Here in France, the flood waters are rising as the remnants of Storm Kirk dump biblical amounts of rain. But that's just a drop in the bucket compared with what the southeastern United States faces. Hurricane Milton is forcing the evacuation of 5.5 million Florida residents, with President Joe Biden warning this could become the storm of the century.

When does escalation morph into overreach? On October 8, the one-year anniversary of the first Hezbollah rockets fired on Israel, the IDF is announcing the killing of another top-ranking Hezbollah commander – the heir apparent to Hassan Nasrallah – and the deployment of a fourth division to southern Lebanon.

It was an unspeakable terror attack that succeeded: succeeded in shock value, succeeded in triggering a massive overreaction that has appalled the planet, succeeded in stoking an escalation that's drawn in the whole region. Fortunately, not everyone is hell-bent on an all-out clash of civilisations in the Middle East.

As Israel ponders its response to Iran, as allies urge restraint, as battles targeting Tehran proxies rage in Lebanon, let's begin with a simple fact of geography: Iran and Israel don’t share a common border. Since October 8, Tehran has been touting a so-called axis of resistance; what Israelis brand a ring of fire, with Iranian-backed militants in Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen and Syria ... to which the US would add Iraq.

After a string of setbacks and humiliations that include the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon, Iran has fired its long-range missiles directly at Israel. As Binyamin Netanyahu and his generals ponder their next move, there are obvious targets and huge unknowns.

It's only the second time that Iranian missiles have rained down on Israel. Tehran's pushback comes as no surprise to François Picard's panel after a string of humiliations that included last week's assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and the targeting of the militant group's top commanders. Will the response beget more retaliation? Who to stop the spiral, with the United States currently in a state of limbo ahead of its presidential election?

Seventy-two hours on from the bombing of Beirut and the killing of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader and figurehead of the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah, Israeli air strikes have continued relentlessly on three fronts: in Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen. Israel's military thinks it has Hezbollah on the ropes, assassination after assassination, with the senior chain of command effectively wiped out according to the US. The Hamas leader in Lebanon was killed this Monday. Central Beirut was hit for...

Ceasefire or all-out war? While Israel's prime minister headed to UN Week in New York, his office stated that Binyamin Netanyahu had not even started considering a Franco-American plan for a 21-day truce with Hezbollah. Word of the plan was greeted with immediate pushback from hawks within Netanyahu's right-wing cabinet.

Winter is coming. So are the US elections. So how about diplomacy? It's UN Week in New York and before heading to Washington, Ukraine's president is trying to rally support for what he's branded his "victory plan". How much support and how much leverage can he expect?

Will it be all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah? What was a dangerous dance is now a major escalation. Monday’s air strikes killed hundreds and triggered a mass exodus by civilians. Not since 2006 had Lebanon experienced such scenes. Could a ground invasion follow?

Back in May, Emmanuel Macron said he wanted to clear the air and called surprise snap elections. Nine weeks and one hung parliament later, does the naming of France's new centre-right coalition government seal his fate for the history books as a lame duck president whose gamble backfired miserably?

"Rape is rape." Gisèle Pélicot emphatic on the stand Wednesday in a trial that has sent shockwaves beyond France’s borders: the 71-year-old retiree batting away suggestions that the 50 defendants invited by her ex-husband to enter their bedroom when she was under sedation could have engaged in anything in the slightest consensual. 

A precision operation that’s part of a grander scheme or a one-off magic trick to score spy ops points against the enemy? Either way, what to make of a second day of exploding devices that has killed a dozen and wounded more than 3-thousand? Hezbollah's response awaited after a security breach that will go down in the history books: how did those recently-equipped pagers explode? Why the aftershock of exploding walkie-talkies in several regions. We will examine possible scenarios in this...

It's a daring operation with no claim of responsibility. But with the pagers of Hezbollah members exploding in Lebanon and Syria, with Iran's ambassador in Beirut among the injured, all eyes are turning to Israel. For years, militants of the Tehran-backed militant group have been warned off using cellphones, preferring ethernet cables and pagers to communicate. In this special edition, we unpack the significance of Tuesday's pager blasts.

How violent are liberal democracies these days? Authorities in the US are investigating what is possibly the second assassination attempt against Donald Trump of this presidential election campaign.

We have asked the question before: does Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine put superpowers on a collision course? With the revelation that Iran is supplying Russia with not just drones but ballistic missiles, allies strongly suggest that a UK-US summit in Washington this Friday could, on the quiet, mean the end to the Biden administration's restrictions on Ukraine using the long-range missiles it provides for strikes deep inside Russia. 

So what are US presidential debates about: substance or style? Policy or punchlines? Our panel has brought its scorecard from Tuesday's one and so far only showdown between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

After a stint at the Dutch embassy in Caracas, Venezuela’s opposition candidate for president Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia has chosen exile in Spain over arrest by his election rival, incumbent Nicolas Maduro. Did the 76-year old former diplomat do the right thing? 

As Europe waits on France to form a government, as the world waits on the US to pick a president, who drives the agenda? In the wake of the January 6th 2021 storming of the US Capitol, the rest of the world thought there is no way Americans would ever again elect Donald Trump.

The seven-week wait is finally over. Succeeding France's youngest prime minister of the past century is its oldest yet: Michel Barner. President Macron on Thursday appointed the Brussels veteran to try and form a government that can survive a vote of no confidence. The EU's former Brexit negotiator will now have to muster all his negotiating savvy.

First the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov, now the ban on Twitter in Brazil. After years of making outrage and tribalism their business model, are tech titans getting their comeuppance? In this edition, we ask about the almighty showdown between the billionaire owner of the social media platform now known as X and the chief justice of Brazil’s Supreme Court who has extended the ban to VPN systems that try to flout the ruling.

Are the gloves off in Israel? After the October 7th attack by Hamas, the nation put aside bitter differences. But after the killing of six Israeli hostages, cue the biggest protests since last year’s attempted judicial overhaul by Binyamin Netanyahu’s hard right government. Demonstrators accuse the prime minister of piling on demands to extend a war that has become his ticket to staying in power. 

Thuringia may represent just two percent of Germany's population, but the eastern state is hardly an outlier. The far right finished first in Sunday's regional elections, while also surging in nearby Saxony. Admittedly, the AfD, whose lead candidate Björn Höcke was twice fined this year for using Nazi-era slogans at rallies, will not be in government.

At what point does the French president have to hand over the reins of power? It's business as usual on this last Thursday in August at the Élysée Palace for Emmanuel Macron, meeting the new British prime minister before jetting off to Serbia for an official visit. But it’s been nearly two months since his surprise gamble on snap elections backfired and he’s yet to name a new prime minister. 

What happens when summer turns to fall? After the slow and steady Russian gains in the Donbas comes the surprise Ukrainian counter-invasion in Kursk. Now come harrowing nights of bombings across Ukraine. What to expect when fall turns to winter?