The Documentary Podcast

The Superlinguists: How to learn a language

09 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Simon Calder asks how to go about acquiring a new tongue. He gets tips from those who know - innovative teachers and polyglots. The answers are surpri...

Denmark's Migrant Ghettos

04 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Denmark's efforts to better integrate its migrant population are attracting controversy at home, and abroad. Twenty nine housing districts, known as '...

The Superlinguists: The polyglots

02 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Simon Calder meets people who keep learning new languages not because they have to, but because they want to. What motivates them? Situations like thi...

Interview with the Dalai Lama

30 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In a wide ranging interview the Dalai Lama talks to the BBC’s Rajini Vaidyanathan about President Trump and his America First agenda, Brexit, the EU...

Training to save the treasures of Iraq - part two

30 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Shaimaa Khalil is reunited with eight women from Mosul after their training in London. She hears about the work the archaeologists are doing now to as...

Marching to the coolest beat

29 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

An unlikely pageant takes place every year in the American Rust Belt town of Dayton Ohio. Three hundred teams of high school and college students have...

Marseille: France’s Crumbling City

27 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On the 5th November last year, two apartment buildings collapsed in Marseille’s historic centre. Eight people died in a tragedy which has sent shock...

The magic fingers of Rashid Khan

25 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Rashid Khan was born in Nangarhar in Eastern Afghanistan in 1998 but his early life was spent in a refugee camp in Pakistan away from the conflict tha...

Training to save the treasures of Iraq

23 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

For three years Mosul was occupied by the extremist group known as the Islamic State. During the occupation which lasted until July 2017, the group de...

Dying from mistrust in Ukraine

20 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Until recently, health authorities in developed countries appeared to be well on the way to wiping out measles – a highly contagious disease that’...

Vaccination: The global picture

19 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The Wellcome Trust reveals how attitudes towards vaccinations vary around the world in its Global Monitor. The most vaccine-sceptical country is Franc...

Destination education

18 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Despite the political uncertainty in the UK at the moment the country’s reputation for top-class education, if you can afford it, is still on the ri...

Remembering Afghanistan's Elvis

16 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Ahmad Zahir with his dark shock of hair, sultry voice and overwhelming stage presence more than earned the nickname "The Afghan Elvis". He remains Afg...

Morocco’s hash trail to Europe

13 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In Amsterdam’s cafes, you can buy hashish openly, over the counter. But go around back to see how the drug comes in, and you’ll get a lot of smoke...

Falling Rock

11 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Jacob Rosales, a 20-year-old student at Yale, takes a closer look at some of the varied challenges facing Native American young people today. With ala...

Ticket to a new life

09 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Ana is a winner in the annual Pacific Access Category ballot. It is a visa lottery. Each year, Tonga gets up to 250 places, Fiji the same, and there a...

Praying for petrol

08 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In a country infamous for its drug cartels, Mexico has another booming black market - petrol. Starting out as just a few individuals tapping lines to ...

Turkey’s political football

06 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Football in Turkey's biggest city always means colour, passion and noise, but this season has an added edge. The big three Istanbul clubs, which have ...

Don't hide my son

04 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The Tanzanian mothers forced to hide their children with Down syndrome due to social stigma and their defiant determination to change this.

Sudan’s white-coated uprising

30 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Sudan’s doctors on the frontline. When ongoing street protests finally pushed Sudan’s repressive president from power last month, it was the count...

After the boats

29 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

During the migrant crisis, thousands of Nigerian women were trafficked into Italy for sexual exploitation. In 2016 alone, 11,000 made the perilous jou...

Beyond Borders: Seeking safety in Sweden and Germany

26 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

For over five years, British-Lebanese journalist Zahra Mackaoui has been following the stories of a group of Syrians, who have scattered across the wo...

Amar: Alone in the world

25 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

He was known as “the little boy who lost everything”. In 1991, Amar Kanim’s disfigured face was shown on newspaper front pages around the world,...

The undercover migrant

23 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The extraordinary story of an undercover migrant and his ‘secret spectacles’.When Azeteng, a young man from rural Ghana, heard stories on the radi...

Robots on the road

21 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The world’s biggest car makers and technology companies are investing billions of dollars in autonomous vehicles. They believe it is just a few year...

Beyond Borders: Seeking safety in Canada and Lebanon

19 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The Syrian war has created one of the largest human displacements in history – with millions of people on the move seeking safety. For over five yea...

Me, the refugee

19 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What is it like to be taken away from your childhood home, to be brought to a strange new country where you are locked away? That is what happened to ...

Bolivia’s Mennonites, Justice and Renewal

16 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In 2009, Mennonite women in a far-flung Bolivian colony reported mass rape. Now leaders of this insular, Christian community with its roots in Europe ...

Slavery's untold story

14 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In Oklahoma, Tayo Popoola discovers the story of the slaves owned by the Cherokee Indian tribe. Since the emancipation of the slaves in the 19th Centu...

Left behind

12 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

This is the flipside of migration. Migrants make headlines all the time, but what about those they leave behind? The so-called ‘motherless villages’...

Guyana - bracing for the oil boom

08 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

South America’s second poorest nation is about to get very rich - but will the prosperity be shared? A series of oil discoveries in Guyanese waters ...

The populist curtain: Austria and Italy

08 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Political scientist Yascha Mounk travels through countries which were on the West of the former Iron Curtain. Graz in Austria is the birthplace of Arc...

When the things start to talk

07 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The internet of things, devices that communicate with each other across networks are becoming increasingly part of everyday life – controlling the h...

The crossing

02 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

It’s over two years since the authorities in France closed down the Jungle, the large migrant camp in Calais on the French coast. At its height more...

The populist curtain: Poland and Hungary

01 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Political scientist Yascha Mounk travels from Szczecin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, the route of the former "Iron Curtain" and finds out ...

Dark fibres and the frozen north

30 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

If data is the new oil, are data centres the new oil rigs? Far into the north of Norway are some of the biggest data centres in the world. As a more i...

Flat 113 at Grenfell Tower

28 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On 14 June 2017, a fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in West London; it caused 72 deaths and more than 70 others were inju...

Bangladesh versus Yaba

25 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Thousands of Bangladeshi addicts are hooked on Yaba - a mix of methamphetamine and caffeine. It's a powerful drug that gives big bangs for small bucks...

America's friends

24 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

From a US president who is turning the world upside down – with a relish for dismantling global agreements – the message is clear: it’s America ...

South Africa's Born Frees at 25

23 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

There's a generation in South Africa who are known as the Born Frees. They were born in 1994, the year of the elections in which black citizens were a...

10, 9, 8, 7

21 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Taking place over just eight months, four perilous and eventful space missions laid the foundations for a successful Moon landing. Each pushed the bou...

Restoring Brazil's National Treasure

18 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Brazilians wept when their 200-year-old National Museum went up in flames last September. Twenty million items, many of them irreplaceable, were thoug...

Snooker: Young, cool and Chinese

16 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Once a game associated with the backrooms of British pubs, snooker is now a global sport, with most of its growth coming from China. Seven-time world ...

Mumbai Mirror

14 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

As the 2019 Indian election campaign kicks off, BBC World Service follows journalists from the daily Mumbai Mirror newspaper to get under the skin of ...

New York City’s pirates of the air

13 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

As the workday winds down across New York, you can tune in to a clandestine world of unlicensed radio stations; a cacophonous sonic wonder of the city...

Order! Order!

13 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The BBC’s parliamentary correspondent Mark D’Arcy reviews the bizarre twists and turns of the extraordinary and chaotic past few weeks of debates ...

Poland's partisan ghosts

11 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

For some in Poland the Cursed Soldiers are national heroes; for others they are murderers. A march in celebration of a group of Polish partisans fight...

India's forbidden love

09 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

At a time when religious extremism and honour killings have been dominating the political and social discourse, we take a look at the issues surroundi...

Will AI kill development?

06 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Ian Goldin asks if robotisation will prevent poorer countries taking the traditional route to prosperity. Since World War Two, nation after nation has...

Nepal Fights Foreign Paedophiles

04 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Hunting western paedophiles is a priority for a new police unit tasked with safeguarding children in Nepal. Mired in poverty and still recovering from...

Will China and America go to war?

03 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Will the growing competition between China and the United States inevitably lead to military conflict? One leading American academic created huge atte...

Not #MeToo, I'm French

02 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In 2016 when #MeToo spread around the world, thousands of women followed in France using the hashtag #balancetonporc (expose your pig). Some criticise...

Unrest in Ukraine’s Little Hungary

28 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Eastern Ukraine has been under assault from Russian backed rebel forces for the past five years, but few have heard of a smaller conflict, which could...

The Romanian Wave

27 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Romanians are the second largest foreign nationality in the UK. Why did they come and will they stay? One politician famously once said he "would not ...

Where are you going? - London

26 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Catherine Carr talks to people on the move in London. From the American who left her young children on the other side of the Atlantic, and the Russian...

RoboLife

24 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Mariko Oi has young children starting school in Singapore, where robots are increasingly being used in education, and ageing parents back in her home ...

The crypto factor: the winners and losers in virtual investment

21 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

You can't take money with you when you die.... or can you? In this episode of Assignment the stranger than fiction story that's the latest cryptocurre...

India and how it sees Britain

20 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Neil MacGregor visits different countries to talk to leading political, business and cultural figures to find out how they, as individuals and as memb...

Where are you going? - Belfast

19 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

One question – Where are you going? – reveals hidden truths about the lives of strangers around the world. In this new series, with Brexit fast ap...

Can you murder a robot?

17 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A couple of years ago a cute little robot was sent out to hitchhike, to prove how well humans and robots could get on. It was an exercise in trust, an...

Abandoned in the Amazon

14 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

When a light aircraft carrying two families from local Indian tribes disappeared over the Amazon recently, relatives scoured the rainforest for weeks,...

Canada and how it sees Britain

13 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Neil MacGregor visits different countries to talk to leading political, business and cultural figures to find out how they, as individuals and as memb...

Where are you going? - Cardiff

12 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Cardiff in early February is freezing cold but the people have a warm welcome. Catherine Carr meets strangers in the city of Cardiff to find out what ...

The Slumlords of Nairobi

10 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In Nairobi’s slums, more than 90% of residents rent a shack from a slum landlord. These so-called slumlords have a less than shining reputation in t...

The Church of Denmark abuse scandal

07 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

How did a priest of the Church of Denmark manage to sexually abuse children for a decade without being detected? Gry Hoffmann investigates the case of...

Nigeria and how it sees Britain

06 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Neil MacGregor visits different countries to talk to leading political, business and cultural figures to find out how they, as individuals and as memb...

Where Are You Going? - Glasgow

05 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

With Brexit fast approaching, Catherine Carr talks to people on the move in Glasgow, Cardiff, Belfast and London. Are the people she meets downcast, d...

We Intend to Cause Havoc

02 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In the wake of independence an explosive music scene gripped the southern African country of Zambia. Mixing western rock 'n' roll with traditional sou...

Empty Spain and the Caravans of Love

28 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

How does a lonely, Spanish shepherd find love when single women have left for the city? Antonio Cerrada lives north of Madrid, in the heart of what’...

Egypt and how it sees Britain

27 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Neil MacGregor visits different countries to talk to leading political, business and cultural figures to find out how they, as individuals and as memb...

Hearing me

26 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

(This programme contains audio effects that may cause discomfort to people living with hearing conditions. There is a modified version of this program...

The Miracle of St Anthony's

24 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In the late 1960s, parole officer Bob Hurley became basketball coach at St Anthony’s High School in Jersey City, New Jersey. In the years that follo...

Malawi: Life After Death Row

21 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Byson expected to be dead long ago. Now in his sixties, he was given a death sentence quarter of a century ago. But instead of being executed, he’s ...

As the World Sees Britain: Germany and how it sees Britain

20 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Neil MacGregor visits different countries to talk to leading political, business and cultural figures to find out how they, as individuals and as memb...

George Weah: The footballing president

19 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

George Weah, former World Footballer of the Year and star of AC Milan, Chelsea and Monaco, was elected president of Liberia in a landslide victory jus...

Can we fix it? The inside story of match fixing in tennis

14 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Last month, law enforcement officials in Spain said they had broken up a major match fixing ring in tennis. The Guardia Civil said 28 players competin...

The Trumped Republicans

13 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Republican insider Ron Christie discovers how Donald Trump's presidency is changing his party. Trump arrived in the White House offering a populist re...

So where are the aliens?

12 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Vulcans, Daleks, Martians, Grays - our culture is pervaded by alien beings from distant worlds – some benevolent…most not so much. In our galaxy a...

The Ballads of Emmett Till

10 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

**Some listeners may find parts of this programme upsetting** Emmett Till, fourteen and black, was put on the train from Chicago by his mother Mamie i...

The Pledge

07 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On college campuses across the United States, students die every year as a result of “hazing” - sometimes violent and dangerous rituals designed t...

My Brexit Dilemma

06 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Adrian Goldberg is a BBC reporter. His father was German and came to the UK on Kindertransport just before the start of the Second World War. For Adri...

Sweeping the World

05 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In Sweeping the World, award-winning poet, Imtiaz Dharker presents a reflective evocation in words, sound and music of the broom in many cultures. Whe...

The Politics of Mongolian Hip Hop

02 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

MC Dizraeli hears how Mongolia’s massive hip hop scene is shaping the country’s future. He finds surprising lyrics that dispense moral advice, wor...

Japan's Elderly Crime Wave

31 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Elderly pensioners in Japan are committing petty crimes so that they can be sent to prison. One in five of all prisoners in Japan are now over 65. The...

Solving Alzheimer's: Living and Dying with Alzheimer's

29 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In the Netherlands, people with dementia can legally chose euthanasia but the debate is going back and forth there. When can dementia patients consent...

Songs from the Depths of Hell

27 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Aleksander Kulisiewicz spent six years in Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, imprisoned soon after the Nazi invasion and their attempted destruction of...

Closing Uganda’s Orphanage

24 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Uganda is a country that has seen massive growth in the number of ‘orphanages’ providing homes to children, despite the number of orphans there de...

Solving Alzheimer's: The Trillion Dollar Disease

22 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Dementia is now a trillion-dollar disease, and with the numbers of patients doubling every 20 years, the burden will fall unevenly on developing count...

The Assassination - Part Two

20 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

It is one of the world's great unsolved murders. Ten years ago, Pakistan's most prominent politician, a woman people would form human chains to protec...

France, Algeria and the battle for truth

17 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

President Emmanuel Macron has recently done something unusual for a French President – he made a declaration recognising that torture was used by th...

Africa’s Drone Experiment

16 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

While the idea of retail giants like Amazon dropping parcels from the sky via drone may be a long way off, in East Africa momentum is building over th...

Solving Alzheimer's: Fear and Stigma

15 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Few of us will escape the impact of Alzheimer’s Disease. The grim pay-back from being healthy, wealthy or lucky enough to live into our late 80s and...

The Assassination - Part One

13 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Ten years ago, Benazir Bhutto, a woman people would form human chains to protect from assassins, died in a suicide blast. The intervening years have b...

Balkan Border Wars - Serbia and Kosovo

10 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Old enemies Serbia and Kosovo discuss what for some is unthinkable - an ethnic land swap. This dramatic proposal is one of those being talked about as...

Cuban Voices

08 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Ordinary Cubans reveal what their lives have really been like under Castro’s socialism and, more recently, its transformation into a more capitalist...

From the Ground Up

05 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The Central African Republic is one of the least developed countries on earth. Years of conflict have left hundreds of thousands of people displaced. ...

The Brazilian Footballer Who Never Was

03 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

At 12, Douglas Braga arrived in Rio de Janeiro, a wide-eyed boy, ready to live out the Brazilian dream and become a professional footballer. At 18, he...

New York's Flower Market: Things my Father Loved

01 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

New York’s historic 28th Street flower market opens early. The sidewalk is a rush of colour by 5am, packed with cheerful yellow sunflowers, frothy l...

Childish Gambino: This is 2018

30 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In May 2018 the American actor and singer Donald Glover (aka Childish Gambino) released what has been described as “the most talked about music vide...

Armenia: Return to a Town that Died

27 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Thirty years on from the 1988 earthquake in Armenia, what’s happened to the devastated town of Spitak? Rescuers from all over the world came to help...