President Trump wants an end to the war in Ukraine. The Ukrainians want peace too - but not at any cost. The past week saw the emergence of a leaked US 28 - point- plan which was wholly unacceptable to President Zelensky and European leaders. But how it originated and why it looked like a Russian wish list has led to intense debate. ( It included Ukraine giving up territory it still holds in the east, as well as the area already occupied by Russia, a cap on the Ukrainian army of 600 thousand, a permanent ban on NATO membership for Ukraine and an amnesty on all war crimes. ) Talks hastily took place in Europe and Abu Dhabi and there’s now a revised version still to be agreed with Russia. President Zelensky wants to meet President Trump to agree the most sensitive issues.. So why did this latest attempt at peace in Ukraine emerge through a leaked document which many assumed had come straight from Russia? How has Europe and Ukraine responded and could it really mean an end to nearly four years of war?Guests:
Angela Stent, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and former National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia.
Sir Lawrence Freedman, Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King’s College, London
Christopher Miller, Financial Times’ Chief Ukraine Correspondent
Sir Laurie Bristow, former UK Ambassador to Russia and President of Hughes Hall, Cambridge.Presenter: David Aaronovitch
Producers: Caroline Bayley, Cordelia Hemming, Kirsteen Knight
Production co-ordinator: Maria Ogundele
Sound Engineer: James Beard
Editor: Richard Vadon
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28:29
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28:29
What can the UK learn from the rest of Europe about asylum reform?
This week the government announced an overhaul of the UK’s asylum system with the stated aim of making Britain look a lot less attractive to those planning to make their way across the Channel on a small boat or outstay their visa if already here. A raft of proposals include ending a refugee’s effective right to stay in the country indefinitely, a quicker way of deporting those who fail in their asylum applications and a less sympathetic approach to refugee families. Denmark has been held up in recent days as an example of a country with much tougher asylum policies. So are we in the UK now part of a wider European trend of clamping down on asylum seekers? And what can we learn from the success or failure of other asylum policies across the continent.Guests: Dr Madeleine Sumption, Director of the Migration Observatory at Oxford University
Professor Andrew Geddes, Director of the Migration Policy Centre at the European University Institute in Florence.
Susi Dennison, Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.Presenter: David Aaronovitch
Producers: Caroline Bayley, Kirsteen Knight, Cordelia Hemming
Production co-ordinator: Maria Ogundele
Sound engineer: James Beard
Editor: Richard Vadon
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28:15
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28:15
Why does the UK have a problem with productivity?
The Chancellor, Rachel Reeves has been widely trailing this month’s budget and the difficult decisions she’ll have to make in just under two weeks time. This is being taken as code for tax rises and a possible break in Labour’s manifesto pledge with a rise in income tax. She’s said one of the key reasons for this is that the government's official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility or OBR, is likely to lower its UK productivity growth forecast for the coming years. So why is UK productivity a problem and what can be done to improve it? Guests:
Chris Giles, Economics Commentator, The Financial Times
Helen Miller, Director, Institute for Fiscal Studies
Duncan Weldon, economist and author
Greg Thwaites, Research Director, Resolution Foundation.Presenter: David Aaronovitch
Producers: Caroline Bayley, Cordelia Hemming, Kirsteen Knight
Production co-ordinator: Maria Ogundele
Sound engineers: Rod Farguhar and James Beard
Editor: Richard Vadon
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28:43
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28:43
What's happening in Venezuela?
Something is going in the southern Caribbean. The world’s largest aircraft carrier - the American USS Gerald R Ford- is on its way to the region. Small boats said to belong to Venezuelan drug smugglers are being blown up by the US military. Old US bases are being de-mothballed. And there’s media talk of Trump-induced regime change in Caracas, with Venezuela’s authoritarian, leftist president Nicolas Maduro in the crosshairs. In this week's Briefing Room, David Aaronovitch and guests ask what this military show of strength is really about and what it mean for the region? Guests: Will Grant, BBC Mexico, Central America and Cuba Correspondent.
Jeremy McDermott, co-founder and co-director of InSight Crime, a Colombia-based think tank that studies organised crime in the Americas.
Dr Christopher Sabatini, Senior Fellow for Latin America at Chatham House
Dr Annette Idler, Associate Professor in Global Security at the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford. Presenter: David Aaronovitch
Producers: Caroline Bayley, Kirsteen Knight and Cordelia Hemming
Production co-ordinator: Maria Ogundele
Sound Engineer: Gareth Jones
Editor: Richard Vadon
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28:21
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28:21
How should we handle historic public inquiries?
When a disaster or serious event happens, such as the Grenfell Tower fire, the Manchester Arena terrorist attack or the Covid pandemic, you can be pretty sure that a public inquiry will follow. They’re popular with the public as a means of investigating serious state failure. And for Governments they can be a good way of kicking a difficult issue into the long grass, as usually by the time the inquiry is finished a different set of politicians will have to deal with the report.There are currently 25 public inquiries in progress in the UK today - the most ever, with six announced so far this year. They range from one into Scottish child abuse, which is the longest current inquiry, to another into a police restraint death which has just lost its chair and the lawyers working for the inquiry, to Covid 19 - the largest currently underway. And which by the end of June this year had cost 177 million pounds. David Aaronovitch and guests discuss how these public inquiries work, what they achieve and who, if anyone, benefits from them?Guests:Judith Moritz: BBC Special Correspondent
Deborah Coles, Executive Director, INQUEST
Emma Norris, Director of Policy and Politics at IPPR think tank,
Professor Lucy Easthope, emergency planner and responder and visiting Professor at the Centre for Death and Society, University of Bath. Presenter: David Aaronovitch
Producers: Caroline Bayley, Kirsteen Knight, Cordelia Hemming.
Sound engineer: Duncan Hannant
Editor: Richard Vadon.
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