Hardtalk

Is the World Bank braced for turbulence ahead? HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur speaks to the bank's interim President Kristalina Georgieva. For more than seven decades, the World Bank has been a pillar of international consensus forged in Washington – where ‘rich world’ money has been funnelled into poorer nations prepared to play by its rules. But maybe the consensus is breaking down. The World Bank is about to get a new Trump-nominated president who has been sharply critical of its past activities. (Photo: Kristalina Georgieva. Credit: Stephanie Lecocq/European Photopress Agency)

Is UK policing fit for purpose? Stephen Sackur speaks to Michael Fuller, former chief constable of Kent police, and the only black Briton to have run one of the country’s regional forces. There has been an alarming rise in knife crime in the UK and this prompted a bout of soul searching about the causes and responses. Many of the questions focus on the police. Are they doing an effective job? How well do they handle the challenges of policing in disadvantaged and minority communities? (Photo: Michael Fuller, former chief constable of Kent police

Is there a way out of Venezuela’s protracted agony? Stephen Sackur speaks to Juan Andres Mejia, Deputy of Venezuela’s Voluntad Popular party. For millions of Venezuelans every day is a struggle for survival. This is an oil rich country where the shops are empty, the power is out and healthcare is collapsing. And politics offers little hope of salvation. The Maduro Government is clinging to the trappings of power while the country’s other self-proclaimed president Juan Guaido leads mass protests against him. Juan Andres Mejia is one of Guaido’s key allies in the Venezuelan parliament. Is there a way out of Venezuela’s protracted agony? (Photo: Juan Andres Mejia. Credit: Federico Parra/AFP/Getty Images)

Stephen Sackur speaks to Ayelet Gundar-Goshen, a prize-winning Israeli novelist who brings a trained psychologist’s eye to compelling stories set in her home country. Hers is a world of moral ambiguity where truth, memory, right and wrong aren't necessarily what they seem. Does her work tell us something important about the Israeli psyche?

Mental health is not easy to talk about, least of all for young men, so often brought up to regard emotional vulnerability as weakness. In a special edition of HARDtalk filmed in the BBC’s Radio Theatre, Stephen Sackur speaks to Stephen Manderson who is better known as the British rapper Professor Green. He has been very honest about his own struggles with mental health issues and is determined to break the taboos around the subject. Can we all learn from Professor Green? (Photo: British rapper Professor Green)