Review of the Year 2015 HARDtalk

Memorable words, unforgettable guests, it is time to look back on a

year of HARDtalk. Fences are not a solution. We cannot build centres in

Europe. Europe must be able to defend her borders. Currently we are

not able to do so. The star is Islamic assassins because they want

to kill Jews. Promising these young and desperate Arabs, I cannot afford

to promise a 1-bedroom apartment. The idea that we are going to have a

transition in Syria, for an indefinite period, is massive. The

insult became the convenient weapon of choice. War is a factory of

victims and I want to stop that factory. Workers in a sex club, a

lunatic asylum, you earn ten or $20,000 and you can make a feature

film today. The things that drive people today, is a desire for staff

is not money. I feel disgusted. It is so disgusting that my heart is

traumatised and I am hurting. Welcome to this special edition of

HARDtalk, with me, Stephen Sackur. That was just a flavour of the heat

and passion generated in 2015 in this HARDtalk studio. In the next

half-an-hour, I will knew some of the highlights, tough talk from the

big stories from big personality. First, let us focus on the trauma

and tragedy in the Middle East copy the terrible cost of Assyrian wall,

the father to finance -- the violent defiance. Extremism continue to

flourish in 2015 bringing extraordinary stories. The military

to served a summer Ben -- Bin Laden. You would not have been given that

sort of access. You would not have been regularly in the company of

these men, were you not offering them something pretty special. I was

offering them something that they were struggling with. It was the

recruits coming into the camps in Afghanistan. They were having

trouble finding enough educated people in Islamic theology to teach

them. What I knew is that I was given the beauty of teaching and

preaching. You can't fight this campaign with out a solid

infrastructure. And what is a solid infrastructure? Without the

preaching and teaching and the indoctrination that was taking place

in the camps, you cannot have an individual committed fully blowing

himself up. This is what the French president said, I want to believe

about Mr Assad being in Russia, there must be a transition in Syria

and one that Assad can have no future in. Was that the message?

First of all, neither Paris or London nor Washington nor Moscow

have the right to say who has the right to be the president of Syria.

This is what our president has been insisting on. But you are sending in

your bombers on Assad's Baja. The effect of what you are doing is to

strengthen, very significantly, Assad's Hand. And you know that. Of

course that is our goal. And there is a whole generation of people in

Syria who are broken. It is an incredible situation. I tell you one

thing. My son was in a, and he told me that there were 15,000 people on

a waiting list for prosthetic limb. Imagine the care that you got to

have. The starting point is. The killing. We should stop the War.

Then you can start a long process of healing. Is this going to happen? I

still hope and dream that it will happen. Do you see any more clarity

and decisiveness from the overarm administration. We still have the

essential problem from a year and a half ago that the administration

wants to get to a political negotiation to get to that unity

transitional government that I was talking about. It once that, but its

tactics are not strong enough to compel the Assad government to

negotiate. Its tactics are not strong enough to compel the Russians

and the people from Orion to bring their negotiators to the table that

lack Iran. -- people from Assad to bring the negotiators to the table.

You said to the people of Israel, do not hesitate, shoot to kill. As soon

as anyone pulls out a screwdriver or a knife. He went on to say that that

is part of Israeli deterrence. Who are you to say things like that? Is

nice of you to sit here in the studio, but I am telling you these

people are Islamic fanatics who are going there to kill Jews because

they are due. Are we supposed to say hold on we are going to read you

your rights? You said the solution has died, is that it? It breaks my

heart to say yes. You know what, 23 years ago the president, myself and

many others from the Palestinian camps, said to the Palestinians,

please don't despair you are not alone. We will organise a state in

Israel and we will renounce violence. We have to use

negotiations as a tool. And what have I delivered? 22 years later to

these people? I could not deliver. That is the truth. Should I leave? I

am thinking about it. I'm seriously thinking about it must even. There

is much that I can take from my own family, from my own neighbours. I

look them in the eyes and I was unable to deliver and that is the

truth. And in 2015 the continued massacre in serial pushed a flow of

refugees. Millions fled the Civil War in hopes of finding sanctuary in

the heart of EU. They came from African war zones as well. It

started a humanitarian and political crisis in Europe. Liberal values and

continental solidarity were tested in a way not seen in a generation.

The outside world has noted the razor wire fences, the teargas, the

recent order from the that the Army be deployed and to use rubber

bullets and tear gas, as well. The threat of imprisonment for illegal

immigrant is up to three years. People see this and they wonder

whether there is any humanity in Hungary to day. You know, there are

laws according to which we manage our lives. Among these laws, you

have some rules which say how you can cross a border in a country. I

don't think that should be a normal situation that a mass that would

like to get from point a to point B, and they would like to use a

country as a corridor. I suppose the problem here, and I spoke about the

credibility of your government, is that there is a perception, given

his words, that he is playing a xenophobic card, a political card, a

populist card inside this country. We are defending our way of life, he

says. They are breaking down our door, we do not want a large number

of Muslim people here, we must keep Europe Christian. These are all

phrases he used. You have used the expression perception, right. I have

to tell you that perception and truth are to different things that

-- are two different things. We have the right to decide, whether they

would like to share their lives with another significant community or

not. France made a decision that they would like to share their lives

with a significant Muslim community. They made that decision

and we respected at. We expect everyone to respect our right to

make or not to make those kinds of decisions. The French government has

said they will take a 30,000 refugees, mostly from Syria over the

next two years. 30,000 in a country of 16 million, and the Germans are

taking 800,000. Where is this torrent coming to France?

There are already, maybe 5 million Muslims living in France, French

citizens just as French as you asked me how they think they feel when you

suggest to me that Muslims coming into France represent a fundamental

threat to the survival of this country?

You are saying that a Muslim born here, whose mother and father are

born here, he or she is not really French?

How does Germany propose to stop this flow of people? IU intent on

upon saying this is an open door policy and that you are welcome in

Germany? We are talking about an asylum seeker, first of all. Germany

is determined to stick with the Article one and the Constitution

that the dignity of a human being is untouchable for a. Specifically,

because about history. Therefore, if you have a reason for asylum, you

will get shelter in Germany and in Europe, this is one of our core

values. The scale of this migration crisis friends to fundamentally

destabilise the European Union? No, I do not think so. Europe is able to

manage that, if we really stand together, and if we don't look at

our domestic shores, which avatars we had to tackle, but also go to the

source of the problem. Look at the refugee camps, look at Syria and

Iraq, look at Afghanistan and look at Africa, the northern part, and

this is a global task we had to manage. I think we will be able to

manage that. Not as a Europe that builds fences around and puts down

the problem is government. The tensions over government were not

confined to Europe. Last April I wave of xenophobic violence in South

Africa killed at least seven migrants, and force them to seek

safety in refuge. I spoke in a need to them, containing a majority of

migrant. And continue my tour of the and I will go inside the biggest

ten. This is where hundreds of immigrants who fled when the

violence surged to Jurgen. C what conditions are like.

The women and children were given at 110 to second, but they had just

learned it was to be dismantled and the camp closed. The message was

simple, go back to your homes in the community and return to your native

countries. For me, my opinion is better to go back to Congo where

there is a wall. I would rather die from a bullet from the Royal than

dying with my shirt being set alight alive. This is not the truth. I feel

disgusted about South Africa. I am so disappointed. So disappointed. If

they can treat a human like an animal. The scenes in April of

individuals being lynched, stabbed to death on the streets of

Johannesburg and driven, these were absolutely shocking. -- Durban. I

agree. Were you shopped personally? None of us wants violence or

xenophobia in South Africa. Nobody wants a tax on foreigners oracles.

-- were locals. Of the five provinces in South Africa, only to

have been affected. Only seven people have died. It is regrettable

there are even seven, and the determination of this government is

that it should never happen again. There are at least 5 million

migrants in South Africa, 10% of the population, and maybe a third come

from Zimbabwe. In Johannesburg, they are not hard to find. Anyone who

needs a wall painting or a roof fixing is likely to check out the

Zimbabwean tradesmen who advertise their skills on the roadside,

regardless of the new three of xenophobia. -- fear. To understand

why its so many Zimbabweans continue to cross into South Africa, I

journeyed to an economy in full-blown crisis. Unemployment is

80%, the country's currency has been abandoned and people only trust the

US dollar. I was granted a rare interview with one of Robert

Mugabe's controversial ministers, who has seized on the xenophobic

violence in South Africa as fertile ground for political point scoring.

You have used some extraordinarily inflammatory language about the

South Africans. You have said some affiliate today in South Africa and

is the mutate into genocide tomorrow. You have accused South

Africa of Afro phobia. What is your problem with South Africa? We don't

have any problems with South Africans, in fact we don't have any

problems with... To use the word genocide as you did. We have no

problems in South Africa or with South Africans, I want to repeat.

They are up others and sisters. We are in the trenches together. We

have serious problems with those Lynch mobs doing what they did.

There will be a transition before too long. I do confident in the

circumstances of today's Zimbabwe that the transition when it comes is

going to be peaceful and stable? Look, I don't know what transition

we are talking about. No, I don't. This country has been dominated by

one man for 35 years and it will soon come to an end. But his nature.

-- that is nature. Power is not inherited, it is by-election. We

would feel pressure if we did not have constitutional means for

acquiring power in this country. Power in this country is acquired

through a democratic election. 2015 was in many ways a bleak year full

of conflict and instability, but they were chinks of light. After 50

years of war, Columbia may be edging towards peace. I travelled to the

guitar to meet the president, a leader convinced he can change the

course of his country's history by reaching out to the armed leftist

rebels from the Farc -- Bogota. Tommy about that historic handshake

with the leader of the Farc last September. It was a strange

photograph. You were there with him, the president of Cuba over

CNET, in you did not look comfortable. What were you feeling?

-- overseeing. It is a matter of timing. I thought it would be the

correct time to start meeting face-to-face with the commander of

the Farc. To start to try to push negotiations at a higher level,

which we are doing, and it was a great moment to meet him. Of course

he had been our enemy for all my life. Most Colombians believe he has

the blood of hundreds of ambient citizens on his hands. The US

government has a bounty of $500 million on his head because he is a

kingpin of the cocaine trafficking, and you should his hand? Yes,

because you don't make peace with your friends, you make peace with

your enemies, and he is the enemy. If you want to end this war, we have

to sit down with our enemies and have an agreement, and shake our

hands to see that agreement. My challenge on HARDtalk is to figure

out what makes leaders tick. What motivates the women and men who

played dominant roles in business, politics and culture. In 2015, we

got some great insights. I was the leader that broke the mould. I was

the 27th and Minister of Australia and the first woman to do it. -- by

Minister. A former leader of your party has considered your memoir and

how you approach this issue of sexism and he says you did not get

this old go fishbowl existence because you were female but because

you were powerful. He describes your version of your rise and fall as a

feminist fantasy, in vain glorious pursuit of political martyrdom, and

thinks you are overplaying this. Bed is entitled to his view, but I said

on the night I finished being Prime Minister and the last speech I would

give to the nation as Prime Minister. The kind of speech in

which many male politicians when they deliver at end up crying. It is

a hard moment in your life. What I said that night was gender does not

explain everything about my time as Prime Minister, it doesn't explain

nothing. There are plenty of shades of grey. But I do believe there are

some things here about women and leadership for the world to think

through. If we can watch Hillary Clinton campaign to be president of

the United States and from time to time be referred to in a sexist way,

then there are things to think about. All I want our work to

achieve is not that women are immune from criticism, absolutely not, at

that women politicians are fairly criticised on the basis of abundance

and capability and judgement. You are worth hundreds of millions of

dollars. How greedy are you? That is a excellent question. Go on. Try to

define it for me. Somewhat greedy. You can't end up as wealthy as I M

without having amorous as part of your personality. But as desperation

is a powerful force. -- aspiration. But in the absence of legitimate,

real opportunity creates anger and resentment and violence. What

unfolded in the small town of Ferguson, Missouri, over the last

year, is only the tip of the iceberg. If there are a a few words

you could give to a student like me as to what matters most in making a

successful movie, what would you say? Everybody is complaining that

the industry is so stupid. I do not get the money together. So I say

roll up your sleeves, work as a bouncer in a sex club, a warden in a

lunatic asylum for half a year. You earn $20,000 in you can make a

feature film today. There is no excuse any more. Then of course

read, read, read, read, read, read. If you don't read, you will never

make a great film. In every HARDtalk year, there are a few magic moments

that stay with me long after the calendar has moved on. In 2015, one

highlight was getting the first low-cost interview with the Al

Jazeera journalist imprisoned by the Egyptian ferment for simply doing

his job. It has been a pleasure to have you on HARDtalk. Thank you for

having me. That was the interview done, but he had one more thing he

wanted to say. Thank you for doing that. It was a real delight to have

you on the show. I hope it wasn't to... I have to tell you something.

Imprisoned, I kept telling Peter when I come out I want to be on

HARDtalk. LAUGHTER

Dreams can come true. There you go. With Christmas Day just around

the corner, the festive forecast There will be spells of very heavy

rain over the next few days that