Facebook LinkedIn LINE Email	Play
582	22 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.	Download Share X Facebook LinkedIn LINE Email	Play
★	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.	Download Share X Facebook LinkedIn LINE Email	Play
581	15 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.	Download Share X Facebook LinkedIn LINE Email	Play
★	12 Feb 2025 6 min	Explainer 454: New Zealand’s beef with its neighbours Why has New Zealand fallen out with the Cook Islands and Kiribati? And what does China have to do with it? Andrew Mueller explains.	Download Share X Facebook LinkedIn LINE Email	Play
580	8 Feb 2025 30 min	How to win a trade war It seems clear that the newly inaugurated US president Trump has a philosophy on trade wars: they are good and easy to win. Tina Fordham, Alex von Tunzelmann and Elisabeth Braw join us to discuss whether the history of trade wars can tell us anything about how to wage one. And are these new economic tussles really anything remarkable, or just part of a wider backlash against globalisation?	Download Share X Facebook LinkedIn LINE Email	Play

Affairs / Podcast

The Foreign Desk

Latest episode

Latest episodes

Is Erdoğan’s crackdown backfiring?

Explainer 460: Jeffrey Goldberg has exited the war chat

Syria: Is this going to work?

Explainer 459: Why has Rwanda severed ties with Belgium?

Nato’s frontline: the view from the Baltics

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

Has the US given up?

Explainer 457: What does Ukraine do now?

Russia’s ripple effect

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

Very well, alone?

Explainer 455: Mauritius’s money-laundering prime minister

Is Serbia OK?

Explainer 454: New Zealand’s beef with its neighbours

How to win a trade war