Hardtalk

Stephen Sackur speaks to Waris Dirie, the Somali born model, writer and activist. She was raised in poverty, and later became the muse of big fashion houses in New York and beyond. She chose campaigning over the catwalk, speaking out against female genital mutilation, which she experienced and is now determined to eliminate. Is this a fight she can win?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Mick Lynch, leader of Britain’s biggest rail union the RMT. His members are striking for inflation proofed pay and job protection. It is a test case in a new era of worker versus employer fights with resonance across the world. But can the workers win?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Kenneth Roth, who spent three decades leading the campaign group Human Rights Watch. Why is the fight for human rights being lost in so many places?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Kira Rudik, a Ukrainian MP and leader of the opposition party Golos. As the first anniversary of Putin’s invasion looms, does Ukraine have the external support and the internal cohesion it needs to win this war?

Pervez Musharraf, the former Pakistani army chief who masterminded a coup in 1999 and ruled the country for nine years, has died in Dubai aged 79 after a long illness. Stephen Sackur spoke to General Musharraf in 2014, after he had returned from exile to Pakistan in an attempt to revive his political career. What did his rise and fall tell us about the realities of power in Pakistan?Image: Pervez Musharraf, pictured in 2013 (Credit: Mian Khursheed/Reuters)

Stephen Sackur speaks to Zsuzsanna Szelényi, a former ally, and now prominent opponent, of Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Has Orbán found a political formula, illiberal democracy, for which his opponents have no answer?

Stephen Sackur speaks to the Russian foreign policy strategist and sometime Kremlin adviser Sergey Karaganov. Russia is widely expected to launch a major new offensive in Ukraine very soon, but this war has already exposed Moscow’s vulnerabilities. Is Putin placing bets he cannot win?

Stephen Sackur speaks to the boss of Oxfam Great Britain, Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah. He took over after Oxfam was hit by scandal with staff abusing their positions and power in Haiti. He promised to reimagine how international aid should be done and to put a new focus on global economic justice. Is his approach working?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Robert Malley, US special envoy for Iran. He’s an experienced diplomat facing a looming crisis. The attempt to revive a deal to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions appears to be dead, Tehran is repressing protests at home and arming Putin’s Russia in Ukraine. What can the US and its allies do about it?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Leopoldo Lopez, a key leader of Venezuela’s opposition. Once a political prisoner, now in exile in Spain, his efforts to topple the socialist regime led by Nicolas Maduro have been thwarted. Has Venezuela’s pro-democracy movement been outmanoeuvred?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba. The war with Russia has hit a winter stalemate, but what will spring bring? From battle tanks to air defences, Ukraine wants more help from its allies. Is Western wavering undermining Kyiv’s strategic options?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Ruben Vardanyan, state minister of the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, run by ethnic Armenians but surrounded by Azerbaijan and the subject of years of conflict. The Armenians have traditionally been backed by Russia, but is Putin a reliable ally?

Brazilian President Lula must figure out whether another assault on government institutions is likely, and hold those responsible to account. All of that while he faces a mountain of economic, social and political challenges. How close is Brazil to being ungovernable? Stephen Sackur interviews Celso Amorim, formerly Brazil's foreign minister, now President Lula’s foreign policy advisor.

Stephen Sackur is in Geneva to speak to Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director general of the World Trade Organization. Her job is to maximise free and fair trade across the world. How is that possible in this age of big power tension and increased suspicion of globalisation?

Zeinab Badawi is in Sri Lanka to talk to one of the country’s most influential artists and archaeologists, Jagath Weerasinghe. What does his art tell us about Sri Lanka’s bloody and difficult past, and its prospects for a more peaceful future?

What makes a great photograph? In 2019, Stephen Sackur spoke to one of the pioneers of photojournalism, Marilyn Stafford. She was born in the United States but moved to Paris in the 1950s, where she became the protégé of the French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson. Like him, Stafford loved to capture intimate portraits of ordinary people. She photographed everything from refugees fleeing war to models on the fashion catwalks. Later in life, her work was discovered and admired by a new generation.This is another chance to listen to the interview with Marilyn Stafford after her recent death aged 97. The interview was updated on 13th January 2023.

Stephen Sackur speaks to the former Russian diplomat Boris Bondarev, who quit his post and launched a scathing attack on the Putin regime after the invasion of Ukraine. Why haven’t more Moscow insiders followed his lead?

War and extreme poverty drive millions of people from their homes every year. Some of them try to reach the rich Western world, where such inward migration routinely prompts fear and draconian counter-measures. Stephen Sackur interviews Waheed Arian, who fled war in Afghanistan as a child, made it to the UK and is now a doctor running his own medical charity. Do perceptions change when the story of migration is personalised?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Fawad Chaudhry, Pakistan’s former information minister and a senior figure in Imran Khan’s opposition PTI party. Pakistan is dealing with rampant inflation, an energy crisis and soaring national debt. Having lost the premiership, Khan is trying to bring down the current coalition government. Could political chaos tip the country into full-scale economic meltdown?

Stephen Sackur speaks to the Russian opposition activist Evgenia Kara-Murza, whose husband Vladimir, a prominent opponent of Vladimir Putin, is in prison in Russia having survived two apparent poisonings in recent years. Has Putin’s repression effectively neutralised meaningful opposition?