Javad Zarif, Foreign Minister, Iran – BBC HARDtalk

HARDtalk’s Zeinab Badawi is in New York for a rare interview with Iran Foreign Minister Javad Zarif who is attending high level talks at the UN. Hostilities between Iran and the US are at a historic high; recently, President Trump said he was ‘ten minutes away from war with Tehran’. Could the two countries stumble into a war? And is Iran raising the stakes in the Persian Gulf after Washington tore up the nuclear deal last year?

BBC Hardtalk: MP Ken Clarke

HARDtalk's Stephen Sackur speaks to former Conservative minister and longest serving MP Ken Clarke. It is hard to remember a time when Britain wasn't consumed by Brexit agony. And still it's impossible to say how and when the pain will stop. MPs are currently trying to find a Brexit consensus in defiance of the wishes of prime minister May. Her own deal remains short of a parliamentary majority, though she clings to the hope it will eventually prevail before time runs out. How close to breaking point is Britain's political system?

HARDtalk Niklas Frank Son of Hans Frank, Governor of Nazi Occupied Poland 1939 – 45

HARDtalk is in rural northern Germany to meet Niklas Frank, a journalist and writer but also the son of Hans Frank, the brutal Nazi Governor of Poland from 1939 to 1945. He was convicted of war crimes and executed after the Nuremberg trials for the major role he played in the deaths of millions of Jews and Poles during the Second World War. Niklas Frank tells Stephen Sackur how he's coped with the crimes of his father and why he will not let his fellow Germans forget the worst aspects of the Nazi era.

BBC HARDtalk | Alan Duncan MP | October 24, 2018

Turkey's President Erdogan says the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was a savage crime meticulously planned in Riyadh. He wants all those responsible to stand trial in Turkey. As the pressure on the house of Saud mounts, will the kingdom's partners in the West take punitive action? HARDtalk's Stephen Sackur speaks to Alan Duncan, Minister of State in the UK Foreign Office. Has the time come for Britain to stop lucrative arms exports to Saudi Arabia?

Interview Of Lavrov | BBC HARDtalk

HARDtalk: Dustin Lance Black

Stephen Sackur speaks to American film-maker and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black.

It's fifty years since homosexuality was de-criminalized in Britain. In this period, the campaign for LGBT rights has won landmark victories in many parts of the world - perhaps best symbolised by the normalisation of gay marriage in a host of countries.

Black won an Oscar for the film Milk and has just completed a major series on the struggle for gay rights. Has the time come to declare a famous victory?

HARDtalk: Naomi Klein

President Trump is meeting his fellow leaders at the G20 summit in Hamburg when big issues like international trade and climate change will be on the agenda. Zeinab Badawi speaks to the progressive Canadian-American writer and activist Naomi Klein. She says Donald Trump's rise to power is a product of our time and that his becoming president amounts to a corporate takeover of the US by brand Trump. She's calling for mass protests against him. But are her radical policies a panacea for the current ills in the USA?

HARDtalk: Bernie Sanders

Stephen Sackur is at the 2017 Hay Literary Festival to speak to US senator Bernie Sanders, the longest-serving independent in US congressional history. He was credited with injecting passion and belief into the race for 2016's Democratic presidential nomination, a race that was eventually won by Hillary Clinton. But did he plant the seeds of a political revolution in the United States?

'Muslims Need to Move into the 21st Century' (2016)

Raheel Raza: Muslim Reform Movement - A truly brave women

HARDtalk: Vicente Fox on Donald Trump and the Mexico Wall

Stephen Sackur speaks to former Mexico 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 says, Mexico must pay for it. Can Mexico afford to provoke the new US administration?

"I Hope American People Will Wake Up" – Ex Mexico President Vicente Fox - BBC News

Former Mexico president Vicente Fox, speaking on BBC HARDtalk, tells US President Donald Trump "we are not paying for that stupid wall".

European Parliament’s Chief Brexit Negotiator - Guy Verhofstadt

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.
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Russian Journalist Mikhail Zygar on HARDtalk

Russian Journalist, Mikhail Zygar - author of 'All The Kremlin's Men' - explains his rational view of the way the Kremlin works to Stephen Sakur, who, has a far more, shall we say, "conventional" view.

Geert Wilders on BBC Hardtalk: Islam Is Not Our Culture, Should Never Be and Will Never Be

Marine Le Pen invitée du "HARDtalk " sur BBC News

BBC HARDtalk - Radek Sikorski, Former Polish Foreign Minister | 28 June 2016

Radek Sikorski (Polish foreign secretary 2007-2014) gives a Polish reaction to Brexit.

Hardtalk - What Is Islamism? - Maajid Nawaz, Quilliam Foundation (2012)

Life Under Islamic State Is 'Totalitarian Normality'

HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur speaks to writer and publisher Jurgen [sic] Todenhofer [sic] who embarked on one of the most hazardous journeys imaginable for a western journalist. Last December, the 74-year-old spent 10 days inside the territory controlled by Islamic State.

He was taken to the group's base in Raqqa, Syria, and then to their most highly prized asset in Iraq - the northern city of Mosul.

Mr Todenhofer is no stranger to the risks that come with bearing witness to conflict. From Afghanistan to Iraq and Syria he has consistently visited and written about conflicts which have drawn in the US and its allies. He has become a vocal critic of American foreign policy and military interventions.

His own experience has included years in the legal profession and as a centre right member of the German Parliament. But now he's best known as a peace advocate prepared to talk to anyone with a stake in contemporary conflicts.

He talks to Stephen about what motivates young Muslims from the West to join Islamic State and what life is like for those who live under IS control.


WIKI: Jürgen Todenhöfer »

Susan Pollack: I Can’t Forgive

British Holocaust survivor Susan Pollack lost 50 members of her family, including her parents, in Nazi concentration camps during WWII. She recently gave evidence at the trial in Germany of a former SS guard Oskar Groning, who is charged with complicity in the murder of 300,000 Jews at Auschwitz.

He has admitted moral guilt but denies the criminal charges against him.

HARDtalk’s Zeinab Badawi spoke to Susan Pollack about her experiences in Auschwitz and Belsen before her liberation by British troops. She says she cannot forgive those who contributed to the Holocaust and believes we must continue to ask how and why such a crime could be committed.

Release date: 19 Jun 2015

Islamic State Is About Revenge Says Former Al-Qaeda Member Turned Spy

A former member of al-Qaeda who began working as a spy for Britain's security and intelligence services has told BBC HARDtalk the antidote to extremism can only come from the Islamic world itself.

Asked what the differences are in the attraction by al-Qaeda and Islamic State (IS), Aimen Dean explained that al-Qaeda was about defending the honour of Islam and expelling the US from the Middle East, but with IS it was about revenge.

"It is no longer about going to fight for a noble cause, it is about going to fight for revenge," he said.

Eight years ago Aimen Dean’s life as a spy ended when his cover was blown.