The Fourcast

Wafa Mustafa has spent years searching for her missing father, who was arrested in Syria in 2013. Before his disappearance, he gave her a chilling warning: if he was arrested again, she would have to flee the country or Bashar al-Assad’s forces would torture her. In this episode of The Fourcast, Syrian filmmaker Waad al-Kateab and activist Wafa Mustafa join Krishnan Guru-Murthy to discuss their up...

As vote counts trickle in following Israel’s high-stakes national election, results indicate a stalemate. Neither Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing nationalist bloc nor the opposition coalition led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party appear to have secured the 61-seat majority required to form a government. With both major factions falling short of a clear victory, the country face...

Andy Burnham came to power promising radical change, a circuit breaker for Britain’s stagnant economy. This was his first budget, meant to lay out his bold vision for Britain. But are we left thinking, is that it?  Chancellor John Healey announced measures meant to ease the pressure of soaring costs, including a £100 pay out for 20 million households, a rise in the minimum wage and some tax relief...

Israel is set to vote in its first election since October 7th in what could be one of the country’s most important elections ever. With Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu having been in power on and off, for 19 of the past 30 years, his job looks under serious threat from challenger Gadi Eisenkot. On this episode of the Fourcast, Matt Frei is joined by Channel 4’s Foreign Affairs Correspondent, Sec...

With the Budget just days away, Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Chancellor John Healey face some big decisions. How much can the government afford to spend? Who should pay more tax? And how on do they get Britain's economy growing at a faster rate? But what if we're asking the wrong questions altogether? Former chartered accountant Richard Murphy argues that the government's obsession...

In this special audience Q&A episode of The Fourcast Indicators, Matt Frei and Mark Urban answer your questions on the big geopolitical issues shaping our world. They ask why the West ignored Putin's aggression for so long, why Europe can't build its own rival to Starlink and whether Donald Trump's $1.5 trillion defence spending plan can rescue the US military. Do you have any burn...

Argentine President Javier Milei, has declared that the Falklands “illegal foreign occupation” and that his country needs to take them back from the UK. But 44 years after Britain defeated Argentina in the Falklands War, could another invasion be on the cards? And with Britain’s military much more depleted today than in the 80s, could they even retake the islands? On this episode of the Fourcast I...

Is the AI bubble about to burst? And could the trillion-dollar investment boom trigger the next global financial crisis? Gary Gensler, the former head of America's financial regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), warns that a major downturn in AI investment could be just 18 to 30 months away, potentially putting banks, pensions and the wider global economy at risk. In this ep...

What is it like for ordinary Russians living in Vladimir Putin’s Russia at war? What do they really think? Award-winning war correspondent Åsne Seierstad has travelled deep inside Russia to find out. Her new book, Never Say War, takes us behind the propaganda to reveal a society shaped by fear, repression and the human cost of war.

Ukraine relies on the good will of two volatile American billionaires to hit Russian targets and defend  their own skies - but this week that relationship with Elon Musk and Donald Trump has reached breaking point as Kyiv's access to Starlink was cut after Trump’s surprise diesel deal with Vladimir Putin. Ukraine’s defence minister says operations have been partially restored, and Musk says it...

A dramatic escalation in Yemen has plunged the Middle East into a fresh geopolitical crisis, after a series of deadly Houthi missile attacks on Saudi Arabia’s airports and oil and gas infrastructure.  The long running civil war is one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. But why are the Houthis at war with Saudi Arabia? And how does it fit into the wider Middle East conflicts? In this episode...

What influence does the UK still have on the world stage? And can it use it to prevent some of the world’s worst atrocities? On this episode of the Fourcast, we’re joined by the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and member of the Standing Group on Atrocity Crimes, Oleksandra Matviichuk. From Ukraine to Sudan and Myanmar to Xinjiang - this decade has seen some of the worst crimes against humanity amid an...

Zack Polanski and the Green Party are facing pressing questions after Andy Burnham’s Labour held Keir Starmer’s former seat in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election. The result is a setback for Polanski’s hopes of challenging Labour on the left of British politics. With calls for his resignation after he declined to vote on the Green Party’s ‘Zionism is Racism’ motion, is this just a blip for the...

In the last few days a former German spy chief has been accused of selling state secrets, a British navy sailor has been charged with espionage and now two Latvians have been picked up near a British air base in Cambridgeshire - not to mention the mysterious goings on at RAF Fairford. So are Western intelligence agencies facing a growing threat? Or was it ever thus?  In this episode of the Fourcas...

The unprecedented survival of Christa Pike following a botched lethal injection in Tennessee has plunged the American capital punishment system into a deep legal and constitutional crisis. Sentenced to death at age 18 for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer, Pike was scheduled to become the first woman executed by the state in over two centuries. However, after two lethal doses of pentobarbital fai...

The sudden withdrawal of American heavy bombers from RAF Fairford back to the United States follows a major incident near the Gloucestershire airbase. Five men were arrested near the base, with the UK government saying it showed "strong indications" of state-sponsored involvement from Tehran. So why has the US pulled its bombers from the UK? Has the abrupt departure handed Tehran a tacti...

An Israel-bound Flydubai flight plunged more than 14,000 feet in just 30 seconds after the co-pilot allegedly attacked the pilot and tried to take control of the aircraft. The plane eventually landed safely in Saudi Arabia after passengers and off-duty pilots intervened, but the incident has raised urgent questions about aviation security, insider threats and whether flights to Israel now face a n...

In a seismic ruling that has sent shockwaves through football, Manchester City have been found guilty of dozens of financial charges spanning a nine-year period from 2009 to 2018. The club were found to have systematically misstated financial accounts, arranged disguised funding through "sham" sponsorship agreements, and failed to cooperate in good faith with the league's four-year i...

Can John Healey deliver the growth Britain desperately needs? At Labour’s conference in Liverpool, the Chancellor promised a new age of industrialisation, more opportunities for young people and an era of political hope. But with the government under pressure to control spending, what does that mean for welfare, public investment and the economy? In this episode of The Fourcast, Krishnan Guru-Murt...

Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in a two-year between Tigrayan forces and Ethiopia's government which ended in a peace deal in 2022.  Today the trauma and fear of war creeps back in as both sides accuse each other of launching new offensives.  Earlier this week the TPLF announced a new coalition alongside other militias - some of whom had previously been bitter opponents. The so-ca...

US presidents typically welcome foreign leaders at the White House, but on Wednesday Donald Trump laid out the red carpet to greet China’s premier Xi Jinping. In today’s episode of The Fourcast Indicators, Matt Frei and Mark Urban discuss the future being shaped by the two superpowers, what that means for geopolitics and for the economy. Joining us shortly is Bronwen Maddox, CEO of Chatham House,...

Addressing the UN General Assembly in New York, Prime Minister Andy Burnham warned of an "insidious campaign" of hostile foreign interference aimed at stoking domestic division and eroding democratic trust.  To combat the threat, Burnham announced the creation of the National Centre for Information Defence. In this episode of The Fourcast, Krishnan Guru-Murthy is joined by disinformation...

Can Andy Burnham turn the UK economy around? With just a few weeks to go until his first Budget, the new prime minister is facing a difficult economic outlook, as he deals with sluggish growth, the rising cost of living and a war in Iran which threatens to send inflation soaring. In this episode of The Fourcast, Krishnan Guru-Murthy speaks to the former chief economist of the Bank of England Andy...

The EU President Ursula Von der Leyen has offered Canada ‘associate membership of the EU’, a move which Donald Trump called ‘laughable’ - but still threatened ‘serious sanctions’ as punishment.     In this episode of the Fourcast, we ask what Canada’s closer ties with the EU could mean - from tighter trade and defence to what Mark Carney calls 'a beacon for other democracies.' But with the...

Ed Sheeran has found himself embroiled in a huge row after the rapper Macklemore was dropped as a support act from his tour, after he made comments in support of Palestine.  The Suffolk singer has said he is "not complicit" and that the decision to drop Macklemore was not his. Since then, all the other support acts have pulled out of the tour in support of the rapper.  On this episode of...