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Hardtalk (usually styled as HARDtalk) is a flagship BBC television programme, consisting of in-depth half-hour one-on-one interviews.

It is broadcast four days a week (Monday to Thursday) on BBC World News and the BBC News channel. Launched in 1997, much of its world-wide fame is due to its global reach via BBC World. Until early 2005, the host was Tim Sebastian
Tim Sebastian

Tim Sebastian is a television journalist. He is the Chairman of the Doha Debates, a forum for free speech in Qatar, and was the presenter of British Broadcasting Corporation HARDtalk....
 whose famous, and sometimes controversial, style of tough questioning brought a huge world audience to the show.

Since 2006, the show has been presented by Stephen Sackur
Stephen Sackur

Stephen John Sackur is a BBC journalist who presents HARDtalk, a current affairs interview programme on BBC World and BBC News 24....
, who was previously the BBC's correspondent in Washington and Brussels and who is an experienced interviewer who has grilled U.S. Presidents
President of the United States

The President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States and is the highest political official in the United States by influence and recognition....
 George W. Bush
George W. Bush

George Walker Bush served as the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States from 2001 to 2009. He was the 46th List of Governors of Texas from 1995 to 2000 before being United States presidential inauguration as President on January 20, 2001....
 and Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton served as the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He was the fifteenth Democrat elected to that office....
.






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Hardtalk (usually styled as HARDtalk) is a flagship BBC television programme, consisting of in-depth half-hour one-on-one interviews.

It is broadcast four days a week (Monday to Thursday) on BBC World News and the BBC News channel. Launched in 1997, much of its world-wide fame is due to its global reach via BBC World. Until early 2005, the host was Tim Sebastian
Tim Sebastian

Tim Sebastian is a television journalist. He is the Chairman of the Doha Debates, a forum for free speech in Qatar, and was the presenter of British Broadcasting Corporation HARDtalk....
 whose famous, and sometimes controversial, style of tough questioning brought a huge world audience to the show.

Since 2006, the show has been presented by Stephen Sackur
Stephen Sackur

Stephen John Sackur is a BBC journalist who presents HARDtalk, a current affairs interview programme on BBC World and BBC News 24....
, who was previously the BBC's correspondent in Washington and Brussels and who is an experienced interviewer who has grilled U.S. Presidents
President of the United States

The President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States and is the highest political official in the United States by influence and recognition....
 George W. Bush
George W. Bush

George Walker Bush served as the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States from 2001 to 2009. He was the 46th List of Governors of Texas from 1995 to 2000 before being United States presidential inauguration as President on January 20, 2001....
 and Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton served as the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He was the fifteenth Democrat elected to that office....
. He is occasionally replaced by several other well-known BBC presenters such as Zeinab Badawi
Zeinab Badawi

Zeinab Badawi born is a television and radio reporter and news presenter in the United Kingdom. She was the first presenter of the ITV Morning News co-presented Channel 4 News with Jon Snow for several years, before joining BBC News....
, Jon Sopel
Jon Sopel (journalist)

Jon Sopel is a leading television presenter and correspondent for the BBC. He was educated at Christ's College Finchley, formerly a boys' grammar school in Finchley, London, and at the University of Southampton....
, Lyse Doucet
Lyse Doucet

Lyse Doucet is a presenter and correspondent from Bathurst, New Brunswick, New Brunswick, Canada. She works for both BBC World Service radio and BBC World News television, and occasionally reports for BBC Radio 4 and BBC News in the UK, although she is not a regular face on the BBC's domestic services....
, Nisha Pillai
Nisha Pillai

Nisha Pillai is an Indian-born journalist based in London. She is one of the main news anchors with BBC World News....
 and Noel Thompson
Noel Thompson

Noel Thompson is a news journalist with BBC Northern Ireland. Thompson is currently the main male presenter of BBC Newsline and political series Hearts and Minds....
.

Hardtalk has featured some of the best known personalities in the world, who have subjected themselves to Mr Sebastian's or Mr Sackur's grilling. Guests have included the Pakistani President
President of Pakistan

The President of Pakistan is the head of state of the Islamic republic of Pakistan. Pakistan has a parliamentary form of government. According to the Constitution of Pakistan, the President is chosen by the Electoral College of Pakistan to serve a five-year term....
 Pervez Musharraf
Pervez Musharraf

General Pervez Musharraf , Nishan-e-Imtiaz, Hilal-e-Imtiaz, Tamgha-e-Basalat, is a former President of Pakistan. Previously, he was Prime Minister of Pakistan as well as Chief of Army Staff of the Pakistan Army of the Pakistan Army....
, South African President
President of South Africa

The President of the Republic of South Africa is the head of state and head of government under South Africa's Constitution of South Africa. From 1961 to 1994, the head of state was called the State President of South Africa....
 Thabo Mbeki
Thabo Mbeki

Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki is a South African politician who served almost two terms as the second democratically elected President of South Africa from 14 June 1999 to 24 September 2008....
, and popular music
Popular music

Popular music is music that is accessible to the mainstream and disseminated by one or more of the mass media. It belongs to any of a number of musical genres, and stands in contrast to classical music, which historically was the music of the elite and upper strata of society, and traditional music which was disseminated orally....
ian Boy George
Boy George

Boy George is an England singer-songwriter who was part of the English New Romantic movement which emerged in the early 1980s. He helped give androgyny an international stage with the success of Culture Club during the 1980s....
.

Hardtalk Extra, a variant of Hardtalk, was first aired in 2004 and is telecast on Fridays on BBC World News and on weekends on the BBC News channel. Entirely devoted to the world of arts and culture, with a particular attention to the world of authors, the programme is usually presented by the well-known Gavin Esler
Gavin Esler

Gavin Esler is an author and BBC television presenter, currently one of the five main presenters on BBC Two's flagship political analysis programme, Newsnight....
 and Mishal Husain
Mishal Husain

Mishal Husain is currently an anchor for the BBC's international news channel BBC World, presenting between 1300 and 1600 GMT each Monday to Thursday, as well as appearing on the BBC One weekend bulletins....
. Famous guests have included writers Paulo Coelho
Paulo Coelho

Paulo Coelho is a Brazilian lyricist and novelist....
, Anita Desai
Anita Desai

Anita Mazumdar Desai is an Indian novelist and Emeritus John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has been shortlisted for the Booker prize three times....
, V.S. Naipaul, and Salman Rushdie
Salman Rushdie

Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie is a British Indian novelist and essayist. He first achieved fame with his second novel, Midnight's Children , which won the Booker Prize in 1981....
, actress Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie

Angelina Jolie is an American film actor and a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador for the UNHCR. She has been cited as one of the world's most beautiful women and her off-screen life is widely reported....
 and the late actor Christopher Reeve
Christopher Reeve

Christopher D'Olier Reeve was an American actor, film director, film producer, and screenwriter. He established himself early as a The Juilliard School-trained stage actor before portraying Superman in four films, from 1978 to 1987....
.

Extra Time is another programme from the Hardtalk team, presented by Rob Bonnet
Rob Bonnet

Rob Bonnet is a BBC television journalist, presenting sport bulletins on BBC News services and HARDtalk, an interview programme on BBC World and BBC News 24....
 and broadcast on both BBC World News and the BBC News channel, featuring people from the world of sport and has to its credits several guests including professional tennis-players Pete Sampras
Pete Sampras

Petros "Pete" Sampras is a former List of ATP number 1 ranked players tennis player from the United States of America. During his 15-year career, he won a record 14 Grand Slam men's singles titles , and had a 203?38 win-loss record over 52 Grand Slam singles tournament appearances....
 and Andy Roddick
Andy Roddick

Andrew Stephen "Andy" Roddick is an United States of America professional tennis player, and a former List of ATP number 1 ranked players.He is the 6th-ranked player in the world, and top-ranked in the U.S., as of February 2, 2009....
.

There are two South-Asian
South Asia

South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries on the west and the east....
 versions of the above: Hardtalk India
India

India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, the List of countries by population country, and the most populous liberal democracy in the world....
 (see below) and Hardtalk Pakistan
Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country located in South Asia and borders Central Asia and the Middle East. It has a 1,046 kilometre coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south, and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and People's Republic of China in th...
.

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