Why India Has Lost Its Way: Writer Amitav Ghosh on the New World Order, Politics and Past Lives

For more than 30 years, the Indian-born writer Amitav Ghosh has built a global following with novels that draw on deep historical research.  But his latest offering, Ghost-Eye, is more esoteric. The plot moves back and forth between India and the US, using past lives to explore the ties between th…

How to Get a Deal With Iran: Former US Negotiator Wendy Sherman on Power, Pressure and Reality

We’re now eight weeks on from the start of the US-Israel war with Iran, a conflict that’s been watched with increasing alarm by Wendy Sherman, architect of the 2015 nuclear deal between the US and Iran and a former deputy secretary of state. Having spent years across the table from Iranian offici…

Hamlet, James Bond and SNL UK: Riz Ahmed on Reinventing Cultural Icons

A new and radical take on Shakespeare’s Hamlet is out in US cinemas. The force behind it is actor, writer, producer and musician Riz Ahmed. He says the 400-year-old story has never felt more current. Ahmed, Oscar-nominated for Sound of Metal and star of the Oscar-winning live-action short The Long…

America’s Limits, Iran’s Leverage, Pakistan’s Moment: Maleeha Lodhi on a Shifting Order

After almost six weeks of war, how did Pakistan manage to get the US and Iran to talk? Amid a still-fragile situation in the Middle East, that question sits at the heart of this conversation with Maleeha Lodhi. She has served as Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington, as well as to the UK and United…

Lionel Shriver on Immigration, Identity and Why She Refuses to Stay Quiet

Lionel Shriver has often tackled complex or contentious issues in her fiction. From school shootings in We Need to Talk About Kevin to economic collapse in The Mandibles.  Her new novel, A Better Life, is the story of a family home taken over by outsiders. In this conversation with Mishal Husain, …

Why Israel Could Be Forced to Stop: Shira Efron on War, Fatigue and Netanyahu's Strategy

With attention fixed on the potential developments between the US and Iran, could the Israeli government be forced to end the war earlier than it might like? The last few weeks have seen daily air strikes by Israel on Iran, and retaliatory attacks that have killed and injured Israelis. The wider p…

Ro Khanna on Stopping the Iran War, Taking on the ‘Epstein Class’ and Taxing Billionaires

US Representative Ro Khanna of California helped force Donald Trump to release the Epstein files. Now he wants to end the war with Iran. Earlier this month, the Democratic Congressman joined forces with Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a Republican, on a War Powers resolution seeking to ha…

Why Iran Isn’t Breaking: Vali Nasr on Pain, Patience and the Uprising That Isn’t Coming

Despite the intensity of the US-Israel bombing campaign, Iran’s regime, now under a new supreme leader, hasn’t given President Donald Trump the “unconditional surrender” he’s seeking. Mishal Husain speaks with Vali Nasr, a professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International St…

Middle East Expert Bernard Haykel on the Three Futures for Iran After the Strikes

Within 24 hours of the US and Israeli strikes on Iran, a host of other countries were drawn into the latest conflict in the Middle East. Iran retaliated by targeting sites in Israel and across the Gulf, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, as well as Iraq, Oman and Jordan. …

WHO Chief Tedros on Covid, China and Texting RFK Jr

When President Donald Trump returned to the White House last year, one of his first acts was to sign an executive order withdrawing the US from the World Health Organization. The administration's rupture with the WHO began in Trump’s first term, when relations deteriorated as the Covid-19 pandemic …