The Interview

How does the EU need to change if it is to win over the next generation of Italians? Hardtalk’s Sarah Montague speaks to Italy’s Under-Secretary for European Affairs, Sandro Gozi. The EU seems in greater trouble than ever before and not just because of Brexit. Even founding members of the club – countries like Italy - are unhappy about the direction that it is headed in its 60th year. The Italian...

Whether you think of him as Richard III or Gandalf, you will know he has won hearts and accolades around the world - not just for five decades of work on stage and screen, but also for his passionate public advocacy, particular on the issue of gay rights. Sir Ian McKellen was brought up in a Britain in which homosexuality was still a crime. He did not come out publicly until he was 49. Almost thre...

Why is a former head of state-sanctioned executions now an opponent of the death penalty? A host of countries around the world still impose the ultimate punishment on the most serious criminals - death. But what is it like to be in command of the machinery of state-sanctioned execution? In a rare insight, Stephen Sackur speaks to Allen Ault, who spent years running the corrections system in the so...

He spent 26 years in jail for trying to topple South Africa’s white minority government. Veteran anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada has died. He was 87 years old. For 18 years he was with Nelson Mandela on Robben Island, and when he was released from prison in October 1989 at the age of 60, he continued the struggle for a non racial South Africa. After the first democratic elections in 1994, P...

Looking back, what does the last surviving prosecutor at the Nazi Nuremberg trials think they achieved? 98-year-old Ben Ferencz helped liberate the death camps in Europe when he was serving in the US military. Himself a Jew from central Europe, he speaks to Zeinab Badawi in Florida about what he has learnt in his long life about the nature of evil.

Does Turkey's main opposition party have a credible alternative vision for the country? Zeinab Badawi talks to Selin Sayek Böke, a deputy leader for the CHP. Her party was established by the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and was the automatic party of government for decades. So what went wrong? (Photo: Selin Sayek Böke, Deputy Leader of the CHP on Hardtalk)

HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur speaks to Joshua Wong, a leader of the so-called umbrella pro-democracy protests that swept Hong Kong in 2014. He's now the secretary general of the Demosisto political party. But since Hong Kong is due to elect a new chief executive later this month, who will not be chosen by the people, has the territory's pro-democracy movement failed?

Sarah Montague speaks to Zimbabwe’s Tourism Minister Walter Mzembi. His job is to persuade people to holiday in a country where doctors, nurses and teachers have all been on strike, half the rural population face starvation and the economy is in the grip of a major currency crisis. He's worked alongside President Mugabe for the last decade. But at the age of 93 and with plans to stand in elections...

Sarah Montague speaks to Vladimir Kara-Murza, Vice-Chairman of the pro-democracy movement Open Russia. He was rushed to hospital in Moscow when his organs started failing and says he knew immediately what was happening because the same thing had happened two years previously. Both times he claims, he was the victim of deliberate poisoning. He also claims he was targeted because of his opposition t...

Bob Graham is one of the most popular politicians in contemporary American history. He has never lost an election and has served as a state legislator, Florida governor, and in the US Senate. He hails from the progressive, liberal wing of the Democratic party. But with Donald Trump in the White House and the Republicans controlling Capitol Hill, Zeinab Badawi asks him, has his type of politics gon...

How tainted is Joice Mujuru by her long association with the ZANU-PF party? Stephen Sackur speaks to Joice Mujuru, former Vice President of Zimbabwe. President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe is 93 years old. His wife recently suggested he could win re-election as a corpse, but failing that Zimbabwe needs to grapple with the issue of the succession. Who will follow Mugabe? Joice Mujuru is his former vic...

Zeinab Badawi speaks to the Congolese businessman and politician Moïse Katumbi. The President of the Democratic Republic of Congo Joseph Kabila has been in power for sixteen years and it was thought he would step down at elections that were due in November 2016. However, the elections are yet to be held. Moise Katumbi says he will run for president at the next election but is currently in exile in...

What does the Trump era mean for the Palestinian dream of statehood? For years the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been stuck, condemned to repeat itself year in, year out. But now something has changed – the two protagonists remain deaf to each other’s demands – but there's a new US president who seems to care little for Washington's long established quest for a two state solution. Does the Trum...

HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur speaks to Arseniy Yatsenyuk, former Prime Minister of Ukraine. After three years of fighting in eastern Ukraine, 10,000 dead and hundreds of thousands displaced, is it time for Ukraine's leaders to acknowledge they’re in a war they cannot win? Arseniy Yatsenyuk was Ukraine's prime minister from 2014 to 2016 and he described his own premiership as a 'suicide mission.' How...

Is the much vaunted Singapore model under threat? HARDtalk’s Stephen Sacker is in Singapore for an exclusive interview with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Singapore represents one of the great economic success stories of the last fifty years but clouds are gathering on its horizon. President Trump is challenging assumptions about free trade and traditional security alliances in Asia.

HARDtalk’s Stephen Sacker is in Singapore for an exclusive interview with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Singapore represents one of the great economic success stories of the last fifty years but clouds are gathering on its horizon. President Trump is challenging assumptions about free trade and traditional security alliances in Asia. Is the much vaunted Singapore model under threat?

HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur speaks to Donald Verrilli, US Solicitor general under Barack Obama. The Trump presidency promises to be a fascinating test of the resilience of the system of government crafted by America's founding fathers. The new president has already criticised the courts for utilising their authority in blocking the so-called travel ban, with a new ban coming into effect imminently....

What is the Iranians' response to criticisms from Trump over its missile testing, and is it fuelling terror and conflicts in the Middle East? Zeinab Badawi speaks to Iranian academic Mohammed Marandi from Tehran, a staunch supporter of the leadership in Iran. Amidst his pronouncements on foreign policy Donald Trump has ratcheted up the rhetoric on Iran, calling the nuclear agreement with Tehran th...

Sarah Montague speaks to Tzipi Livni, the joint leader of the Zionist Union opposition in Israel's parliament and a former Foreign Minister. For decades many have assumed that the only way there will be peace in the Middle East is when the Palestinians have their own state. But President Trump has made it clear that America is no longer wedded to the idea, whilst Tzipi Livni has in the past stated...

Stephen Sackur speaks to Irish sports journalist David Walsh, who was convinced that cycling’s untouchable champion Lance Armstrong was a drugs cheat long before the sport revealed the scale of his deceit. Armstrong is history now, but doping continues to devalue elite sport - maybe it is a problem no amount of truth telling journalism can fix. It is the job of the journalist to speak truth to pow...

Stephen Sackur speaks to John Madden, an Oscar winning director whose latest film is set in the murky world of Washington politics. The Academy Awards are upon us and Hollywood is awash with speculation, spin and self-importance. But this year, with Donald Trump in the White House and in a deeply divided America, real life has thrown up a melodrama which makes the movies look tame. Is Hollywood ac...

HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur speaks to Jens Spahn, a rising star in Chancellor Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union. With so much focus on America's new president, it's easy to forget Europe is facing its own period of prolonged uncertainty. Brexit negotiations are about to begin, the Greek debt crisis is going through another convulsion. It is also a year of key elections, most particularly in the co...

Zeinab Badawi speaks to humanitarian activist and one of Hollywood’s best known and versatile actors, Forest Whitaker. One role for which he won numerous accolades including an Oscar for best actor was his portrayal of the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland. But how far is he concerned that his portrayal of Idi Amin played into racist stereotypes of Africans and their continent...

HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur speaks to Myron Ebell, who led President Trump’s transition team on environment policy and has long been an advocate of radical reform of the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The Trump administration seems intent on a radical reset of America's energy and environment policies. The implications will be profound on everything from fossil fuel production to climate c...

In America's new politics will big business consistently trump environmental concerns?