The Interview

“The state of Lebanon needs to have an exclusivity of arms. And definitely, Hezbollah needs to be disarmed… Disarming a group or a community is not possible by force, it's possible by conviction. You put pressure, but you cannot eliminate a whole society, a whole community. We need to have an exclusivity of arms in the hand of the state, an exclusivity of decision through a political process, pres...

“There is more spending in defence and less spending in global health or in public health or health security, which makes us vulnerable...Because the invisible enemy could be more impactful. Imagine, have you ever seen a war in recent memory that killed 20 million people? Why can't we come to our senses?” Justin Webb speaks to Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Org...

Mark Savage speaks to musician Paul McCartney. Born in Liverpool, England, during the Second World War, he found fame as a member of the legendary British band The Beatles in the 1960s, widely regarded as one of the most influential acts in music history. McCartney shared primary singing and songwriting duties with bandmate John Lennon, and along with George Harrison and Ringo Starr, the four-piec...

“I do want to make money, but I want to make money in the right way, ethically. But more importantly, I want use this money to be able to give back.” Charles Gitonga speaks to entrepreneur and businessman Mohammed Dewji about becoming one of Africa’s youngest billionaires and how he wants to use his wealth. Mohammed Dewji is a Tanzanian businessman, entrepreneur and philanthropist who has primaril...

‘We are transforming feelings of revenge into reconciliation. We are transforming despair into hope, trauma into healing. So the future is peace is also like a manual, like a guide, not just for a shared journey across the holy land, but a guide for human conscience.’ Rajan Datar speaks to Palestinian and Israeli authors and peace activists Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon. Maoz Inon‘s parents were ki...

“It's what we call a new world disorder: 60 wars, 120 million people - refugees and displaced, 300 million people hungry, plus another 45 million according to the World Food Program as a result of the constrictions in the Strait of Hormuz. That's a disordered world. And people can inveigh against international institutions as much as they like, but the problem we're facing is not that there's too...

Amol Rajan speaks to tech billionaire Reid Hoffman, about why he thinks artificial intelligence could transform the future of work. Reid Hoffman is best known for co-founding LinkedIn, the largest professional networking platform in the world, and revolutionising the world of work. He wants to do it again with a rapid adoption of AI in the workplace in a way he says is safe and ethical. As one of...

“Historically, as a region, we’ve been extracted at two levels. If you look at the AI value chain, a lot of our youth, some who have studied computer science, are left at data labelling roles at the bottom of the value chain, where the least value is created. In a different way, a lot of our data is being extracted for free to train those systems. We want to make sure we don’t go into similar mode...

“I was born in Coleraine, then I moved to Wales and then I moved to Ireland. It's very complicated and I feel there's a strange sense if you grow up somewhere different from where you were born. That's just true of everyone. If your accent doesn't match your name - as in my case - I think you walk alongside all your life a kind of ghost-self in that there's always a sense of ‘who would I have been...

“I feel numb. It feels unreal to me, having been in Sudan all my life. I have never imagined that it will turn into a war field, it looks like a nightmare. At first that it is just days or months or even a year, but it went on and it kept escalating. Even our homes are no longer habitable. One of my sons went back to have a look and he said you wouldn't even find a spoon for your tea.” James Copna...

“This is a calling. It's bigger than anything in your life as an individual. If you found the thing that you were put on this planet to do, and a lot of people are put on this planet and they don't know, it's such a gift to find it.” Nick Grimshaw and Annie Macmanus speak to global music icon Chaka Khan about her life and career. Born Yvette Marie Stevens in the US city of Chicago in 1953, her big...

“Most of Africa is rural, and although urbanisation is taking root now, the systems that deliver financial services to women are still eluding them.” Leanna Byrne speaks to microfinance pioneer Dr Jennifer Riria about her life, career, and personal mission to improve the lives of women in some of Africa’s poorest communities. Having started life in a poor, rural village in Kenya, Dr Riria worked h...

“This is a war. We will treat it as a war, and first thing that we want is the war to end. We want peace. We want a better life for our people, especially for our youth.” Caitriona Perry speaks to Ecuador President Daniel Noboa about his hard-line military crackdown on violent criminal gangs, which has involved measures that human rights groups warn could pose a risk to civil liberties. President...

BBC journalist Megha Mohan speaks to Sierra Leone’s first lady, Fatima Bio, about escaping child marriage at the age of 13, rebuilding her life as a refugee in London, and her rise to become one of the country’s most outspoken public figures. Since becoming first lady, Bio has transformed the role in Sierra Leone, campaigning publicly on issues including child marriage, sexual violence and period...

James Menendez speaks to Leopoldo Lopez, once the most prominent face of Venezuela’s opposition, he is now living in exile in Spain. He spent more than a decade attempting to unseat Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian government and was imprisoned for over three years, accused of inciting the 2014 anti-government protests. Following the capture and arrest of Maduro by US forces in January, the country...

“Russians collected all Kenyans and did everything for them to go to the front line, to go to the death zone.” Waihiga Mwaura speaks to Yurii Tokar the Ukraine ambassador to Kenya. The Ukrainian claims Russia deliberately deployed many conscripted Kenyans to the front line of the Russia-Ukraine war shortly before the Kenyan foreign minister arrived in Moscow with the intention of stopping recruitm...

“It’s outrageous because these nuclear plant facilities were certified by the International Atomic Energy Agency as purely peaceful facilities. The inspectors, they spent, there, a lot of time, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Iran is the most verifiable country, thousands of inspections. The agency knows everything about what is going on.” BBC journalist Farnaz Ghazizadeh speaks to Mikhail Ivanovic...

“During the recent conflict [in Iran], there was a pause, not a full stop or halt of the functions. Once the airspace opened up again, we reprioritized the delivery of those life-saving kits to the member states, and we came back on track… We still find hope in the communication between the different member states, between the different partners to secure some of these supplies, or keep supply cha...

“There's this idea that you [can] sail your way to success or have some overnight success or kind of come upon success relatively easily. And that has just never, ever been.” Amol Rajan speaks to entrepreneur and businesswoman Emma Grede about the trade-offs we have to make to get to where we want to be in life. Emma Grede is co-founder of the clothing brand Skims, which she created with her husba...

‘The power of AI is that it's able to capture everything, it’s able to try to interpret everyone objectively. Human beings are imperfect in terms of their capability to listen and understand. Everyone unconsciously, when they listen, they don't hear everything.’ Zoe Kleinman speaks to Sam Liang chief executive and co-founder of artificial intelligence transcription start-up Otter.ai Sam Liang was...

“When we only had reconnaissance drones, we learned fast. We began attaching warheads to the drones. Grenades, then homemade munitions that we produced ourselves. We would locate the enemy with the drone and drop them on him. Then FPV drones entered our lives. An FPV drone is a one-way, disposable drone. That was when the way of war began to change” In a rare interview, Sarah Rainsford speaks to R...

“I saw the damage, the loss. The buildings being destroyed, the infrastructure being completely damaged in that area. And it was sad and heartbreaking.” Waihiga Mwaura speaks to SungAh Lee, from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) about the war in Sudan which has entered its fourth year and has led to one of the worst humanitarian crisis and biggest displacements of people. SungAh L...

“If you play piano, bass guitar, saxophone, I don’t care - I'll play with you all night. That's how I did it. And I tell all my grandkids - get an event, get a few of your schoolmates together. They're practising and playing by themselves. Get with people!” Regan Morris speaks to musician Ringo Starr about his career. Born in Liverpool, England, during the Second World War in 1940, Ringo, real-nam...

“One thing I have learned from my childhood til now is that when you fall, you get up, dust yourself off, and do it over and over again. I’ve had a lot of up and downs in my business life in America. I’ve had many failures and people only talk about successes, but failures in my mind are the foundation of success.” Rahul Tandon speaks to Iranian-American entrepreneur Isaac Larian. The 72-year-old...

“We were able to improve the health of the gorillas and people together. What we do is we improve the health and the livelihoods of the local communities. Because as long as people are poor, they're going to keep entering the forest to poach and collect firewood and they're going to end up making the gorillas sick, or picking up diseases from wildlife in the forest.” Myra Anubi speaks to Dr Gladys...