The Documentary Podcast: Archive 2013: Recent Episodes
BBC World Service
Graphene is a super-strong and super-conductive material. Gerry Northam looks at its move from the laboratory to the commercial world.
The US Federal Reserve, America's central bank, is one hundred years old. Simon Jack tells its surprising story.
Brazil's anti-slavery hit-squads are unique. Linda Pressly joins a raid with a committed band of labour inspectors on an alleged slave labour operation in deepest rural Brazil.
Childcare options in Fiji, where children are taken care of by the community, and China where infants as young as three might live away from their parents in boarding kindergartens. Madeleine Morris reports.
The emerging Jihadi challenge across the Sahara and Sahel regions of Africa. Are there links between various Islamist groups?
Farhana Haider investigates the prosecution of alleged war criminals from the conflict of 1971 and asks if the trials are being used to target the opposition.
The story of Kampala Music School told by its pupils and teachers. Kampala Music School began life in 2001 in the basement of the YMCA but is now the international centre of musical excellence in Uganda.
When a group of young Texan women found naked pictures of themselves online, they wanted justice, but their critics accused them of trampling on freedom of speech.
Forty years after the premiere of Jamaican cult film The Harder They Come, Chris Salewicz asks whether a whole generation of musicians were directly inspired to live a life of crime by the film.
Mandela's 1962 pan-African journey to explain the mission of the ANC and seek political support, money and military training. What impact did these travels in free Africa have on Mandela the man - and Mandela the politician?
Nelson Mandela on the struggle against apartheid, with words from those who fought with - and against - him. One of the most comprehensive oral histories of apartheid in South Africa ever broadcast.
A look back at the life of Nelson Mandela by the BBC's former South Africa correspondent, Allan Little.
One year on from the horrific attack on a student in Delhi, Joanna Jolly hears from three women who've chosen to report a rape in a country that is just waking up to the problem.
The cult classic Jamaican crime film The Harder They Come, its reggae soundtrack - and its legacy. Meet the people who made it and starred in it: Jimmy Cliff, Chappy St Juste and Carl Bradshaw.
Pope Francis is being acclaimed for his leadership of the Roman Catholic Church - but why did his predecessor suddenly resign? Mark Dowd travels to Rome to investigate.
Be it in Lagos, Minneapolis or Rio de Janeiro, how have shopping malls become such a permanent fixture in modern cities?
Vladimir Hernandez meets the Mexican Catholic priests who believe the country's drug wars mean it's in the grip of the devil - and who are fighting it through exorcism.
How decisions noted by Ebenezer Morley in 1863 allowed football to become the most successful of international sports.
Tiny Moldova is the world's 7th biggest wine exporter so a ban on exports to Russia has hit hard. Tessa Dunlops asks if Russian politics will crush this thriving industry.
Are military metaphors such as 'battling' always appropriate when it comes to dealing with cancer? Andrew Graystone explores the language used to describe cancer.
People with a perspective on the assassination and death of John F Kennedy in Dallas: former secret service agent Clint Hill, witness Gayle Newman, former journalist Hugh Aynesworth, doctor Kenneth Salyer and retired dective James Leavelle.
With rare access to the government's rehabilitation programme Tom Esslemont meets children as they attempt to find their way to back to their families and society.
Jamaica's gay rights and anti-homosexuality movements: what it is like to be a gay person in Jamaica from day-to-day.
Can Indonesia create the world's largest public health system? Claire Bolderson investigates.
Madeleine Morris explores alternative childcare with a visit a boarding school where children as young as two are educated away from their parents.
Melilla is one of Europe’s most southerly land borders with Africa, a town under intense pressure from migration, Linda Pressly investigates.
Childcare - its costs and its developmental implications - has become one of the most vexed issues for new parents in the developed world. Madeleine Morris looks around the world at alternative approaches to childcare. In the first programme, she visits Fiji.
The inside story of the world’s most successful gang of jewel thieves, nicknamed The Pink Panthers.
Neal Razzell spends days and nights in Lagos with the electricity teams who are working to literally bring power to the people.
Emma Barnett examines which countries in the world do allow women to serve, and contrasts the experiences of three women to present a picture of life for women on the military front line.
The toils and tribulations of Polly Apio a smallholder in rural Uganda, where men own the land, but women toil in the fields to provide the food to feed their families.
James Fletcher travels to Alice Springs in Australia to hear first-hand how alcohol is affecting the Aboriginal community there.
As the global population ages, is it time for a re-think about how we view elderly people? Listen to four very different stories of growing older and how the world cares about ageing.
"Anything that can happen on earth, at some point happens in the sky." Air hostess Betty Thesky shares the weird, wonderful, and wacky things that happen on a plane at 35,000 feet.
Cancer-fighting BBC foreign correspondent Helen Fawkes shares her list of things she wants to do before she dies... a bucket list, or as she likes to call it, a list for living.
The dramatic, disturbing and inspiring story of Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head for campaigning for the right of all girls to an education. She talks about her life in her own words, in an exclusive interview with Mishal Husain.
More than a thousand garment workers died and several thousand were injured in the collapse of the 8 storey factory in Dhaka. Jane Deith reports on whether anything has changed.
The BBC's North America Editor, Mark Mardell, travels to China to explore the most important geopolitical relationship in the world today, between China and America.
Lucy Ash looks at the conflicts within Iraq between 2005 and 2012, told from the point of view of senior decision-makers.
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.
The BBC’s Anne Soy reflects on what these last few days will mean for the future of her city, Nairobi.
Ed Butler follows consumer’s quest for goods, the phenomenon of widespread smuggling, and asks whether the government has a plan to tackle the sense of looming economic crisis.
Lucy Ash looks at the mistakes made early in the occupation of Iraq during the period 2003 to 2004 in this documentary about the invasion of Iraq and the ensuing decade of conflict, from the point of view of senior decision-makers.
The Red Cross turns 150 this year, but is their humanitarian role still relevant? Michael Ignatieff investigates.
Linda Pressly investigates the threat from mercury poisoning to the health of Indonesian gold miners.
The inside story of the invasion of Iraq and the ensuring decade of conflict, told from the point of view of the senior decision-makers involved at the time. In this first part: the decision to go to war and the conflict until 2003.
As Burma (also known as Myanmar), opens up, 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. But will those who make their voices heard be safe?
Lucy Ash reports on China’s gender imbalance which by 2020 will leave 24 million bachelors looking for love.
Turkish businessmen have been rapidly rebuilding their links with the Balkan states – and some see this as a first step towards rebuilding of bridges with Western Europe. What is Turkey's relationship with Europe?
The history of tension between the US President and Congress over taking military action. President Obama seems to be setting a precedent by asking Congress to debate and vote in advance of action in Syria. How will this action be judged against 200 years of America deciding between peace and war?
James Fletcher travels to Mackay in Queensland’s coal country to hear one town’s tales from the boom and see how it’s dealing with the current bust.
Turkey's new relationships with its traditional allies - the Balkans, North Africa and the Middle East: the former lands of the Ottoman Empire. Presented by Allan Little.
Shaimaa Khalil looks at the Arab Spring through the eyes of prominent writers Egypt's Sara Khorshid, Libyan author Ghazi Gheblawi, Tunisia's Samar Samir Mezghanni, Farea Al-Muslimi from Yemen and Syrian author Samar Yazbek.
Mobeen Azhar investigates life in gay, urban Pakistan and finds out what it's really like to be gay in Pakistan.
Allan Little charts the politcal changes in Turkey from the birth of the republic and the secularism of Kemal Ataturk, to the mass demonstrations in Istanbul and other Turkish cities were born of the frustration of an educated middle class.
Emre Azizlerli explores the strange new alliances forged in Turkey's anti-government protests, and asks if this diverse movement can hold together.
The Soviet Gulag system is said to live on in Kazakhstan's jails, the prison population are thought be facing’ daily torture and humiliation. Rayhan Demeytrie investigates.
America's Food for Peace programme ships American-grown food in sacks across the world to feed the world's starving people. It is proposed that this inefficient system changes and money is sent to buy food locally. David Loyn reports.
In many Middle East countries being gay can lead to the death penalty. So why is Tel Aviv investing so much in promoting the city as a place that accepts and welcomes gay men and women? 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.
Hilary Andersson investigates what really lay behind the Boston marathon bombings and asks whether tough new strategies to prevent future terrorist attacks are likely to work.
Dr Geoff Bunn investigates the latest lie-detecting technology. He discovers that the early history of the lie detector features psychologist William Marston, creator of the comic book character Wonder Woman, and an amateur magician, Leonarde Keeler, who was an inspiration for the comic strip hero, Dick Tracy
Miracle Village is home to over a hundred sex offenders. But do Florida’s strict residency rules make the population safer, and prevent re-offending?
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 there still the will to make it to Rio 2016? Have the athletes helped dispel Ghanaians' negative attitude towards disability?
Sisters Lata and Asha have forged Bollywood singing careers spanning more than six decades and are known as the 'Nightingales of India'.
In September 2011, Judith and David Tebbutt set off to Kenya on holiday. They were kidnapped by armed pirates. Judith was separated from her husband and taken to Somalia. Held hostage for more than six months in harsh and humiliating conditions, for a large ransom, responsibility for securing her release rested with her son, Ollie. In this rare interview she explains how hope helped her endure the horrific ordeal.
In Spain a doctor offers reconstructive surgery to women who have had female genital mutilation. Linda Pressly hears the stories of Rosa and Wenkune. Will the operation work?
The Threat from Cyberspace: The alarming extent to which cyberspace is being used to steal, to spy and to wage war. With BBC Security Correspondent Gordon Corera.
Tatyana McFadden is one of the most successful wheelchair racers in Paralympic history - but it's her victories off the track that have defined her.
Meet the Kenyan prisoners acting as lawyers on behalf of themselves and fellow inmates. 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.
Zeinab Badawi talks to doctors and patients who struggle to cope as hospitals in Greece are hit by cuts and are running out of basic medical supplies.
Meet the Somali community whose families first settled in Cardiff's Butetown in 1890, as seafarers and dock workers. More recent arrivals tell their stories, too.
Tim Mansel reports from Stockholm in the wake of riots that started in the suburbs there and spread across Sweden.
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; but what wider lessons can we learn from the digital evolution of newspapers, radio and television?
Authorities knew there were big problems at Dr Kermit Gosnell’s west Philadelphia clinic. Why did it take them so long to act?
Why are new forms of video production and delivery such as You Tube's recently launched "channels" so appealing? Mark Coles reports.
The northern French town of Amiens has two tyre factories with very different fates, but while one is slated for closure, the other has a bright future.
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.
Rob Walker investigates a mysterious death in London’s suburbia. Its the story of one’s man desperate search for a better life. A story that spans two continents and 8 countries.
In this intimate, revealing programme, Lina Sinjab combines dramatic scenes and interview material with a personal audio diary as she reports on the Syrian conflict.
The rise - and legacy - of outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. How did this provincial politician with a PhD in traffic management came to take on Iran's ruling clerics?
Heroes and villains in Azerbaijan and what they tell us about national identity there. Damien McGuinness reports from the former Soviet republic.
Egypt’s youth were at the forefront of the revolutionary protests in Tahrir Square in 2011. Two years on has revolution made their lives better and how do they see the future?
While the low tax bills of Google, Starbucks and Amazon trigger political uproar, Michael Robinson shows how aggressive tax-avoidance helps power the spread of global companies.
Many of America’s mass killers have had mental health problems yet America is a country where millions who are mentally ill go without treatment and have easy access to guns.
Shaimaa accompanies a young revolutionary back to his home town to see whether the revolution is likely to change anything so far from Cairo.
Tim Franks meets Romario - Brazil's World Cup-winning footballer, turned serious politician. Is this a genuine transformation for one of the country's notorious celebrity bad-boys?
Can Egypt’s police force rebuild its reputation and will the army stay out of politics? Shaimaa Khalil get special access to Egypt’s Police Academy and speaks to those close to the army.
Rob Walker returns to the port of Takoradi, the hub for Ghana’s new oil industry, to find out what difference oil has made to its residents.
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?
Mobeen Azhar investigates violence against Pakistan’s Hazara minority in the city of Quetta.
Shaimaa Khalil listens to the new voices of the Egyptian revolution. Under President Mubarak the media was restricted – all that’s changed but it’s presenting new challenges.
Few dare to speak out in Belarus but the opposition has found a way of making it’s voice heard in neighbouring Lithuania.
As Egypt struggles with its new democracy, Shaimaa Khalil examines the dramatic challenges facing post revolutionary Egypt.
Top chief executives - including Lenovo's Chairman Liu Chuanzhi and Sir Martin Sorrell of WPP - talk about their values, their dreams and how they hope to lead their companies to success in the 21st century.
In many parts of Mexico, insecurity has become the principle preoccupation for most people. Linda Pressly meets the self-defence groups who are taking the law into their own hands.
Ukraine is second only to Russia in having the highest infection rates in Europe. Lucy Ash travels to Kyiv and Odessa to see why fighting HIV is so difficult in Ukraine.
Sarfraz Manzoor tells the story of the African American cowboys. How did they get airbrushed out of movies and history books?
Simon Cox finds out from employees and executives at the now defunct Laiki Bank how billions handed out in bad loans created a financial time-bomb.
Penny Dale travels to Tanzania to explore the state of science and technology in one of Africa's poorest countries – through the eyes of its female scientists.
Informants play a key role in the US justice system. But there are few regulations about how ‘snitches’ are used. Assignment investigates the growing calls to reform the system.
The music of refugee camps of the Saharawi people in Algeria and their efforts to bring their forgotten plight to international attention with a new studio in the desert.
As the number of cars on the road increases, how can they be developed to prevent global gridlock and increased pollution? Theo Leggett investigates.
How an internet dance craze has become a sometimes violent battleground between conservatives and liberals in Tunisia. Neal Razzell reporting.
Will a sophisticated revolution in online teaching - from the best universities on the planet - meet the shortage of higher education across the world?
People with ideas flock to Silicon Valley, where innovation and invention are celebrated and investors are willing to take a chance on the next big thing.
The families of those who disappeared during Nepal’s civil war demand answers and justice. But, as Joanna Jolly reports politicians from both sides prefer to bury the past.
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?
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. 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.
As the future world faces huge changes in everything from family size to opportunities for women and length of life, how far are individuals in control? Shakespearean drama meets surprising statistics as Chris Bowlby investigates.
Dee Dee Myers, former White House Press Secretary to Bill Clinton, looks at the US State Department – it's had three female heads in the last 15 years – how has that changed the culture of the organisation?
Every year thousands of young men and women make the treacherous journey from Eritrea to Egypt via Sudan. Many fall victim to unscrupulous people traffickers. Mike Thomson reports.
How have Iraqis' lives changed in the 10 years since an invasion toppled Saddam Hussein? Hugh Sykes investigates.
The story of a photograph, a mother who died young and the desire to honour those we’ve loved and lost.
Neil Trevithick and Kirsti Melville journey across Western Australia to a pristine promontary called James Price Point, 60km north of the small resort town of Broome, to hear how the indigenous population is at odds with the huge industrial destructive non-replenishing nature of mining.
A separatist group on Kenya’s coast is calling on voters there to boycott the upcoming elections. How credible a threat will they pose to the next Kenyan government?
How Hurricane Sandy prompted New York and other coastal cities to face the reality of rising sea levels.
February marks the centenary of the birth of Rosa Parks, whose refusal to give up her seat to a white man on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, is celebrated as the birth of the civil rights movement in the USA. Max Easterman offers a unique portrait of the woman who inspired Martin Luther King and civil rights activism across the world.
The family may be central to Italian business life, but many economists believe that Nepotism is also holding the country back
How does it feel to be part of ending someone's life? Liz Carr talks to the doctors and volunteers who conduct assisted suicide and enable people to die.
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? Liz Carr visits Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg to find out.
How do men treat women when they are out for a night? Five young women compare experiences in Kampala, Ottawa, Rio, Ramallah and Melbourne.
What kind of Pope does the Catholic Church need? A conservative or a reformer? Dan Damon joins Vatican experts and religious leaders to examine the future of the papacy.
Nine short stories from around the world, looking at who we fall in love with, the way we do it now, and how it's changing.
Tom Esslemont investigates why assassinations are happening in Corsica and why so few of them have been solved.
Drowning is the cause of a quarter of a million child fatalities every year. Mark Whitaker reports from Bangladesh and Vietnam.
Kim Ghattas analyses Hillary Clinton’s record as America’s chief diplomat and conducts an in-depth interview about her past, present and future.
Jill McGivering investigates health clinics in rural India where thousands of unregulated private clinics are accused of performing unnecessary hysterectomies.
A mobile health clinic called Phelophepa (meaning good, clean health) is a permanently staffed train that brings healthcare to remote rural regions of South Africa.
Could test tube or laboratory-reared chicken ever replace meat from birds? And how to vaccinate a chick before it hatches.
Why are so many children from Europe’s biggest ethnic minority – the Roma – being taken into local authority care in Britain? Simon Cox travels to the north of England to find out
Meet the people learning English from scratch in the UK. Many of them are immigrants or refugees from countries who arrive with little English and quickly have to adapt.
Chicken farming dates back 10,000 years and produces 50 billion chickens to eat each year. Susie Emmett meets the people behind the global poultry business.
A little over a year after Gaddafi's death, writer and journalist, Justin Marozzi, asks if this fractured country can come together again.
Could better financial education be the key to providing for African footballers in their retirement?
Amy Cordell's family still cleaves to the ancient traditions of her Bukharian grandparents who were once part of a 95,000-strong community of Jews, living in Uzbekistan.
Rustam Qobil travels to remote border villages in Tajikistan to find out how communities are being affected by the drugs trade from Afghanistan.
Why do so many African football stars go from rags to riches - and back to rags again? Farayi Mungazi is in Africa to find out.
Oyneg Shabbat was the contemporaneous and clandestine project to record the history, life and death of the Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw during World War II.
A guide to Burma’s extraordinary year. What are the challenges for 2013? James Menedez and Soe Win Than presents Changing Burma.
Is it true that Americans hate paying tax? Owen Bennett-Jones explores the reasons why there appears to be such widespread and fierce resistance to taxation.
Natalia Antelava investigates the trafficking of girls within India for sale into marriage or prostitution. Listeners may find some parts of this programme disturbing.
Since 1989, the EU's centre of gravity has shifted from Western Europe - in particular France and Germany - eastwards to former Eastern bloc countries such as Poland. Why?
In Japan the majority of crimes are solved by the use of confessions. But there’s growing concern that too many of these confessions are forced and unsound. Mariko Oi investigates. Nina Robinson producing.
Governments, companies and criminals do it. But in recent years some of the highest profile computer hacks have come from hacktivist groups. Who are they and what motivates them?