The Interview

Vladimir Putin is reported to have said he could take the Ukrainian capital Kiev in two weeks if he wanted to. As he offers increasingly brazen support to the pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine, his message to the West is clear - don't mess with Russia.

Hardtalk speaks to senior Ukrainian diplomat Olexander Scherba. Can Kiev afford to risk all-out war with Moscow?

Hardtalk speaks to Francis Fukuyama, one of America's leading political scientists who, 25 years ago, watched the Communist bloc unravel and concluded that history had delivered a conclusive verdict - liberal democracy had vanquished its ideological rivals. How wise does that proposition sound today in Ukraine, Syria, China, or even in credit-crunched Greece? Has a quarter century of global tumult changed his mind about the end of history?

(Photo: Francis Fukuyama)

Hardtalk is in the West Bank to talk to Yasser Abed Rabbo, who was a senior member of the Palestinian negotiating team in the years after the Oslo Peace Accords were signed with Israel.

In wake of 50 day conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, where does the Palestinian quest for statehood stand?

It's 25 years since the Tianamen Square Massacre in Beijing that saw hundreds killed and many more detained. One award-winning British-Chinese writer and film-maker Xiaolu Guo was a teenager at the time. Decades earlier during the Cultural Revolution her fisherman father had spent more than ten years in correctional labour camps for painting a picture that had angered the authorities. What should the role of the artist or writer be in China today?

Do Christians have a future in the Arab world? It's a question raised with a new sense of urgency as an extraordinarily violent brand of jihadi extremism sweeps through Syria and Iraq. Tens of thousands of Christians, along with other minorities, have been forced from their homes, hundreds murdered. Right across the region Christians are fearful. Hardtalk speaks to Bishop Angaelos of the Egyptian Coptic Church about what can be done to protect the Arab Christian tradition.

American warplanes are once again attacking targets in Iraq, ordered into action by a President who made it his business to end US military involvement in the country. To his critics it's one more piece of evidence pointing to an incoherence of Barack Obama's strategy in a region becoming ever more unstable and dangerous. Hardtalk speaks to Ali Khedery, a former adviser to a number of US ambassadors in Baghdad.

With a ceasefire now in place in Gaza, the Israeli government faces a simple question: what exactly did Operation Protective Edge achieve? For all the death and destruction in Gaza, has Israel's position been strengthened or weakened? Stephen Sackur speaks to Israel's Minister of Intelligence, Yuval Steinitz. Does Israel need a strategic rethink?

Picture: Yuval Steinitz talks to Stephen Sackur, Credit: BBC