Michael McCaul: Is Biden up to facing off with Putin?

Is Florida the state where the American dream turned sour? HARDtalk's Stephen Sackur talks to the writer Carl Hiaasen whose hugely popular newspaper columns and darkly comic novels cast a jaundiced eye on the Sunshine State where he was born and continues to live. His writing is fueled by anger - at rotten politics, crooked business and environmental vandalism.

4 Feb 201923min

Laura Boldrini is a centre-left Italian politician. Until last year she was the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, the Italian Parliament’s lower chamber. She has received many online threats wishing her dead or raped. Zeinab Badawi asks the Sicilian MP about her experiences, and what her current situation tells us about the state of politics in Italy and Europe’s changing mood.(Photo: Laura Boldrini. Credit: European Photopress Agency)

1 Feb 201923min

Shaun Ley talk to former spy chief Amrullah Saleh, now a candidate for vice-president in Afghanistan. Seventeen years on after the American-led invasion, the US and the Taliban are at last talking peace. With 45,000 Afghans who served their country dead in the last five years, and the Taliban still fighting, isn't it time for this war exhausted country to give peace a chance?(Photo: Amrullah Saleh (R) is embraced by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. Credit: Wakil Kohsar/AFP/Getty Images)

30 Jan 201923min

What drives an exclusive band of human beings to push beyond the boundaries of existing knowledge and experience? Hardtalk talks to Bertrand Piccard, the renowned explorer and aviator; the first to fly non-stop around the world in a hot air balloon. Right now, he’s using his own experience with solar powered aircraft to encourage sustainable tech innovation, but is decarbonising the global economy a challenge too far, even for this pioneer?(Photo: Bertrand Piccard. Credit: Remy Gabalda/AFP/Getty Images)

28 Jan 201923min

In little more than two months from now, Britain is scheduled to leave the European Union. That beguilingly simple statement is at the heart of a political crisis which deepens by the day. The ruling Conservative party is riven with splits; so too is the Labour opposition. If Parliament’s Brexit paralysis persists, then Britain will leave with no deal in place, no orderly transition, and the prospect of economic disruption. What will Labour do in this moment of political truth? HARDtalk's Stephen Sackur talks to the UK's Shadow Chancellor, Labour's John McDonnell.Image: John McDonnell (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

25 Jan 201923min

Until last year, Malaysia hadn't experienced a real change of government in the sixty years since independence. Prime Minister Mahatir, sailing back into power in opposition colours, can remember when Malaysia threw off the British colonial yoke. He was in his thirties then. Now in his 90s, he says next year he'll hand over to a former rival in his 70s. Malaysia’s Minister of Youth and Sport, Syed Saddiq, is the youngest cabinet minister in Asia at 26. Is it time to skip a generation?

23 Jan 201923min

Tanzania is one of Africa’s fastest growing nations economically and demographically. It’s also governed by one of the continent’s most controversial leaders, President John Magufuli. Tundu Lissu is one of his most prominent domestic opponents; at least, he was, until gunmen pumped more than a dozen bullets into his body in 2017. Lissu survived and, after recovering in hospital in Europe, he is determined now to rejoin the fight against a ruler he describes as a petty dictator.Image: Tundu Lissu (Credit: Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty Images)

21 Jan 201923min

HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur is in Paris for an exclusive interview with the country’s Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire. The political and economic mood in France has shifted dramatically in a few short months. Last summer President Macron was pushing ahead with his reform agenda claiming that France was back. Now he is besieged by critics, forced into retreat by the Yellow Vest movement and grappling with problems inside and outside the EU. Has the Macron moment already passed?(Photo: Bruno Le Maire leaves after the weekly cabinet meeting at the Elysee palace in Paris. (Credit: Francois Guillot/AFP)

18 Jan 201923min