Suede singer-songwriter Brett Anderson

Why is a former head of state-sanctioned executions now an opponent of the death penalty? A host of countries around the world still impose the ultimate punishment on the most serious criminals - death. But what is it like to be in command of the machinery of state-sanctioned execution? In a rare insight, Stephen Sackur speaks to Allen Ault, who spent years running the corrections system in the southern US state of Georgia. He organised the killing of criminals until he could stand it no more. What changed?(Photo: Allen Ault - Former Commissioner of Corrections, Georgia, USA, on BBC Hardtalk)

31 Mar 201722min

He spent 26 years in jail for trying to topple South Africa’s white minority government. Veteran anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada has died. He was 87 years old. For 18 years he was with Nelson Mandela on Robben Island, and when he was released from prison in October 1989 at the age of 60, he continued the struggle for a non racial South Africa. After the first democratic elections in 1994, President Mandela persuaded him to join him in government as his political adviser. Sarah Montague interviewed Ahmed Kathrada for Hardtalk in April 2014. A man who had given his entire life to the liberation struggle, he had no time for hatred or bitterness.(Photo: Ahmed Kathrada. Credit: Getty Images)

29 Mar 201723min

Looking back, what does the last surviving prosecutor at the Nazi Nuremberg trials think they achieved? 98-year-old Ben Ferencz helped liberate the death camps in Europe when he was serving in the US military. Himself a Jew from central Europe, he speaks to Zeinab Badawi in Florida about what he has learnt in his long life about the nature of evil.

27 Mar 201723min

Does Turkey's main opposition party have a credible alternative vision for the country? Zeinab Badawi talks to Selin Sayek Böke, a deputy leader for the CHP. Her party was established by the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and was the automatic party of government for decades. So what went wrong?(Photo: Selin Sayek Böke, Deputy Leader of the CHP on Hardtalk)

24 Mar 201723min

HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur speaks to Joshua Wong, a leader of the so-called umbrella pro-democracy protests that swept Hong Kong in 2014. He's now the secretary general of the Demosisto political party. But since Hong Kong is due to elect a new chief executive later this month, who will not be chosen by the people, has the territory's pro-democracy movement failed?

22 Mar 201723min

Sarah Montague speaks to Zimbabwe’s Tourism Minister Walter Mzembi. His job is to persuade people to holiday in a country where doctors, nurses and teachers have all been on strike, half the rural population face starvation and the economy is in the grip of a major currency crisis. He's worked alongside President Mugabe for the last decade. But at the age of 93 and with plans to stand in elections next year, isn't it time for the oldest head of state to go?(Photo: Walter Mzembi. Credit: Getty Images)

20 Mar 201723min

Sarah Montague speaks to Vladimir Kara-Murza, Vice-Chairman of the pro-democracy movement Open Russia. He was rushed to hospital in Moscow when his organs started failing and says he knew immediately what was happening because the same thing had happened two years previously. Both times he claims, he was the victim of deliberate poisoning. He also claims he was targeted because of his opposition to President Putin and the Russian government. After his stay in Washington, where he is currently recovering, he intends to go back to Moscow. Does he still fear for his life?(Photo: Vladimir Kara-Murza)

17 Mar 201723min

Bob Graham is one of the most popular politicians in contemporary American history. He has never lost an election and has served as a state legislator, Florida governor, and in the US Senate. He hails from the progressive, liberal wing of the Democratic party. But with Donald Trump in the White House and the Republicans controlling Capitol Hill, Zeinab Badawi asks him, has his type of politics gone out of fashion?(Photo: Bob Graham. Credit: Getty Images)

15 Mar 201723min