Perspective

Imagine growing up in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, escaping to a refugee camp in Pakistan, then returning to Kabul only to flee again amid the Taliban insurgency in 1999. That's just part of Waheed Arian's life story. An Afghan refugee who moved to the UK at just 15 years old, Dr. Arian went on to work odd jobs while pursuing his studies, eventually studying medicine at Cambridge. His telemedicine charity Arian Teleheal links healthcare providers with patients in war zones. He joined us for Perspective.

Music, spoken word and theatre are among the many artistic mediums that allow people from different backgrounds to connect. But spaces centering on the experiences of under-represented minorities can often be hard to come by, inspiring a variety of artists and activists hoping to change that.  Among them is Irish-Nigerian artist Osaro Azams. She's the founder of the Fried Plantains Collective, which celebrates the voices of the LGBT and African communities in Dublin in a "cozy" and fun way. She joined us for Perspective.

A fascinating new book links art, the mentally ill and Adolf Hitler. It tells the story of how modern art was originally inspired by the work of psychiatric patients and how Hitler – twice rejected from art school – turned first on modern artists and later on those who had inspired them. The Nazis murdered thousands of psychiatric patients, in a chilling forerunner of the Holocaust. The book is entitled "The Gallery of Miracles and Madness: Insanity, Modernism, and Hitler's War on Art". Its author Charlie English joined us on Perspective to tell us more.

What makes people tick? What shapes us, what defines us – what makes us happy? According to the author of the book "The Status Game", status drives the human condition. If we have the feeling that we are appreciated, needed and respected by our peers, we generally feel happy with our lot. British author and journalist Will Storr joined us for Perspective to tell us more.

We hear from a filmmaker who was based in Kabul, given 10 places on board a French plane to escape Afghanistan as the Taliban took over and had to choose who would come with her. Shahrbanoo Sadat says she feels ashamed to be safe after such a harrowing escape. She made it to Paris, where she's now living in a refugee camp, fearful for those still in Kabul and critical of foreign governments for failing to do enough to help the Afghan people.

For most of us, scaling the world's tallest mountains is just a pipe dream. It requires deft skill, in-depth knowledge of difficult terrain and no shortage of fearlessness; the smallest errors can lead to irreversible accidents. As a high mountain guide from Chamonix, Tristan Knoertzer knows this all too well. He works with the Chamonix mountain guide company and is the project manager of its 200th anniversary celebrations. He joined us for Perspective.

As the US prepares to mark 20 years since the 9/11 attacks that transfixed and horrified the world, we speak to terrorism expert Cyrille Bret, author of "Ten Attacks That Changed the World". He argues that the events of that terrible day not only transformed our collective experience of safety, but also reignited the debate over how much freedom we're prepared to relinquish in the name of security.

Almost six years after the Islamic State group's coordinated attacks in Paris and Saint-Denis claimed 130 lives, this Wednesday marks the start of a nine-month-long trial that hopes to deliver justice and answers. We speak to Yan St-Pierre, counterterrorism advisor and CEO of the Modern Security Consulting Group, about how the terror threat in Europe has evolved since that terrible night, as well as how successive anti-terrorism laws in the wake of 2015 have fundamentally changed France's legal landscape.

How do you turn the trauma of wrongful conviction into the drive to become a champion of other people who find themselves in the same situation? At the age of 17, Jarrett Adams was sentenced to 28 years in prison in the United States. He always maintained his innocence and after almost 10 long years in jail he was exonerated. Determined to put his ordeal to good use, he trained as an attorney specialising in criminal defence and civil rights cases and has now written a memoir entitled "Redeeming Justice". He joined us for Perspective.

In his new book "Blood and Ruins: The Great Imperial War, 1931-1945", historian and author Richard Overy argues that Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939, and the horrors that followed, should be understood in the context of imperialist expansion, as championed not only by Germany, but also Italy and Japan. He also questions the legitimacy of claims that the Allies were fighting a "good war" in defence of democracy and human rights, given the ongoing human rights abuses they oversaw both at home and in the overseas territories they controlled. He joined us for Perspective.