The Interview

• Carsten Breuer, the German chief of defence: Nato faces "very serious threat" from Russia

  Frank Gardner, BBC Security Correspondent, speaks to Carsten Breuer, the German chief of defence.General Carsten Breuer gives his assessment of the threat that Russia poses to the Western alliance Nato. He says that Russia is building up its forces to an "enormous extent" and says that members of the alliance need to prepare for a possible attack from Russia within the next four years, according to assessments from defence analysts. He cites recent attacks on undersea cables in the Baltic Sea, and unidentified drones spotted over German power stations and other infrastructure, as possible evidence that Russia is continuously looking for weaknesses in the defence capabilities of Western countries. Russia has denied involvement in these incidents. General Breuer argues that Nato members should build up their militaries, and that European nations should consider security a baseline for prosperity and development. The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC. You can listen on the BBC World Service, Mondays and Wednesdays at 0700 GMT. Or you can listen to The Interview as a podcast, out twice a week on BBC Sounds, Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.Presenter: Frank Gardner Producers: Viv Jones Editor: Nick Holland Get in touch with us on email [email protected] and use the hashtag #TheInterviewBBC on social media.(Image: General Carsten Breuer. Credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

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• Tom Fletcher, UN Humanitarian Chief: Is the world doing enough to get aid into Gaza?

  Tom Fletcher, Chief of Humanitarian Affairs for the United Nations, tells Fergal Keane, the BBC’s special correspondent, that Israel is subjecting Gaza to enforced starvation. Gaza faced an aid blockade of nearly three months - now, limited supplies of food, medicine and fuel are being allowed into the territory. But Israel argues Hamas is stealing food aid.Mr Fletcher has drawn criticism himself for some of the claims he has made about the impact of the blockade, which were retracted by the UN. Now, he says he regrets his choice of words. Israel’s military campaign began in October 2023 following a cross-border attack by Hamas which killed around 1,200 people, and saw 251 taken hostage. More than 54,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, according to the Hamas-run health ministryThe Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC. You can listen on the BBC World Service, Mondays and Wednesdays at 0700 GMT. Or you can listen to The Interview as a podcast, out twice a week on BBC Sounds, Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.Presenter: Fergal Keane Producer: Lucy Sheppard and Vivien Jones Editor: Nick HollandGet in touch with us on email [email protected] and use the hashtag #TheInterviewBBC on social media.

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• Matt Garman, CEO of Amazon Web Services - what is the future of big tech?

  Simon Jack, the BBC’s business editor, speaks to Matt Garman, chief executive of Amazon Web Services - part of the retail giant Amazon, and the world’s largest cloud computing company.Mr Garman started his career at AWS as an intern, and has risen to oversee a global network of huge data centres, providing IT resources for businesses worldwide. In this conversation, he shares his vision for the future of big tech through cloud computing and artificial intelligence, and the potential for economic growth and opportunity he believes they hold.He also sets out his support for the role for nuclear technology in powering the data centres at that sit at the heart of big tech - and the risks of over-regulation, dismissing claims that the industry is uncompetitive and dominated by huge corporations such as his. The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC. You can listen on the BBC World Service, Mondays and Wednesdays at 0700 GMT. Or you can listen to The Interview as a podcast, out twice a week on BBC Sounds, Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.Presenter: Simon Jack Producers: Lucy Sheppard, Viv Jones Editor: Richard Fenton-SmithGet in touch with us on email [email protected] and use the hashtag #TheInterviewBBC on social media.

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• Surviving Syria’s sectarian violence

  Tim Franks speaks to a British-Syrian Alawite who came under attack, along with her family, during the sectarian violence on Syria’s coast in March.The Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shia Islam and its followers make up around 10 per cent of Syria's population, which is majority Sunni.The recent violence came after fighters loyal to the country's overthrown former president, Bashar al-Assad, who is an Alawite himself, led deadly raids on the new government’s security forces.Those attacks resurrected deep-seated anger over Assad’s repressive dictatorship, with Alawite civilians seen by some as complicit in the crimes of his regime - and as part of the insurgency that followed his fall.The new Sunni Islamist-led government had called for support from various military units and militia groups to respond to the attacks on its security forces – which then escalated into a wave of sectarian anger aimed at Alawite civilians.Human rights groups estimate that around 900 civilians, mainly Alawites, were killed by pro-government forces across Syria's coastal region in early March.The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC. You can listen on the BBC World Service, Mondays and Wednesdays at 0700 GMT. Or you can listen to The Interview as a podcast, out twice a week on BBC Sounds, Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.Presenter: Tim Franks Producer: Ben Cooper Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

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• Dovilė Šakalienė, Defence Minister of Lithuania: Uncertain times for Europe

  BBC Defence Correspondent Jonathan Beale speaks to Dovilė Šakalienė, Lithuania’s Defence Minister.The Baltic nation, along with its neighbours Latvia and Estonia, share a border with Russia, and have nervously watched the invasion of Ukraine, fearing they could be next.All three countries have had turbulent relationships with their much larger neighbour, Russia. They were annexed by the Soviet Union during the Second World War, and were subject to decades of rule from Moscow up until the end of the Cold War.In 2004, Lithuania joined both the European Union and Nato, and just over a decade later, adopted the Euro as its currency. But despite looking westwards, the country has always kept one eye on developments over its eastern border in Russia.Russia’s annexation of the Ukrainian region of Crimea in 2014 set off alarm bells in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, and when the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia began in 2022, Lithuania and its neighbours began fearing and preparing for the worst..Presenter: Jonathan Beale Producer: Ben Cooper Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

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