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
Sep 11, 2020 • 24min
Gitanas Nausėda: Will people power take Belarus in a new direction?
Will Moscow’s will prevail in Belarus, or will people power take the country in a new direction? Stephen Sackur speaks to Gitanas Nausėda, the president of neighbouring Lithuania. The daily street protests demanding the resignation of Belarus’s authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko haven’t yet tipped the balance against the regime. Lukashenko is still there; the security forces are still doing his bidding. So how is the geopolitics of this going to play out?
Sep 8, 2020 • 23min
Frank Luntz: Can Donald Trump win?
With just two months until the US presidential election, the polls show the incumbent Donald Trump trailing Democrat Joe Biden by a significant margin. This is an extraordinary election year marked by a pandemic, economic crisis, street protests over alleged police racism and a toxic political atmosphere. HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur speaks to the veteran Republican party pollster and consultant Frank Luntz. Can Donald Trump win, and should Republicans want him to?
Sep 6, 2020 • 23min
Laura Kövesi: Can the EU's 'corruption buster' deliver?
The EU is thought to have lost more than €10 billion to fraud over the last two decades, and yet its anti-fraud and anti-corruption agencies have long lacked the teeth to root out the problem. Could that be about to change? Stephen Sackur speaks to Romanian Laura Codruta Kövesi, the EU's first public prosecutor. She has enhanced powers to tackle transnational crime. But if member states refuse to play ball, how can she succeed?
Sep 3, 2020 • 23min
UN Secretary General António Guterres: Is multilateralism dead?
The annual UN General Assembly gets underway this month in New York and this year it will be like no previous one. The coronavirus pandemic means the summit will be held virtually. The medical, social and economic impact of Covid-19 has not only brought much suffering, it is also reshaping the world. HARDtalk’s Zeinab Badawi speaks to the Secretary General of the UN, António Guterres. He believes the pandemic is unleashing a tsunami of scapegoating, hate and xenophobia. As the UN marks its 75th anniversary, is it equipped to deal with these unprecedented global challenges?
Sep 2, 2020 • 23min
Alfre Woodard: The artist and the activist
Alfre Woodard has had a distinguished acting career, spanning five decades, with roles ranging from Winnie Mandela to a part in hit TV series Desperate Housewives. She grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and for much of her career she has been an activist and campaigner, speaking out against race discrimination in the movie business, and lending her support to the Democratic party. Have her art and her activism merged into one?
Aug 30, 2020 • 23min
Sam Harris: A place for conversation in an angry world
Thanks to the internet and the mobile phone our ability to communicate, inform and persuade has never been greater. So why is public debate getting ever more polarising and toxic? Stephen Sackur speaks to the american philosopher, neuroscientist and podcaster Sam Harris whose takes on everything from religion to race generate intense heat. Are extremism and intolerance drowning out reasoned debate?
Aug 27, 2020 • 23min
Natalia Pasternak: Brazil's battle between science and politics
The global Covid-19 pandemic has put a fierce spotlight on the relationship between scientists and policy makers. Leaders across the world have responded to the science with everything from respect to scepticism. Foremost amongst the sceptics, president Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, one of the countries hit hardest by the virus. Stephen Sackur speaks to the Brazilian microbiologist Natalia Pasternak who has launched a crusade against her President in the name of science. But is she winning the argument?(Photo: Microbiologist Natalia Pasternak)
Aug 26, 2020 • 23min
Natalia Kaliada: Where do Belarus activists go from here?
His people have turned against him in the streets but Belarus's dictator Alexander Lukashenko is still in power and his security forces are still following his orders. So where do the anti-Lukashenko activists go from here? Stephen Sackur speaks to Natalia Kaliada, one of the founders of the Belarus Free Theatre, an artist dissident in exile. Will Belarus's summer rebellion be blown away with the autumn leaves?
Aug 23, 2020 • 24min
Katie Hill: When a politician's nude photos are leaked
Zeinab Badawi speaks to the American politician Katie Hill. She was a star of the US mid-term elections in 2018, but barely a year after winning a Congressional seat, she resigned, after reports of an inappropriate relationship with a staff member and after nude photographs of her were published. What does her case tell us about American politics in the MeToo era?
Aug 21, 2020 • 23min
Kishore Mahbubani: Has Covid-19 weakened the West?
Increasing tensions between the US and China have plunged relations to the lowest level for decades. This comes at a time when the world is facing its worst recession in living memory due to the coronavirus. Could this lead to a reshaping of the global order? Zeinab Badawi speaks to former Singaporean diplomat Kishore Mahbubani, who believes that Covid-19 has fundamentally weakened the west. Is he right that this is now Asia's century?
