logo
episode-header-image
Sep 2019
24m 28s

Lebanon's Foreign Minister - Gebran Bass...

Bbc World Service
About this episode

Why is Lebanon dogged by chaos? HARDtalk's Stephen Sackur speaks to the country’s Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil. Lebanese politics is a world of complex alliances, delicate inter-communal arrangements, and almost permanent instability. Lebanon currently has a functioning government but it’s dealing with a host of deep problems: the economy is a mess, national debt is spiralling and regional conflict threatens to pull the country apart at the seams. Is the current Lebanese government making a bad situation worse?

Image: Gebran Bassil (Credit: Clemens Bilan/EPA)

Up next
Yesterday
Baroness Arminka Helic: Preventing sexual violence in war
We are in a new era where human rights have been replaced by trade and big businesses and they have almost entirely depleted our ability to show humanity to people on the other side.Lucy Hockings speaks to Baroness Arminka Helic, Member of the House of Lords and campaigner for re ... Show More
23 m
Jan 12
Gabriel Zuchtreigel, Director of Pompeii: Archaeology is the most democratic form of history
Michael Berkeley speaks to Gabriel Zuchtreigel, Director of Pompeii in Southern Italy, one of the world’s most important archaeological sites.History, he says, comes alive through archaeology, helping us to appreciate our shared humanity with those who lived thousands of years ag ... Show More
22m 59s
Jan 9
Mustafa Suleyman, Artificial Intelligence pioneer: People should be healthily afraid of AI
BBC presenter Amol Rajan speaks to the British artificial intelligence entrepreneur Mustafa Suleyman, Chief Executive of Microsoft AI.He believes in the enormous potential of AI to be a force for good in the world, changing how we live and work for the better. He is committed to ... Show More
22m 59s
Recommended Episodes
Aug 2021
Is Lebanon a failed state?
<p>Gideon Rachman talks to Chloe Cornish, the FT’s Middle East correspondent, on how decades of misgovernance have led to Lebanon’s current political, economic and social&nbsp;crisis. Chloe recounts how the year since the explosion in Beirut, the country’s capital city, has been ... Show More
22m 15s
Oct 2019
Mass protests in Lebanon
This week millions of people were out on the streets of Lebanon demanding change. A lack of jobs, crumbling public services, rising living costs and rampant inequality had brought out people from all sections of the society. The proposed budget with more taxes, including one on W ... Show More
49m 38s
Nov 2018
Episode 28 - Independent Lebanon?
Independent Lebanon begins at 17:08. Happy (almost) Independence Day! It’s been 181 days without a government and this past week hasn’t given us much hope that one will be formed soon. In the twenty-eighth episode of The Lebanese Politics Podcast, Benjamin Redd and Nizar start wi ... Show More
36m 36s
Sep 2021
Lebanon in dire need
The new Lebanese government has been in place for a week, but with the economy still spiraling, Lebanese people lack confidence anything will be done in the short term to relieve the extreme economic crisis. Mohamed El Aassar, Middle East journalist with Fortune Magazine, tells t ... Show More
17m 28s
Jan 2020
Episode 69 - Gov of techno-what again?
Ben and Nizar take a closer look at Lebanon's new government and how it is very much business as usual. Also covered: Bassil in Davos, Lebanon approaching a fiscal cliff, Parliment to meet on the 2020 budget, debt repayments on the horizon, and the uprising enters a new phase as ... Show More
44m 54s
Jul 2021
Liban, le naufrage
"Le Liban, c’est le Titanic, mais sans l’orchestre" La formule est de Jean-Yves Le Drian, le ministre français des affaires étrangères. Et elle résume à elle seule ce Liban qui sombre, qui s’enfonce inexorablement dans la crise. Une crise multiple : politique, économique, sociale ... Show More
11m 29s
Aug 2020
What’s gone wrong in Lebanon?
The massive explosion that tore through Beirut on August 4th left more than 200 people dead, 6,000 injured, and as many as 300,000 homeless. The explosion was caused by a fire that ignited 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate stored at the port. When the blast hit, Lebanon was already ... Show More
23m 56s
Jun 2023
How Lebanon’s economy collapsed
Protests, power cuts and bank hold-ups – Lebanon was already struggling before the 2020 port explosion that devasted its capital, Beirut, but now it’s in a desperate economic collapse. The Lebanese people are struggling to buy basic food and medicine. And the country also hosts t ... Show More
18m 56s