The Interview

For decades one of Britain’s best known entertainers, the late Jimmy Savile, sexually abused children and vulnerable adults and got away with it. In response the police launched a massive effort to investigate allegations of historical sexual abuse. Other prominent people found themselves facing accusations. Stephen Sackur speaks to one of them, broadcaster Paul Gambaccini, who spent a year as a s...

Stephen Sackur talks to the EU Commissioner for Migration and Home Affairs, Dimitris Avramopoulos. Europe is still scrambling to find an effective response to the migration challenge, and every day the problem gets bigger. While the Germans build reception centres, other EU Governments focus on razor wire fences and gunboats on the Mediterranean. So what comes first, humanity or security? (Photo:...

Zeinab Badawi meets Anglican Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali who was born in Pakistan and whose Muslim father converted to Christianity. Most of those fleeing from Syria to Europe are Muslims and this has provoked some tension between Christians and Muslims and between countries in Europe who are worried about the impact of so many refugees. The UN says the number of migrants and refugees arriving in Eur...

In too many countries around the world independent journalists pay a high price for simply doing their job. They risk intimidation, imprisonment or worse. Hardtalk’s Stephen Sackur speaks to Mohamed Fahmy, the former Al Jazeera English bureau chief in Cairo who was convicted and imprisoned on terrorist charges by the Egyptian government. In his first broadcast interview since being pardoned, Steph...

After four years of civil war Syria is all but destroyed. At least 220,000 killed and half of the entire population forced from their homes and still the world's great powers argue over a response. Stephen Sackur talks to one of the world's wealthiest Syrians, Ayman Asfari, an exile based in Britain and founder and boss of the Petrofac oil services corporation. Behind the scenes he has lobbied har...

French Minister of Economy, Emmanuel Macron. A millionaire former banker, he is spearheading reforms that are unpopular with supporters of the ruling socialist party. (Photo: French Minister of Economy, Emmanuel Macron. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

HARDtalk is in Hungary for an exclusive interview with the Foreign Minister, Péter Szijjártó. Hungary is facing a migration crisis; already this year nearly 250,000 migrants have entered the country. Hungary’s response has included razor wire, tear gas and threats of imprisonment. The Prime Minister says that the refugees are a threat to security and cultural identity but is Hungary defending or b...

The British Government wants parliamentary authorisation to bomb the jihadists of IS in Syria. That same Government adamantly does not want to offer refuge to any of the many tens of thousands of Syrian refugees now homeless and desperate inside Europe. Does David Cameron's position make sense? Stephen Sackur talks to the UK Government’s Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, Conservati...

Georgia wants to join Nato. Its Defence Minister, Tinatin Khidasheli, has been touring European Union countries making the case for the former Soviet state to join the club of western nations who vow to defend each other's borders. But It was only a few months ago that Russia extended its control over South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which the United Nations still recognises as Georgian territory. Hard...

Australian politics has turned backstabbing into an art form. Thanks to yet another internal party coup, Malcom Turnbull has become the country's fifth Prime Minister since 2010. The political turbulence comes at a tough time - the Australian economy is being hit hard by the slowdown in China and the slump in global commodity prices. Stephen Sackur talks to the billionaire mining magnate Andrew Fo...

Libya is close to forming a national unity government and Aref Ali Nayed is a nominee to be prime minister. Can Libya's warring parties join forces to save the country? (Photo: Aref Ali Nayed, Libya's Ambassador to United Arab Emirates. Credit: AFP)

The guests on Hardtalk are people who do much to shape our world. More often than not they are a testament to the talent and potential of the human species. But what if we are living on the cusp of a new era shaped not by mankind but by machines using Artificial Intelligence to build a post-human world. Science fiction? Not according to scientist and philosopher Nick Bostrom who runs the Future of...

HARDtalk's Stephen Sackur speaks to a man who is currently involved in an election campaign which promises to have a profound impact on the future of Spain and significant reverberations around the whole of Europe. Raul Romeva is a champion of independence for Catalonia – he leads a coalition of pro-secession parties who are attempting to turn regional elections in late September into a de facto r...

Stephen Sackur talks to Catherine McCartney whose brother was murdered in Belfast in 2005. She thinks the IRA was responsible, and that the Republican paramilitaries are still active to this day. The charge - that the IRA has not gone away - now threatens Northern Ireland’s fragile political stability - but is it true? (Photo: Catherine McCartney)

The fashion world today is full of numerous brands and designers - but one stands out as a pioneer of women’s high street fashion: Biba created by design icon Barbara Hulanicki. Born in Poland but raised in Britain her shops were a hangout for some of the most famous names in swinging sixties London. The rise and fall of Biba was a personal tragedy for her. But Barbara Hulanicki’s legacy is intact...

The migrant crisis is pushing EU countries into trying to come up with solutions that are fair for member states and refugees fleeing conflict. There is evidence that people smugglers from the western Balkans are involved in the movement of thousands of migrants and are increasingly favouring land routes through Balkan states like Macedonia. Hardtalk asks the Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Pop...

What does the leadership battle for Britain’s Labour Party tell us about left of centre politics in Britain and elsewhere in the world? If the polls are correct, then the veteran MP Jeremy Corbyn, is set to become the new Labour leader this month. He is the most left-wing of the four contestants and his anti-austerity economic policy is based on printing money for increased public spending and sta...

Stephen Sackur speaks to writer and publisher Jürgen Todenhöfer, who embarked on one of the most hazardous journeys imaginable for a western journalist. Last December, the 74-year-old German spent 10 days inside the territory controlled by the so-called Islamic State movement. He was taken to the group's base in Raqqa, Syria, and then to their most highly prized asset in Iraq - the northern city o...

Earlier this year Zeinab Badawi went to Malta to meet Suha Arafat - the widow of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Ten years after his death, Mrs Arafat gave a rare broadcast interview about their marriage and tells her why she believes her husband was assassinated and why she has chosen to live in Malta and not amongst the Palestinian people who so revered him. (Photo: Suha Arafat. Credi...

Tim Franks speaks to Don McLean - the self-confessed "accidental" pop star whose first unlikely hit became one of the defining songs of the century. In April, the manuscript to American Pie was auctioned for more than a million dollars. McLean has always resisted analysing his famous lyrics too closely but what does he have to say now about the American music industry, and the American dream?

Draw up a list of the greatest living film-makers and Werner Herzog would surely occupy a prominent place. He is responsible for some of the most wildly beautiful images captured on film. If you have seen Fitzcarraldo you won’t have forgotten the steamship being hauled over a mountain. He is seen as the film industry's obsessive genius, the director who once threatened to shoot his lead actor to p...

Colm Tóibín is an Irish writer whose intense, lyrical novels have won him awards, acclaim and most importantly millions of readers around the world. Colm Tóibín isn't so much a flamboyant storyteller; he's more an acute observer of character and the deepest human feelings. There are recurring themes in his work - loss, mourning, sexual repression and exile which might suggest a dark, brooding pres...

Zeinab Badawi talks to the South African jazz musician and political activist Hugh Masekela. His life and music have reflected the struggles of the anti-apartheid era and the subsequent years of black majority rule. So why does he now describe South Africa as fast turning into a rubbish dump and becoming removed from its authentic African culture? (Photo: Hugh Masekela. Credit: C Brandon/Redferns/...

Hardtalk speaks to the man who has been called 'America’s greatest living crime writer'. Through works such as the Black Dalia and LA Confidential, James Ellroy has created a uniquely dark portrait of America. His is a nightmare vision of crazed killers and corrupt cops. He writes of what he knows – his own mother was murdered when he was a child. So is that simple, terrible fact the key to unders...

South Africa's Democratic Alliance, the country's main opposition party, has its first ever black leader. Mmusi Maimane took over in May this year from Helen Zille. He says he wants to represent all South Africans regardless of colour, but the vast majority of black South Africans support the ANC, the party of Nelson Mandela. Can Mmusi Maimane win them over and take race out of South African polit...