The Interview

Why does migration frighten so many of us? HARDtalk speaks to writer Mohsin Hamid whose novels have explored cultural, economic and religious tensions between East and West. Globalisation is a trend based on movement - of money goods, ideas and people - across continents and national borders. In a world of glaring inequality, it has stirred a powerful backlash manifested in the rise of nationalism...

HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur speaks to, Boris Titov, leader of Russia’s Party of Growth. Seven candidates are challenging Vladimir Putin in this month's Russian presidential election; but none of them has much hope of victory. One of the seven 'other' candidates - Boris Titov - is a Putin appointee as government ombudsman for business. Does Russia need reform rather than authoritarianism? Image: Bori...

Stephen Sackur speaks to Ahmad Tibi. He is a veteran Arab Israeli MP and one time adviser to Yasser Arafat. President Donald Trump claimed he could broker the deal of the century between Israel and the Palestinian. Instead he seems to have entrenched the hostility after recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Is the Arab-Israeli experience a sign that the status quo is the only viable response...

In September 1957 nine African American students, including Elizabeth Eckford, entered the all white Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas, thereby breaking for the first time the racial segregation barrier in US schools. They became known as the Little Rock Nine. Two years earlier the US Supreme Court had ruled segregation in schools to be unconstitutional. The first time Elizabeth Eckford...

It is ten years since Kosovo became Europe’s newest nation. It has not been an easy decade. Relations with neighbouring Serbia remain hostile and international recognition has been patchy with Kosovo is still struggling to get on top of endemic poverty and corruption. Stephen Sackur speaks to Ramush Haradinaj – Kosovo’s Prime Minister. Can Kosovo escape its troubled history? Image: Ramush Haradina...

The HARDtalk programme, like so many others in the churn of 24/7 news tends to focus on people and places facing problems and challenges. More often than not we hold the powerful to account for things that went wrong, not right. Are we missing the bigger picture about the world we live in? Stephen Sackur speaks to the psychologist and writer, Steven Pinker. His new book, Enlightenment Now, is a pa...

Who or what can deliver South Sudan's people from despair? Its first six and half years as an independent country have been an unmitigated disaster. A brutal civil conflict, a broken economy, famine and epic levels of corruption - on any and every measure the world’s newest country is failing. This comes despite some of the largest oil reserves in sub-Saharan Africa. HARDtalk's Stephen Sackur spea...

Gross misconduct and sexual exploitation in the humanitarian aid industry - what's gone wrong and why? Oxfam is at the centre of a storm of allegations of abusive behaviour, shoddy recruitment and management cover up. Now the entire aid sector is under scrutiny for safeguarding failures which appear to go back decades. Stephen Sackur speaks to Amira Malik Miller, an experienced aid worker who has...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition deal with the Social Democrats looks fragile, with Germany's biggest opposition party now the right wing Alternative for Germany Party. Peter Boehringer is an AfD MP and newly elected chairman of the influential Parliamentary Budget Committee. How will the AfD seek to use its expanded influence? (Photo: Peter Boehringer, member of the Alternative for Ger...

HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur speaks to David Smolansky, anti-regime activist who was the mayor of a district in Caracas until he fled the country to escape a jail term for aiding last year’s street protests. There was a time last year when it seemed President Maduro's grip on power in Venezuela was loosening. Yet here we are two months away from a presidential election with Maduro oozing confidence a...

The Israeli Defence Force sees itself as an institution that binds the nation together. Most young Israelis serve in its ranks after leaving school. It claims to combine defence of the state with a sense of moral purpose. Avner Gvaryahu served in the IDF but he sees an institution in denial – corroded and corrupted by the military occupation of Palestinian communities over a fifty year span. Avner...

Is the long-time friend and sometimes adviser to President Trump a symbol of all that is currently wrong in US politics? They say you can judge a man by the company he keeps. If that is true, Roger Stone - a hugely controversial and divisive figure in American conservatism - should provide telling insights into the character of the president. (Photo: Roger Stone at Politicon at Pasadena Convention...

The Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey, Mehmet Simsek, talks about Turkey's recent military operation in the north western Syria enclave of Afrin. How long will the operation last and does it risk increasing tensions with the United States who are helping Kurdish fighters in Syria? (Photo: Mehmet Simsek on Hardtalk)

HARDtalk’s Zeinab Badawi speaks to Raphael Tuju, Secretary General of Kenya’s ruling Jubilee Party. Has the Kenyan government over-reacted to the self-inauguration of the opposition leader Raila Odinga as the so-called “People’s President”? Image: Raphael Tuju (Credit: BBC)

When it comes to politics, Kenya has a history of disputed and often violent elections. In this exclusive interview, Zeinab Badawi speaks to the opposition leader Raila Odinga: he claims he and not Uhuru Kenyatta is President and he's had himself self-inaugurated as the people's president at the end of January. It's been slammed as a treasonous act by the Kenyan authorities and rejected by the wor...

Argentina is stepping up efforts to re-engage with the world, especially through its presidency of the G20. It says wants better relations with the United States after years of poor relations. Zeinab Badawi speaks to the Argentine Foreign Minister at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Just six months into the job, what is his assessment of ties with the Trump administration which has been unsettli...

Stephen Sackur speaks to Lord Neuberger who was until last year President of the UK Supreme Court. Britain prides itself on its system of justice. Centuries of common law, a proudly independent judiciary and a reputation for fair dealing has made it an international centre for dispute arbitration. But are the cracks starting to show in a system steeped in tradition ? Does the British judicial syst...

Zeinab Badawi speaks to the actor Shah Rukh Khan. He has been given an award for his philanthropic work advancing women’s rights. How far is he using his voice to do that ? (Photo: Indian Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan poses during a press interaction, 2015. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

Currently deputy president of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa could become president very soon if Jacob Zuma heeds calls to step down. But is this ANC stalwart and wealthy businessman the right person to create a new South Africa from a country mired in cronyism and corruption allegations? In his first interview with the BBC since he became leader of South Africa’s ruling ANC in December, Cyril Ramap...

Is it futile to try and resist Brexit? Hardtalk's Sarah Montague speaks to one of the big beasts of British politics. Known as the Father of the House because he is the longest serving member of the UK’s House of Commons, he has also held more cabinet posts than any other living British politician. And yet Ken Clarke says we are now in "the maddest situation" of his lifetime and talks of the polit...

Living with death threats for daring to speak out against Islamist jihadist violence. The former Charlie Hebdo journalist and French-Moroccan writer Zineb El Rhazoui knows the risks can be a matter of life and death. She was working for the satirical magazine when 12 people were murdered in the Paris office in 2015. She happened to be on holiday. Subjected to a multitude of death threats because o...

Russia is calling on the EU to stump up billions of dollars to help rebuild Syria. Russia’s representative to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, says if they don’t they will “bear the responsibility for that”. But Russian planes are still destroying parts of the country and rather than support the peace process at the UN, they have set up their own parallel talks. Sarah Montague asks Ambassador Chizhov - w...

The White House has never before seen a president like Donald Trump. He does not play by any conventional political rules – that much is obvious from his Twitter feed, his hiring and firing of staff and his apparent relish for outrage. Stephen Sackur speaks to Anthony Scaramucci, the White House Director of Communications for all of 11 days before he was fired in a media firestorm in 2017. He has...

A year after President Trump’s inauguration and not a day goes by without a new media storm over a presidential comment, tweet or announcement that has Democrats decrying him as unfit for office. What do Republicans feel and do about their de facto party leader? Stephen Sackur speaks to Michael Steele, a former Chairman of the Republican National Committee. (Photo: Michael Steele on Hardtalk)

Stephen Sackur is in New York to speak to the actor and activist Ashley Judd. The movie and entertainment industries have been rocked by allegations of systemic sexism, misogyny and abusive behaviour. Ms Judd was one of the first women to go public with her accusations about the producer Harvey Weinstein. What began with voices of anger and pain has become a movement demanding radical change. How...