Hardtalk

It's a year since the protests in Ukraine's Maidan Square -protests that led to the fall of the pro-Russian government. Russian born Andrey Kurkov has published his diary of the time. He's one of the country's most famous authors and supported the uprising. But, although he lives in Ukraine, he writes in Russian and because of that, he's been rejected by some as a Ukrainian writer and accused of being a traitor by Russians. Sarah Montague asks how to maintain a complex identity when war urges people to take sides? And was the uprising worth it?

Sarah Montague talks to Juan Mendez, the United Nation's Special Rapporteur on Torture. He was a human rights lawyer in Argentina in the 70s when he was arrested, imprisoned and tortured. He has said he owes his life to those in America who took a principled stand against torture. But now Juan Mendez says the world has become more accepting of cruelty and America has been compromised by its own brutal treatment of prisoners. So is torture ever morally justifiable?

Should scientists working with governments and officials give opinions or just stick to giving scientific facts? Hardtalk speaks to the Scottish microbiologist Professor Anne Glover. She has just left her post as the first chief scientific adviser to the EU Commission President, and this is her first extensive broadcast interview since then. Whilst she was still in the post she said that in-house politics had hampered the efficiency of her role. Was she at loggerheads with the EU Commission?

This interview is part of the BBC's Richer World season. According to Oxfam, South Africa is the most economically unequal country in the World - the wealth of the two richest citizens outstrips that of the poorest 50 per cent of the population. Twenty years after the end of Apartheid, why is that so? Hardtalk speaks to Jay Naidoo, leader of the South African trade union movement during the liberation struggle and a cabinet minister under President Nelson Mandela. Why hasn’t freedom reduced inequality?

Hardtalk speaks to the British Muslim campaigner Moazzam Begg. He was detained at Guantanamo Bay ten years ago, and then last February he was held for seven months in a British prison. In October all terrorism-related charges against him were dropped and he walked free. He believes that current counter-terrorism measures are fuelling the very problems they are trying to tackle and are alienating and radicalising some Muslims. So how should Muslim communities work with the authorities to prevent the extremists carrying out attacks?

Professional football has a problem with homophobia. There are gay footballers, but almost to a man they feel compelled to keep their sexual orientation a secret. Hardtalk speaks to Robbie Rogers, a US international who plays for LA Galaxy. He broke football's great taboo by very publicly coming out after a spell in English football. But why haven't other gay footballers followed his lead?

Hardtalk speaks to the American economist Professor Luigi Zingales. He tells Sarah Montague that Capitalism in America is in crisis and he blames the links between big government and big business. America he says, needs more competition; more free markets; and an end to subsidies and lobbying. Only then can capitalism "rediscover and renew its moral foundation".

In a special edition of HARDtalk for the BBC’s Democracy Day, Stephen Sackur speaks to Chinese dissident Wu’er Kaixi. Wu’er Kaixi was one of the leaders of the Tiananmen square student protests in Beijing in 1989 – and became one of the Chinese Government's most wanted men. He escaped and now lives in exile in Taiwan. Will China have a democratic future? This edition of HARDtalk was recorded in front of a live studio audience.

Draw up a list of the greatest living film makers and Werner Herzog would surely occupy a prominent place. He is responsible for some of the most wildly beautiful images captured on film. If you've seen Fitzcarraldo you won’t have forgotten the steamship being hauled over a mountain. He's seen as the film industry's obsessive genius; the director who once threatened to shoot his lead actor to prevent him quitting. After five decades making movies is Werner Herzog's love of film as intense as ever?

In a special edition of HARDtalk, Zeinab Badawi is in Malta to speak to Suha Arafat – the widow of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Ten years after his death, Mrs Arafat gives a rare broadcast interview about their marriage, why she believes he was assassinated and why she has chosen to live in Malta and not amongst the Palestinian people who so revered her husband.

In the wake of the Paris attacks mounted by homegrown militants swearing allegiance variously to al Qaeda in Yemen and the self-styled Islamic State, politicians in the west have promised to beef up security measures. Hardtalk talks to Richard Barrett a former UK counter-terror chief and until recently head of a UN team monitoring al Qaeda, about how best to confront the jihadist threat.

Jerusalem boasts one of the most bitterly contested pieces of real estate in the World - known as the Temple Mount to Jews and the Noble Sanctuary to Muslims. Jews aren't allowed to pray there, many Jewish religious leaders say Jews should not set foot there; but that consensus is breaking down. Hardtalk speaks to Yehuda Glick an activist who's been variously described as a dangerous extremist, and a campaigner for religious freedom. Three months ago he survived an assassination attempt. Why does he persist with his divisive campaign on Jerusalem's holiest ground?

Greek voters may be about to plunge the European Union into a fully-fledged economic and political crisis. Opinion polls suggest the leftist, anti-austerity party Syriza is likely to emerge as the biggest party in Greece's late January election. If so the next Athens Government may reject the terms of the bailout which is keeping the country afloat. And then what? Hardtalk speaks to Costas Lapavitsas, a London-based Greek economist who has been advising Syriza's leaders.

The West's strategic vision appears as clear as mud. After protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan the appetite for military intervention has all but disappeared. But given the threat of jihadist extremism and the spread of turmoil across the Middle east, non-intervention is seen as an unacceptable risk. The net result is uncertainty. Hardtalk speaks to Rory Stewart, a British Conservative MP who's worked in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Zeinab Badawi speaks to Professor Monica Grady of the Open University who was part of the team that designed and built the Philae probe. Last November the probe was succesfully landed on the comet 67P which lies 500 million km away from Earth. How much closer to understanding the origins of life in the universe are we?