HARDtalk on the road

HARDtalk is usually a daily haff-hour'interview programme but a couple of times a year we like to get away from the studio and go out on the road. In this irregular strand we like to explore pressing issues in a country we wouldn't normally travel to and also talk to a wider range of people than would usually appear on the daify interview programme. The HARDtalk on the road strand is a blend of contextuafising reportage and HARDtalKs usual probing style of interview.

HARDtalk is a half-hour programme broadcast daily on the BBC News Channel in the UK and on the BBC World News Channel internationalfy. An estimated 50 million people in 200 countries view each edition of the programme (including repeats).

HARDtalk on the road in Equatorial Guinea

17 December 2012 HARDtalk on the road is in the tiny, oil rich West I Central African state of Equatorial Guinea for an ex~lusive look inside one of Africa's most controversial regimes. For the past 33 years the country has been ruled by President Teodoro Obiang; his critics accuse him of systematic corruption and repression while he describes himself as a champion of African development. Thanks to an oil & gas bonanza Equatorial Guinea is one of the wealthiest nations on earth. Under constant supervision by government minders Stephen Sackur and the HARDtalk team traveUed around the country filming the country's industry and the President's personal infrastructure projects.

18 December 2012 Stephen Sackur conducts a rare interview with President TeodorQ Obiang of Equatorial Guinea, Africa's longest serving leader, at the presidential palace in Bata. Stephen questioned Obiang about his family's extreme wealth, how the country's extreme wealth is used, reports of torture by those who oppose him politically, the president's Incredible election record, always winning over 900/0 of the vote, and the 2004 attempted coup. How did the idea for this piece come about? . . President Theodor Obiang had been on HARDtalKs list of "must gets" almost since the programme began. As most of the oil & gas companies operating in Equatorial Guinea are American and the US buys nearly all they produce we understand that the US Government became "concerned" that President Obiang and his Government did not look sufficiently "democratic" for them to do bt.Jsiness with, and that Obiang was not seen to be answering his· critics on the world stage. So when the answer to one of our routine quarterly requests came back as a yes, we nearly fell off our chairs in shock. There were however two conditions, HARDtalk had to travel to Equatorial Guinea to' do the interview, and Obiang insisted we spend several days looking around the country before we did the interview. So we decided to use that "looking around" time to make a film.

What challenges did you encounter after producing the piece? Everything we did and everywhere we went had to be approved in advance. Not everything we wanted to do was approved. The head minder assigned to us did not speak any English, as promised, and refused to understand our French or Spanish. Once we had ·finished the interview with the president all cooperation ceased. .

How does the entry help you to further the. understanding of the issues covered and what impact did the piece have? As far as we can tell we were the first team from an international news channel to be allowed into the tiny though strictly controlled state. We had a strong response from viewers, mainly in Africa. All said how good it was to see anything from inside the oil & gas state. Equatorial Guinea is probably the world's most unequal country. Members of the Presidents' family and his ruling clan are known to spend money by the hundreds of millions of dollars. Rumours abound in Africa's oil industry that Obiang's cut is worth $40 million dollars a day. Equatorial Guinea has the world's second highest GDP yet two thirds of its 700,000 population live on around a dollar a day . Many viewers contacted us with their own tales to tell of sharp and corrupt business practices, others with stories of violence and intimidation suffered at the hand of the regime, all thanked us making the programme.