A mechanical engineer by day, Hania Zataari felt compelled to put her skills to use as the war intensified in Lebanon. Hailing from the south, one of the worst hit areas in the country, she has created a chatbot on WhatsApp that simplifies access to much-needed aid. BBC Trending follows Hania as she helps to bring aid to those affected by the war between Israel and Hezbollah. We also speak to people who have been helped by her chatbot and an aid volunteer to paint a picture of how Hania’s chatbo...
Jan 15, 2025•21 min
Each year young people from the tiny West African nation of The Gambia try to reach Europe through “The Backway” - a costly, perilous journey over land and sea. Many do not make it. In recent years, the EU has done deals with several North African nations to clamp down on irregular migration. Though human rights groups say the treatment of migrants can be brutal - allegations the authorities deny. But each year thousands of African migrants say they have no choice but to return home. It can be a...
Jan 14, 2025•27 min
Kiran Gandhi, aka Madame Gandhi, is an American artist, activist and producer who originally started out as a percussionist for popular British artist MIA, and American electronic music duo Thievery Corporation. She holds a masters degree in Music Science Technology at Stanford University and is on a mission to find innovative ways of using music to motivate and inspire people to care about climate change. Tom Raine follows Kiran on her journey to record brand new sounds in the North Pole, where...
Jan 13, 2025•26 min
In Freetown, Sierra Leone, we join a group of African-Americans who have all taken a DNA test and discovered their ancestors came from this country on the West Coast of Africa, before they were trafficked to the US and enslaved. Over their two week trip, we explore the bustling city of Freetown, a very different experience to the US. They travel to remote villages where their ancestors may have lived. Here they are each adopted by a local family and given a traditional name according to the ethn...
Jan 12, 2025•52 min
Eunice Yang from BBC Chinese reports on the closure of over 400 maternity wards across China. Plus, South Korea's illegal tattoo parlours with BBC Korean's Yuna Ku, and why Ghana's traditional kente fabric has been recognised by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage, with BBC Africa's Jelilat Olawale. Yuna's documentary is part of the BBC 100 Women series. To find out more about the other inspiring and influential women on this year's list go to bbc.co.uk/100women. You can also follow BBC 10...
Jan 11, 2025•25 min
Over the past decade, cars and trucks have been used as lethal weapons in an increasing number of attacks. Fourteen people died and at least 35 were injured when a driver of a pickup truck targeted crowds in New Orleans on New Year’s Day. Less than a month earlier, a nine-year-old child and five adults were killed in a similar incident in the eastern German city of Magdeburg where a car was driven through a crowded Christmas market. Kathy was dancing in a Christmas parade in the town of Waukesha...
Jan 11, 2025•23 min
Sahar Zand follows young Hindu activists Banamali and Sukanto, who are documenting the violence they say authorities and media are ignoring. She joins them as they respond to a new attack on a Hindu-majority village, where a mob set fire to a yet another building. The attacks are not just aimed at buildings. Sahar meets victims, including an elderly village doctor recovering from an attempted murder and a grieving mother whose 14-year-old son was killed trying to escape the country. In a tense i...
Jan 10, 2025•27 min
Since humans have been on earth, the night sky has caused many to gaze upwards, open-mouthed in astonishment. Beyond its beauty, it has facilitated both the development and advancement of human and animal life on Earth. Celestial navigation guided humans across the seas, forming new trade routes and civilisations. The constellations also signalled when winter or summer was approaching so people would know when to sow their crops. But for decades, the night sky has been changing dramatically. Tho...
Jan 09, 2025•26 min
In the city of Goma, former child soldiers are being rehabilitated using capoeira, the Brazilian martial art. Since the start of the conflict in 1996 in the Democratic Republic of Congo, child soldiers have been recruited to fight. After they are demobilised from armed groups, many suffer from mental health disorders like anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. The demobilised child soldiers are housed in transit centres while they wait to be reunited with their families. While t...
Jan 08, 2025•23 min
The people of Valencia are still trying to come to terms with the events of 29 October - in a matter of hours, the Spanish city was hit by flash floods, leaving behind a trail of death and destruction. But, as news of the floods began circulating on social media, so did rumours about the supposed causes behind the torrential rain. “This is not normal weather”, suggested one tweet seen more than a million times, “This is weather warfare manipulated by HAARP.” Claims that the weather is being mani...
Jan 08, 2025•18 min
Why feminism has become a dirty word in South Korea. In South Korea being a feminist is now something that can only be admitted in private, thanks to a fierce backlash against feminism. Anti-feminists accuse women who advocate for equality as being man-haters, worthy of punishment. Online witch-hunts - spearheaded by young male gamers - target women suspected of harbouring feminist views, bombarding them with abuse and demanding they be fired from their jobs. Jean Mackenzie investigates how thes...
Jan 07, 2025•30 min
You might not know the name Dan Perri, but you will probably have seen his work: he designed the title sequences for some of the most famous films in cinema history. Mark Burman hears how he created the titles for Star Wars, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver and The Exorcist.
Jan 06, 2025•39 min
A few years ago, the town of Anam in Southern Nigeria was known for all the wrong reasons: high levels of crime and knife and gun violence. A group of local women, known as 'ụmụadas', decided to take matters into their own hands and confronted criminals with... their kitchen spoons. BBC Igbo editor Adline Okere, who is an ụmụada herself, has the story. Plus, how Subagunam Kannan's passion for filming ants in his own house led him to make a viral video for BBC Tamil, and a train journey through T...
Jan 04, 2025•27 min
“I’m looking for a man in finance …” is the opening line of one of the most viewed, copied and remixed social media posts of the year. The woman behind it, Megan Boni, aka TikTok’s Girl on Couch, invented the rhyme as a jokey description of the perfect man she and her single friends would like to meet. She posted it one evening, and the internet went wild. It has been a similar story for Scottish actor Kirsty Paterson. Kirsty was photographed looking dejected in a sad green Oompa Loompa wig at p...
Jan 04, 2025•23 min
In the aftermath of Bangladesh’s political unrest and the student-led protests that led to the collapse of Sheikh Hasina’s government in August 2024, the country is facing a period of transition and uncertainty. Amid the chaos, harrowing videos and reports of violent attacks against the Hindu minority flooded social media—images of burning buildings, horrifying violence, and women weeping as they pleaded for help. However, some began to doubt the veracity and authenticity of these videos after t...
Jan 03, 2025•26 min
In Palermo, and across southern Italy, there are two main types of stray dog. There are the semi-wild packs that live on the edge of human settlements, and then there are the cani di quartiere (dogs of the neighbourhood). These dogs are known by everyone and owned by no one. They sprawl out for naps in the middle of the pavement, frequent the same butchers for their scraps, play with the neighbourhood kids, and have friends - canine and human - all over the territory. Unlike strays in other part...
Jan 02, 2025•27 min
The fear of an Anterior cruciate ligament injury, or ACL, hangs over all athletes. It is a season-ending injury, agonising, and with a long painful recovery. But why is it happening to so many female footballers? Research shows that ACL injuries are up to six times more likely to happen to female athletes than male. Former England international footballer Lianne Sanderson, who suffered an ACL injury in 2016, explores the science behind this statistic and finds out about the solutions that are be...
Jan 01, 2025•23 min
Tourists are flooding to Cambodia's "8th wonder of the world," the ancient temple complex at Angkor. But the rapid expansion of the site comes at a terrible cost, as tens of thousands of people are ousted. The authorities call some "illegal squatters" and claim others volunteered to leave. But human rights groups say the evictions are forced, illegal and target families who've worked the land for generations. Many say they're now debt-ridden and struggling to survive. Jill McGivering travelled t...
Dec 31, 2024•27 min
Former US President Jimmy Carter has died aged 100. The 39th U.S. president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate lived longer than any president in history. He celebrated his 100th birthday in October 2024. How did a peanut farmer from the Deep South and Georgia Governor become president? Justin Webb speaks to Jonathan Alter, author of His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life. From brokering peace in the Middle East, to famously promising the American people he would never lie, Carter served as president f...
Dec 30, 2024•36 min
Argentinian artist Tomás Saraceno's studio is two big and old industrial units covered in graffiti, in what was East Berlin. This was where the company AGFA developed and made the chemicals that made colour photography possible. The ground is so polluted Saraceno's lease forbids him from growing any vegetables, and this matters to this environmentally concerned artist. But the industrial past of Studio Saracen is fitting as Tomás’ work is highly technical. Here he has an architecture department,...
Dec 30, 2024•25 min
A special bonus episode remembering some past HARDtalk guests who died in 2024. All of them made a significant impact, whether it be in politics, activism or culture. Here is a chance to reflect on their lives and motivation. For more in-depth, hard-hitting interviews with newsworthy personalities, go to bbcworldservice.com/HARDTalk or search for HARDTalk wherever you got this podcast.
Dec 29, 2024•24 min
Why are old Bollywood hits being re-released in cinemas? And why are horror movies doing so well this year? Journalists Meryl Sebastian, Yasser Usman and Shoaib Sharifi discuss all things Bollywood. Produced by Alice Gioia, Caroline Ferguson and Hannah Dean. (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
Dec 28, 2024•20 min
Earlier this year, five countries won Olympics medals for the first time in history. We celebrate three of those athletes from Nepal, Cape Verde and Dominica and hear about the challenges on their journey to sporting greatness. Thea LaFond, who won gold in the triple jump for Dominica had little financial support early on in her athletics career and was often the only person in her event who also had a full-time job. We hear how the athletes’ experiences not only affected their country, but also...
Dec 28, 2024•23 min
In 2019 a devastating fire ripped through the historic Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Locals looked on in disbelief, and millions watched on television around the world, as the iconic wooden spire came crashing down into the flames. Many thought Notre Dame was lost forever, but the 860-year-old Cathedral was not for giving up and over the past four years a team of skilled workers, at a cost of 700 million Euros, have painstakingly reconstructed this medieval masterpiece. Colm Flynn meet five peo...
Dec 27, 2024•27 min
The city of Florence is one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations. But are new technologies and hyper-tourism changing it forever? Writer Kamin Mohammadi tells the story of how one road - the Via Di San Niccolo - has changed. Kamin lived there when she first moved to the city 16 years ago, and she has seen the changes first-hand. She speaks to friends who still live on the street, business owners who have experienced the changes, about whether the character of the city has been foreve...
Dec 26, 2024•27 min
A special episode from the HARDTalk podcast. HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur looks back on some of the most powerful moments from 2024 in his end of year review. For more in-depth, hard-hitting interviews with newsworthy personalities, go to bbcworldservice.com/HARDTalk or search for HARDTalk wherever you got this podcast.
Dec 25, 2024•24 min
Ukraine and Poland are neighbours and close allies in today’s conflict with Russia. But the ghosts of victims of an earlier war have returned to divide them. Tens of thousands of Poles were murdered by Ukrainians in Volhynia, in what's now western Ukraine, in 1943. Most of the victims still lie in unmarked graves, and Ukraine has only just lifted a ban on exhuming the bodies. That followed heavy diplomatic pressure by Poland, about to take over the presidency of the European Union. It threatened...
Dec 24, 2024•31 min
Mark Reid visits a school in Bulgaria where they are teaching their pupils how to make movies. They are making a short film about their local horse market. There are classes like this across the world, in Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom, to name but a few. And it is all part of a project is called Le Cinema Cent Ans De Jeunesse.
Dec 23, 2024•26 min
What would the potential loss of Syria naval and air bases mean for Russia? The fall of the Assad regime triggered the start of possibly the greatest reshaping of the Middle East in decades, throwing into uncertainty the fate of Russia’s military bases in the country, among many other things. Tartus and Hmeimim served as a springboard for Moscow’s foreign missions elsewhere. We assess their significance for the Kremlin’s strategic footprint in Africa, and explore the alternatives.
Dec 22, 2024•43 min
K-dramas are taking the world by storm. What's the secret of their success? BBC journalists Faith Oshoko, Julie Yoonnyung Lee and Samantha Haque discuss all things K-drama and offer their recommendations for series to get stuck into during the holiday period. Produced by Hannah Dean and Alice Gioia. (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
Dec 21, 2024•23 min
