The Interview

We are in a new era where human rights have been replaced by trade and big businesses and they have almost entirely depleted our ability to show humanity to people on the other side.Lucy Hockings speaks to Baroness Arminka Helic, Member of the House of Lords and campaigner for refugees and victims of war.A former Bosnian refugee, she saw first hand the legacy of conflict-related sexual violence and the importance of ending impunity for rape and assault committed as a weapon of war. She tells of her warm welcome to the UK in 1992 and wants us always to remember the human beings behind the refugee statistics.Baroness Helic talks about the progress in raising awareness of the crimes and her own work in launching the ‘Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative’ in 2012. She says that it’s really hard for victims to speak out because of the stigma around rape but when they do, their voices need to be heard and the crimes documented.She also speaks about the plight of asylum seekers and the use of starvation in conflict zones like Gaza and Sudan. A Conservative peer, she’s keen to take the politics out of immigration and remember our humanity.The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC. You can listen on the BBC World Service on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 0800 GMT. Or you can listen to The Interview as a podcast, out three times a week on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts.Presenter: Lucy Hockings Producers: Clare Williamson, Farhana Haider Editor: Justine LangGet in touch with us on email [email protected] and use the hashtag #TheInterviewBBC on social media.(Image: Baroness Arminka Helic. Credit: Roger Harris/House of Lords)

Michael Berkeley speaks to Gabriel Zuchtreigel, Director of Pompeii in Southern Italy, one of the world’s most important archaeological sites.History, he says, comes alive through archaeology, helping us to appreciate our shared humanity with those who lived thousands of years ago, and providing a more democratic way of learning about the past. Mount Vesuvius, the volcano that erupted and buried Pompeii in ash and pumice, did not distinguish between the wealthy and the poor in its victims. Gabriel Zuchtriegel was appointed Director of Pompeii in 2021, and has since begun a major excavation, and made a number of significant finds. But it is walking around the site at night, emptied of the crowds, that he feels the ancient city come alive. It is as if, he says, the inhabitants only left a few minutes ago.The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC, including with artist Doris Salcedo and author Sir Salman Rushdie. You can listen on the BBC World Service on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 0800 GMT. Or you can listen to The Interview as a podcast, out three times a week on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts. Presenter: Michael Berkeley Producers: Clare Walker and Lucy Sheppard Editor: Justine LangGet in touch with us on email [email protected] and use the hashtag #TheInterviewBBC on social media.(Image: Gabriel Zuchtreigel Credit: Ivan Romano/Getty Images)

BBC presenter Amol Rajan speaks to the British artificial intelligence entrepreneur Mustafa Suleyman, Chief Executive of Microsoft AI.He believes in the enormous potential of AI to be a force for good in the world, changing how we live and work for the better. He is committed to developing a humanist superintelligence, one that always works to serve people and never vice versa. But he remains clear about what he sees as the risks, issuing a warning that without the right ethical safeguards, AI could grow powerful enough to overwhelm humanity. "As somebody who’s deeply techno-optimistic, I invite people to be also healthily afraid and sceptical," he says.The son of a London taxi-driver and a nurse, he dropped out of Oxford University and by his mid-twenties had co-founded DeepMind, the pioneering artificial intelligence research lab. By the time it was sold to Google four years later in 2014, it was worth a reported $400 million.The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC. You can listen on the BBC World Service on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 0800 GMT. Or you can listen to The Interview as a podcast, out three times a week on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts.Presenter: Amol Rajan Producers: Kate Collins, Laura Cooper and Lucy Sheppard Editor: Justine LangGet in touch with us on email [email protected] and use the hashtag #TheInterviewBBC on social media.(Image: Mustafa Suleyman Credit: Stephen Brashear/Getty Images)

Steve Rosenberg, the BBC’s Russia editor, speaks to Nigel Casey, the UK’s ambassador to Russia, about the challenges of working in Moscow on behalf of a government that views President Putin’s Russia as a threat to Britain. He believes this job is one of the most challenging - and important - of his career. In a wide ranging conversation, the ambassador describes his life in Moscow over the last two years, a period of heightened tensions between the UK and Russia after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.The number of diplomats in the city has been drastically reduced and, for a British ambassador in Moscow, there are daily challenges to deal with. You’re going to hear his experience of being followed wherever he goes in Russia and how, on occasions, his staff face harassment. He sees a key part of his job - defusing potentially dangerous diplomatic misunderstanding with the Russian government. He also reveals the gap between the anti-British rhetoric heard in the country’s state media and the genuine curiosity of ordinary Russians towards the UK. The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC. You can listen on the BBC World Service on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 0800 GMT. Or you can listen to The Interview as a podcast, out three times a week on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts.Presenter: Steve Rosenberg Producers: Ben Tavener, Clare Williamson and Lucy Sheppard Editor: Justine LangGet in touch with us on email [email protected] and use the hashtag #TheInterviewBBC on social media.(Image: Nigel Casey. Credit: UK Gov)

“In Latin America, we have way more than violence, we're more than salsa as our music, or food, or culture. It's a pleasure and a responsibility to share it with the world.”BBC presenter Nikki Bedi speaks to Mexican actor Diego Calva about his life and career. Diego Calva first made waves in independent cinema before landing major roles in hit series like Narcos: Mexico and the award-winning Hollywood epic Babylon, where he starred alongside Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie. It was his first American film — and it earned him widespread critical acclaim.Raised in Mexico City by a single mother, he originally set out to be a writer and director before fate intervened. One day, when an actor didn’t turn up for a college film he was working on, Diego was asked to step in.Since then he’s continued to build an impressive international career and has a starring role in the second series of The Night Manager, the acclaimed television drama based on the book by John le Carré.Diego Calva talks about navigating fame, challenging stereotypes, and the power of telling Latin American stories on the global stage. The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC. You can listen on the BBC World Service on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 0800 GMT. Or you can listen to The Interview as a podcast, out three times a week on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts.Presenter: Nikki Bedi Producer: Farhana Haider Editor: Nick HollandGet in touch with us on email [email protected] and use the hashtag #TheInterviewBBC on social media.(Image: Diego Calva. Credit: Karwai Tang/WireImage)