Would Russia really invade Ukraine? Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin are speaking by video link after more than a month of escalation in eastern Ukraine and across the Russian border, where a troop build-up has got NATO allies warning of red lines and harsh sanctions if those troops cross over. We debrief the virtual summit and Washington's threat to send more troops to Eastern Europe in case of attack.

Will the sentencing of Aung San Suu Kyi discourage dissent or further galvanise the 10-month-old resistance to Myanmar's coup? Two years under house arrest is the first of several sentences to come against a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who, at 76, may or may not ever walk free again. Before the putsch, critics called her too accommodating to the generals. Now silenced, is Suu Kyi reinstated in her status as the face of Myanmar's pro-democracy movement?

A video distributed by the International Olympic Committee is not enough to reassure the tennis world. The Women's Tennis Association is suspending all tournaments in China until it is sure that doubles star Peng Shuai is safe and sound, following the 35-year-old Peng's quickly deleted post on Chinese social media last month denouncing sexual assault by a former vice premier. How far will the ripple effects go?

French far-right pundit Eric Zemmour has officially launched his bid for president with a 10-minute video clip on YouTube that looks like a crash course on replacement theory – immigrants supposedly taking over, violently – all to the dramatic sound of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. We ask our panel about the unorthodox campaign launch.

We bring you a special edition of The Debate on Josephine Baker's induction into the Panthéon in Paris. The Missouri-born dancer, who was also a spy for the French during the Second World War and a civil rights activist, is being honoured in the final resting place of France's most celebrated citizens.

A new chapter of the Covid-19 pandemic opens with a new variant emerging from southern Africa. It has been named Omicron by the World Health Organization. The WHO's director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says the issue of vaccine equity will be key to getting through this new wave. Our guests discuss the threat and what to do about it.

A memorial was held tonight in the French port of Calais after 27 migrants drowned trying to cross 34 kilometres of icy water to England. You'll hear grandstanding between Johnson and Macron, but the two sides have cooperated for years over this border. Both sides blame smugglers, but why has there been a recent spike in crossings? And how can they protect the rights of those people who risk their lives without opening the floodgates to uncontrolled migration?

After 16 years, the post-Merkel era is finally upon us. Social Democratic leader Olaf Scholz is taking the mantle to form Germany's first three-party coalition since the 1950s. How will it work? How compatible are the Greens to his left and the liberal FDP to his right? Berlin's loosening or tightening of the purse strings in these uncertain times is sure to dictate the tone at home and in Brussels.

Are those protesting against Covid-19 restrictions just an angry few, or do they represent a much deeper malaise? As the Northern Hemisphere hunkers down for a new winter wave of Covid restrictions, backlash over these curbs is rearing up in Central Europe, the Netherlands and the French Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique. Some of the pushback is coming from fringe conspiracy theorists or muscle men, but many others have also lost trust in authorities and in what they see as heavy-handed measures and mixed messages. Is the unfiltered "anything goes" rhetoric that wins elections finally coming home to roost?

A climb down by the junta or has the once and future prime minister of Sudan been coopted? After long resisting pressure, Abdalla Hamdok freed from house arrest and signing with the junta an agreement to form a government of technocrats. The former international civil servant saying he did to spare further bloodshed.