The Interview

“We don't have to have a fight, and we don't have to land in China, go to Beijing and win the war. All we have to do is prevent them to getting their objective of landing in Taiwan and conquering. It's not going to be easy, but we've been preparing for this for 77 years.”

Sumi Somaskanda speaks to Alexander Yui Tah-ray, Taiwan’s representative to the US.

The island, which lies roughly 100 miles off the coast of mainland China and is facing growing uncertainty both at home and abroad.

As geopolitical tensions rise around the world, there’s increasing focus on the intentions of Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Beijing considers Taiwan part of China and has long-pursued what it calls reunification with the island.

Mr. Yui Tah-ray has held the his current post since December 2023, having previously served as Taiwan’s deputy foreign minister. His role is central to maintaining one of Taipei’s most important international relationships: with the United States.

Washington does not officially recognise Taiwan as an independent state - and only 12 countries around the world do. But the US remains Taiwan’s most important international backer, providing critical defence and security support.

With President Trump back in the White House for a second term, questions remain over how Washington’s longstanding commitment to Taiwan will evolve and what that could mean for the island as tensions with Beijin continue.

Presenter: Sumi Somaskanda

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(Image: Alexander Yui Tah-ray. Credit: Getty)

“Private communication is a fundamental human right for a reason, because when those with power over you have access to your intimate thoughts and your communication, they use those to punish you. They can use them to persecute you. They can use them to shut you up.”

That privacy can be vital for journalists living under authoritarian governments, dissidents and other vulnerable people, but it can also allow scammers, child abusers and criminals to communicate beyond Signal’s view.

Governments are demanding greater access to encrypted communications, but Whittaker says Signal would rather leave a country than weaken its protections.

(Image: Meredith Whittaker. Credit: Reuters)

BBC special correspondent James Naughtie speaks to former Governor of California, Jerry Brown.

He was first elected governor in 1974, succeeding Ronald Reagan, and went on to serve two eight-year terms in office, separated by nearly three decades.

Over the course of his public life, he met every US president from John F. Kennedy to Donald Trump.

Now retired on the California land where his ancestors settled in the nineteenth century, Brown reflects on a political career spanning five decades.

He discusses the growing influence of technology and AI, the spiritual beliefs that shaped how he governed, and the profound changes he has witnessed in American politics since he first entered public life.

The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, including episodes with Hunter Biden, the journalist Maggie Haberman, and former US Secretary of State John Kerry.

You can listen on the BBC World Service on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 0800 GMT. Or you can listen to The Interview as a podcast, out three times a week on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts.

Presenter: Jim Naughtie

(Image: Jerry Brown. Credit: Getty)

“There aren't enough lawyers and judges on the planet if journalists are silent, because abuses of power just don't come to light, in my experience, without this relationship between a free media, fair courts, fair trials, robust judges, investigators, the police and so on. Without journalists there'd be no human rights protection and the rule of law.”

Anna Holligan speaks to human rights lawyer and Council of Europe rapporteur Shami Chakrabarti.

Born in London in 1969, Chakrabarti rose to prominence in the early 2000s when she was appointed director of the human rights organisation, Liberty. She and her team made headlines around the world campaigning against what they considered excessive anti-terror legislation introduced in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

She stepped down from the position just over a decade later, after being appointed a life peer in the British House of Lords.

Since then, she’s been involved in a number of high-profile inquiries both in the UK and abroad. Most recently, she’s been tasked with leading a Council of Europe investigation into the fallout from the 2017 assassination of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Caruana Galizia, one of Malta’s best-known anti-corruption journalists, was killed by a car bomb in October 2017. Her assassination and the continuing questions over the murder has raised serious concerns about the rule of law in Malta, an EU member state, as well as fears that corruption at the highest-levels could have wider implications for the European Union.

Thank you to the Global Eye team for their help in making this programme.

Presenter: Anna Holligan

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“I do not want the United Nations of New York, Geneva or Vienna to be an ivory tower, a diplomatic ivory tower. I want to see the UN not of power and privilege, but the UN of service and impact. That is the UN I want see.”

James Copnall speaks to Olara Otunnu, Ugandan diplomat, lawyer and former Foreign Minister.

He has spent decades working at the highest levels of international diplomacy. He has also served as a United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict.

Now Uganda has formally nominated him for UN Secretary-General, putting him among seven candidates in the running to succeed Antonio Guterres. It is a position widely regarded as the world’s top diplomatic job.

Olara Otunnu talks about how he intends to bridge the gap between international politics and the needs of local people around the world.

Presenter: James Copnall

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(Image: Olara Otunnu. Credit: Getty)

“He had no guardrails. He had no rules. He told Donald Trump, you know, when criticised, attack, attack, attack, deny, deny deny, always go on the offensive, never apologise. And Trump, when he met Roy Cohn, he began mimicing how he talked.”

BBC Newsnight presenter Paddy O’Connell, speaks to author Kai Bird about Roy Cohn, Donald Trump’s former lawyer and mentor.

Decades later, he became Donald Trump’s lawyer and mentor shaping his approach to power.

In an interview with BBC Newsnight, Kai argues that Cohn’s lessons in attacking, denying and never apologising provided a blueprint for Trump’s political life.

(Image: Kai Bird. Credit: Getty)

“I think there’s been this underlying frustration among the youth of India for a very long time. If we look at the unemployment data, India currently has the highest unemployment rate in the last 40 years, and even when it comes to education, every year there’s not been one single government examination where the paper isn’t leaked, or the paper or the exam isn’t cancelled. So people are really frustrated with unemployment, and with the education ministry in India, which isn’t accountable at all.”

Yogita Limaye speaks to youth campaigner Abhijeet Dipke, founder of the satirical Cockroach Janta Party.

Dipke rose to prominence in India earlier this year after criticising the country’s Chief Justice, who had compared unemployed young people and social-media activists to cockroaches.

Dipke was studying in the US when he posted "What if all cockroaches come together?" on the social media platform ‘X’ in response.

He thought little of the post at the time. But it quickly went viral, snowballing into a youth protest movement that has shaken India’s political establishment and thrust Dipke himself into the spotlight.

Presenter: Yogita Limaye

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(Image: Abhijeet Dipke. Credit: Reuters)

Justin Rowlatt speaks to Estelle Brachlianoff, chief executive of environmental firm Veolia. The corporation’s origins can be traced all the way back to 19th Century France, when it was established as a water company during the country’s industrial revolution.

More than a century-and-a-half later, it’s grown to become one of the world’s leading operators of environmental services, working across five continents - providing water supplies, waste management and energy services.

In this exclusive, wide-ranging interview, Brachlianoff reveals how a multi-billion dollar corporation operates, as well as how Veolia adapts to the various challenges posed by climate change, and opportunities offered by technological advances.

“Why is it important that we increase the recycling rates? It's not just for the CO2 emissions, although it's important, it's because it's a source of materials as opposed to importing it from elsewhere. So in a way, instead of mining the planet, what about mining our waste? Instead of importing paper and oil and plastic, because plastic of course is traditionally made out of oil and lithium to make batteries, what about mining our waste?” says Brachlianoff.

(Image: Estelle Brachlianoff. Credit: Getty Images)

Get in touch with us on email [email protected] and use the hashtag #TheInterviewBBC on social media.

Thank you to the Big Boss Interview team for their help in making this programme.

Presenter: Justin Rowlatt

Ione Wells speaks to Roelf Meyer, South Africa’s new ambassador to the United States. In the 1990s, Meyer was one of the leading negotiators in the talks that helped bring apartheid to an end.

Now he takes up his new post amid a serious rupture in relations with the US President Trump has cut aid, expelled the previous South African ambassador and offered refugee status to white Afrikaners he says are fleeing persecution, claiming the community faces “genocide”.

The South African government rejects that allegation. Meyer, himself an Afrikaner, explains why he believes Trump has been given the wrong picture and how his experience negotiating the end of apartheid could help repair relations with Washington.

“The notion of a mass attack on the Afrikaner was misrepresented by those that might have conveyed the message. I mean, I’m an Afrikaner from South Africa myself. And I can say that I’ve never experienced something of that kind. We found it strange. So the source is misrepresented, unfortunately, something that just doesn’t exist,” says Meyer.

(Photo: Roelf Meyer, South Africa’s ambassador to the US, wears a navy blazer with a white shirt and light blue tie. He has short white hair. Credit: Getty Images)

“I can tell you here and now, those are exactly the words he said. I've only ever had two calls on the line with Prince Charles at any stage of my life. I was hyper alert to what he was saying, and those are precisely the words that he said, and I promise that to you now. Genuinely, that is what he said.”

(Image: Earl Spencer. Credit: BBC)