According to the Guinness Book of World Records, TB is humanity’s oldest contagious disease. It has become something of an afterthought in rich nations, but remains the world’s most deadly infectious disease. In 2024 it killed more than 1.2 million people. South Africa has one of the highest TB burdens in the world, but it has also developed one of the most sophisticated scientific ecosystems for the study of the disease. Clinical trials conducted in the country have been crucial to the innovati...
Jan 06, 2026•34 min
We follow the Finnish comedian Ismo Leikola—known simply as Ismo—as he performs in both English and Finnish. We explore his distinctive brand of intellectual humour and how he enjoys creating theories about the world around him. ISMO was once named the funniest person in the world, and we gain a sense of his celebrity status, particularly in his hometown of Jyväskylä. He also reveals why he avoids politics and talks about his love life on stage. Produced and presented by Olga Smirnova...
Jan 05, 2026•26 min
Nostalgia. That sentimental feeling of the past. Memory is a powerful thing and we tend to look back on our firsts fondly. Your first phone, your first best friend, your first kiss… But it turns out you can also feel nostalgic for things you weren’t around for. In the last few years, for Gen Z, there’s been a huge rise in things like y2k fashion, old school technology like flip phones and digital cameras, and even Kate Bush has made it back into the charts. So why do we care so much about old th...
Jan 04, 2026•23 min
Poetry about love between a man and a woman was banned by the Taliban in September 2025. For many Afghans, poetry is something which is very much a part of everyday life and has often been passed down in the oral, folk-law tradition. It weaves in and out of conversation effortlessly and is an important way of connecting with one another. In this episode of The Fifth Floor, we discuss one of the most venerated female love poets in Afghan culture – Rabia Balkhi. Rabia wrote her poetry in the 10th ...
Jan 03, 2026•26 min
The first crew arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) 25 years ago. Since then, almost 300 people from some 20 nations have visited the orbiting laboratory. If you were born after November 2000, for your entire life, there has always been someone living in space. Astronauts Tim Peake and Nicole Stott share their experiences of living on the ISS. Nasa’s latest venture, Artemis II, is due for launch in the next few months. The ten-day mission will carry four astronauts further than any h...
Jan 03, 2026•24 min
Born into a Bosnian Muslim family, Salih Hardaga grew up knowing that his family had done a very courageous thing. During the Nazi occupation of Sarajevo, his parents, Mustafa and Zeinaba, sheltered their Jewish friends, the Kabiljos, even though their home stood opposite a Nazi headquarters. After World War Two, the Kabiljos moved to Israel, but the families kept in touch - and in the early 1990s, the tables were turned. When war broke out in the former Yugoslavia in 1992, the Kabiljos were hor...
Jan 02, 2026•26 min
Ballet, a centuries-old form of European dance, is flourishing in one of Africa’s largest informal settlements. In Kibera, Kenya, we follow aspiring young dancers as they prepare for their biggest performance yet. Amid the pirouettes, jumps and lifts, Carolyne Kiambo discovers how ballet is helping these young Kenyans beyond the stage.
Jan 01, 2026•26 min
A raw and intimate perspective on the terror, anger, and hope of living through war. As bombs hit ever closer to her home in central Gaza, Hanya Aljamal spots her elderly neighbour tending to his garden. “He's been raking the earth,” she says, “prepping the soil for new seeds. Given everything that's already happening, it's quite interesting seeing him do that right now. I mean, if grandpa thinks it's a good time to put seeds in, then I don't know, maybe there's hope.” In audio diaries sent from...
Dec 31, 2025•27 min
People in Gainesboro, Tennessee, have some new neighbours. A conservative developer has bought land just outside the tiny rural Appalachian town, with the aim of forging an “aligned” community based on shared values like “faith, family, and freedom“. Two of the first people to come to town are controversial Christian nationalists who talk about civilisational collapse and the “imperative for like-minded Christians to gather and fight”. Their extreme views on women, civil rights, and the role of ...
Dec 30, 2025•27 min
Following his time at Cern, Haroon Mirza has been creating a major installation based on his research there. The piece, made with his collaborator Jack Jelfs, is a sculptural art work which uses a circle of eight speakers, a large screen and an octagonal chandelier sculpture of LEDs to compose light, sound and video. Combined with a careful manipulation of spatial acoustics, the viewer is cocooned in a truly immersive experience. Oonagh Cousins joins Haroon in his studio as he and Jack work on t...
Dec 29, 2025•26 min
James Coomarasamy speaks to BBC correspondents around the world about the people and places, trends and technology that they are going to be keeping an eye on over the next 12 months. Much of that will be shaped by what has already happened in 2025 - we entered the year still focused on the wars in Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan. Now, people are worried about conflict spreading further. Topics like trade, technology, migration and the health of democracy have helped shaped our politics. Will they conti...
Dec 28, 2025•49 min
Gold prices have reached record highs this year, resulting in changes in buying habits, investment patterns and traditional customs. For the Fifth Floor, BBC language service journalists reflect on changing practices around gold in their regions and from the BBC's Delhi Bureau, Abhik Deb explains how sky-high prices are making a huge difference to Indian weddings, including his own. Around a fifth of Guatemalans leave their home country to seek economic opportunity abroad, particularly in the US...
Dec 27, 2025•26 min
Actress Jennifer Aniston sparked controversy recently when she said that, despite years of unsuccessful fertility treatment, she is not interested in adopting a baby. Instead, she wants “my own DNA in a little person.” Four women from India, the US and UK share their experiences of trying to have children by several different routes. Sometimes, their choices bring judgement. Imogen, in the UK, always wanted to adopt, yet family and friends wondered why going "down the IVF route” was not an optio...
Dec 27, 2025•23 min
Michael Flatley is the most famous Irish dancer in the world, rising to stardom for his leading roles in Riverdance and Lord of the Dance. Colm Flynn travels to meet Flatley at home, where he reflects on the highs of his remarkable career and the personal experiences that shaped his outlook on life and faith. Born in Chicago to Irish parents, Flatley grew up surrounded by music, dance, and the values of hard work and perseverance. His groundbreaking performance in Riverdance at the Eurovision So...
Dec 26, 2025•26 min
Our present to you is the science of gifts. First, we investigate the health benefits of donating blood, and find out about the predator sharing a feast of food in the Arctic. We are then joined in the studio by physicist Dr Krishma Singal from Rice University, who unravels the soft-matter physics and brilliant engineering potential of knitting. Next, we discuss the reputation of piranhas, enquire about the uniqueness of our sneezes, and break down how salting roads makes them safer in the winte...
Dec 25, 2025•50 min
2025 on The Interview In 2025, the BBC launched The Interview, bringing you the best conversations from across the BBC. People shaping our world from all over the world. This special episode for The Documentary features three of the most compelling conversations from The Interview across the year. Senior politicians are held to account by experienced BBC journalists, who also bring a unique and personal insight to the conversation, with a behind-the-scenes take on each encounter that took place....
Dec 24, 2025•27 min
After decades of extinction, wild jaguars are once again roaming in Northern Argentina. It has been at least thirty five years since a wild jaguar cub was spotted in this dry and dusty part of Argentina. But in August 2025, a baby appeared on the chocolatey-brown banks of the River Bermejo. Its existence was a great success for the team from Rewilding Argentina, a non-profit foundation that started reintroducing these magnificent beasts here in 2019. But it has not been easy: hunting is still a ...
Dec 23, 2025•27 min
There’s a tradition among poets to write a poem to put inside the Christmas cards they send. So, the BBC World Service has commissioned one specially from the poet, dramatist and novelist Michael Symmons Roberts, whose Christian faith is important to his identity and work. But his art is not a direct expression of this, and instead he follows the poet Emily Dickinson’s instruction to "tell all the truth but tell it slant". Michael has just become a grandfather, so feels keenly the happiness of t...
Dec 22, 2025•26 min
Celebrating 25 unbroken years of humans living in space, former international director of the UK Space Agency Dr Alice Bunn charts how nations put aside differences to create the ultimate symbol of human ingenuity and collaboration – a space station orbiting our planet that has been home to more than 300 people from 24 different nations. Using mission control audio, news archive and personal stories, Alice illuminates acts of epic survival, humour and selflessness that made the station a reality...
Dec 21, 2025•50 min
In February, American President Donald Trump signed an executive order which said that South African Afrikaners - descendants of mainly Dutch settlers who arrived in the 17th Century - could be admitted as refugees in the USA as they were "victims of unjust racial discrimination". President Trump’s move to prioritise the resettlement of white South African farmers reignited global controversy when he referenced what he has described as a “genocide” against white farmers. Thousands of South Afric...
Dec 20, 2025•26 min
The Australian government says it will crack down on hate speech following the deadly shooting that targeted a Jewish festival at Bondi Beach. People had come together to celebrate Hanukkah when two gunmen opened fire, killing fifteen people. Australia’s new laws aim to target those who spread “hate, division and radicalisation". In our conversations, Jewish Australians discuss their personal experiences of antisemitism in Australia. “You see the arson, you see the graffiti, you see the protests...
Dec 20, 2025•23 min
Imagine being able to see your place of worship, but not be able to reach it. For many Palestinian Muslims in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, stricter Israeli security measures, rising tensions with settlers, and movement restrictions introduced after the 7 October attacks, have made access to mosques increasingly challenging. Reporting from Hebron and East Jerusalem, Emily Wither explores how these pressures are reshaping the spiritual lives of worshippers living at the heart of one ...
Dec 19, 2025•27 min
Botswana is home to about a third of Africa’s remaining savanna elephants, over 130,000. But it is a burden as well as a blessing. It puts pressure on local communities, and the cost of conservation is huge. Climate change means elephants are moving into new areas in their search for water and in some parts of this sparsely populated country there are more elephants than people. Jo Dwyer travels to northern Botswana, where safari-based tourism helps drive the economy. Elephants bring in the tour...
Dec 18, 2025•26 min
As the USA and Soviet Union race for supremacy in the 1960s, Premier Khrushchev sizes up his rival, President John F Kennedy. Presenters Max Kennedy and Nina Khrushcheva, relatives of the superpower leaders, explore their rise to power - one wealthy, smooth-talking and Harvard educated, the other a hardened Soviet war leader from a peasant family. As they prepare to meet for the first and only time as world leaders, the stakes could not be higher: they are fierce rivals in the race to build ever...
Dec 17, 2025•38 min
In plain sight, in a modern city, a colleague offers to drive you home after work. How would you respond? One woman in Kazakhstan accepted the lift only to find herself kidnapped or ‘stolen’ as a bride. She got away, rescued by the police, but for many Kazakh women kidnap leads to marriage. Human Rights lawyer Khalida Azhigulova reckons that thousands of women are forced into marriage each year in Kazakhstan, including many who are abducted. Some women even find that a wedding has already been a...
Dec 16, 2025•28 min
Sean Allsop goes behind the scenes inside the legendary Jim Henson's Creature Shop in New York, where fabric and materials bring life to characters beloved around the world. Sean joins the team as they work on their famous franchise Fraggle Rock, a series which started in the mid-80s. They're currently creating human-size walk-about characters for a brand new live show. Creative supervisor Jason Weber and the team work through costume fitting, sculpting, and go through archives to make the perfe...
Dec 15, 2025•30 min
One year after the fall of Syria's dictator, Bashar al-Assad, interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa has undergone a significant image makeover. He's regularly seen playing basketball or pool on social media and his posts are amplified by a network of government-backed influencers. BBC Monitoring's Samia Hosny has been watching and reflects on what this PR campaign is saying – and what it isn't. The special administrative region of Macau on the south coast of China is sometimes referred to as the Las...
Dec 13, 2025•26 min
Donald Trump says Somali immigrants in the US should “go back to where they came from.” The President’s comments come after allegations of large-scale fraud in Minnesota's social assistance programme, implicating several Somali immigrants. Trump has repeatedly criticised the community saying he does not want Somali immigrants in the United States and that their country is “no good for a reason.” In our conversations we bring together three Somalis who have made their homes in Minnesota. We also ...
Dec 13, 2025•23 min
Sex therapist Dr Rica Cruz is on a mission to destigmatise sex in the deeply Catholic Philippines. As a practising Catholic herself, she believes sex is a divine gift and should be intertwined with faith rather than in conflict. Using social media to advocate for this, she earned a strong following which led to her own TV programme, Private Convos with Doc Rica. But that show was banned by the country’s broadcast TV regulator, the MTRCB. Jay Behrouzi speaks with Dr Cruz about her fight for bette...
Dec 12, 2025•27 min
In some places, the nearest safe operating room can be hours or even days away. We find out about a portable operating theatre called SurgiBox that fits in a backpack and inflates in minutes, creating a safe surgical environment for operations almost anywhere. We meet the co-founder of the start-up behind it and see it put to the test, and speak to a surgeon who has used it to save lives far from a hospital. We also hear from Field Ready, whose engineers in Syria are using 3D printing to bring b...
Dec 11, 2025•24 min
