Youssou N’Dour at 50
To mark the 50th birthday of Youssou N'Dour, Robin Denselow travels to Senegal to profile the best known African musician of recent times.
Nov 05, 2009•19 min
The Documentary Podcast: Archive 2009
The BBC World Service's wide range of documentaries from 2009.
Last refreshed: ⓘ
Follow this podcast in the Metacast mobile app to refresh it and see new episodes.
Podcasts are better in Metacast mobile app
Don't just listen to podcasts. Learn from them with transcripts, summaries, and chapters for every episode. Skim, search, and bookmark insights. Learn more
Episodes
Assignment - Guinea on the Brink
Mark Doyle reports from Guinea in West Africa on the harrowing events of 28 September when government troops crushed an opposition rally in the centre of the capital, Conakry. This programme contains some graphic description of sexual violence.
Nov 05, 2009•23 min
A Dollar a Day - Part 1
What keeps a billion people trapped in the most persistent poverty? Mike Wooldridge travels to Nicaragua to meet Justa who hoped for a better life after the Sandinista revolution.
Nov 04, 2009•24 min
Russia's all-female military regiments
The extraordinary but little-known tale of Russia's three all-female regiments that flew more than 30,000 missions on the Eastern Front. At home they were celebrated as 'Stalin's Falcons' but terrified German troops called them the 'Night Witches'.
Nov 02, 2009•23 min
Public Places, Private Lives - Part Two
Public Places, Private Lives is a series of portraits of well known places that reveal the lives and stories of those people who come to a famous spot not to gaze as tourists, but for work or for their own private reasons. The second programme is set in the Taj Mahal, where we hear the experiences of those people for whom one of the most important sites in India is part of their daily landscape.
Oct 30, 2009•22 min
Assignment - Dying to Give Birth
Jill McGivering travels to Pakistan's largest city, Karachi, to meet a doctor who is battling against the odds to prevent women from dying in childbirth. Listeners may find parts of this Assignment programme distressing.
Oct 29, 2009•23 min
Rebranding Nigeria - Part Two
Nigeria is campaigning for a new image and a new reputation in an effort to attract some much needed investment. Reporter Henry Bonsu follows the many steps of this charm offensive.
Oct 28, 2009•24 min
MI6 - A Century in the Shadows - Part Tree
The head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service Sir John Scarlett, talks for the first time about the interrogation of terrorist suspects and MI6’s role in the run-up to the war in Iraq.
Oct 26, 2009•23 min
Public Places, Private Lives - Part One
Public Places, Private Lives is a series of portraits of well known places that reveal the lives and stories of those people who come to a famous spot not to gaze as tourists, but for work or for their own private reasons.
Oct 23, 2009•23 min
Assignment - Protecting Britain's Children
When a 17 month-old London child died after horrific abuse by his family, it unleashed a barrage of criticism against British social services. For Assignment Catherine Miller gains rare access to the people whose job it is to protect Britain's vulnerable children.
Oct 22, 2009•23 min
Rebranding Nigeria - Part One
Can the home of 419 internet scams, corruption and voodoo ever transmit a positive image? Is changing Nigeria's image an impossible mission?
Oct 21, 2009•24 min
MI6 - A Century in the Shadows
In Programme Two, we find out what were spies really up to behind the Iron Curtain. MI6 chief John Scarlett describes his clandestine meeting with an agent, and the Russian defector Oleg Gordievsky talks about his reasons for coming over to the other side.
Oct 19, 2009•23 min
Assignment Armenia: The cleverest nation on the planet
Every two years teams from all over the world compete with one another in the Chess Olympiad. In the last two Olympiads, the winning medal has gone to a small country in the Caucasus. How has this nation done it? Gabriel Gatehouse investigates.
Oct 15, 2009•22 min
John Simpson Returns to 1989
The BBC's World Affairs Editor John Simpson tells the story of 20 years of post-communist life. Through personal stories, he traces the different roads that East Germany, the Czech Republic and Romania have taken since 1989.
Oct 15, 2009•23 min
MI6 - A century in the shadows
An unprecedented look inside MI6 - Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, which marks its centenary this year. Programme One - Gadgets & Green Ink explores the early years of MI6, set up by Sir Mansfield Cumming, a formidable figure known as 'C' who signed his name in green ink.
Oct 12, 2009•23 min
Memento, part two
Imagine that conflict and violence force you to flee your country, leaving behind all that you know and love. In the chaos and panic, you have to choose a single object to take with you - something so full of resonance that it will always remind you of the life and people that you left behind. In the second part of Memento, we meet people who have fled to Britain.
Oct 09, 2009•23 min
Assignment - Three Strike Lifers
A life sentence for stealing a pair of socks. In California the tough 'three strikes' law is sending people to prison for life even if their third crime is a non-violent one. Now a group of law students is trying to change things. Rob Walker reports.
Oct 08, 2009•23 min
Yiddish - a Struggle for Survival - Part One
Yiddish was the language of the Jewish Diaspora, the language of a people on the move across Europe. It has suffered a dramatic decline over the last century. What will become of it now?
Oct 07, 2009•23 min
The Crash: Back from the brink
The third part of the BBC's definitive series on the banking crash tells the extraordinary story of how politicians reacted, and asks what has been learnt from the entire calamity. Could it happen again?
Oct 05, 2009•23 min
Memento, part one
Imagine that conflict and violence force you to flee your country, leaving behind all that you know and love. In the chaos and panic, you have to choose a single object to take with you - something so full of resonance that it will always remind you of the life and people that you left behind.
Oct 02, 2009•23 min
Assignment - The Mystery of the Arctic Sea
It's straight out of the pages of a thriller novel: a cargo ship, lost without trace; pirates working the seas at the heart of Europe; whispers of arms smuggling and the scent of international conspiracy. The mysterious disappearance of a Russian-operated cargo ship off the coast of Britain in late July sparked furious speculation that's never been resolved. For Assignment, Sarah Rainsford tries to shine a light on what really happened on board the vessel, the Arctic Sea.
Oct 01, 2009•23 min
Desperate Dreams - Part Two
Presenter Jenny Cuffe sets out to find Fereinatu, a teenage girl who was trafficked for sex. She had returned to her impoverished home in Benin City, but she is missing once more and relatives fear she may have been sucked back into prostitution.
Sep 30, 2009•23 min
Assignment - Chasing the Tax Cheats
This week's Assignment looks at the much-vaunted crackdown on tax havens announced by the G20 earlier this year. The drive is aimed at getting tax havens to agree to yield up information on tax cheats. But is the G-20's weapon of choice, shooting blanks? Is its approach cumbersome and ineffective in the fight to get every dollar that's owed to tax authorities? Lesley Curwen investigates.
Sep 29, 2009•23 min
The Crash: The Age of Risk
The second of this three-part series that examines the boom before the bust of 2008 looks at how our attitudes to risk and debt changed with disastrous consequences.
Sep 28, 2009•23 min
Building out of the Recession - part two
Can we build our way out of the recession? The Empire State Building was started just weeks after the Wall Street Crash, giving Americans hope in times of depression. Jonathan Glancey, architecture correspondent for the Guardian newspaper in London, looks at the economic and social policies of the 1930s and the parallels we can find today.
Sep 25, 2009•23 min
Desperate Dreams - part one
Two years ago, Jenny Cuffe followed the journeys of migrants trying to leave Africa and find a better life in Europe. Innocent Akibor left Nigeria to get to Spain. As exploitation greets him at almost every step of his journey, listen to find out if he made his dream come true.
Sep 22, 2009•23 min
The Crash: The bank that busted the world
What were the key moments that led to financial meltdown, and what happened in the aftermath? The first of a three-part series that looks closely at the turbulent events in the autumn of 2008.
Sep 21, 2009•23 min
Assignment - Dog Fighting in Chicago
If my dog is tough then I'm tough. Killer dogs give teenagers status in Chicago. For Assignment, Nina Robinson, goes right to the heart of the cruel sport of dog fighting that is attracting so many young people in the run down areas of Chicago's south side.
Sep 17, 2009•23 min
Building Out of the Recession
Just weeks after the Wall Street Crash in 1929, work began on the Empire State Building. The Guardian's architecture correspondent Jonathan Glancey assesses the economics of building out of a recession.
Sep 17, 2009•24 min
Dreams from my mother
President Barack Obama has famously written of the influence exerted on him by his father in his memoir Dreams of My Father, but what of his mother, Ann Dunham? Listen to Judith Kampfner as she unveils more about this unconventional and idealistic woman.
Sep 15, 2009•23 min
For the best experience, listen in Metacast app for iOS or Android