Tim Judah travels to Senegal to report on the Mourides, an increasingly powerful Senegalese Muslim movement that stresses the importance of hard work Many of the African street sellers in cities like Paris or Rome, and on Mediterranean beaches, are in fact Mourides. Far from being chancers who washed up on Europe's shores and now barely scrape a living from selling fake designer handbags or miniature Eiffel towers, they are part of a very organised and supportive brotherhood that now wields grea...
Aug 04, 2011•28 min
Lucy Williamson reports from Seoul on the dangerous trade of the people brokers, smuggling desperate people out of North Korea to the safety of the South. She investigates the way the South Korean government tries to integrate refugees from the North into their own modern, open society - and the challenges this creates for people who have only known poverty and extreme political repression.
Jul 28, 2011•28 min
Crossing Continents joins a British doctor volunteering to help women and children stranded in Tunisian refugee camps while the men fight Gaddafi's forces in the mountains south of Tripoli. Producer: Bill Law.
Jul 21, 2011•28 min
The BBC's Kim Ghattas has gained exclusive, behind the scenes access to the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during one of her recent overseas visits. Code named "Special Air Mission 883", the trip took eight days, covered thirty thousand miles and touched down in four countries in the Middle East and Africa. Kim joins what is affectionately known as "the bubble", the travelling band of diplomatic staffers, special security detail, international press and handlers that accompany the Secre...
Jul 14, 2011•28 min
Early-onset Alzheimer's has stalked a poor extended family in Medellin, Colombia. The family carries a dominant gene that means that half are at risk. The disease strikes family members as young as 25 and by their 40s sufferers are in the grip of full-blown dementia. Alzheimer's is by and large a disease of the developed world, if for no other reason than that people in the developing world don't live long enough to suffer from it. Now by using the Colombian family to trial new drugs, researcher...
May 19, 2011•28 min
Following the discovery that Osama Bin Laden was living close to the heart of Pakistan's military establishment in Abbotabad, Owen Bennett-Jones investigates the ties between elements of Pakistan's army, intelligence and government with jihadi and Taleban forces. Producer: Rebecca Kesby.
May 12, 2011•28 min
In South Africa a mining company whose owners include the grandson of Nelson Mandela and the nephew of President Jacob Zuma has left thousands of its employees without work and, they claim, without pay. Back in 2009 the company, Aurora Empowerment Systems, bid R605 million (£55 million) to take over two gold mines on the outskirts of Johannesburg, despite having no experience in mining industry. Aurora promised steady jobs, housing and bursaries for miners' children. The reality has been poverty...
May 05, 2011•28 min
Lucy Ash revisits some of the significant stories covered in recent years and discovers what has changed since our initial reports. In some instances, there have been attempts to bring suspects to justice. In 2009 Crossing Continents uncovered disturbing evidence of alleged atrocities by the Kosovo Liberation Army during the Kosovo War ten years ago. Since then a trial has opened in the capital Pristina and two former KLA leaders are being prosecuted for war crimes. The case began in March 2011,...
Apr 28, 2011•28 min
David Goldblatt looks at whether Berlin's alternative culture is under threat from commercial pressures. Or do developers and artists need each other to exist? Berlin has long been a magnet for artists from within Germany and abroad. After the wall fell in 1989 they flooded into the vast deserted buildings left in the Mitte area of the former East of the city. But over the last few years developers have been moving into this increasingly fashionable area, increasing rents and evicting squatted b...
Apr 21, 2011•28 min
Three years ago Bill Law travelled to Egypt for Crossing Continents to meet five extraordinary women who were fighting for human rights and equal pay for women in Egypt. For this programme, Bill returns to Egypt to tell the story of the unfolding revolution through the eyes of those very same five women. Their stories are a unique insight into how the revolution came about and raise questions about its future. Producer: Daniel Tetlow.
Apr 14, 2011•28 min
The Ecuadorian Amazon region is one of the most bio-diverse on the planet. In one area, nearly 600 bird species, 80 kinds of bat and 150 varieties of amphibian have been recorded. And it's possible that the density of one of the rarest wild cats, the jaguar, is twice as high as anywhere else in the world. This is also home to two of the last uncontacted groups of indigenous people in the world, who choose to live undisturbed in voluntary isolation. But beneath the rich tropical soil lies another...
Apr 07, 2011•28 min
Anna Cavell investigates the human trafficking of Ugandan women to Iraq. They were lured there by promises of well-paid jobs - but instead found themselves effectively in slavery, beaten and in some cases raped. She hears the story of how a Ugandan security contractor and an American officer together organised a courageous freelance raid which freed nine of the women. And she discovers that despite the rescue, the practice appears to be continuing. Producer: Natalie Morton.
Mar 31, 2011•28 min
Gabriel Gatehouse hears the extraordinary tales of the people coming into and out of Iraq - and paints a portrait of a still troubled country through its international gateway. It's not been the safest of places: one worker describes seeing a car bomb attack on the airport road and you still need to pass through five checkpoints to enter the terminal. Gabriel meets the people entering the country - like British and Ugandan security men, and pilgrims from Iran, bound for Iraq's Shia holy sites. T...
Mar 24, 2011•28 min
The paddy fields of impoverished Cambodia have suddenly become a prime slice of global real estate. But will the rural poor pay the price? This tiny Asian nation has just begun to recover after dictator Pol Pot's reign of terror, in which around 2 million Cambodians died, and the brutal civil war that followed. But now a very different story is unfolding in the agricultural heartland which once became notorious as the "killing fields." In a world plagued by food shortages, Cambodia is suddenly a...
Jan 13, 2011•28 min
It's estimated that nearly one million Indians with conditions like cancer die in acute, unnecessary pain because of the lack of palliative care. Restrictions on morphine prescription are being lifted, but too slowly. One of the most sophisticated systems of palliative care in the developing world has been established in the Indian state of Kerala. The grassroots movement to create a much-valued and effective palliative care system in Kerala has been called a silent revolution. Every week, thous...
Jan 06, 2011•28 min
Corruption in Syria is commonplace. You can see it almost everywhere you go: from a small tip for a government worker to process paperwork, to customs officials requiring payments to allow goods into the country. The single-party government says it's stamping out corruption and that it's determined not to let it stand in the way of the country's economic development. But with economic reforms opening Syria up to foreign investment, it's claimed corruption is getting worse. And those who raise th...
Dec 30, 2010•27 min
It is called "Laamb" or "La Lutte Sénégalaise". Originating in the countryside as a test of strength for farmers and fishermen, Senegalese wresting moved to the city with the migrants. It took on punching to become "La Lutte avec frappe". It involves special charms, singers, drummers and excited crowds, with the champions now earning huge amounts of money. In Crossing Continents David Goldblatt examines how wrestling has become Senegal's most popular sport, deposing even football. Producer: John...
Dec 23, 2010•28 min
Bahrain projects itself towards the world as an Arab state that is open to investment, progressive about change and moving confidently toward democracy. But there is another Bahrain where dissent is suppressed and critics jailed. It is a country where allegations are rife that political prisoners are routinely tortured. Bill Law investigates both sides of the Bahrain story and asks what lies behind the apparently heavy-handed repression of those who criticize the ruling al Khalifa family Produce...
Dec 16, 2010•28 min
Rosie Goldsmith profiles Nichi Vendola, the governor of Puglia and the hope for the Italian left. Can this gay, Catholic poet and environmentalist challenge Silvio Berlusconi? Producer: Helen Grady.
Dec 09, 2010•28 min
The Christmas tree industry is worth almost a billion pounds a year in Europe alone. Most of the ones around us now, covered in baubles and tinsel didn't start life in the UK or even Scandinavia, but in one small village, in the mountains of Georgia close to the border with Russia. Angus Crawford travels to the small town of Ambrolauri in the shadow of the Caucasus mountains. There men risk their lives climbing the big firs to harvest the seeds of Abies Nordmanniana, the Nordman pine. More than ...
Dec 02, 2010•28 min
Russia's police are out of control. They are often referred to as "werewolves in epaulettes" because so many officers prey on the public rather than protect them. Even Prime Minister Vladimir Putin complains about the lawlessness of the country's law enforcers. He once said upstanding citizens cross to the other side of the street as soon as they see a man in uniform. The crimes police commit range from bribe taking to kidnapping, drug trafficking, torture and murder. This brutality is accompani...
Nov 25, 2010•28 min
Millions of people die on our roads each year. Hundreds of children are killed as they try to get to school each day. Road deaths threaten to overtake malaria and HIV in how many lives they take around the world, particularly in poorer countries. Sheena McDonald visits some of the world's most dangerous roads in Kenya and Costa Rica to find out why the death toll in developing countries is rising, when the solutions to road accidents are so simple. Kenya's poor record improves and then falls aga...
Nov 18, 2010•28 min
This year's Commonwealth Games will be held in October in the Indian capital Delhi, the largest sporting event ever to be held there. No expense is being spared to build the appropriate facilities and infrastructure. But many are questioning whether spending billions of dollars hosting a two-week sporting event is the best use of resources in a city where poverty is entrenched. As the budget for the games spirals, the organisers are being accused of hiding the true cost, and of diverting funds i...
Sep 09, 2010•28 min
Christopher Landau explores the explosive growth of christianity in China, with millions flocking to the official Protestant and Catholic churches. The country has the world's largest bible printing press while some factories are run on Christian principles. Why has the Communist state, which is formally atheist, endorsed this transition? There is official interest in the idea of a "Protestant work ethic" aiding the country's economy while some branches of government hope that the church's socia...
Sep 02, 2010•28 min
