China’s New Silk Road reaches across all parts of the globe; building roads, bridges and towering cities where before there were none. In Kazakhstan, China’s neighbour to the west, this vast project has created a port. But there’s no water there, just desert… and trains running all the way from China through to Europe and the Middle East. Meeting the hundreds of shoppers and traders, it’s astonishing to think that just a few years ago this border was a closed military zone - the frontier between...
Aug 29, 2019•29 min
Everybody in Romania knows someone who has died in a road accident. The country has the highest road death rate in the European Union – twice the EU average and more than three times that in the UK. A young businessman, Stefan Mandachi, has built a metre long stretch of motorway near his home in the rural north-east of the country, as a visual protest against political inaction and corruption. For Crossing Continents, Tessa Dunlop travels to one of Romania’s poorest regions, Moldova, to meet thi...
Aug 22, 2019•31 min
Who will shape the future of the hurricane-hit, tropical isle of Barbuda? In 2017, category-5 hurricane Irma devastated much of Barbuda's 'paradise' landscape, and its infrastructure. The national government – based on the larger, neighbouring island of Antigua – evacuated the population of some 1800 people. But within days, although the people weren’t allowed to return, bulldozers were clearing ancient forest to build an international airport. Critics called this another case of, 'disaster capi...
Aug 15, 2019•29 min
An icon of Italian design; a centrepiece of a community; a tragedy waiting to happen? When the Morandi bridge opened in 1967, it was one of the longest concrete bridges in the world, connecting the port of Genoa with the rest of Italy and Italy with northern Europe. Built during the post-war economic boom, it was the centrepiece of Italy’s plans to modernise its roads and was a proud symbol of the country’s engineering and architectural expertise. But all that came to a tragic end in August last...
Aug 08, 2019•29 min
A small town goes on life-support after its lone hospital closes. The story of Jamestown, Tennessee, recorded in the emotional hours and days after its 85-bed facility shut. Rural hospitals are closing across the United States, leaving patients dangerously exposed. Can Jamestown buck the trend and reopen? Produced and presented by Neal Razzell.
Aug 01, 2019•28 min
When Azeteng, a young man from rural Ghana, heard stories on the radio of West African migrants dying on their way to Europe, he felt compelled to act. He took what little savings he had and bought reading glasses with a hidden camera – his “secret spectacles”. Then he put himself in the hands of people smugglers and travelled 3,000 miles on the desert migrant trail north, aiming to document the crimes of the traffickers. Along the way he saw extortion, slavery, and death in the vast stretches o...
Jul 25, 2019•28 min
In 2009, Mennonite women in a far-flung Bolivian colony reported mass rape. Now leaders of this insular Christian community with its roots in Europe are campaigning to free the convicted men. More than 100 women and children were attacked in the colony of Manitoba, and their courage in telling their stories secured penalties of 25 years for the rapists. But within Mennonite circles, doubts continue to be aired about the imprisonment of the men. They too protest their innocence, claiming their in...
May 16, 2019•28 min
The dangers of flying in the great wilderness of the Brazilian rainforest. When a light aircraft carrying two families from a local Indian tribe disappeared over the Amazon in December, relatives scoured the rainforest for weeks until hunger and sickness forced them to give up. The Brazilian authorities ignored appeals for an official ground search – just as they’ve ignored appeals over many years to regulate local flights in the Amazon. Without air traffic control, pilots must fly clandestinely...
May 09, 2019•28 min
How does a lonely, Spanish shepherd find love when single women have left for the city? Antonio Cerrada lives north of Madrid, in the heart of what’s been nicknamed the, ‘Lapland of Spain’ because its population density is so low. With only a handful of families left in his village, and people continuing to leave for the cities, Antonio struggled to find a partner. Then Maria Carvajal arrived. She came in a bus full of single women – a ‘caravana’ - to attend an organised party with men like Anto...
May 02, 2019•28 min
Thousands of Bangladeshi addicts are hooked on Yaba - a mix of methamphetamine and caffeine. It's a powerful drug that gives big bangs for small bucks. The Yaba epidemic has ripped through the population of Bangladesh, urban and rural, poor, middle-class and rich. This is a drug that's manufactured in industrial quantities in the jungles of neighbouring Myanmar. As the economy of Bangladesh has boomed, drug lords have worked to create new markets for their product. And the Rohingya crisis - when...
Apr 25, 2019•29 min
Brazilians wept when their 200-year-old National Museum went up in flames last September. Twenty million items, many of them irreplaceable, were thought to have been reduced to ash when it was gutted by a massive fire. Staff said the loss to science and history was incalculable - and the tragedy, possibly caused by faulty wiring in the long-underfunded institution, led to much national heart-searching about the country's commitment to its heritage. The museum, housed in Brazil's former Imperial ...
Apr 18, 2019•28 min
For some in Poland the Cursed Soldiers are national heroes; for others they are murderers. A march in celebration of a group of Polish partisans fighting the Soviets has become the focus of tension in a small community in one of Europe’s oldest forests. Those taking part believe the partisans – known as the Cursed Soldiers – were national heroes, but others remember atrocities committed by them 70 years ago. Some partisans were responsible for the burning of villages and the murder of men, women...
Apr 11, 2019•28 min
Hunting western paedophiles is a priority for a new police unit tasked with safeguarding children in Nepal. Mired in poverty and still recovering from a devastating earthquake in 2015, Nepal is increasingly being targeted by foreign paedophiles who recommend it as a destination when they share child abuse tips on the dark web. In recent years, a series of western men have been charged with raping or sexually assaulting Nepali boys. For Crossing Continents, Jill McGivering follows the under-resou...
Apr 04, 2019•28 min
Eastern Ukraine has been under assault from Russian backed rebel forces for the past five years, but few have heard of a smaller conflict, which could be brewing in the west of the country, between Ukraine and Hungary. Some have accused the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban of trying to create a breakaway state in impoverished Transcarpathia, once part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Ukraine and Hungary both expelled diplomats from each other’s nations, following a row over passports and a H...
Mar 28, 2019•28 min
Elderly pensioners in Japan are committing petty crimes so that they can be sent to prison. One in five of all prisoners in Japan are now over 65. The number has quadrupled in the last two decades, a result it seems of rising elderly poverty and loneliness, as seniors become increasingly cut-off from their over-worked offspring. In jail old people at least get a bed, a routine and a hot meal, and for many, as Ed discovers, the outside world can seem like a threatening place. For the prison autho...
Jan 17, 2019•29 min
Old enemies Serbia and Kosovo discuss what for some is unthinkable - an ethnic land swap. This dramatic proposal is one of those being talked about as a means of normalising relations between these former foes. Since the bloody Kosovo war ended with NATO intervention in 1999, civility between Belgrade and Pristina has been in short supply. Redrawing borders along ethnic lines is anathema to many, but politicians in Serbia and Kosovo have their eyes on a bigger prize... For Serbia, that is member...
Jan 10, 2019•29 min
At 12, Douglas Braga arrived in Rio de Janeiro, a wide-eyed boy, ready to live out the Brazilian dream and become a professional footballer. At 18, he was signed by one of the country’s top teams - but was also starting to realise he couldn’t be true to himself and be a footballer. By 21, he’d quit the game. He knew he was gay and felt there was no place for him in a macho culture where homophobia is commonplace and out gay men are nowhere to be seen. Now, at 36, Douglas lives in a country that ...
Jan 03, 2019•28 min
Thirty years on from the 1988 earthquake in Armenia, what’s happened to the devastated town of Spitak? Rescuers from all over the world came to help search for survivors – among them a team of British firefighters. Now, with reporter Tim Whewell, two of those men are returning - to see how the town’s been rebuilt - and to remember a rescue effort that marked a turning point in East-West relations. The disaster came as Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was developing his policy of glasnost (opennes...
Dec 27, 2018•29 min
Where do you come from? Tracing your ancestry in the USA is one of the most popular hobbies along with gardening and golf. TV is awash with advertising for the do-it-yourself genetic testing kits which have become much sought after gifts, especially at Christmas time. The kits have revolutionised family tree research and gone are the days of sifting through old documents. But, as Lucy Ash reports, the DNA results are now revealing far more than many had bargained for. How do you react when you f...
Dec 20, 2018•28 min
China is accused of locking up as many as a million Uighur Muslims without trial across its western region of Xinjiang. The government denies the claims, saying people willingly attend special "vocational schools" to combat "terrorism and religious extremism". But a BBC investigation has found important new evidence of the reality - a vast and rapidly growing network of detention centres, where the people held inside are humiliated and abused. Using detailed satellite analysis and reporting from...
Dec 13, 2018•29 min
An investigation into the 'killing machine' of one of Africa's most repressive and secretive countries. Three years ago there was widespread unrest in the East African country of Burundi when the country’s president ran for a third term. Protestors said he was violating the constitution that limits presidential terms to just two. Since then street protests have ended but a BBC investigation has now uncovered evidence of government sponsored torture and killings designed to silence dissent. The g...
Dec 06, 2018•28 min
In a Cambodian hospital, a group of terrified new mothers nurse tiny babies under the watch of police guards. They're surrogates, desperately poor women promised $10,000 to bear children for parents in China. But they were arrested under new anti-trafficking rules, and now they face an agonising choice: either they agree to keep children they didn't want and can't easily afford to bring up, children who aren't genetically theirs - or they honour their surrogacy contracts, and face up to 20 years...
Nov 29, 2018•28 min
Nigerian patients held in hospital because they can’t pay their medical bills. In March 2016, a young woman went into labour. She was rushed to a local, private hospital in south-east Nigeria where she gave birth by caesarean section. But when the hospital discovered this teenage mother didn’t have the money to pay for her treatment, she and her son were unable to leave. They remained there for 16 months – until the police arrived and released them. This is not an isolated case. In Nigeria, very...
Nov 22, 2018•29 min
Simon Cox is in Austria where the authorities have launched an unprecedented operation against a new far right youth organisation, Generation Identity. They prosecuted members of the group including its leader, Martin Sellner, for being an alleged criminal organisation. They are currently appealing the judge's not guilty verdict. The Austrian group is at the heart of a new pan European movement that is vehemently opposed to Muslims and immigration. GI says it is not racist or violent. In Germany...
Sep 20, 2018•28 min
The dark secrets of Chile's Catholic Church. El Bosque is the wealthy Santiago parish where Fernando Karadima, a charismatic priest, attracted hundreds of young men to the priesthood. In 2010, he was exposed as a paedophile after survivors revealed he had sexually abused them. The Vatican sentenced Karadima to a life of penance and prayer. But this was no one-off, rogue priest. This year the scale of Chile's abuse scandal has been revealed - multiple allegations of sexual exploitation and cover-...
Sep 13, 2018•28 min
In parts of Nevada, prostitution is legal - the only such state in the US. The 'live and let live mentality' is a hangover from the gold rush days and in certain counties, brothels have been officially licensed since 1971. Today no fewer than seven of them are owned by one man, Dennis Hof, a gun-toting restaurateur, entrepreneur and reality TV star. He calls himself the "Trump from Pahrump," - after a town where he recently won the Republican primaries for the Nevada State Legislature. Now thoug...
Sep 06, 2018•29 min
'He was using prisoners like oxen for ploughing for his own gain'. An ex-convict recalls the prison officer in charge of the prison farm he worked on in Uganda. The country has one of the most overcrowded prison systems in Africa. It also has one of the continent's most developed systems of prison labour. For Crossing Continents, Ed Butler reports from Uganda where most of the country's 54,000 inmates are now serving an economic purpose, working for the benefit of an elite collection of private ...
Aug 30, 2018•29 min
When someone in Jamaica emigrates to the UK, it is said they have 'gone to foreign'. Over the past 70 years several hundred thousand Jamaicans have done this, following in the footsteps of the so-called 'Windrush generation' who first arrived in Britain in the late 1940s. But the spirit of adventure and optimism those early pioneers bought with them has changed over the years and a recent political scandal now finds some of them unwanted and rejected by Britain. Following changes to immigration ...
Aug 23, 2018•29 min
Seaweed is liberating women in a conservative corner of east Africa. Thousands of women have gained more control over their lives thanks to Zanzibar's seaweed farms. In a traditional island village there is a surprisingly high divorce rate and women have safeguarded their interests with earnings from this salty crop which has given them a much needed income and new independence. At first the husbands were outraged - they complained that seaweed farming made women too tired for their matrimonial ...
Aug 16, 2018•28 min
In January, Aurelia Brouwers - a 29 year old Dutch woman, with a history of severe mental illness - lay down on her bed to die. She had been declared eligible for euthanasia a month earlier - Dutch law permits the ending of a life where there is, 'unbearable suffering' without hope of relief. Aurelia's death provoked an outpouring on social media, and widespread discussion within the Netherlands... What if a death wish is part of someone's illness? And does someone with serious mental health cha...
Aug 09, 2018•29 min
