Real Talk

"Mom, I'm at our house."
Yousra Elbagir is Sky News UK's Africa correspondent. She has been highly praised for her reporting on a war that's been largely absent from mainstream news coverage: Sudan.
As the fighting enters its fourth year, Sudan has become the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Millions have been displaced as cities are destroyed by a brutal power struggle and foreign interference. But for Yousra, this isn't just work, or a news story. Sudan is also her home.
In this conversation on Real Talk, she speaks with Mohamed Hashem about her reporting from inside the country, the siege of cities like el-Fasher, the UAE's role in giving the Rapid Support Forces global cover, and Europe’s inaction on the war.
Yousra also reflects on returning to her family home of 25 years in Khartoum, ransacked by the RSF, and what it means to report a war that is also your own.

"My commanders liked the fact I was a Nazi. They saw it as making me a better warrior."
Matt Kennard is a British investigative journalist who co-founded Declassified UK, and is also the author of Irregular Army. It’s a book that uncovers how the US military, desperate to fill its ranks during the War on Terror, began looking the other way on things that would once have disqualified soldiers from serving, such as neo-Nazi tattoos, gang affiliations, and mental illness.
In this conversation on Real Talk, Kennard speaks with Mohamed Hashem about the openly neo-Nazi veterans he met and interviewed, the moral waiver programme that opened the door to convicted felons, and the Rumsfeld Doctrine that was the catalyst.

Peter Oborne spent decades at the heart of the British establishment.
The award-winning journalist and author of ‘Complicit’ sits down with Mohamed Hashem on Real Talk to break down how the Iraq war set the template for Gaza, and why there is a direct path between the two.
Oborne also calls out Keir Starmer for not condemning Israeli war crimes, and what it means that Margaret Thatcher was more willing to stand up to Israel than the UK's current prime minister.
He also opens up on why he walked away from mainstream British media, and never looked back.

"I don't feel safe with my own people."
Ariana Jasmine is one of the biggest Iranian-American political content creators, whose videos on Iran's history, the US-Israeli war on the country, and US politics have been widely shared online.
In this conversation on Real Talk, she speaks with Mohamed Hashem to discuss the Iranian diaspora's split over western intervention, the Pahlavi monarchist movement and its "cult-like" following, and why she believes opposing the US-Israeli war on Iran made her a target within her own community.
Ariana also reflects on the personal cost of speaking out, the threats, the harassment, and why she refuses to stay silent in spite of it all.

“Can I curse on this?”
Hasan Piker is one of the most influential political streamers in the world, followed by millions across platforms who tune in daily to watch him dissect news, culture and global politics in real time.
In this wide-ranging conversation on Real Talk, he sits down with Mohamed Hashem to discuss the Epstein files, Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the state of the Democratic Party, and the backlash over his anti-Zionist stance.
The left-wing commentator reflects on the personal and professional cost of speaking out, the limits of platform censorship, and what shaped his understanding of US power and hegemony.