Stay ConnectedEach week, we focus on one of the major international stories making headlines, drawing upon the Financial Times’s team of foreign correspondents and analysts to make sense of world events. Presented by Gideon Rachman and produced by Hannah Murphy.
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The death toll in Syria is now estimated at a horrifying 70,000, and the pressure on the United States to intervene is mounting, particularly with the suggestion that the Syrian government may have used chemical weapons. Geoff Dyer in Washington and Abigail Fielding-Smith in Beirut join Gideon Rachman to discuss where the debate over Western intervention in Syria stands.
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The political chaos in Rome seems to be about to come to an end as the bickering parties prepare to form a broad coalition government led by Enrico Letta of the centre-left Democrats. Will the coalition be able to rise to the challenges facing Italy, including an economy now entering its eighth consecutive quarter of contraction. Ferdinando Giugliano, FT leader writer, and Guy Dinmore, Rome correspondent, join Ben Hall to discuss.
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The past week in Britain has been a reminder of the bitterness of the politics of the 1980s as a vehement debate has broken out about the legacy of Margaret Thatcher since her death last week. For Conservatives, she remains a hero who rescued the British economy and helped to win the Cold War. But for the left, she was a villain who provoked social division and wrecked Britain's relations with the European Union. Chris Giles, economics editor, and Philip Stephens, chief political commentator, join Gideon Rachman to attempt to arrive at a more nuanced verdict on the Iron Lady's legacy -- for Britain and the world.
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Pedro Passos Coelho, Portugal’s prime minister, is one of Europe’s staunchest backers of austerity. But his government’s painful two-year programme of structural adjustment has yet to deliver the results promised. And late last week, the country’s constitutional court issued a ruling that could fatally undermine his efforts to get the economy back on track.
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In the last two weeks, tension on the Korean peninsula has risen dramatically, as North Korea has threatened to target US territories in the Pacific and blocked South Korean workers from entering a joint industrial complex in the North. In this week’s podcast, John Aglionby is joined by Geoff Dyer, diplomatic correspondent and Jamil Anderlini, Beijing bureau chief, to discuss whether Kim Jong-eun’s escalating rhetoric is purely sabre-rattling or if we should be worried about his threats
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The Brics started life as a marketing gimmick dreamt up by Goldman Sachs to promote emerging markets, but the notion has taken on a life of its own and this group of nations - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - are now a formal organisation who have just met for their fifth summit. In this week's podcast, Gideon Rachman is joined by Stefan Wagstyl, editor of beyondbrics, and Andrew England, South Africa correspondent, reporting from Durban, where the group has agreed to set up a Brics-led development bank. But do the Brics matter, what unites and divides these nations, and are we likely to still be discussing this group in ten years' time?
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After a failed bailout plan that involved taxing the deposits of small savers, Cyprus is now the epicentre of the eurozone crisis. Lawmakers are now seeking an alternative before Monday, when the European Central Bank will cut emergency liquidity to Cyprus's foundering banks. Kerin Hope, Greece and Cyprus correspondent; Peter Spiegel, Brussels bureau chief; and Patrick Jenkins, banking editor, join Ben Hall to discuss what's happened and what lies ahead.
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March 15 marks the second anniversary of the start of the uprising against the Assad regime in Syria and on March 20 it will have been a decade since the start of the Iraq war, a conflict that still reverberates around the region and the world. Abigail Fielding-Smith, FT correspondent in Damascus; David Gardner, senior international affairs commentator, and Roula Khalaf, Middle East editor, join Shawn Donnan.
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Does the death of Hugo Chavez spell the end of Latin American radicalism, or will Chavismo live on? John Paul Rathbone, Latin America editor, and Benedict Mander, FT correspondent in Caracas, join Gideon Rachman to discuss Venezuela after Chavez.
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Japan is still the world's third-largest economy, but has also been stagnating and idling for twenty years. Now a new government led by Shinzo Abe has come to power pledging to take dramatic steps to turn the situation around. The potential rewards of this policy are high, but so are the risks - and not just for Japan but the whole world economy. Martin Wolf, the FT's chief economics commentator and Jonathan Soble, Tokyo correspondent, join Gideon Rachman to discuss the consequences of Abenomics.
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