The Interview

Laura Boldrini is a centre-left Italian politician. Until last year she was the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, the Italian Parliament’s lower chamber. She has received many online threats wishing her dead or raped. Zeinab Badawi asks the Sicilian MP about her experiences, and what her current situation tells us about the state of politics in Italy and Europe’s changing mood. (Photo: Laura Bol...

Shaun Ley talk to former spy chief Amrullah Saleh, now a candidate for vice-president in Afghanistan. Seventeen years on after the American-led invasion, the US and the Taliban are at last talking peace. With 45,000 Afghans who served their country dead in the last five years, and the Taliban still fighting, isn't it time for this war exhausted country to give peace a chance? (Photo: Amrullah Sale...

What drives an exclusive band of human beings to push beyond the boundaries of existing knowledge and experience? Hardtalk talks to Bertrand Piccard, the renowned explorer and aviator; the first to fly non-stop around the world in a hot air balloon. Right now, he’s using his own experience with solar powered aircraft to encourage sustainable tech innovation, but is decarbonising the global economy...

In little more than two months from now, Britain is scheduled to leave the European Union. That beguilingly simple statement is at the heart of a political crisis which deepens by the day. The ruling Conservative party is riven with splits; so too is the Labour opposition. If Parliament’s Brexit paralysis persists, then Britain will leave with no deal in place, no orderly transition, and the prosp...

Until last year, Malaysia hadn't experienced a real change of government in the sixty years since independence. Prime Minister Mahatir, sailing back into power in opposition colours, can remember when Malaysia threw off the British colonial yoke. He was in his thirties then. Now in his 90s, he says next year he'll hand over to a former rival in his 70s. Malaysia’s Minister of Youth and Sport, Syed...

Tanzania is one of Africa’s fastest growing nations economically and demographically. It’s also governed by one of the continent’s most controversial leaders, President John Magufuli. Tundu Lissu is one of his most prominent domestic opponents; at least, he was, until gunmen pumped more than a dozen bullets into his body in 2017. Lissu survived and, after recovering in hospital in Europe, he is de...

HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur is in Paris for an exclusive interview with the country’s Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire. The political and economic mood in France has shifted dramatically in a few short months. Last summer President Macron was pushing ahead with his reform agenda claiming that France was back. Now he is besieged by critics, forced into retreat by the Yellow Vest movement and grappling...

If the normal political rules applied to Donald Trump he would be holed up in the white house in a state of deep despair. He’s at war with Democrats in Congress, the federal government machine is partially shutdown, his relationship with Putin's Russia is under fierce scrutiny, and his standing at home and abroad continues to take heavy hits. And yet, every day he come out punching; raising the st...

Britain is in the grip of Brexit. To leave, or to remain in the European Union: that question has divided families, generations, and communities. Everyone seems to be shouting, no-one seems to be listening. Well, that’s not quite true. Jonathan Coe has been listening to and writing compelling fiction about contemporary Britain for decades. Can this novelist, whose latest novel looks at the impact...

There is plenty of disturbing data pointing to a significant rise in overt anti-Semitism in Europe and the United States. What are the reasons and how should the Jewish community respond? How much reassurance and protection is being offered to Jews whose past has so often been written in blood? HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur speaks to Pinchas Goldschmidt, Chief Rabbi of Moscow and president of the Conf...

HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur speaks to Len McCluskey, leader of Britain’s biggest trade union and biggest donor to the Labour party. Brexit is tearing at the fabric of British politics. Theresa May’s proposed deal is hated by many in her Conservative party. It may well be rejected in a parliamentary vote next week. But the opposition Labour party is riven by division too. A clear majority of Labour m...

Dr William Frankland is a world renowned expert on allergies and one of the last remaining British survivors of the Japanese prisoner of war camps in World War Two. His is a death-defying, life-affirming story. But at the age of 106, what keeps him going? (Photo: William Frankland. Credit: John Stillwell/AFP/Getty Images)

Stephen Sackur speaks to the author Lee Child. Storytelling is one of the most basic human impulses. But few are the storytellers who can draw in millions of readers all over the world, fewer still those who can do it repeatedly. Lee Child’s first thriller featuring former military policeman Jack Reacher was published 21 years ago. His latest is his twenty third and his book sales have topped a hu...

Stephen Sackur speaks to Gulnur Aybet, senior adviser to President Erdogan of Turkey. The murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul put Turkey at the heart of a story about a shocking abuse of power and a total disregard for human rights. Turkey was the accuser, Saudi Arabia the accused. And yet for all its appeals to the international community, the Turkish Gover...

It took former cricketer Imran Khan two decades of political slog to win power in Pakistan. It’s taken his critics just months to decide he’s out of his depth. They point to the country’s crippled economy, propped up by emergency loans despite the Prime Minister's promise to end the begging bowl culture. Is the PTI government strong enough to put Pakistan on a new course? Stephen Sackur speaks to...

What drives musical creativity? HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur speaks to songwriter Mark Knopfler. In the pantheon of rock ’n’ roll greats, a special place is reserved for guitar virtuosos – think Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page or Mark Knopfler, front man of Dire Straits, one of the biggest bands in the world in the 80s and 90s. Unlike so many other rock stars, Knopfler never fully embraced the world of exce...

President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua has been in power for the past 11 years, but this year he has faced popular protests and demands that he step down. His response has been repression and defiance. Stephen Sackur is in Washington DC to speak to leading Nicaraguan dissident Felix Maradiaga, now leader of an opposition in exile. Is change finally coming to Nicaragua? Image: Felix Maradiaga (Credit...

How do we decide what's important? How do we balance the priorities of the here and now with the big picture challenges that will determine the future of human civilisation? HARDtalk speaks to Sir Martin Rees, one of the world’s leading astrophysicists, who has recently been gazing into the future of our own planet. The next century, he says, will determine humanity's long term destiny; so are the...

Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May is facing a mutiny inside her own Conservative Party, which threatens to scupper her Brexit deal and quite possibly her premiership too. If she loses the key parliamentary vote on her deal in just a few days time, the UK could plunge into political chaos. The stakes could hardly be higher for Owen Paterson, a Conservative MP and former Minister intent on reject...

HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur speaks to Danuta Hübner, an influential Polish MEP who sits on the Brexit Steering Group of the European Parliament. In just a few days time the UK parliament will make a fateful decision; to accept or reject Theresa May’s Brexit deal painfully negotiated with the EU. Right across Europe the vote will have huge repercussions. For all of the focus on Britain’s political cr...

On December 11th, two and a half years of posturing, politicking and poisonous disagreement come to a head: the UK Parliament will vote on whether to accept the Brexit deal Prime Minister Theresa May has negotiated with the EU. Her case boils down to this: it’s the least worst option. But many in her own party, as well as the opposition, simply don’t buy it. Stephen Sackur speaks to former ministe...

Can anyone or anything challenge Saudi authoritarianism? HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur speaks to Abdullah Alaoudh, a Saudi exile whose father is facing charges that carry a death sentence. President Trump says he doesn’t know whether Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman ordered the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and frankly he doesn’t seem to care. Safe to assume then that he also doesn’t care...

Israel’s seemingly indestructible Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dodged another political bullet. After the recent flare up of violence in Gaza, his defence minister quit and another key cabinet hawk- Naftali Bennett, said he would go too if he wasn’t given the defence portfolio. The prime minister called his bluff, and Mr Bennett, who speaks to HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur has decided to stay...

How do you stop prime ministers and presidents lining their own pockets with the country's wealth? US Judge Mark Wolf is lobbying for the creation of an international anti-corruption court. Judge Wolf knows the territory well, having helped expose the corrupt links between the FBI and a notorious gangster in Boston. He says countries that cannot or will not hold government thieves to account shoul...

Mohamed El-Erian’s career has been at the top end of economic advice. Along with writing several best-selling books, he spent 15 years at the International Monetary Fund, headed the investment giant PIMCO, advised President Obama on global development and is now the chief economic adviser at the insurance company, Allianz. The American economy is booming. Growth is well above 3% and unemployment i...