Conversations with people shaping our world, from all around the globe. The best interviews from the BBC.
The HARDtalk podcast has become The Interview. Listen to The Interview for the best conversations from the BBC, the world's most trusted international news provider. We hear from titans of business, politics, finance, sport and culture. Global leaders, decision-makers and cultural icons. Politicians, activists and CEOs. Each interview is around 20-minutes, packed full of insight and analysis, covering some of the biggest issues of our time. How does it work? Well, at the BBC, our journalists interview amazing people every single day. And on The Interview, we bring them to you. It’s your one-stop-shop to the best conversations coming out of the BBC, with the people shaping our world, from all over the world. Get in touch with us on [email protected] and use the hashtag #TheInterviewBBC on social media.
Allan Little speaks to Kim Aris, the son of the ousted civilian leader of Myanmar Aung San Suu Kyi. Now a political prisoner approaching the age of 80 and in declining health, what is her fate and that of the country she left her family to serve?
Mishal Husain speaks to Imaan Mazari-Hazir, a lawyer in Pakistan whose passion for human rights began early in her legal studies. She has become well known in her home country for defending people’s rights against the state – taking on difficult cases of abduction and forced disappearance, and speaking out against the country's powerful military. She has herself faced arrest, and now charges under anti-terror laws. Amid political and economic turmoil, is the rule of law in Pakistan in crisis?...
Stephen Sackur speaks to the de-facto leader of the Venezuelan opposition, María Corina Machado. Two months after an election which she says delivered a humiliating defeat to the country's authoritarian leader President Nicolás Maduro, he’s clinging on to power and his regime is clamping down on dissent. Have hopes for change again been thwarted in Venezuela?
Stephen Sackur speaks to Lebanon’s economy minister, Amin Salam. His country is being bombed and the casualties are mounting as Israel attempts to destroy the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants entrenched in Lebanon. Is there an off ramp from the road to all-out war?
Stephen Sackur speaks to Ingrid Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta). For five decades she has led the campaign to end human exploitation and abuse of animals. From food to fashion, to testing in laboratories, are we humans really capable of going animal-free?
Mishal Husain speaks to Martin Griffiths, who worked for decades within the UN and the wider world of humanitarian aid. From Cambodia to Afghanistan, Sudan to Gaza, he has seen it all. How does he make sense of the inequalities and the suffering, and how does he think the aid system can survive, with funding ever more squeezed?
Stephen Sackur is in Tuscany to speak to the world famous Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani. He changed the world of advertising with his provocative images of racial diversity, illness and death. His work combined glamour with a social conscience, but did he sometimes go too far?
Stephen Sackur speaks to Philippe Lazzarini, head of UNRWA, the UN’s refugee agency for Palestinians. This week, six UN relief agency staff were killed in an Israeli strike on a central Gaza school that had been turned into an emergency shelter for thousands. UNRWA’s death count in Gaza since the beginning of the war is over 220. Is his agency’s mission now impossible?
Following the death of James Earl Jones at the age of 93, another chance to listen to Stephen Sackur’s 2011 interview with the legendary American actor. Known for his deep, rich voice and as the voice of Star Wars’ villain Darth Vader, his was an extraordinary story from poverty and segregation in the Deep South to Hollywood. How hard was his journey? Image: James Earl Jones receives a lifetime achievement award at the 2017 Tony Awards (Credit: Carlo Allegri/Reuters)
Stephen Sackur speaks to Balázs Orbán, a Hungarian MP and advisor to his namesake, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Hungary’s government is known for its anti-immigrant, anti-Brussels hardline nationalism. Is it a template for other far-right movements to follow?
Stephen Sackur speaks to a close ally and sometime confidant of Donald Trump, Republican Senator from South Carolina Lindsey Graham
Stephen Sackur speaks to the former deputy speaker of the Afghan parliament Fawzia Koofi. She was forced to flee into exile when the Taliban returned to power in 2021. Women and girls in Afghanistan have since seen their rights eliminated. How should the world respond to what the UN calls ‘gender apartheid’? Photo: Fawzia Koofi receiving the Casa Asia Award in Barcelona, 2021 Credit: Getty Images
Vladimir Putin talks of restoring greatness to what he calls the Russian world: an expanse of territory which, as Ukrainians know to their cost, stretches far beyond Russia’s current borders. Putin’s expansionist nationalism requires military power, but it’s harnessed the cultural and spiritual authority of the Russian Orthodox Church too. Stephen Sackur speaks to Andrey Kordochkin, who was a Russian Orthodox priest who spoke out against the Ukraine war and the "Putinisation" of the church. Is h...
Stephen Sackur speaks to Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza. His images of death, destruction and loss in Gaza went viral across the world. He left 108 days after Israel launched its military response to Hamas’s October 7th attack. What impact have his images had, on him, and us?
Stephen Sackur speaks to Latvia’s defence minister Andris Sprūds. He wants to ramp up military support for Ukraine, and he backs Kyiv’s dramatic push into Russian territory. But will divisions inside Nato and the EU leave Ukraine short of the backing it needs?
Stephen Sackur speaks to leading artificial intelligence researcher Neil Lawrence. He’s Professor of Machine Learning at the University of Cambridge and has a Senior AI Fellowship at the Alan Turing Institute. His new book – The Atomic Human – explores the transformational potential of artificial intelligence, while reflecting on the qualities of the human mind that cannot be replicated by even the most sophisticated machines. As more and more aspects of our lives are impacted by the rollout of ...
Stephen Sackur is in Rome to talk to Nicola Procaccini, an MEP and confidant of Prime Minister Georgia Meloni. When her nationalist Brothers of Italy party took power, it sent shock waves through Europe. A couple of years on, how has hard-right rule changed Italy?
Stephen Sackur speaks to one of Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Ministers, Olha Stefanishyna. Kyiv’s military offensive inside Russia has shifted the dynamic in what looked like a war of attrition tilting in Moscow’s favour. But does this dramatic gambit make strategic sense, or is it an act of desperation?
Stephen Sackur speaks to the prominent Indian lawyer Karuna Nundy. She has been at the forefront of long battles to better protect women from sexual violence, legalise gay marriage and safeguard freedom of speech. Is she losing this fight for India’s future? This episode contains references to rape and sexual assault.
Stephen Sackur speaks to Shannon Watts, an American political activist who built a powerful women-led gun control movement and is now a fund-raiser for Kamala Harris. Why does she believe the votes of white women will swing the presidential race?
Stephen Sackur speaks to Pavel Latushka, a key figure in the opposition movement struggling for regime change in Belarus. The country’s authoritarian ruler Alexander Lukashenko is a staunch ally of Vladimir Putin - does that mean change in Minsk can only come with change in Moscow?
Stephen Sackur speaks to the renowned economist Ian Goldin, who wants to reframe the debate around migration. He’s been a senior official at the World Bank, an economic adviser to Nelson Mandela and he’s now professor of globalisation and development at Oxford University. His latest book, The Shortest History of Migration, illustrates the centrality of movement to the evolution of humanity – from the earliest human travellers leaving East Africa some 300,000 years ago to all of the people seekin...
Stephen Sackur speaks to Newsmax Media CEO Chris Ruddy, a key influencer on the American right and a longtime friend of Donald Trump. Polls have Democratic candidate Kamala Harris narrowly ahead of the former president in the race for the White House. Is Team Trump worried?
Stephen Sackur speaks to Haiti’s interim Prime Minister Garry Conille. His mission is to rescue Haiti from an unfolding catastrophe characterised by gang violence, mass hunger, corruption and a broken economy. Given Haiti’s recent history, what chance has he got?
In a special edition of HARDtalk, Stephen Sackur looks back at Interviews with guests who have risked their personal freedom to disclose secret information. What motivates these whistleblowers?
Stephen Sackur speaks to influential far-right Israeli politician Ohad Tal, who wants the military to push for total victory in Gaza, against Hezbollah, and in the de-facto conflict for Iran. Amid the assassinations and vows of retribution, is Israel gearing up for a multi-front war?
Stephen Sackur speaks to US Democratic party congressman Adam Smith. Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race and Kamala Harris’s anointment as his replacement has left Democrats almost giddy with excitement. But what makes them think they can beat Donald Trump?
Stephen Sackur speaks to Syed Zafar Islam, spokesman for India’s Hindu nationalist BJP party. Recent elections dealt Prime Minister Narendra Modi an unexpected blow; he lost seats, and his majority. Will that prompt him to row back on a policy agenda his critics call divisive and dangerous?
Stephen Sackur speaks to Taro Kono, Digital Transformation Minister for a Japanese government wrestling with massive problems. This erstwhile economic powerhouse is stuck with low growth, massive debt and an ageing, declining population. Can Japan reboot itself for the 21st Century?
Sarah Montague speaks to Venezuelan opposition politician Maria Corina Machado. Banned from running in the country’s presidential elections this weekend, she’s still a leading figure in the movement trying to unseat socialist authoritarian Nicolas Maduro. With the country’s economy in ruins and more than a quarter of the population having fled, could the next few days change the fortunes of this oil-rich but very troubled nation?
