Author and explorer - Sir Ranulph Fiennes

The grandeur of the French foreign ministry in Paris gives a sense of how France sees its role in Europe - it's assumed here, Paris will have a dominant role in shaping the continent's future. But how does that square with current reality? The French economy is in a mess, the public is apparently disillusioned with the EU and the new Socialist government has yet to define a clear vision for Europe's future. Stephen Sackur speaks to France's Europe minister Bernard Cazeneuve.Is France capable of leading Europe out of its current crisis?(Image: Bernard Cazeneuve, Minister delegate for European Affairs, France. Credit: JOHN THYS/AFP/GettyImages)

17 Loka 201223min

The aviation industry is in trouble. Fuel prices have soared, there’s been a drop in passenger numbers and some airlines have gone out of business, but in Europe there’s one airline which is bucking the trend. The low-cost, no-frills Ryanair carried almost 80 million passengers last year. Michael O’Leary is the pugnacious, outspoken Chief Executive of Ryanair who has ambitions to make his airline even bigger, but how far can he fly before he gets shot down? He talks to Stephen Sackur in Dublin. (Image: Michael O'Leary, Chief Executive of Ryanair Credit: Getty Images)

12 Loka 201223min

With elections approaching in six months, many Kenyans are apprehensive. The last disputed presidential election resulted in violence which claimed 1500 lives. Two of today’s presidential candidates face charges at the International Criminal Court in The Hague as a result of their alleged involvement in 2008’s bloodshed. HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur talks to one of those men, former education minister, William Ruto. Are Kenya’s politicians failing their people?

9 Loka 201223min

In-depth, hard-hitting interviews with newsworthy personalities.

3 Loka 201223min

Can the euro be saved? Europe's leaders think so; its central bank says there's no limit to the money it's prepared to spend to defend it. But is their solution in danger of destroying not just a currency but Europe's union, too? Otmar Issing fears so. As one of the most senior officials when the European Central Bank was founded, he helped bring the euro into being. Until this year he advised Germany's Angela Merkel and he remains one of Europe's most influential economic voices. When the euro was being planned, Otmar Issing believed that political union was essential. Now he fears that centralising power in Brussels and Frankfurt and sharing financial risk could provoke a public backlash that would wreck both the currency and the continent.

1 Loka 201223min

In the lead-up to November's Presidential election in the United States, groups on the right and left are sounding the alarm at the influence of money on US politics.Katya Adler speaks to one guest who knows a lot about that. At the height of his career he made millions as a career lobbyist in Washington, wining, dining and influencing lawmakers. His fall from grace was dramatic and saw him publicly disgraced and imprisoned for fraud and bribery. A free man once again, Jack Abramoff says he is a reformed man, lobbying to correct what he describes as a corrupt system where he says his behaviour was and continues to be commonplace. Is he trying to make amends for his past or put the blame on others?

27 Syys 201223min

Europe's economic crisis has pushed its governments further and faster down the road of economic integration than many might have expected. But it is also raising serious questions about countries' individual powers and identity. At a time when the people of Europe say they've never trusted the EU less what is the European Union's ultimate goal - to be a federal super-state or a looser union based on common economic goals? Katya Adler has gone to the heart of EU business, Brussels, to the European Parliament to talk to British Conservative MEP Richard Ashworth and to Guy Verhofstadt, former Belgian Prime Minister, now the leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe. Where is the EU project going and are the people of Europe behind it?(Image: European Union flag Credit: Getty Images)

26 Syys 201223min

Kurds in Iraq are growing restless and impatient over the violence and open political rivalries in Baghdad, between Shias and Sunnis. Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region of four million is a haven of relative stability and prosperity and what's more has its own oil riches to exploit. Zeinab Badawi speaks to Ashti Hawrami. For the last six years, he's been Minister for Natural Resources in Kurdistan's regional government. Why are Kurds upsetting the central government by increasingly seizing control of their oil resources and exports? Do they have plans to breakaway?(Image: Ashti Hawrami. Credit: AFP / Getty Images)

24 Syys 201223min