The Documentary Podcast
Episodes
The Fifth Floor: Who runs Russia's African Initiative?
19 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What do a graffiti festival, a first aid training and a football match have in common? These are all events set up by African Initiative, a Russian me...
BBC OS Conversations: Living alongside Mexico's drug gangs
19 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When she was sworn in as Mexico’s new president, Claudia Sheinbaum pledged to tackle the country’s drug gangs. In the past couple of months, local...
Bonus: What in the World - Liam Payne
18 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A bonus episode for The Documentary from the What in the World podcast.The death of One Direction star Liam Payne has shocked the world, and there’s...
Heart and Soul: The dead are not dead
18 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In certain cultures in Uganda and across Africa, a belief exists where departed husbands return as ethereal entities to engage in intimate encounters ...
The children's hospital of Entebbe
17 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Until 2021, Uganda had only four paediatric surgeons and a just a few children’s hospital beds for the entire country. In 2020, the mortality rate f...
BBC Trending: Yami Baito - Inside Japan’s dark part-time jobs
16 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A wave of criminal activity in Japan has been blamed on social media. Yami Baito – meaning “dark part-time jobs” in Japanese – refers to job a...
Assignment: Singapore – drugs, rehab, execution
15 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Singapore’s drug laws are severe. The penalties for trafficking illegal narcotics range from a prison term to execution. And if you’re caught usi...
In the Studio: Mia Lehrer and the LA River
14 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Los Angeles river has been a concrete channel since the 1930s, when the US Army Corps of Engineers decided to concrete over the original river for...
An end to Aids?
13 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Over the four decades since the pandemic took off, we have seen around 40 million people worldwide killed by HIV. Today, around the same number of peo...
The Fifth Floor: The wolf salute
12 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Grey Wolves, a Turkish far-right political movement, is getting increasing attention worldwide. So is their hand gesture, depicting a wolf’s hea...
BBC OS Conversations: Israelis remember the hostages
12 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Commemorations took place in Israel this week to mark 7 October, 2023, when 1,200 people were killed by Hamas gunmen and 251 were taken hostage into n...
Heart and Soul: Reclaiming yoga
11 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With a global market worth more than $100 billion dollars a year, yoga is a massive industry. With its origins in India, Yoga is often considered to b...
BBC Trending: The curse of the blessing scam
10 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Female con artists are exploiting superstition and family love to swindle women with Chinese heritage living in the west. The blessing scam is an elab...
Bonus: The World Debate: What is the path to peace in the Middle East?
09 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Mishal Husain is joined by a panel of guests to discuss whether this is a path to peace in the Middle East.Joining Mishal are Jeremy Bowen, the BBC's ...
Bonus: People Fixing the World
08 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A bonus episode from the People Fixing the World podcast. Concerns are growing about the effects of smartphones on both adults and children, so we're ...
Bonus: The Conflict: Israel and Gaza one year on
07 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Lyse Doucet reflects on some of the biggest moments from this conflict with BBC colleagues Jeremy Bowen, Anna Foster and Rushdi Abualouf, who have bee...
US local news 2024: On the front page frontline
07 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Gary O'Donoghue meets local newspaper editors in America to hear about the challenge of reporting during a divisive presidential election campaign. In...
The Fifth Floor: Mollywood's MeToo
05 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Rampant abuse and 'mafia' style intimidations: these are the conditions thousands of women working in one of India's film industries allegedly faced f...
BBC OS Conversations: My year in Gaza
05 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On 7 October 2023, Hamas gunmen attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 more hostage. Israel responded with airstrikes and by sending tro...
Heart and Soul: Father Adamski
04 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Peter Adamski seemed to have it all. At 19, he had met Kathy, the love of his life and the woman he would marry. In his 20s, he landed a prestigious j...
Bonus: Lives Less Ordinary
03 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A bonus episode from the Lives Less Ordinary podcast. British-Iranian Anoosheh Ashoori spent years in one of Iran’s toughest prisons after being sna...
BBC Trending: The Baku initiative?
02 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In May, riots broke out in the French overseas territory of New Caledonia - a group of islands in the South Pacific. Protesters were calling for indep...
Saving a sinking city: Jakarta
01 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Jakarta is facing all sorts of problems - deadly floods, land subsidence, extreme pollution, notorious traffic and overcrowding. Indonesia’s outgoin...
Assignment: Panama’s water fights
01 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Panama is one of the wettest countries in the world. It also has a world famous shipping canal which earns it billions of dollars a year. With big mon...
In the Studio: Ian Rankin, part two
30 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ian Rankin is on a deadline to complete his next Inspector Rebus thriller. He is happy with the first draft: “at the moment, it is perfect!”. But ...
In the Studio: Ian Rankin, part one
30 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ian Rankin has been called “the king of crime fiction”. His Inspector Rebus books have sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, translated into...
The Fifth Floor: Who is Mexico's first female president?
28 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On October 1st, Claudia Sheinbaum will take office and become Mexico's first female president. What will her presidency look like? With Laura García ...
BBC OS Conversations: People in Lebanon and northern Israel
28 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The escalating conflict between Hezbollah in Lebanon and Israel is being described as one of the most intense in recent times. The current fighting ha...
Heart and Soul: Istanbul’s church of wishes
27 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Turkey's largest city, Istanbul, queues of people of all faiths visit a Greek Orthodox Church on the first day of each month to make a wish. Emily ...
Bonus: The Inquiry - How are the Taliban governing Afghanistan?
26 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A bonus episode from The Inquiry. Just over three years ago the Taliban seized Kabul and stormed to power in Afghanistan. They soon declared a new gov...
BBC Trending: An (online) storm in a Philippine rainforest
25 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What do Hollywood legend Leo DiCaprio, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, and English zoologist Jane Goodall have in common? They have all taken...
Bonus: The Climate Question
25 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A bonus episode from The Climate Question podcast.BBC Climate Editor Justin Rowlatt travels to Somalia to investigate the links between global warming...
Assignment: Reproductive rights: A divided flock
24 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The US ‘pro-life’ movement has gained ground in recent years, with courts overturning women’s right to an abortion and questioning the legality ...
In the Studio: Erdem Moralıoğlu
23 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Erdem Moralıoğlu is one of the UK’s most admired and creative fashion designers. Born in Canada to a Turkish father and British mother, he studied...
The new Germans
22 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Amid the 2015 migrant crisis, when millions of refugees were seeking safety in Europe, Germany’s then Chancellor, Angela Merkel, took an extraordina...
The Fifth Floor: The silent death of an anti-Putin pianist
21 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Pavel Kushnir was a classical pianist. But according to Russian authorities, he was also a dangerous dissident. In July 2024, he died on hunger strike...
BBC OS Conversations: Talking to someone with suicidal thoughts
21 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The rock legend Jon Bon Jovi made headlines around the world and earned much praise after he was seen helping a distressed woman on the ledge of a bri...
Heart and Soul: I became a Muslim after the Taliban kept me hostage
20 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Bara’atu Ibrahim speaks to Jibra’il Omar, formerly Timothy Weeks; an Australian educator who was held captive for three years in Afghanistan by th...
Stories from the New Silk Road: Space
19 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
China's Belt and Road Initiative stretches physically with infrastructure projects across the globe, but there is one initiative that is the most ambi...
BBC Trending: Woman, life, surveillance
18 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Iranian government is not coy about its silence tactics. Since Iran's Woman Life Freedom Movement began on 16 September 2022, unlawful executions,...
The great dolphin release
18 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Johnny, Rocky and Rambo were performers in the world’s last travelling dolphin circus and inside a Bali hotel swimming pool. This is the story of th...
Assignment: Ageing without a safety net in Malaysia
17 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Industrialisation, modern cityscapes and strong economic growth promote an image of a youthful, vigorous Malaysia. But the country is now ageing rapid...
In the Studio: Lenin Tamayo and Q-pop
16 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Peruvian singer Lenin Tamayo has been dubbed the founder of ‘Q-pop’. He combines traditional Andean folk music with K-pop inspired instrumentation...
Solutions Journalism: The African 'Babelfish'
15 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Africa is home to around one-third of the world's languages, but only a smattering of them are available online and in translation software. So when y...
The Fifth Floor: Exam nightmares
14 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Why are exams so stressful? Chinese journalists Wanqing Zhang and Eric Junzhe share personal memories about the infamous Gaokao exam in China, which t...
BBC OS Conversations: Are we still in love with dating apps?
14 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For millions of us, our phones or computers are the first place we go to look for romance. Dating apps are a multi-billion dollar business, and for a ...
Heart and Soul: Indigenous healing on the party island of Ibiza
13 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ibiza is an island of contrasts. A place which triggers thoughts of raucous partying, superstar DJs and excess. But it's also an area of raw natural b...
Trending: Can we live without our phones?
12 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The BBC's Disinformation and Social Media Correspondent, Marianna Spring, speaks to parents, teenagers and social media company insiders to investigat...
Flying high: The return of the peregrine falcon
12 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The peregrine falcon is not only the fastest animal on our planet, but also the most widely distributed bird of prey, found on every continent apart f...
The Midwife’s Confession: Eye Investigates
10 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For the last thirty years Indian journalist Amitabh Parashar has been investigating why a group of midwives in his home state of Bihar were routinely ...
Assignment: Ivory Coast's cocoa crisis
10 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
From the journey from cocoa to chocolate in Ivory Coast. The price of cocoa - the essential ingredient in chocolate - has more than quadrupled on the ...
In The Studio: Tuan Andrew Nguyen - The healing power of art
09 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Tuan Andrew Nguyen, who was born in Vietnam in 1976, was only two years old when his family were made refugees by the war. They ended up in Texas, in ...
Bonus: Lives Less Ordinary
08 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A bonus episode from the Lives Less Ordinary podcast.In 1982 Mississippi, two boys, Chris Strompolos and Eric Zala, aged 10 and 11, embarked on a craz...
The Fifth Floor: Pakistan's internet mystery
07 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Why are people in Pakistan struggling to use messaging apps and social media? BBC Urdu's editor Asif Farooqi explains why this might be more than just...
BBC OS Conversations: What's it like to have mpox
07 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Mpox causes a headache, fever and a blistering rash all over the body. There have been more than 1,200 cases in parts of Central and West Africa since...
Heart and Soul: Synagogue for sale
06 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Aleksandra Janus is a Polish Cultural Anthropologist with a Jewish background from Warsaw, Poland. Living in the capital flattened by Nazi bombs an...
Bonus: CrowdScience - How do fish survive in the deep ocean?
05 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In a bonus episode from CrowdScience - How do fish survive in the deep ocean?When listener Watum heard about the Titan submersible implosion in the ne...
West Bank: Settlers, guns and sanctions
03 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For more than six months, a BBC Eye team has been investigating extremist settlers establishing a new type of illegal settlement known as a “herding...
Assignment: The 'ghost city' of Cyprus
03 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The once glamorous Cypriot beach resort of Varosha has stood empty and frozen in time since war divided the island 50 years ago, but it is now partial...
Global Dancefloor: Tbilisi
02 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Frank McWeeny heads to Georgia’s capital Tbilisi, to meet the underground music community leading protests against government clampdown on freedom o...
In the Studio: Laurie Anderson
02 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
American artist Laurie Anderson is putting the finishing touches to her new album Amelia at Miraval Studios in southern France. This is Laurie's first...
Three Million: 8. Road to the past
01 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Kavita Puri goes to India to meet the last survivors of the 1943 Bengal famine. She looks for traces of how war and famine impacted Kolkata and then t...
The Fifth Floor: Ukraine's 'Memory Cafés'
31 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Could a cup of coffee become an act of love and remembrance? BBC Ukrainian's Ilona Hromliuk speaks to the relatives of fallen soldiers who have opened...
BBC OS Conversations: Three years of Taliban rule in Afghanistan
31 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The withdrawal of US troops in 2021 prompted the collapse of the Afghan military, an interim government and then a power grab by the hardline Islamist...
Heart and Soul: Afghanistan 20 years on
30 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Twenty years ago, reporter Julia Paul was teaching media to young women in an Afghanistan where the Taliban were in retreat, if only temporarily. Now ...
Courting success: A journey to Paris 2024
29 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
One of the highlights of the Paralympics is wheelchair tennis and one of its true champions is Kgothatso Montjane. KG, as she likes to be known, was b...
Bonus: The Inquiry - What does Hezbollah want?
28 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Hezbollah has both political and military wings both of which are designated by several countries as terror organisations. It emerged several decades ...
Assignment: The struggle for Jerusalem’s Old City
27 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Why Armenians in Jerusalem say they are fighting an existential battle. Is the identity of the Old City of Jerusalem changing - house by house? This s...
In the Studio: Architect Daniel Libeskind
26 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Daniel Libeskind is one of the world's leading architects. Amongst his many projects, he devised the masterplan for the redevelopment of Ground Zero i...
The next Paralympians
25 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Deepthi Jeevanji grew up in a rural Indian village where she was bullied and mocked for being different. In Paris this summer, she will become India’...
The Fifth Floor: What really happened in Bakhmut?
24 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 2022, the city of Bakhmut in Eastern Ukraine was attacked by Russian forces. The fight for Bakhmut lasted over 10 months and claimed the lives of t...
BBC OS Conversations: Women's safety in India
24 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The recent rape and murder of a trainee doctor after a 36-hour hospital shift has, according to India’s top court, “shocked the conscience of the ...
Heart and Soul: Corruption in the Curia
23 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Pope Francis was hailed as a reformist when he became Pope in 2013. He vowed to get a handle on the scandals plaguing the Catholic Church, including h...
Solutions Journalism: A better start
22 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For every 10 babies born across the world one will be preterm and the fate of these tiny babies is often very uncertain. They are kept alive by scienc...
Invisible souls
21 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Fishermen from the Philippines, Ghana and Sri Lanka speak out about how badly, they say, they were treated by a Scottish fishing company that hired th...
Assignment: Ukraine - on the front line
20 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Ukraine drone technology is transforming the battlefield and the rules of war are being rewritten. The BBC’s Quentin Sommerville travels to the f...
In the Studio: Ad Minoliti
19 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Artist Ad Minoliti lives and works in the Argentinian capital Buenos Aires. They are known for their vibrant, geometric designs and the colours in the...
Under ash: Uncovering Maui’s past
18 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In August of 2023, the tourist epicentre of the Hawaiian island of Maui caught fire and the blaze engulfed 2,000 houses, 800 businesses and took the l...
The Fifth Floor: The rise of caste influencers in India
17 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
India's ancient caste system can result in controversy and discrimination in the country. But a new trend has sprung up of young women flaunting their...
BBC OS Conversations: Life in Venezuela
17 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
International condemnation followed the elections in Venezuela at the end of July that saw President Maduro declared the winner for a third consecutiv...
Heart and Soul: Muslim sex education
16 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Despite some opposition from within their own faith communities, Muti’ah and Angelica are on a mission to teach other Muslim women how to have healt...
India's fight against TB
15 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 2015, the United Nations and the World Health Organisation set out their blueprints to eradicate Tuberculosis by 2030. TB is a potentially deadly b...
Solutions Journalism: The art of air pollution
14 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Air Pollution is responsible for around seven million deaths every year. Governments around the world have been trying to tackle it with a variety of ...
Assignment: Rejecting Public Education in Arizona
13 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The so-called ‘parents’ revolution’ is happening in America - and it’s a revolt against the public education system. School choice campaigns a...
In the Studio: Munch on the move
12 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Norwegian artist Edvard Munch is best known for his expressionist painting The Scream. A pastel version of it fetched $ 120 million when it was la...
'Indocumentados’: America’s undocumented migrants
11 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The US is home to around seven million undocumented migrants from central and south America. Many have been in the US for years, providing a vital wor...
The Fifth Floor: Vietnam's matchmakers
10 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
According to the UN, from 2008-2018 over 18,000 Vietnamese citizens a year married foreigners. The vast majority of them are women, and many find thei...
BBC OS Conversations: Gen Z and power change in Bangladesh
10 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
After weeks of student-led demonstrations and violence across Bangladesh, which caused the deaths of hundreds of people, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ...
Heart and Soul: Digital grief
09 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
New digital technologies including AI have started to find a place in the grieving process, sometimes alongside more traditional religious rituals. 'G...
The Global Jigsaw: The Taliban’s war on women
08 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A bonus episode from The Global Jigsaw looks at how the Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan has led to the erasure of women from public life. The...
Bonus: The Engineers - Intelligent Machines
08 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is a bonus episode for The Documentary of The Engineers: Intelligent Machines. This year, we speak to a panel of three engineers at the forefront...
Solutions Journalism: Going bananas
07 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A killer fungus is ravaging plantations of the Cavendish banana worldwide. It travels through the soil at lightning speed and chokes the banana plant ...
Assignment: The Italian town where praying is a political issue
06 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Italian town of Monfalcone on the Adriatic coast has an ethnic make-up unique to the country. Of a population of just over thirty thousand, more t...
In the Studio: B-girl Ray Gun
05 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Known to many as breakdancing, breaking sprung up in the economic and social unrest of 1970s New York, as a form of expressive protest. Today, it is a...
Erasing Hong Kong
04 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Hong Kong's history is being revised and erased - it's early origins, colonial legacy, post 1997 handover period and the crucial years since the mass ...
The Fifth Floor: Three years of Taliban rule
03 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Three years ago the Taliban took control of Afghanistan. BBC Afghan journalists Shekiba Habib and Shoaib Sharifi were living and following the events ...
BBC OS Conversations: Protests in Bangladesh
03 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It began as a peaceful student protest against the way some government jobs are reserved for war veterans and their families. The violence that follow...
Heart and Soul: Wrestling for redemption in Jordan
02 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Injuries meant wrestler Dan Russell missed out on two opportunities for glory at the Olympics back in the 1990s. But missing the chance to fight for g...
Bonus: World Book Club - Edna O'Brien
01 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In a bonus edition of World Book Club following the death of the acclaimed Irish author Edna O’Brien, who died aged 93 in July 2024, we look back to...
Bonus: The Global Story - Divorce
31 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In a bonus episode of The Global Story podcast - Divorce: The art of breaking up. The Global Story brings you one big story every weekday, making sens...