The Interview

“The state of Lebanon needs to have an exclusivity of arms. And definitely, Hezbollah needs to be disarmed… Disarming a group or a community is not possible by force, it's possible by conviction. You put pressure, but you cannot eliminate a whole society, a whole community. We need to have an exclusivity of arms in the hand of the state, an exclusivity of decision through a political process, pressuring Hezbollah to disarm, but getting also in parallel a full withdrawal of the Israelis from occupied Lebanese territories and a full cessation of hostilities.”

Jeremy Bowen speaks to Gebran Bassil, the Lebanese politician who served as the country’s Foreign Minister between 2014 and 2020.

Mr. Bassil, who is from the country’s Maronite Christian ethnic group, leads the right-wing Free Patriotic Movement political party. The party was founded over 30 years ago by the former President of Lebanon, Michel Aoun, who is also Bassil’s father-in-law.

In October 2024, a year after the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October started the current Middle East conflict, the Free Patriotic Movement party announced that it was cutting ties with Hezbollah. Bassil slammed the Iranian-backed militant group for threatening the safety and stability of Lebanon when it launched its own attacks on Israel in support of Hamas.

As the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah continues in southern Lebanon, Bassil and his party are part of growing calls for the country to take a new direction.

Presenter: Jeremy Bowen

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(Image: Gebran Bassil. Credit: Getty)

“There is more spending in defence and less spending in global health or in public health or health security, which makes us vulnerable...Because the invisible enemy could be more impactful. Imagine, have you ever seen a war in recent memory that killed 20 million people? Why can't we come to our senses?”

Justin Webb speaks to Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organisation, about the invisible threat of viruses and the rapid spread of a new strain of Ebola.

Tedros recently visited the Democratic Republic of Congo where this latest outbreak started. It is particularly challenging because it involves a rare species of Ebola for which there is no vaccine, and the epicentre is in an area affected by conflict. There are also cases in neighbouring Uganda.

The WHO General-Director claims governments are focusing too much on defence spending, and he makes an impassioned plea for countries to allocate more money to global health, and to prevent future pandemics.

Thank you to the Today team for its help in making this programme.

Presenter: Justin Webb

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(Image: Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Credit: Reuters)

Mark Savage speaks to musician Paul McCartney. Born in Liverpool, England, during the Second World War, he found fame as a member of the legendary British band The Beatles in the 1960s, widely regarded as one of the most influential acts in music history.

McCartney shared primary singing and songwriting duties with bandmate John Lennon, and along with George Harrison and Ringo Starr, the four-piece became a global pop music sensation with hits such as Twist and Shout, Yesterday and Hey Jude.

They remain one of the best-selling musical acts of all time alongside the likes of Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson.

McCartney was knighted for his services to music in 1997, but despite his huge achievements, the 83-year-old seems to be showing no interest in retirement — he’s releasing his 19th solo album.

The Boys of Dungeon Lane is inspired by his experiences growing up in post-war Liverpool, during which a young McCartney, carrying a guitar and wearing a bowler hat to catch attention, would hitchhike with John Lennon to places as far away as Paris.

Presenter: Mark Savage

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(Image: Paul McCartney. Credit: Getty Images)

“I do want to make money, but I want to make money in the right way, ethically. But more importantly, I want use this money to be able to give back.”

Charles Gitonga speaks to entrepreneur and businessman Mohammed Dewji about becoming one of Africa’s youngest billionaires and how he wants to use his wealth.

Mohammed Dewji is a Tanzanian businessman, entrepreneur and philanthropist who has primarily accumulated his wealth from his family business, an East African conglomerate founded by his grandparents and expanded by his father in the 1970s. It deals with textile manufacturing, flour milling, beverages and edible oils.

About twenty-five years ago, Africa had no dollar billionaires. Today, there are still only 23, not a huge number for a continent rich in mineral wealth and an abundance of relatively cheap labour. Their combined wealth has grown to more than 100 billion US dollars.

Dewji signed the Giving Pledge in 2016 promising to donate at least half his fortune to philanthropic causes. He explains why he believes billionaires have a responsibility to give back.

Thank you to the Focus on Africa team for its help in making this programme.

Presenter: Charles Gitonga

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(Image: Mohammed Dewji. Credit: Getty)

‘We are transforming feelings of revenge into reconciliation. We are transforming despair into hope, trauma into healing. So the future is peace is also like a manual, like a guide, not just for a shared journey across the holy land, but a guide for human conscience.’

Rajan Datar speaks to Palestinian and Israeli authors and peace activists Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon.

Maoz Inon‘s parents were killed during the Hamas attacks of October 7th. Aziz Abu Sarah’s brother died after being detained for nearly a year in an Israeli military prison. Together, they have forged an unlikely friendship across the Israeli Palestine divide, become leading voices for reconciliation, arguing that peace can only be built through empathy, dialogue and a recognition of each other’s humanity.

Their new book, The Future Is Peace, chronicles their eight day drive across Israel and Palestine.

Presenter: Rajan Datar

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(Image: Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon. Credit: Getty)

“It's what we call a new world disorder: 60 wars, 120 million people - refugees and displaced, 300 million people hungry, plus another 45 million according to the World Food Program as a result of the constrictions in the Strait of Hormuz. That's a disordered world. And people can inveigh against international institutions as much as they like, but the problem we're facing is not that there's too strong an international system - it's too weak.”

Caitríona Perry speaks to David Miliband, President of the International Rescue Committee.

Miliband, who was previously British Foreign Secretary, first took up the post in 2013, overseeing the New York-headquartered organisation whose humanitarian relief operations are active in over 40 war-affected countries.

As the world navigates multiple conflicts across the Middle East and Africa, in places such as Sudan, Lebanon and Gaza, humanitarian crises continue to grow.

They are further compounded by cuts to international aid, the breakdown of the rules-based order, plus trade and shipping difficulties due to the conflict in Iran.

This means aid organisations like the IRC are increasingly having to adapt how they respond.

The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC, including episodes with the World Health Organisation’s Hanan Balkhy; former US Ambassador to the UN, Samanthan Power; and humanitarian chef José Andrés. 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: Caitríona Perry

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(Image: David Miliband. Credit: EPA/Shutterstock)

Amol Rajan speaks to tech billionaire Reid Hoffman, about why he thinks artificial intelligence could transform the future of work.

Reid Hoffman is best known for co-founding LinkedIn, the largest professional networking platform in the world, and revolutionising the world of work. He wants to do it again with a rapid adoption of AI in the workplace in a way he says is safe and ethical.

As one of the world’s richest men he also gives his thoughts on tech billionaires and his former relationship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Thank you to the Radical with Amol Rajan team for its help in making this programme.

Presenter: Amol Rajan

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(Image: Reid Hoffman. Credit: Jason Alden/Getty Images)

“Historically, as a region, we’ve been extracted at two levels. If you look at the AI value chain, a lot of our youth, some who have studied computer science, are left at data labelling roles at the bottom of the value chain, where the least value is created. In a different way, a lot of our data is being extracted for free to train those systems. We want to make sure we don’t go into similar models that we had during colonisation.”

She warns that billions of people risk being left out of the artificial intelligence systems shaping modern life, with languages, cultures and knowledge from large parts of the world underrepresented in the technology being built today.

Kate argues that AI risks repeating old patterns of global inequality, with poorer countries supplying valuable data while richer nations reap the rewards.

She explains why the Global South should help shape the future of AI, rather than simply supply the data behind it.

The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC, including episodes with Sundar Pichai and Julia Gillard.

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: Leanne Byrne

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

(Image: Kate Kallot. Credit: Getty)

“I was born in Coleraine, then I moved to Wales and then I moved to Ireland. It's very complicated and I feel there's a strange sense if you grow up somewhere different from where you were born. That's just true of everyone. If your accent doesn't match your name - as in my case - I think you walk alongside all your life a kind of ghost-self in that there's always a sense of ‘who would I have been if we'd stayed?’”

Katie Razzall speaks to acclaimed writer Maggie O’Farrell. The 54-year-old has been a published author for more than 25 years, with her books translated into more than 40 languages.

O’Farrell shot to wider international fame following the award-winning screen adaptation of her 2020 novel Hamnet, a story about the son of the English playwright William Shakespeare.

She’s now publishing Land, her sweeping new tale centred around an Irish map-maker working for the British army at the time of the Great Famine in Ireland in the mid-19th century. Between 1845 and 1852, at least one million people died due to starvation and disease, with a further two million people fleeing Ireland to escape the famine.

The book is about colonisation and devastation, set against a backdrop of families left to die of starvation on estates owned by British aristocrats and landowners. Drawing on her own family history during that period, it’s O’Farrell’s most political work yet - and as she explains, its themes still resonate with the world today.

Presenter: Katie Razzall

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(Image: Maggie O’Farrell. Credit: Getty)

“I feel numb. It feels unreal to me, having been in Sudan all my life. I have never imagined that it will turn into a war field, it looks like a nightmare. At first that it is just days or months or even a year, but it went on and it kept escalating. Even our homes are no longer habitable. One of my sons went back to have a look and he said you wouldn't even find a spoon for your tea.”

After popular protests led to Bashir’s fall, Sudan’s presidency was replaced by a Sovereign Council made up of military and civilian representatives. Aisha Musa was one of only two women appointed to the body, an unprecedented position of influence for a woman in Sudan.

But hopes of democratic change collapsed with the outbreak of civil war in 2023 between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

Aisha reflects on working alongside the generals responsible for Sudan’s civil war, what it would take to rebuild democracy and her frustration at UK visa restrictions for Sudanese refugees.

The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC, including episodes with Volodymyr Zelensky and António Guterres. 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: James Copnall

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

(Image: Aisha Musa Credit: Mahmoud Hjaj/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)