The US election has amplified political and racial divisions across the nation, so how do voters feel about the splits in their society? Host Nuala McGovern is in Reno, Nevada, speaking to people across the political spectrum to hear how they feel about the vote and the state of their nation. In this election assumptions have been overturned and expectations upended. Double the number of Black voters are believed to have supported President Trump at the polls compared to 2016, and several promin...
Nov 07, 2020•24 min
Eighteen fishermen from Sicily are in jail in Benghazi, accused of fishing in Libya’s waters. And in this part of the Mediterranean, rich in the highly-prized and lucrative red prawn, these kinds of arrests are frequent. Usually the Libyans release the men after negotiations. This time it’s different. General Khalifa Haftar – the warlord with authority over the east of Libya – is demanding a prisoner swap: the freeing of four Libyans in jail in Sicily convicted of human trafficking and implicate...
Nov 05, 2020•27 min
Native American women are trafficked, murdered and raped at five to ten times the national rate of other American women. The figures are gruelling. Each year, hundreds of girls and women go missing. Many end up dead. A complex system of tribal, state and federal law means many of these women are often failed by law enforcement when it comes to investigating their disappearances. LeAndra Nephin, from the Omaha Tribe of Nebraska, tells the story of America’s forgotten native girls, and how a new g...
Nov 03, 2020•28 min
As the presidential election campaign nears its conclusion, another American city witnesses protests for racial justice after police officers shoot dead a black man on the streets of Philadelphia. Host Nuala McGovern shares several conversations on the prominence of race in this election campaign including two police officers from New York and Missouri and several Black Lives Matter protesters in Charlotte, North Carolina. After the presidential debates promoted controversy around white supremac...
Oct 31, 2020•26 min
Ahead of the US presidential election on 3 November, two socially distanced views of the pre-election political landscape of America, explore different perspectives on key issues and themes from the last four years of the Trump presidency and a campaign curtailed by Covid-19 restrictions. Susan Glasser writes a Letter from Trump’s Washington column for the New Yorker magazine. She has been critical of the way Donald Trump has governed. Joe Borelli is a New York City Council member, a Republican ...
Oct 29, 2020•28 min
Qian Xuesen is widely celebrated in China as the father of the country’s rocket programme, and the man who kick-started its exploration of space. China is now second only to the US in terms of its dominance among the stars. But Qian also had an important part to play in the early scientific advances, before World War Two, that would eventually take the US to the moon. However, he is almost entirely forgotten by the country that nurtured his talent for decades, before anti-communist persecution s...
Oct 27, 2020•29 min
Seventy years ago tens of thousands of North Korean troops invaded South Korea. Over the next three years one of the bloodiest conflicts of the 20th Century claimed millions of lives. On a more positive note, though, the Korean War helped precipitate social change in the United States. Following President Truman’s Executive Order 9981, the Korean conflict became the first in which US armed forces were desegregated. It was not a smooth process but it did precede civil rights advances back home wh...
Oct 25, 2020•51 min
Nuala McGovern speaks with truck drivers and farmers in the United States as they share their thoughts on how their lives and livelihoods have been under the past four years of the Trump presidency. Wisconsin is known as America’s Dairyland. It’s an important state in this election, where the vote could go either way, and where more than one in ten of the electorate are farmers. Three farmers in Wisconsin explain how trade deals by the US have impacted what happens on their farms and how that af...
Oct 24, 2020•24 min
By the middle of the 20th century, the English town of Grimsby was the biggest fishing port in the world. When the catch was good “fishermen could live like rock stars”, says Kurt Christensen who first went to sea aged 15. He was instantly addicted to a tough and dangerous life on the waves. But from the 1970s onwards, the industry went into decline. Today it contributes just a tenth of one percent to Britain’s GDP – less than Harrods, London best known department store. So how can such a tiny i...
Oct 22, 2020•27 min
Thirteen years ago, journalist Ibby Caputo underwent a bone marrow transplant in the US to treat an aggressive form of leukaemia. Because she is of Northern European descent, she believes she had a greater chance of survival, after finding a donor who was "a perfect match." Her friend, Terika Haughton, who was Jamaican, died of transplant-related causes in 2017. Terika did not have a perfect match, and after she died, Ibby explores how much that lack of a perfect match may have played a part in ...
Oct 20, 2020•29 min
TikTok has become one of the political stories in the run up to the US elections, exposing America's distrust of China. But its users and influencers could help decide who takes the White House. Journalist Sophia Smith Galer enters the hype houses of TikTok to find out how influential it really is.
Oct 18, 2020•52 min
As an election approaches in America, we return to a unique experiment which took the temperature of the USA after the surprise election of Donald Trump. In 2016 the BBC World Service, in association with American Public Media, focused on areas which the media had neglected – but made all the difference. We asked for smartphone voice recordings from key areas in the middle of America about their lives now, about why they voted the way they did, and their hopes for the future. Now, in 2020, we re...
Oct 17, 2020•51 min
Our conversations reflect the impact Covid-19 has had on the US economy and on people’s jobs and wellbeing. We hear from a cook in northern California and a PBX switchboard operator in Massachusetts, who both lost their jobs and are struggling to make ends meet and pay the bills. They talk about how they feel forgotten, how the social system isn’t working for them, and how the main presidential candidates are not talking to them. And we hear from three flight attendants, who all lost their jobs ...
Oct 17, 2020•25 min
A death-defying migrant's story... Said Reza Adib was a TV journalist in Afghanistan. In 2016, about to break a story about the sexual abuse of children by Afghan men in authority, he received a threat to his life. Reza fled across the border to Iran. But journalism was in his blood, and in Iran he began to investigate sensitive stories related to the war in Syria. When Iranian authorities confiscated his laptop, he knew his life was again in danger. That same day, with his wife and two small ch...
Oct 15, 2020•27 min
Stella Sabin, who has dyslexia herself, looks at the impact of the condition in adult life, and asks what difference does it make to know the name of what you are experiencing? Dyslexic people are disproportionally represented in low paying jobs and in the US and the UK 50% of the prison population are dyslexic. She visits the intelligence and security organisation GCHQ who are positively recruiting dyslexic thinkers, who are able to find unusual and imaginative solutions to complex problems…lik...
Oct 13, 2020•29 min
In September 1940, in two factories in Southampton, one of the most iconic planes of World War Two was being painstakingly assembled, piece by piece. This sleek and beautiful fighter, with record breaking top speeds and a deadly reputation for precision, was to be Britain’s most notorious weapon against the Nazi air invasion. But, the factory making them was about to be destroyed by devastating German bombing raids. How could the Battle of Britain be fought without the Spitfire? With the factory...
Oct 11, 2020•51 min
The President of the United States is recovering from Covid-19, after a week when the world watched him leaving hospital briefly in a motorcade to wave supporters and - on his return to the White House - moving his mask on a balcony. Donald Trump then told the country there was nothing to fear from the disease. So how were his words received by the Americans across the country? Nuala McGovern hears from those in California, Iowa and Alabama who were thrilled by the president's show of strength a...
Oct 10, 2020•24 min
The second part of this two-part documentary continues the story of Portland, Oregon and its struggle with white supremacists. Portland has a reputation as one of the United States’ most liberal and tolerant cities. Since the death of George Floyd, it has been at the forefront of protests and violence as anti-racist demonstrators and far right groups have battled with each other and with the police. Yet, in 2016, the killing of a young black man sparked a national debate about race hatred. Ninet...
Oct 08, 2020•26 min
Toby Withers who is dyslexic himself, reveals the challenges of learning English, with all its inconsistent rules and odd spellings. He talks to the subject of a ground-breaking study into bilingual dyslexic children – Alex - who is dyslexic in English but not in Japanese. From Hong Kong University he discovers how dyslexia in character-based language systems is different to dyslexia in English.
Oct 06, 2020•28 min
The coronavirus pandemic has claimed more than 200,000 lives in the US and there are more than 7 million confirmed cases. President Trump, whose approach to the virus divides opinion, has now himself tested positive. As Americans prepare to vote for a new president or give Donald Trump four more years, coronavirus is one of the issues that will inform voters' thinking. During the election campaign Nuala McGovern will be hearing from those Americans right across the country.
Oct 05, 2020•24 min
Portland, Oregon, has a reputation as one of the United States’ most liberal and tolerant cities. Since the death of George Floyd, it has been at the forefront of protests and violence as anti-racist demonstrators and far right groups have battled with each other and with the police. Yet these tensions are nothing new. In 2016, the killing of a young black man sparked a national debate about white supremacy. Nineteen year old Larnell Bruce died after a white man called Russell Courtier deliberat...
Oct 01, 2020•26 min
Songs of the Humpback Whale was released in 1970 and went multi-platinum, becoming the best selling environmental album of all time. But it also became emblematic of the West’s shifting attitudes towards environmentalism, inspiring a global movement to save the whales which continues to this day. Marking the 50th anniversary of bio-acoustician Roger Payne’s unlikely smash hit, this programme considers the legacy of sounds that caught the imagination of the world. With contributions from the worl...
Sep 29, 2020•27 min
Brilliance is a must to win a Nobel Prize, but is that the only requirement? What else does it take to become a laureate? Ruth Alexander tells the stories of those who have been overlooked – in some instances, astonishingly so. Why do some countries, and some academic institutions have a bountiful number of laureates and others none at all?
Sep 27, 2020•50 min
What is life like now in the Chinese city where Covid-19 was first detected? Officials have declared Wuhan virus-free. Lots of people have been sharing pictures from bars in the city, which suggest life has gone back to the way it was before. Two people who live in Wuhan tell Nuala McGovern about their newly restored freedoms. In the Czech Republic, "farewell" to coronavirus parties were held at the end of June. As cases surge again, one of the organisers of that party talks about their toleranc...
Sep 26, 2020•24 min
A number of small towns in Poland have been campaigning against what they call 'homosexual ideology'. Local authorities in the provinces have passed resolutions against perceived threats such as sex education and gay rights. LGBT activists complain that they are stoking homophobia and effectively declaring ‘gay-free zones’. Both sides argue that they are protecting the universal values of free speech and justice. But the row has attracted international condemnation. The European Union has withhe...
Sep 24, 2020•26 min
Covid-19 is affecting our relationships - some are better, others are more challenging. A jewellery designer in India and a lawyer in the United States share their experiences and discover they have a lot in common when it comes to changing friendships and building your ‘Covid tribe’. For those wishing to meet someone special, this is an especially difficult time. Three single people from Zimbabwe and the US discuss dating during a pandemic. And an Israeli doctor airs concerns about the social e...
Sep 19, 2020•23 min
The Netherlands - small and overcrowded - is facing fundamental questions about how to use its land, following a historic court judgment forcing the state to take more urgent action to limit nitrogen emissions. Dutch nitrogen emissions - damaging the climate and biodiversity - are the highest in Europe per capita. And though traffic and building are also partly to blame, farmers say the government is principally looking to agriculture to make the necessary reductions. They've staged a series of ...
Sep 17, 2020•27 min
Muhammad is a Bedouin shepherd in a remote corner of the West Bank called Rashash. His family has been herding sheep and goats in Rashash for 30 years and in Palestine for generations. But since Israeli settlers recently moved in nearby it has become difficult for Muhammad to graze his flock undisturbed. When producer Max Freedman visits Rashash, he sees this conflict in action. One settler tries to scatter the sheep by driving towards them in an all-terrain vehicle. Another chases after the flo...
Sep 16, 2020•27 min
It is six months since the outbreak of a new coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. Very few lives around the world have not been affected by Covid-19. More than 27 million people have been infected. More than 900,000 have died with the virus and the numbers increase daily. Behind every case, there is a story. Since March, BBC OS has been hearing those stories. Presenter Nuala McGovern guides you through the personal tributes and remembers the names and the stories of those we have lost, th...
Sep 11, 2020•49 min
Pineapple beer is the universal homebrew in South Africa and pineapple prices trebled when the government imposed a ban on the sale of alcohol and tobacco during the coronavirus pandemic. South Africa has recorded the highest number of coronavirus cases in Africa and the government introduced the ban to ease the pressure on hospitals. With the infection rate now falling the ban has been lifted although some restrictions remain in place. Ed Butler and Vauldi Carelse have been hearing from the bre...
Sep 10, 2020•27 min
