The Interview

Stephen Sackur speaks to the former Mexican president Vicente Fox, whose strongly worded Twitter responses to Donald Trump have caused a storm on social media. The new US president has wasted little time delivering on his signature campaign promises. He has already ordered the construction of the contentious wall along the US-Mexican border. The US congress will fund it, but ultimately, Mr Trump s...

Stephen Sackur speaks to Petula Clark, a much loved child performer during World War Two. Getting to the top in show business is hard - staying there is much, much harder. Few stars can match the sustained success in music, film and theatre as her. She went on to have a host of hits in the UK, France, the US and pretty much everywhere else. She has worked with legendary names from Fred Astaire to...

HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur speaks to Belgium's former Prime Minister and current MEP Guy Verhofstadt, an EU politician who'll be at the heart of the complex negotiations over a Brexit deal. He has warned Britain not to expect special treatment as it heads for the exit, but how confrontational is he prepared to be?

The UK Parliament is about to vote on the Government’s plan to trigger the formal process which will end in Britain leaving the EU. There's little doubt MPs will give Prime Minister Theresa May a green light, but much has changed since last June's Brexit referendum. The government has clarified its vision of what Brexit means, while President Donald Trump is shaking up global politics. The influen...

Is NATO obsolete? Or an organisation that can change and adapt? Jens Stoltenberg is chief of an alliance of 28 nations that's supposed to work by consensus, but his job just got a whole lot harder. Donald Trump is now in charge of NATO's dominant member, the United States, and he's been very public with his grave doubts about NATO's future. Will the ascent of Trump hasten the demise of NATO? HARDt...

Oil-rich with plenty of farmland, why can't Nigeria feed its own people? Zeinab Badawi speaks to one of the delegates at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, the Nigerian Agriculture Minister Audu Ogbeh. The Nigerian government, in power for 18 months, had raised hopes that it would reform the country. But engulfed by the worst recession in 20 years and with continuing militant attacks, why c...

Does the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House along with Brexit mark a shift in power away from Europe and spell the start of a new world order? Zeinab Badawi speaks to Ursula Von Der Leyen, Germany’s Defence Minister from the World Economic Forum in Davos. She is also deputy chairman of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU Party. (Photo: Ursula Von Der Leyen. Credit: Markus Hibbele/Getty Images

Stephen Sackur is in Moscow to speak to President Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov. US intelligence chiefs have accused the Kremlin of authorising a covert effort to influence the presidential election in favour of Donald Trump but what is the truth behind the swirl of allegations? And, what can we expect from Russia-US relations now? (Photo: Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov attends the...

Despite intimidation, harassment and legal challenges, Russia's most prominent opposition leader Alexey Navalny says that he will fight Vladmir Putin with 'People Power' in Presidential elections which are scheduled for 2018. How risky is it to challenge Vladimir Putin? Image: Alexey Navalny, Credit: Vasily Maximov/AFP/Getty Images

Stephen Sackur speaks to Akram Khan - globally renowned as one of the great contemporary dancers and choreographers. In every culture on earth dance is a physical, joyful form of expression and communication. It is, in a way, the world's most basic common language. Khan epitomises the ability of dance to cross borders of time and space - he is British by birth, Bangladeshi by family heritage. His...

Taken hostage in Syria and held by the Nusra Front, which is allied to al-Qaeda, American journalist Theo Padnos was beaten and abused for nearly two years. He says the most bitter moment of his captivity was the realisation that it was he himself who was mostly responsible for his ordeal. (Photo: Theo Padnos in the Hardtalk studio)

Zeinab Badawi speaks to, Angelina Teny, from the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in-Opposition. The people of South Sudan have known little peace for many decades and independence in 2011 has brought them nothing but war, increasing poverty, starvation and suffering. The UN says the current spate of fighting amounts to ethnic cleansing and could spiral into genocide. The main rebel group is hea...

We are about to see what kind of impact Donald Trump's presidency will have on the US and the world beyond. From big power diplomacy with Russia and China, to global trade and climate policy, how different and unpredictable is Trump going to be? (Photo: President for Council on Foreign Relations Richard Hass, 2015. Credit: Jemal Countess/Getty Images)

Zeinab Badawi speaks to psychologist Jan Kizilhan who has helped bring over a thousand Yazidi females from camps in Iraq to Germany to start a new life. The so-called Islamic State may be coming under pressure in both Syria and Iraq but still accounts emerge of atrocities carried out by them. The minority Yazidi community has been amongst one of the most persecuted groups of people; living mostly...

Stephen Sackur speaks to Bassma Kodmani, member of the negotiating team of the Syrian opposition. After six years of terrible bloodshed could 2017 dramatically shift the dynamic of the Syria conflict? Change is certainly in the air. Aleppo has fallen to the Assad regime and a ceasefire deal brokered by Russia and Turkey is just about holding. Moscow's dominant role in the diplomatic endgame is now...

Stephen Sackur speaks to General Sir Richard Barrons who led the UK’s Joint Forces Command and fought in wars from the Balkans to the Middle East and Afghanistan. How vulnerable is the West in the new balance of global military power?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Egyptian film director, Mohamed Diab. His new film, Eshtebak, or Clash, paints a remarkable picture of the tumult in Egypt which led to the military takeover in 2013. What has happened to the spirit of the Tahrir revolution? (Photo: Egyptian director Mohamed Diab (R) poses after receiving the silver Tanit award for his film Clash at the 27th Carthage Film Festival, 2016, T...

HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur speaks to Homa Hoodfar, a Canadian- Iranian academic recently released after 112 days imprisoned in Iran’s notorious Evin prison. Why did a respected anthropologist become an enemy of the Iranian state? Reading the political mood inside Iran is notoriously difficult. Since last year’s nuclear deal it seemed the relatively moderate President Rouhani was in the ascendancy....

Paul Beatty's novel The Sellout won a Man Booker prize. It deploys biting satire to unpick the black American experience. After eight years of a black president, amid a swirl of demographic and social change, black Americans still feel the bite of discrimination and prejudice. How best to respond?

Zeinab Badawi speaks to the South African comedian Trevor Noah. How did a poor boy who grew up with a black mother and white father under apartheid, become the presenter of one of America’s most influential TV programmes - The Daily Show? (Photo: Trevor Noah attends the Paramount Pictures with The Cinema Society. 2016, New York. (Credit: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)

HARDtalk is in Oslo to speak to Colombia's president Juan Manuel Santos who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to secure peace with Colombia's Farc rebel group. President Santos tells HARDtalk's Stephen Sackur that the prize was a 'gift from heaven' and says ‘this came like a big wind that pushed the whole country, and me, and the whole process to the port of destiny which was a peace agree...

HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur speaks to Qubad Talabani, Deputy Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government. The Kurds are key fighters in the war against so-called Islamic State. But does their ambition for independence threaten even more instability in Iraq? (Photo: Qubad Talabani. Image: Getty Images)

How will the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland be managed once the UK has left the EU? Sarah Montague asks Arlene Foster, Northern Ireland’s First Minister, how she will make sure Brexit does not mean a return to the divisions of the past. (Photo: First Minister of Northern Ireland Arlene Foster arrives for a meeting at 10 Downing St, London, 2016 in , England. Credit: Le...

What impact will the election of Donald Trump have on global geopolitics? Judging from the expressions of alarm coming from eastern Europe it could tilt the balance of power decisively in favour of Russia as regional tensions rise. But is that just scaremongering? Stephen Sackur talks to Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius who recently described himself as "very afraid" of Russia's inte...

What are Team Trump’s priorities for the United States? Wherever you live in the world, the election of Donald Trump as America's next President matters. The next leader of the world's most powerful nation promises to take the US, and by extension global politics and economics, in a very different direction. Stephen Sackur speaks to Anthony Scaramucci - a New York hedge fund boss, a Trump ally, an...