The Interview

“Regardless of whether it's Trump or anybody else in the White House, we should expect something quite significant to be going on in terms of the United States’ relationship with the rest of the world.”
Amol Rajan speaks to Helen Thompson, professor of political economy at Cambridge University, about a new era of global power play.
In this conversation, she traces the roots of the re-birth of US expansionism back to the 19th century, and America’s early presidents. She also explains how the dynamics of geopolitics are tied to the control of resources, in particular oil.
Professor Thompson is an expert on the history of globalisation who has taught at Britain’s Cambridge University for more than 30 years. Her current research looks at the geopolitics of energy, and the long history of this century’s global disruptions.
Thank you to the Radical team for its help in making this programme.

The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC, including episodes with the Colombian president Gustavo Petro, New Zealand’s former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. 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: Anna Budd, Lucy Sheppard
Editor: Justine Lang
Get in touch with us on email [email protected] and use the hashtag #TheInterviewBBC on social media.
(Image: Helen Thompson Credit: Anna Budd/BBC)

‘All they have seen is a 40-year rule that has resulted in high unemployment rates, poor services, and an increased violation of human rights. This young population is yearning to see a different president, a different kind of Uganda.’
Catherine Byaruhanga speaks to human rights lawyer and activist Nicholas Opiyo about Ugandan politics, the rule of law, and the impact of 40 years of one leader on the nation.
He’s taken on multiple cases of national significance, including successfully overturning the country’s anti-LGBTQ legislation back in 2014 - although this has since been re-instated, and represented a former rebel commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army.
Opiyo has also represented Ugandan opposition politician Bobi Wine, who, despite previously being arrested and charged with treason in 2018, challenged the 81-year-old incumbent President Yoweri Museveni in January’s disputed elections.
These elections were watched from afar by Opiyo, who was recently forced to flee his home country for his own safety, but still continues his human rights work.

The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC, including episodes with UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, Botswana’s President Duma Boko, and Dr. Badr Abdelatty, Foreign Minister of Egypt. 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: Catherine Byaruhanga
Producers: Clare Williamson, Ben Cooper and Farhana Haider
Editor: Justine Lang
Get in touch with us on email [email protected] and use the hashtag #TheInterviewBBC on social media.
(Image: Nicholas Opiyo. Credit: Reuters)

‘It's so far from your reality because I didn't know anybody and I was an immigrant’
Anita Rani speaks to the Beijing-born director Chloé Zhao about her career and her latest film, Hamnet.
Zhao made history in 2021 when, at the age of just 39, she became the first woman of colour - and, at the time, only the second woman ever - to win the best director award at the Oscars.
Now, just five years after her Oscars triumph for Nomadland, Zhao is making headlines once again as the director of the critically-acclaimed movie Hamnet, a dramatisation about the son of the English playwright William Shakespeare. It won two Golden Globe awards, including one for ‘Best Drama Movie’, and has recently been nominated for 8 Academy Awards too.
Thank you to the Woman’s Hour team for their help in making this programme.

The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC, including episodes with Indian author Twinkle Khanna, former US Vice President Kamala Harris, and Hollywood legend Sir Anthony Hopkins. 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: Anita Rani
Producers: Emma Pearce, Ben Cooper and Lucy Sheppard
Editor: Justine Lang
Get in touch with us on email [email protected] and use the hashtag #TheInterviewBBC on social media.
(Image: Chloé Zhao. Credit: Emma McIntyre/WireImage)

“There are those that believe the power of law should be replaced by the law of power”
Anna Foster speaks to Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, about the threat to international law from states acting through power and influence instead, in particular America. Defending the rule of law is necessary, he says, if we are to have a better world.
He also sets out the case for reform of the UN Security Council to allow it to remain effective and relevant in the face of increasingly complex global conflicts.
Antonio Guterres has been at the head of the United Nations since 2017, and is now entering his final year in office.

Thank you to the Today team for its help in making this programme.

The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC, including episodes with Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro, former Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and Mustafa Suleyman, boss of Microsoft AI. 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: Anna Foster
Producer: Lucy Sheppard
Editor: Justine Lang
Get in touch with us on email [email protected] and use the hashtag #TheInterviewBBC on social media.
(Image: Antonio Guterres. Credit: Per-Anders Pettersson/Getty Images)

Nick Robinson speaks to Polish President Karol Nawrocki about Trump, Russia and the future of Europe.
A historian and a boxer by background, he was elected in June 2025 with the support of Poland’s conservative opposition Law and Justice Party.
A social conservative and devout Catholic, he is also an outspoken critic of the European Union and staunch supporter of Donald Trump, believing that the US President is the only person who can stop the threat to Europe from Vladimir Putin’s Russia: "Europe for a number of years was involved in not so important things, in ideological issues such as Green Deal for instance, climate policy, migration issues. It was not building its resilience and its security."
The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC, including episodes with Google CEO Sundar Pichai, American singer-songwriter Patti Smith and Jordan Bardella, leader of the National Rally in France. 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: Nick Robinson
Producers: Oscar Pearson and Lucy Sheppard
Editor: Justine Lang
Get in touch with us on email [email protected] and use the hashtag #TheInterviewBBC on social media.
(Image: Polish President Karol Nawrocki. Credit: Wojtek Radwanski/AFP)