Hardtalk

Maybe we shouldn't be surprised that a vast gulf is opening up between Covid vaccination rates in the richest countries and the poorest. But still the numbers are shocking. While the UK has given 27% of its population a first dose, many nations have yet to inject a single arm. Hardtalk speaks to Dr Seth Berkley, head of Gavi, the Global Vaccine Alliance and key driver of the effort to ensure the whole world gets Covid protection. It is a great ambition; is it achievable?

How far does the Republican party need to go to reinvent itself following Donald Trumps defeat in the November Presidential election? Elizabeth Neumann, a former counter terror official in the Trump Administration says she saw America’s far right, white-supremacists as a growing security threat and she felt Donald Trump was fanning the flames of their extremism. In April 2020 she resigned. Now she says she is fighting for what she calls accountability in the Republican party - but has her stand come too late?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Timothy Snyder, renowned American historian of totalitarianism and the Holocaust, about the Trump presidency. Professor Snyder believes the former US president and his movement brought America face to face with early stage fascism. Historical parallels may be seductive, but are they useful?

Stephen Sackur speaks to the Booker prize-winning author Douglas Stuart. His novel, Shuggie Bain, centres on a boy growing up amid poverty, addiction and intolerance in Glasgow. There are deep parallels with his own life. How does he extract so much love from hardship?

Thousands of Indian farmers are keeping up their long-running protest against farm law reform. Stephen Sackur interviews Yogendra Yadav, leader of the Swaraj Party and prominent backer of the farmers’ cause. India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has faced down a host of opponents in the past. Is his government versus the farmers a defining moment for India?

Right now the world is seeing two sides of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The one he wants you to see is the scientifically advanced nation offering the world an effective Covid vaccine known as Sputnik V. The one he’d rather you ignore is the repressive authoritarian state that ruthlessly eliminates those who threaten the status quo. Stephen Sackur speaks to Kirill Dmitriev a Putin ally, the boss of one of Russia’s sovereign wealth funds and a key backer of the Russian vaccine.

Stephen Sackur speaks to France’s Europe Minister, Clément Beaune. The European Union faces a huge Covid challenge. The vaccine rollout has been slow, internal free movement is a concern, and tensions with Britain post-Brexit have risen. Is the virus exposing weaknesses in the EU?

Stephen Sackur speaks to American psychologist Professor Laurie Santos, whose work at Yale University on the science of happiness has won her an audience of millions thanks to her podcast and free online courses. With strict lockdowns in many countries around the world, isolation, economic insecurity, the absence of family and friends, Covid is putting enormous pressure on our mental health. Can we really learn how to be happy?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Evan Medeiros, who was President Obama’s top adviser on China policy. Under Donald Trump, US-China relations soured dramatically. A potentially dangerous era of competition and even confrontation beckons. What should President Biden's strategy be towards China?

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya says she won last year’s presidential election in Belarus, and she is still intent on toppling Europe’s last de-facto dictator, Alexander Lukashenko. After months of protests and brutal repression, has Belarus’s revolution stalled?(Photo: Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. Credit: Reuters)

The roll out of Covid-19 vaccines has boosted hopes the virus can be tamed. But it will have to be worldwide effort if it is to be effective, and right now the signs aren’t good. While tens of millions have already been vaccinated in the rich west, the world’s poor are facing a very long wait. The phrase ‘vaccine apartheid’ has already been coined. Stephen Sackur speaks to the Chief Scientist at the World Health Organisation Dr Soumya Swaminathan. Is vaccine inequity undermining the fight against Covid?

President Biden has reportedly paused arms sales to Saudi Arabia as his administration reviews relations with its long-time strategic ally. But is there any prospect of external or internal pressure challenging the authority of Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman? Stephen Sackur speaks to exiled opposition activist Madawi Al-Rasheed. What next for Saudi Arabia, reform, repression, or maybe both?

The new year sees Ireland facing the twin challenges of Covid and post-Brexit economics. How is the country coping? And is Dublin’s strategic vision of Northern Ireland’s future changing? Stephen Sackur interviews Ireland’s Europe Minister, Thomas Byrne.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is the most resilient opponent Vladimir Putin has ever faced. Navalny survived assassination by Novichok, returned to Russia and is now in a prison cell. Stephen Sackur speaks to Navalny’s chief of staff Leonid Volkov. The opposition movement has supporters willing to take to the streets in anti-Putin protests in Russian towns and cities; but do they have a strategy capable of forcing Putin out of power?(Photo: Leonid Volkov appears via video link on Hardtalk)

Israel is leading the world in the roll-out of the Covid-19 vaccine. More than a million Israelis have had their second dose, the prime minister claims the vast majority of adults will have been immunised by mid march, allowing the country to ease restrictions. Does the Health Minister, Yuli Edelstein, think Israel has shown responsible and ethical coronavirus management?(Photo: Yuli Edelstein appears via video link on Hardtalk)

Can and should anything be done to halt the inexorable rise of the global technology giants such as Amazon, Google and Facebook? Over the past decade we’ve seen these tech titans come to dominate data collection, cloud computing, retail, social media and publishing, but now there is pushback from anti-monopoly lawyers and sceptical politicians. Stephen Sackur speaks to the American lawyer Lina Khan, who is at the forefront of the movement to tame big tech. But whose interest is she serving?(Photo: Lina Khan appears via videolink on Hardtalk)

The Chinese government began this year by intensifying its crackdown on the pro-democracy opposition in Hong Kong. Amid mass arrests, the surveillance of the media and academia is there any safe space left for those fighting for Hong Kong’s political autonomy? Stephen Sackur speaks to long-time activist in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, Kenneth Chan. Is the fight for freedom in Hong Kong lost?(Photo: Keneth Chan appears via video link on Hardtalk)

Some of the things the Covid pandemic has taken away are easier to quantify than others. The death toll and the job losses make headlines, but the closed arts venues, the lack of shared creative experiences, not so much. But make no mistake, the arts face an unprecedented crisis. HARDtalk's Stephen Sackur speaks to Tamara Rojo, the internationally renowned dancer and artistic director of the English National Ballet. Can the performing arts withstand the Covid calamity?

Donald Trump has secured a unique place in the history books as the first president in American history to be impeached twice. What that means in practical terms isn't clear. There’ll be no Trump trial in the Senate before Joe Biden moves into the White House, but Democrats insist he will be held to account for the assault on the Capitol. Stephen Sackur speaks to the veteran lawyer Alan Dershowitz, part of the defence team in the first impeachment. Will he get involved in the sequel, and how will it play in a divided America?

South Africa is now grappling with a highly transmissible new strain of Covid-19 that is causing international concern. Stephen Sackur interviews Professor Barry Schoub, virologist and Chair of the South African Government’s Advisory Committee on Covid-19 vaccines. What does the country’s Covid crisis mean for the worldwide effort to end the pandemic?(Photo: Professor Barry Schoub appears via video link on Hardtalk)