As Mali's junta mourns the death of Defence Minister Sadio Camara, with thousands coming out to pay tribute, FRANCE 24's François Picard welcomes Paul Melly, Consulting Fellow for the Africa Programme at Chatham House and an expert on the Sahel region. He offers a sobering assessment of Mali’s deepening crisis, framing current events within both historical precedent and a radically altered geopolitical landscape.

Amid geopolitical volatility and economic fragility, François Picard is pleased to welcome John W.H. Denton, Secretary General of the International Chamber of Commerce. Denton is warning that "the Strait of Hormuz is about much more than oil and gas": we are drifting towards a food security crisis of global proportions.

Just another billionaires' battle of egos or does the 150-billion dollar lawsuit that pits Elon Musk against Sam Altman go to the heart of how artificial intelligence could determine the future of humanity? We’ll ask about the origin story of OpenAI, founded by some of Silicon Valley’s leading luminaries as a non-profit organization that would put innovation at the service of a socially-responsible AI that wouldn’t destroy the planet... the growing pains and fallouts that followed... leading up to the launch of ChatGPT and OpenAI's alliance with Microsoft.

Ahead of the first-ever EU–Armenia summit, France 24’s François Picard sits down with Armenia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ararat Mirzoyan, at the country’s newly inaugurated embassy in Paris. He presents a country at a pivotal juncture: one defined by the simultaneous consolidation of peace and strategic repositioning. He asserts that “we now have peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan,” framing it not as a symbolic declaration but as an emerging reality, further underscored by the intention to “institutionalise this peace.”

There are those who want the US and Iran to settle and those who want regime change. Among the latter, there’s Israel of course and then there’s the United Arab Emirates who’ve signaled OPEC’s cautious response as a reason for quitting the cartel. The end of OPEC? How will its biggest producer Saudi Arabia respond? The Emirates also seem to have it in for Saudi ally Pakistan, suddenly demanding the immediate reimbursement of a 3-and-a-half billion dollar loan from the cash-strapped facilitators of US-Iran mediation efforts.

François Picard is pleased to welcome Merijn Tinga, a biologist, artist and activist affectionately known as the Plastic Soup Surfer. He joins us, not only as a scientist or activist, but as someone who spends hours a day on the water, experiencing directly the forces we so often abstract away. From the surfboard, everything becomes clear: "You become one with the wind, with the waves… you have one focus." And yet back on land, "you're immersed by this throwaway culture".

François Picard is pleased to welcome Dr. Folahanmi Aina, Political Scientist and Lecturer in the Political Economy of Violence, Conflict and Development at SOAS London. As a researcher of global security and political dynamics, his analysis of Mali's evolving crisis focuses on the interplay between militarised governance, external partnerships and the persistence of insurgent violence in the Sahel. According to Dr. Aina, the current trajectory under Colonel Assimi Goïta reflects a strategic overreliance on military solutions to what is fundamentally a multidimensional conflict.

Call it the royal trump card: King Charles dispatched to Washington on a state visit at the lowest point in the Special Relationship in at least seven decades. We'll ask if catering to Donald Trump's enthusiasm for the British crown can dispel the bad blood over tariffs, the war in Iran... and repeated jibes by the U-S president to make Canada the 51st state, Canada a Commonwealth member whose head of state is the same Charles the Third invited to address Congress and feted at a state dinner.

FRANCE 24's François Picard is pleased to welcome Ulf Laessing, Director of Regional Sahel Programme at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. According to Laessing, we are witnessing in Mali the complete unraveling of a broader geopolitical experiment. Russia stepped into a vacuum left by France, promising stability through force. Instead, its reliance on mercenary brutality, coupled with a shallow understanding of local dynamics, has accelerated the demise of an already fraught collaboration. The fall of Kidal and the coordinated surprise offensives reveal a dramatic shift in the balance of power.

Even if it's a ‘lone wolf’ as first suggested by President Trump, Saturday night’s White House Correspondents Dinner drama certainly did not happen in a vacuum. And just as mass shootings have become commonplace in a United States overrun by firearms so have attempts on the lives of political figures. We’ll ask about the latest targeting of the US president and the echo chambers that amplify vilification and hate, that turn adversaries into enemies, a social media landscape where conspiracy theories can make a better fit than facts both as ideology and a business model.

How to mediate between Iran and the United States when one side wants revenge for the killing of its leader and the other’s erratic messaging seems ratings driven?Donald Trump’s unilateral ceasefire declaration bringing neither side back to the bargaining table, what with more ships seized in Strait of Hormuz and lockdown mode relaxed in Pakistan’s capital, this for talks that may or may not resume. We’ll ask about US demands that can change course inside the same presidential tweet…and an unclear chain of command on both sides: why was the US president flanked by Trump confidantes Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff last time? Does it actually matter that none of those three are trained diplomats or Iran specialists?

François Picard is pleased to welcome Tutu Alicante, international human rights lawyer.and anti-corruption activist. According to Mr. Alicante, the Pope's visit to Equatorial Guinea presents a paradox: it offers a rare opportunity to spotlight injustice, yet risks being appropriated by the regime for its own validation. Could the "global moral authority" inadvertently lend credence to the authoritarian regime? Equatorial Guinea's resources have failed to lift up society and translate into human dignity. Governance remains defined by exclusion, repression, and the erosion of accountability.