Iran: The Latest

It's been over two weeks since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into effect in Gaza. While the full-blown war has stopped, the World Health Organisation is warning that Gaza is experiencing a health "catastrophe" that will last for "generations to come". How do we make Gaza healthy again? How do you heal a city that’s been under siege and rebuild a health system destroyed by war? To fin...

As the Arctic ice melts, a new Cold War is heating up. Russia and China are rewriting the rules of global power, testing missiles, flexing muscles, and pushing into the world’s last frontiers. A 294-metre container ship has just blazed through the Arctic route from China to Europe in record time. If trade can flow through, what’s to stop warships? Are we watching the start of a polar power grab? S...

The Caribbean is heating up and Trump’s fingerprints are all over it. U.S. warships, stealth fighters, elite troops… and whispers of  regime change . Is Donald Trump about to launch a full-scale invasion of Venezuela? Behind the “war on drugs” rhetoric, Washington has been quietly building up military power near Maduro’s shores, reopening bases and even authorising covert CIA operations....

Last month, Donald Trump raised the spectre of biological weapons at the UN, calling on the world to help him end their development. He said AI could help enforce the ban on these weapons. But scientists are increasingly concerned that technologies like AI and gene editing tools could also make them more accessible – and even more dangerous. So we’re asking: has the threat of biological weapons re...

Here’s a sobering reality: China could bring America’s military to its knees — without firing a single shot. The weapon? Rare earth minerals. These hidden elements power everything from fighter jets and submarines to missiles and drones. If Beijing pulled the plug tomorrow, Western stockpiles would run dry within weeks — and rebuilding them wouldn’t be easy. Now, with China tightening export contr...

We surface a story that’s been making waves. A Russian diesel-electric submarine, The Novorossiysk , is being trailed through the North Sea by NATO ships, sparking headlines about a “crippled” vessel and “embarrassment for Moscow.” But is it really in trouble? Or are we, once again, jumping to Cold War-style conclusions? Yes, it leaked fuel last month. Boats do that. It’s now heading home. They do...

War is the perfect petri dish for disease. In the conflicts of the 18th and 19th centuries, many more troops died of illnesses than in battle. And, at the start of the 20th century, the Spanish Flu pandemic emerged out of the chaos of the First World War. With anti-microbial resistance on the rise and HIV cases soaring among Russian soldiers, might ‘Disease X’ – the mystery pathogen that could cau...

China isn’t just spying — many Western security officials believe it’s waging a full-blown, whole-of-government campaign against the West. From hacking our systems to manipulating elections and social media, Beijing’s playing the long game to undermine Britain, America, and their allies. We speak to former FBI agent Michael Feinberg who quit under very controversial circumstances — he lifts the li...

In this explosive episode of Battle Lines , Venetia Rainey is asking the question everyone else is too afraid to: is Britain ready for a Russian-style drone onslaught? Drones have been spotted across Europe — Poland, Germany, Denmark, Belgium — sparking fears of a new kind of hybrid war. Could the UK defend itself if those drones turned up on our shores? To find out, Venetia is joined by ex-RAF pi...

Two years on from October 7th, Donald Trump is on the cusp of brokering a fragile peace deal between Israel and Hamas. But with Hamas showing signs of reconstituting itself and Israeli forces still in control of much of the Strip, few believe the war is truly over. In this episode, we hear from  The Telegraph’s  Jerusalem correspondent Henry Bodkin, fresh from an Israeli army embed...

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and President Trump delivered extraordinary speeches to top military generals this week, declaring a war on the "enemy within" and signaling a radical transformation of the US armed forces. To decode what it all means, Roland Oliphant speaks with Mark Cancian, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former Marine Corps colonel. Are...

Today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House to discuss bringing an end to the conflict in Gaza. Last week, he was giving a fiery speech at the UN General Assembly denying the accusation of genocide levelled at Israel following a UN report. In response to an earlier Battle Lines interview with one of the report's authors, Venetia gets t...

One of the darling's of the global populist movement, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, has recently been sentenced to over 27 years in prison in his native country. So what does that tell us about the possible fortunes for other political leaders of the same ilk across the globe, and where does the South American country go from here? Roland hears from the Telegraph's senior foreign corr...

Is the UN still relevant? The organisation faces numerous unresolved conflicts, a cash crisis, deep polarisation among its members, a bloated bureaucracy and the waning interest of its biggest backer, the US. Venetia Rainey speaks to Richard Gowan, veteran UN watcher and UN director for the US think tank International Crisis Group. He says the body is “rotting from the top” and questions if parts...

What links Elon Musk, Steve Bannon and Tommy Robinson? They all believe England is on the cusp of civil war. As US President Donald Trump wraps up his second state visit to the UK, hosts Venetia Rainey and Roland Oliphant examine the darker side of the transatlantic “special relationship” — from American support for the British far-right to the spread of populist extremism across borders. The...

In a bombshell report, the UN has accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza for the first time. Chris Sidoti, one of the report's authors and a human rights law expert, explains why on this bonus episode of Battle Lines.  Speaking to host Venetia Rainey and Telegraph reporter Lilia Sebouai, he delves into the report's findings, how his team reached their conclusions, and concrete examples...

The assassination of Charlie Kirk marks more than a shocking act of political violence - it is a symptom of America’s accelerating era of violent populism, and it will continue to escalate without intervention. That's according to Robert Pape, one of the world’s foremost experts on political violence, terrorism, and national security and director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats...

It's been a week of big developments, with Nato planes scrambled after Russia sent more than a dozen drones into Polish airspace, and Qatar on high alert after Israel bombed a Hamas negotiating team in the centre of Doha. Roland and Venetia unpack the significance of the events and what might happen next.  Plus, the team spends a day at DSEI, one of the world's largest arms fairs, to look at...

For three generations the Kim dynasty has ruled North Korea with ruthless precision. Now Kim Jong Un appears to be grooming his 12-year-old daughter, Kim Ju Ae, as his heir—a bold move in a country where women have never held power. At the same time, reports surface of a disastrous US Navy SEALs mission to bug Kim’s communications, ending in civilian deaths. So what does all this tell us about the...

Andrew and Jihi Bustamante aren’t your average married couple — they met inside the CIA and their romance played out under the shadow of espionage. In this gripping conversation, they reveal how they fell in love during training, the reality of life inside America’s most secretive agency, and how a mole within the CIA blew their cover. Love, lies, and life on the frontline of the new spy war. http...

China's biggest ever military parade boasted sophisticated new weapons, thousands of goose-stepping troops, and a guest list designed to put the West on notice.  The footage of Chinese President Xi Jinping walking in between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un in particular was a clear message to the US, Europe and its democratic allies: Beijing now officially...

As the war for Sudan's Darfur region heats up, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are stepping up their brutal siege on the last remaining army stronghold of El Fasher, with new satellite pictures showing a wall being built around the northern city. The RSF have been accused of genocide for conducting a campaign of violence, rape and murder against Darfur's non-Arab communities. Famine has been declar...

As the old cliché goes, the first casualty when war comes is truth. In the past week, Israel has denied that it has caused a famine in Gaza, accusing the UN-backed body behind the report of a “blood libel”, and killed five more journalists in a widely condemned double-tap attack on a hospital.  It is part of a wider trend that has made getting to the facts of the war in Gaza difficult. To und...

How can Nato make itself future-ready? What are the biggest threats facing Western democracy? And what black swan event helped change the course of the First World War? To find out, Venetia chats to Dr Gabriele Rizzo, a defence futurist and foresight strategist whose job is to imagine different possibilities and help his clients prepare for them.  He has years of experience working with the U...

In his desperate attempt to win the Nobel Peace Prize, President Trump claims to have ended at least six wars around the world. But how does that stack up in reality?  In this episode Roland Oliphant hears from Telegraph correspondents Adrian Blomfield and Sarah Newey alongside Caucasus expert James Kilner about Trump’s actual involvement, or not, in halting these conflicts and how likely it...