Vladimir Hernandez follows the Mexican priests who believe they can fight the evil of drug trafficking through the ancient Catholic practice of exorcism. It is estimated that 60,000 people have died in Mexico in the "drug wars" linked to the narco-traffickers, who are among the most vicious criminals in the world. To some Catholic priests and believers, this is clear evidence that the Devil has taken hold among much of the population. They also point to the popularity of cults like that of "Sant...
Nov 28, 2013•28 min
Wine making in Moldova is a source of national pride - they have been growing vines for centuries. During Soviet times the country was encouraged to become one of the USSR's major wine suppliers and it has remained so ever since. But recently Russia banned the importation of Moldovan wine for the second time in a decade. Tessa Dunlop visits the prestigious Cricova winery - whose cellars have 120km of underground roads and holds bottles for the likes of Angela Merkel and President Putin - to see ...
Nov 21, 2013•28 min
Up to 20% of the world's gold is produced by informal mining, with millions of people in the developing world relying on it for a living. The quickest and easiest way for them to extract gold is by mixing finely ground rock with mercury, a highly toxic metal, and burning it off. Linda Pressly visits Indonesia, and finds gold workers and communities who are already showing signs of mercury poisoning. There are paddy fields with the highest concentration of mercury ever tested in rice. Experts tel...
Sep 19, 2013•28 min
According to a recent study by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 24 million Chinese men will be unable to find wives by 2020 because of the country's gender imbalance. Before the mass migration from the villages to the cities, young men could rely on their parents to find them a wife. Now many of those single women live in the cities, working in factories. They only see their parents during the spring festival so the chances of finding a wife are limited. It's a particular challenge for me...
Sep 12, 2013•28 min
Despite its massive natural oil wealth, Venezuela is a country sliding into recession, and has one of the highest inflation rates in the world. With prices of some products rising as much as 50% or more annually, the crisis presents a simple human predicament - how to lay your hands on the ever-dwindling supply of price-capped essentials that government shops pledge to provide. The trouble is that many of these basic goods like milk and toilet rolls, are disappearing from the supermarkets within...
Sep 05, 2013•28 min
Mobeen Azhar investigates gay life in urban Pakistan and despite the country's religious conservatism and homosexuality being a crime there, he finds a vibrant gay scene, all aided by social media. He meets gay people at underground parties, shrines and hotels and finds out what it's really like to be gay in Pakistan. As one man tells him, "The best thing about being gay in Pakistan is you can easily hook up with guys over here. You just need to know the right moves and with a click you can get ...
Aug 29, 2013•28 min
Change is in the air in Turkey following anti-government protests centred on a park in Istanbul - but where will it end? Emre Azizlerli of the BBC Turkish Service explores the strange new alliances forged in Turkey's anti-government protests, and asks if this diverse movement can hold together. He meets the anti-capitalist Islamists who have made common cause with environmentalists and secularists as well as gay and lesbian groups. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan refers to the protesters as ...
Aug 22, 2013•28 min
The Kazakh steppe was once home to the infamous Soviet forced labour camps which formed part of the Gulag. Today, the Gulag system is said to live on in Kazakhstan's jails where a growing prison population faces daily torture, humiliation and lawlessness. Despite its poor human rights record, many developed nations, including Britain, are rapidly strengthening relations with Kazakhstan. BBC Central Asia Correspondent Rayhan Demeytrie investigates why the Gulag violence persists and asks why the ...
Aug 15, 2013•28 min
Since the fall of Ceaucescu's dictatorship, the Romanian Orthodox Church has flourished. It has built thousands of new churches across the country and is now constructing a huge new cathedral in the capital Bucharest. The Cathedral is right next to Ceaucescu's gargantuan "Palace of the People" and, when completed, is intended to be taller - a physical manifestation of the Church's power and influence. Much of the money for the construction of these new churches and the cathedral has come from st...
Aug 08, 2013•29 min
Dr Kermit Gosnell had a reputation as the 'abortion doctor of last resort' along the East Coast of the United States - until his arrest in 2010. He regularly performed abortions well past the legal limit of 24 weeks with the help of untrained staff. At least two women died because of the treatment they received at his Philadelphia clinic. He has now been sentenced to three life sentences for the murder of three babies born alive. But authorities only acted against Gosnell when they suspected him...
Aug 05, 2013•28 min
In Barcelona, a doctor offers reconstructive surgery to women who had female genital mutilation when they were children. Recorded over 6 months, Linda Pressly hears the stories of Rosa and Wenkune - Spanish women of African origin. FGM has caused them both a good deal of trauma. Will the operation change how they feel about themselves? What difference will it make to their intimate relationships? And what motivates Dr Barri Soldevila - a busy surgeon in a private hospital - to prioritise these p...
Jul 25, 2013•28 min
Writer Andrew Brown tries to find out if the rural heart of Sweden still lives on in the modern age. In an entertaining and unpredictable journey he goes in search of wolves, egg-tossing merrymakers and the ideal of the Swedish summer.
May 24, 2013•28 min
Brazil is getting ready to host the 2014 World Cup. But the preparations have become marred in controversy. And leading the charge against over-budget stadiums, vested interests and corruption is an unlikely figure: Romario. Brazil's World Cup-winning footballer has transformed himself into a serious, hard-working politician. Tim Franks meets him for Crossing Continents. Is this a genuine transformation for one of Brazil's most notorious celebrity bad-boys? Producer: Linda Pressly.
May 16, 2013•28 min
Two and a half years ago, oil started flowing from Ghana's first commercial offshore oilfield. Shortly after the taps were turned on, Rob Walker visited the hub for the new industry: the once sleepy port of Takoradi. He found a mixture of ambition and uncertainty in a rapidly expanding boomtown. Rob now returns to Takoradi to meet people he met last time and find out whether their dreams have been realised. Producer: Katharine Hodgson.
May 09, 2013•28 min
Mobeen Azhar travels to the Pakistani city of Quetta to investigate how it has become the scene of violent and indiscriminate attacks by Sunni militants against the local ethnic Hazara community. It's a city which has become effectively a no-go area for foreign journalists due to the persistent and intensifying violence. Mobeen tells the story of a single day in January of this year when over 100 people lost their lives in twin bombings in Quetta. Claiming responsibility was the Sunni militant g...
May 02, 2013•28 min
Belarus has been described as the last dictatorship in Europe. Few dare speak out against President Alexander Lukashenko and his ruling elite. But the opposition has found a way of making its voice heard through an academic community which has taken refuge abroad. Lucy Ash visits the European Humanities University which teaches Belarusian students on its campus in neighbouring Lithuania. She talks to teachers and students, many of whom commute back and forth across the border. Is the EHU devoted...
Apr 25, 2013•28 min
Insecurity dominates the lives of millions of Mexicans, who are caught between the murderous drug cartels and absent or corrupt law enforcement. So, communities have begun to take the law into their own hands, and Crossing Continents reporter Linda Pressly travels to the southern state of Guerrero to meet a fledgling vigilante force which has grown into an organisation numbering thousands of members. Since coming into force earlier this year, dozens of arrests made by untrained, armed civilians ...
Apr 18, 2013•28 min
Twelve years ago Lucy Ash investigated Ukraine's fight against HIV infection, which was mainly caused by injecting drug users. After the Orange Revolution in late 2004, the government promised to do everything it could to fight the disease and the situation seemed to improve. But now Ukraine has the second highest infection rate in Europe, surpassed only by Russia. Around the world, other countries are managing to reduce rates of HIV infection and AIDS-related deaths. Lucy Ash travels to Kyiv an...
Apr 11, 2013•28 min
The fate of hundreds of people who went missing during Nepal's brutal civil war is threatening to undermine the country's fragile democracy. Around 100,000 people were displaced during the bloody insurgency and an estimated 17 thousand were killed. A peace agreement was signed six years ago in which both sides promised that war crimes would not go unpunished. But relatives are still waiting for justice. Joanna Jolly finds out why the scars from the conflict are still raw despite attempts by both...
Apr 04, 2013•28 min
The Oyu Tolgoi mine in Mongolia's freezing Gobi Desert is one of the the world's biggest - extracting a vast seam of copper, gold and silver the size of Manhattan. It's turned this country of camel and yak herders into the world's fastest growing economy. Fancy boutiques, top-end car dealerships and coffee shops are springing up across the capital. But, as Justin Rowlatt discovers, riding the boom is not easy. He meets a rapper who says the government is simply selling the country's assets to it...
Mar 28, 2013•28 min
In a major investigation, Natalia Antelava reports on the abduction of tens of thousands of young girls in India for forced marriages. Thousands more are sold as prostitutes and domestic servants. She follows the route of the traffickers, who take girls from destitute households in places like West Bengal to wealthier areas in Northern states, where a shortage of women is blamed by many on sex-selective abortions. It's a problem the United Nations describes as of 'genocidal proportions'. Natalia...
Jan 10, 2013•28 min
Mariko Oi investigates forced confessions of suspects in the Japanese criminal justice system. She asks if the use of prolonged questioning and other dubious tactics by police and prosecutors might be one reason for Japan's astonishingly high conviction rate. Producer: Nina Robinson.
Jan 03, 2013•28 min
Lucy Ash asks what the explosion in popular protest over a Chinese-backed copper mine says about changes in Burma and asks if this is a test case for the government's commitment to democratic reforms. Farmers' daughters Aye Net and Thwe Thwe Win have led thousands of villagers in protest against what they say is the unlawful seizure of thousands of acres of land to make way for a $1 billion expansion of a copper mine run by the military and a large Chinese arms manufacturer. They have been throw...
Dec 27, 2012•28 min
For decades, Poland has been a country of emigrants travelling to build new lives abroad, not least in the UK. But could things be about to change? Paul Henley travels to the country at the eastern edge of the EU, where the financial crisis has, so far, been avoided. He meets the migrants already making a life in Europe's least multicultural society, and explores the conditions that suggest Poland could be on the cusp of becoming a destination; home to a new wave of migrants. Producer: Lila Alle...
Dec 20, 2012•28 min
The city of Misrata arguably suffered the most during the Libyan conflict as missiles rained on it for months on end. By the end of the revolution though, fighters from Misrata had exacted their revenge on neighbouring towns and had been responsible for the capture of Colonel Gaddafi, as well as Gaddafi strongholds. More recently Misratan fighters have been in action against the city of Bani Walid. Many residents of Bani Walid, accused of being Gaddafi supporters, have been expelled from their h...
Dec 13, 2012•28 min
Linda Pressly investigates why rape and sexual abuse is so common in America's huge prison system - and asks if new measures to fight it will succeed. Producer: Helen Grady.
Dec 06, 2012•29 min
Many schoolchildren in South Africa's northern Limpopo province have gone for months without school textbooks. There was money to buy them. There was also a contract to deliver the books. Yet they didn't arrive. Students and parents are furious with politicians of the governing ANC - and say the problem is due to mismanagement and corruption. They say the issue typifies the faults of the political system, and that their children have been the victims. Rob Walker investigates the mystery of the m...
Nov 29, 2012•28 min
In one of the most violent countries on earth, peace has broken out. In March, a truce was brokered between El Salvador's two most violent street gangs; they agreed to stop killing each other. The Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 are criminal outfits that trace their origins to Los Angeles. In the 1990s, older members were deported from the US and forged local 'branches' on the streets of El Salvador. Since the truce - brokered in prisons with the gangs' leaders - the murder rate of this small Cen...
Nov 22, 2012•28 min
Andrew Harding meets the Mayor with the job of running Somalia's capital, Mogadishu. Can the man nicknamed "Tarzan" tackle mass corruption and the physical and psychological impact of years of brutal warfare? Andrew joins Mohamed Ahmed Noor who, by request of the president, has returned with his wife and family from a life in London to try and clean up Mogadishu. The mayor discusses his ambitious vision for a city, much of which currently lies in ruins. He proudly shows off the new Mogadishu Mal...
Nov 15, 2012•28 min
When Israel was established, its tiny community of ultra-Orthodox Jews were, uniquely, exempted from the normal requirement of service in the Israeli Defence Force. They were seen as keepers of the spiritual soul of the nation, and their vital duty of studying religion and Jewish law was more important than wielding guns. 70 years on, and the community's numbers have grown massively - and there are increasing demands for the ultra-Orthodox to play their part in the defence of the nation. A Supre...
Sep 06, 2012•28 min
