The Interview

“When we suffered under apartheid, those were immoral laws, they institutionalised racism. Where could we go for relief? And I yearned for a better system of law based on values.” Waihiga Mwaura talks to Navanetham or 'Navi' Pillay who has been awarded the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize.

The daughter of a bus driver, Navi grew up in segregated South Africa witnessing racial and gender discrimination on a daily basis. Determine...

“There's a toxic narrative around displacement which has been politicised and part of the fund is to re-humanise and make the connection because those people who have the great fortune to be housed, to be in nations that are free of conflict at the moment, we're being asked to be displaced from our humanity. And so art, the foundation of art is to allow people to make pathways of connection to remind us that we have more in c...

“Diplomacy is about talking to lots of people with whom you don't agree. And that's what diplomats do. And I think we would do that... The Vatican has always had very little difficulty, perhaps too little difficulty, in dealing with all sorts of political actors, all sorts regimes, all sorts of political systems.”

Julie Etchingham speaks to Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Holy See’s Secretary for Relations with Stat...

“When I was writing it I didn’t think it would touch such a universal chord, you know, because it seemed to me so weird, my childhood and my mother and my life, it was, but of course, everybody has something. And a lot of people I meet have said this to me and that it helped them see their parents as human beings and not just parents.”

Ishadrita Lahiri speaks to acclaimed author and activist, Arundhati Roy. One of ...

“Nigeria can fight insecurity, head on. It only requires it for the commander-in-chief to be determined that this will end. Those criminals live with us. In our communities, people know them. I will go to the communities and find them. I will take control. And I will not do it from Abuja.” Madina Maishanu speaks to Peter Obi, one of Nigeria’s leading opposition politicians, now with the Nigeria Democratic Congre...

“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 Tah-ray Yui, Taiwan’s representative to the US.

The island, which lies roughly 100 miles off the coast of main...

“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.” Megha Mohan speaks to Meredith Whittaker, president of the Signal Foundation, which runs the encrypted messaging app Signal. Its end-to-end encyption ...

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, ...

“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 rap...

“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 Unite...

“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. Cohn rose to prominence as Senator Joe McCar...

“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 frustra...

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 continen...

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, clai...

“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.” Laura Kuenssberg speaks to Earl Spencer, brother of Diana, Princess of Wales. Diana was one of the most famous w...

“Not just African musician. Everybody, even journalist, even president, even football player, even promoter. We need to do it for those people who suffer, who don’t have food or security. We need everybody to denounce it. Speak louder, talk more loudly about the situation. Not just for Congo, but all Africa.”

Jewel Kiriungi speaks to Congolese musician Fally Ipupa, one of Africa’s biggest music stars.

His musi...

‘I compare the erosion of international humanitarian law with bankruptcy it happens gradually at first and then all of a sudden instantly. This is what is happening with the Geneva Conventions at the moment. You look away, you look away, you look away, you increase your tolerance level until all of a sudden you realize we've crossed the line. We've crossed the red line, and we've done so collectively, because these things are...

“This is one of the exact aspect of hybrid warfare of Russia… They are targeting us specifically to create dissensions, to create and to prop up artificially some voices in our societies that otherwise would be quite marginal and create dissensions. So they want to attack us and make sure that our democracies are more fragile, because the more fragile we are, the less we're able to counter their aggressive actions.&rdq...

Lyse Doucet, the BBC’s chief international correspondent, meets Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi as the Taliban seeks greater international recognition. The Taliban returned to power five years ago but Russia is still the only country to have formally recognised their rule. Afghanistan is pushing for stronger diplomatic relations, but their treatment of women and girls remains one of the biggest obsta...