In May 1952 East Germany sealed its entire border with the capitalist west. Over the next 37 years 75,000 people would be arrested trying to flee the Communist East and hundreds would die in the attempt. Today the barbed wire and machine guns are gone and the old border has been transformed into a protected wildlife zone. It's a home to lynx, wolf and wildcat and a vital corridor for migrating birds and mammals. Mary-Ann Ochota begins her journey along the old border, meeting the people doing th...
Jun 22, 2022•28 min
Ladakh is a region at the centre of the 50-year-long border dispute between India and China, which flared up again in June 2020. Journalist and broadcaster Ed Douglas speaks to local village leaders whose communities are struggling to preserve their lives and livelihoods amidst perpetual military unrest. He also speaks to former politicians and political experts about the consequences of what happens here for the wider geopolitical stability of Asia’s two biggest countries, and those caught in b...
Jun 15, 2022•27 min
If the Himalayan glaciers melt, a billion lives and whole ecosystems will be at risk. Journalist and broadcaster Ed Douglas joins innovative community projects in Ladakh and Nepal looking to mitigate the impact of climate change now and in the future. Their success or failure will determine the future environmental security beyond their local region, to all of Asia. Presenter: Ed Douglas Producer: Clem Hitchcock Editor: Susan Marling A Just Radio production for BBC World Service (Photo: A valley...
Jun 08, 2022•27 min
Spanning five countries, the Himalaya is home to peoples who have adapted to living in the harshest of conditions. Journalist and broadcaster Ed Douglas, author of the first major history of the Himalaya has been visiting these remote communities for 30 years. Now they are opening up to him about the challenges of living on the roof of the world. Ed's friends from the Sherpa and Rai groups in Nepal reveal how genetically and practically they have evolved to be able to live long term at such alti...
Jun 01, 2022•28 min
Do we still have faith in money? Trust expert and fellow at the Said Business School at Oxford University, Rachel Botsman, investigates the shifting power plays in the global management of money, gathering pressures towards decentralisation and optimism in the world of finance. Presenter: Rachel Botsman Producer: Frank Stirling and Leo Schick A Storyglass production for the BBC World Service (Photo: A man uses contactless payment with QR code in supermarket. Crdit: Getty Images)...
May 25, 2022•28 min
Rachel Botsman, a Trust expert and fellow at the Said Business School at Oxford University, looks into the psychology and the morality of money. Among others, she talks to Jain accountant Atul K. Shah, activist and onetime refugee Ghias Aljundi and psychologist and happiness guru Dr. Laurie Santos. Producer: Frank Stirling and Leo Schick (Photo: Businessman reaching out for falling bank notes. Credit: Getty Images) A Storyglass production for BBC World Service
May 18, 2022•28 min
In the second episode Rachel explores the subject of value. Beginning with the volatility of Bitcoin, she goes on to find out about growing up in Brazil's years of hyperinflation, living in the gift economy of an Indonesian island and whether money is the root of happiness. Producers: Frank Stirling and Leo Schick (Photo: A representation of the virtual cryptocurrency Bitcoin. Credit: Edgar Su/Reuters) A Storyglass production for the BBC World Service
May 11, 2022•28 min
Do we still have faith in money? Trust expert and Fellow at the Said Business School at Oxford University, Rachel Botsman, talks to people from all over the world about their relationship with cash, with banks, with currencies, with credit cards and crypto. In this first episode she asks how much we should trust money. With politician and former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, economist and author Eshwar Prasad and investor and entrepreneur Soulaima Gourani. (Photo: Thousands of citizen...
May 04, 2022•27 min
The newest player in the Niger Delta is not a multinational company, it is Nigeria’s enormous illegal oil industry. Oil thieves cut the pipelines, siphoning off oil, which they refine in the bush and sell on the black market. BBC West Africa correspondent Mayeni Jones meets an oil thief king pin, as well as an exuberant local politician, taking on this illegal business and treks deep into the forests of the Niger Delta to visit an underground refinery. And we catch up with Victoria Bera. For dec...
Apr 27, 2022•28 min
BBC West Africa correspondent Mayeni Jones travels to the creeks of the Niger Delta to investigate the impact that oil pollution continues to have on communities and their environment. What she finds is alarming. And she speaks to Shell to ask them who is to blame for the ongoing environmental damage. Presenter: Mayeni Jones. Producer: Josephine Casserly Editor: Bridget Harney (Photo: Landscape destroyed by oil pollution. Image courtesy of Fyneface Dumnamene)
Apr 20, 2022•27 min
In the 1990s, as oil spills devastate the environment, Shell becomes persona non grata in Ogoniland. Then, when Ken Saro-Wiwa, Ledum Mittee and other activists leading the charge against Shell, are accused of incitement to murder, they come face to face with the power of Nigeria’s military government. BBC West Africa correspondent Mayeni Jones investigates a miscarriage of justice which has become an infamous moment in Nigerian history. Presenter: Mayeni Jones Producer: Josephine Casserly (Photo...
Apr 13, 2022•27 min
When oil company, Shell D’Arcy first struck black gold in Nigeria, there were celebrations on the creeks of the Niger Delta. Many of the locals had no idea what this thick black substance was, but it would go on to shape their lives and those of everyone in the region for decades to come. BBC West Africa correspondent Mayeni Jones hears about how hope and hospitality turned to resentment in the early days of oil in Nigeria. Reporter, Mayeni Jones Producer, Josephine Casserly Editor, Bridget Harn...
Apr 06, 2022•27 min
Psychiatrist Henrietta Bowden Jones talks to June Angelides about how she set up Mums In Tech on maternity leave, and how she was inspired by her entrepreneurial family in Nigeria, and particularly by her late grandmother. June reveals why she gave up a good job to set up the first coding academy in the United Kingdom for young mothers. And talks about the stress it caused but also knew that the time was right for her to do this. June followed in the footsteps of her uncle Ben Murray Bruce, who ...
Mar 30, 2022•28 min
Halima Begum is the CEO of the race equality think tank The Runnymede Trust. Her career as a civil rights campaigner began when she formed Women Against Racism in 1993, which was forged by her experiences of being racially abused by the National Front every day she went to school in East London. She reveals just how her mother coped with the threats that the family received on a daily basis. And it how it contrasted sharply with the welcome and love that Halima received from the teachers in her ...
Mar 23, 2022•41 min
Musician Maya Youssef talks about her painful decision not to return to her parents' house in Damascus when the civil war in Syria began. She reveals how playing music brings back such vivid memories of her homeland that she feels she has returned to her birthplace, even though she has not been there for over a decade. (Photo: Maya Youssef and her qanun. Credit: Igor Studio)
Mar 16, 2022•32 min
Psychiatrist Henrietta Bowden-Jones talks to novelist Dina Nayeri about her experience of escaping Iran and seeking asylum. The author of The Ungrateful Refugee reveals why she left her homeland without her father, her "co-conspirator in life", and why that sense of loss that has always stayed with her. (Photo: Iranian American novelist Dina Nayeri during the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019, Scotland. Credit: Roberto Ricciuti/Getty Images)
Mar 09, 2022•27 min
When noise levels rise, birds react. Noise is one of the top environmental hazards to which humans are exposed. It has also been linked to reduced breeding success and population decline in birds. So what happened to birds during the coronavirus pandemic lockdown when our cities fell silent? Many people said they could hear birds as they were singing louder. Did their singing change and if so, how and why? What can we learn about noise pollution and its effects on us from the birds? Presenter: M...
Mar 02, 2022•27 min
Just like us, birds can become infected with viruses – and some of these can be transferred to us. As we’ve seen with the coronavirus pandemic, there are real challenges when it comes to controlling the spread of viral infections. Any attempt to try and stay one step ahead of a virus requires really good monitoring, especially as many birds travel long distances and migrate. Birds are invaluable as sentinels in our attempt to map and control the spread of infection. In this episode we look at ho...
Feb 23, 2022•27 min
How the deaths of vultures and sparrowhawks have alerted the world to serious environmental problems. Like the canaries which were used to detect toxic gases in coal mines, birds play a vital role in alerting us to substances which can damage a healthy environment. The price they pay to alert us can be losing their lives. Presenter: Mya-Rose Craig Producer: Sarah Blunt (Photo: White-rumped vultures, slender-billed vultures and Himalayan griffons feed on a dead cattle. Credit IUCN/Sarowar Alam)...
Feb 16, 2022•27 min
Many of today’s old people grew up in an era when life was hard, retirement short, and opportunities for play limited. But as we live longer, we need to seek out playful activities, for both physical and mental health. We visit a bridge club for older people, where many members started to learn the game after they retired, to keep their brains sharp and give them social opportunities. We visit a care home in Scotland where the management frequently organise play sessions, such as pretend wedding...
Feb 02, 2022•27 min
As an adult you have responsibilities, and life settles into routine. Researchers have found that even in the most boring jobs, workers find ways to introduce elements of play to make the time pass, while people with more creative occupations use play to free their imaginations and release creativity. The Situationist art movement of 1950s Paris thought that play was a political act, and that the city could be used as a playground to rebel against the restrictions of capitalism. Their legacy liv...
Jan 26, 2022•27 min
As we grow into adolescence, the playfulness of childhood seems to disappear. Teenagers discovering their identity are engaged in a serious quest. There are unwritten rules to learn and to follow, and to be too spontaneous puts you at risk of ridicule. But while teenagers are less playful they are playing nonetheless, the obvious examples being sport and video games. As today’s teenagers live in a culture where the boundaries of the real and virtual are ever more fluid, video games offer a space...
Jan 19, 2022•27 min
In the earliest years of our lives, play is crucial to building our understanding of our surroundings, culture and even ourselves. The UN considers play to be a fundamental right for every child, and a growing body of interdisciplinary research is leading to greater implementation across the globe. But how do we begin to define something that is so intrinsic to our human nature? We look into the very beginnings of play and how our first interactions with adults have a lasting impact on the way w...
Jan 12, 2022•27 min
The road to democracy is rarely straightforward. There are steps forwards, and backwards, and times when it feels like you’re just not going anywhere at all. So what does the future hold for the countries of the 2011 Arab Spring Revolutions? Where can people look for hope now? Abubakr and Ella al-Shamahi explore if Tunisia’s new democracy is at risk, after what some are calling the coup of July 2021, when the Tunisian President sacked the PM and assumed executive power. They ask what the solutio...
Jan 05, 2022•27 min
While movement of people was a feature of the Middle East and North Africa (as it is worldwide) before the revolutions of the Arab Spring, there are now 11.7 million internally displaced people in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen, and more than 2.7 million refugees across the region. People are fleeing war and humanitarian disaster, economic problems and political persecution. Many have fled their homelands entirely, and many more have had to leave their homes and move to different parts of their ho...
Dec 29, 2021•27 min
Freedom is important - but what is the use of freedom if you can’t put food on the table? Ella al-Shamahi and Abubakr al-Shamahi look at the importance of the economy in starting the protest movement itself, and how the citizens of these regions view their economic standing a decade on. They speak with young Tunisians who are bearing the brunt of a devastated economy, and investigate how power is still tied up within economic opportunities under the rule of President Al Sisi. And they hear from ...
Dec 08, 2021•28 min
Across the region in 2011, protesters in their hundreds and thousands were all asking for the same thing - their freedom. Journalist Abubakr al-Shamahi and presenter Ella al-Shamahi examine how far human rights have progressed in the countries of the Arab Spring, turning first to the country so often held up as the success story of the Spring - Tunisia. Women were central to the mobilisation of protests here; Abubakr and Ella speak to activists and lawmakers to find out whether women are better ...
Dec 01, 2021•28 min
Katy Long hears stories from refugees who have returned to their homeland, to those who have been resettled, and to those who are still in limbo, she examines how does a refugee crisis end. (Photo: Afghan refugees seen during a protest outside the UNHCR office for various demands, 24 August, 2021, New Delhi, India. Credit: Sanjeev Verma/Hindustan Times/Getty Images)
Nov 24, 2021•27 min
Katy Long hears stories from refugees and those who work to support them from Rwanda to Russia, and Israel to Paraguay. She asks what do we owe refugees? (Photo: A person holding a "refugees welcome" placard seen in the crowd. Credit: EPA)
Nov 17, 2021•27 min
In the aftermath of World War One, as Turkey filled with refugees fleeing a brutal civil war, the first refugee camps appeared and the international community stepped in to appoint the first High Commissioner for Refugees. In this first episode Katy Long hears stories from refugees and those who work to support them from Rwanda, Germany and Russia, as she examines how refugee crises begin, and who is considered a refugee. (Photo: A queue of refugees awaits the assistances of Turkish relief organ...
Nov 10, 2021•28 min
