The Interview

Why does migration frighten so many of us? HARDtalk speaks to writer Mohsin Hamid whose novels have explored cultural, economic and religious tensions between East and West. Globalisation is a trend based on movement - of money goods, ideas and people - across continents and national borders. In a world of glaring inequality, it has stirred a powerful backlash manifested in the rise of nationalism and identity politics. This clash of human impulses is fertile territory for the Pakistani novelist.

HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur speaks to, Boris Titov, leader of Russia’s Party of Growth. Seven candidates are challenging Vladimir Putin in this month's Russian presidential election; but none of them has much hope of victory. One of the seven 'other' candidates - Boris Titov - is a Putin appointee as government ombudsman for business. Does Russia need reform rather than authoritarianism?

Image: Boris Titov (Credit: BBC)

Stephen Sackur speaks to Ahmad Tibi. He is a veteran Arab Israeli MP and one time adviser to Yasser Arafat. President Donald Trump claimed he could broker the deal of the century between Israel and the Palestinian. Instead he seems to have entrenched the hostility after recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Is the Arab-Israeli experience a sign that the status quo is the only viable response to the conflict between Jews and Arabs?

(Photo: Ahmad al-Tibi, speaks to the media at a Jerusalem district court in Jerusalem. Credit: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images)

In September 1957 nine African American students, including Elizabeth Eckford, entered the all white Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas, thereby breaking for the first time the racial segregation barrier in US schools. They became known as the Little Rock Nine. Two years earlier the US Supreme Court had ruled segregation in schools to be unconstitutional. The first time Elizabeth Eckford tried to enter Little Rock Central High she was turned away and the image of her surrounded by a hostile crowd of local white people is one of the most famous photographs of the American civil rights struggle of the 1950s and 60s. Later in September 1957 Elizabeth and her fellow group of African American students were finally able to enter the school. But their troubles didn't stop there. The Little Rock Nine were regularly abused and shunned by white students and for Elizabeth Eckford her time at the school led to suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. HARDtalk is at her familyhome in Little Rock from where she left to attend Central High more than 60 years ago.

(Photo: Elizabeth Eckford)

It is ten years since Kosovo became Europe’s newest nation. It has not been an easy decade. Relations with neighbouring Serbia remain hostile and international recognition has been patchy with Kosovo is still struggling to get on top of endemic poverty and corruption. Stephen Sackur speaks to Ramush Haradinaj – Kosovo’s Prime Minister. Can Kosovo escape its troubled history?

Image: Ramush Haradinaj (Credit: BBC)

The HARDtalk programme, like so many others in the churn of 24/7 news tends to focus on people and places facing problems and challenges. More often than not we hold the powerful to account for things that went wrong, not right. Are we missing the bigger picture about the world we live in? Stephen Sackur speaks to the psychologist and writer, Steven Pinker. His new book, Enlightenment Now, is a paean to human progress driven by reason and science. How convincing are his reasons to be cheerful?

(Photo: Psychologist and writer Steven Pinker)

Who or what can deliver South Sudan's people from despair? Its first six and half years as an independent country have been an unmitigated disaster. A brutal civil conflict, a broken economy, famine and epic levels of corruption - on any and every measure the world’s newest country is failing. This comes despite some of the largest oil reserves in sub-Saharan Africa. HARDtalk's Stephen Sackur speaks to South Sudan's Minister of Petroleum, Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth.

Image: Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth (Credit: BBC)

Gross misconduct and sexual exploitation in the humanitarian aid industry - what's gone wrong and why? Oxfam is at the centre of a storm of allegations of abusive behaviour, shoddy recruitment and management cover up. Now the entire aid sector is under scrutiny for safeguarding failures which appear to go back decades. Stephen Sackur speaks to Amira Malik Miller, an experienced aid worker who has witnessed misconduct and is prepared to speak out.

Image: Amira Malik Miller (Credit: BBC)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition deal with the Social Democrats looks fragile, with Germany's biggest opposition party now the right wing Alternative for Germany Party. Peter Boehringer is an AfD MP and newly elected chairman of the influential Parliamentary Budget Committee. How will the AfD seek to use its expanded influence?

(Photo: Peter Boehringer, member of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, poses for a portrait in Berlin. Credit: Reuters)

HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur speaks to David Smolansky, anti-regime activist who was the mayor of a district in Caracas until he fled the country to escape a jail term for aiding last year’s street protests. There was a time last year when it seemed President Maduro's grip on power in Venezuela was loosening. Yet here we are two months away from a presidential election with Maduro oozing confidence and his opponents seemingly in disarray. Why does Venezuela's opposition so consistently promise more than it delivers?