Friday Focus: Putin derails peace talks and Iranian protesters take to the streets

Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to watch and listen to full episodes of Friday Focus with Janice Stein. Your donor membership comes with other great perks like access to the videos of our main stage debates and full length episodes of our weekly podcasts with Globe and Mail columnist Andrew Coyne. Rudyard and Janice open today's Friday Focus with Russia's allegation of a Ukraine drone attack on Putin which took momentum away from Zelensky's attempts to negotiate an end to the war. Why does Putin have a hold over Trump? Does this have anything to do with Jeffrey Epstein? In the second half of the show Rudyard and Janice turn to Iran and growing domestic unrest that has spread beyond the streets of Tehran. In a surprising move the President of Iran has said he wants to speak with the protesters and suggested that the government has failed to meet the needs of its citizens. In the long history of this regime, no president has talked this way so openly. Their currency is in free fall, there is a weakened supreme leader and deepening divisions among the political elite. Will the Revolutionary Guards be ordered to take to the streets and brutally suppress these protests like they have done in the past? Or will this time prove different?   This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.