The Conversation

Two former politicians reveal the realities of life in public office. They talk to Kim Chakanetsa about why they went into politics, what impact they had and why a thick skin is absolutely critical.

Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is a Nigerian economist who served two terms as finance minister of Nigeria from 2003 to 2006 and from 2011 to 2015, having previously been a managing director at the World Bank. But holding political office was never part of her plan. Instead she was appointed to the role by the then president. She became the first female finance minister in Nigeria. She says her father had always impressed upon her the importance of doing one's duty for one's country, but now she's left politics she enjoys the freedom of having more control over her life. She currently chairs the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI).

Lindiwe Mazibuko is a South African politician and former parliamentary leader of the Democratic Alliance. Lindiwe was elected to parliament aged 29, and was seen as a rising star of the party, but faced misogynistic attacks as her profile grew. She resigned her position in 2014, saying she wanted to pursue postgraduate studies at Harvard University in the US. She's now writing a book about young people and public office, but hopes to return to front-line politics in a few years' time.

Image: Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Credit: Shaun Curry/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

The ancient art of falconry holds a magical appeal for our guests this week. They talk to Kim Chakanetsa about why they were drawn to this ancient tradition, the unique relationship they form with their birds, and the concerns of those who consider it cruel.

Helen Macdonald from the UK is the bestselling author of H is for Hawk, a moving account of the year she spent training Mabel the goshawk after her father's death. As a child Helen was obsessed by birds of prey and was determined to become a falconer - later she used her writing to bring the powerful relationship between humans, falcons and nature to a wider public. She's not currently working with a bird, but she dreams of flying merlin falcons.

Lauren McGough from Oklahoma in the US has become a world authority on the golden eagle - though growing up she didn't know falconry existed. She discovered the sport at the age of 14 and has been hooked ever since, travelling to Mongolia to learn more about eagle falconry from nomadic eagle hunters. She's currently based in South Africa, where she's working with a male crowned eagle called Dart.

Legendary gymnasts Simone Biles and Nadia Comaneci get together with Kim Chakanetsa for a frank discussion of the highs and lows of their sport.

At the Montreal Olympics in 1976, aged just 14, Nadia Comaneci became the first gymnast in history to be awarded a perfect 10 for her routine on the uneven bars. Nadia went on to win 25 medals during her gymnastic career, including five Olympic gold medals. Originally from Romania, Nadia defected to the US in 1989 and now runs a gymnastics school in Oklahoma.

Simone Biles burst onto the Olympic gymnastics scene at the 2016 Rio Games, with her jaw-dropping trademark move The Biles, and took home four gold medals. Not bad for a 19 year old, who only got into the sport by accident when a coach at a local gym spotted her perfectly copying the older girls' moves, aged six. Simone is now the most decorated American gymnast of all time, holding 19 Olympic and World Championship medals.

(Photo: (L) Nadia Comaneci. Credit: Dennis Grombkowski/Getty Images. (R) Simone Biles. Credit: Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

Running an international charity in today's changing world is the task taken on by our two guests, who talk to Kim Chakanetsa about how their organisations are adjusting to the changing demands of those in need.

Winnie Byanyima is Executive Director of Oxfam International, which works to alleviate global poverty. Born in Uganda, Winnie has been a trailblazer and an activist from the beginning - as a student protester she was forced to flee the country at the age of 17. Later, she became a parliamentarian under Yoweri Museveni, and went on to hold high-level roles at the African Union and the UN. She joined Oxfam in 2013 and she's currently overseeing the ambitious relocation of its international headquarters from the UK to Kenya.

Brita Fernandez Schmidt is Executive Director of Women for Women International UK, a charity which supports women in eight countries affected by war and conflict. They offer a year-long course to marginalised women, with the aim of giving them access to life-changing support and skills. Brita herself was born in Germany but grew up in Venezuela, where she witnessed poverty at first hand, and remembers being particularly struck by how poverty disproportionately affected women. She says she always had a burning sense of justice - and that when she sees something that's not right, she can't leave it be.

Image: (l)Winnie Byanyima and (r) Brita Fernandez Schmidt

Being in charge of Huffpost and The Guardian - Kim Chakanetsa brings together two women who are re-shaping their international news publications.

Lydia Polgreen is Global Editor in Chief of HuffPost. She took over from founder Ariana Huffington in 2016, after spending 15 years at the New York Times, where she had postings across Africa and Asia. The child of an Ethiopian mother and an American father, Lydia was raised in neither country, growing up mainly in Kenya and Ghana. She says moving around so much means she is now a self-made insider - precisely because she is an outsider everywhere.

Katharine Viner is Editor in Chief of Guardian News and Media, and is the first woman in the paper's almost 200-year history to hold this role. Katharine had her first article published in The Guardian newspaper when she was still at school, however she says the penny didn't drop that she was meant to be a journalist until several years later. She took charge of daily news operations across print and digital media in 2015.

Image (L): Katharine Viner. Credit: The Guardian

Two women who run museums that document the lives and legacies of iconic figures of twentieth century history: Anne Frank and Nelson Mandela.

Garance Reus-Deelder is Managing Director of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, which welcomes 1.3 million visitors every year and faces numerous challenges due to the cramped nature of the space. Garance herself was born in the Netherlands but grew up in Zambia, where she remembers visiting memorials rather than museums. She first went into business before joining the museum in 2012. She describes the power of objects to tell stories, and how to handle the legacy of a young girl.

Wayde Davy is Director of Mandela House in Soweto, and Deputy Director of the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg. She herself had little exposure to museums as a child under apartheid - but she later became fascinated with how they work, and believes that museums have the power to educate people about the past and provide a forum for everyone to air their views in what is still a divided society.

Image: (l) Garance Reus-Deelder and (r) Wayde Davy

Spectacular volcanic eruptions on earth and in space - Kim Chakanetsa unites two women who share a deep love of volcanoes.

Janine Krippner is from New Zealand, and as a child visited Ngauruhoe - the volcano made famous as Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings films - and had an intense feeling that this is where she belonged. Years later she found herself inside the crater collecting research data. Janine is now based at the University of Pittsburgh and studies remote volcanoes in Russia and the US and looks for clues as to how super-fast flows of hot gas and rocks called pyroclastic flows travel after eruptions.

Rosaly Lopes is a Senior Research Scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and she is also Manager of the Planetary Science Section. Born and raised in Brazil, Rosaly has visited over 60 active volcanoes on every continent, but as exciting as she finds these trips, volcanoes on other planets are her real focus. She has personally discovered 71 active volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io, which has earned her a place in the record books.

Image and credit (L): Janine Krippner in front of Osorno volcano, Los Lagos Region, southern Chile

Two doctors at the epicentre of the AIDS crisis - Glenda Gray and Wafaa El-Sadr - have worked tirelessly to care for those affected by the virus, to combat its spread, and to get the drugs to those who need it.

Glenda Gray is a South African paediatrician and world-renowned scientist who currently directs the HIV Vaccine Trials study, which is the largest of its kind ever conducted in South Africa. Thanks in part to her work on mother-to-child transmission, the number of babies born with HIV has dropped dramatically from 600,000 a year to 150,000. Glenda herself grew up under Apartheid in a family of activists, and carried on her fight for social justice into medical school and beyond.

Wafaa El-Sadr is director of ICAP based at Columbia University in New York. Born in Egypt to a family of physicians, Wafaa was working as a young doctor in Harlem, when the first AIDS cases began to appear in the 1980s. She didn't know she was witnessing the start of an epidemic that was to sweep across the globe. Wafaa helped develop a treatment programme that is now used as a model around the world.

Image: (L) Glenda Gray (credit: JP Crouch Photography) and (R) Wafaa El-Sadr (credit: Michael Dames)

Cities that come alive at night, with two women who know where to go and what to do. Kim Chakanetsa speaks to a DJ from Lebanon and a singer-songwriter from China who take her on a virtual tour of their favourite nightlife scenes.

Nicole Moudaber is a Nigerian-born Lebanese DJ and music producer. Nicole began exploring Beirut's nightlife as a promoter, hosting successful club nights for years before turning her hands to the decks. She has since been described as one of the best techno DJs on the scene, sharing her distinct beats with the nightlife scenes in New York, Ibiza and beyond.

ChaCha Yehaiyahan is regarded as the queen of the underground music scene in Shanghai, a city that is a far cry from the rural mountainous village she grew up in in southwest China. She left home at 16 with her sights firmly set on the bright lights of Beijing, and wound up in Shanghai, which she says has a nightlife scene unparalleled in China.

Image: (L) ChaCha Yehaiyahan. Credit: AJ Schokora

Two archaeologists take us on an underwater adventure to uncover secrets about our past. Between them they've explored wooden vessels dating back hundreds of years, discovered Roman statues in the Mediterranean and Chinese ceramics in the Gulf of Thailand, and even stumbled upon what may be an Aboriginal rubbish dump.

Pornnatcha 'Jo' Sankhaprasit is Thailand's first ever female underwater archaeologist. She grew up in the Thai mountains and didn't even see the sea until she was nine years old. She's always had a passion for history and adventure, and she was drawn to marine archaeology because sites are often far better preserved underwater than on land. However the water, and deep dives in particular, still scare her - and the breathing apparatus weighs more than she does! But it's all worth it when she gets to work on ancient wrecks like the well-preserved Chinese ship that sank in the Gulf of Thailand more than 500 years ago.

Sarah Ward is a renowned maritime archaeologist from Australia, who has a vast and varied experience in her field. She has worked on underwater archaeological sites from a Roman wreck off the coast of Turkey, to the Tudor flagship, the Mary Rose, and a warship that sank off the coast of Argentina in 1790. These days she works mainly on commercial maritime projects, carrying out detailed surveys and excavations of harbours, ports and other coastal sites.

(L) Image: Sarah Ward. Credit:Surface Supplied Diver Training