The Interview
BBC World Service
Conversations with people shaping our world, from all around the globe. 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 emailTheInterview@bbc.co.uk and use the hashtag #TheInterviewBBC on social media.
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 emailTheInterview@bbc.co.uk and use the hashtag #TheInterviewBBC on social media.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Aug 5, 2013 • 23min
Composer - Sir John Tavener
Sarah Montague speaks to Sir John Tavener, one of Britain's most celebrated composers. He says his music is for God - even referring to it as a form of divine dictation. Forty years ago, his work was sometimes dismissed as bland, populist, new age. But over time he has defied the critics - the Protecting Veil was one of the biggest selling classical albums ever, and his Song for Athene was played at the funeral of Princess Diana. Having been ill for much of his life, he says that everything changed after he nearly died from a heart attack six years ago. How did this experience affect his view of life, his music, and his faith?(Image:Sir John Tavener (left) and Simon Russell Beale. Credit: BBC)
Aug 2, 2013 • 23min
On the Road: Alaska – Part 2
Alaska, a land of pristine wilderness, sparse population and unimaginable resource riches. It is also the corner of our planet which is experiencing the most dramatic effects of climate change. The carbon economy which made Alaska rich now threatens its delicate ecosystem, presenting the US with a challenge. In the second of two programmes, Stephen Sackur explores whether the world’s second largest carbon emitter is getting serious about climate change.(Image: A sea otter sits on a chunk of ice near Whittier, Alaska. Credit: AFP)
Jul 31, 2013 • 23min
On the Road: Alaska - Part 1
Hardtalk is on the road in Alaska. In the first of two programmes, Stephen Sackur visits the Bristol Bay region of south-west Alaska where the fishing industry, the mining industry and the federal government are locked in a bitter argument over environmental sustainability and resource exploitation. Every year 40 million salmon swim into Bristol Bay before beginning their journey up the rivers and streams of the region. It is one of the world’s great fisheries. However 120 miles inland there is a plan to build North American’s largest copper mine. Can the two forms of resource exploitation co-exist?
Jul 29, 2013 • 28min
Opera Singer - Thomas Hampson
Opera is one of the least watched art forms in the world, and possibly the most expensive. Hardtalk speaks to opera superstar Thomas Hampson. He says the way to get people to love opera is to get them to understand it, and then it has the power to transform. If he is right, could one of the most elite and expensive art forms have worldwide appeal?
Jul 26, 2013 • 23min
Governor of Rivers State, Nigeria - Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi
Rivers State is at the heart of Nigeria’s oil industry, which produces 20% of the country's wealth. Yet more than one billion dollars a month is being lost to thieves who syphon it off from remote pipelines. Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi is Governor of Rivers State, a key figure in addressing the problem. But he's locked in a highly public dispute with the president, Goodluck Jonathan. Their supporters have had to be separated by the police, and the power struggle has prevented the state assembly from meeting since May. Isn't it time he focused on the day job?Picture: Children sail past an oil pipeline in Rivers State, Nigeria, Credit: Pius Utomi Ekpei, AFP/Getty Images
Jul 24, 2013 • 23min
Iraq Foreign Minister - Hoshyar Zebari
Iraq’s foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, said he wanted to rehabilitate Iraq’s image after the fall of Saddam Hussein. But now sectarian violence in Iraq is arguably worse than ever and is overlapping with sectarianism in neighbouring Syria. The Shia-led government in Baghdad is accused of discriminating against the Sunni minority and of being too close to Iran. How can Hoshyar Zebari, himself an Iraqi Kurd, hope to have any coherent foreign policy, when his own country is in danger of slipping into civil war?
Jul 22, 2013 • 23min
General Secretary of the GMB Union - Paul Kenny
Britain's Labour Party was created from the trade unions and it still gets most of its money from them. But Labour’s leader Ed Miliband - a man who owes his job to the union vote - now wants to loosen those ties. Hardtalk speaks to Paul Kenny, the leader of one of the UK's biggest unions, the GMB. He says Labour is in danger of losing 90% of his union's funding. So what would a change mean for the Labour Party, the unions and working class representation in Britain?Photo: Paul Kenny (right) Credit: Getty Images
Jul 19, 2013 • 23min
Prime Minister-Designate, Albania - Edi Rama
Albania is the single most corrupt country in Europe according to Transparency International. Hardtalk speaks to Edi Rama, who will become Albania's prime minister in September. A modern artist, he won international plaudits for transforming the capital Tirana when he was its mayor - not least by painting its grey buildings in bright colours. He's now promised a renaissance for the whole country. So can he succeed where previous politicians have failed?(Photo: Edi Rama. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)
Jul 17, 2013 • 23min
UK Conservative MP - David Davis
David Davis has been a candidate for the leadership of the British Conservative party but he has also made a name for himself as a civil liberties campaigner - arguing against what is sometimes called the 'surveillance state'. So what does he make of the massive collection of data by the US National Security Agency and Britain’s GCHQ revealed by the American whistle-blower, Edward Snowden? In the years since the 9/11 attacks - have we got the balance wrong between liberty and security?(Image: David Davis, Conservative MP at the 2005 Conservative Party Conference in Blackpool. Credit: Associated Press)
Jul 15, 2013 • 23min
Chief Executive, Soho China - Zhang Xin
Zhang Xin is one of only 24 self-made female billionaires in the world. Her story is a true rags-to-riches tale. As a teenager she worked in a sweat-shop in her native China, by her twenties she worked for Goldman Sachs. Disillusioned by Wall Street, she returned to China to make her fortune in property development. But what kind of China did she return to - a country heading for economic problems or possibly an emerging democracy as well as an emerging super-power?(Image: Pan Shiyi (L), chairman of Soho China, and Zhang Xin, chief executive officer of Soho China. Credit: Getty Images)
