Intelligence Squared

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has laid bare the West’s reliance on Russian oil and gas. Around 40 per cent of Europe’s gas comes from Russia, while some 7 per cent of US oil is Russian...

Bestselling investigative journalist Oliver Bullough discusses his recent book, Butler to the World, which details how Britain became a favoured destination for funnelling the finances of oligarchs and the globe's super rich. He joins fellow journalist and broadcaster Manveen Rana to talk about the book and how international finance plays into the current situation in Ukraine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this debate from the Intelligence Squared archive, we head back to 2020, when we invited journalist and broadcaster Mehdi Hasan, academic and writer Azadeh Moaveni, the Saudi political analyst Salman al-Ansari and former Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan to debate the motion: Iran is Not Our Enemy. The discussion touches on many issues that hold relevance in the current moment, ranging from the effectiveness of sanctions to the capabilities of nuclear-armed nations...

Professor Lewis Gordon is a leading philosopher and Department Head at the University of Connecticut who believes that intellectual thought matters as much as political activism in the struggle to achieve racial justice...

In his theory of evolution, Charles Darwin cast the female animal as passive, coy, monogamous and submissive: in other words, in the shape of a Victorian housewife. Meanwhile the male animal became the main event, the dominant driver in his theory of evolutionary change. But according to a revolution in zoology and evolutionary biology, this is all wrong...

Helen Thompson is Professor of Political Economy at the University of Cambridge, a columnist for The New Statesman, and has been a regular contributor to the Talking Politics podcast. Her new book, Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century, looks at decades of geopolitical history that have fed into our current moment: one of war and conflict, nations competing for dwindling natural resources, and the climate emergency casting a long shadow...

Banks, energy suppliers and oligarchs are just some of the targets that sanctions enforced by the West are looking to put pressure on in order to halt Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine. In this edition of The Sunday Debate, we ask how effective the financial freeze caused by sanctions can be in comparison to the potential impact of a fully fledged military intervention. Joining us is Bill Browder, Head of the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign, and Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins...

Cal Flyn’s Islands of Abandonment was one of the UK’s bestselling books of 2021. It was the Sunday Times Science and Environment book of the year and won her the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. In this episode she talks with broadcaster and science communicator Helen Czerski about the extraordinary places where humans no longer live – or survive in only tiny numbers – and about what happens when humanity’s impact on nature is forced into retreat. Learn more about your ad choices...

John Simpson is the BBC’s World Affairs Editor and has dedicated his life to telling stories from the frontline having joined the BBC more than 50 years ago as a reporter...

Journalist and author John Preston is a master of storytelling, with his novels The Dig and A Very English Scandal having been snapped up for both Netflix and BBC adaptations. His most recent book is Fall: The Mystery of Robert Maxwell, which tells the story of the rise and fall of the infamous 20th-century UK newspaper and media magnate. Preston joins journalist Mark Mardell to discuss the book and explore its themes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices