Synopsis
Insight, wit and analysis as BBC correspondents, journalists and writers take a closer look at the stories behind the headlines. Presented by Kate Adie and Pascale Harter.
Episodes
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22 Oct 2011
22/10/2011 Duration: 28minGabriel Gatehouse describes the scenes at that infamous sewer pipe, where Colonel Gaddafi was found. Kevin Connolly wonders if Gaddafi will be the last of the "grotesque, blood-stained buffoon dictators." Peter Day is in Argentina, which famously defaulted on its massive foreign debts but now appears to be flourishing - could this be a lesson for Greece? Jamie Coomarasamy visits the campaign headquarters of Marine Le Pen, the head of France's far-right Front National; and Jon Silverman is with Africa's real Number One detectives, in Botswana.
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20 Oct 2011
20/10/2011 Duration: 28minKate Adie introduces reports from around the world. Today Jonathan Head ask what keeps the fighters in Libya going, risking their lives, when perhaps they don't really have to? Sue Lloyd Roberts experiences life trapped in your own flat, with young children, in the middle of the Syrian revolution. The Arab Spring began with Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution, in January. Now they are preparing to vote and Celeste Hicks hears of the disappointments and hopes of young people, and the confusion as people grapple with the trappings of democracy. And Jonathan Barker tells us how the Asian Tsunami has had benefits for the Orang-utans of Sumatra - but watch out for your fingers!
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15 Oct 2011
15/10/2011 Duration: 28minIs the name of Bahrain being dragged into the mire by a string of alleged human rights abuses? Frank Gardner gives his assessment after meeting the King and the Prime Minister - and joining the riot police on patrol. Yolande Knell in Cairo says that with every month that has passed since President Mubarak was overthrown, public frustration has mounted. Katya Adler's investigating the scandal in Spain of the so-called 'ninos robados' or stolen children - sold off to 'more deserving' parents. A long way from Abidjan and a long way from Monrovia: John James is in that part of Ivory Coast close to Liberia and sometimes referred to as the 'Wild West.' It's a part of the country which was hard hit during the struggle, earlier this year, for the country's presidency. And Andrew Harding talks to Zargana, his friend the Burmese comedian, who's just been released from a 59-year prison sentence. Jeeves and Wooster, Andrew hears, were a great comfort in his cell.
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13 Oct, 2011
13/10/2011 Duration: 28min'I'll Not Do It Again!' That's the verdict of some foreign businessmen, out of pocket after getting involved in the Indian market. Mark Dummett in Delhi examines whether this is really a difficult country in which to do business. Embarrassment for the French state: Chris Bockman on how it's having to pick up the hotel bills of radicals who were once convicted of trying to blow up the Eiffel Tower. Tamasin Ford visits the centre of the diamond trade in Sierra Leone while Michael Bristow meets the members of one of Shanghai's neighbourhood committees - the front line of Chinese government. And with two weeks to go until the Irish go to the polls, Kieran Cooke recalls early encounters with Martin McGuinness, the former IRA man who now wants to be Ireland's next president.
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08 Oct 2011
08/10/2011 Duration: 28minWhy two crumpled pieces of paper are among the most precious reminders Lyse Doucet has of her reporting trip to beleaguered Syria; Nick Danziger's been back to Kabul and wondered why the voices of Afghan women are too often ignored; Steve Evans in Berlin reflects on the row surrounding the return of twenty skulls to Namibia; building a new nation is never easy, but now Rosie Goldsmith tells us that South Sudan faces an additional challenge as it tries to introduce English as the official language; and Hugh Schofield in Paris on how new technology has breathed fresh life into the ghosts of Montparnasse cemetery.
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Oct 6, 2011
06/10/2011 Duration: 27minA time of shifting and unexpected new relationships in Libya is explored by Allan Little. He's been meeting the Islamists, determined not only to be a part of the post-Gaddafi government but also to forge a new working relationship with the West; Chris Morris talks of the crisis in the Eurozone after visiting Greece, the Netherlands and five other European countries; it's fifty years since the people of Tristan da Cunha were evacuated as a volcano erupted on their island in the South Atlantic -- today, Chris Carneghy says their lifestyle's being challenged by developments in the modern technological world; Dany Mitzman talks of an anti-Mafia television station in Sicily which is under threat from new Italian legislation while Rajesh Mirchandani chews over the complications of South Africa's diverse history.
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Oct 1, 2011
01/10/2011 Duration: 28minAn 18-hour train ride to the end of the line brings you to the very edge of Norway. Inside the Arctic Circle. But why is it that this place has such firm connections with Italy. Christine Finn has the answer. Justin Webb examines a Japanese conundrum: the country benefits from its cultural insularity and yet, if it doesn't open up to outsiders, it faces economic decline. Mark Lowen, charting the mood in Athens as international investigators assess the creditworthiness of Greece, talks of clouds of tear gas and despair closing over a troubled country. In the Pakistani city of Karachi, the American consulate moved to a new location. Mohammed Hanif says it has meant the reopening of an historic park and armed guards being replaced by youngsters playing cricket. And you used to have to go America's Great Plains for a glimpse of the mighty bison. Not any more. Rob Cameron tells us why it can now be seen wandering around a place that used to be a training ground for the Russian Red Army.
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29 Sept, 2011
29/09/2011 Duration: 28minThey came from all over: serious men from Seville and Madrid with their fine suits and Havana cigars to see the last bullfight in the historic stadium in Barcelona. Robert Elms was also there to witness the final show. Attempts to clamp down on the highly lucrative trade in mineral smuggling in eastern Congo have not proved successful, as Conor Woodman has been finding out. North Korea might not seem to be a country with the latest in communications technology but, as Lucy Williamson tells us, the leadership there are finding ways of making it work for them. Paul Adams goes to a country music show in the US and hears how the genre has embraced the anger of a generation poleaxed by economic hardship. And Trish Flanagan joins tens of thousands who arrived in a remote corner of the Republic of Ireland to watch a game of golf.
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24 September 2011
24/09/2011 Duration: 28minKate Adie shares stories behind the headlines with correspondents around the world. David Loyn is at the funeral of Burhanuddin Rabbani reflecting on the return to prominence of Afghanistan's warlords. Tim Mansel looks at the intimate relationship between football and politics in Turkey. Roland Buerk explains why the residents of Tokyo are cancelling the leases on their high rise apartments. Damien McGuiness is in the disputed territory of Abkhazia and Andrew Harding has the opportunity to check out a Libyan hospital .... as a patient.
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22 Sept 11
22/09/2011 Duration: 27minKatie Adie presents more despatches from foreign correspondents. As forces try to oust Gaddafi loyalists holding out in his home town of Sirte, our correspondent Alastair Leithead ponders the dilemmas of keeping the story in the news. In Pakistan, the monsoon season has left thousands homeless once again; Aleem Maqbool travels through Sindh, one of the worst-affected provinces, and find people feeling abandoned by their government and the world. We get up close and personal as Robin Irvine takes part in a wrestling match on the grasslands of Eastern Mongolia. In Beirut, appearances are everything, even when giving birth, as Georgia Paterson Dargham finds out. And in New England, Julian May discovers why lobster fishing is apparently helping to increase the crustacean's numbers.
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Sept 17, 2011
17/09/2011 Duration: 28minReprisals and revenge in a desert oasis as the battles continue against the final Gaddafi loyalists -- Justin Marozzi's been learning of the tensions in a small community in the far south of Libya. Katy Watson in Doha on how the Gulf state of Qatar was one of the first countries to declare its support for the Libyan rebels and how it is now reaping the benefits. Jonathan Head, who accompanied Turkish premier Erdogan on part of his North African tour, contends that a Turkish leader, elevated to the status of an Arab champion, is extraordinary. Claudia Hammond is in Costa Rica: tle elderly there reach a greater age than in any other nation in the Americas but the burden, she tells us, hangs heavily on the country's healthcare system. And Daniel Schweimler took some long bus trips and walked a great distance to visit a remote part of Argentina which is almost untouched by the modern world.
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Sept 15, 2011
15/09/2011 Duration: 27minHow did the lifeboat of the North Atlantic, as it's called, manage to cope with thousands of unexpected air passengers? Jo Fidgen is in Gander, Newfoundland, with a story of 9.11 kindness. In Sudan, there are fears of a new offensive by government troops once the rains have stopped -- Julie Flint's in the Nuba mountains in the south. Nick Thorpe's at a monastery overlooking the River Danube in Romania. There they've been celebrating a holy day when people come to have their ailments washed away by holy water. Thomas Dinham tells of a febrile atmosphere in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, in the days after a mob laid seige to the Israeli embassy there. And in the week when the president of the European Commission spoke of a fight for our political and economic future, Paul Henley argues that increasingly Europe is becoming a continent of extremes.
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Sept 10, 2011
10/09/2011 Duration: 28minWhatever happened to his notebooks? Jeremy Bowen, charting the demise of the Gaddafi regime in Libya, wonders why his precious notebooks keep going missing. Mishal Husain travels though five countries finding out about the role Twitter and Facebook have played in the Arab Spring. Thousands of Zimbabwean children have been making a long, risky and illegal journey south in search of a place in a South African schoolroom; Mukul Devichand's been metting some of them. Lesley Curwen's been to the US to find out how families are getting by during the economic downturn. And in Ireland, Fergal Keane sees signs of hope and optimism after the worst banking crisis and recession in the country's history.
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Sept 3, 2011
03/09/2011 Duration: 28minThe day after history was made in Libya Kevin Connolly was out shopping -- and tells a story of a capital city trying to return to normal. Few parts of the United States have escaped the economic downturn -- as Jonny Dymond's been finding out on a Main Street in North Carolina; Fiona Lloyd-Davies has been meeting a woman in the Democratic Republic of Congo who's been helping thousands of victims of rape. Summer may have been something of a damp squib in the UK but Huw Cordey's been to Death Valley in California where it's been scorchingly hot. And back to Tripoli in Libya where Andrew Hosken's been learning about the dangers of what they're calling 'celebratory gunfire.' What goes up, he's told, must always come down!
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July 27, 2011
27/08/2011 Duration: 28minThe Arab-Israeli conflict seems to have been sidelined in this year of revolutions. But our Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen tells us that it hasn't gone away, and the signs are not good. It was 37-degrees at the Italian air base where Jonathan Marcus has been to meet some of the pilots flying NATO missions over Libya -- but not too hot for them all to tuck into a full English breakfast while Jonathan inquired: how much have the pilots contributed to the rebels' success in and around Tripoli? They've been celebrating twenty years of independence in Estonia and, not surprisingly, we find they've been doing it in song. Kieran Cooke's been to Shangri-La. This town in western China is supposed to be as close as you can get to an earthly paradise, but Kieran's not entirely convinced. And call him a hypochondriac but our man in the Hollywood hills, David Willis, is more than a little scared when he opens up an email telling him if he's likely to get Parkinson's or Alzheimer's.
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BBC Radio 4
20/08/2011 Duration: 28min'Politics at its most brutal, its most basic, democracy as a demolition derby.' That's Mark Mardell's view as he contemplates months of Republican infighting ahead of next year's US presidential election. The Moscow coup of twenty years ago: Bridget Kendall, who was there during that eventful August back in 1991, says it could so easily have succeeded. The smiles seem to have faded somewhat in newly-independent South Sudan but Robin Denselow, just back from the capital Juba, says they still revere their cattle. David Hargreaves has been attending a spectacular riverside religious festival in central India and Karishma Vaswani's had to call in the Indonesian witch doctor after strange goings-on at her house in Djakarta.
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BBC Radio 4
13/08/2011 Duration: 27minAleem Maqbool reports on Karachi, where inter-ethnic violence between Urdu speakers and Pashtuns has killed hundreds in the last few months; as Sonia Gandhi receives medical treatment in the US, Mark Tully explores her enduring political power in India, despite the fact that she holds no government office; Orla Guerin is in Misrata, in Libya, where rockets still threaten civilians and little appears to have changed for the better; Sudan is now officially divided into two and Sudanese pride, especially in the north, has taken a battering - James Copnall describes how national hopes lay with a horse called Diktator at the Sudanese Derby; and despite their economic woes, Jake Wallis Simons sees how the Portuguese still found a way to celebrate, with trays full of bread.
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BBC Radio 4 August 6th 2011
06/08/2011 Duration: 28minMexico's drug wars are notoriously violent and the killings have spread to neighbouring Guatemala. Linda Pressly has been to the scene of a gruesome massacre in northern Guatemala. The "indignados" in Spain began their protests in May, angry at the banks and at the way the government has responded to the economic crisis with spending cutbacks, privatisations and redundancies. Sarah Rainsford recently joined some of the young indignants on the road. Colombia's "Red Zone" is traditionally a no-go area for medics and journalists. But Imogen Foulkes has travelled upriver in this area - long fought over by drug cartels, FARC rebels and the Colombian military. Government cutbacks across Europe, particularly spending cuts for social programmes, are sometimes hitting the most vulnerable hardest. Emma Jane Kirby has been spending time with those who have fallen onto hard times in Paris. Why is it that Poles love to dress up as knights at the weekend? Adam Easton has been finding out.
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July 30th 2011
30/07/2011 Duration: 27minToday: Peter Svaar finds out that the man behind the killings in Norway was his class mate and friend. Charles Haviland visits northern Sri Lanka to see if life is returning to normal there. Justin Rowlatt examines if Iceland, which refused to pay off its debts, offers a solution to Europe's economic woes? Christine Finn gets a peek into the secretive world of bobbins, skeins and "metiers" with the lace makers of France. And we hear from Oliver Bullough why Russian officials, not known for their smiles, are now beaming at babies.
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July 23, 2011
23/07/2011 Duration: 28minWill Thursday's eurozone agreement be enough to save the European single currency and the union of European nations? Chris Morris in Brussels considers the deal designed to prevent the debt crisis from spreading. Michael Buchanan was in Helmand province Afghanistan as the city of Lashkar Gah was returned to Afghan control. For the westerners leaving, he says, their job was far from done. Some Ethiopian girls are getting married at the age of five and Claudia Hammond has been finding out about the efforts being made to stamp out the practice of child marriage. Ever wondered what sound a post-coital baboon makes? Wonder no longer. Jake Wallis Simons imitates it as part his extraordinary story about the Australian much more at home in the real jungle than its urban equivalent. And Berlin's a city noted for its counterculture, its anti-establishment stance. Steve Evans is there exploring its more gentle side.