The Documentary
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16-Mar-2015
The Documentary - Can the World Get Richer Forever?
Is rising global wealth setting us on a path to disaster?
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11-Mar-2015
The Documentary - Sasha's Song
The Moscow Acapella Jewish Choir and conductor Sasha Tsaliuk's fight for its existence
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04-Mar-2015
The Documentary - Sandhurst and the Sheikhs
Four reigning Arab monarchs have passed through the UK's Royal Military Academy Sandhurst or its associated institutions - the kings of Bahrain and Jordan, the Emir of Qatar and the Sultan of Oman, alongside a long list of lesser sheikhs and princes, and many of the region's military chiefs of staff. Matthew Teller uses archive, analysis and new interviews to examine Sandhurst's longstanding links with the Gulf, exploring whether there is a detectable 'Sandhurst influence' on the repression of popular protests across the Middle East, and asking whether Sandhurst should help deliver officer-trained military leaders to Middle Eastern allies if they have questionable records on rights and accountability. Links between Sandhurst and the elite families of the Middle East stretch back over a century. King Hussein of Jordan attended Sandhurst and later said, "I have always felt that my experience at Sandhurst was one which had the greatest impact on my formative years." Today, the region has started to turn the tables. Gulf monarchies are deploying 21st-Century techniques and, above all, money to extend their own soft power. Latterly Sandhurst sparked debate by accepting £3m from Bahrain and £15m from the UAE to rededicate two buildings. These controversially included the former Mons Hall, originally named for the first major British-fought battle of WW1, but now retitled the King Hamad Hall after the Bahraini monarch. Sandhurst insiders - including a former commandant, Middle Eastern activists and exiled academics - debate the rights and wrongs of Sandhurst's role in bolstering at best undemocratic, and at worst repressive, regimes.
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04-Mar-2015
The Documentary - Maskirovka: Deception Russian-Style
Lucy Ash examines the Russian military strategy of deception, maskirovka, from the 14th Century to the current crisis in Ukraine. (Photo: Soldiers. Credit: AFP)
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02-Mar-2015
The Documentary - The Price of Inequality
If the statistics can be believed, over the last 30 years the gap between rich and poor in the West has grown as cavernous as it was in the Nineteenth Century. Income and wealth inequality – seen as almost a good thing back in the 1980s – now raises alarm across the industrialised world. In the US, for example, the richest 1% of the population is estimated to own more than 40% of the country's wealth. And it is a similar picture across the planet. But who are the 1%? How have they made their wealth? And why have the rest of us seemingly been left behind? Robert Peston speaks to leading policymakers and opinion shapers as he charts the new consensus that inequality is the biggest economic challenge we face. (Photo: Occupy movement protestors. Credit: Monika Graff/Getty Images)
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25-Feb-2015
The Documentary - Gone - The Disappearing Desert
86 year old Khojabay lives in Kazakhstan in the middle of a vast desert made of toxic dust and pesticides, once The Aral Sea. 40 years ago his village was a seaside fishing port surrounded by freshwater lakes and barley fields. Then he would catch 400 kilos of fish in one go. He scans the desert to see if the Sea is coming back. This is what the Kazakhstan government is promising people – former fishing communities trapped in the middle of the desert. 26000 square miles of sea is now called Aralkum or ‘The Aral Sands’ locally. When the Soviets started building dozens of dams and canals in the 1960s and deprived the Aral Sea of its two main tributaries – the rivers Amudarya and Syrdarya – the sea started shrinking. The governments of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan who shared the former sea are not able to restore it. They would need billions of dollars to revive the Aral and stop cotton irrigation. This simply will not happen. As part of the BBC's Richer World Season, Rustam Qobil visits this desert and talks to people who have lost their sea, health and loved ones to this man-made disaster. He is 42 now. When Rustam was born in Uzbekistan ‘We had our sea. Now we don’t, and we will never have it again.’ On the Uzbekistan side of the sandpit there is another fisherman who stares into the same desert. His grandchildren simply think he is mad when he talks of the sea. His words defy all logic and reason.
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24-Feb-2015
The Documentary - My Africa: My Africa - Tanzania
For many Tanzanians, social status used to be defined by a good public sector job - being a teacher or a lawyer - but now the young are making a different choice; a choice to chase their dreams. And they are prepared to take great economic risks to achieve success. Alan Kasujja visits o the Tanzanian city of Dar Es Salaam to find out what the opportunities are for young people.
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19-Feb-2015
The Documentary - Batting for the Middle Kingdom
In 2012, 24-year old Jiang Shuyao made sporting history when he became the first mainland Chinese cricketer to play for an English league side. Jiang's debut season with Cleethorpes Cricket Club drew attention to the rising popularity of the quintessentially British sport in the People's Republic of China. The Chinese Cricket Association has set itself the target of achieving Test match status and playing against the likes of England, Australia and South Africa by 2020. A grass roots campaign to get the game taught in schools is well underway, and in the city of Shenyang in Liaoning province in North Eastern China, the country's top side is fast becoming a nurturing ground for the star players of the future. If China were to one day become a cricketing nation, the International Cricket Council has estimated that global revenues for the game could increase by as much as 40 per cent. Fred Dove has been meeting some of China's finest cricketers, and talking to those attempting to make the game of W.G.Grace and Donald Bradman part of the Chinese way of life.
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17-Feb-2015
The Documentary - My Africa: My Africa - Rwanda
My Africa offers a series of inspiring snapshots of a continent working towards future prosperity. In this three part series, airing as part of the BBC's Richer World season, BBC Newsday presenter Alan Kasujja travels to three countries in his native east Africa to meet the new generation of young Africans who are determined to forge change for themselves and their homelands. The world’s oldest continent is home to some its youngest populations, and many people are taking full advantage of new technology, media and the internet to ensure that their lives will be different to those of their forebears. In the second programme, Alan travels to Rwanda, a country notorious for the genocide that took place there in 1994. Yet a bright new future beckons for some of its youth, as young female schoolteacher Jessie trains them in the high technology that promises to transform the nation. Jessie is on a mission to help her landlocked country reach out beyond its borders to interact with the wider world. “We want to be like Silicon Valley” she says. “The only way we can reach countries to attract them to invest in our country is to use information technology”. Teaching in English, she sees herself as part of an ambitious internationalist agenda which aims to grow a genuine middle class in Rwanda. Buoyed by her strong Christian faith, she is certain it will come to pass. Yet as Alan discovers, not everyone shares this vision. He also meets Dida, a young female actress and artist, who is sceptical about making Rwanda more global. As a survivor of the horrors of the genocide, she is more concerned with another kind of nation-building: healing the scars of the past and protecting Rwanda’s ancient linguistic culture. Against the backdrop of a rapidly changing capital city, Alan explores the worldviews of these two very different young women, discovering that, despite their differences, they both share a determination to make Rwanda self-reliant and independent in spirit.
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16-Feb-2015
The Documentary - Palace of Shame
The imperial summer palace in Beijing was looted and destroyed by French and British troops in 1860. Chris Bowlby discovers why.
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12-Feb-2015
The Documentary - Digitising Stalin
For Stalin, privacy was key. So how would he feel about his secrets being revealed? The Stalin Digital Archive is the result of a collaboration between the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (RGASPI) and Yale University Press. As it approaches completion, the implications of this decade-long endeavour are explored by journalist and author Daniel Kalder. Encompassing the years 1890 through to 1952, over 400,000 pages of archive prise open a safe full of Soviet secrets. There's Stalin's foreign policy with Germany before World War II; communications during the Great Purges and relations with Western intellectuals and leaders. There are classified documents regarding deposed police chiefs, the 'Interior Ministry of the Russian Empire' and, latterly, the FBI. Pieced together, this puzzle of papers underlines the suspicion and paranoia that dominated this era. Daniel Kalder believes that the collection has provided us with important new ways to 'read' Stalin. We discover: Stalin as artist - he loved to draw wolves' heads all over his notes while he was sitting in tedious meetings. That was the only thing he drew - wolves, wolves, wolves. A holdover from his years spent in exile in Siberia, surrounded by wolves? Stalin as modest - he hacked out references to himself in the works he edited. A revelatory and previously unknown quality, this completely inverts our understanding of Stalin Stalin as smart - he added lots to Marxist theory, and yet, according to Trotsky, his limited mental capacity wasn't up to such a task With the click of a mouse, we gain access to one of the most guarded and secretive periods in Russia's modern history. (Photo: Portrait of Stalin being held by supporters. Copyright: Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images)
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10-Feb-2015
The Documentary - My Africa: My Africa - Uganda
My Africa offers a series of inspiring snapshots of a continent working towards future prosperity. In this three part series, airing as part of the BBC's Richer World season, BBC Newsday presenter Alan Kasujja travels to three countries in his native east Africa to meet the new generation of young Africans who are determined to forge change for themselves and their homelands. The world’s oldest continent is home to some its youngest populations, and many people are taking full advantage of new technology, media and the internet to ensure that their lives will be different to those of their forebears. (Photo: Entrepreneur Isaac Oboth who runs Media 256, a TV and video company)
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05-Feb-2015
The Documentary - Heaven and Earth: Le Ly Hayslip
Much of what we know about Vietnam we know through the prism of western, primarily American, culture. Two autobiographies written by the Vietnamese-American author Le Ly Hayslip offer an important insight into the war and its aftermath from a Vietnamese perspective. It's 26 years since the publication of her first memoir, When Heaven and Earth Changed Places: A Vietnamese Woman's Journey from War to Peace, which was followed in 1993 by her second book, Child of War, Woman of Peace. In this programme, Le Ly gives us unique access into her home in Vietnam to talk about her life and the two books that tell her remarkable story of suffering, survival and her mission to heal the wounds between America and her homeland. Le Ly was tortured in a South Vietnamese government prison for "revolutionary sympathies", raped by the VC, and fled to Saigon before fleeing to America. There she married unhappily, prospered, and returned to her village in Vietnam 13 years later. She has since set up the East Meets West foundation to reconcile Americans and Vietnamese, and the Global Village Foundation providing development assistance to rural Vietnam. The programme includes in interview with the director Oliver Stone, who was so moved by Le Ly's story he made a film about her – 1993's Heaven and Earth. Says Stone: 'That she has been through so much and can talk honestly the way she does is the key to her book and the understanding of it and that's why I wanted to make the film – to understand someone who had suffered even more than I had. And I can learn from her.'
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03-Feb-2015
The Documentary - Tata: India’s Global Giant
Back in the 19th Century, a Parsi family from Bombay called the Tatas began to trade internationally. From their humble beginnings has emerged India’s biggest business group, which is now a major force in the global economy. Dr Zareer Masani knows the story well, as the son of a former senior Tata executive. He tells the story of Tata’s expansion into steelmaking, hotels, aviation and ICT. He charts the international ambition of this enormous concern, which now owns well-known British brands like Jaguar Land Rover and Tetley tea – and which is now the biggest industrial employer in the UK. Throughout its history, Tata has taken pride in its social conscience, with generous support for philanthropic causes – although it has also provoked criticism on occasion for its industrial and environmental record. Now, the Tata family no longer controls the companies which bear its name - and which are competing in new and tougher markets. Can Tata hold onto its historic values in a world of the ruthless multinationals?
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02-Feb-2015
The Documentary - Mengele's Twins
Among the horrors perpetrated at the Auschwitz camp were crude unscientific experiments conducted on Jewish twins. They were masterminded by the notorious Josef Mengele, known as 'the Angel of Death'. He was a true believer in the Nazi creed about the alleged genetic shortcomings of Jews. Survivors of his brutal regime have spoken to the BBC about their experiences. They include Yona Laks who was deported to Auschwitz with her twin sister from the Lodz ghetto in Poland at the age of 14, and Vera Kriegel who arrived at the camp when she was just six. (Photo: Josef Mengele circa 1950. Credit: Keystone/Getty Images)
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02-Feb-2015
The Documentary - Govindpuri Sound
Slum settlements have a strong visual identity. We are used to seeing TV footage of densely packed, ramshackle homes squeezed onto strips of land in inner cities. Dr Tom Rice – a sound anthropologist – takes an alternative perspective and explores what a slum sounds like and how this embodies and reflects the local culture. Tom meets up with Dr Tripta Chandola, an urban researcher, who for 10 years has studied the slums of Govindpuri in India’s capital, Delhi. Tripta introduces Tom to the settlement and some of its residents to discover what is unique about Govindpuri sound. He listens to the slum through their ears as they explain how music, sound and noise are part of the fabric of their daily social and emotional lives. Residents describe sonic features of the slum such as the early morning rush for water, which is a limited and precious resource in the settlement. Sounds travel easily through the narrow built up lanes and the density of the population means both sounds and listening ears are everywhere. The rich and varied soundscape can create an exciting buzz of activity and warm sociability. However, Tom also learns how certain sounds can be a source of friction that emphasise sharp social divisions across the boundaries of religion, class and gender. Govindpuri does not exist in a vacuum, and Tom explores the links between the sounds of the slums and the wider soundscape of Delhi. A growing threat to the slums could also mean that its vibrant sonic culture may soon be silenced forever. (Photo: General street view of Govindpuri slum district, in Delhi. Credit: Chris Jackson/Getty Images)
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28-Jan-2015
The Documentary - 28/01/2015
Lenny Henry tells the story of August Wilson, America's greatest modern black playwright.
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27-Jan-2015
The Documentary - Love Your Wife Day
Even by the sometimes-bizarre standards of modern Japanese culture, the annual love-your-wife shout-out is one of the stranger rituals to have emerged in recent years. But what does it tell us about love and life in Japan today? Each January dozens of men take to the stage in Tokyo's Hibiya Park to shout and scream - before complete strangers and on national TV - the sweet nothings that apparently they have difficulty whispering in private. Standing in front of a giant heart made of pink tulips the men take turns to declare their love. "I'm always putting you down," screams one man. "But it's only because I'm shy. I love you, and I promise not to come home drunk." The organisers say they started this event a decade ago because culturally modest Japanese men can find it "difficult" to express love. In Japanese culture, modesty and reticence are traditionally valued over outspokenness and expressions of love and appreciation are uncommon, even among married couples. Kiyotaka Yamana, the event’s founder, is determined to teach Japanese men that true happiness can be found by declaring their love for their wives, one shout at a time. Chie Kobayashi meets some of the men taking part - and their wives - and through their personal stories explores some of the bigger themes of love and life in contemporary Japan. But she also finds that, behind the light-heartedness of the event, some darker relationship truths come to light with serious implications for Japanese society.
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24-Jan-2015
The Documentary - The Lives And Deaths Of Naftali and Mohammed
Last summer the deaths of four innocent teenagers in Israel, three Jewish and one Israeli Arab, heightened tensions leading to the start of the 2014 Gaza war. Mike Thomson travels to Israel to speak with the friends and family of Naftali Fraenkel, one of the murdered Jewish schoolboys and those of Mohammed Abu Khdeir. He hears about their lives, their loves and the potential taken away during those 19 days last summer. This is a story of the human lives behind the headlines of this eternal conflict. (Photo: Naftali Fraenkel and Mohammed Abu Khdeir. Credit: The Fraenkel family/The Abu Khdeir family/Reuters)
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22-Jan-2015
The Documentary - Your Rubbish, Our Hope
For decades rubbish pickers crawled their way over the biggest rubbish dump in South America, the lowest of the low, the bottom of the heap. Their lives in Gramacho just outside Rio de Janeiro, living alongside their pigs and dogs, were unimaginably hard and poor amongst the hundreds of thousands of tons of bloody hospital waste, dead bodies, festering food, needles and other sharp objects. Injuries happened all the time and the only people they had to help them were their fellow rubbish pickers, or Catadores as they are called in Brazil. But in the lead up to Brazil’s hosting of the World Cup in 2014 Gramacho was closed. New cleaner rubbish disposal policies and landfill techniques were introduced and the rubbish pickers were removed from the dump and banned from working on the new one. So what happened to them and how have they survived in this new world? The Catadores are well known in Brazil – they have formed a union which has campaigned for their rights with some success and managed to negotiate compensation for their loss of work. This included the building of a recycling plant next to the old dump which they could manage and work in themselves. But that was only for a lucky few – and the memories of the old life are not all bad. Some got rich, found gold and suitcases of money, and what they remember most is the camaraderie. They may only have had each other to turn to – but they had each other. Now they are scattered and lost and the few trying to make the recycling plant work are struggling. (Photo: A 'catador' (scavenger) goes through bags with bottles at the Jardim Gramacho landfill, in Rio de Janeiro. Credit: Christophe Simon/AFP/GettyImages)
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20-Jan-2015
The Documentary - Remembering Rio
Machado de Assis was born in 1839 of mixed race, an epileptic with little formal education. Yet from these humble origins he went on to become Brazil’s greatest writer - the ‘Charles Dickens’ of Rio de Janeiro. Brazilians grow up reading his stories and novels, but why does the rest of the world know so little about this literary genius? His work gives us an unexpected view of colonial Rio, with snobbery and intrigue and a comic insight into the life of the rich and poor alike. Just as Dickens tore apart the surface of London life, so Machado digs into the very society he was aspiring to join, with the type of humour that in Salman Rushdie’s view ‘makes skulls smile’. He introduces us to an unexpected side of Rio society, and we find that it is still relevant to issues in Brazil today. Juliana Iootty of the BBC Brazilian Service goes out on to the streets of Rio to discover just what the people of this vibrant and colourful city make of their literary star, and retraces Machado de Assis’s extraordinary life under the tropical sun. (Photo: Juliana Iooty on Ipanema beach)
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14-Jan-2015
The Documentary - Olive Wars
The olive harvest in the West Bank is all about tradition. The first rains of the winter signal the start of gathering the olives on which so many Palestinian farmers depend. The BBC's Middle East Editor, Jeremy Bowen, has been travelling during the harvest through the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, and wanted by the Palestinians for a state. He spoke to Palestinian farmers, Jewish settlers, oil exporters, and Israeli soldiers, and found that the harvest is about a lot more than olives, or oil, or the soap they make from it. In a land where everything is politicised, so is the olive harvest. It's the politics of the struggle for land between the Palestinians and the Israelis who want it, and in that struggle the olive tree has become a potent symbol. And the olive harvest has at times become a serious flashpoint. Olive Wars shows how every year the harvest is at the heart of the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis for control of the land.
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13-Jan-2015
The Documentary - India's Beats - The Hungry Generation
Allen Ginsberg arrived in early 1960s Calcutta to discover a collective of angry young poets whose anti-establishment antics were uncannily reminiscent of his own past. This is the story of the so-called Hungry Generation. Fifty years later, we follow in the footsteps of the Beat Generation to the literary centre of India and go in search of the Hungryalist poets. Who were they? Where did they fit with a rich Bengali literary tradition that includes the great Rabindranath Tagore? What eventually led to their arrests, imprisonment and disbandment? The Hungry Generation were a special breed: born in the slums, but highly educated and primed for a revolution in both literature and society. Through their verse, they broke strict rules of Bengali poetry as well as social taboos. In their actions they rubbished 'bourgeois' Bengali polity - consciously acted with no manners and etiquette, burping, farting and using bad language. They also used clever stunts to attack local officials and politicians, and held readings in socially unacceptable venues, such as brothels, opium dens and graveyards. Hungryalist poets, such as the Roychoudhary brothers, and Utbal Kumar Basu, stood for the outsiders of society. Eventually the authorities had had enough. Hungryalists were rounded up and arrested on charges of obscenity and conspiracy against the state. Ginsberg attempted to intervene, sending letters of support. US literary journals carried the story and printed Hungryalist poetry. The movement floundered. But despite this, as we find, the Hungryalist anti-establishment spirit is very much still alive in modern-day Calcutta today. (Photo: The Hungry Generation. Credit: Malay Roychoudhary)
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12-Jan-2015
The Documentary - Three Pounds in My Pocket
In the 1950s and 1960s tens of thousands of migrants came to Britain from the Indian subcontinent. Many arrived with no more than £3 in their pocket - the limit set by the Indian authorities. They came to work in Britain's factories, foundries, and new public services. It was a time when the country desperately needed workers from its former colonies to regenerate its post-war economy. Presenter Kavita Puri, whose own father Ravi came with just a few pounds himself, hears his and other stories of the pioneering men and women who arrived in the '50s and '60s. They recall their first impressions of the country that once ruled over their own: the shocking housing conditions, the curiosity of neighbours and kindness of strangers and also the memories of casual racism and animosity. And they discuss their sense of belonging to their adopted homeland. These pioneer men and women led the way for the three million people of South Asian descent who live in Britain today.
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11-Jan-2015
The Documentary - Islamic State: Bureacracy and Brutality
Former jihadi Aimen Dean gives a unique insight into the workings of Islamic State. Dean left school in Saudi Arabia to fight jihad in Bosnia in the 1990s. But with the rise of al-Qaeda he became disillusioned with his comrades’ drift towards terrorism. He joined al-Qaeda – but working undercover for the British government. Dean has recently spoken publicly against the jihadist movement but he retains a deep network of contacts within it. Despite Dean’s defection, IS supporters still debate with him. Through those discussions, Dean has gained a deep understanding of the ideology and organisational networks behind IS.
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07-Jan-2015
The Documentary - Codename: Madeleine
Noor Inayat Khan was one of the most courageous, unusual secret agents of World War Two. Growing up in Paris under the influence of her Indian father, a famous Sufi teacher and musician, she had an idyllic upbringing, playing the harp, writing stories for children. In the June of 1940 though, as the Germans approached Paris, Noor fled to Britain – and this is where her adventure begins. She was determined that even as a Muslim of mixed origin and as someone with Sufi pacifist beliefs, she would commit to the British war effort. Signing up with the Women’s Auxiliary Airforce as a trainee radio operator she soon caught the attention of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), Churchill’s secret organisation, designed ‘to set Europe ablaze’, and she was recruited as an agent. With her fluent French and her radio skills, Noor was in some ways a prime candidate, but she was also gentle and naive, incapable of lying and unsuited to this ‘ministry of ungentlemanly warfare’. Despite mixed training reports, Noor was the first British female radio operator flown into occupied Paris. But within days of her arrival, her SOE network was blown. Noor was on her own. She managed to elude the Gestapo for nearly three months, carrying out vital SOE work, but was eventually captured. She revealed nothing under interrogation but her meticulously filed codebook was also seized – a fatal mistake that cost lives. Noor was finally executed in Dachau, 1944. She was just 30. Shahidha Bari uncovers Khan’s story. As a British Muslim herself, Shahidha looks at Khan’s unusual background and asks how Khan’s race and religion impacted her work and how relevant she is to modern multicultural Britain. (Photo: Memorial of Noor Inayat Khan in central London)
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06-Jan-2015
The Documentary - Death, Sex and Money
We like to think of our romantic lives as pure and unbothered by the cold business of spreadsheets and tax documents. But serious relationships are both romantic and financial partnerships. When the American podcast Death, Sex and Money put out a call for stories about love and money, the emails and voice messages started pouring in. Tiffany sent in this plea: Anna, Can we talk about prenups? My fiancé and I just broke things off because we couldn't agree to the terms that each of us wanted...I'm completely devastated and I'm getting mixed messages from people. Some are for and some are against [prenups] but everyone seems to feel very strongly for one side or the other. Tiffany is 28, and she is disappointed by what killed her otherwise great romance: an irreconcilable disagreement about money. Her problems are not unique, though. Relationships demand regular financial negotiation: prenups, joint checking accounts, retirement plans. What if one partner wants to buy a luxury car and the other finds that totally embarrassing? Is it worth getting remarried later in life when pricey hospital bills are looming? These are big questions that might not seem romantic, but talking about them is essential for a healthy relationship.
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02-Jan-2015
The Documentary - The Man Who Went Looking For Freedom
In 1983, Ion Bugan made a personal demonstration against the system in Romania in the midst of food shortages, electricity rationing, and surveillance of ordinary people by the secret police. He was jailed immediately. From then, until the day they left for America six years later, his family were followed by secret police wherever they went. Their friends and relatives were intimidated and interrogated. Now, almost a quarter of a century after they left, the Bugans return to Romania for the first time to retrace Ion’s steps: the jails he was held in, the Securitate HQ where the thousands of files about them are kept, and finally back to their home village. Picture: Ion Bugan, Photograph by kind permission of Catalin Bugan Presented by Carmen Bugan
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31-Dec-2014
The Documentary - Tupac Shakur: Hip Hop Immortal
Tupac Shakur trained as an actor, posed as a street thug and became a best selling rapper. He continues to be mythologised, revered and highlighted like no other. Poet and playwright Al Letson recalls the life of this restless revolutionary who was shot and killed 18 years ago, yet remains one of the third biggest selling hip hop artists. Tupac led a conflicted life, causing moral outrage in one verse and capturing the voice of the disenfranchised in another. He continues to inspire revolutionaries around the world and has even been chosen by the Vatican as someone who ‘aimed to reach the heart of good minded people’ but what is it about Tupac? He died young at just 25, a ‘black James Dean’, but how is it that other rappers have faded while he is still deemed relevant? He wrote the feminist elegy Brenda's Got a Baby and the abusive Wonda Why They Call U Bitch. Graffiti tributes cover walls across the world, he carried the conflict between community struggle and personal gain. With contributions from Tupac’s first manager and the actor Tony Danzia, Al Letson explores the complexity of Tupac’s life and the contending identities that define him. Picture: Rap musician Tupac Shakur shown in 1993, Credit: AP
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30-Dec-2014
The Documentary - Musa's Money
Mansa Musa of Mali amassed a jaw-dropping $400 billion during his reign from 1312 to 1337, making him the wealthiest man ever, according to an inflation-adjusted list by celebritynetworth.com. This even outranks the Rothschilds ($350 billion) and the Rockefellers ($340 billion). Fergus Nicoll recounts the fascinating story of Mansa Musa – one of the greatest statesmen in the history of Africa – and asks how he managed to amass such wealth and create a strong, centralised government structure within which trade, culture and scholarship all flourished. Fergus learns how Musa's astounding wealth came from Mali's production of more than half the world's gold and salt, and his control of the trade routes for these valuable commodities. His empire stretched from Middle Niger, through Timbuktu and Gao northwards to the salt-producing great desert, and eastwards into Hausaland and as far as Western Sudan. One of Musa's greatest achievements was to impose a single system of law and order across northern Africa, which helped facilitate this trade. Musa was a Muslim and his year-long pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324 became legendary. Travelling 3,000 miles by camel, with a huge retinue of guards and attendants, carrying bags full of gold nuggets, Musa was so generous in giving away his gold that the sudden influx devalued the metal in the cities of Cairo, Medina and Mecca for the next decade. Picture: Gold bracelets, Credit: David McNew/Getty Images
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29-Dec-2014
The Documentary - The Lipinski
The startling 300-year journey of a 'golden period' Stradivarius violin - through the lives of geniuses, dictators, refugees and ordinary people as well as the thieves who stole it violently in 2014. An art crime story is the beginning of a journey around the world - and through varied lives and cultures - tracing the history of the Lipinski Stradivarius violin which left the hands of the master Antonio Stradivari in 1715. In February 2014, Milwaukee Symphony leader Frank Almond was beaten and tasered after a sell-out performance - and the $6 million violin was snatched from his hands. National US media overload followed, as the instrument had become the blue-collar city's emblem of accessible high culture. The programme explores its impact not on the musical elite, but on the life of the city and its regular people. And from this crime scene, we get into the rich international cast and stories. We hear the memories of Evi Liivak, an Estonian violinist whose father was murdered by the Gestapo and who played in Second World War refugee camps before marrying one of the main translators at the Nuremberg War Crime Trials and coming to America. And there's Peter Voight the Sussex luthier whose family have been making and repairing violins across Europe since the 17th century, the lawyer of Universal Allah, the Milwaukee barber imprisoned for the 2014 theft, and the local police chief who led the investigation. Picture: The Lipinski Stradivarius violin guarded by police
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28-Dec-2014
The Documentary - Surviving The Most Lethal Route In The World
One boat, two families; trying to escape war in Syria, desperate to start a new life in Europe.
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26-Dec-2014
The Documentary - The Great War Diaries
Dr Ingrid Sharp hears how ordinary people – soldiers, mothers, nurses, and even children – experienced World War One. Through letters, diaries and memoirs, Ingrid Sharp – a historian from the University of Leeds in northern England – brings to life personal stories 100 years after the First World War began. These writings, some of which are dramatised, portray the little-known human side of the world’s first truly global conflict: stories of love and loss, hope and grief, fervour and brutal death. Elfriede Kuhr is a 12 year-old German schoolgirl who lives in a small town near the Russian border. Elfriede, led on by nationalist teachers and excited about Germany’s early victories, soon learns about deprivation and the loss of loved ones – including her first boyfriend. Charles Edward Montague, an Englishman who was too old to volunteer for the army, lies about his age to be allowed to fight. Montague loses his early illusions in the trenches of Belgium and gets into trouble for taking a visiting Member of Parliament too close to the front line. Finally, Marina Yurlova – a Russian teenager, daughter of a Cossack colonel and faithful supporter of the Tsar – suddenly finds herself on the wrong side after the Russian Revolution. These diaries, along with other characters from Britain, France, Russia and Germany, are woven into a vivid tapestry of the Great War – focusing not on military strategy or the causes of war, but on what it was like for ordinary people to live through a conflict that is otherwise too overwhelming to grasp. Picture: Digging up potatoes in Dulwich, Credit: Topical Press Agency/Getty Images
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24-Dec-2014
The Documentary - Karaoke as Art?
Rumour has it that one of the most exciting music scenes in America is happening right now in Portland, Oregon and does not feature a single person playing an instrument. So Katie Puckrik, music critic and presenter, heads out on a karaoke crawl across the city to find out if karaoke really is the centre of cool in Portland. Portland is a city known as a foodie paradise and famed for its microbreweries. It has a bookshop that takes up a whole block of the city and boasts a strong local democracy. Above all Portland is intensely musical. But why karaoke? Journalist Dan Kois is convinced that Portland is a city devoted to chasing that feeling of doing something you love, just for a moment, and being recognised for it, no matter how obscure or unnecessary or ludicrous it might seem to the straight world. As they say, 'Karaoke makes regular people rock stars and rock stars regular people'. On Katie’s karaoke crawl she meets eminent KJs (karaoke jockeys), in particular John Brophy whose Baby Ketten Karaoke nights are where the serious performers go. He has eradicated the top 100 favourite songs from his list so everyone has to dig deeper to find more challenging material. At Chopsticks II, she meets a KJ who admits that serious karaoke fans are addicted to performance. She meets a teacher who runs a karaoke club in his school and one night she gets up and sings live with a karaoke band called Karaoke from Hell who have been playing backing tracks for amateur singers for 22 years. At another club she trips over a merry band of puppeteers who have brought their alter egos out for a night of singing and performance. At Baby Ketten Karaoke, where the stakes are high, she meets performers who make a point of never singing the same song twice. (Photo: Man sings into a microphone. Credti: Getty Images)
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24-Dec-2014
The Documentary - The Kinshasa Symphony Orchestra
The Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste or Kinshasa Symphony Orchestra , is the only symphony orchestra in Central Africa. It was founded in the mid-1990s by Armande Diangienda - a musician and grandson of the Congolese Religious leader Simon Kimbangu. At the time Armande was a professional airline pilot, who also played in a small church band. Then, the plane he usually flew crashed while he was on holiday, and soon afterwards he took up his father’s mission to bring music to a much larger group of people. In the beginning a small handful of would be musicians, made long arduous daily journeys to rehearsals that lasted seven hours, Monday to Friday. They waited patiently to take turns on the few available instruments - and gradually taught themselves to play. Twenty years later, their sheer dedication has paid off. This year, 100 orchestra and choir members travelled from The Democratic Republic of Congo, for a concert tour of the UK. Instrumentalists, who still work as carpenters, biologists, dressmakers and electricians at home in Kinshasa, sat down next to professionals from top British orchestras, to rehearse and perform on the grandest concert stages in London, Manchester and Bristol. Nicki Paxman met Armande Diangienda and members of the KSO in between rehearsals, and just as they came off stage after their concert at the Royal Festival Hall in London. Picture: The Symphony Orchestra of the Kimbanguis, Credit: Lionel Healing/Stringer
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22-Dec-2014
The Documentary - Mothers of Jihadists
An international NGO, Women without Borders, based in Vienna, with years of experience working in the field of counter terrorism, is pioneering a strategy of using mothers of Jihadist fighters and supporters to help counter the radicalisation of young men and women. Razia Iqbal went to Austria to meet some of the mothers, brought together for the first time. (Photo: From left to right, Christianne Boudreau (son killed in Syria) from Canada, Razia Iqbal (presenter), Saliha Ben Ali (son killed in Syria) from Belgium. BBC copyright)
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18-Dec-2014
The Documentary - Afghan Women: Speaking out, Losing Lives
A vivid portrait of the everyday lives of girls and women at a turning point in Afghan history. Lyse Doucet visits Kabul to see how the lives of Afghan girls and women have changed since the fall of the Taliban 13 years ago, and to hear concerns that these hard-won gains are already being threatened as the troops depart. From female illiteracy to maternal mortality and sexual violence, Afghanistan is still one of the worst places on earth for women's rights, though considerable advances have been made since the fall of the Taliban. Lyse speaks with Rula Ghani, whose very public profile as the new First Lady - the first First Lady in a generation - gives a sense of how women's opportunities are improving, at least in cities such as Kabul. She visits the Rabia Balkhi Women's Hospital and the Zarghuna High School for Girls - the largest girls' school in the country. As doctors, midwives, new mothers, teachers, schoolgirls and one of the country's very few female rappers share their personal stories, she hears optimism about life in cities, but grave concern about the rural areas, where the Taliban continue to wield power. She hears shocking stories of domestic violence, rape and forced marriage, and she chances upon a tragic but all too common instance of still-birth. Additionally, the testimonies of two women whom Lyse had hoped to meet - a doctor who has gone into hiding and a head-teacher who is seeking political asylum in Britain, both because of fear of the Taliban - are read by the actor Olivia Coleman, giving voice to the women who fear even today to speak out. (Photo: Afghan women sit in the rafters as they watch girls compete in a Taekwon-Do match. Credit: Aref Karimi/AFP/Getty Images)
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16-Dec-2014
The Documentary - 16/12/2014
To mark the company's centenary, Laura Barton crosses the USA by Greyhound bus.
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15-Dec-2014
The Documentary - Damming Afghanistan
The story of the Helmand valley dam complex, the biggest engineering project in Afghanistan. The project, still unfinished, began more than 50 years ago when American engineers first arrived in Helmand. They brought their families, drive-in movies and even Santa Claus. Afghans and foreigners rubbed shoulders without a thought. Lashkar Gah became a model town with electric lights and the first school in the country in which boys and girls studied together. As Afghanistan experimented with modernity and technology, a great future seemed in touching distance. But then came the Soviet invasion. The engineers fled; the optimistic schoolchildren turned into refugees. The Americans in their turn bombed the dam in 2001 - paying millions once again to reconstruct it and fit a hydropower turbine, transported across the desert by the British army in one of the most famous operations of the current Afghan war. Monica Whitlock, investigates this epic tale of dreams, grit and folly half a century in the making
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10-Dec-2014
The Documentary - Reclaiming the Swastika
For most people in the West, the swastika remains inextricably linked to the atrocities committed by the Nazis in the last century. But there have been calls to reclaim the symbol from its Nazi links and restore its origin as an ancient symbol signalling good luck. For many, such a suggestion is an outrageous affront to good taste. So can these two views ever be reconciled? Mukti Jain Campion examines the symbol's long and surprising pre-Nazi history and discovers how the Nazi adoption of it is based on a mistaken interpretation of ancient Indian texts. She talks to historians, visits the world's oldest identified swastika in Ukraine, meets a tattoo artist in Copenhagen with a mission to revive the ancient symbol and hears what the swastika means today to a 93-year-old Jewish holocaust survivor. (Photo: A Swastika adorns the ceiling of the 'Crypt' designed in one of the towers of Wewelsburg Castle by SS leader Heinrich Himmler. Credit: John Macdougall/AFP/Getty Images)
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09-Dec-2014
The Documentary - 09/12/2014
Comedian Colm O'Regan offers his sideways view of the last 150 years of thinking about capitalism - with help from an audience.
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03-Dec-2014
The Documentary - Graffiti: Kings on a Mission
In 1974, one of America's most celebrated cultural figures declared graffiti as "the great art of the 70s". Back then, thousands of teenagers were vandalising New York, in particular the subway system. Yet Norman Mailer described their "passion", their "cool", their "masterpieces in letters six feet high". Who were the teens behind the 'tags' - now the veterans of the scene? Why did they create this movement? Were they even thinking about art, politics, protest - or simply writing their names on trains? We meet some of those who defied the law (and their parents) and diced with death including pioneers such as Riff 170, Jester, Coco 144, Flint Gennari, and Tats Cru. Their efforts have been replicated far beyond New York – in art galleries and in the hands of Arab Spring protesters – and yet their aspirations were largely apolitical: they were chasing fame and the acceptance of their peers. The programme explores the city's complicated relationship with graffiti, which it appears to condemn and celebrate in equal measure. Former artists – or 'writers' as they prefer to be known – revisit their old haunts and discuss why they believe they had a right to 'tag', 'bomb' and 'destroy' New York with markers and spray paint. The programme paints a vivid picture of a city that became a canvas at a time when, according to Norman Mailer, "it looked as if graffiti would take over the world". (Photo: The historic graffiti mecca 5 Pointz is seen on 9 August, 2013, before being painted over by developers. Credit: Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
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02-Dec-2014
The Documentary - The Cult of Pablo Escobar
Colombia's most notorious drug baron, Pablo Escobar, was killed in a hail of bullets in 1993. His success as the head of the Medellin Cartel was based on a simple maxim: plata o plomo - cash or a bullet. If he could not bribe you, he would kill you. But two decades after his death, Pablo Escobar looms large in the Colombian psyche. Linda Pressly explores his legacy, and how the story of this drug-runner, torturer and murderer resonates through popular culture in Colombia. (Photo: A student boy holds an album with the image of deceased Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. Credit: Raul Arboleda/AFP/GettyImages)
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01-Dec-2014
The Documentary - The Lost Tapes of Orson Welles
Director Orson Welles was asked to write his life story in his later years. He declined but was convinced by his friend Henry Jaglom to discuss his life over a weekly lunch at their favourite Hollywood restaurant, Ma Maison. The hundreds of tapes, recorded from 1983 to 1985, reveal extraordinary, frank, conversations between Welles and the independent director Jaglom. The tapes gathered dust in a shoebox in the corner of Jaglom's production office for over 30 years - until now. This programme provides an opportunity to hear the amazing material they contain for the first time. Welles talks intimately, disclosing personal secrets and reflecting on the people of the time. At times the tapes display the great film-maker as a world champion grudge keeper, rather different from the amiable character who appeared in interviews when he was alive. As we hear, he hated the way Charlton Heston always called Touch of Evil (directed by Welles) a 'minor film'. Welles also found the work of fellow directors, Woody Allen, Charlie Chaplin and Alfred Hitchcock, difficult to embrace. But, as we hear, he had some unexpected enthusiasms. Presenter Christopher Frayling reveals the great director free to be irreverent and Welles is sometimes cynical and romantic, sentimental but never boring, and often wickedly entertaining. The programmes also feature the thoughts of fellow diner Henry Jaglom, film author Peter Biskind, as well as actor and Welles scholar Simon Callow. (Photo: A portrait of Orson Welles taken 23 Feburary 1982. Credit: Philippe Bouchon/AFP/Getty Images)
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26-Nov-2014
The Documentary - Afghanistan: The Lessons of War
Former commander of the British and Coalition forces in Helmand province Major General Andrew Mackay, embarks on a personal journey to find out what has been achieved by the 14 year campaign in Afghanistan. He puts searching questions to former US General David Petraeus, International Security Assistance Force commanders General John McColl and General David Richards, to discover if there ever was a coherent strategy for coalition troops. He reflects on what was achieved in Afghanistan with former US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates and former UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband. And, he looks to the future of the country with a senior figure from the current Afghan government - Mohammad Mustafa Mastoor, Deputy Minister for Finance. He also believes that any future interventions should be based on lessons learned in the Afghanistan campaign. But what are those lessons? He hears from experts who have studied the campaign to help him consider the role he played and whether the campaign was worthwhile. (Photo: Brigadier Andrew Mackay, the commander of British forces in Afghanistan pictured after landing near Musa Qa'la, Afghanistan. Credit: PA)
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25-Nov-2014
The Documentary - Sister Aimee
Naomi Grimley tells the story of how a farm girl invented broadcast evangelism, becoming among the most famous and glamorous women in America in the 1920s and 30s. Canadian-born Aimee Semple McPherson underwent a conversion and took to the road as a Pentecostal preacher, touring cities across the US. She finally settled in Los Angeles where she built a huge temple for her movement. Her mix of Hollywood glitz and conservative religion came together in her famous 'illustrated sermons' - part bible reading, part music hall turn. Dressed in eye-catching costumes, she acted out her sermons for thousands of followers who queued round the block to see her in action. And long before the arrival of televangelism, she pioneered the use of radio to spread her message across the airwaves. Her allure was such that even Charlie Chaplin was a fan. But with celebrity came loneliness and scandal. In 1926, she disappeared after swimming on Venice Beach only to mysteriously reappear in Mexico five weeks later. She claimed she had been kidnapped - while her critics believed she had run off with a married man. Naomi Grimley explores the compelling life story of Sister Aimee, visiting her temple in LA and the remote castle she built to escape the prying eyes of the press. Naomi asks what this extraordinary woman’s life tells us about two of America’s enduring themes - faith and fame. (Photo: Aimee Semple McPherson. Copyright protected. Used by express consent of The International Church of the Foursquare Gospel)
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24-Nov-2014
The Documentary - Human Cubans
British journalist Nick Baker and Anglo-Cuban journalist Arnaldo Hernandez Diaz discover a vivid snapshot of Cuba including topics around the internet and online communication, LGBT issues and a surprising medical story. Cuba is one of the planet’s least connected countries. Most Cubans cannot afford to get online, but there are ingenious ways to circulate downloaded material and long waiting lists for expensive mobile phones. Nick and Arnaldo meets some of Cuba’s bloggers and one of the country’s first online real estate agents to ask what happens when Cuba gets online. Despite its homophobic past, Cuba is keen to liberalise attitudes to LGBT people. This is thanks to the efforts of Mariela Castro – the president’s daughter – who explains why Cuba funds free transgender surgery. Nick and Arnaldo also meet a variety of people from Cuba’s LGBT community including Fransisco, who came out to his wife and son; Mercedes, a lesbian activist and Jose Augustin, who was exiled from his family and now awaits gender reassignment surgery. Finally, Nick and Arnalso hear from Tachira and Jo, who have just qualified as doctors. They are Americans and among a group of 20 students who trained for free this year in Cuba by promising to return to practise in poor communities in the US. Tachira and Jo discuss their experiences as ‘honorary Cubans’ and Cuban healthcare. (Photo: Jose Augustin awaits gender reassignment surgery)
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23-Nov-2014
The Documentary - Ebola: The Impact on Africa
Paul Moss travels to Ghana and Senegal to assess the wider impact of Ebola in Africa. Beach resorts are quiet, investors are pulling out and there is widespread concern that a disease which has hit neighbouring countries could have a long-term impact on the entire continent. We also hear from those countries where Ebola is present - Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. The Senegalese musician Baaba Maal talks to Paul, and also joining us will be a panel of guests which will discuss the issues raised. (Picture: Lawrence Ofori-Boadu, head of the Ebola Treatment Centre at Tema General Hospital, Ghana)
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19-Nov-2014
The Documentary - O' Say Can you See?
The Star-Spangled Banner is embedded in American national identity and yet it only became the official national anthem in 1931. Erica Wagner returns to its origins, almost exactly two centuries ago at the Battle of Baltimore in 1814, a decisive moment in the Second War of American Independence, to find out how Francis Scott Key came to write these lyrics about the American flag. She speaks to the acclaimed American poet Mary Jo Salter about the merit of the lyrics, and to the musicologist David Hildebrand about how the music changed over time to become the anthem we know today. Central to the appeal of The Star-Spangled Banner is the reverence – what some term the religiosity - which the United States has for its flag. Through insights from Annin Flagmakers, the oldest surviving flagmaking company founded in 1847, and Marc Leepson, author of biographies of both Francis Scott Key and the American flag, Erica unpicks this unique relationship - something she is always aware of whenever she returns to the United States - and examines the positive and negative responses to the anthem. With music by Whitney Houston, Beyonce Knowles and, of course, Jimi Hendrix. (Photo: Department of Homeland Security employees stand for the singing of the national anthem. Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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18-Nov-2014
The Documentary - Who's Left Holding the Baby?: Part Two
With more and more women going back to work after having children, childcare - its costs and its developmental implications - has become one of the most vexed issues for new parents. Parents are faced with many questions - Nursery or nanny? Stay at home longer or go back to work? Move closer to grandparents or muddle through without? It was a dilemma reporter Madeleine Morris faced when returning to work in Australia after having her daughter Scarlett, now two years old. Burdened with endless theories about what is best for baby, like so many parents in developed countries, she now pays a large proportion of her salary to keep her child in nursery. She is constantly rushing to pick up, drop off and get home for bath time, feeling guilty all the while. In Who's Holding the Baby? Madeleine will be asking if this is the only way. She and Scarlett set out to discover two vastly different approaches to caring for children, as found in Fiji and China, and the social politics and emotions that go with them. In China, they visit a boarding school where children as young as two are educated away from their parents and in Fiji they experience a society where childcare is shared amongst the extended family, everyone from young to old plays a role. Along the way they ask what our childcare choices say about our values as a society, and what we might learn from others.
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16-Nov-2014
The Documentary - Chasing West Africa's Pirates
There are now more pirate attacks in the Gulf of Guinea than off the coast of Somalia - once considered the global 'piracy hotspot'. The BBC’s Mary Harper travels to Lagos, one of the busiest ports in Africa, to explore what is a highly complex world of piracy. She tells for the first time the story of seafarers who have been caught up in violent and highly-organised attacks, speaks to former militants who themselves committed acts of piracy and who are now controversially being employed, at a high cost, to tackle piracy and examines the economic cost to communities who depend on maritime trade. (Photo: Oil tankers wait to go into Lagos harbour. Credit: Penny Dale)
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13-Nov-2014
The Documentary - The Syria Vote
In August 2013 the Assad regime in Syria was accused of deploying chemical weapons against its own civilian population. The world looked on, horrified. In the United States President Obama – who had described the use of chemical weapons as a “red line” – was planning airstrikes against the Syrian government. In Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron was determined to stand with him - but first he had to win Parliament’s approval. And the clock was ticking. Shaun Ley tells the inside story of one extraordinary day in the British House of Commons and a vote which changed history. (Photo: A peace campaigner holds up a placard outside Parliament on August 29, 2013. Credit: Getty Images)
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12-Nov-2014
The Documentary - Still Waiting For Godot in Sarajevo?
Allan Little returns to Sarajevo to explore the role of the arts in restoring the city's identity, 20 years after the siege which saw its cultural life flourish against the odds. When Sarajevo's multicultural identity was targeted by Serbian nationalists – firing from positions only 200 yards from the city's treasured National Musuem – it fought back by maintaining an artistic life worthy of a European capital city confident of its cultural heritage. Allan Little finds out how these values are faring in a peace which allowed for no State Ministry of Culture and fragmented the multi-cultural society the city once symbolised. Recorded on location in Sarajevo, Allan takes internationally acclaimed theatre director Haris Pasovic back to the Youth Theatre in which he invited Susan Sontag to stage her now legendary production of Waiting for Godot. Lit by candles, under constant mortar fire, and with actors so hungry they had to lie down when not performing, each of its 20 performances was a sell-out. Both audience and actors risked their lives to be there. Why? Pasovic, who also founded the Sarajevo Film Festival during the siege (with ten VHS tapes and a TV set) says: "In war it is not the most important thing to survive, the most important thing is to remain human... you are human when you let child in you speak. When we do that we are not aggressive, we are creative. That is why art is a primary need like food, sex and water." How are the citizens of Sarajevo fulfilling that basic human need for art in a transformed cultural landscape? Allan talks to National Theatre actors Vedrana and Aleksandar Seksan, Mirsad Purivatra, now director of the Sarajevo Film Festival, and artist Sejla Kameric. (Photo: Cast of Bosnian film Children by director Aida Begic (3rd L). Credit: Elvis Barukcic/AFP/GettyImages)
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11-Nov-2014
The Documentary - Who's Left Holding the Baby?: Who's Left Holding the Baby?
With more and more women going back to work after having children, childcare - its costs and its developmental implications - has become one of the most vexed issues for new parents. Parents are faced with many questions: Nursery or nanny? Stay at home longer or go back to work? Move closer to grandparents or muddle through without? It was a dilemma reporter Madeleine Morris faced when returning to work in Australia after having her daughter Scarlett, now two years old. Burdened with endless theories about what is best for baby, like so many parents in developed countries, she now pays a large proportion of her salary to keep her child in nursery. She is constantly rushing to pick up, drop off and get home for bath time, feeling guilty all the while. In Who's Holding the Baby? Madeleine will be asking if this is the only way. She and Scarlett set out to discover two vastly different approaches to caring for children, as found in Fiji and China, and the social politics and emotions that go with them. In China, they visit a boarding school where children as young as two are educated away from their parents and in Fiji they experience a society where childcare is shared amongst the extended family, everyone from young to old plays a role. Along the way they ask what our childcare choices say about our values as a society, and what we might learn from others.
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10-Nov-2014
The Documentary - The Ghostly Voices of World War One
Hidden away in the backrooms at Humbolt University and the Ethnological Museum in Berlin are some of the most remarkable sound recordings ever made. They date back to World War One and capture the voices of some of the ordinary men who fought in ‘the war to end all wars’. They were recorded by German academics who realised they didn’t have to go abroad to research the world’s many different languages. Instead, they were able to focus on captured soldiers from the furthest reaches of the British Empire, who were being held at prisoner of war camps all over Germany. Among them were a group of Hindus, Sikhs and Indian soldiers imprisoned at camps on the outskirts of Berlin. They performed poems, songs and stories which were recorded using Thomas Eddison’s latest invention. How these men lived out the rest of their lives has been cloaked in obscurity. On a quest to discover what happened to them and how they died, and armed with the recordings, Priyath Liyanage travels from Germany across the world to some of the villages in northern India where these men lived. It proves to be an emotional journey, resurrecting memories which had long been forgotten. These old soldiers may be long gone but their voices live on. (Photo: Digital composite of injured Indian soldiers of the British Army at the Brighton Pavilion, converted into a military hospital around 1915. Credit: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)
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07-Nov-2014
The Documentary - Assassination: When Delhi Burned
Bobby Friction was in Delhi visiting his relatives when the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated on the 31 October 1984 by her two Sikh bodyguards. Riots erupted across the city to avenge the killing. Bobby went into hiding with his family to escape the mobs who went on the rampage in the bloody aftermath of her death. Professor Swaran Singh, head of the Division of Mental Health and Wellbeing at Warwick University and a consultant psychiatrist was a trainee surgeon in Delhi in 1984. He witnessed first-hand the riots, the brutality of the killings and the anguish of those who survived. He was moved to work with the children who lost parents - carrying out medical checks and setting up a play area for them in the Tilak Vihar area of Delhi. However, two years later he left not only Tilak Vihar, but India, and vowed never to return, traumatised by all he had seen. Now, 30 years on from the assassination of Indira Gandhi, Bobby Friction takes Swaran back to Delhi and together they go in search of the children he left behind in 1984. (Photo: Bobby Friction (fourth from left) and professor Swaran Singh (fourth from right), with the men who were children of 1984. BBC copyright)
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07-Nov-2014
The Documentary - From Kabul to Kiev: Mustafa Nayyem's Story
Andriy Kravets meets Mustafa Nayyem, one of Ukraine's leading investigative reporters, who has controversially decided to leave journalism and enter the political arena. Mustafa was a leading voice in the Maidan protests and journalists like him are vital in a country where corruption is rife and politicians are open to bribery. So, it was all the more shocking when back in September he revealed he was to seek a new career as a politician - switching sides in this way left people speechless and many saw it as a massive betrayal of his ideals. Andriy Kravets from the BBC’s Ukrainian Service travelled back to his homeland ahead of the recent parliamentary elections to find out more about Mustafa. How did an immigrant boy from Afghanistan manage to make his mark in Ukrainian society? And has this leading anti-corruption campaigner sold his audience short - or is this an attempt to kick-start much-need changes in Ukraine's political culture? (Photo:An anti-government protester waves the national flag from the top of a statue during clashes with riot police in the Independence Square in Kiev February 20, 2014. Credit: Reuters)
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29-Oct-2014
The Documentary - Linard's Travels
Deep and distinguished, yet rugged and wise, Linard Davies serves the next customer wanting their bag wrapped in cling film at the Airport Travel Agency in San Francisco. Linard deals with the packages that the airlines won't and swears by his motto, 'We don't say no'. Perhaps it's this can-do attitude that has earned him a reputation for dealing with urns. 'We must have had over a hundred urns'. A traffic cop stored his father's ashes with Linard while putting on a function at his house. He would occasionally pop in and ask, 'How's my dad doing?'. Linard would reply, 'He's doing great, he ain't bothering nobody!' A Korean girl flying to Atlanta left the ashes of her mother with Linard, never to be picked up. He now considers the deceased his business partner, talking to her on long night shifts. Yet he does feel a little responsible for 'Grandma' as he calls her, as he accidentally broke the urn and the ashes scattered onto the floor. So Grandma is now forever in San Francisco Airport. The Airport Travel Agency deals with all kinds of artefacts, from a set of house keys to a bass violin, kayak, or extra-large dog kennel (minus the dog). The unofficial historian of the Airport Travel Agency, Carol, gives us a run down of the strangest items - clown shoes, 10-foot tall carved wooden doors from Bali and a set of fresh moose antlers, to name just a few. (Photo: Travelers gather their luggage at San Francisco International Airport. Credit: Getty Images)
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28-Oct-2014
The Documentary - Politics at the Polling Station
Over the last two decades the controversy over voting rights in the US has become increasingly bitter and polarised along party lines. This process has intensified since 2013 when the Supreme Court overturned important parts of the Voting Rights Act. North Carolina is one key location for these crucially important disputes. It has seen one of the furthest-reaching packages of voting reform of any state and is now in the midst of one of the closest election campaigns this year. Rajini Vaidyanathan travels across Carolina and hears from those who argue that a concerted campaign is under way to deprive liberal-leaning groups access to the ballot. And she speaks to those responsible for the legislation who insist that they are trying to stop voter fraud and ensure the sanctity of the ballot. Rajini looks at a number of states where political control has alternated over the last 20 years, and voting law with it, as Democrats pass laws which make it easier to vote – typically benefiting groups which vote for them – and Republicans often do the opposite. She asks what this is doing to American democracy. Photo: Voting in North Carolina, Credit: Sara D. Davis/Getty Images
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26-Oct-2014
The Documentary - India's Forgotten War
In the Indian capital Delhi stands India Gate, the largest memorial to the war for which 1.5 million Indian men were recruited. But Anita Rani discovers that World War One is something of a forgotten memory today, seen as part of its colonial history, and she sets out to uncover some of the forgotten stories. We meet relatives of the men who travelled from the rural villages in Punjab - including what is now Pakistan - to fight thousands of miles away from home for a cause they knew little about. Anita's parents are from this region, and she finds out what drove them to fight for the British Empire on the Western Front, Africa and in what is now Iraq. She explores how the women who were left in the villages managed to cope with their rural lives without their men, and uncovers folk songs they composed at the time which reveal their suffering. Not all those who took part in the war were soldiers, and Anita also reveals lost stories from the Labour Corps - the hundreds of thousands of men who worked behind the scenes on the front, in a non-combatant role. They did everything from digging and clearing tranches and latrines, to cooking and boot mending. And we hear about the remarkable actions of a Bengali doctor who risked his life to save others on the battlefield. We also reveal some of the forgotten story of the home front, in cities such as Bombay, Calcutta and Karachi, where military hospitals were set up to treat the wounded, and much production of food and munitions for the war effort fell to Indian workers. Not everyone agreed with the involvement in this colonial war though, and we also look at how some deserted, or protested as part of the burgeoning independence movement.
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23-Oct-2014
The Documentary - Ebola: What Went Wrong?
Ebola is now regarded as an international threat to peace and security, according to the World Health Organisation. Yet, when the WHO was first warned of an unprecedented outbreak, the organisation said it was "still relatively small". Now it is warning that there could soon be up to 10,000 people a week being infected in west Africa. Already there have been cases in Europe and the US. But could all this have been avoided? Simon Cox asks why it took so long for the world to wake up to the threat posed by Ebola? He also investigates the treatments and vaccines that are now, belatedly, being developed – treatments that have been on the shelf for years. Vaccines and other drugs are being rushed into production at an unprecedented pace. Will they be ready in time to help with this outbreak? Thousands more people are likely to die before this epidemic is brought under control. (Photo: Philippine medical workers display protective suits in preparations against Ebola, 2014. Credit: Ted Aljibe/AFP/Getty Images)
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22-Oct-2014
The Documentary - The Red and the Blue: 2. The Red and the Blue - Politics in the Lone Star State
Ahead of key elections in the US, Gary O’Donoghue encounters the larger-than-life politics of the Lone Star State. Texas is crucial in the race for national power. So what happens when a political correspondent more used to the corridors of Westminster ventures among the cookouts and cheerleaders of Texan politics? Gary O’Donoghue travels to the Lone Star State ahead of key votes in this year's mid terms. He hears about the challenges the Republicans face on divisive issues like immigration and shifts in social attitudes and what this could mean for the party and Texas. Produced by Arlene Gregorius and Karnie Sharp. (Photo: Texas State Senator Wendy Davis, right, Democrat, and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, left, Republican candidate. Credit: AP)
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16-Oct-2014
The Documentary - A Bombay Symphony
India is falling in love with Western classical music. In his home-city Mumbai, Zareer Masani encounters the country's first national ensemble, the Symphony Orchestra of India. He visits Furtado's, the city's oldest music shop, which sells hundreds of pianos a year, and discovers that thousands of children learn a Western instrument. Yet, Zareer finds that this is not the total success it seems. Only a dozen of the Symphony Orchestra of India’s members are Indian; the pianos Furtado's sell are status symbols; students learn to play because this will help them get into foreign universities. But, Zareer finds out, there is real love for Western music, among Mumbai's most elite and poorest - he discovers a choir of the children of sex workers. Zareer considers these contradictions, and the implications for India's own classical music. (Photo: Indian conductor Zubin Metha conducts the orchestra during a rehearsal in Mumbai, 7 October 2008. Credit: Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images)
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15-Oct-2014
The Documentary - The Red and the Blue: The Red and the Blue: 1. The Politics of the Lone Star State
Everything's bigger in Texas they say - and that goes for the personalities who run for election there. While the Republican party is dominant, Democrats believe that they can change the reddest of the red states blue in the coming years - and put their opponents out of the White house for a Generation. But both major parties face big challenges. The Democrats have an increasingly unpopular president, who has forced through healthcare reform in the face of fierce opposition - while many Americans are still waiting for a return to prosperity. The Republicans are riven by internal fighting between their moderate and Tea Party wings. The party's politics on immigration threaten to lose votes among Latinos, the fastest-growing section of the population. Ahead of elections in November, Gary O'Donoghue swaps the mild-mannered corridors of power in Westminster for the rough politics of the lone star state.
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09-Oct-2014
The Documentary - The New Vikings
In recent years, sperm has been shipped out of Denmark at an astonishing rate, producing thousands of babies worldwide - many in the UK. In 2006, the UK was not importing any Danish sperm, but by 2010 Denmark was supplying around a third of our total imports. Why are Danish donors in such demand? Is it simply a desire for the tall, blonde, blue-eyed, well-educated stereotype - or is there more to it? Kate Brian, who has reported on fertility issues for two decades, hears from women who have been attracted by the range and availability of Danish donors. Some have been overwhelmed by the vast amount of detail that can be accessed online – typically, thirty pages about each individual, including voice samples and baby photos. She investigates whether there is a problem with the UK's own system of recruiting and supplying donor sperm. One couple looked to Denmark after being told there was a 10-year wait in their area for a suitable donor. How common is this? Has the 2005 law change removing UK donors' rights to anonymity made a difference? Kate also travels to Copenhagen to meet some of the 250 men who regularly donate at European Sperm Bank, receiving around £30 per visit. How rigorous is the selection process for becoming a donor? Is the incentive merely financial? And how do the men feel about producing potentially hundreds of children, many of which may contact them in years to come? (Photo: Vials of sperm are frozen at Cryos, the world's biggest sperm bank, in Aarhus, Denmark. Credit: Slim Allagui/AFP/Getty Images)
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08-Oct-2014
The Documentary - Orania
Marking 20 years after the end of apartheid, BBC reporter Stanley Kwenda travels to Orania in South Africa to find out why Afrikaners in this remote town choose to live apart from other communities. Stanley hears how Orania started life as a government construction camp for people working on a dam nearby. It was bought in 1991 by a group of Afrikaners who believed they were marginalised in post-apartheid South Africa and wanted their homeland to preserve their culture. However, Orania has close links to the family of Hendrik Verwoerd – the man who introduced apartheid – and, as a consequence, the town is now seen by many as a final outpost of apartheid. Stanley Kwenda talks to some of Orania’s residents, including Carel Boshoff – the son of Orania’s founder – who claims that the community is simply looking after its people and interests. As a black Zimbabwean, Stanley explores whether the people of Orania are clinging to a racist past – or whether it is a close-knit community that just happens to be white. (Photo: Orania town's logo of a boy rolling up his sleeves flanked by statues of apartheid heroes displayed above the town of Orania, South Africa. Credit: Stephane De Sakutin/AFP/Getty Images)
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02-Oct-2014
The Documentary - The Singing Fish of Batticaloa
Since the 18th Century, Tamil fishermen have claimed to navigate by the mysterious music of the singing fish of the Batticaloa lagoon in eastern Sri Lanka. The fishermen's ancient name for the creature is Oorie Coolooroo Cradoo (crying shells); scientists believe that the underwater choristers are some kind of fish. But, after 30 years of civil war and the ravages of the tsunami, does any evidence of this strange nocturnal chorus remain? Restrictions and curfews made it impossible to visit the lagoon at night and locals, suffering the loss and deprivation of a bitter conflict, had other priorities. The people of Batticaloa became disconnected from this ancient cultural symbol. Very few have heard the aquatic music, and many believe it's a myth. But for Father Lorio, a Jesuit priest present at one of the earliest recordings of the phenomenon made using a homemade hyrdophone in the 1950s, the singing fish are the soundtrack to 60 years of profound turmoil and change he has witnessed in the region. And, for Prince Casinader, a Tamil journalist in his eighties, there is the belief that they could bring a sense of community and hope to his hometown. Now a group of young Tamil scientists have joined the effort to rediscover this lost symbol. Guided by local fishermen, they embark on an unusual odyssey into the muddy lagoon to capture a new recording and establish if this elusive watery wonder has survived to enchant another generation with its song. (Photo: A Sri Lankan fisherman throws his net into a lagoon off Batticaloa. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)
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01-Oct-2014
The Documentary - The Persian Underground
Behzad Bolour of the BBC’s Persian Service talks to the Iranian musicians and singers finding ways of breaking the restrictions on the public performance of music and songs inside Iran. He meets Iranian exiles rapping in Dubai, Iranian heavy metal bands in Georgia and Iranian exiles elsewhere finding freedom of expression through pop, rap, heavy metal music and fashion. (Picture: A musician playing an Iranian electric guitar, Credit: Danesh Sarouie)
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28-Sep-2014
The Documentary - Media and the Middle East
The rockets and missiles fly, from Israel into Gaza, from Gaza into Israel. It is the latest iteration of the conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbours, which has flared since the very founding of the Jewish state in 1948. Accompanying the conflict has been an unprecedented level of media coverage. And almost nothing is uncontested. Every sentence, every word of a news report is parsed for signs of bias by individuals and organisations dedicated to ensuring a fair deal for their point of view. Coverage is measured in minutes and seconds of airtime. Media organisations stand accused, by both sides, of prejudice, systemic bias and deliberate distortion. Why does this particular conflict, above all others, attract the attention it does? And why does it create such strong emotion, even among those with no connection to the region? John Lloyd, a contributing editor at the Financial Times, examines the evolution of coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict, from the founding of Israel to the present day. With contributions from journalists and those who monitor them, Lloyd asks why there is such focus both on the conflict itself and on those who report it. He traces the way reporting has developed from the early television age, through the introduction of 24-hour news channels to the inception of social media. And he examines the challenges of reporting fairly and accurately on a conflict in which every assertion is contested. (Photo: A Palestinian woman in Gaza's eastern Shejaiya district cries and shouts, after fleeing her home following heavy Israeli shelling, July 2014. Credit: Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images)
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25-Sep-2014
The Documentary - The Lost Legacy of Little Miss Cornshucks
In the late 1930s a young Mildred Cummings from Dayton, Ohio is barefoot, standing in the spotlight on stage, wearing that same old shabby dress and a broken straw hat. This is Little Miss Cornshucks and she has the audience in the palm of her hand, a unique act and larger than life personality. By the 1940's she made top-billing at nightclubs across America, performing heartbreaking ballads. But who remembers her now? Author and poet Salena Godden travels to downtown Chicago in search of the missing legacy of Little Miss Cornshucks, the best blues singer you never heard. She meets unofficial biographer Barry Mazor, who spent years tracing her tale. Ninety-eight-year-old former dancer Lester Goodman remembers the 'black and tan' nightspots that Cornshucks commanded, now long gone. And, taking a road trip on Route 65 to Indianapolis, Salena visits the home of Mildred's family, her daughter Francey and grand-daughter Tonya, filled with pictures, music and memories. Why did this unique voice, that could so easily lift or reduce an audience to laughter and tears, die in complete obscurity, with her influence unmarked and unrecognised? The song 'Try A Little Tenderness' became a powerhouse hit for both Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding. Salena invites us to take a moment to listen back to the inimitable Little Miss Cornshucks earlier version, to make the case for a lost legend of blues. (Photo: Mildred Cummings aka Little Miss Cornshucks, courtesy of Cornshuck's family)
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24-Sep-2014
The Documentary - Argentina’s Playlist for Freedom
Natalio Cosoy of BBC Mundo, reports on his 30-something generation growing up in the shadow of the violence of military rule in the 1970s and 1980s. He talks to musicians, friends and the half-brothers whose left-wing militant parents were killed by the military. It is a story of survival and the music that helped them and the country forge a new Argentine identity.
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18-Sep-2014
The Documentary - The Black Liberace
New Orleans pianist Dr John once called James Booker "the best black, gay, junkie piano player New Orleans has ever produced", but he remains little remembered outside his home city. Classically trained in piano and a child prodigy, Booker had his first hit record as a teenager, toured with the likes of Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin and played on sessions with Fats Domino and Little Richard. But it was as a solo performer that he really came into his own. When record producer Joe Boyd met Booker at a session in the 1970s he recognised his technical virtuosity and potential to captivate an audience. He asked Booker if he'd like to record an album on his own, without a band. The pianist was cautious, but eventually agreed to record Junco Partner on one condition - he had a candelabra on the piano. The reason, he said, "cos I'm the Black Liberace baby!" Liberace may have been one of his idols, but Booker's styles were wide and varied. He not only mastered but also transformed the New Orleans piano style mixing Chopin, Liszt and Rachmaninoff with jazz, blues, stride, gospel and boogie-woogie. He played like he had four hands and made the piano sound like a whole band. But, gay at a time when homosexuality was a huge taboo and black in a divided America, Booker died alone, aged 43, after a life of drug and alcohol abuse. Featuring interviews with Dr John who was taught by Booker, and New Orleans pianist Allen Toussaint, as well as Booker's manager John Parsons and producer Scott Billington. (Photo: Piano keys. Credit: Getty Images)
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17-Sep-2014
The Documentary - Freedom Songs
Immortalised by Nina Simone, I Wish I Knew How it Would Feel to be Free, was recorded in the early 60s by Jazz pianist Billy Taylor for his young daughter. Candace Piette talks to Kim Taylor Thomson, to Nina Simone’s guitarist and to poets and writers and singers about what the song meant when it was first written and what resonance it has now in contemporary America. (Photo: American jazz pianist Billy Taylor performs at the Peacock Alley night club, St. Louis, Missouri, 1974. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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13-Sep-2014
The Documentary - The Trial of Oscar Pistorius
After becoming a Paralympics champion, Oscar Pistorius rose to fame as the first double amputee to compete in the Olympics. He became a hero to millions – until the fateful night when he shot dead his girlfriend, the model Reeva Steenkamp. His trial featured high tension and dramatic twists and turns. In often highly emotional testimony, Pistorius tried to convince the court that he shot Reeva Steenkamp by mistake, thinking she was a burglar. Prosecuting barrister Gerrie Nel subjected the athlete to merciless cross-examination as he attempted to prove that Pistorius was a man with a love of guns and an uncontrolled temper. This is the story of a trial which gripped the attention of South Africa and the wider world. Picture: Oscar Pistorius leaves North Gauteng High Court on 12 September, 2014 in Pretoria, South Africa, Credit: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
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11-Sep-2014
The Documentary - Clearing the Air
Ten years ago, Ireland became the first country in the world to ban smoking in the workplace. The air cleared in Ireland's bars, restaurants and other buildings - and there was hardly any backlash. The pub-loving nation became the model for a global health revolution. In the decade since, countries across the world have passed smoke-free laws of their own. Denis Murray looks at the impact of this type of anti-smoking legislation across Europe - and considers the future of tobacco. Denis's journey begins in Dublin, where he recalls how radical a move the smoking ban was at the time. His old haunt, Mulligan's bar, used to be memorable for its blue, reeking fug. And the success of the ban in Ireland made international news - leading other countries to follow suit. So Denis travels to two very contrasting cities to compare attitudes to smoking ten years on. The Czech Republic has the most liberal smoking laws in the European Union. In Prague, going to a bar can feel like stepping back in time - many of them permit smoking. France, so long synonymous with romantic movies featuring characters speaking to each other through clouds of smoke, has followed Ireland's lead and banned smoking in public places. Paris is a city with a fascinating relationship with tobacco - where the debate is often about philosophy as much as science. In a journey across three countries, with a cast list of doctors, politicians and businesspeople - with the odd musician and philosopher thrown in - Clearing the Air poses and answers many questions about the effect which smoke-free laws are having on health and society. Picture: A sign on bar door reads 'No Smoking' Dublin, Ireland, 2004, Credit: Fran Veale/Getty Images
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10-Sep-2014
The Documentary - The Future of Women's Football
Women's football is one of the world's fastest growing sports, with over 30 million women participating worldwide. Yvonne Macken reports on the struggle to establish the women’s game and explores what it is about football that can have men and women love it with an equal intensity and, seemingly to some, irrational passion. With the men's elite game under increased global scrutiny, Yvonne Macken assesses whether women's football could be a lifeline. She hears the experiences of young women from Trinidad and Tobago, Iceland, Brazil, Japan, the UK, the USA and Africa. Dr Samie, affiliate scholar from the Centre for Sport, Peace & Society, highlights the interest and challenges for women playing in the Middle East. Meanwhile, sports historian Dr Jean Williams reveals football's ancient roots, and financial analyst Steve Clapham challenges the lack of disclosure in the age of global branded leagues. Has commercialisation taken the league too far from its own grassroots and can you mix profit with passion? With football organisations globally evolving a sustainable business model for the women's game, and with the 2015 World Cup in their sights, Yvonne asks what strategies will allow young girls the option to choose football as a viable career just like the boys. (Photo: Netherlands' players acknowledge fans at the end of qualifying football match, Credit: Getty Images)
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08-Sep-2014
The Documentary - Rotherham Abuse
The independent inquiry, by Professor Alexis Jay found that at least 1,400 children were sexually exploited in the northern English town of Rotherham by gangs of men who were predominantly of Pakistani origin between 1997 and 2013. Her report said that girls as young as 11 were raped by "large numbers of male perpetrators". It spoke of the "collective failures" of political, police and social care leadership over the first 12 years the inquiry covered. The sexual abuse of children is a global concern, but the Rotherham story also contains elements about race, culture, secrecy, policing and public scrutiny and other issues that add to its importance as a story. This programme outlines what the report found and asks how the police, press, politicians and professional agencies failed to stop this and what it says about the make-up of British society and how it works and in particular the rights of children. It should also examine the economic and social issues particular to northern towns. The programme has two parts. A detailed account of what was unearthed and the struggle individuals had to make this story known. The other half is a recorded discussion about the issues raised.
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04-Sep-2014
The Documentary - Ata Kak and the Crate Diggers
In 2002, Brian Shimkovitz, a young American ethnomusicologist, buys a cassette tape from a makeshift stall in Cape Coast, Ghana. The bright yellow cover features a picture of the artist clutching a microphone and sporting a denim jacket, black cap worn backwards and dark sunglasses. He's called Ata Kak. The tape is packed away and forgotten, re-discovered a few years later in New York. It's the start of an obsession. Brian is one of a handful of bloggers, DJs and record label bosses who are digging up musical gems from across Africa, previously unheard in the West and giving them a new lease of life. They're the crate diggers; enthusiasts of new sounds and exotic rhythms found in piles of dusty LPs lying forgotten across the African continent and beyond. Brian Shimkovitz started a blog called Awesome Tapes From Africa. Inspired by his fellow American and European crate diggers, it's now a fledgling record label. Mark Coles follows Brian as he searches for Ata Kak, a hunt that takes him around the world at great personal expense. Who is the man behind this bizarre blend of excited shrieks, raps and '90s beats who, unknowingly, now has a fanbase of cool kids, online music geeks and world music devotees? Mark meets Andy Morgan, music writer and former manager of world music superstars Tinariwen and Miles Cleret from Soundway Records. Plus he talks to Ebo Taylor, a Ghanaian highlife legend, now 78 years old and pursuing an international career after appearing on Soundway's first compilation. In a financially compromised music industry, what can Brian hope to offer an obscure Ghanaian rapper? But first, he just has to find him...
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03-Sep-2014
The Documentary - Delivering the King's Speech
Marking the 75th anniversary of King George VI’s declaration of war against Germany, Louise Minchin hears the untold story of the King’s Speech and discovers how it reached the entire world. Inspired by the discovery of the original pressing of the speech in the EMI Archives – bound in goatskin leather and signed by the King himself – Louise uncovers how the King’s words reached the furthest corners of the British Empire. Starting with the fascinating history of royalty releasing records, and incorporating rare material from the EMI archives, the documentary explores how the British Empire was united by vinyl. Louise examines the recording of the speech – not from the point of view covered in the 2010 Oscar-winning film, but from the perspective of the EMI employees who have located previously unpublished letters and production notes from the original sessions. Delivering the King’s Speech delves into the earliest days of the BBC Empire Service – later to become the BBC World Service – to find out how the King’s message was sent across the globe and how it enabled the Empire Service to win the fight against the anti-British propaganda broadcast by the Germans. A TBI Media Production for BBC World Service.
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31-Aug-2014
The Documentary - Atlantic Crossing
When Christine Finn's in-flight entertainment was accidentally tuned to cockpit radio on a transatlantic flight, the voice of air traffic control as they reached Irish airspace seemed to be welcoming her as well as the pilot. As a creative archaeologist, she wanted to unravel the connections between those who fly the Atlantic and those who guide them safely over, especially when she discovered that datalink - effectively text messaging - is increasingly being used, so that voice communication is on the wane. Listening to archive of transatlantic flights from the first by Alcock and Brown in 1919, Christine discovered that the west coast of Ireland looms large in the history. She visited Shannon airport in County Clare, scene of many departures and reunions and - in the 1950s and 1960s - before the advent of the jet engine, a stop-over for most of the popular icons of the day as their planes re-fuelled after the 3000 mile flight. Every US president since JFK has visited Shannon and many of its classic stars from Marilyn Monroe to Fred Astaire. And at the North Atlantic Communications Centre in nearby Ballygirreen, Christine met the faces behind the voices she heard coming out of the dark on her own Atlantic Crossing. Picture: Shannon Airport, 1950. Credit: Clarke/Fox Photos/Getty Images
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28-Aug-2014
The Documentary - Poetry Idol
Poetry has always had an essential role to play in Arab literature, and the tradition is thriving in unexpected ways. Shahidha Bari travels to Abu Dhabi to join the audience of 'Million's Poet', a massive televised competition to find the best poet in the Middle East. Every year this huge contest takes place under the spotlight of the television cameras in Abu Dhabi. Million's Poet is broadcast live across the Middle East and has a huge following, with judges and viewers both having the chance to vote for their favourite poet. There's plenty at stake, as the top prize is an eye-watering five million United Arab Emirate dirhams, a figure getting close to one million pounds. So how did this TV contest get started, and why do people tune in to hear poets reading their work? It's not the sort of show that would be likely to take off in the West. Shahidha Bari talks to judges, competitors, and the audience to find out the secret of Million Poet's success. Poetry, she finds, has a particular role in the Middle East as a valued artform in a changing world: an outlet for expression for anyone from the ruler to the doorman, all of whom are free to enter Million's Poet. Picture: Presenter Shahidha Bari on the set of Million's Poet
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27-Aug-2014
The Documentary - Native American News
Peter Bowes tells the story of news television made by Native American tribes. Lita Sheldon of the Tulalip Tribe in Washington State grew up in an age when Tonto – sidekick to The Lone Ranger – was the only Native American she had seen on television. News bulletins about Native Americans were endlessly negative, alcohol-related or concerning ‘trouble on the reservations’. Traditional communication – the languages, longhouses and potlatches – had long been brutally abolished, but Lita had an idea of how to change things. It was time, she thought, for tribal people to make their own news and get it on the national networks. It was from this initial idea that Northwest Indian News (NWIN) began, covering everything from whaling rituals to canoe journeys and watched, at its height, by 50 million people. Peter Bowes hears from some of the founders of NWIN. He learns how the money from reservation casinos helped fund the first forays into television news production and helped change viewers’ perception of Native American life. Peter talks to Chenoa Egawa, a member of the Swan Tribe, about being recruited as a TV presenter and follows Mark Anderson, cameraman and Cowlitz tribal member, who is covering a story at the Lummi Nation Longhouse whilst paying respect to the Elders. Peter also hears of plans for a new indigenous programme, ‘Native Heartbeat’, and meets the tribal filmmakers of tomorrow. Picture: TV presenter Chenoa Egawa
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24-Aug-2014
The Documentary - War, Lies and Audiotape
The war between the United States and Vietnam cost over 1 million Vietnamese and 58,000 American lives. It left one country physically devastated and the other socially splintered. It began, President Lyndon Johnson told the world, with an "unprovoked attack" on American ships on the night of August 4, 1964. What we know today is that the incident that was reported to have taken place in the South China Sea off the coast of Vietnam that night didn't ever happen. Yet three days later it was cited as the justification for the Gulf of Tonkin resolution: it authorised "the President, as Commander in Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression." The Gulf of Tonkin was the crucial turning point: in 1960 there were 900 American troops in Vietnam; by the end of 1965 there were nearly 200,000. Did President Johnson take his country to war on a lie, or was he misled? Fifty years on, journalist and historian DD Guttenplan explores these dramatic events through archive recordings and new interviews with the key players, bringing all the evidence together for the first time. A fascinating archive of taped White House phone calls transports us back to that day: we'll listen in on President Johnson as he discusses the situation with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and hear the situation unfold through conversations between key military personnel. Daniel Ellsberg remembers being in the Pentagon receiving reports of the incident on the day, and Jim Stockdale tells us his father's story: he was flying above the USS Maddox when the attack supposedly happened. We'll also hear from journalist Leslie Gelb and historians Frances Fitzgerald and Fred Logevall. Picture: President Lyndon Johnson, Credit: Keystone/Getty Images
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21-Aug-2014
The Documentary - Roots Reggae and Rebellion: 2. Part Two
Akala explores Rastafari's global impact after the explosion of Jamaica's Roots Reggae scene in the 1970s. The music provided a vehicle for spreading the message of Rastafari around the world, not least through the songs of musical icons like Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Burning Spear. For young Jamaican immigrants growing up in a racist environment of 1970s London - such as Akala's father - Rastafari provided a connection back to their lost Jamaican and African heritage. Akala also visits the Bobo Hill Rasta camp in Kingston to discover modern life as a Rasta and explores whether this spiritual and cultural movement still has relevance today. Contributors include writer Sir Salman Rushdie, the Kenyan author and political activist Ngugi wa Thiong'o, reggae legend Max Romeo, dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, Professor Carolyn Cooper from the University of the West Indies, musician Jah 9 and the residents of the Bobo Hill Rastafari village and Pinnacle Camp in Kingston, Jamaica.
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20-Aug-2014
The Documentary - Grapes of Wrath Revisited
Seventy five years ago the American author John Steinbeck published what was to become his most-celebrated novel: The Grapes of Wrath. At the centre of the book is the story of the Joad Family whose farmland in Oklahoma, in America's mid-west, has turned to dust and whose farm has been repossessed. Faced with destitution they make the epic journey from Oklahoma to California in search of work and a better life. Along the way they are victims of prejudice and face exploitation at the hands of unscrupulous employers. The book was an overnight success and for many became the parable of America's experience of the Great Depression. But it was also controversial with its critics seeing it as little more than thinly disguised left-wing propaganda. The BBC's North America Editor, Mark Mardell has retraced the Joads' journey to explore the relevance of the book's themes in today’s America. Picture: Dry conditions on a California farm, Credit: David McNew/Getty Images
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14-Aug-2014
The Documentary - Roots Reggae and Rebellion: 1. Part One
Rastafari is Jamaica's most famous export. Alongside Bob Marley – the world's most recognised Rastafarian – this cultural and spiritual movement is the enduring global image of the Caribbean island. The red, green and gold colours, dreadlocks, reggae music and marijuana are all closely associated with Jamaica. But what role has this spiritual movement had in forming Jamaica's soul and identity? Presented by political commentator and educator Kingslee Daley, this series examines how Rastafari turned from an ostracised religious sect into a global phenomenon. Kingslee is better known as Akala, a British poet, rapper and founder of the Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company. Born in London he was brought up immersed in Rasta culture by his Jamaican father. In these two half hour programmes, Akala travels to Jamaica to discover the cultural and sociological significance of his spiritual heritage. Rastafari first came to prominence in 1930s Jamaica, emerging from the civil rights struggle during British colonial rule. It's a complicated synergy of the Old Testament and the teachings of pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey who predicted in the 1920s that "a black king shall be crowned in Africa" ushering in a "day of deliverance." When the Ethiopian prince Ras Tafari - who was also known as Haile Selassie I - became Emperor in 1930, the descendants of slaves in Jamaica took this as proof that Garvey's prophecy had come true. The fact that Selassie was also a pan-Africanist with black empowerment philosophies of his own only further cemented their belief. Many Rastafari believe Selassie to be the second coming of Jesus, a black Christ. But whatever the theologies surrounding Rastafari, its importance for Jamaica and for the Jamaican diaspora has gone way beyond religion. In part one Akala uncovers the story of Rastafari and its role in replacing the shackles of colonial rule with a forgotten African identity. At first Rastas were deemed the scourge of society, hounded by both the British and Jamaican authorities. But thanks to an explosion of incredible music in the 1970s, the Rastafari message took over the whole island before spreading around the world. Contributors include writer Sir Salman Rushdie, the Kenyan author and political activist Ngugi wa Thiong'o, reggae legend Max Romeo, dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, Professor Carolyn Cooper from the University of the West Indies, musician Jah 9 and the residents of the Bobo Hill Rastafari village and Pinnacle Camp in Kingston, Jamaica. Picture: A man wears a red, yellow, green and black hat, Credit: Jose Jordan/AFP/Getty Images
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13-Aug-2014
The Documentary - A Day in the Life of an Immigration Lawyer
Every day, from his offices in London, Birmingham and the Punjab, Harjap Singh Bhangal gives advice to migrants who are seeking visas to live and work in the UK. Harjap often advises people from India or Pakistan who have previously applied for visas, but failed many times. Some have visited other lawyers and received incorrect advice for a large fee, while others have entered the UK legally but, due to changes in circumstances, now find themselves without a long-term visa and nowhere to go. Presenter Nihal Arthanayake spends time in Harjap’s Southall office in London where he meets three immigrants with contrasting stories. Nihal hears from one man who left India for Moscow before walking across Europe to be smuggled into the UK in a van. A woman discusses how she was invited into Britain to work as a nurse, but spent many years on several short-term visas. Finally, another woman explains how she lost her right to stay at the age of 18 having been brought to the UK as a young child by a parent. Nihal also hears about the many other stories Harjap encounters in his job; from the fake marriage industry – including same-sex fake marriage scams – to ‘paid babies’.
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10-Aug-2014
The Documentary - Damming Afghanistan: Lost Stories from Helmand
An epic tale of dreams, grit and folly half a century in the making, Monica Whitlock tells the story of the Helmand valley dam complex, the biggest engineering project in Afghanistan. The project, still unfinished, began more than 50 years ago when American engineers first arrived in Helmand. They brought their families, drive-in movies and even Santa Claus. Afghans and foreigners rubbed shoulders without a thought. Lashkar Gah became a model town with electric lights and the first school in the country in which boys and girls studied together. As Afghanistan experimented with modernity and technology, a great future seemed in touching distance. But then came the Soviet invasion. The engineers fled; the optimistic schoolchildren turned into refugees. The Americans in their turn bombed the dam in 2001; paying millions once again to reconstruct it and fit a hydropower turbine, transported across the desert by the British army in one of the most famous operations of the current Afghan war.
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07-Aug-2014
The Documentary - Afghanistan Death Lists
David Loyn investigates how a lost document is helping Afghanistan come to terms with its painful past. It revolves around the lesser-known moment when Afghanistan began to fall apart - 1978, a year before the Soviet invasion. It's lesser-known, partly because the world wasn't really paying attention but also because evidence of state murder and disappearance was covered up after the so-called Saur Revolution. But now, a war crimes trial in the Netherlands has unearthed a list of 5,000 prisoners detained, tortured and killed by the radical communist regime in 1978 - 79. This "Death List" has fewer than half the total number of people unaccounted for during that period but it has finally given some families of the disappeared confirmation of the fate of their loved ones, and allowed them to mourn. The reverberations of this are being felt strongly in Afghanistan. Image: Kabul citizens reading newspapers during the period of the communist regime. Credit: Getty
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06-Aug-2014
The Documentary - Colombia's Lost Children
In Colombia’s decades-long Marxist guerrilla war, thousands of rebel fighters have been female. But what happens when a woman gives birth in the jungle? Having babies is against guerrilla rules, and many of those who got pregnant were forced to have abortions. But those who managed to conceal their pregnancies for long enough were able to give birth. And then they were forced to give their babies up. Now, many of these rebel mothers have demobilised, or deserted as the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) would see it. And they’re trying everything to find the children they had to give up. The BBC World Service’s Margarita Rodriguez, herself Colombian and pregnant with her first child, returns to her native country to meet some of these former fighters who are desperately looking for their children, and witnesses a reunion.
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31-Jul-2014
The Documentary - A Tale of Two Theatres
Istanbul-born former DJ, Mehmet Ergen became the toast of London's theatre scene by creating venues- and careers- from scratch. In 2000 he transformed a derelict clothing factory in Dalston into a destination venue. Not content to run 'a powerhouse of new work' in his adopted city, he later opened its opposite number back in his hometown. Tensions have been rising in Turkey between artists and politicians ever since the prime minister's daughter was mocked on stage, allegedly for wearing a headscarf to the Ankara State Theatre in 2011. In 2012, a performance of Chilean play Secret Obscenities was censored by Istanbul's Mayor Kadir Topbas. Prime Minister Erdogan then threatened to withdraw subsidies of up to 140 million Turkish Lira from approximately 50 venues, employing roughly 1500 actors, directors and technicians. Although wholesale privatisation has yet to be enacted, theatre companies openly opposed to Government tactics during 2013's Gezi Park protests promptly had their funding withdrawn. Entrepreneurial expat Mehmet Ergen acts as our guide to this politically charged arts scene, as he negotiates national and cultural borders to stage work that is as unpretentious as it is provocative. (Photo: Theatre actors and staff protest in front of the Culture and Tourism Ministry in Ankara. Placard reads: 'We will not allow places of art be closed!' Credit: Adem Altan/AFP/Getty Images)
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30-Jul-2014
The Documentary - Yemen’s Swap Marriages
‘I’ll marry your sister if you marry mine. And if you divorce my sister, I’ll divorce yours.’ That is Yemen’s ‘Shegar’, or swap marriage, an agreement between two men to marry each other’s sisters, thereby removing the need for expensive dowry payments. But the agreement also entails that if one marriage fails, the other couple must separate as well, even if they are happy. BBC Arabic’s Mai Noman returns to her native Yemen and hears the stories of two women who have loved and lost because of Shegar. Nadia lives in the village of ‘Sawan’ on the outskirts of the capital Sana’a with her family. She was married off at the age of 22 and has three children. Nadia had to pay a high emotional price because of her family’s decision to marry her off in the Shegar tradition. She was forced to divorce and now she and her mother have to live with the stigma that brings. Nora and her brother Waleed had little say in marrying their cousins through Shegar. But what happens when one sibling’s happiness depends on ending the marriage of the other? Could you choose your sibling’s happiness over your own? Stay in an unhappy marriage so your sibling can stay in a happy one? Mai asks why an old tradition that forces you to love only to force you to part, is still practised in Yemen. What do the religious authorities think of it? And is it tied to Islam? In Yemen, the heart of Arabia, ancient traditions and values have kept the fabric of society unchanged. They helped preserve Yemen’s unique charm and character, but also imprisoned Yemen’s people in the past. Shegar marriage is one such tradition. It helps poorer families to marry, but at what price? (Photo: A Yemeni groom is surrounded by relatives during his wedding in the old city of Sanaa. Credit: Marwan Naamani/AFP/Getty Images)
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27-Jul-2014
The Documentary - Open Eye: Crying Meri
***WARNING: This programme includes graphic descriptions of sexual violence*** 'A humanitarian crisis', that's how the medical charity Medicins Sans Frontiers describes the levels of violence against women they are dealing with in Papua New Guinea - levels they say they usually only witness in war-zones. It is a shocking and under-reported situation that the Russian photojournalist Vlad Sokhin has been documenting for the last three years. Sokhin takes us on a journey from the remote PNG highlands to the capital Port Moresby. Along the way, he hears the untold stories of women subjected to some of the most extreme violence perpetrated anywhere on earth, including the brutal torture of women accused of witchcraft. Sokhin is given rare access to Haus Ruth, one of only a handful of women's refuges in PNG, as well as also hearing from women risking their lives by taking a stand against the violence. Perhaps most distubingly Sokhin talks to men who are quite open about having taken part in gang rapes and murders - exposing a criminal justice sytem that is failing women at the most basic level. It is a sobering but unforgettable journey that brings Vlad face-to-face with the truth that in Papua New Guinea men can and do get away with murder.
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27-Jul-2014
The Documentary - I Don't Remember the War
The BBC World Service gives voice to the most talented young writers - under 35 - to explore a great grandparent or grandparent's involvement in World War One. This centenary offers a chance to reflect on the gulf that separates young people from the war. Each writer attempts to bridge the gap, to question what the values and sacrifices of the war mean today. British writer Ned Beauman has just published his third novel, Glow. The Teleportation Accident was longlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize. He is included in the Granta list of 20 best young writers. Ceridwen Dovey is a South African writer living in Australia. Blood Kin was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book. Irish writer Rob Doyle lives in County Wexford. His first novel, Here Are the Young Men has recently been published to great acclaim. Chibundu Onuzo is Nigeria's youngest and most talented writer; now 22, she published The Spider King's Daughter when she was just 19. Prajwal Parajuly grew up in the Sikkim region of north-east India. He recently published his first novel, The Gurkha's Daughter to great acclaim. Clemens Setz' (Austria) latest novel Indigo was recently published to great acclaim. He received the Leipzig Book Fair Prize 2011 and the Literature Prize of the City of Bremen 2010 and in 2009 was shortlisted for the German Book Prize for his novel Die Frequenzen. Introduced by the BBC's Special Correspondent, Allan Little.
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24-Jul-2014
The Documentary - The War Widows of Afghanistan
As the deadline for Nato troop withdrawal from Afghanistan approaches, Zarghuna Kargar hears the stories of two British and two Afghan women widowed by the 13-year-war. Lisa and Jacqui live in Britain, Tajbibe and Marzia live in Afghanistan. Their lives are very different but they have one thing in common - they were all widowed by the same war. Their husbands were among the estimated 13000 Afghan soldiers and 453 British soldiers who have died in the war against the Taliban which began in 2001 and which draws to an official close with the withdrawal of Nato troops from Afghanistan this year. Zarghuna Kargar hears how the lives of all four women changed the moment they received the news of their husbands' sudden deaths, how they have coped in the aftermath and what they feel about war today. (Photo: A floral tribute. Credit: Matt Cardy/Getty Images)
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23-Jul-2014
The Documentary - At the End of Death Row
Following recent botched executions in several states, Rajini Vaidyanathan asks whether the future of the death penalty in the US is itself now in question. She travels to Tennessee to investigate how the case of one death row inmate started a legal process which has created a severe shortage of drugs for lethal injections – making the death penalty more difficult, expensive and legally complex to carry out across the country. What might come next if the drug shortage becomes worse? Tennessee state legislators recently passed a bill replacing lethal injection with the electric chair if drugs cannot be found, while other states have moved to hide their suppliers and diversify their supplies. Rajini also speaks to death penalty supporters, and a new breed of opponents, about how they are trying to change the political debate around the death penalty. Is it possible that the United States could give up on the death penalty? (Photo: The gurney in the execution chamber at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. Credit: AP)
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17-Jul-2014
The Documentary - Three Continents, Three Generations
Neil Kanwal traces the history of Kenyan Asian migration to Britain, a path followed by his own father's family across three continents and three generations. In 1896 the British sent thousands of indentured labourers from India to Kenya, to build the Uganda Railway from Mombasa on Kenya's coast to Lake Victoria in Uganda. It was a remarkable feat of engineering and initiated a growing Asian presence in the country. Travelling on the same railroad today, Neil examines how the community prospered over the following decades. Professor Yash Ghai shares memories of his formative years in the segregated society of colonial Kenya, while back at the British Library, Neil studies the records of the India Office to find out more about the challenges they faced. During the 1960s and 1970s, facing uncertainty in a new, independent Kenya many utilised their link with Britain to settle in the UK, causing alarm among both the government and public. From adjusting to British life, to the affect of migration on their identity, the programme concludes with the experiences of some of the 100,000 Kenyan Asians who made Britain their new home. In this documentary Neil embarks on a personal exploration of the unique experiences, culture and movements of Kenyan Asians, in a story of Empire, identity, discrimination and migration.
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16-Jul-2014
The Documentary - Back to Charm School
In the run up to the Commonwealth Games on 23 July more than 48,000 Glaswegians – from waitresses to taxi drivers to bin men – have been attending charm school where they have been taught how to speak 'properly', project positive body language and maintain eye contact whilst talking to visitors. Aasmah Mir examines the Glasgow Welcomes programme, based around principles developed by the Walt Disney Corporation. She goes on the course and hears how local service staff have been tutored on accepting compliments gracefully, learning techniques on how to remember names and above all, smile. This appears to be a common trend before a mega sporting event arrives in a city. Certain foods were banned during the Beijing Olympics, while World Cup volunteers in South Korea were given lessons on how to behave around tourists. There is a reputational risk in staging these kinds of global attractions and organisers know that they have one chance to get it right. Not only does the city get an overhaul with new stadiums and roads, but the people too are expected to be on their very best behaviour. Aasmah visits her home city and asks whether the Glaswegian native charm can be given a polish in time for the Commonwealth Games and, more importantly, whether it should be. (Photo: Aasmah Mir, far left, with refuse collectors from Glasgow's eastern depot. BBC copyright)
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13-Jul-2014
The Documentary - No Destination
Fifty years ago, at the height of the Cold War and at the time of increasing tensions between East and West, Satish Kumar hit headlines around the world when he walked 8000 miles from New Delhi to Moscow, then on to Paris, London and Washington DC delivering packets of 'peace tea' to the leaders of the world's four nuclear powers. Satish Kumar relives his extraordinary journey - made without any money - that took him from the grave of Mahatma Gandhi to the grave of John F Kennedy. Along the way, he was thrown into jail and faced a loaded gun - as well as meeting some of the most remarkable people of the 20th Century. In 1973 he settled in England, and became editor of Resurgence magazine, becoming the guiding light behind a number of ecological, spiritual and educational ventures. Poet Lemn Sissay reads extracts from No Destination: Autobiography of a Pilgrim by Satish Kumar. He describes it as "One of the few life-changing books I have ever read". Presenter: Satish Kumar Producer: Shelley Williams for Reel Soul Movies Photo: Satish Kumar (right) and colleague, EP Menon in England, 1963, courtesy of Peace News
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10-Jul-2014
The Documentary - Bombay Jazz
Sarfraz Manzoor explores a fascinating period of music history in India when American violinist Leon Abbey brought his jazz band to Bombay in the 1930's, leaving behind an incredible legacy. The early years of jazz calls to mind places such as New Orleans, Chicago and Paris. What is often overlooked is that the Indian city of Bombay, now Mumbai, had its very own thriving jazz scene in the 1930's that lasted three decades. Manzoor charts the extraordinary story of jazz in India when some of the world's most accomplished musicians including Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong brought their talents to the east and mixed with performers such as Chic Chocolate, Micky Correa, Teddy Weatherford and Frank Fernand - all regarded in India today as jazz legends. This cultural exchange produced music that wove threads into Bombay's story. These threads would later become inextricably a part of the city's own definitive creation - Bollywood, and its music in particular. Manzoor travels to Mumbai to visit Naresh Fernandes author of the critically acclaimed book The Taj Mahal Foxtrot. He meets with musicians and singers, the widow of Micky Correa and the daughters of Chic Chocolate and explores the development of jazz with saxophonist Braz Gonsalves, the first man to play Be-Bop in India. His journey ends in Goa, now regarded as the new 'jazz capital of India' by music promoter Colin D'Cruz . (Photo: Leon Abbey and his band. From Taj Mahal Foxtrot: The Story of Bombay's Jazz Age, courtesy of Roli Books)
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09-Jul-2014
The Documentary - Yellow Cab Blues
Meet New York's rookie cabbies - fledgling taxi-drivers trying to earn a living in the most stressful city in the world. Most are immigrants, already grappling with the challenges of a new language and a new culture. Now they have to deal with long hours, short fares, and grumpy passengers in the back. Will they make it? The new drivers come from all over the world. Not long ago they were leading very different lives in Dhaka, Islamabad or Accra, dreaming of a new life in the US. Now they are in an airless basement below a Tibetan restaurant in Queens learning how to avoid traffic tickets and charm passengers into better tips. And it is tips they need. Most New York cab-drivers lease rather than own a car. Every morning they pick it up and pay a few hundred dollars for the privilege. They work twelve-hour shifts, seven-days a week driving round and round waiting for a hail. On a bad day they wind up with less money than they started. In this honest, funny feature, Cathy FitzGerald travels to New York to hear how the taxi immigrants make sense of their new lives. How do they square religious beliefs with passengers wanting to have sex or do drugs during the ride? And how do they stay calm when the guy in the back picks a fight? (Photo: Sherrin lost and found her cab. Credit: Matt Thompson)
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03-Jul-2014
The Documentary - My Family’s Fight for Civil Rights
Baroness Oona King, the former British Labour MP, has an American side to her family that played a variety of key roles in the Civil Rights Movement. Her grandfather and uncles worked with Martin Luther King in The Albany Movement, a campaign of mass protests that tried to desegregate their home town in Georgia. Oona travelled to Albany to speak to members of the movement on the 50th anniversary of the passing of The Civil Rights Act, the legislation which forced the Southern States to give African Americans the equality which was their right under the Constitution. Oona discovers that the violence meted out to black protesters by the authorities affected her family directly. Her uncle CB King, the first black lawyer in the town, was beaten up by a local Sherriff for asking to see his client in the cells. And her Aunt Marion lost her baby after she was beaten up by the police. She speaks to Pastor Boyd, of the Shiloh Baptist Church, who is now in his mid 80s and bravely allowed protesters to meet at his church; Charles Sherrod, of the Student Non-Violent Co-ordinating Committee, who brought the campaign for voting rights and desegregation to Albany; John Perdew, who came from Harvard to help the fight and was arrested on trumped up charges and faced the death sentence for protesting; Chief Judge Herbert Phipps of the Atlanta Court of Appeals, and Chevene King, the lawyer son of CB King, who is now fighting racial injustice in Georgia. (Photo: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People march in front of the Dinkler Plaza Hotel in Atlanta on 11 Nov 1961. Credit: Associated Press)
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02-Jul-2014
The Documentary - Misers, Bling and the Money Thing: 2. Part Two
If you had money to burn what would you do with it? Alvin Hall delves into the inspirations and fears that influence people’s differing attitudes towards money. Peter de Savary has bought hotels and boats, living around the world in luxury resorts that he’s owned, but says it’s not the money he craves, but the adventure. Alvin speaks to former race horse trainer Barney Curley who has made millions on clever bets, but for whom money didn’t buy happiness. Now he is using his resources to fund education for girls in Zambia. Alvin probes whether he really didn’t get a buzz as each of his horses crossed the line first, bringing him riches. Comedian Dan Nainan attributes his obsession to economy to his Japanese and Indian parents, and will only read books he can reserve for free from the library, despite hitting seven digits on his bank account. The man who left $187 million to charity, living frugally while stewarding a fortune for decades, the men who pay serious cash to spend time with college-educated beauties, the parent who strapped baguettes to his childrens’ legs to smuggle them into Disneyland and save the price of a lunch, and the elderly lady who relied on charity but left a substantial sum in her will - Alvin asks why. (Photo: Clutch bag, jewellery, and detail. Credit: Michael Kovac/Getty Images)
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30-Jun-2014
The Documentary - Rebel Rebel
Between 1981 and 1990 teams 'representing' England, Sri Lanka, West Indies and Australia toured Apartheid era South Africa, despite there being a well established sporting boycott in place. Those that chose to tour were well rewarded financially, but faced damaging consequences to their careers and reputations. Thirty years later Jonathan Agnew, the BBC's cricket correspondent, reveals how and why the tours took place and finds out whether those that chose to play in these rebel cricket tours now regret their actions. Interviewees include Sir Vivian Richard, John Emburey, Richard Ellison, Franklyn Stephenson and Clive Rice. Picture: Spectators in Pretoria during a one-day international between the rebel West Indies XI and South Africa, February 1983, Credit: Adrian Murrell/Getty Images
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30-Jun-2014
The Documentary - The Great Space Hunt
Last year, an asteroid with the explosive power of 40 nuclear bombs exploded in the sky over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk. No one saw it coming, because it was one of the smaller asteroids, and it was approaching from the wrong direction. Luckily, it exploded high up in the atmosphere, and the only injuries were from the flying glass of thousands of broken windows. If it had exploded lower down, it could have been a different story. Subsequent research suggested that there are 10 times more asteroids out there like the Chelyabinsk one than we previously thought. Hardly any of them have been found. NASA is trying to find all the big asteroids that could potentially wipe out life on Earth, and is making good progress, but the smaller ones are virtually unknown. So what is Britain doing about the asteroid threat? At the top of a hill in mid-Wales is an observatory called Spaceguard UK. It’s run by a retired army major called Jay Tate. Despite being officially designated as the National Near Earth Objects Information Centre, it gets no state funding and subsists only from Mr Tate’s pension, and the sales of keyrings and pencils in the gift shop. Mr Tate is one of an army of amateur astronomers who scans the skies looking for asteroids that might come close to Earth. The safety of the Earth is in these amateurs' hands, he says. One of the most prolific asteroid observers in the world is Peter Birtwhistle, who operates from a hut in his Berkshire garden. He spends over 100 nights a year looking for asteroids, often barely sleeping. When he finds one, he sends his observations to the Minor Planets Centre at Harvard, which logs known asteroids. Despite this, only two incoming asteroids have ever been detected before they arrived. One exploded over the Sudanese desert in 2008; the world got a few hours’ warning because Gareth Williams at the Minor Planets Centre was woken in the night by his dog needing to go outside, and he happened to check his computer. Jolyon Jenkins speaks to the unsung army of people who are trying to keep us safe from the threat from outer space, and asks whether it’s right that we depend so much on enthusiasts. Picture: At its peak, 144,000 meteors per hour fell during The Leonids shower of 1966, Credit: Nasa/Getty Images
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30-Jun-2014
The Documentary - Misers, Bling and the Money Thing: 1. Spending and Saving
You have money to spend and you're going to spend it - or are you? Alvin Hall presents two programmes exploring the motivation behind people's actions with money. In the first of two programmes focusing on attitudes to spending and saving, Alvin discusses why some people who have plenty of cash choose to sit on a secret nest egg, rather than spend and make their life better. The presenter, who has spent decades exploring people's attitudes towards money, asks a range of people why they have made the spending decisions they have. Alvin speaks to Barney Curley, a hugely successful Irish gambler, who has discovered that as he gets older winning a fortune does not give him the thrill it once did. The presenter also hears Edna Hale’s story and learns how her friends were astonished to find she had left £150,000 to charity after her death – money that Edna could have used to improve her life. Comedian Dan Nainan attributes his obsession to economy to his Japanese and Indian parents, and will only read books he can reserve for free from the library, despite hitting seven digits on his bank account. Finally, Ben Hatch's innovative attempts to save money have seen him buy his wife's 40th birthday present from a charity shop – and forgetting to take the label off. Picture: A plastic gold necklace pendant in the design of a US dollar, Credit: Clara Molden/PA
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15-Jun-2014
The Documentary - The Managers: 6. Steve Keshi
It wasn’t until he was playing for the Nigerian junior teams and on TV that Steve Keshi was able to tell his parents that he was playing football. As they were growing up, Steve and his four brothers were banned from playing the game, and had to do so in secret. Steve even admits having to take money from his mother’s purse to buy the falele, a small rubber ball that they used to kick around. It took a trip to the doctor for his father and him being able to skip the waiting list because of Steve’s growing notoriety, that they began to accept that their son had not been paying as much attention to his school work as they had wanted and that he was going to be a footballer. Keshi went on to become a Nigerian football great and is one of only two people to have won the African Cup of Nations as a player, in 1994 and as a manager when the Super Eagles won in 2013. In the last of The Managers, Keshi tells Jane Garvey about his journey from playing in secret in Nigeria to becoming ‘The Big Boss’ and leading his country in the World Cup finals in Brazil this summer. He tells Jane about how, after a spell in the Ivory Coast, he was one of the first African players to play in Europe, playing in France and Belgium, and how while he was playing and living in Europe he suffered horrendous racist abuse, which was endemic in the game in the 1980’s and 90’s, and if it was not for his wife he would have returned to Nigeria. Those events and his playing career as a tough centre half, he says, shaped him as a player, as a person and ultimately as a coach, and he and Jane talk about his coaching philosophy, whether he lives up to the nickname of ‘The Big Boss’, how he brings such a disparate group of players from all over the world into a squad which he hopes will surprise the football world in Brazil. He also tells Jane how his players know who is in charge of the Nigerian team, even though he is the type of manager who welcomes input from his players Jane also asks Keshi about his controversial side, his views on European coaches being employed by African football nations and his policy in the past of only picking Nigerian based players in his squad.
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15-Jun-2014
The Documentary - World War One
Historian Heather Jones tackles the familiar image of a war centred on a static front line in northern Europe, and looks at how World War One affected populations beyond the front line. Though place names such as the Somme, Verdun, Ypres and the Vimy Ridge serve to emphasise the Eurocentric view of the war, the conflict impinged on populations all over the globe. Heather reveals how with rare material from the archives. (Photo: Officers in a trench, during WW1, circa 1915. Credit: Topical Press Agency/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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13-Jun-2014
The Documentary - The Burden of Beauty: 2. The Burden of Beauty - Part Two
No other team in sporting history has been under more pressure than Brazil as it prepares to host its own World Cup, played at home for the first time in 64 years. Musa Okwonga travels there to find out how they will cope with this unprecedented pressure, both on and off the pitch. How did Brazil end up in the situation where its own people are rebelling against its own World Cup? Off the pitch, preparations have been beset by huge problems - and even tragedy. Seven construction workers have died building the stadiums which are massively over budget and late. This has not gone down well with an angry public, who crave better public services but won’t see any sustainable legacies from the World Cup. On the pitch, anything other than victory will be a failure. How then, do you prepare a team against a backdrop of such weighty and intense expectation? We hear from some of its star players both past and present, and current coach Luis Felipe Scolari. Will victory be enough for Brazil or must that be achieved in the style of some of its golden footballing forefathers? (Photo: A man mows the grass at Mane Garrincha National Stadium in Brasilia, Credit: Evaristo Sa/AFP Getty Images)
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11-Jun-2014
The Documentary - What Does Putin Want?
The political map of eastern Europe has changed dramatically in the last few months. Edward Stourton examines Vladimir Putin’s strategic vision for Eastern Europe, following Russia’s annexation of Crimea - and the rise of political tensions throughout Ukraine. Are Moscow's actions in the Ukraine crisis evidence of a long-term strategy to reassert Russia as a world power? Or are they the actions of a weakened government scrabbling to keep up with events? Picture: President Vladimir Putin, Yuri Kadobnov/AFP/Getty Images
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11-Jun-2014
The Documentary - The Women of the Arab Spring: 1. Part One
Meet the women who are trying to be heard. Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy asks whether traditional Arabic societies are ready for the change they are agitating for. The Arab Spring was never about gender equality, but many women became alarmed when their uprisings went unrewarded and the men that were keen to have them crying for their freedom were not so happy to relinquish power once the dust had settled. In this first part, Mona travels to Tunisia – the country that sparked off the uprisings – to meet the women who pushed through legislation enshrining gender equality in the new constitution. With the largest majority of seats in Tunisia's constituent assembly belonging to an Islamist political party, Mona asks whether tensions exist between secular and feminist Islam. And will this new legislation have any impact on the majority of Tunisia’s women? In Jordan, after the 2011 revolutions across the Arab world, activists spent 16 days protesting against violence to women, including an ancient penal code that allows rapists to marry their victims. The programme speaks to a victim of rape forced to marry her rapist, and to those who defend the current legislation, and asks what it will take for the government to repeal it. Picture: A Jordanian woman casts her ballot, Credit: Khalil Mazraawi/AFP/Getty Images
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08-Jun-2014
The Documentary - The Managers: 5. Teri McKeever
When Teri McKeever took charge of the United States Olympic team for the London Olympics in 2012, she broke a barrier that many would be forgiven for thinking had been overcome a long time ago - becoming the first female to coach the USA women’s team at the games. Teri McKeever is one of the most successful and innovative coaches in swimming. Witness one of her training sessions at the outdoor pool at the University of California Berkeley in Oakland, California, and you are as likely to see her swimmers skipping with a rope, doing handstands and dancing to Hip Hop music as you are ploughing up and down the pool for hours on end. McKeever is the latest subject in The Managers and she tells Peter Bowes about her life and her journey from growing up as part of a huge family where sport was so integral to her and her sibling’s lives, to becoming coach at UCAL, to taking over the US team. Her story begins with her father, Mike McKeever, who, alongside his twin brother, was a star college American Football player, who was killed in a car accident when Teri was six years old. After her mother remarried, her family grew and Teri took on a parental role to her younger brothers and sisters. What they had though when they stepped out of the back door meant that they could indulge in virtually any sport they wanted, a hockey pitch, softball diamond, and in Teri’s case, a 50 metre swimming pool, all built by her step-father. Teri started swimming in national meets as a junior, with her mother as her coach, but it is as coach in her own right that she has excelled in the sport and she has been the head coach of the University of California Golden Bears for the past 20 years, winning national titles and accolades. As a coach she attracts some of the best swimmers in the world to her team, including Natalie Coughlin, Haley Cope, Jessica Hardy, and current team member the multi-Olympic medallist and World Champion, Missy Franklin, who tells Peter about why she was attracted to swim for McKeever, and how her coaching philosophy has helped her career. Teri reflects on the obstacles women sports coaches’ face, especially in swimming, and how she has navigated those to become a pioneer in her sport. (Photo: Teri McKeever talks to Natalie Coughlin. Credit: Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images)
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07-Jun-2014
The Documentary - D-Day Dames
In spring 1944 American women war correspondents gathered in London in anticipation of the D-Day invasion. Women were not allowed to report from the front line, although that did not stop Martha Gellhorn. She returned to London as her marriage to Ernest Hemingway was ending - he had met his next wife, also a war correspondent - in the Dorchester hotel in London as he waited for the invasion to take place. But it was Gellhorn, who hid on a hospital ship across the channel, who went ashore and wrote a dramatic account of it – she was subsequently disciplined by the authorities as she had no accreditation. Other women, such as Helen Kirkpatrick witnessed Eisenhower's return from the front as she reported from D-Day headquarters. After D-Day itself, women reporters gradually started going to Normandy, such as Lee Miller, who filed dramatic photo-journalism accounts for British Vogue from a field hospital and then found herself on the frontlines of the siege of St Malo. The women followed the troops across Europe, arriving in Paris for its liberation in August. It was a key moment in the history of women war correspondents. Lyse Doucet recounts their stories with archive audio, readings from their articles and letters, interviews with relatives and their biographers. She explains how the work of women war correspondents has changed since then. (Photo: Mary Welsh, Dixie Tighe, Kathleen Harriman, Helen Kirkpatrick, Lee Miller, and Tania Long, Credit: Lee Miller Archives)
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05-Jun-2014
The Documentary - The Burden of Beauty: 1. The Burden of Beauty
As Brazil prepares to host the World Cup for the first time in 64 years, Musa Okwonga travels there to explore the role that football plays in Brazilian society and culture. What does football mean to the Brazilians? Why is it so important? He hears how Brazilians adapted a sport, born and bred out of the British industrial revolution, made it their own and then conquered the footballing world. In a country whose historical legacy is of aristocratic hierarchy and shameful mass slavery, it was football’s inclusive and democratic nature that meant it had mass appeal. No matter what you looked like or where you came from, anyone could play the beautiful game. We learn about the silent agony of defeat in 1950 - the last time Brazil hosted the tournament and why that still haunts the nation. So will the 2014 team finally banish the ghosts of 1950? Will they be able to handle the pressure and burden of winning in a style befitting some of their golden footballing fore-fathers? And, amid unprecedented protests, is Brazil fit to host the World Cup? Find out as we de-bunk some of the myths that surround this nation and its football. (Photo:The Bellini statue, outside Rio de Janeiro’s Maracana stadium, in honour of Brazil’s first World Cup victory in 1958. BBC copyright)
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04-Jun-2014
The Documentary - Gunfire Over the Golden Temple: 2. Gunfire Over the Golden Temple
In 1984, the Indian Army stormed the Golden Temple, the most holy Sikh place of worship, to oust Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, the militant Sikh leader who had massed arms and ammunition inside. The Prime Minister Indira Gandhi paid a heavy price for ordering this attack: she was assassinated later the same year. Following her death, anti-Sikh riots took place across India, most notably in Delhi, lasting for four days. Mark Tully reported on all these events in 1984 and thirty years later, for the BBC World Service, he brings the story right up to date. In programme two, he speaks to Gunbir Singh, a social advocate, Abishek Singhvi, a spokesperson for The Congress Party, Indira Gandhi’s party, as well as Jaspreet Singh, a Canadian-Indian novelist whose latest book is about the anti-Sikh violence. Mark also learns of a practice in Punjab to crack down on Sikh men without the proper judicial process, and considers the recent revelations that a British military advisor went to India before the attack on the Golden Temple. He asks how much of a scar these events have left in India, as well as in the Sikh diaspora in Canada and Britain.
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01-Jun-2014
The Documentary - The Managers: 4. German Football Legend Jurgen Klinsmann
This summer Jurgen Klinsmann will take the USA team to the World Cup final. He will be trying to become just the third person to win the trophy as a player and as a manager. The odds are stacked against him; the USA team he took over in 2011 are one of the outsiders for the trophy. But, there is no doubt that Jurgen Klinsmann is one of the most insightful and interesting managers in world football, and in the run up to the start of the tournament Peter Bowes meets him in Los Angeles, where he has lived for the past 20 years. Peter starts by talking to him about his childhood in Stuttgart and how his father was initially against his son having a career in football, wanting the teenage Jurgen to follow his career in baking. But he was too good as a schoolboy player - he once scored 16 goals in a game which brought him to the attention of his local club, Stuttgart. From there he played around Europe, in Italy for Internazionale, in France with Monaco and in England for Tottenham Hotspur. Klinnsman tells Peter how his biggest coaching inspiration was one of the two people to have achieved the feat of lifting the World Cup as a coach and as a player: fellow German Franz Beckenbauer. He also tells Peter about his life in the USA where football, or soccer, is a poor cousin to the main sports in the country and how, as the coach of the national team, he is in a unique position of not only trying to progress the elite players in the country, but also to try and build a substantial base of for the sport to grow. Jurgen talks about his philosophy as a coach how he empowers his players to make their own decisions and how the philosophy his team lives by must start at the top with his coaches. He also tells Peter how he will feel when he faces Germany - the side he once managed - in Brazil later in the summer. Picture: Jurgen Klinsmann, Credit: Paul Vernon/AFP/Getty Images Presenter: Peter Bowes Production : Richard McIlroy and Jitesh Parmar
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01-Jun-2014
The Documentary - Bangalore's New Beat
Bobby Friction traces how young people in India are expressing themselves through music and the massive rise in independent music and festivals. Recorded on location at NH7 in Bangalore, India’s Glastonbury. Indian culture is changing rapidly and with the rise of a young middle class population who are having a new voice, disposable income and want a say in their futures, changes in music culture are reflecting this. They are moving away from their parents’ perspective - a culture where Bollywood music dominates. They are moving away too from Western dominated music to create something fresh. India has seen a massive rise in home grown rock, indie, electronica and even reggae, fusing Indian music with Western influences. We ask if these changes have caused tensions between the generations. British DJ Bobby Friction, who regularly plays at India’s clubs and at festivals speaks to musicians, music producers, festival goers and organisers, to find out how the youth movement is reflecting cultural changes in India. With the narrative of Bangalore’s NH7 Festival as the back-drop, Bobby sees a buoyant and confident new sector of India’s youth who are expressing themselves as independent global citizens. Interviews include NH7 founders Vijay Nair and Stephen Budd (the man behind Africa Express) who wanted to alter the idea of only having the likes of Sting and Simply Red visiting India. We also speak to Indian superstar Kailash Kher, Indian electronica band Shaa’ir and Func and music producer Miti Adhikari. Picture: Bobby Friction at NH7
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29-May-2014
The Documentary - Idrissa Camara
Idrissa Camara cuts a distinctive figure as he walks his young child to her Welsh-speaking school in suburban Cardiff. Originally from Guinea, Idrissa moved to the city four years ago and now lists Welsh next to Susu, Malinke and Wolof among his languages. Idrissa is a virtuoso dancer and choreographer and since arriving in Wales has been working to establish his own dance company, Ballet Nimba. He recently received a bursary to travel back to his native Guinea in order to formally study and document the evolution of dance, music and storytelling there - research which will feed into the next Ballet Nimba production. In this programme, we follow the progress of this new work interwoven with snapshots from Idrissa's life in Cardiff and his life in Guinea, and the tension between the two.
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28-May-2014
The Documentary - Gunfire Over the Golden Temple: 1. Part One
In 1984, the Indian Army stormed the Golden Temple, the most holy Sikh place of worship at Amritsar, to oust Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, the militant Sikh leader who had amassed arms and ammunition inside. The prime minister at the time Indira Gandhi paid a heavy price for ordering this attack, known as Operation Blue Star - she was assassinated later the same year. Following her death, anti-Sikh riots took place across India, most notably in Delhi, lasting for four days. Mark Tully reported on all these events in 1984 and 30 years later, for the BBC World Service, he brings the story right up to date. In programme one, he examines the events and their underlying issues. He speaks to those on all sides of the story, including Lieutenant-General Brar who commanded the Indian Army during the attack, Mohkam Singh, a spokesperson for Bhindranwale’s organisation, as well as those who lost loved ones in the riots. (Photo: An Indian Sikh devotee bathes in the holy sarover (water tank) on the occasion of Hola Mohalla at The Golden Temple in Amritsar. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)
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25-May-2014
The Documentary - The Managers: 3. American Football Coach John Harbaugh
It’s the tradition for the two opposing coaches in a football game to cross the field of play and congratulate or commiserate with each other after the game has finished. They will shake hands and offer some words before heading off to their respective locker rooms. That scene at the end of the 2013 Super Bowl was particularly poignant, as the two coaches were brothers, the first siblings to oppose each other in the end of season game ever in NFL history. Jim and John Harbaugh grew up around football, footballers and football coaches. Their dad Jack was a college coach and sport - football in particular - was the constant thing in their lives. John had won the Super Bowl. Both John and Jim would accompany their father to work, and it was natural that the game would be the path they followed. Jim was a successful player at college and in the NFL. John was less successful as a football player, but he has become a coaches who has had huge success despite a lack of glory as a player. In the third of this series of The Managers, Peter Bowes travels to the Ravens’ impressive country club style training centre just outside Baltimore, to meet John Harbaugh. He speaks to John about his upbringing, his brother and his parents - and how he became a coach, working through the system as a specialist position coach and then ultimately with the Ravens who took a chance on him as their head coach in 2008. John tells Peter about his philosophy of coaching, how it was shaped by his father and the legendary University of Michigan coach Bo Schembechler, whose book on coaching Harbaugh handed out on his first day with the Ravens to all his staff. Schembechler’s message was that there was nothing as important as the ‘team’ and that’s something you see as you walk around the Ravens training camp where the word is prominent in the players area on the wall. Harbaugh explains how such a huge coaching structure works in the game, and what he feels the role of the Head Coach is, and finally he remembers the day in February 2013 that he took on, and beat his own brother in the Super Bowl in New Orleans. John Harbaugh is a coached shaped by his formative years immersed in the game, but he has proved himself to be an innovator looking to redefine the role of the Coach in modern day Football where tablet computers and biometric tests becoming the norm. Presenter: Peter Bowes Production was by Richard McIlroy Jitesh Parmar and Christopher Wilson
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25-May-2014
The Documentary - All That Stands in the Way - The Debate
Ros Atkins brings three teenage girls from ‘All that Stands in The Way’ together in New York City with two other girls, for a unique debate on gender inequality. The group, which includes girls from London, Lesotho and Iceland meet media star Tina Brown and delegates at the Women in the World summit, for a conversation ranging from everyday sexism to the problems of balancing traditional attitudes with modern ambitions.
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22-May-2014
The Documentary - All That Stands in the Way - The Parents
The parents of four teenage girls in the BBC World Service programme All That Stands In The Way, meet and talk for the first time. What did they think of the freedoms and limits to each girl’s life and has the documentary made them reconsider their views on trust, discipline, relationships and fashion. As their children reach adulthood and independence what do they think of gender equality and their daughter’s chance in the modern world?
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21-May-2014
The Documentary - All That Stands in the Way - The Girls
The four teenage girls from the BBC World Service programme All That Stands In The Way, meet for the very first time. Lulu from London, Shoeshoe from Lesotho, Vigdis from Iceland and Mira from Jordan discuss their reaction to seeing each other’s lives and experiences depicted on the BBC. What has made them question their choices and freedoms and how do they see gender equality as they stand on the threshold of adulthood? (Photo: From top-left clockwise, Shoeshoe from Lesotho, Vigdis from Iceland and Mira from Jordan and Lulu from London)
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18-May-2014
The Documentary - The Managers: 2. Football Coach Pia Sundhage
There was one moment when Pia Sundhage first came across a football in the small rural town she lived in in Northern Sweden. Instead of catching the ball, as had been intended, she just wanted to kick it, and from that moment a long career in football was born. Everyday meant football to Pia, she played with the boys at school, after school, but when it came to joining the boys team, life wasn’t so simple. The manager of the local team told Pia that she was going to have to change her name from Pia to a boy’s name; Pelle. This didn’t put Pia, or Pelle, off and she went on to turn professional in Sweden, play nearly 150 times for her country, scoring 71 goals. It is as a coach that Pia Sundhage has made most headlines though, and in the second of our series of The Managers, Jane Garvey meets Pia to talk about her coaching career which has led to her to her biggest successes. In 2007, Pia took over as coach of a USA Women’s team that was in disarray, the squad was split and the atmosphere was described as toxic over a row over the dropping of star goalkeeper Hope Solo. Pia tells Jane about this test to her coaching and management skills in her first big job in world soccer. What she did in the first team meeting won’t feature in many text books or coaching seminars but seemed to have worked, she broke into song. After a few verses of Bob Dylan’s ‘The Times They Are Changing’ the mood in the team had changed, and within a few days the team was ready to change, as the lyrics suggest. Pia explains to Jane in the two-part programme her coaching philosophy, how she has used her experience of playing in her coaching, her ideas of coaching ‘healthy’. Also how a coach doesn’t always like the players she managers and how she took that US team that was so divided to two Olympic Gold medals and a World Cup Final where they were runners up to Japan. Pia left the US team job in 2013 and is now back home in Sweden in charge of the national women’s team hoping to guide them to the World Cup title in Canada in 2015. Production was by Richard McIlroy and Jitesh Parmar
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15-May-2014
The Documentary - Our Missing Girls
Finding Nigeria's missing girls has become a global cause with a massive online campaign #BringBackOurGirls. Presidents and prime ministers have joined parents in calling for their release. In Our Missing Girls Nkem Ifejika tells the dramatic story of their disappearance and examines what it means for the government of Africa's most populous nation and its nemesis, Boko Haram. (Photo: A woman holds a sign that says 'Bring Back Our Girls', Credit: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
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14-May-2014
The Documentary - Being Brazilian: 2. Being Brazilian
Brazil is South America's biggest and most influential country. With a population of 200 million, it is now the sixth largest economy in the world. In June (2014) it will host the World Cup and in two years’ time, the Olympic Games, making it a place of huge global interest. But what do we really know about the country and its people? And what does it mean to be Brazilian? To many, the first thought might be of a nation whose famous Carnival never ends; fun loving and sun-soaked, beauties on the Copacabana, or pictures of the footballers scoring exquisitely crafted goals. But beyond these stereotypes what does being Brazilian mean? In the second programme, Julia Carneiro examines the issue of race. Brazil has long presented itself as a country which enjoys great racial diversity. It has the largest black population outside Africa yet under the surface, race is a taboo. Why is race such a difficult thing to talk about in Brazil? What does that say about the country? (Photo: Brazilians gather during the first day of Carnival celebrations in Salvador, Brazil. Credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images)
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12-May-2014
The Documentary - The Man Who Went Looking For Freedom
In 1983, Ion Bugan made a personal demonstration against the system in Romania in the midst of food shortages, electricity rationing, and surveillance of ordinary people by the secret police. He was jailed immediately. From then, until the day they left for America six years later, his family were followed by secret police wherever they went. Their friends and relatives were intimidated and interrogated. Now, almost a quarter of a century after they left, the Bugans return to Romania for the first time to retrace Ion’s steps: the jails he was held in, the Securitate HQ where the thousands of files about them are kept, and finally back to their home village. Presented by Carmen Bugan. Produced by Monica Whitlock. (Photo: Ion Bugan. By kind permission of Catalin Bugan)
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11-May-2014
The Documentary - Law Behind Bars
Most people who face criminal charges in Kenya go to court without a lawyer. By the Kenyan judiciary’s own admission, this leads to a great deal of injustice. This programme meets an impressive group of prisoners who are acting as lawyers on behalf of themselves and their fellow inmates. Mostly by discovering flaws in the original cases, they are managing to get large numbers of convictions overturned at appeal. According to one Kenyan lawyer, these prisoner paralegals are much more effective than many of the professionals: after all, they have all the time, and the ultimate motivation of winning freedom. (Picture: Inmate paralegals meet to discuss a case, Credit: BBC)
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11-May-2014
The Documentary - The Managers: 1. Tennis Coach Sven Groeneveld
There was a moment when Sven Groeneveld realised he wasn’t going to be a great tennis player, he knew he wasn’t going to be able to emulate the great players of the day such as Bjorn Borg, Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe, or that he wasn’t going to be able to compete with the best players and make his living playing the game. But what Sven also realised was that he could see things in the other players, read a match, second guess what the game plan would be, what a certain player was doing wrong, and crucially how he could put it right. Since that moment Sven Groeneveld has become one of the most sought after coaches in world tennis. He has helped players such as Monica Seles, Mary Pierce, Michael Stich, Esther Vergeer, Greg Rusedski, Caroline Wosniacki and currently Maria Sharapova win dozens of grand slams and other tour titles. In the first part of our series The Managers, Ed Harry travelled to Sven's tennis academy in Amsterdam to meet him and to explore the role of the coach to the tennis elite. How do you spot, and then address the weaknesses in the best players in the world which could transform them from also-rans into champions at Roland Garros or Wimbledon? It's this ability to make the small adjustments that have such a big impact that means that Sven - and the other coaches explored in this series The Managers - are so successful. But the technical side of the game is only one part of it and Sven explains how the players have to bond mentally if they are to work and succeed together. Sven also admits that personality clashes are common in tennis and the separate egos of the player and the coach coexist. As Sven tells Ed, he has had to learn to manage his own ego as he has climbed the coaching ladder. Born in the Netherlands, it was from his parents that he gained his competitive streak that drives him today. Sven started playing tennis with a former table tennis international and a footballer - in the small village where he lived. Sven measures his worth on the practice court, working on the small parts of the game that make the difference between success and failure and that's the hallmark of all our coaches, the seemingly imperceptible detail they can spot that the lay person can’t, which is why they are the best in the world in their field. Production: Richard McIlroy, Jitesh Parmar and Christopher Wilson (Photo: Coach Sven Groeneveld speaks with Maria Sharapova. Credit: Scott Barbour/Getty Images)
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08-May-2014
The Documentary - Swinging Addis
In the 1960s and early '70s, unknown to most of the outside world, Addis Ababa's nightlife was electrified by a blend of traditional folk music, jazz, swing, rhythm and blues. Clubs were full, dance floors packed with young people moved by the music of a new generation of Ethiopian pop stars who were inspired by Elvis and James Brown, but gave their sound a unique twist. "There is Swinging Addis just like there is Swinging London, bell-bottom trousers, mini skirts..." In Addis Ababa, Courtney Pine meets some of the veterans of the Swinging Addis golden age of Ethiopian jazz, including Mahmoud Ahmed and Alemayehu Eshete - the 'Ethiopian Elvis'. These Ethiopian heroes, now in their 70s, are like the Buena Vista Social Club stars of their country. Courtney speaks to the legendary Ethiopian music producer Amha Eshete, while his guide on his musical journey of discovery is Francis Falceto, the French music producer who 'rediscovered' these artists and brought their music to the West, and has now compiled 30 albums in the Ethiopiques series. Courtney finds Addis Ababa is still swinging, and meets one of the new generation of Ethiopian jazz musicians who are picking up the beat, the young pianist Samuel Yirga, to jam Ethiopian style. The story began in 1896, following Ethiopia's victory against the invading Italians at the Battle of Adwa, when the Russian tsar Nicolas II sent Emperor Menelik 40 brass instruments. Brass became the imperial music – and that influence planted a seed. Then, on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1924, the prince who would become Emperor Haile Selassie, met a marching band of young Armenians orphaned in the recent Ottoman massacres. He shipped the 'Arba Lijoch' ('Forty Kids') back to Addis Ababa and installed them as the imperial band. The emperor's new big band ensembles proved to be incubators for the stars of a new sound craved by a young generation demanding musical – as well as social and political - change. In 1969, a 26-year-old music producer called Amha Eshete defied an imperial decree giving the state a monopoly over the reproduction of music to release Ethiopia's first-ever independent record with Alemayehu Eshete. When the pair played it on a loudspeaker from Amha's music shop, the young people dancing in the street stopped the traffic. The rest was history. Picture: Courtney Pine, Credit: BBCPicture: Courtney Pine, Credit: BBC
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07-May-2014
The Documentary - Being Brazilian: 1. Being Brazilian
Brazil is South America's biggest and most influential country. With a population of 200 million, it is now the sixth largest economy in the world. In June (2014) it will host the World Cup and in two years’ time, the Olympic Games, making it a place of huge global interest. But what do we really know about the country and its people? And what does it mean to be Brazilian? To many, the first thought might be of a nation whose famous Carnival never ends - fun loving, sun-soaked beauties on the Copacabana, or pictures of the footballers scoring exquisitely crafted goals. But beyond these stereotypes what does being Brazilian mean? As the world’s media prepares to descend on Brazil for the 2014 World Cup, Julia Carneiro presents the first of two programmes which gets to the heart of Brazilian identity. In doing so, she casts off some of the myths about what being Brazilian is. In the programme we hear how Brazilians see themselves. What are the things which make people feel and think 'Brazilian?' What are the common threads which bind Brazilians together, or divide them? (Photo: Brazil coach, Felipe Scolari, at this year’s Grape Festival in Caxius du Sul, southern Brazil. BBC copyright)
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04-May-2014
The Documentary - The Siege of Dien Bien Phu
After the humiliations of World War Two, France was insistent on reasserting itself as a world power. In their Vietnamese colony the nationalists led by Ho Chi Minh were just as determined to gain independence. The showdown to a seven-year guerrilla war came in 1954 at the battle of Dien Bien Phu. Survivors, politicians and historians explain how the horrors of a 56-day siege ended with the French garrison being virtually wiped out. In Paris, desperate politicians even considered using American atomic weapons to try to save Dien Bien Phu. Julian Jackson, professor of Modern French History recounts how French soldiers lost an empire in the mountains of Vietnam and how 60 years later the defeat still resonates in contemporary France. For the other European powers it marked the beginning of the end for their colonies in Africa and the Far East. Dien Bien Phu was the first time an indigenous force had defeated a modern well-equipped army. The lessons were not lost on rebels from Kenya to Malaya. It also had profound implications for the onset of the Cold War. In Washington the battle led to President Eisenhower's first articulation of the domino theory about the possible expansion of Communism. For Moscow and Beijing, Dien Bien Phu represented a great leap forward. For the US the political vacuum left by the French abandonment of Indochina was to lead to their own ten-year war in Vietnam. (Photo: Captured French soldiers escorted by Vietnamese soldiers, walking to a prisoner camp in Dien Bien Phu in 1954, Credit:AFP/Getty Images)
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01-May-2014
The Documentary - The Making of the Modern Arab World: 4. A New Generation Challenges the Old Order?
Egyptian author Tarek Osman uncovers the history of the modern Arab world by tracing some of the great political dreams that have shaped it, from the 19th Century to the Arab Spring. Throughout the series, he focuses on two countries that are currently high on the news agenda: Egypt and Syria. As Tarek discovers, these are also the states from which many of the crucial characters and ideas in this story emerged. In this final programme, he examines the build up to the Arab Spring as two worlds collide. As the previous experiments with liberalism, nationalism and Islamism founder, the region's presidential hard men seek to consolidate their power by passing it onto their sons. At the same time, riding the wave of a population explosion which leaves two thirds of the Arab world under 25 years old, a new generation frustrated by the lack of jobs or political freedoms rises up to challenge the old order. Picture: Tear gas is fired by Egyptian riot police during clashes with students, Credit: Mahmoud Khaled/AFP/Getty
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30-Apr-2014
The Documentary - The Education Revolution: 2. Massive Open Online Courses
Sarah Montague looks at how technology is transforming education, and what the classroom of the future will look like. In the second programme, Sarah turns her attention to universities, and in particular, to MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). Some argue these free university online courses, presented by some of the best professors in the world, could - in cash strapped times - be the saviour of higher education and take university to people in some of the remotest regions of the world. Others argue they could destroy centuries of tradition.
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24-Apr-2014
The Documentary - The Making of the Modern Arab World: 3. The Rise of Islamism
Eyptian author Tarek Osman explores the rise of Islamism or political Islam. He investigates the many events from the 1970s onwards which converged to create a force that came to fill the vacuum left by Arab Nationalism. In the third programme, Tarek examines the reasons for the re-emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and across the region, and the gradual cultural shift that changed the landscape of the Arab world. We find out how the influence of the conservative oil rich Gulf states like Saudi Arabia began to take hold in the Middle East and the three pivotal events in 1979 which boosted Islamism.
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23-Apr-2014
The Documentary - The Education Revolution: 1. Learning with Videos and Video Games
What will the classroom of the future look like? Sarah Montague travels to Silicon Valley, home of the Khan Academy. The Khan Academy is an online teaching service whose mission is to provide a free world-class education to anyone, anywhere. In Bill Gates' view, it is "a radical rethinking of what it means to go to school". With 10 million users every month logging onto their online videos, Salman Khan - the Academy's founder - is arguably the most important teacher in the world. Sarah visits schools that are using technology in revolutionary new ways. And she talks to Nolan Bushnell, the 'father of modern video gaming'. His latest venture is a company called BrainRush. Bushnell believes children can learn almost anything through video games. We meet Rupert Murdoch's head of education, Joel Klein. His company has developed a tablet that they are rolling out to schools across America. Is this the future of education? Have traditional teaching methods outlived their usefulness? And how do children learn best? Picture: A long-distance student speaks to his teacher, Australia, via video link, Credit: Greg Wood/ AFP/Getty Images
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20-Apr-2014
The Documentary - Africans in the Holy Land
Paul Bakibinga travels to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv to explore the lives and experiences of people from three different African communities. Mahmoud Salamat takes Paul around the narrow alleyways of the old city of Jerusalem to the hidden African quarter and introduces a small but close-knit community, who are descendants of Muslim pilgrims or soldiers who came to the Holy Land during the time of the British Mandate. Paul also explores the experiences of different Ethiopian Jews who have returned to their ancient homeland, including rising star musician Ester Rada. And he spends time in South Tel Aviv, where the bulk of African asylum-seekers live – stuck in a legal limbo amid growing hostility from politicians and local residents. The state cannot deport them – but neither will it grant them refugee status. Picture: A 'Kessim', a leader of the Ethiopian Jewish community, Credit: Gali Tibbon/AFP/Getty Images
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17-Apr-2014
The Documentary - The Making of the Modern Arab World: 2. The Rise and Fall of Arab Nationalism
Egyptian author Tarek Osman uncovers the history of the modern Arab world by tracing some of the great political dreams that have shaped it, from the 19th Century to the Arab Spring. Throughout the series, he focuses on two countries that are currently high on the news agenda - Egypt and Syria. As Tarek discovers, these are also the states from which many of the crucial characters and ideas in this story emerged. In part two of The Making of the Arab World, he explores the rise and fall of Arab nationalism. (Photo: An anti-military rule protester wears a hat holding portraits of former president Gamal Abdel Nasser during a demonstration in Cairo's Tahrir Square. Credit: Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images)
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16-Apr-2014
The Documentary - Preparing for Disaster
Lu Olkowski reports from New York about the growing 'prepper' movement in the city. Preppers are people who are fearful of the future and who are preparing for the next disaster. The city has already experienced natural calamities such as Hurricane Sandy and has suffered devastating terrorist attacks. Preppers, who operate as individuals or in small organised groups, are convinced another disaster will strike the city soon and refuse to believe that the government will do enough to protect them. They train in self-defence and plan ways to escape the city in the event of emergency. They store food and water in their houses and have 'bug out' bags ready at a moments notice if they have to flee. Lu Olkowski talks to a number of New York preppers and listens to their concerns and plans for the future. She finds out what they are particularly worried about – everything from a nuclear explosion to economic collapse and another major storm. She hears about their plans of escape and the variety of objects they have secured for their survival – everything from decades' worth of dried food to hoards of silver coins for possible barter after the natural order breaks down. She watches on as they prepare their defence. Are these people simply paranoid and easily influenced by the wild imaginings of Hollywood disaster films? Or do they have genuine concerns that all of us who live in cities should take heed of? (Photo: Jay Blevins walks to his backyard with a bug out bag, a quick grab bag with about 40lb of survival gear, including a Katana sword. Credit: Brendan Smialowski/ AFP/Getty Images)
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13-Apr-2014
The Documentary - Manchester: A City United
Today Manchester is best known for its football clubs, but 200 years ago the world looked to the city for different reasons. Kings, politicians, philosophers and even tourists came to watch as the world's first industrial city burst forth in a cacophonous, smoky fury. No one had seen anything like it before. To the ruling classes it was scary - to the working and middle classes it was an opportunity. Great poverty and great wealth rubbed up against each other and the result was a stream of advances in technology, commerce and thought. In the 19th Century, communism, free trade, the co-operative movement, the campaign for female suffrage, European vegetarianism and trade unionism all originated or - crucially - were developed in the city. In the 20th Century, Rutherford split the atom, Turing theorised the modern computer and a Mr Rolls met a Mr Royce to discuss his plan for a motor car. James Walvin is a history professor and a proud Mancunian and Manchester United fan. He returns to Manchester to tell the extraordinary tale of a city whose thoughts and deeds still reverberate around the world today and to prove that there is more to the Manchester than match day.
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10-Apr-2014
The Documentary - The Making of the Modern Arab World: 1. The Rise and Fall of Arab Liberalism
Egyptian author Tarek Osman uncovers the history of the modern Arab world by tracing some of the great political dreams that have shaped it, from the 19th Century to the Arab Spring. Throughout the series, he focuses on two countries that are currently high on the news agenda: Egypt and Syria. As Tarek discovers, these are also the states from which many of the crucial characters and ideas in this story emerged. In the first episode, Tarek takes us back to Egypt's early 19th Century encounters with Europe and the flowering of Arab Liberalism. He traces the journey of the Islamic scholar al-Tahtawi, who spent several years in Paris in the 1820s and who became part of a burgeoning push to modernise his home country on his return to Egypt. Tarek explores how, in the early 20th Century, even as the Ottoman, British and French Empires asserted their power in the Arab world, a cultural renaissance or what was known as the Nahda, was spreading. This movement brought an explosion in literacy, campaigns for women's rights, and a flowering of artistic creativity. But then the First World War saw Britain and France cut a secret deal to divide parts of the Arab world between them.
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09-Apr-2014
The Documentary - Mapping the Void
Dr Kat Arney meets the people trying to change the world one map at a time. These are volunteers who use their free time to map the world's unmapped places and people. She sees how being on a map affects people's work, education and rights. She hears how in extreme weather or after a natural disaster, mappers help us find those who have fallen off the maps. She also hears from crisis mappers, people who source any information they can after tragedies to document what is happening on the ground as fast as possible. This story starts in January 2010, when a huge earthquake hit the island nation of Haiti. Thousands of miles away, a group of American students heard about the damage, logged onto their laptops and started mapping any post-disaster information they could find online. Their aim was to help the rescue and relief services save as many lives as possible. Four years on, international contingents of cartographers now deploy after every natural disaster, and in areas of political unrest and civil war. They scour the internet for cries for help on social media, then mark them on maps to try to get help to people who need it most. There's also a project making a continual effort to make the most accurate physical map of the globe. Contributing could mean joining a mapping party in London. Or cycling around rural Uganda with a GPS device. Thousands of volunteers are now spending their spare time contributing to these efforts. Some of those who started it all have become internationally recognised in a new area of expertise. As volunteers assemble around the world, Dr Kat Arney asks how powerful these maps can be and also assesses the problems that come with them. (Photo: A fallen map of Haiti lies in the ruins of the Ministry of Public Works, Credit: John Moore/Getty Images)
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06-Apr-2014
The Documentary - A Good Man in Rwanda
On 7 April 1994, Mbaye Diagne, a Senegalese captain working with the UN’s peacekeeping mission in Kigali, helped save the lives of five children. They were the children of Rwanda’s moderate Hutu Prime Minister, Agathe Uwilingiyimana, who had just been murdered by Hutu extremists. Mbaye Diagne was to carry out many further acts of heroism during the genocide, which claimed the lives of well over half a million people, mainly ethnic Tutsis. Most were bludgeoned and hacked to death with clubs and machetes at the behest of the Hutu government which had just taken power. Mark Doyle travels to Rwanda, Senegal and Canada to meet the people who knew Mbaye Diagne. He meets the man who commanded the UN peacekeeping force, General Romeo Dallaire. He meets Diagne’s wife and one of his closest comrades in arms. And, he meets the people whose lives he saved, some of whom have never told their stories before. "I saw evil in Rwanda in 1994" says Mark Doyle, "but I also saw extraordinary acts of courage by people who simply knew what was right and what was wrong. Mbaye Diagne was just such a person – a good man in Rwanda". (Photo: Capt Mbaye Diagne. Credit: RNW Africa)
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05-Apr-2014
The Documentary - The Mystery of Flight 370
The fate of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 may never be known. It seems most likely that it crashed into the Indian Ocean with the loss of everyone on board. In The Mystery of Flight 370, Melanie Abbott asks how an aeroplane can go missing in the 21st Century and why, nearly a month after it disappeared, we are apparently no nearer to solving the mystery of what happened to it. Picture: Japanese Coast Guard searches for debris of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, Credit: Rob Griffith/Getty Images
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04-Apr-2014
The Documentary - A Taste Of Freedom
Highlights of the Freedom 2014 season on the BBC World Service, with moving stories and testimonies from people around the world
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04-Apr-2014
The Documentary - Guns in America
Mark Mardell presents three unexpected stories about how guns feature in American culture. More gun deaths are due to suicide than homicide in the US. Radio producers Kelly Jones and Lu Olkowski explore the legacy of one such suicide – what happened to the fiancée left behind, to friends and to the law enforcement officers involved. What happened to the gun itself? Radio and multimedia producers Dmae Roberts and Skye Fitzgerald venture across Oregon in the wake of the Clackamas mall shooting, and hear from people about their fear of violence, rational or not, that drives the fierce opposition to gun control. Ruxandra Guidi, another seasoned radio reporter, looks at the the lives of two mothers inextricably linked by gun violence in Denver. Picture: A Smith & Wesson .357 magnum revolver, Credit: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
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04-Apr-2014
The Documentary - The Missing Migrants
Each year, thousands of illegal Latin American migrants try to enter the United States via a treacherous journey across the Arizona desert. Some succeed, while others are captured by the US border patrol, and are immediately deported. But not everyone is so fortunate - many simply drop dead from exhaustion. In Pima County, Tucson, anthropologist Robin Reineke works on identifying the deceased, piecing together clues found among the personal effects found on the decomposed bodies found in the desert. Her goal is to trace the dead migrant's family to inform them of their relative’s fate, and ultimately return the body home for burial. In this programme, the BBC’s Mexico correspondent Will Grant travels to Arizona to meet Reineke and her colleagues at the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner to learn of the challenges facing The Missing Migrant Project - Tucson has the third-highest number of unidentified bodies in the United States, with only New York and Los Angeles counting more. One of the reasons cited for this rise in migrants dying in the desert is the continuing boom in US border enforcement, which began back in the 1990s. Today, the US government spends billions of dollars every year employing border agents who monitor checkpoints, CCTV, underground sensors and even unmanned aerial drones in order to protect the US border. The knock-on effect of this increase meant traditional urban crossing points became more heavily policed, and so illegal migrants were pushed into alternative routes through the wilds of the desert. The BBC World Service heads out on patrol with the US Border Patrol, to witness the challenges they face and understand the financial and human cost of having to deal with scores of migrants - and drug traffickers - who try to cross the desert border on a daily basis. This tough approach is popular among many Americans, especially in Arizona which has some of the most stringent anti-immigration legislation in the United States. Although some locals have more sympathy, heading out into the desert to leave water, food and blankets for the desperate border-crossers. In Mexico, we also meet some of the relatives contacted by Robin Reineke, and learn about the life-stories of those who have died as they went in search of the American dream. And, despite the risks involved, we meet young men and women from across Central and South America who are still willing to risk their lives embarking on this increasingly dangerous and potentially deadly trip. Producer: Richard Fenton-Smith
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03-Apr-2014
The Documentary - Crypto Wars
BBC Security Correspondent Gordon Corera explores the history of the war between government and geeks to control computer cryptography. The revelations from Edward Snowden that British and American spies have been working to break encryption have generated fierce debate. Privacy advocates argue that the spy agencies have undermined the whole internet by weakening the security on which we rely to keep our communications and transactions secure. At issue is whether people should be able to encrypt their messages so that they are entirely private – meaning also that the government won’t be able to read anything. But this latest fight is just the latest chapter in a battle going back decades. In the 1970s, a group of quirky academics and scientists came up with a means of providing encryption to the masses. America’s National Security Agency went to war with them – doing its best to suppress the emerging technology of public encryption. In the 1990s the US government pushed to have every computer and phone installed with something called a ‘clipper’ chip which would allow the government to break encryption if needed – effectively a back door for the state. They lost that battle and so what we have learnt from the Snowden leaks is how they tried to work round encryption by hacking into companies and other spy-type methods to retain their edge. Who will win the next round? (Photo: A computer screen with a target, Credit: Mahmud Hams/AFP/Getty Images)
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02-Apr-2014
The Documentary - Nigeria's Working Children
Fifteen million children have to work to earn a living in Nigeria, according to the International Labour Organisation. Mustapha Mohammed of the BBC's Hausa service goes to meet three of them in the northern Nigerian city of Kano. One of the boys is 12 years old and has to sell sachet water at a busy road junction after school every day. He often does not get a meal in between. Another boy is 14, and can't go to school at all, even though he would love to. He has to work full-time in a factory to support his family, so that at least his younger siblings can go to school. Mustapha takes the 14-year old to meet another boy, who also worked in a factory until recently. But an incident with a machine resulted in him having to have his left hand amputated. Now he cannot even do chores at home anymore, let alone work to support his family. How do these children see their lives? And how do their parents or guardians feel about relying on income from under-age boys? Photo credit for photo of boys selling water and soft drinks in Kano: BBC. The boys in the photo are not the ones featured in the programme.
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30-Mar-2014
The Documentary - The Man Who Went Looking For Freedom
In 1983, Ion Bugan made a personal demonstration against the system in Romania in the midst of food shortages, electricity rationing, and surveillance of ordinary people by the secret police. He was jailed immediately. From then, until the day they left for America six years later, his family were followed by secret police wherever they went. Their friends and relatives were intimidated and interrogated. Now, almost a quarter of a century after they left, the Bugans return to Romania for the first time to retrace Ion’s steps: the jails he was held in, the Securitate HQ where the thousands of files about them are kept, and finally back to their home village. Photograph by kind permission of Catalin Bugan.
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25-Mar-2014
The Documentary - Brazil: Confronting the Past
Singer and reporter Monica Vasconcelos returns to her native Brazil as the country faces up to its dark past, fifty years after the military coup and ensuing dictatorship. Her journey was prompted by the novel 'K' by Brazilian writer Bernardo Kucinski. The book is about the disappearance of his late sister who was tortured and killed by the dictatorship. And what about Monica's own family's past? For the first time, she now asks her father questions about the years of repression. But why is he still afraid, even now? Monica also meets some of the people who are now tackling the legacy of the dictatorship. People like the psychoanalyst who runs therapy sessions for victims of torture; the head of the Sao Paulo Truth Commission; a member of a group of activists who go and 'out' former agents of the repression, by telling their neighbours about their past. Thanks to an amnesty law from 1979, no one has gone to prison for the human rights abuses committed during the dark years. And not everyone thinks the dictatorship was wrong. Monica goes and meets a Brigadier General who defends the coup as a legitimate way to stop Communism during the Cold War. Killings and torture were necessary methods to "eliminate the enemy" and win this war, he says. Presenter: Monica Vasconcelos Producer: Arlene Gregorius The book 'K' by Bernardo Kucinski is published in English by the Latin America Bureau, translated by Sue Branford. The song 'Aparecida', composed by Ivan Lins with lyrics by Mauricio Tapajos, is performed by Monica Vasconcelos. Guitar by Swami Jr. Translation of the lyrics by David Treece. Other music by Heitor Villa-Lobos, performed by pianist Clelia Iruzun. (Image: Campaigning poster in the office of the Truth Commission in Sao Paulo. BBC Copyright)
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18-Mar-2014
The Documentary - India - Press for Sale
India’s media is one of the nation’s great glories, with 250 radio stations, 850 TV channels and 93,000 registered newspapers and magazines. It is one of the few countries in the world where newspaper readership is growing. But just how free is India’s free press? Shilpa Kannan investigates the growing concern over 'paid media', in which powerful business and political interests ensure they get favourable coverage. This takes many forms. Advertising content in newspapers is reprinted as straight news: politicians send the text of articles they want published directly to news outlets and pay cash fees for the privilege: or businessmen build cosy connections with media outlets. It is widely believed that many media outlets have 'rate cards', which outline the fees for positive coverage. Conflicts of interest abound: freelance journalists are frequently given fees for attracting advertising as well as reporting the news. There have been over 1,400 cases where the Election Commission detected alleged paid news in polls in 17 states over the last four years. Now the Indian parliament has been considering legislation which will outlaw the practice – although detecting and proving it is likely to be tough. Shilpa asks if the phenomenon is likely to be a threat to India’s democracy. Picture: A man reads a newspaper in New Delhi, Credit: Rebecca Conway/AFP/Getty Images
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09-Mar-2014
The Documentary - Will Carlos Acosta Get to the Pointe
A decision by his father to send him to ballet school changed the direction of Carlos Acosta’s life. Thanks to Fidel Castro’s belief that art should be accessible to all Cubans he received free ballet tuition. It shaped his character, and secured his future. Now he wants to give something back to his country by saving an abandoned ballet school in Havana. Vittorio Garatti’s School of Ballet is an extraordinary labyrinth of corridors, graceful arches and majestic brick and terracotta domes, and has been described as one of the most remarkable buildings of the 20th Century. But the ballet star’s attempts to restore the building have stirred Latin passions and protest. In, Will Carlos Acosta Get to the Pointe, Acosta travels back to his native Cuba with producer, Cecile Wright, to report on his bid to save the school, and in exploring the importance of music and dance to Cuba’s national identity, he examines what the fate of the ballet school symbolises about the country’s artistic legacy. (Photo: Cuban dancer from the UK's Royal Ballet, Carlos Acosta, performs at Garcia Lorca theatre in Havana, 2009. Credit: STR/AFP/Getty Images)
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20-Feb-2014
The Documentary - Hip Hop: Back to its Roots
To mark the 30th anniversary of the founding of Def Jam – the world’s first Hip Hop record label - Ghanaian music journalist Afua Hirsch explores how music created on the streets of New York is making a huge impact in New Africa. She discovers how some of Africa's biggest stars are helping to inspire a new generation to use Hip Hop as a platform to express their life experiences and touch base with their cultural roots by incorporating their musical heritage. Hip Hop evolved from poverty stricken communities as young rappers voiced their shared communal concerns in street rhymes delivered over musical riffs sampled from disco and RnB records. As the genre evolved, skilled producers and performers created their own musical beats, all based on variations of the African polyrhythms that provided the foundation for Folk, Blues, Jazz, Gospel and eventually RnB and Hip Hop. Contributors including Def Jam founders Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin as well as Hip Hop legend Chuck D, and new stars Fuse ODG, m.anifest, Silvastone and producers Rab Bakari, DJ Edu, Lady P and Idris Elba, help Afua trace Hip Hop back to its roots highlighting its potency as an engine for social and political change. (Photo: Waayaha Cusub, Somali hip hop collective perform at the opening concert in the Mogadishu Music Festival, Somalia. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)
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09-Feb-2014
The Documentary - My War, My Playlist
In October 2001 Steve Jobs took to the podium to launch his latest innovation – the ipod. Thousands of miles away the war in Afghanistan was just beginning. In this programme we will hear how the MP3 player can now be found in nearly every soldier's kit bag. What role does music play in the lives of soldiers today? As British soldiers prepare for their first war zone posting, building a playlist takes on a real sense of importance for those both excited and anxious about their first tour of duty. What will be the right music to listen to when they are in Helmand? Soldiers stationed at Camp Bastion describe their music as an essential part of their lives. It helps to drown out the constant hum of activity around camp. It gives an adrenalin kick to long, dreary journeys, and helps everybody to relax in their free time. Music can rapidly become a prop, helping those serving to deal with the difficult and potentially-traumatic reality of life serving in Afghanistan. What happens when those troops arrive home? Years after seeing active duty in a warzone, what place do those playlists have in their lives? Do they offer comfort, or rake up difficult and dangerous memories? My War, My Playlist weaves the music soundtracks of Helmand with soldiers' stories of operations. On the face of it, the playlist seems irrelevant, just a selection of favourite songs lying at the bottom of a kit bag. This programme shows that within these track choices, lies an almost endless list of associations, memories and emotions.
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04-Feb-2014
The Documentary - The Road to Sochi
The July 2007 announcement that the 22nd Winter Olympics would be held in Sochi, was a surprise to many. Sochi was better known for its palm trees and Soviet-era sanitariums than for ski slopes. But Vladimir Putin's intensive lobbying efforts swayed the International Olympic Committee. He saw the Olympics as an opportunity to showcase to the world a 'new and modern Russia', a country that had left behind its tumultuous era of transition and one eager to embrace global institutions and attract international investment. But preparations for the games have been mired in controversy. Human rights groups have called attention to the alleged maltreatment of migrant labourers and Russia's anti-LGBT policies. Environmental activists claim damage to protected areas. With the cost of the games escalating from £12 billion to £32 billion there are serious accusations of corruption and criminality. Given that all Olympic host cities endure fierce criticism on various fronts in the lead-up to the Games are the concerns about Sochi truly justified, or are they being exaggerated? Is this debate really about corruption, or are the Games just a pawn in Russia's intense political battles? Robin Lustig heads to Russia to investigate the allegations. He speaks to local residents and city officials in Sochi whose lives have been affected. Boris Nemtsov, a prominent opposition leader and native of Sochi describes how 'billions' have gone missing, relaying some of the absurdities – such as the road so expensive it 'could have been paved with gold'. Valery Morozov a local businessman explains how he paid millions in bribes to a government official and discusses how the Russian bureaucracy has systematized corruption. Picture: Sochi logo and Olympic rings, Credit: Alex Livesey, Getty Images
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21-Jan-2014
The Documentary - Ko Un: The People's Poet of Korea
In South Korea, former Zen monk Ko Un is revered as a pro-democracy activist and the people’s poet. To mark his 80th birthday, Mike Greenwood explores his prolific output, in particular his epic masterwork, Ten Thousand Lives (Maninbo), in which he puts into poems the faces and lives of all the people he has known or known of. Conceived when he was imprisoned in the 1980s for rebelling against the military dictatorships then controlling South Korea, Maninbo has been published in 30 volumes in Korean. Now, for the first time, the first 10 volumes have been translated into English. We use readings from this treasure box of poems to provide a unique window on to modern Korea, with contributions from Andrew Motion and Ko Un himself, three-times Nobel Prize for Literature runner up. “Poetry” he says, “is the music of history.” Ko Un has given us special access to his home near Seoul where, in a series of intimate interviews, he shares his story. Born into a peasant family in 1933, Ko Un began writing poems from an early age. Traumatised by the horrors of the Korean war, he became a monk. After leaving the Buddhist community in 1962, another lost decade of despair followed, including problems with alcohol and multiple suicide attempts. After a profound political awakening in 1972, he joined in vigorous opposition to the military regime and in the struggle for human rights. He was detained, tortured, and imprisoned repeatedly and for long periods. Finally set free in 1980, Ko Un married, moved to the countryside, fathered a daughter, and entered a period of stability and happiness, though it would be more than a decade before he was granted a passport. Picture: Ko Un, Credit: AFP/Getty Images
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15-Jan-2014
The Documentary - Gene Doping
It has taken scientists almost 50 years to cure rare diseases through gene therapy. The risks are still great but the field is developing fast, bringing hope to those with untreatable conditions. Now there are growing concerns that athletes will abuse this pioneering technology. Tim Franks speaks to David Epstein, an American journalist and sports enthusiast, who has been investigating the issue of gene doping. David reveals how athletes have 'inundated' researchers with requests to improve their abilities through genetic manipulation. Tim also speaks to French geneticist Philippe Moullier, who was left in shock after a group of former Tour de France cyclists visited his lab. They wanted to learn whether the technology he developed to cure children with a rare muscle disease could be used to enhance sporting performance. Although the World Anti-Doping Agency banned the practice in 2003 there is still no test which can detect gene doping. Athletes do not have to look hard if they want to experiment. Moullier tells Tim how it’s possible to buy genes on the internet and grow them at home. Tim Franks finds out just how easy it is. (Photo: A genetic researcher carries blood samples to have their DNA tested at his Laboratory in the Lebanese-American University. Credit: Joseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images)
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14-Jan-2014
The Documentary - Boy for Rent
Prostitution is regarded as the world’s oldest profession and one which has traditionally been the domain of women. Today, it is common to also find men selling sexual services - particularly gay men - and rather than a job they have been forced into, for many it is viewed as a legitimate career choice. As both a leading financial centre and tourist destination, London is seen by many male escorts as the number one place to ply their trade. BBC reporter Mobeen Azhar meets up with men from countries such as Brazil, France and Australia, who have come to the city to cash-in on the high demand for their services. He discovers a surprisingly professional world where escorts, as they prefer to be known, talk about their ‘brand’ and their role as ‘service providers’ - business savvy which can earn them thousands of dollars a week. He also meets men who use their services, asking why in an age when sex is seemingly so freely available, do they feel the need to pay for it? While the old ‘rent boy’ scene where young men would solicit on the streets has been modernised by the internet - making the job significantly safer - escorts still face risks such as sexually transmitted diseases, violent clients and a potential battle with personal demons as they come to terms with what they do for a living. The programme learns how some escorts are caught in a cycle of selling sex to fund their drug addiction - an addiction which began as a means to cope with their self-loathing as a result of selling sex for a living. However, other escorts and sexual health charities explain how these negative experiences are not typical for most of the male sex workers in London – they say the majority are in control, calling the shots, and selling sex out of personal choice. But while many of these young men are content with their career – proud, even - is society ready to accept them? Or will the stigma of selling sex for a living still remain for years to come? Reporter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Richard Fenton-Smith
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02-Jan-2014
The Documentary - An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth
Colonel Chris Hadfield has spent decades training as an astronaut and has logged nearly 4,000 hours in Space. During this time he has broken into a Space Station with a Swiss army knife, been confronted by a live snake while piloting a plane, been temporarily blinded while clinging to the exterior of an orbiting spacecraft, and became a YouTube sensation with his performance of David Bowie's Space Oddity in space. The secret to Chris Hadfield's success and survival is an unconventional philosophy he learned at NASA - prepare for the worst, and enjoy every moment of it. Read by Garrick Hagon.
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01-Jan-2014
The Documentary - Riding the Graphene Wave
Gerry Northam looks at its move from the lab to the commercial world. Construction work is underway to build a world-class laboratory at Manchester University - at the cost of £61 million - but the National Graphene Institute aims to be the world's leading centre of graphene research and commercialisation. Graphene is super-strong and super-conductive – it's often called a 'wonder material' and it was invented in Manchester by Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov, who won a Nobel prize for their work. The city takes great pride in the discovery, seeing a direct line of descent from its legacy of industrial invention and has awarded the two scientists the freedom of the city in recognition of their work. In Riding the Graphene Wave, Gerry Northam finds out how the the UK is competing in the global market as Korea, China and the USA pour money into the patenting and commercialisation of Manchester's magic material. What will it take for graphene to move out of the laboratory and into the commercial world? Investors are running the numbers to work out which applications are most ready for go-to-market products, and which countries are making fastest progress in finding ways to manufacturer graphene. Can graphene to give the UK a significant role in 21st century global economy? Picture: Graphene sheet, Credit: Science Photo Library
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31-Dec-2013
The Documentary - Inside the Fed
The US Federal Reserve – America's central bank – is 100 years old. Simon Jack tells the surprising story of an institution which despite crashes and crises is a cornerstone of the global economy. With rare access to the Federal Reserve itself Simon talks to some of those who have been intimately involved with it over the decades. He discovers some unlikely tales in the Fed's struggle to maintain its independence and he finds out what things were really like there during the worst of the financial crisis in 2008. Picture: Seal of the US Federal Reserve, Credit: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
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26-Dec-2013
The Documentary - In Perfect Harmony
A programme celebrating our collective love of singing in harmony, looking at when and why we do it, what it means to us musically and emotionally, and how different countries sing harmony differently. Since time began, man has sung and soon another man added a harmony part – for companionship, for sharing, for support, for humour, for joy, for cleverness and for lovely, satisfying sounds. This programme investigates the different types of harmony singing throughout the world – how does it differ from place to place, what is it for? We hear from harmony singers from around the world. Harmony has been a natural part of singing – from classical chorale singing to pop music, via doo-wop, barbershop quartets, African choral music, gospel, opera, rock, rap, and even death metal. The first thing a baby does is make vocal sounds to ‘harmonise’ with its mother. All types of music use it – usually in 3rds or 6ths around the melody to make the melody sweeter in Western cultures. Far Eastern Harmonies are different technically – traditionally harmony has been missing, but there are examples of overtone singing where the singer makes more than one note at the same time. There is something human in the ability to complement each other vocally – immensely satisfying and beautiful. It’s also a simple expression of companionship without a need for instruments. We hear about the African village that hunts using harmony singing to guide them as a team – if they can’t sing, they won’t eat. We hear about an Armenian composer who was driven mad when trying to compose a piece for eight-part harmony and we speak to Wendy Wilson (daughter of Brian Wilson from The Beach Boys) about how she grew up singing harmony with her mother and sister, and how she carries on the legacy of her father today with her band Wilson Phillips. We also hear from music therapists working with terminally ill children who can no longer speak, but can sing, and also someone who works with patients with chronic lung disease where singing in harmony improves their quality of life. From South African choir leaders working with disaffected youth to Orkney women trying to keep traditional songs alive, via Abba, St Paul’s Cathedral Choir, Queen, the mash-ups being created with UK school children and Fleet Foxes, the world of harmony is here. The programme is produced by Laura Parfitt and brought together musically by composer and radio sound designer Chris O’Shaughnessy.
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25-Dec-2013
The Documentary - Who's Left Holding the Baby
Like many working mums, Australian broadcaster, Madeleine Morris finds it tough balancing the demands of her job with a desire to be the best possible parent. She takes her daughter, Scarlett, on a journey to find out if there is a better way. In Fiji she finds a whole community getting involved, whilst in China she hears from the parents who leave children as young as three in boarding kindergartens.
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24-Dec-2013
The Documentary - Lines in the Sand
Are a series of separate conflicts across the Sahara and Sahel regions of Africa part of a wider Jihadi challenge? With the the fall of Gaddafi in Libya, vast stockpiles of unguarded weapons were suddenly available. In January 2013, armed extremists in Mali crossed a line in the sand by advancing south, only to provoke a French military riposte. The Islamists were dispersed - but they were far from beaten. Across the edge of the Sahara, a large number of other violent, Islamist-related incidents followed or came into focus. One of the leading militants in Mali - Mochtar Bel Mochtar - audaciously attacked a BP oil installation in southern Algeria. Jihadis attacked a uranium mine and a military barracks in Mali’s neighbour, Niger. Suicide bombers began operating in both countries for the first time. And the conflict in Northern Nigeria intensified. The Boko Haram group, which has reported links to the Mali insurgents, occupied significant parts of the most populous country in the region. The lines in the Saharan sand are much broader than we thought - and they are shifting. The BBC’s International Development Correspodnent Mark Doyle gives listeners an aural picture of this new battleground, and investigates what the fighting is really about. He asks if there are direct links - or co-ordination - between the various Islamist groups and how worried the rest of the world should be.
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22-Dec-2013
The Documentary - The Putin Project
The 2014 Winter Games are a potent symbol of Vladimir Putin’s growing confidence on the world stage. For the Russian president, Sochi is not just a chance to showcase Russia’s top sportsmen and women. It is a global seal of approval for the way he has dragged his country out of chaos, given it prosperity, and restored its independent place in world affairs. But does Sochi also represent many of the ills in Russian society? The run-up to the Games has also been marred by claims of forced evictions and exploitation of migrant workers building many of the venues. Lucy Ash investigates claims that the authorities have encouraged local Cossacks to attack Central Asians and other foreign workers. Putin, who energetically promotes his image as a judo champion, says he leads a healthy, dynamic nation. But in the average village, many are hooked on vodka, heroin or worse. Russian men have an average life expectancy of just 60 years – among the shortest in Europe. Lucy also examines Putin’s international clout. After some deft diplomacy over Syria, Russia has gone some way toward re-establishing itself as a counterweight to the United States. But how strategically important is the Middle East? And what is the Kremlin’s role in its own backyard? Putin positioned himself as a Russian strongman but how easily does his brand of Russian nationalism sit with his international ambitions.
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15-Dec-2013
The Documentary - Notes from Kampala
‘Because of singing, I am living’. Kampala Music School began life in 2001 in the basement of the YMCA, giving music lessons to a handful of pupils. Twelve years later, it has moved into its own new premises and has become the international centre of musical excellence in Uganda – and has taught music to more than 2000 pupils. Some former students have gone on to study at international music schools and are now forging their own careers as fully fledged classical musicians. This year sees a new director of music, Kiggundu Frederick Musoke – himself a former star pupil. Sarah Taylor meets the staff and pupils of KMS to hear about this centre of musical excellence. KMS has become a lifeline to many where music can be enjoyed alongside friendship, where many pupils come from the backdrop of a fairly bleak existence. And, no one is turned away through lack of ability to pay. Not only do pupils leave with a life skill but many go on to become music teachers in international schools throughout East Africa. Such is the pupils ability and enthusiasm that the Associated Board of Music now send an examiner for an entire week to cope with the volume of students taking grades one to eight on their instruments. (Picture: Choirboys from Namirembe Cathedral take their only chance to play the old, but loved piano)
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10-Dec-2013
The Documentary - Jamaica - The Harder They Come: Episode 2
Chris Salewicz explores the cult classic Jamaican film ‘The Harder They Come’ and its legacy.
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09-Dec-2013
The Documentary - Obituary: The Life of Nelson Mandela
A look back at the life of Nelson Mandela by the BBC's former South Africa Correspondent, Allan Little.
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03-Dec-2013
The Documentary - Jamaica - The Harder They Come: 1. Part One
Writer Chris Salewicz explores the legacy of the film The Harder They Come. He meets the film’s stars and those who have been touched by this classic of modern cinema and its soundtrack. Jimmy Cliff, who stars as Ivanhoe Martin, talks about his role. Chappy St Juste, cameraman on the film recalls shooting some memorable scenes, Sally Henzell, widow of director Perry Henzell talks about the film’s premiere at Kingston’s Carib cinema where 40,000 people tried to get in to this 1500 seater cinema. Carl Bradshaw, who plays Jose, gives us a tour of the film's locations, author Matthew Parker gives a view of Jamaica’s history as a violent slave outpost “bathed in blood”, Dancehall singer Ninjaman talks about his love of the film. Academic Dr Matthew Smith and Janet Street-Porter talk about the soundtrack’s cultural legacy and its role in bringing reggae to the wider world. Back in Britain Chris will examine the legacy of Jamaica’s music and culture on today’s youth in the form of reggae’s cultural descendant: Bass Culture, which to many eyes glorifies the ‘Badman’ archetype portrayed in The Harder They Come. Grime MC Flowdan, reggae singer Tappa Zukie and black music historian Mykaell Riley all contribute.
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01-Dec-2013
The Documentary - Inside the Vatican
Why did Pope Benedict resign, and can Pope Francis clean up the Vatican? Mark Dowd explores the crises that hit the Roman Catholic Church in the months leading up to the Papal resignation: the leaking of secret documents by the Pope's butler revealing power struggles at the top of the Church; investigations into money-laundering at the Vatican Bank; and claims that a 'gay lobby' controls sections of the Roman Curia, the Church's civil service.
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01-Dec-2013
The Documentary - It's a Mall World
The first mall was built in 1956 and, since that first notion of an indoor shopping centre where people can eat and relax too, malls have become ever bigger - and elaborate. Be it in Lagos, Minneapolis or Rio de Janeiro, how have shopping malls become a fixture in modern life? Owners, customers and store workers, explain how the mall's shops, restaurants and cinemas feature in their lives. Cultural observers and retail experts explore how a mall fits into a local area - or not. Meet Ana Claudia who can barely scrape a living together working at Village Mall in Rio de Janeiro. In Southdale Mall, Minnesota, the shoppers seem carefree buying gadgets and clothes, while in Ikewja City Mall in Lagos, the management are thinking about its security needs in light of the Westgate siege in Kenya. (Picture: Shopping mall escalators, Credit: Oli Scarff/Getty Images)
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26-Nov-2013
The Documentary - The Father of English Football
A historic series of meetings happened in London 150 years ago which led to the modern game of football. This was a time when each English football team played by different rules, and the aim of the meetings was to create a standard code. The first, on 6 October 1863, founded the Football Association, and over the course of six dramatic meetings between October and December the rules were simplified, allowing today’s game to develop. Any football team from anywhere in the world now plays by the same rulebook. The prime mover was Ebenezer Morley, and Hardeep Singh Kohli traces the story of the man who became known as the father of English football. At each meeting Ebenezer Morley noted down the decisions and arguments in a notebook, and this Minute Book is now considered one of the most historic documents of the game, valued at £2.5 million. The arguments were often heated, and ended with a breakaway group dissenting and eventually forming themselves into the Rugby Union. Hardeep talks to Jane Clayton, of the International Football Institute, and visits the FA’s headquarters at Wembley, meeting the FA’s historian David Barber. He talks to David Elleray, Chairman of the FA’s Referees Committee, who is convinced that the decisions taken in 1863 allowed football to become the most successful of international sports, affecting millions of lives. The arguments that led to the modern game are brought to life through dramatised scenes, showing that Ebenezer Morley, thanks to his determination and enthusiasm, turned the original violent and unruly game into the game we know today. Picture: The Football Association's 1863 minute book (Philip Toscano/PA Wire)
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19-Nov-2013
The Documentary - The Rhetoric of Cancer
When Andrew Graystone was diagnosed with cancer three years ago, he soon realised that the language commonly employed to approach this disease revolves around military metaphors. He writes: "The language of war dominates cancer discourse, so whether we want to fight or not, people with cancer are conscripted into a battle against the self. Our bodies made into war zones, with cancer as the enemy, medical professionals as infallible heroes, and treatments of search-and-destroy by any means possible." In an attempt to find language which feels more appropriate for him, Andrew visits the Christie Hospital in Manchester to meet Macmillan consultant in palliative care and oncology Dr Wendy Makin. They discuss the language that clinicians choose and the words that patients bring to the consulting room themselves. Also to Natasha Hill, director of brand and strategic marketing at Cancer Research UK about the rhetoric employed in advertising campaigns. He discusses the language employed at research level with Michael Overduin, professor at the School of Cancer Sciences at Birmingham University. Andrew also meets with Jim Cotter, a priest and writer who has leukaemia. And he shares his findings with theologian Dr Paula Gooder who has a special interest in contemporary beliefs about our relationships with our bodies, illness and death. Andrew says: "If I battle my cancer I’m putting myself in conflict against myself whereas St Francis of Assisi – who had long-term illness himself – is said to have spoken about viewing his as a 'sister illness' and to have embraced it like a family member. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to have cancer, but I warn you that when I die, if any one says that I have lost my battle against cancer, I will personally come back and haunt them. Andrew Graystone is director of Church and Media Network as well as a prolific writer and presenter for BBC radio.
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17-Nov-2013
The Documentary - JFK: Dallas Remembers
On 22 November 1963, President John F Kennedy was campaigning in Texas. That morning, Air Force One touched down at Dallas Love Field Airport. The president and first lady waved to jubilant crowds that watched the motorcade move through downtown Dallas. As the presidential limousine passed through Dealey Plaza, Kennedy was shot in the head by an assassin’s bullet. Within a half hour, 75 million Americans had heard the news. President Kennedy was declared dead at 1pm, Dallas time. Over three days, three murders rocked the city of Dallas. After President Kennedy, police officer JD Tippit was shot and killed by assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, who himself was later fatally shot on live television. Sue MacGregor brings together five people who were intimately connected to the events surrounding the Kennedy assassination: Clint Hill, the former Secret Service agent who frantically climbed up the back of the presidential limousine as the shots rang out; Gayle Newman, who stood with her young family in Dealey Plaza and became one of the closest eyewitnesses; Hugh Aynesworth, then of the Dallas Morning News who reported the events in November 1963, Kenneth Salyer, who was part of the medical team at Parkland Hospital, desperately trying to revive the president; and James Leavelle, retired Dallas homicide detective who was famously handcuffed to Lee Harvey Oswald when he was shot by Jack Ruby. Picture: John F Kennedy, Credit: Getty Images
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12-Nov-2013
The Documentary - 12/11/2013
Singer Monica Vasconcelos tells the musical and political story of bossa nova, the first modern music of Brazil.
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10-Nov-2013
The Documentary - Across Jamaica's Gay Divide - Part One
The social psychologist Dr Keon West returns to his native Jamaica to assess the state of the country’s gay rights and anti-homosexuality movements. Gay rights activists made the first legal challenge in Jamaica's history earlier this year, appealing for the so-called ‘Buggery Law’ to be re-assessed. The law, which is a colonial legacy prohibiting certain sexual acts, is the focus of much controversy in Jamaica and at its heart is the question of whether or not homosexuality is culturally or even morally acceptable. From a group of activists standing silently promoting gay tolerance, to a march that calls for sexual purity, including maintaining of the Buggery Law, West speaks to both sides, asking if attitudes are now inexorably changing. The Christian tradition of Jamaica is central to this debate, where Biblical interpretation underpins many of the arguments against homosexual behaviour. With contributions from the pastor Reverend Lenworth Anglin, the prominent Jamaican gay rights activist Maurice Tomlinson and Rastafarian poet Mutabaruka, West considers what it is like to be a gay person in Jamaica from day-to-day, when many consider this ‘lifestyle’ to be un-Jamaican by its very nature. (Photo: The riverside bar where Jamaican teenager Dwayne Jones attended a dance party and was murdered by a mob. Credit: Associated Press)
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08-Nov-2013
The Documentary - Rouhani’s First 100 Days
Is Iran at a turning point following the election of the new President, Hassan Rouhani? Within days of coming to power, he promised a new approach to domestic and international affairs - a new policy of openness on the country’s nuclear programme, to release political prisoners, get economic sanctions lifted and pursue a less confrontational policy with the West. For some it was a welcome new dawn. For others, like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Rouhani is a wolf in sheep’s clothing – out to deceive the West until Iran becomes too powerful to stop. Pooneh Ghoddoosi of the BBC’s Persian TV service looks back at President Rouhani’s first 100 days in office. She brings together a select group of Iran watchers to ask whether things in their country are genuinely changing. (Photo: Hassan Rouhani. Credit: Ta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images)
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05-Nov-2013
The Documentary - Who's Left Holding the Baby?: 2. Part Two
With more and more women going back to work after having children, childcare - its costs and its developmental implications - has become one of the most vexed issues for new parents. Parents are faced with many questions; Nursery or nanny? Stay at home longer or go back to work? Move closer to grandparents or muddle through without? It was a dilemma reporter Madeleine Morris faced when returning to work in Australia after having her daughter Scarlett, now two years old. Burdened with endless theories about what is best for baby, like so many parents in developed countries, she now pays a large proportion of her salary to keep her child in nursery. She is constantly rushing to pick up, drop off and get home for bath time, feeling guilty all the while. In Who's Holding the Baby? Madeleine asks if this is the only way. She and Scarlett set out to discover two vastly different approaches to caring for children, as found in Fiji and China, and the social politics and emotions that go with them. In China, they visit a boarding school where children as young as two are educated away from their parents and in Fiji they experience a society where childcare is shared amongst the extended family, everyone from young to old plays a role. Along the way they ask what our childcare choices say about our values as a society, and what we might learn from others. Picture: Children eating, Credit: Madeleine Morris
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29-Oct-2013
The Documentary - Who's Left Holding the Baby?: 1. Part One
With more and more women going back to work after having children, childcare - its costs and its developmental implications - has become one of the most vexed issues for new parents. Parents are faced with many questions; nursery or nanny? Stay at home longer or go back to work? Move closer to grandparents or muddle through without? It was a dilemma reporter Madeleine Morris faced when returning to work in Australia after having her daughter Scarlett, now two years old. Burdened with endless theories about what is best for baby, like so many parents in developed countries, she now pays a large proportion of her salary to keep her child in nursery. She is constantly rushing to pick up, drop off and get home for bath time, feeling guilty all the while. In Who's Holding the Baby? Madeleine will be asking if this is the only way. She and Scarlett set out to discover two vastly different approaches to caring for children, as found in Fiji and China, and the social politics and emotions that go with them. In Fiji they experience a society where childcare is shared amongst the extended family, and everyone from young to old plays a role. Along the way they ask what our childcare choices say about our values as a society, and what we might learn from others.
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28-Oct-2013
The Documentary - The Pink Panthers
Documentary maker Havana Marking gains extraordinary access to the inner workings of an international criminal group made up of 200 people, who came together out of the chaos and criminality of the Balkan Wars. Nicknamed The Pink Panthers, they are a gang that steals jewels from high end stores all over the world. Their hallmarks are intensive planning and extraordinary speed. Havana speaks to 'Leila', who would pose as a rich customer to gain access to jewellery shops before the raids. “I was extremely good looking,” she says. Her looks meant she easily got a job in one target shop and gained key information. Her story is contrasted with that of 'Mike', an expert safe cracker. “Everybody has their specific job to do, understand?” he says, describing how the group became bigger and more ambitious. And, Havana speaks to the police forces who are now working together with increasing effectiveness to foil the Panthers’ crime spree. (Photo: Member of the Pink Panter gang, Bosnian Milan Poparic (Left) and (Right) Swiss Adrian Albrecht. Poparic broke out of the Orbe prison in western Switzerland along with convicted Swiss kidnapper, arsonist and money-launderer Adrian Albrecht. Undated police photo released July 26, 2013. Credit: AFP/ SWISS POLICE)
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23-Oct-2013
The Documentary - Women on the Frontline
Emma Barnett hears from female soldiers in the Canadian and South African armies about life for women on the military frontline. In early 2013, the United States Secretary of Defence announced that US armed forces would soon open positions to women in ground close combat units - units designed to engage with the enemy. But in many armies those roles have been open to women for years. In this programme, Emma meets Brenda Hawke, a soldier who has served 16 years in the Canadian infantry, and Ashley Colette, an officer who received one of Canada's highest awards for her leadership of a combat unit in Afghanistan. And she speaks to women from the South African Army who have also served on the frontline. Emma examines which countries in the world do allow women to serve, and contrasts the experiences of these three women to present a picture of life for women on the military front line. Picture: Ashley Colette on deployment in Afghanistan
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22-Oct-2013
The Documentary - Women Farmers: A Day in the Life of Polly Apio
Polly Apio is a smallholder farmer in rural Uganda. Almost as soon as she gets up in the morning she starts work and she doesn’t stop until it’s time to go to bed again. Polly’s life is typical of most women in Uganda, where men own and control the land, but women who toil in the fields to provide the food to feed their families. Women produce over 50% of all food grown worldwide. In sub-Saharan Africa, they grow around 90% of the food, yet little global investment is being made to support women farmers. With the help of the charity, Action Aid, Polly has been learning how best to farm her land. It provides training, and advice on things like crop rotation, the best crops to grow in the climate and soil, and money management. In turn, she passes on the training to other women. Women’s access to land ownership, financial services, education, healthcare and human rights is the key to assuring food security for all, and emboldened by the support of the charity Polly is trying to set up a women’s co-operative to help and support women secure their rights. Cecile Wright went to Uganda to experience a day in the life of Polly Apio, and to explore the efforts and determination of women in Uganda to take control of their lives.
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16-Oct-2013
The Documentary - Betty in the Sky with a Suitcase
“Anything that can happen on earth, at some point happens in the sky.” Betty Thesky (not her real name) has worked as a flight attendant for the past 25 years. It was always her dream job, as the ‘golden ticket’ of free flight allowed her to escape her humble beginnings in Pennsylvania and see the world in style. She’s lost count of the number of countries she’s visited, but she’s lost none of the wide-eyed wonder that originally fuelled her desire to travel. An average day at work can see her meeting and greeting nearly 1,000 people, all travelling for different reasons, and all with different needs, wants and personalities. On the whole, she finds people a delight – but despairs when someone will interrupt an on-board medical emergency to ask her for a diet coke or an extra pat of butter. But what’s it really like to travel so far, so often? Does the glamour of Paris fade after your 20th visit? How do you spend your leisure time in Dublin when you only have five hours free? Can you really get to know a place when you’re picked up from the airport, ferried to an anonymous hotel, and then whisked back to the airport the next morning? Betty’s industry has changed too. Flight attendants are trained more in sales now than in service. Passengers, in turn, have become somewhat immune to the ‘miracle’ of flight – and act and dress accordingly. Betty misses the ‘golden era’ of airline travel, when becoming a stewardess was a true aspiration. Yet despite the often mundane routine, and in spite of everything the passengers throw at her, Betty insists that she never entirely feels at home unless she’s 35,000 feet in the air. In “Betty in the Sky with a Suitcase”, we join Betty as she travels to London, Brussels and Barcelona.
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15-Oct-2013
The Documentary - The Bucket List
Ten years ago, faced with ovarian cancer, Helen Fawkes wrote a list. Having beaten the cancer she set about ticking things off her list and became a BBC foreign correspondent. In late 2012 she was told the cancer was back and it was incurable. Now she has a new ‘list for living’. As she shares some of the items on her list, from watching the sun rise over Stonehenge to moving to the countryside, Helen meets others from across the world who have written a ‘bucket list’. Why have they made them and what kind of thing would they have on their list? In some areas of the world, they would never consider writing such a thing. What does our list making and the things we put on those lists say about our different attitudes to living and dying? Helen talks to Bronnie Ware, a palliative care nurse from Australia who wrote a book about ‘The Top Five Regrets of the Dying’ and asks what the patients she worked with wished they had done. Did it involve jumping out of a plane or visiting exotic locations? In writing a list of experiences and places to visit are we missing something obvious in a ‘bucket list’? Pyschotherapist Philippa Perry questions whether a ‘bucket list’ can help us cope when thinking about our own death or whether it aids denial. Helen doesn’t like the term ‘bucket list’, she has a ‘list for living’. By sharing her list and asking others about theirs, Helen considers what we want to grab from life, when we’re faced with death.
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14-Oct-2013
The Documentary - 13/10/2013
As the global population ages, is it time for a radical re-think about how we view old people?.
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13-Oct-2013
The Documentary - Malala's Story
The dramatic, disturbing and inspiring story of Malala Yousafzai has drawn the attention of the world. Now, she talks about her life in her own words, in an exclusive interview with Mishal Husain. Malala was an ordinary schoolgirl from Pakistan’s Swat Valley who achieved prominence by blogging for the BBC during the Taliban takeover of her home region. She wrote about how the Taliban had banned her and other girls in Swat from attending school. After the Taliban were forced out, she became an internationally known campaigner for the right of all girls to an education. In October 2012, the Taliban took revenge, sending a gunman to kill her. He shot her in the head and shoulder, leaving her on the point of death. There was a massive wave of sympathy and support from across the globe and Malala was airlifted to the English city of Birmingham for medical treatment. This will be her first full interview since the attack, in which she will talk about her life, her fight and her dreams. Picture: Malala Yousafzai, Credit: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
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02-Oct-2013
The Documentary - The Iraq War: 3. Part Three
The distinguished documentary maker Norma Percy presents the inside story of the invasion of Iraq and the ensuring decade of conflict, told from the point of view of senior decision-makers. Programme three looks at the conflicts within Iraq between 2005 and 2012. Interviewees include Tony Blair - former UK Prime Minister, Dick Cheney - US Vice-President, Colin Powell - former US Secretary of State and Paul Wolfowitz - former US Deputy Secretary of Defence. The programme hears from the first two American administrators of Iraq, Jay Garner and Paul Bremer, plus military chiefs George Casey, Ray Odierno and David Petraeus. Iraqi interviewees include Naji Sabri - former Foreign Minister and former Prime Ministers Ayad Allawi and Ibrahim al-Jaafari plus the current PM Nouri al-Maliki. The series will be voiced by Lucy Ash. (Picture: US convoy gets ready to leave Iraq, Credit: Lucas Jackson/AFP/Getty Images)
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30-Sep-2013
The Documentary - Isolation
Man is a social creature, so how does he cope in situations of isolation - bereft of human contact - or in situations where he or she is confined in the company of just a few individuals for long periods of time? Anahi Aradas explores the effects of isolation and confinement in a tiny community in the Antarctic, speaks to former astronauts in the US and visits a Swedish prison, where inmates are encouraged to practise yoga to help them cope. King George Island lies just off the Antarctic mainland is home to scientific research stations belonging to a range of countries. A posting here is a matter of choice, and not many bring their families with them. But helicopter pilot Fernando Fontt and his wife Carolina have opted for two years in this tiny settlement, along with their one-year-old son, Fernandito. Astronaut Al Worden represents the Apollo generation, and is one of only 24 human beings to have travelled to the Moon. His solo three-day orbit of the Moon earned him the accolade of 'most isolated human being' from the Guinness Book of World Records. Michael Lopez Alegria made four journeys to space and spent 215 consecutive days on the International Space Station. And Diego Urbina, of the Mars generation, spent 520 days in a hangar in Moscow, simulating the return journey to the Red Planet. All speak about their experience of isolation and confinement, the pleasure and the pain. Anahi also meets Annika, a woman serving a 20-month sentence in a Swedish women’s prison in Ystad. Like all other inmates, she is locked in her cell every evening for 12 hours. She welcomes the solitude and keeps herself in mental balance by meditating. In Ystad prison the staff conduct yoga lessons for inmates.
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29-Sep-2013
The Documentary - The People's Story: Attack on Nairobi’s Westgate Mall
It began with gunfire as people were enjoying their Saturday lunchtime at a busy shopping centre in Nairobi. Children were at a cookery competition in the food court on the second floor and shoppers were strolling the aisles of the supermarket on the first two floors. Chaos quickly took hold as shots rang out and people were hit. Minutes ran into hours for some who became trapped inside. Hiding behind trolleys, in backroom stores and cupboards - the harrowing testimony of eyewitnesses and survivors slowly began to emerge. Day two and the death toll begins to rise. Many Kenyans are among the dead including the nephew of President Uhuru Kenyatta, and many foreign nationals including the Ghanaian poet Kofi Awoonor. More details from eyewitnesses explain how gunmen were shooting at people, including women and children. They describe how bodies were stacked up in doorways. The Kenyan army and police move in to try and rescue those inside. Tweets from al-Shabab give a chilling commentary to events unfolding. One reads ‘The Kenyan govt shall be held responsible for any loss of life as a result of such an imprudent move. The call is yours!’ Day three and there are over 60 people dead and 170 injured. People are donating blood to hospitals and there is talk of a ‘final assault’ to end the stand-off. The siege continues with hostages believed to be inside along with 10-15 attackers. Black smoke is seen rising from the Mall and there is the sound of heavy gunfire. As night falls, there is still no conclusion. Day four and the reality of events is starting to sink in for survivors - the children who narrowly missed bullets and the families of those bereaved. As tears and grief take over from the adrenalin-filled first moments of this attack, the BBC’s Anne Soy reflects on what these last few days will mean for the future of her city and all the residents of Nairobi. (Photo: A Kenyan soldier runs through the upper floor of the Westgate Mall, Kenya. Credit: AP)
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25-Sep-2013
The Documentary - The Iraq War: 2. Part Two
The distinguished documentary maker Norma Percy presents the inside story of the invasion of Iraq and the ensuing decade of conflict, as told from the point of view of the senior decision-makers who were involved. Part Two looks at the mistakes made early in the occupation during the period 2003 to 2004. Interviewees include: Tony Blair - former UK Prime Minister, Dick Cheney - US Vice-President, Colin Powell - former US Secretary of State and Paul Wolfowitz - former US Deputy Secretary of Defence. The programme hears from the first two American administrators of Iraq, Jay Garner and Paul Bremer, plus military chiefs George Casey, Ray Odierno and David Petraeus. Iraqi interviewees include Naji Sabri - former Foreign Minister and former Prime Ministers Ayad Allawi and Ibrahim Jaafari plus the current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. This documentary is voiced by Lucy Ash. (Picture: A girl cries in Basra, Iraq, Credit: Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images)
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23-Sep-2013
The Documentary - The Red Cross Crisis
War is taking on new dimensions.Conflict is emerging in new quarters and technology is transforming the nature of the battlefield. Can the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) keep up with the extraordinary speed of change? Can it continue to be of help to victims? And can it hope to persuade combatants to obey the traditional laws of war? Harvard professor Michael Ignatieff has kept a watching brief on the work of the ICRC since 1997 when he visited its delegation in Afghanistan. Now he returns, this time to the headquarters in Geneva, to explore the challenges the organisation faces. We hear reports from Medellin in Colombia where the ICRC has started working with victims of narco-violence. We hear the latest from Syria where the ICRC is attempting to support the Arab Red Crescent under desperate conditions. And, we find out how the ICRC has negotiated with America over its proven abuses of international humanitarian law during the course of the War on Terror. How can the ICRC preserve confidentiality without becoming complicit in such abuses? We ask whether the principles of neutrality and impartiality come at too great a cost. The question of technology is a looming problem for the International Committee Red Cross. Michael asks how the organisation can continue to promote the laws of war when drones are dissolving battle lines and cyber-threats make the Internet a site of conflict. Michael Ignatieff poses tough questions about the future of humanitarian work and the future face of war. (Picture: Red cross flags, Credit: Damien Meyer/AFP/Getty Images)
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20-Sep-2013
The Documentary - The Iraq War: 1. Part One
The distinguished documentary maker Norma Percy presents the inside story of the invasion of Iraq and the ensuing decade of conflict, as told from the point of view of the senior decision-makers who were involved. Part One covers the decision to go to war and the conflict itself, in the years from 2001 to 2003. Interviewees include Tony Blair - former UK Prime Minister, Dick Cheney - US Vice-President, Colin Powell - former US Secretary of State and Paul Wolfowitz - former US Deputy Secretary of Defence. The programme hears from the first two American administrators of Iraq, Jay Garner and Paul Bremer, plus military chiefs George Casey, Ray Odierno and David Petraes. Iraqi interviewees include Naji Sabri - former Foreign Minister and former Prime Ministers Ayad Allawi and Ibrahim Jaafari plus the current prime minister Nouri al-Maliki. This documentary is voiced by Lucy Ash. (Picture: US manoeuvres in the Kuwaiti desert, 2002, Credit: Rabih Moghrabi/AFP/Getty Images)
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20-Sep-2013
The Documentary - New Year, New Burma
It's 25 years since the 1988 uprising in Burma - the protest that saw thousands killed and imprisoned followed by years of military dictatorship. But as Burma opens up, the country is changing. New Year, New Burma follows Thagyamin Burma's water festival god, as he makes his annual four-day visit to Earth to check out how its people are doing. Armed with two books, his job is to write their deeds down in his 'good' and 'bad' books. This year, as the country undergoes transition, he'll be judging how well Burma's people are using their new-found freedoms. One new freedom comes in the form of thangyat - the satirical art form, newly legalised after two decades of being banned. Traditionally chanted on stages across the country during the water festival, thangyats are playful skits, criticising politicians and anyone else they think deserves it. Taking centre stage is 22-year-old student activist Aint Thiri Thu. Our water god follows Thiri as she prepares to tell the government just what she and her student friends think. They are worried about education, about power shortages and about corruption, but are they brave enough to voice their deepest criticisms? Across other water festival stages are the voices of thangyat troops, poking fun at and satirising the past year's mistakes. But can they revive an art form they've never even heard? And how effective can it be? Will the former government, not used to admitting mistakes, listen to the voice of the people? And if so, will those who make their voices heard be safe? Picture: Young men celebrate the water festival in Burma, AFP/Getty Images
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11-Sep-2013
The Documentary - Turkey - The New Ottomans: 3. Part Three
What is Turkey’s relationship with Europe, in particular with the Balkans, which were on the Western limits of the old Ottoman Empire? Turkish businessmen have been rapidly rebuilding their links with the Balkan states – and some saw this as a first step towards rebuilding of bridges with Western Europe. The dream of eventual EU membership was a powerful influence on the early years of the AKP. However, opposition from France - and more recently Germany - have made that dream seem unlikely to happen for a generation. Where can Turkey now turn if not to Europe? In a three part series the BBC’s Special Correspondent Allan Little analyses the growth of a new internationalism within Turkey, one that is creating a powerful commonwealth of co-operation with neighbouring countries in the Balkans, North Africa and the Middle East: the former lands of the Ottoman Empire. What factors have propelled this change and how is it affecting the politics of this volatile region? Turkey is back as a major international player for the first time since the late 18th Century and it is helping to shape the world that is emerging. Are the heirs of Ataturk the “new Ottomans”? Picture: The EU and the Turkish flags, Credit: Friedemann Vogel/Getty Images
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08-Sep-2013
The Documentary - The Congress and the Commander in Chief
As the US Congress prepares to vote on whether to take military action against Syria, the BBC World Service explores how the US has taken similar decisions in the past – and how that might shape the decisions of the present. Claire Bolderson delves into the history of tension over the issue between the White House and Capitol Hill. The US Constitution deliberately split responsibility, making the President the Commander-in-Chief, while giving Congress the power to declare war. The strain peaked during the Vietnam War, leading to Congress passing the War Powers Act, which was meant to restrain presidential action. But often the executive has simply ignored the legislature, arguing that action was necessary on the grounds of immediate self-defence. Now President Obama seems to be setting a precedent by asking Congress to debate and vote in advance of action. How will this action be judged against 200 years of America deciding between peace and war? Picture: Storm clouds fill the sky over the US Capitol Building, Credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images
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04-Sep-2013
The Documentary - Turkey - The New Ottomans: 2. Part Two
Over the last two decades Turkey’s sustained economic growth has transformed the country. Now it is pursuing a foreign policy agenda to match its growing regional and global significance. No longer content to simply mirror and support the interests of its traditional ally the US, it is forming new relationships, or rather it is re-forging old alliances broken in the early 20th Century. Allan Little analyses the growth of a new internationalism within Turkey, one that is creating a powerful commonwealth of co-operation with neighbouring countries in the Balkans, North Africa and the Middle East - the former lands of the Ottoman Empire. What factors have propelled this change and how is it affecting the politics of this volatile region? Turkey is back as a major international player for the first time since the late 18th Century and it is helping to shape the world that is emerging. Are the heirs of Ataturk the 'new Ottomans'? Allan delves further into the emerging international influence of Turkey, looking across North Africa and the Middle East. The AKP promoted itself as a model of how an Islamically inspired party could govern a democracy. The turmoils of the Arab Spring and Taksim Square have now challenged that optimistic vision. In recent years Turkey had turned away from a close alliance with Israel towards greater involvement with its Arab neighbours – but that involvement is creating as much suspicion as gratitude. Picture: Protesters in Taksim Square hold a Turkish flag, Credit: Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty Images
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02-Sep-2013
The Documentary - God's Trombone: Remembering King's Dream
Luther King stepped to the podium in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Around 10 minutes into his speech, King sounded as though he were wrapping up when Mahalia Jackson, the gospel singer and King's friend, shouted: "Tell them about the dream Martin". He ignored her at first. Then she shouted again. He put the text to the left of the lectern, grabbed the podium and - after a pause more pregnant than most - started to riff. King's adviser Clarence Jones turned to the person next to him and said: "Those people don't know it, but they're about to go to church." It's 50 years since Martin Luther King gave the speech that stands as one of the world's favourite addresses delivered by one of its most beloved figures. But "I have a dream" wasn't in the text of the speech and its mainstream popularity only grew after King was assassinated. Gary Younge looks behind the scenes of the speech and explores what made it both timely and timeless. Why do we remember it? How do we remember it? Does the way we remember it say as much about us today as it does about those events 50 years ago? We'll hear from King's colleagues and friends including his speechwriter Clarence Jones; and King's aide, former Mayor of Atlanta and later US ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young. We explore how King was influenced by African-American preachers: he was firmly rooted in a tradition of orators described by influential Harlem Renaissance poet and intellectual James Weldon Johnson as "God's Trombones". The speeches and images of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has been licensed by Intellectual Properties Management, Inc. (IPM) manager for the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr. This license is in no way an endorsement of the views, policies, opinions, statements, and actions of the featured participants.
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01-Sep-2013
The Documentary - Rewriting the Revolution
Shaimaa Khalil looks at the Arab Spring through the eyes of prominent writers whose countries have undergone major change over the past two-and-a-half years. She hears how much has really changed for the masses who rose up against their leaders. Have their hopes been fulfilled? Or have they faded with the challenge of democracy and restructuring? Our guests on the programme are Egyptian Writer Sara Khorshid, Libyan author Ghazi Gheblawi, Tunisia's Samar Samir Mezghanni, Farea Al-Muslimi from Yemen and Syrian author Samar Yazbek. Picture: A computer keyboard with Arabic and Latin letters, Credit: Martin Oeser/AFP/Getty Images
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29-Aug-2013
The Documentary - I Have a Dream
Martin Luther King’s 'I Have a Dream' speech is one of the most powerful and passionate political statements of the 20th century. This unique tribute programme seeks to commemorate Dr King’s legacy through his words. Global figures read the sections of the speech which resonate with their own experiences and aspirations.
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28-Aug-2013
The Documentary - Turkey - The New Ottomans: 1. Part One
Allan Little begins by examining Turkey’s journey over the last century, beginning with the birth of the republic and the rigid military-backed secularism of Kemal Ataturk. This was a period when the history of the Ottoman past was downplayed in school textbooks and Turkey looked West towards Europe. Outward displays of religion were suppressed, despite a rise in Islamic conservatism. These pressures were part of the rise to power in 2002 of the Islamically inspired AK Party under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The AKP has led Turkey to astonishing economic success and has started to address the longstanding demands of the country’s Kurdish minority. The country has started to spread its influence internationally, building strong links with many of the former nations of the Ottoman Empire. However, as one historian observes, Erdogan has promoted a democracy, but an illiberal one, which does not recognise the views of those who oppose it. The mass demonstrations in Istanbul and other Turkish cities were born of the frustration of an educated middle class – a class ironically created by the AKP’s own economic success. What factors have propelled change in Turkey and how is it affecting the politics of this volatile region? Picture: Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan under a Turkish flag and portraits of himself and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Credit: Adem Altan/AFP/Getty Images
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21-Aug-2013
The Documentary - The Man Who Fell to Earth
Last September, a man in his twenties was found dead in Portman Avenue, a suburban street in west London. He had suffered horrendous injuries to his head and face. He had no identity papers on him and no one had reported him missing. Rob Walker follows the Metropolitan police investigation into who he was and how he arrived in Portman Avenue. It is a story that spans two continents and eight countries. (Image: E-fit, issued by the Metropolitan Police. Anyone with information about the whereabouts of José Matada’s next of kin should contact the Metropolitan Police on +44 20 8247 7249)
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15-Aug-2013
The Documentary - Feeding the World
Since the end of World War II, America's Food for Peace programme has shipped American-grown food in sacks across the world to feed the world's starving people. Virtually all experts agree it is an inefficient way to send aid, and the EU stopped doing it decades ago. Former head of USAID Andrew Natsios says 'I've watched people die in front of me waiting for food to arrive.' Now President Obama wants to reform the system to send more of emergency aid as money, and to buy food locally. But there is opposition to his plans for change and it looks likely the reforms will go nowhere. BBC international development correspondent David Loyn travels to Afghanistan and meets farmers who say they stopped growing wheat and changed to opium poppies when American wheat flooded the local market during a time of plenty. And he travels to Kenya to look at pioneering efforts to deliver aid in a way that helps the local economy and puts power back in the hands of the poor. (Picture: A farmer holds some grain and pulses. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)
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12-Aug-2013
The Documentary - Tel Aviv Come Out
In many Middle East countries being gay can lead to the death penalty, but why is Tel Aviv investing so much in promoting the city as a place that accepts and welcomes gay men and women? As thousands of gay men and women from around the world travelled to Tel Aviv for Pride week in June, Tim Samuels reveals how Tel Aviv has become a leading gay city following a concerted campaign by the Mayor. Critics accuse Israel of 'pink-washing' to soften its image - but Tel Aviv stands out as an oasis of gay tolerance in an otherwise hostile region. Amidst the carnival atmosphere, Pride week brought to light the fascinating nuances and tensions within Israeli society. Pride is a public assertion not just of gay rights, but of secular strength. Also 'covertly' attending Pride were West Bank Palestinians, whose sexuality can bring risks to their personal safety. Tel Aviv's march to gay epicentre hasn't always been smooth - or organic. In 2009, the Mayor embarked on a multi-million dollar mission to rebrand the city as the ultimate gay destination. In that same year, a gunman – who has never been caught - opened fire on a gay youth club killing two people. Hostility is never far away. (Image: A black man takes part in the annual Tel Aviv Gay Pride parade on June 7, 2013, Israel. Credit: Getty Images)
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07-Aug-2013
The Documentary - The Truth and Nothing But The Truth
Dr Geoff Bunn investigates the latest lie-detecting technology with the help of Steven Rose, Emeritus professor of Neuroscience at the Open University, and Geraint Rees, director of the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. He discovers that the early history of the lie detector features a psychologist, William Marston, who went on to create the comic book character Wonder Woman, and an amateur magician, Leonarde Keeler, who was an inspiration for the comic strip hero, Dick Tracy. He explores the history of the American obsession with lie detection, aided by Ken Alder, professor of History at North Western University, and Garyn Roberts, biographer of Chester Gould - who created Dick Tracy. He also hears from Bruce Burgess, founder of Polygraphs UK. Dr Bunn is a senior lecturer in psychology at Manchester Metropolitan University, and the author of The Truth Machine: A Social History of the Lie Detector. (Image: Pulse meters on a man's fingers used for a lie detector or polygraph test. Credit: Science Photo LIbrary)
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31-Jul-2013
The Documentary - Race For Equality: 2. The Future of Disability Sports in Ghana
Ghana sent just four Paralympians to the 2012 Olympics, none of whom made it to the victory podium. After the difficulties they faced getting there, is still there still the will to work towards Rio 2016? Powerlifter Charles Narh Teye told the BBC World Service during London 2012, that his parents had rejected the doctor's suggestion that they 'put me to sleep' with an injection at birth. His team-mate and Ghana’s flag-bearer, wheelchair racer Raphael Nkegbe Botsyo, said there were those back home who still believed 'a disabled person in the family must be a grandfather's curse'. Paralympic athlete and gold medallist April Holmes travels to Ghana to meet the athletes and to find out if negative perceptions have changed since their performances in the British capital. April sees first-hand whether their achievements have had any impact on disability sport in the country, and asks if they have the desire and the backing to make it to Rio - and whether or not they will be part of a bigger team in 2016. She also asks Ghana’s minister for Youth and Sport and the Disabilities Commission what provisions are being made for the country’s Paralympic athletes. (Picture: Ghanaian powerlifter Charles Narh Teye at London 2012, Credit: Getty Images)
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24-Jul-2013
The Documentary - Nightingales of India
Known as the 'Nightingales of India', Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle have forged Bollywood singing careers spanning more than six decades. The sisters are from a humble background that parallels the story of Bollywood and of India itself. One or the other of them is rarely out of the record books as the most recorded artist in the world. The sisters were born into a theatrical family. Lata and the older of the two, talks about her childhood and career for the programme. She was left, at the age of 13, to support the whole family. After much hardship she got her big break and, just as the Hindi film industry was taking off at the end of the 1930s, a star was born. Now in her 80s, despite her fame and fortune, she leads a quiet, simple life and remains unmarried. Her younger sister Asha, also in her 80s, was far from shy and retiring. Teenage elopement, affairs and divorce make her the dangerous half of the duo. She too made it to the top. Everyone who is anyone in Bollywood has worked with or is familiar with the sisters' work. Picture: Lata Mangeshkar (right) and her sister Asha Bhosle (left), Credit: Strdel/AFP/Getty Images
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23-Jul-2013
The Documentary - Changing the City: An Audience with Richard Rogers
Richard Rogers is one of a handful of architects who have made a great impact on cities across the globe. He built the Pompidou Centre in Paris, the Lloyd’s building in London, as well as the Millennium Dome. He built Terminal 4 in Madrid airport and is currently creating Tower 3 on the site of Ground Zero in New York. For many years he advised on city development in Barcelona as well as London. He has partnered with Renzo Piano and with Norman Foster, and with his excitingly technical machine-style buildings he has been spearheading hi-tech architecture worldwide. He is now Lord Rogers of Riverside and is garlanded with the highest honours and prizes that architecture can bestow. In a special event to celebrate his 80th birthday he discusses his vision for the future of our cities with Razia Iqbal and an audience at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Picture: Richard Rogers, Credit: AFP/Getty Images
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22-Jul-2013
The Documentary - Under Attack: The Threat from Cyberspace
The British government recently declared that one of the greatest threats to national security emanates from cyberspace. Hostile nation states are conducting a war over the internet, while Western companies face the wholesale plundering of their economic life-blood. There is increasing tension as China and the United States square up to each other, while North Korea and Iran are both thought to have launched attacks. BBC Security Correspondent Gordon Corera reports from London, Washington and Beijing. He talks to those who are holding the line, including top intelligence officials, political leaders and the heads of some of the world's largest companies which stand to lose millions from the theft of their intellectual property. "Britain is under attack," says Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague. "Most countries are under attack and certainly many industries and businesses are under attack." Who is responsible and where will it end? Picture: Conservative South Korean activists denounce the North's cyber attacks, Credit: AFP/Getty
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17-Jul-2013
The Documentary - Race For Equality: 1. Race for Equality
Adopted from Russia by her American mother, the young Tatyana McFadden almost died. Sport made her strong, but in High School there was another fight. They wouldn't let her race on the track team. Aged 15, she took them to court, won her case and created a new law. In the first of two Paralympic documentaries for the BBC World Service, Paralympic Swimmer Kate Grey has spent a week with the McFaddens, giving her exclusive insight in to their lives. Tatyana's sister Hannah, competed alongside her at London 2012 - and their mother Deborah helped write the Americans with Disabilities Act. Since the Paralympics, they've been helping the victims of the bombings at the Boston Marathon and raising awareness about the Russian ban on US adoption. Next year, Tatyana will have the opportunity to show the country of her birth what she did with her 'second chance at life' when she competes at the Winter Paralympics in Sochi. It means taking up a new sport - cross country skiing - but the McFaddens relish a challenge. Kate hears from the McFaddens on the fights they’ve already won, and the causes they’re prepared to keep fighting for, and asks, post London 2012, what are the challenges still facing people with disabilities every day. (Picture: Tatyanna (left) and Hannah (right) McFadden at the London 2012 Paralympics, Credit: Getty Images)
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15-Jul-2013
The Documentary - Law Behind Bars
Most people who face criminal charges in Kenya go to court without a lawyer. By the Kenyan judiciary’s own admission, this leads to a great deal of injustice. This programme meets an impressive group of prisoners who are acting as lawyers on behalf of themselves and their fellow inmates. Mostly by discovering flaws in the original cases, they are managing to get large numbers of convictions overturned at appeal. According to one Kenyan lawyer, these prisoner paralegals are much more effective than many of the professionals: after all, they have all the time, and the ultimate motivation of winning freedom. (Picture: Inmate paralegals meet to discuss a case, Credit: BBC)
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11-Jul-2013
The Documentary - Home Away From Home
At the end of the 19th Century working on the steam ships of the British Empire was an attractive career choice for seamen from Somaliland. Many came to Cardiff and found work in the docks heaving the coal that powered those ships. They first settled in Butetown in 1890. A vibrant community grew - centred on the docks and the mosque. But the last coal was shipped out in the 1960s. Cardiff docks are not what they were. Butetown has been redeveloped and work is scarce. The older generation of Somalis has, in recent years, been joined by new immigrants, refugees from their war-torn homeland. Their experiences and expectations are very different, as the production De Gabay recently made clear. This was a day-long, dramatic festival with National Theatre Wales, in which young poets from the Somali community performed all around Butetown. Urban historian Mike Berlin, meets Somalis whose families have lived in Butetown for a century and more recent arrivals tell their stories, too. (Picture: Dockside cranes, Cardiff, 1907, Credit: Getty Images)
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07-Jul-2013
The Documentary - Egypt's New Challenge
What next for Egypt? The army has appointed a new government after days of protests against the democratically-elected Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi. For the second time in two years, the Arab world’s most populous country is in what the army calls a ‘transition period’. But what has brought Egypt back to the point where the second president in two years has now been toppled? Earlier this year, the BBC’s Shaimaa Khalil - who was born in Egypt - travelled across the country to see how ordinary people were adapting to life after the Arab Spring - those programmes were called Egypt’s Challenge. Now she’s back in Egypt to present a special programme reflecting on the growing concerns she found among those she met on that trip and then bringing it up to date with this week’s events as she is joined with a panel of guests in her home town of Alexandria. (Picture: Egyptian anti-regime protesters hold a banner saying 'Get Out Morsi', Credit: AFP/Getty Images)
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05-Jul-2013
The Documentary - Dream Builders: 4. Zaha Hadid - Iraqi National Bank
Zaha Hadid is the first woman and first Muslim to win the Pritzker Prize, architecture’s highest honour. She designed the whale-like Aquatics centre at the London Olympics and the extraordinary Maaxi Museum in Rome. Her designs are challenging and innovative and she is right at the front of changing tastes in architecture and design today. After years of failing to get her designs built her distinctive work is now in great demand all over the world from Germany to the USA and from China to Iraq. Zaha Hadid talks to Razia Iqbal and an audience at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London, about her work and the future of architecture. (Image: Architect Zaha Hadid. Credit: Mark Allan)
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03-Jul-2013
The Documentary - Media Futures: 4. Media Futures - Internet Age
What is the effect of the internet revolution on the established forms of media that we have come to rely on? Our special series, Media Futures, looks at three of our so-called legacy media - newspapers, radio, and television - and asks how they are shaping up to the challenges and opportunities of the digital world. Will they be able to adapt, and if so, how will they evolve over the next few years? What is likely to change, and what might stay the same? In the fourth and final part of the programme, Mark Coles considers the lessons that we might extrapolate from the previous episodes' findings - our future media will be more mobile; it will enable more and more ordinary people to be creators as well as consumers. We will need to know more about these consumers in order to monetise the content and it seems that technical quality may sometimes be sacrificed in order to achieve wider and more convenient access to content. Meanwhile, media providers that have made big profits in the past by becoming expert in one field will need to embrace many others. Yet it would be a mistake to write off our legacy media completely. Many newspaper publishers, radio stations and TV studios have deep pockets, plenty of commercial acumen, and no lack of imagination (Image: Woman uses a tablet computer in a cybercafe in Dakar, Senegal. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)
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26-Jun-2013
The Documentary - Media Futures: Media Futures - Television
Mark Coles considers new forms of video production and delivery such as You Tube's recently launched "channels" and asks why they are so appealing. But the established television industry is fighting back with fresh ways to watch its programmes - and the commercials they depend on. (Image: "Everything under the sun": Some of You Tube’s massive repertoire displays on a giant screen at the company’s new production facility in Los Angeles. BBC Copyright)
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19-Jun-2013
The Documentary - Media Futures: 2. Media Futures - Radio
Can radio retain its simple appeal in a digital world? Mark Coles discovers that in Africa, the medium is evolving to suit delivery over mobile phone networks, with programmes of just a few minutes in length. Yet in the world's most developed media market, the United States, many radio stations are managing to resist the challenge of the internet, continuing to offer a local service, broadcast over the airwaves.
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12-Jun-2013
The Documentary - Media Futures: Media Futures
As more and more news is available online, the idea of buying a traditional newspaper is fast becoming a thing of the past. Or is it? Some parts of the world are still enjoying strong print circulation. And even places like the west where newspaper sales are plummeting, it has often proved difficult to make the digital alternative pay its way. In part one of this four-part series, Mark Coles asks what is the future for newspapers? And if they survive, how will they need to change? (Image: Newspapers on a stand. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)
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05-Jun-2013
The Documentary - Ahmadinejad: The Populist and the Pariah
Devil or Popular Hero? As President Ahmadinejad steps down, we assess his legacy. Since his election in 2005, Mr Ahmadinejad has challenged his country’s Supreme Leader and goaded the United States. He has become perhaps the most well-known Iranian politician since the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini. This documentary looks at the rise of Ahmadinejad and explains how this provincial politician with a PhD in traffic management came to take on his country’s ruling clerics. (Image: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Credit: AFP/Getty Images)
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29-May-2013
The Documentary - Egypt’s Challenge – The Next Generation
Episode 6/6. Egypt has one of the world’s fastest-growing populations; already 90-million strong, it’s growing by over a million each year and around half of that population is under the age of 25. It was Egypt’s youth who were at the forefront of the revolutionary protests in Tahrir Square in 2011. They were demanding an end to corruption, cronyism, poverty and to social injustice. Two years on has the revolution delivered for them? In this final programme in the series, Egypt’s Challenge, Shaimaa Khalil talks to young people in Cairo and Alexandria and finds a generation caught between hope and despair. Producer: Daniel Tetlow (Image: Skate Impact on the steps of Saad Zaghlool Square in downtown Alexandria. BBC Copyright)
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28-May-2013
The Documentary - Tax Avoidance: The Hidden Cost
The revelation of how little tax Google, Starbucks and Amazon have been paying on their global operations has triggered political indignation around the world. Michael Robinson reports on the additional advantages aggressive tax avoidance can provide to multinationals. With sophisticated systems shifting their profits to low-tax countries, these multinationals have a competitive edge over nationally based companies whose tax bills are usually far harder to avoid. The result - more profit for the multinational and squeezed margins for the national competitor. With an effective tax-avoiding infrastructure in place, aggressive multinationals are better placed to compete for new markets or to buy up competitors in higher-tax countries – further extending their global reach. For governments around the world, many already facing slowdown and recession, such tax-avoidance-powered competition is a disturbing danger. Because as a tax-avoiding company extends its operations, so a country’s revenues from corporate tax come under threat. While politicians around the world look for ways to cut back corporate tax avoidance, and with Prime Minister David Cameron promising the issue will be on the agenda when the G8 group of world leaders meet in Northern Ireland in June, this programme assesses their chances of reversing this global trend. (Image: Construction of a skyscraper with British and European bank notes and coins stacked together. BBC Copyright)
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22-May-2013
The Documentary - Egypt’s Challenge – Far From Cairo
Our view of Egypt has been focussed on the capital. Yet much of the population still live in rural areas, with ways of life that have changed little for decades. Shaimaa Khalil accompanies a young revolutionary back to his home town in Upper Egypt to hear about discrimination, poverty, the role of religion and of women and asks whether the revolution is likely to change anything so far from Cairo. Episode 5/6. (Image: A boy sitting cross-legged on a wall reading. BBC Copyright )
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17-May-2013
The Documentary - Egypt’s Challenge – Men in Uniform
The army has long been the dominant force in Egyptian society, while the police have ruled the streets with a rod of iron. For now the military has relinquished its hold on politics and the police officers have retreated to their barracks. With special access to Egypt’s Police Academy, which is training up a new generation of officers, Shaimaa Khalil asks if the police can rebuild their tarnished image and re-instil badly needed security to the streets. She also asks if the military men will remain out of politics, despite the chaos in the country. Produced by John Murphy. (Image of police recruits being put through training. BBC Copyright)
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13-May-2013
The Documentary - Southern Tracks: 3. American Dream
In this final bumper edition of Southern Tracks, Joe meets a cast of real-life characters who reflect on their achievements and failures, race and religion, their continuing hopes and the reality of the American Dream. A lot of his interviewees attribute their happiness to family and community. His interviews reveal that most Southern family bands began singing with the church and it's the close family bond and the 'family blend' sound which is the secret of their success. He also discovers that a lot of his performers used their records to illustrate their capacity to put the past behind them and to start over. This series paints a portrait of the American South, where a few decades ago anyone could make their mark on posterity by paying a few hundred dollars to produce a vinyl record. DJ and record collector Joe Fletcher has amassed thousands of these - largely religious - records. He takes a trip along the back roads of the Deep South tracking down the people who recorded up to 50 years ago to see how their lives developed. Southern Tracks is an intriguing look at the alternative side of the United States, a road trip through an often overlooked part of the world's most powerful country.
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08-May-2013
The Documentary - Egypt’s Challenge – Making a Living
Episode 3/6. President Mubarak’s crony capitalism was one of the driving forces of the revolution – but, inequality, corruption and bureaucracy appear to have continued unhindered. While the economy was already in the doldrums, since the revolution things have become markedly worse. In the third programme in this series, Egypt’s Challenge, Shaimaa Khalil examines the state of Egypt’s economy two years after its revolution. Then people were calling for bread, freedom and social justice – have those demands been met? Shaimaa discovers that insecurity on the streets and political instability have frightened off investors. She also looks at how the unofficial , illegal economy has so far prevented complete economic collapse and, with the help of economists, looks at the mysterious role played by the military in Egypt’s economy. Produced by John Murphy. (Image of a textile mill in Mahalla, one of Egypt’s most famous exports Egyptian Cotton. BBC Copyright.)
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01-May-2013
The Documentary - Egypt’s Challenge – Free to Speak
Episode 2/6. Shaimaa Khalil examines the challenges facing her country two years after the Egyptian revolution. Under former President Mubarak there was a strong tradition of diverse but restricted media in Egypt. Post revolution, the restrictions have been lifted, allowing new voices to be heard from across the political spectrum. Political satirist Bassem Youssef invites Shaimaa to watch his hugely popular TV show where he cracks jokes about Egyptian politicians and even targets it’s President, Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. She also visits a hardline Salafi TV station where the output is very different and where any criticism of religion or religious leaders is considered unacceptable. All challenges for Egypt’s new democracy. (Image of political satirist Bassem Youssef’s show in the Cairo Cinema Radio Theatre. BBC Copyright)
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27-Apr-2013
The Documentary - Voices From the Ghetto
Voices from the Ghetto tells the story of a remarkable secret project conducted inside the Warsaw Ghetto during the World War II. Codenamed Oyneg Shabbat (Joy of the Sabbath), a team of 'researchers' wrote and collected documents detailing life and death inside the ghetto. The archive began as the Germans created the grotesque prison city of the ghetto, separating the Jewish population of Warsaw from their Catholic neighbours and destroying the city both physically and as the centre of Eastern European Jewish life. Led by the historian, Emanuel Ringelblum, the archive included surveys on schooling, smuggling, the life of the streets, the bitter jokes, the price of bread. Members of the project gathered posters, songs, newspapers, pamphlets and even tram tickets that together convey the essence of the Ghetto. As the community was pulled from its apartments, transported to Treblinka and murdered, these reseachers collected scraps of testimony scribbled in notebooks and thrown from train windows. This colossal and perilous enterprise was intended to create a people's history to both warn the world and preserve the memory of a community clinging to life, belief and hope on the brink of destruction. Nearly all those who worked on the project were murdered, including Ringelblum himself. But in the final days of the Ghetto and the Uprising that followed, the archive was buried in the ruins and was recovered after the war. Drawing on the words of the Oyneg Shabbat project and the memories of Janina Davidowicz, then a child who escaped the Ghetto just before its destruction, this programme marks the time behind the walls when people lived and struggled for another life, using rare recordings to reimagine the sounds of an extinguished world. Presenter Monica Whitlock Producers Mark Burman and Monica Whitlock.
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24-Apr-2013
The Documentary - Egypt's Challenge - Part One
After decades of stifling stasis, Egypt is in flux. The political system has gone through total upheaval following the overthrow of President Mubarak and Egypt is struggling to understand its new democracy. Shaimaa Khalil assesses the underlying challenges facing her native land in a major series for the BBC World Service. In the introductory programme, Shaimaa returns to her hometown, Alexandria, to see how it has changed since the revolution of 2011. She visits old haunts and talks to family, friends and people on the streets to gauge their feelings on a range of political, economic and social issues. In the city they call the mermaid of the Mediterranean she finds a new sense of empowerment but also a distrust of the newfound voice of political Islam and an overwhelming sense of personal insecurity. Image: The Alexandria skyline
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22-Apr-2013
The Documentary - CEO Guru
With China now becoming the world's second biggest economy, it increasingly looks as if Asia will be the place which will provide much of the impetus for global growth for many years to come. But as the centre of economic gravity begins to move from West to East, what impact will there be on the world of business? What new challenges will companies face? And how can business leaders ensure that they steer their enterprises in the right direction? Steve Tappin is an author and management expert who coaches the chief executives of many huge businesses from China, Europe and other places around the world. In the BBC World Service documentary CEO Guru, Steve Tappin talks to a range of top chief executives about their values, their dreams and how they hope to lead their companies to success in the 21st century. Contributors include Liu Chuanzhi, founder of the vast computer company Lenovo, and Sir Martin Sorrell of global advertising giant WPP. (Image: Liu Chuanzhi, founder of the vast computer company Lenovo, Credit: AFP/Getty)
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17-Apr-2013
The Documentary - I Dressed Ziggy Stardust
For more than four decades, David Bowie has entranced his followers. As he releases his first new material in ten years, Samira Ahmed looks at his particular appeal for British Asian women. Across the generations, they have been inspired by the skinny South Londoner who challenged gender barriers and who played with alien identity and other worldliness. Beneath the make up and exotic costumes, he was also the intelligent, politely spoken suburban young man who you could potentially introduce to your mother. As Samira explores Bowie's impact on British Asian teenagers, she talks to Shami Chakrabarti, the Director of 'Liberty', about Bowie's changing identities. Sociologist Rupa Huq tackles his suburban psychoses and Shyama Perera takes Samira on a journey to explain how her teenage obsession with Bowie even extended to sending costume designs to her hero - arguably enabling her to claim that "I dressed Ziggy Stardust". (Image: David Bowie on stage in 1973, Credit: Getty Images)
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14-Apr-2013
The Documentary - The Truth About Pope Francis
For the past few weeks there has been excitement across the Catholic world over the election of the first Latin American Pope - a man who wants to put the poor at the centre of the Church's teaching. But a series of difficult questions have been raised about Pope Francis’s role during Argentina's "Dirty War" and the military dictatorship of the 1970s and early 1980s. In this programme journalist and former Dominican monk Mark Dowd travels to Buenos Aires to find out the truth about Pope Francis. Mark speaks to those close to the new Pontiff, his former colleagues, friends and sister about his motivations and character. He talks to key players in the case of two Jesuit priests who were seized and tortured by the dictatorship to find out what Pope Francis really knew and did when they went missing. And he hears from a family whose pregnant relative was kidnapped by agents of the dictatorship. The baby was taken away and relatives appealed to the then Father Bergoglio for help in finding the child. But what happened? And when did Father Bergoglio become aware of the scandal of the stolen baby? (Image: Pope Francis. Credit: ALBERTO PIZZOLI,ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP/Getty Images)
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10-Apr-2013
The Documentary - The Forgotten Black Cowboys
Hollywood shows us a wild west populated only by white cowboys. But it's only part of the story, as Sarfraz Manzoor discovers as he goes in search of America's black cowboys. On his journey through Texas, he finds that the west was populated by both African Americans and Hispanic cowboys, and that their legacy lives on today. He joins a trail ride with black cowboys as they make their way across the dusty plains following the routes of their ancestors. Complete with 12 covered wagons and up to 200 riders on horseback, Sarfraz finds a great pride in this black heritage. In Wichita, Kansas, he meets one remarkable performer, the very first actor to appear as a black cowboy in the movies of the 1930s. At a time of racial segregation in the United States, few white cinema goers would ever have heard of Herb Jeffries, but he was the hero in films such as 'Harlem on the Prairie'. Today Herb Jeffries is about to turn 100. So how did this part of America get airbrushed out of the movies and the history books? He talks to experts and archivists, as well as those who have lived the life of the range, to find a true life story hidden from sight for many years. (Image: Former rodeo rider, Vincent Jacobs, Credit: Sarfraz Manzoor)
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08-Apr-2013
The Documentary - Flashmob Flamenco
In recent years, flamenco has become an increasingly respectable art-form, both in Spain and internationally. But in the last few years it has been used as a voice of protest against the current financial meltdown, which is hitting the Andalucia region particularly hard. Most notable is the flamenco "flashmob", a sudden public assembly of dancers and musicians performing in branches of Spain's under-fire banks, with massive YouTube success. This continues a long tradition of political dissent within flamenco that's little known beyond its inner circle – and even here, it is often played down. Author and erstwhile flamenco student Jason Webster, explores this history, meeting musicians who have protested against the Franco regime and the contemporary economic situation, and examining some of the contradictions of Spain's recent past along the way. (Image: Flamenco flash mob. Credit: David Parry/PA Wire)
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27-Mar-2013
The Documentary - Studio in the Sand
Foreign correspondent and music journalist Robin Denselow travels to the refugee camps of the Saharawi people in Algeria, who were displaced from Western Sahara following land dispute war with Morocco. The Saharawi have been living in the camps for 20 years, with their young people knowing nothing except life in the camps, where there is little chance of employment or escape. The music of the Saharawi is not as well known as that of neighbouring Mali, but is a powerful expression of their culture, and their desire to return home to the land from which they were displaced, a land whose landscapes and animals many younger Saharawi have never seen and can only dream about in the lyrics and chords of their music. The Saharawi are Muslim, but unlike other parts of the region, here the women play lead role in politics and music. The Saharawi camps form a state-within-a-state, and their government, the Polisario, has set up Ministries in the camps themselves. Robin speaks to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Culture in the camps about the forgotten struggle of the Saharawi whose plight has vanished off the international agenda, and about the role that their music can play to carry the story of their struggle, as well as the haunting energy of their music, to an international audience. Sandblast is a charity run by Danielle Smith with a group of British sound engineers who are setting up recording studios within the refugee camps in order to train musicians in how to produce recorded music which can then be exported to an audience which would otherwise never get to hear its very particular note. Robin follows this initiative as the first trainees learn the ropes in the studio in the sand, speaking to trainers and new recruits and hearing electrifying first concert. (Image: A man walks across a desert, Credit: AFP/Getty Images)
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13-Mar-2013
The Documentary - After Saddam - Hugh Sykes Returns To Iraq: Episode 2
It's ten years since the invasion which toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Since then Iraqis have endured an American-led military occupation, a brutal insurgency, intense sectarian violence, hundreds of thousands of violent deaths - and three democratic elections. In episode two, Hugh Sykes visits the Marsh Arabs and Basra, occupied by British forces for six years. How has life changed for them since the fall of Saddam Hussein? (Image: A child at an adult literacy class in Basra, for widows and women orphaned by war and occupation, Credit: Hugh Sykes)
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10-Mar-2013
The Documentary - Red Dirt Dreaming: Episode 2
Western Australia, larger than Western Europe in size, drives the Australian economy, but the centre of the boom, the heavily mined Pilbara and soon to be exploited Kimberley to the north, are among the last great wildernesses. The Aboriginal population negotiate constantly for what is called 'Native Title' over their lands, and thus the right to negotiate with mining companies for a share in their wealth. Before the mining boom this burning vastness was their last line of retreat but now they’ve been thrust into the front line of global economics and modernity. Some Aboriginal communities have come into many millions of dollars, others have nothing. The bitterness that results splits them apart. In programme two Neil Trevithick and Kirsti Melville drive south from the Kimberley into the even-larger area of the Pilbara which has been heavily mined for more than 50 years. Known as the engine room of Australia, the Pilbara digs up and produces millions of tons of iron ore, copper, natural gas, salt and fertilizers annually, and is home to the world’s largest privately-owned railways. Production is soaring to meet booming demand from Asia and is dominated by a few huge mining companies. If there are any lessons to be learnt about the good and the bad that mining brings to country and community, then it is in the Pilbara. Neil and Kirsti talk to miners, mining companies, FIFO workers, Aboriginal communities, the Premier of Western Australia, Colin Barnett, and to local citizens: the accountants, estate agents, social workers and others who want to make their lives here and bring up their children in the engine room. (Image: The vast arid yellow landscape of the Pilbara region, heavily mined for more than 50 years, is much loved by its inhabitants. It stretches forever from the West Coast deep into the interior.)
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06-Mar-2013
The Documentary - After Saddam - Hugh Sykes Returns To Iraq: Episode 1
It's ten years since the invasion which toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Since then Iraqis have endured an American-led military occupation, a brutal insurgency, intense sectarian violence, hundreds of thousands of violent deaths - and three democratic elections. BBC correspondent Hugh Sykes has been a regular visitor to Iraq since 2003 - exploring the lives of people in a country where security, education, electricity and even the water supply can never be taken for granted. He returns to Iraq to find out how have their lives changed over the past decade? (Image: Iraqis hold the Saddam-era national flag during a sit in Tikrit, hometown of late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, Credit: AFP/Getty Images)
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03-Mar-2013
The Documentary - Red Dirt Dreaming: Episode 1
Western Australia, larger than Western Europe in size, drives the Australian economy, but the centre of the boom, the heavily mined Pilbara and soon to be exploited Kimberley to the north, are among the last great wildernesses. The Aboriginal population negotiate constantly for what is called 'Native Title' over their lands, and thus the right to negotiate with mining companies for a share in their wealth. Before the mining boom this burning vastness was their last line of retreat but now they’ve been thrust into the front line of global economics and modernity. Some Aboriginal communities have come into many millions of dollars, others have nothing. The bitterness that results splits them apart. In programme one Neil Trevithick and Kirsti Melville journey across the Kimberley to a pristine promontary called James Price Point 60km north of the small resort town of Broome. It is here that the State Government has given the go ahead for the construction of a 1km sq onshore LNG (Liquid Natural Gas) plant, and a port for loading tankers with gas for export. The Federal Government in Canberra has yet give its go-ahead. This project encapsulates all of the conflict and complexity of resource extraction versus environment and community. It is seen as the battle which will decide the future of the Kimberley, a future of mining wealth or pristine wilderness and community. And the endgame is close. (Image: The hallmark of the Kimberley landscape in north-western Australia is the bright red earth and landscape, the result of high iron content in the soil.)
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27-Feb-2013
The Documentary - The Drowning City
Hurricane Sandy ripped into New York in October 2012, taking lives, sparking a huge fire, flooding subways and tunnel connections and leaving thousands without power for days. As sea levels are predicted to keep rising, Hurricane Sandy was a wake up call to New York and to many other coastal cities that have to face the reality of rising sea levels and increased chances of hurricanes and storm surges. Much of lower Manhattan was up to ten feet underwater and the storm sent a 14-foot surge into New York's harbour that continued for miles up the Hudson River. As the city continues to mop up, Isabel looks at the ways in which it might prepare for future storms and flooding, from building great walls and sea defences to sealing the subways and tunnels. Isabel Hilton considers the lessons that New York has to offer other threatened coastal cities - along the Eastern Seaboard of America and right around the world. (Image: Water floods the Plaza Shops in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, Credit: Getty Images)
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21-Feb-2013
The Documentary - When Assisted Death Is Legal: Episode 2
The debate over assisted suicide and euthanasia is a passionate one, and a subject that polarises public opinion. There are a few places where assisted death is already legal. Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Oregon and Washington States in the US all have laws permitting assisted suicide or euthanasia in some form. In this two-part documentary for the BBC World Service, actress and broadcaster Liz Carr goes on a personal journey to all six places to see how it works. As a long-standing campaigner against assisted suicide legislation in the UK, she wants to find out what assisted death means in practice – and whether she's right to be concerned. In part two, Carr visits the Netherlands, where she meets the group behind the 'mobile euthanasia units' which hit the headlines last year, and asks whether a law on voluntary life-ending procedures might open the door to involuntary ones. She also visits Oregon and Washington State in the US, where she finds out who is most likely to use the Death with Dignity law, and hears about the cancer patient whose health-care plan refused to pay for chemotherapy – but offered assisted suicide instead. (Image: Two people holding hands, Credit: AFP/Getty Images)
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20-Feb-2013
The Documentary - When Assisted Death Is Legal: Episode 1
The debate over assisted suicide and euthanasia is a passionate one. But as the discussions continue to rage around the world, there are a few places where assisted death is already legal. Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Oregon and Washington States in the US all have laws permitting assisted suicide or euthanasia in some form. In this two-part documentary for the BBC World Service, actress and broadcaster Liz Carr goes on a personal journey to all six places to see how it works. As a long-standing campaigner against assisted suicide legislation in the UK, she wants to find out what assisted death means in practice – and whether she's right to be concerned. In part one, Carr travels to Switzerland, where she visits the rooms where volunteers help people die, and finds out why the Swiss law on assisted suicide goes back to the 19th Century. In Belgium she meets a doctor who admits to performing euthanasia before it was legal; and in Luxembourg, she finds out why the law on assisted suicide nearly caused a constitutional crisis. Carr questions whether it is possible to balance the right of the individual who wants to die with the responsibility of society to protect those who don't. (Image: A 'Euthanasia kit', Credit: AFP/Getty Images)
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13-Feb-2013
The Documentary - The Silent Epidemic
Everybody assumes that the biggest killers of children in poor countries are diseases like cholera, pneumonia and dysentery. Yet it's not actually true - in countries like Bangladesh drowning is the number one killer and it's a leading cause of death across south-east Asia. That's a quarter of a million child fatalities every year - as many as all the children and adults who drowned in the Asian tsunami of 2004. Yet because most child drownings go unrecorded and because they happen in ones and twos every day, rather than in one great cataclysmic event, the problem has gone largely un-reported. It's a hidden killer - a 'silent epidemic'. Mark Whitaker reports from Bangladesh and Vietnam - where the problem was identified with the help of the first US Ambassador to the country after the war, Pete Peterson. An ex-fighter pilot who spent six years as a prisoner of war in Hanoi, Peterson founded The Alliance for Safe Children which led the research that revealed the problem, and now leads a large drowning prevention programme. Children drown in these countries because there are so many ponds, irrigation ditches and rivers, often within yards of each house. Few know how to swim and the youngest are particularly vulnerable when mothers are too busy to supervise them closely. In Bangladesh, a country much of which is under water, TASC is pioneering a huge programme of 'survival swimming', training local instructors to teach simple swimming strokes, treading water and safe rescue. For children aged one to four there's a parallel programme of village creches to keep them safe while their mothers do the chores. (Image: Children use a pipe as a bridge in Bangladesh, Credit: AFP/Getty Images)
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06-Feb-2013
The Documentary - Phelophepa
The Phelophepa (meaning good, clean health) is a mobile clinic which weaves its way through rural South Africa bringing doctors, nurses and psychologists to a population which has approximately one doctor for every 5000 people. Twenty permanent staff live on the train and up to forty medical students come and go on placements. Every week the train moves to a different location; as it pulls into a station hundreds of people are waiting, desperate to be seen. There are simple solutions like glasses which cure years of 'blindness', hearing-aids, walking-sticks, as well as psychological counselling. Often, because the queues are so long and the journey home too expensive, patients will sit outside the train all night so they are first in the queue the following day. Several years ago Laverne - who works as a psychologist at the Tavistock Clinic in London - volunteered on the train and found the experience so intense and challenging that she swore she wouldn't go back. But eventually, she did agree to visit once more. For this programme Laverne caught up with the Phelophepa in Alice, a small town in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. She met doctors, student doctors, and of course the patients; many leave having received the treatment they need, however the painful truth is that not everyone can be seen. Often the train has to pull away for the next town, leaving patients (who had travelled miles to be there) behind. (Image: A queue waiting for the train's health clinic in Alice, a small town in South Africa)
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30-Jan-2013
The Documentary - The Path to English
Bobby Friction talks to adults who are learning English from scratch in the UK. Many of them are immigrants or refugees from different communities and countries who arrive with little English and quickly have to adapt. How do they feel living in a country where they were unable to communicate? How did they deal with everyday situations like getting on a bus, shopping, going to a school or visiting a doctor? And how did they learn English - both formally and informally? We find a network of unofficial 'translators' in operation helping people get by. We speak to people who have been here for over 40 years as well as those who have recently arrived. What English course provisions are there for people eager to enhance their language skills? We discover the challenges in funding English courses. And how is the necessity of learning English for the citizenship test changing the experience of people arriving in the UK? Bobby visits the Sparkhill Adult Education Centre in Birmingham and speaks to teachers and pupils learning English through ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages). He also discovers a community on the Soho Road in Birmingham which exists perfectly happily, running businesses and contributing to society while speaking very little English. We visit the Chinese community of Manchester where the women in particular struggle with communication. We also meet a group of Eastern European supermarket distribution workers in Hertfordshire who are being taught English by their employer. (Image: A picture of a face with labels to aid the learning of English, Credit: AFP/Getty)
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23-Jan-2013
The Documentary - Pity The Poor Soccer Stars: 2. Pity the poor soccer stars
Why do so many African football stars go from rags to riches - and back to rags again? In this two part series, the BBC sport correspondent Farayi Mungazi travels to Zambia, South Africa and Ghana to find out. Former player Stanley Tshabalala believes that in many ways, his generation of players were better off than the wealthy stars of today - despite earning very little money. Are compulsory savings schemes or a retirement charge levied on tickets, the answer? We meet the former footballers who avoided disaster, and ask if their experiences could provide a lesson for today's youngsters. Or, is a new generation of African players doomed to risk penury? (Image: Stanley Tshabalala)
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16-Jan-2013
The Documentary - Pity The Poor Soccer Stars: 1. Pity The Poor Soccer Stars
Why do so many African football stars go from rags to riches - and back to rags again? In this two part series, the BBC sport correspondent Farayi Mungazi travels to Zambia, South Africa and Ghana to find out. Accompanying Farayi on his journey, we meet football coaches, administrators and journalists, as well as some of the fallen heroes themselves. Starting in Zambia, we hear from erstwhile defender Elijah Litana, a man so dear to the Saudi Arabian club he played for that he was flown around in a royal private jet. Elijah tells of the gambling and drinking that helped squander his fortune. Other impoverished former sportsmen describe being neglected by major foreign clubs, ripped off by managers, and lacking the financial insight to handle large earnings. This, however, is more than just a story about football itself; it goes to the heart of African society too. As Farayi discovers, one of the most significant factors in the downfall of rich, successful players can be the demands of their own extended families, while the widely observed culture of associating earning with adulthood can mean that impressionable young men find themselves beyond the wise counsel of their elders. (Image: A referee's hand holding up a red card, Credit: AFP)
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09-Jan-2013
The Documentary - Europe Moves East
Forty years ago, the EU was a small and loose association of nations on the western edge of the continent. Germany was still divided, with its capital in the sleepy town of Bonn near the Belgian border. France - with its long-standing commitment to the sovereignty of nation states - was the driving force of the European project. But the last decade has seen a profound and irreversible shift. Europe's centre of gravity has moved dramatically east. After reunification in 1990, a much more powerful Germany has emerged. The countries of the old Eastern bloc look to Berlin for leadership. Their experience of Soviet occupation and communist dictatorship has committed them to building a much stronger and more tightly integrated Europe, one that will help secure their young and still vulnerable democracies. "I want the European Union to become a superpower," the Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski tells the programme. This changing dynamic is the subtle, hidden undertow to the continuing tensions over the Euro. Power in Europe has shifted, from the old and familiar Paris-Bonn relationship to the new and much more dynamic Berlin-Warsaw. This is the new Europe. It is one in which France - once the unchallenged leading voice - is increasingly marginalised. (Image: An EU flag as seen through the branches of some trees, Credit: Getty Images)
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02-Jan-2013
The Documentary - The Hackers
Governments do it, companies do it, criminals do it. But in recent years some of the highest profile computer hacks have come from so-called hacktivist groups. Each week hackers target a new organisation or government website. Many of these hacker activists claim to belong to the amorphous group known as Anonymous or an off-shoot of it. Their aim? To wrest control of the internet from states and big corporations and give it back to the people. Or simply to have fun. The FBI, the Metropolitan police, the US Senate, Sony, PayPal and Visa have been some of the highest profile victims of the hackers. More often than not the attacks come in the form of DOS, or denial of service, attacks - effectively flooding websites with requests so that they crash. In some cases the hackers have managed to steal personal and financial records from the organisations and then post them online. Sometimes the reason given by the hackers for these attacks is as a response to official actions taken against Wikileaks or attempts by the authorities to close down certain websites, such as free music download sites. The FBI and police have had some success in tracking down some of the hackers - many of them just teenagers. In "The Hackers" Simon Cox delves into the strange world of hacktivism, as he tracks down some of these hackers and speaks to those trying to catch them. (Image: Hands on a keyboard, Credit: Getty Images)
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26-Dec-2012
The Documentary - Bollywood Breaking Barriers: Episode 2
As Bollywood reaches its centenary, Anita Rani is in Mumbai to see how filmmakers are dealing with India's diverging audiences.
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19-Dec-2012
The Documentary - Bollywood Breaking Barriers: 1. Bollywood Breaking Barriers
As Bollywood reaches its centenary, Anita Rani travels to the heart of Bollywood in Mumbai to see how filmmakers are dealing with India's diverging audiences and wildly different expectations. Speaking to the old guard of Bollywood filmmakers, as well as the bright young things daring to be different, Anita unravels the complexities of making films for a continent that includes a multitude of religions, languages and moral values. Will the cinema of the emerging middle classes make a global splash or will the typical Bollywood films that have traditionally been loved and cherished across India continue to reign supreme? Or can there be a market for both? In the UK, Anita meets the film lovers who are sustaining Bollywood ticket sales outside of India. She finds out what influence the Indian diaspora are having on the films coming out of Mumbai and how their tastes are dictating the sorts of films being made. Are they ready for a new type of Bollywood cinema, one that is more gritty, realistic and Western in its style? Or will Bollywood always have to represent the India they left, however mythical that image becomes? Anita also meets with Western film distributors desperate for a slice of the lucrative Bollywood pie and finds out whether Bollywood can work its magic in the West without losing what makes it so special in the first place. (Image: Bollywood film posters, Credit: AFP/Getty Images)
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09-Dec-2012
The Documentary - Anzac
The Anzacs fought at Gallipoli, died in their thousands and became a national legend. But is their time over? For 95 years, the 'Anzac Legend' has been at the heart of Australia's national identity. Through a government-sponsored programme of commemoration and education, Australians are taught that their identity was forged on the battlefields of Europe, the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey and in South-East Asia throughout the 20th Century. Today, more Australians than ever are making pilgrimages to visit relatives' graves and hundreds of thousands attend annual Anzac Day parades throughout the world, to remember the dead, connect with their past and understand what it means to be 'Australian'. (Image: The statue of an Anzac soldier on a plinth at the western end of the Anzac Bridge on April 25, 2009 in Sydney, Australia. Credit: Will Jones/Getty Images)
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05-Dec-2012
The Documentary - Decontaminating Halabja
In March 1988, Saddam Hussein unleashed the full cruelty of chemical weapons, attacking the rebellious Kurdish town of Halabja. It is estimated that the mustard gas and other chemicals killed at least 5000 civilians. They were hastily buried in mass graves, unidentified and unidentifiable, because of the continued risk of poisoning. There are still traces of mustard gas remaining in cellars in the town, making them inaccessible to this day. The BBC's foreign affairs editor John Simpson returns to Kurdistan nearly 25 years after this chemical attack on civilians. With the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, and his trial and execution in 2006, much has changed in this region of Iraq, but for many citizens of Halabja there remains a quest for justice. A British forensics company now believes it can help by identifying the precise chemicals used and the European companies suspected of supplying them. Now a British company is to start a four-year project to excavate Halabja, carrying out DNA tests on those who died in 1988 to identify the remains, find out exactly what killed them and to make the cellars safe. Their DNA tests may reveal whether indeed the precursor chemicals for the mustard gas used in 1988 was, as is believed, manufactured by a German company. Saddam Hussein's mustard gas was unique, with a particular binding chemical agent not used anywhere else. No proper tests have been carried out until now to identify the particular gas used in the attack. John reports on the science of the DNA and chemical/biological gas tests, investigates the role of Germany in providing the chemicals, and hears the heart-wrenching stories of survivors wanting to locate the bodies of their relatives, a quarter of a century on. (Image: Gravesstones, Credit: Getty Images)
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28-Nov-2012
The Documentary - Tehrangeles
The largest Iranian community outside Iran can be found in the heart of LA. What is that diaspora's story? Iranian stand-up comedian and actor Maz Jobrani begins his journey on Westwood Boulevard, a street lined with Iranian stores, restaurants, beauty salons, cafes and businesses, where everyone speaks Farsi and all the shop signs are in Persian. People such as bookshop owner Bijan Khalili tell the story of how and why the LA community became such a draw for hundreds of thousands of Iranians, which now comprise 22% of the population of 'Tehrangeles'. How, against the backdrop of 32 years of hostility between America and Iran since the 1979 US hostage crisis, have they succeeded in making their mark? (Image: A street sign that says 'Persian Square', Credit: Getty Images)
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21-Nov-2012
The Documentary - Poor Reporting
What does it take to get people in the rich world engaged in the issue of global poverty? How can you avoid cliché, sentimentality and callousness? What stops people turning off? Nick Fraser, editor of the BBC’s TV documentary series Storyville, reflects on the difficulties of selling a series on poverty. Fraser goes to New York to meet an extreme example of his audience, circulating among some of the wealthiest people on the planet, as they meet to discuss the war on want and attempt to address the world’s ills. Is poverty something the global rich care about or will watching a tear-jerking documentary simply salve their conscience as they plan their next holiday? And what part should the media play: reporting on things as they are or campaigning for how they should be? (Image: A woman with a baby on her back and a child to her side, Credit: Getty Images)
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14-Nov-2012
The Documentary - Influence By Degree: Episode 2
Rob Broomby visits the UK where public-funded universities are entering the world of raising money and examines the pitfalls they are experiencing. (Image: A mortarboard on the floor, students' feet, Credit: Getty Images)
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07-Nov-2012
The Documentary - Influence By Degree: Episode 1
Is academic freedom at risk? Is academic integrity under threat? Across the developed world, government funding for universities is drying up. That means universities are having to seek finance elsewhere. One such model can be found in the US. American universities have been raising money from their alumni for years. Princeton University is the master at this. With only 7500 students, it has a staggering endowment of over $17 billion and well over half of Princeton's alumni donate to their old college. Rob Broomby has been to Princeton to talk to alumni and to observe how freshmen (first year undergraduates) are absorbed into the Princeton culture, and hears concerns about how donations are changing academic priorities. (Image: Mortarboards are thrown in the air, Credit: Getty Images)
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04-Nov-2012
The Documentary - Is America Working?
BBC World Have Your Say's Ros Atkins travels across the USA to find out if America is working.
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31-Oct-2012
The Documentary - History Lessons For China's New Leaders: Episode 2
The peasant rebel who topples a dynasty is a familiar theme in Chinese history. During the cultural revolution, the Communists decided that the past was getting in the way of the future and Chairman Mao adopted the imperial model of absolutism and the use of force. Why did people allow such persecution? Carrie Gracie explores some of the most important stories from Chinese history. What do these tales say about China today? (Image: The silouette of a man waving a yellow flag with a red star, Credit: AFP/Getty Images)
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28-Oct-2012
The Documentary - The Left To Die Boat
In March last year, 72 African migrants were forced onto an inflatable boat by Libyan soldiers in Tripoli. They were desperate to escape the fighting in Libya and hoping for a new life in Europe. Their boat headed for the small Italian island of Lampedusa, only 18 hours away across the Mediterranean. There was a Nato naval blockade of Libya at the time and the area was full of military ships and aircraft. Yet, despite a number of sightings, the boat was never rescued. Fifteen days later it washed up back on Libya's coast with only 11 survivors on board – two more died soon after. In this documentary the survivors tell their story to producer Sharon Davis and she investigates how it was that these people were left to die in a boat in one of the most heavily-monitored seas on earth.
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28-Oct-2012
The Documentary - History Lessons For China's New Leaders: Episode 1
The series History Lessons for China's New Leaders recalls some of the most important stories from Chinese history. In part 1 on the eve of the 18th Communist Party Congress, Carrie Gracie looks at lessons from history for China’s new leaders. (Image: Strings of the Chinese national flag, Credit: Getty Images)
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