Stephen Sackur talks to Alicia Kearns, Conservative MP and chair of the UK’s House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. She has long warned of the threat to democracies posed by authoritarian regimes, led by China. With a host of elections looming, is 2024 going to severely test the West?

Alicia Kearns: How much will 2024 test the West?

In-depth, hard-hitting interviews with newsworthy personalities.

Government

In 2021, Stephen Sackur is travelled to New York to speak to writer Paul Auster, who died this week aged 77.

Paul Auster: 'We are divided in ways we have never seen before'

Stephen Sackur speaks to Ami Ayalon, former director of the Israeli Security Agency, also known as Shin Bet, and now a fierce critic of Prime Minister Netanyahu's government. Is today's Israel ready to listen to the lessons of one of its ageing warriors?

Ami Ayalon: Is Israel fighting an unwinnable war?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Lebanon’s economy minister, Amin Salam. After years of economic meltdown, Lebanon is once again threatened by escalating regional conflict involving Israel and Iran. Does the Beirut government have the will or the means to prevent a further slide into chaos?

Amin Salam: Can Lebanon's government avert catastrophe?

In an exclusive interview, Stephen Sackur speaks to Joan Donoghue, who has just retired as president of the International Court of Justice. In January, the court found there was a plausible case for Israel to answer for alleged violation of the Genocide Convention. Has the ruling changed anything in Gaza?

Joan Donoghue: Has the ICJ ruling changed anything in Gaza?

Another chance to listen to Stephen Sackur’s 2013 interview with American philosopher Daniel Dennett, who has died aged 82. Described as one of the Four Horsemen of New Atheism, Dennett wrote powerfully against religion. But do humans really want to live in a world where atheism rules and religion is dead?

Alicia Kearns: How much will 2024 test the West?

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