The journey from cocoa to chocolate in Ivory Coast. The price of cocoa - the essential ingredient in chocolate - has more than quadrupled on the international market in the last two years. Yet many of those growing it have not benefitted. In fact, drought, disease and a lack of investment have led to catastrophic harvests and, therefore, a drop in income for many small producers of cocoa, especially in Ivory Coast. This West African country is the world’s largest producer of cocoa - up to 45% of the world’s total. Most of the growers are small-scale, poor farmers. There are now calls for these growers to get a bigger chunk of the chocolate bar and, in so doing, to help ensure future production. John Murphy travels to Ivory Coast to delve into the world of chocolate production.Presented and produced by John Murphy With additional production in Ivory Coast from Ebrin Brou Mixed by Andy Fell Production coordinator Gemma Ashman Series editor Penny Murphy

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 partially open to tourists and there are hotly contested plans for its renewal.Maria Margaronis speaks to Varosha's former inhabitants - mostly Greek Cypriots - who fled in 1974 when Turkish troops invaded the island and have been unable to return ever since, after Turkey fenced off the town as a bargaining chip for future peace negotiations. Some of these Varoshians want to rebuild the resort together with the island's Turkish Cypriots - a potential model for diffusing hostilities across the whole island - and the UN says its original inhabitants must be allowed to return. But, following decades of failed peace talks, the internationally unrecognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which controls Varosha, now says it intends to re-open and redevelop the entire town.Presenter: Maria Margaronis Producer: Simon Tulett Series editor: Penny Murphy Studio Manager: Gareth Jones Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman and Katie MorrisonMusic credit: Michalis Terlikkas

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 small patch of land is of vital importance to Christians, Muslims and Jews alike. But, amid accusations of dodgy deals, corruption and trickery, there are concerns that the Old City’s historic multi-ethnic and multi-religious identity is being altered. In the Armenian Quarter a battle is going on for the control of land which the local community says is essential to its well-being and even its survival. Emily Wither visits one of the most contested cities in the world.Presenter: Emily Wither Producer: John Murphy Sound Mix: Neil Churchill Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman Editor: Penny MurphyMusic: Apo Sahagian

Industrialisation, modern cityscapes and strong economic growth promote an image of a youthful, vigorous Malaysia. But the country is now ageing rapidly, and this sudden transformation seems to have caught many - including the government - by surprise. Despite their country’s development, millions have little or no retirement income and face destitution or dependence in their golden years. What little provision is available was compromised during the Covid pandemic when the government allowed workers to withdraw retirement funds just to survive lockdown. Those who did so can now have almost nothing left in their accounts. Without any universal pension, many older Malaysians rely on their families – but younger relatives are often struggling in a low wage economy and find it increasingly difficult to provide for anyone but themselves. As Claire Bolderson reports, Malaysians may have to change their attitudes to retirement and to saving if they are to avoid the spectre of serious poverty in old age.Producer: Mike Gallagher Editor: Penny Murphy Studio Manager: Hal Haines Production Coordinator: Katie Morrison

The so-called ‘parents’ revolution’ is happening in America - and it’s a revolt against the public education system. School choice campaigns are gaining ground across the country, fighting for tax-funded vouchers giving parents the opportunity to select their preferred school. More and more families are ditching institutions altogether, with homeschooling reportedly the fastest growing form of education in the US. Why are families turning away from traditional schooling, and what does this mean for the future of America’s education system? Alex Last travels to Arizona - a state at the forefront of the school choice movement - to find out more.Presenter: Alex Last Producer: Ellie House Series editor: Penny Murphy Studio Manager: Neil Churchill Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman

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 than six thousand are from Bangladesh. They’ve come to help construct huge cruise ships, providing the cheap labour to do the type of manual jobs which Italians no longer want to do. For years, they worshipped at two Islamic centres in the town. Then, in November, the town’s far right mayor, Anna Maria Cisint, tried to effectively ban collective prayer there, along with stopping cricket - the Bangladeshi national sport - from being played within the town. She says she is defending Christian values. Her critics say she is building walls rather than bridges. For Crossing Continents, Sofia Bettiza travels to Italy to discover how the country is dealing with the increasing numbers of legal migrants coming to work in a country which needs their labour.Producer: Bob Howard Presenter: Sofia Bettiza Studio Manager: Rod Farquhar Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman Editor: Penny Murphy

In this second part of his journey from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea, across the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Israel, reporter Tim Whewell continues his exploration of the physical and human reality behind the slogan “From the River to the Sea”, a phrase which creates intense controversy. In this podcast he descends from the high ridge of the West Bank hills to the Israeli Mediterranean coast at Herzlia, known for its beaches and high-tech industry – and then continues along the sea, to end his journey at the ruined ancient city of Caesarea. Along the way, on the West Bank, he encounters a Palestinian dry stone waller and an Israeli hairdresser – and then, crossing into Israel, he talks to Jewish Israelis including teachers, activists and a journalist – and to Palestinian citizens of Israel. Finally, he meets a group of young Israelis who have recently finished their military service. Some of them have been fighting in Gaza. What future do all these people hope for, in the 90 kilometres between the River and the Sea? Presenter/producer: Tim Whewell Sound mixing: Neil Churchill Production co-ordinator: Gemma Ashman Editor: Penny Murphy (Photo shows some of the people Tim meets in the two parts of the series. Clockwise from top left: Ben Levy, Israeli nature ranger; Sulieman Mleahat, Palestinian development worker; Susie Becher, Israeli political activist; Okayla Shehadi, retired Palestinian citizen of Israel.)

Since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas last year, the cry “From the River to the Sea” has been heard more and more as a pro-Palestinian slogan. But what river? What sea? And what exactly does the phrase mean? It’s the subject of intense controversy. In this two-part series, reporter Tim Whewell travels from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea, across a tiny stretch of land that’s perhaps the most argued-over in the world.Along the way, he meets shepherds and teachers, soldiers and gardeners, artists and activists - Palestinians and Israelis of many different views and backgrounds. The shortest line from the River to the Sea doesn’t pass through Gaza. But everyone Tim meets on his journey across the Israeli-occupied West Bank of the River, and in Israel, is living in the shadow of the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel and the war that’s followed. The future of the often-beautiful, fast-changing, overcrowded region he crosses will be at the heart of any solution to the Middle East conflict. In this first programme, he goes from the Jordan, through the Israeli settlement of Argaman, the Palestinian herding community of al-Farisiyah and the Palestinian village of Duma, ending up at the Israeli settlement of Shilo. What do people in those places think now – and do they have any hope for the future? (In Part 2, Tim leaves the West Bank and travels through Israel.)Presenter/producer: Tim Whewell Sound mixing: Andy Fell and Neil Churchill Production co-ordinator: Gemma Ashman Editor: Penny Murphy (Photo: Some people Tim meets in the series. Clockwise from top left: Ben Levy, Israeli nature ranger; Sulieman Mleahat, Palestinian development worker; Susie Becher, Israeli political activist; Okayla Shehadi, retired Palestinian citizen of Israel.)

The Caspian Sea is the largest inland body of water in the world. Bordered by Kazakhstan, Russia, Iran, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan it spans 371,000 square kilometres and bridges Europe and Central Asia. It’s fed mainly by Russia’s Volga and Ural rivers and the sea is not only rich in oil and gas but is also home to numerous rare and endemic species, including the Caspian seal and 90% of the world’s remaining wild sturgeon. But the Caspian Sea is in crisis. Climate change and the damming of Russia’s rivers are causing the coastline to recede at an alarming rate. The sea’s levels have fallen by a metre in the last 4 years, a trend likely to increase. Recent studies have shown that the levels could drop between 9 and 18 metres by 2100. Last June Kazakh government officials declared a state of emergency over the Caspian. Iran has also raised the alarm with the UN. Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent travels to Kazakhstan for Crossing Continents to report from the shores of the Caspian Sea on what can be done to prevent an environmental disaster.Presented by Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent Produced by Caroline Bayley Editor, Penny Murphy Sound Engineer, Rod Farquhar Production coordinator, Gemma Ashman Dombyra played by Yelnar Amanzhol

In 1897 British colonial forces attacked and looted the ancient Kingdom of Benin in what is now southern Nigeria. Thousands of precious objects were taken including stunning sculptures made of bronze, brass, ivory and terracotta. Some were decorative, some were sacred. Known collectively as the Benin Bronzes, they were famed for their craftsmanship and beauty. The majority ended up in museums around the world. But ever since Nigerians have been demanding their return. The Bronzes became symbols of the wider global campaign for restitution by former colonial powers. Now finally, some have been handed back. For Crossing Continents, Peter Macjob travels to Nigeria to track the return of the Bronzes, and find out what it means for Nigeria to have these lost treasures come home.Producer: Alex Last Studio mix: Neil Churchill Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman Editor: Penny Murphy

Last year in Italy the biggest anti-mafia trial in 30 years reached a climax. On the stand were the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta: they are estimated to run 80 percent of Europe’s cocaine and to make more money in a year than McDonalds and Deutsche Bank put together. With access to mafioso-turned-collaborator Emanuele Mancuso, journalist Francisco Garcia looks at why Emanuele went against his powerful family. What has this trial meant for the 'Ndrangheta? And has it changed life for Calabrians today? Producer: Ant Adeane Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman Studio Manager: Neil Churchill Editor: Penny Murphy

It's a quarter of a century since Kosovo emerged from a brutal war, one which pitted local ethnic Albanians against Serbs. Twenty-five years on, the government in Pristina is pressing ahead with reforms that could reinforce its separation from Serbia. They include banning the use of Serb dinars and curbing the import of things like Serb medicines. Pristina says the moves are needed to curb illegality and tax-evasion. But they’ve brought widespread complaints from local Serbs who feel victimised. Is the government justified in claiming there’s a rising risk of violence, or are the restrictions themselves making this more likely?Producer and presenter: Ed Butler Studio mix: Rod Farquhar Editor: Penny Murphy Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman

For three decades Armenians ruled Karabakh – literally “Black Garden” – an unrecognised statelet inside neighbouring Azerbaijan. Many saw it as the cradle of their civilisation. But as Azerbaijan retook control last autumn, the entire population fled in just a few days. It was a historic catastrophe for Armenia. But the world barely noticed. How is Armenia coping with its loss? Can 100,000 refugees rebuild their lives? And will the cycle of hatred that caused the conflict ever be broken? Grigor Atanesian reports.Produced by Tim Whewell Studio mix: James Beard Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman Series Editor: Penny Murphy

Reggaeton’s the soundtrack to Puerto Rico. The globally popular music reflects what’s going on in the cultural and political scene of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean Island.It started out as underground music in marginalised communities but was criticised for allegedly promoting violence and being too sexually explicit. Reggaeton has since been used as an anthem to overthrow a local governor and a way to criticise the island’s complex relationship with the United States. It’s also evolved from misogynist roots to reach new audiences in the LGBTQ community.Jane Chambers travels to Puerto Rico to meet the people and hear the music which is both maligned and revered.Presenter and Producer: Jane Chambers Field Producers: Hermes Ayala and Yondy Agosto Sound Mix: Neil Churchill Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman Editor: Penny Murphy

Thousands of people every day are on the move across Mexico towards the border with the US. But for migrants, this is one of the most perilous journeys in the world: land routes are dominated by powerful drug cartels and organised crime groups.In this episode of Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly hears terrifying stories of kidnap and extortion from those who have risked everything to enter the United States. The US/Mexico border has become the most important battleground for Americans in this year’s presidential election, but it seems no one can stop the men with guns who operate with impunity south of the border in Mexico. Producer/presenter: Linda Pressly Producer: Tim Mansel Producer in Mexico: Ulises Escamilla Sound: Neil Churchill Production Co-ordinator: Gemma Ashman Editor: Penny Murphy

Belarus has huge numbers of political prisoners - around three times as many as in Russia, in a far smaller country. Almost industrial scale arrests began after huge, peaceful pro-democracy demonstrations swept the country in 2020 after Alexander Lukashenko claimed a landslide victory in presidential elections. Mr Lukashenko has been in power for 30 years. Protestors said the result was a fraud, and that they’d been cheated of their vote. Almost four years on, the authorities are still making mass arrests. Many of those detained are women. The most prominent woman prisoner, Maria Kolesnikova, a professional flute player, has been incommunicado for over a year, with no word at all reaching her family or lawyers. Political prisoners are made to wear a yellow patch on their clothes. The women say they kept short of food and made to sew uniforms for the security forces, to clean the prison yard with rags and shovel snow. They speak of undergoing humiliating punishments such as standing in parade grounds under the sun for hours. Yet they also tell us of camaraderie and warmth in their tiny cells as they try to keep one other going. And women on the outside continue to take personal risks to help the prisoners by sending in food, warm clothes and letters.Presented by Monica Whitlock Producers Monica Whitlock and Albina Kovalyova Sound mix Neil Churchill Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman Editor: Penny Murphy

While recent attention has focused on the Houthi rebel movement in Yemen, BBC correspondent Nawal Al-Maghafi investigates a different, hidden aspect of the country’s long civil war. The conflict in Yemen began in 2014. It has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. In 2015, a coalition formed by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia invaded Yemen. Its stated aim was to return the elected government to power, and to fight terrorism. However, Nawal Al-Maghafi , from BBC Arabic Investigations has found evidence that the UAE has been funding a method of covert warfare in southern Yemen – assassinating those who have spoken out against the UAE’s operations in the country. Assassinations were initially carried out by a band of former American Special Forces operatives turned mercenaries, who were paid by the UAE. These extra-judicial killings, conducted in the name of counterterrorism, continue to this day. The UAE denies the allegations.Reporter: Nawal Al-Maghafi Producer: Alex Last Sound mix: Rod Farquhar Series Editor: Penny Murphy Production Co-ordinator: Gemma Ashman Executive Producer for BBC News Arabic: Monica Gansey

Migration is high on the political agenda in countries across Europe, as the number of asylum seekers rises once more. As well as those who risk life and limb on flimsy boats in the Mediterranean, thousands more come via the Balkans, many of them through Turkey and across the border into Bulgaria. They don’t stay there long. Their preferred destinations are further west, Germany perhaps or Britain. And while the migrants’ stories have become well-known in recent years, we hear relatively little from the people who enable their journeys, the people smugglers. For Crossing Continents, Nick Thorpe has been to the north-west of Bulgaria, where it meets Serbia to the west and Romania across the Danube to the north. There he meets two men who worked as drivers for a smuggling organisation, shuttling migrants from Sofia, the capital, to the border. Presented by Nick Thorpe Produced by Tim Mansel

Campaigners on the tiny Caribbean island of Barbuda are locked in a battle over its development by foreign investors who are building exclusive resorts for wealthy clients. The development of Barbuda into a high-end tourist destination is supported by the government of Antigua and Barbuda, who say it’s essential to create jobs and for the economic future of the island. But others argue that it will fundamentally change the island’s ecology and unique way of life. Caroline Bayley travels to Barbuda for Crossing Continents to speak to both sides in the heated debate over the island’s future.Photo: The pristine coastline on Barbuda's south coast, which has become the main focus for new luxury developments (BBC).Reporter: Caroline Bayley Producer: Alex Last Sound mix by Rod Farquhar Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman Series Editor: Penny Murphy

In 2016, the Philippines’ newly elected president, Rodrigo Duterte declared there was one, common enemy: the drugs trade. What followed was a bloodbath. Addicts, alleged traffickers – and so many who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time – were gunned down in the streets by the security services. Often, the police claimed there had been a shoot-out and they had shot back in self-defence. The government put the number of people killed in the ‘war on drugs’ at 6,252 – that figure doesn’t include the thousands killed by unknown assailants. Now some of those victims are speaking from beyond the grave. Many were poor, and their families couldn’t afford a permanent resting place in a cemetery. Instead, they rented a burial spot. And, as those short leases have come up for eviction, a Catholic priest, Father Flavie Villanueva, offers families help to exhume and cremate the bodies. But before cremation, the remains are examined by one of only two forensic pathologists in the Philippines, Dr Raquel Fortun. Dr Fortun has assessed the skeletal remains of dozens of victims of the ‘war on drugs’. Her findings often contradict police narratives. For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly reports on these efforts to uncover the truth of what happened under President Duterte. But she also hears how, under a new president since 2022 - Ferdinand Marcos Jr - the killings on the streets have continued. Producer: Tim Mansel Presenter: Linda Pressly Studio mix by James Beard Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman Editor: Penny Murphy

Some people said it was created by Peruvian scientists, that it gorged on the blood of farm animals, that it was a monster. Many myths have grown up in Bolivia around the Paiche, one of the world’s largest scaled freshwater fish which is native to Amazonian rivers of Brazil and Peru and can grow up to four metres long. But after young fish were accidentally released from a Peruvian fish farm, the Paiche has arrived big time in Bolivian rivers. Every year, it reaches another 40 km of river and is eating all before it, especially smaller native fish stocks including even the deadly piranha. At the same time, the Paiche is proving a boon to many local fisherman who sell it to families and restaurants who are acquiring a taste for it in a land-locked country where meat has always been the favourite form of protein. This gives scientists and the authorities a dilemma. Do they try and control or even eradicate the Paiche from rivers famed for their biodiversity where new species are being identified all the time? Or let its spread continue unabated and provide a useful livelihood for fishermen and a healthy addition to the Bolivian diet? For Crossing Continents, Jane Chambers takes to the rivers of BoliviaProduced by Bob Howard Mixed by Rod Farquhar Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman Series editor: Penny Murphy

Rebuilding Ukraine after the destruction inflicted by Russia will be a gigantic task. Foreign donors have pledged billions of dollars. But they want reassurances that the money will be properly spent, in a country which still has high levels of corruption. For Crossing Continents Tim Whewell visits Bucha, near the capital Kyiv, site of some of the worst Russian atrocities, to see the beginning of reconstruction. A series of shocking reports by Ukrainian journalists into alleged misuse of rebuilding funds have forced local authorities in the area to explain themselves. But a new state reconstruction agency committed to transparency has now also started work in Bucha. And anti-corruption campaigners believe a new digital accounting and monitoring system they are developing in collaboration with the authorities will help turn Ukraine into a world beacon of openness. The government's slogan is "build back better." But what exactly does that mean? And can it be achieved? Produced and presented by Tim Whewell Studio Mix: Neil Churchill Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman Editor: Penny Murphy

As hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers defend their country against Russia, many patriotic civilians are engaged in a struggle that's less risky, but that they believe is also vital. They’re battling for a fairer, less corrupt Ukraine, worthy of its heroes. For Crossing Continents, Tim Whewell follows one tireless citizens’ group in the city of Dnipro as they continue, even in wartime, to hold local authorities to account. They've been investigating a contract to repair housing damaged in a Russian attack. And they claim there's been corrupt profiteering. But Dnipro's powerful mayor dismisses the allegations - and deliberately insults those who question his priorities. What's the role of civil society when rockets are falling? And can Ukraine - one of the world's more corrupt countries - pursue reform while the war continues? Produced and presented by Tim Whewell Fixer in Ukraine: Rostyslav Kubik Mixed by Neil Churchill Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman Series Editor: Penny Murphy

Cyprus is one of the main resting stops for songbirds as they migrate between Europe, Africa and the Middle East. For centuries, Cypriots trapped and ate a small number of migrating songbirds, as part of a subsistence diet. But over recent decades, the consumption of songbirds became a lucrative commercial business and the level of slaughter reached industrial levels . Millions of birds were killed each year as trappers employed new technologies to attract and capture birds. The methods used by the trappers are illegal under both Cypriot and EU law. In the last few years, both the Cypriot authorities and environmental groups have been fighting back, dramatically reducing the number of birds being trapped. But it remains a multi-million dollar illegal business which has increasingly drawn in organised criminal gangs. For Crossing Continents, Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent sees the trappers in action, and meets those determined to stop the mass killing of birds. Presenter: Antonia Bolingbroke Kent Producer: Alex Last Sound mix: Rod Farquhar Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman Series Editor: Penny Murphy

Crossing Continents reports from Poland’s eastern frontier, where the Polish government has built a steel border wall - 186 kilometres long and five metres high, it’s meant to stop global migrants from Asia and Africa trying to cross from the Belarusian side. But the wall cuts straight through the Białowieza forest - the largest remaining stretch of primeval forest in Europe, which is also a UNESCO world heritage site. Grzegorz Sokol meets environmental scientists, activists and local villagers each with their point of view. Women like Kasia Mazurkiewicz-Bylok who treks into the forest with a rucksack of supplies to try to help migrants lost in the dense, trackless forest. Or Kat Nowak, a biologist trying to log the precise effects of the wall - from the plant species brought in with the gravel for the foundation, to the possible effects on wolf behaviour. The deep and dark forest of Białowieza seems to have lain undamaged by humans since it began to grow more than 12,000 years ago. But this remote part of Poland is in reality no stranger to upheaval. Caught in the fault lines of wars and revolution throughout the 20th century, the forest's villages have been razed more than once. Villagers have been murdered, forced to flee and become refugees themselves. As Grzegorz explores the forest, these hidden histories feel ever more present. Producer Monica Whitlock Editor Penny Murphy Production Coordinator Gemma Ashman

Americans on both sides of the political spectrum are escaping states they no longer feel comfortable in - they’re calling themselves ‘political refugees’. And the sunshine state of Florida is at the heart of this political sorting. How can one US state be both a safe haven for Americans fleeing their homes in the north and a dangerous threat to liberal families? From Miami to Chicago, Lucy Proctor traces the journeys of America’s homegrown refugees, meeting progressives and conservatives making their move. Through their crossing paths, she explores what is behind this new wave of domestic migration, and what it might mean for America’s future. Presenter: Lucy Proctor Producer: Ellie House Editor: Penny Murphy Studio Engineer: James Beard Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Kirkenes, in the far north-east of Norway, once thrived on its close ties with neighbouring Russia. All that changed after the invasion of Ukraine. Now it’s become home to Ukrainian refugees and a safe haven for some Russian journalists escaping President Putin’s media clampdown. For decades this area popularised the phrase “High North, Low Tension.” Close economic and cultural ties developed with brisk cross-border trade. Hundreds of Russians settled in the town. But now new cross-border restrictions have been imposed and co-operation has ended. The local economy has taken a significant hit and cross-border cultural groups no longer meet. However, despite this being a NATO member, the Norwegian government is keeping the border open. Russian fishing vessels still unload their catch in Kirkenes but are no longer allowed to undergo repairs. The Norwegians have stepped up checks on these Russian boats amid concern of a rise in Russian spying and potential sabotage. For Crossing Continents John Murphy travels to Norway’s Arctic to see how war has changed the town and to ask what’s next for this unique community. Producer: Alex Last Sound mix: Graham Puddifoot Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman Series editor: Penny Murphy

There are one hundred thousand missing Syrians, according to the UN, who’ve been detained or have disappeared since the beginning of the uprising in Syria twelve years ago and the civil war that followed. Most of their families have no idea where they are and whether they’re alive or dead. Many are paying thousands of dollars for information about them which almost always comes to nothing. Lina Sinjab reports from Turkey and Beirut where she’s been talking to Syrian refugees about the desperate measures they'll go to in their search for their missing relatives. Presenter: Lina Sinjab Producer : Caroline Bayley Editor: Penny Murphy Sound Engineer: Rod Farquhar

In the early hours of 14th June, a heavily overcrowded, rusty fishing trawler carrying as many as 750 migrants capsized off the coast of Greece. The passengers - men, women and children from countries including Pakistan, Egypt and Syria - were fleeing conflict and poverty, hoping to start safer and more prosperous lives in Europe. After its engine broke down, the boat drifted for several hours while desperate passengers made distress calls and waited for rescue. Only 104 people survived the sinking. More than 600 may have drowned, making this one of the deadliest disasters in Europe’s ongoing migration crisis. For Crossing Continents, Nick Beake travels to Greece to meet survivors of the sinking, who are now living in a refugee camp outside Athens. He hears how they endured a four-day voyage, during which several passengers died due to a lack of food, water and ventilation on board. Brutal smugglers forced them to board the dangerous boat, and confiscated water bottles and life jackets to make room for extra passengers. Many of the survivors have accused the Greek coastguard of causing the sinking by attempting to tow the heavily overloaded vessel. Greek authorities have denied these claims. Nick meets a Greek activist who volunteers for an emergency hotline that received distress calls from passengers on the ship. She explains that the June 14th disaster is not the first time the Greek coastguard has come under scrutiny, and it has previously been accused of using aggressive and illegal tactics to deter migration. Presented by Nick Beake Producer: Viv Jones Studio mix: Graham Puddifoot Series Editor: Penny Murphy

Gnawa music is a Moroccan spiritual musical tradition developed by descendants of enslaved people from Sub-Saharan Africa. It combines ritual poetry with traditional music and dance, and is traditionally only performed by men. But one female Moroccan artist, Asmâa Hamzaoui, has broken the mould. She's become an international star, who has even performed for Madonna on her birthday. Reporter Myriam Francois travels to Casablanca to meet Asmaa and her family, and follows her to the Essaouira Festival, the annual celebration of Gnawa culture. What does its ever-growing popularity tell us about the changing identity of a country that once saw itself primarily as part of the Arab world, but has now become more interested in its links to the rest of the African continent? Presented by Myriam Francois Produced by Tim Whewell Series editor Penny Murphy

In 2020 Belize was broke. Again. This small, climate-vulnerable, Central American nation is home to the western hemisphere’s longest barrier reef. And it was about to default on a debt of over half a billion dollars. Enter an American NGO... The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is the world’s largest conservation charity. TNC made an offer to the government of Belize: it would help restructure the debt, if Belize would channel the savings made into its precious coastal resources. In 2021, the deal became reality – creditors were paid off, and investors found for the new, so-called ‘blue bond.’ Belize’s debt shrank by 12% overnight. A win-win, right? But as Linda Pressly finds on a trip to Belize, the ‘blue bond’ hasn’t been universally welcomed. There are concerns about an international NGO having influence in a poor nation, and arguments about which Belizean marine organisations have benefitted from the new investment. And there is one unresolved question: what does the ‘blue bond’ agreement mean for the potential future exploration of offshore oil in Belizean waters? Presented and produced by Linda Pressly Sound engineer: Neil Churchill Series Editor: Penny Murphy

Tens of thousands of Zimbabweans are fleeing their country, looking for work in the West, especially in the United Kingdom. Last year Zimbabwe was the third largest source of foreign workers for the UK, behind India and Nigeria, and ahead of the Philippines and Pakistan, which have much larger populations. A popular social media post reads: “the Zimbabwean dream is to leave Zimbabwe.” Many of those leaving their country are highly qualified. They’re taking jobs in the British care sector, where there is a huge shortage of workers. They send much of what they earn back to their families in Zimbabwe. For those back home it’s often the only way to survive in a country with hyper-inflation. Zimbabwe is about to go to the polls but few expect things to change. The economy is in dire straits and the opposition hasn’t been allowed to campaign freely. Some activists have been imprisoned or even killed. The ruling ZANU PF party, which has been in power since independence in 1980, shows little sign of losing control. Earlier this year the UK gave Zimbabwean teachers “Qualified Teacher” status, allowing them to work long-term in the UK. Zimbabwean parents fear their children’s teachers will be the next to leave. Zimbabwe’s latest skills exodus could break the country’s healthcare and education systems, which are already crumbling after decades of under-investment and corruption. Charlotte Ashton hears from Zimbabweans who’ve left, Zimbabweans who want to leave and Zimbabweans who say they can only dream of leaving. Presenter: Charlotte Ashton Producer: John Murphy Studio Mix by Rod Farquhar Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman Series Editor: Penny Murphy

Tens of thousands of Russian criminals – murderers, rapists, robbers – were recruited from prisons by the mercenary group, Wagner, to fight in Ukraine. Now, after six months on the battlefield, the survivors have returned home, with official pardons. Many served only a fraction of their original sentences. And now, they're officially treated as heroes - protected by a new law which criminalises discreditation of anyone who fights on the Russian side in the war. Already, some returnees are reported to have committed further serious crimes. One has confessed to the brutal axe-murder of his 85-year-old former landlady. In another case, an ex-convict believed to have served with Wagner has been charged with masterminding the killing of two children's entertainers, one of them a 19-year-old woman who was training to be a teacher. The murders in southern Russia provoked an outpouring of anger and grief, with thousands signing a petition demanding that the alleged ringleader - who denies any guilt - should get a life sentence if he is eventually convicted. But they know any punishment will probably be less severe, because the criminal records of former Wagner mercenaries have been wiped. They start their lives again from a clean slate, and if they re-offend, no previous convictions can be considered. Reporter Arseny Sokolov talks to the mother of the murdered entertainer, to campaigners for prison reform - and to an ex-convict who fought for Wagner - to investigate what threat the returned mercenaries pose in their home towns and villages - and to assess the damage "legal nihilism" is doing to Russian society. Producer: Tim Whewell Editor: Penny Murphy

Millions of people left Romania after it entered the EU in 2007. They were haemorrhaging doctors at such a rate they had to shut entire hospitals and losing so many builders they had to cancel major infrastructure projects. By 2015, nearly 20% of the population lived abroad. Now their government wants them to come home. They’ve doubled health care salaries, offered tax breaks to builders and dished out thousands of Euros in grants for returners who start up a business. And in 2023, with Romania projected to have one of the fastest growing economies in the EU, the migration tide could finally be turning. Dr Tessa Dunlop travels to Transylvania to meet Alina, who was persuaded to leave the UK by a grant that helped her start up a leather clothing business. Adrian, co-owner of an app design company, relishes the high tech salary he can earn and the relatively low living costs in Romania. Dan, a foetal medicine specialist left the UK after nearly a decade working for the NHS, hoping to improve Romania’s maternity wards. In some sectors, though, there are still shortages. Builder Ion can't find the Romanian talent he could easily recruit in Italy. Perhaps not enough has improved, yet, to tempt lower paid workers home. Producer: Phoebe Keane Editor: Penny Murphy

The battle to keep the peace between people and elephants in northern Botswana. The earth’s largest land mammal, the elephant, is an endangered species. Poaching, habitat loss and disease have decimated elephant populations. But not in Botswana, which has the world’s biggest population of elephants. In the north of the country, in the area around the remarkable Okavango Delta (the world’s largest inland delta), elephant numbers are growing and they outnumber people. This can pose serious problems for the human population, particularly local subsistence farmers. A crop raid by elephants can destroy a family’s annual food supply overnight. Elephants also pose a risk to life in their daily commute between their feeding grounds and their water sources. John Murphy travels to the top of the Okavango Delta, to see what efforts are being made to keep both people and elephants safe, and to persuade locals that these giant animals are an asset not a liability. He also explores threats from further afield to this green jewel in the desert, the Okavango Delta, which animals and people alike depend on. Presenter: John Murphy Producer: Charlotte Ashton Studio Mix: Rod Farquhar Editor: Penny Murphy

For more than 15 months the Ukrainian armed forces have held out against the superior numbers of the Russian invasion force. But not every Ukrainian man subject to the draft is willing to fight. More than 6,000 Ukrainian men of military age have been granted protection in Romania since the beginning of the war, according to figures supplied by the Romanian immigration authority. Some left Ukraine in order to avoid the draft. Others served on the front before throwing down their weapons. Romania has a 600-kilometre border with Ukraine, which is difficult to cross. The choice is either a short swim across a fast-moving river or a long trek over snow-covered mountains. A number of those who’ve tried have died in the attempt. Nick Thorpe has been to the border region to meet Ukrainian men who don’t want to fight in the war. Presented by Nick Thorpe Producers Tim Mansel and Mircea Barbu Production coordinator Helena Warwick-Cross Music Caspar Thorpe Studio mix Neil Churchill Series editor Penny Murphy

New Orleans is the murder capital of the United States: researchers into 2022’s crime figures say it suffered more homicides per capita than any other major city. Carjackings, armed robberies and other potentially lethal offences are also at sky high levels in ‘The Big Easy’ - a place better known for its happy mix of cuisine, carnival and colonial architecture. Crime plagues many American cities, and some of these problems are down to familiar causes, with economic disparity, poor education and the prevalence of guns all at play. However, other factors appear unique to New Orleans, such as high incarceration rates; entrenched racial inequality and chronic police understaffing. Many people believe that the chaos and mistrust of authority which followed Hurricane Katrina’s devastation in 2005 has brutalised the generation which grew up in its shadow. For Crossing Continents, the BBC’s Anna Adams meets those at the sharp end of this crisis in her adoptive city, and asks what went wrong. But as she also discovers, the spirit of the Big Easy can still be resilient, with some local people stepping up to do their failing authorities’ work for themselves in a variety of different social projects. To the backdrop of the city’s ever-present music, this is the story of a community that is literally under fire, and fighting for its life. Presenter Anna Adams Producer Mike Gallagher Sound mix Rod Farquhar Production coordinator Helena Warwick-Cross Series editor Penny Murphy (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images)

In the chaos following Turkey’s devastating earthquake in February, Omar was separated from his son Ahmed after both were pulled alive from the collapsed ruins of their home. Omar's wife and older son were killed. But he believes Ahmed could still be alive. Many children went missing in the aftermath of the earthquake. Some ended up in hospitals or childrens’ homes on the other side of the country and families have spent months trying to locate them. But for many of the estimated 3.5 million Syrian refugees, searching for lost loved ones is even harder - there are language barriers, a lack of money and they often don't have official I.D cards. Omar has enlisted the help of Nadine, a fashion designer before the quake, whose now trying to reunite Syrian families. She and her team find both success and heartbreak. Emily Wither follows Omar, a Syrian refugee, as he searches for his son. Presenter: Emily Wither Producer: Phoebe Keane Producers in Turkey: Zeynep Bilginsoy, Musab Subuh Studio mix: Graham Puddifoot Production coordinator: Helena Warwick-Cross Editor: Penny Murphy (Omar pastes a poster of his son on a lamppost near his destroyed home. It reads: ‘Missing’. Credit: Musab Subuh)

Thousands of Kenyan villagers are being given free cash as part of a huge trial being run by an American non-profit, GiveDirectly. Why? Some aid organisations believe that simply giving people money is one of the most effective ways to tackle extreme poverty and boost development. After all, they argue, local people themselves know best how to use the funds to improve their lives. But does it work? Is it really a long term solution? In 2018, the BBC visited a Kenyan village whose residents received money at the start of the trial. Five years on, Mary Harper returns to see what’s changed. Photo: Woman frying fish in village in western Kenya (BBC) Reporter: Mary Harper Producer: Alex Last Studio Manager: Graham Puddifoot Series Editor: Penny Murphy Production Coordinator: Helena Warwick-Cross With special thanks to Fred Ooko

50 years after the last US bombs fell on Laos, they’re still killing and maiming. In an effort to stop the march of communism, between 1964 and 1973, America dropped over two million tonnes of ordnance on neutral Laos: on average, a planeload of bombs was released every eight minutes, 24 hours a day. This is more than was dropped on Germany and Japan in the entire Second World War. Laos, today a country of just 6 million people, remains the most heavily bombed country in the world per capita. Five decades after the war, these deadly items remain a persistent threat and daily reality for communities across Laos. More than 20,000 people have been killed or injured by UXO (unexploded ordnance, unexploded bombs, and explosive remnants of war) in Laos since the war ended in 1975, with people still killed and injured every year. Around half the victims are children. But UXO doesn’t just kill and maim, it renders agricultural land useless and prevents economic progress. Although Laos is rich in natural resources, its development has been crippled by the legacy of the war. Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent travels to Laos to tell its story 50 years on. Producer John Murphy (Photo: Clearing unexploded bombs in northern Laos. Credit: MAG / Bart Verweij)

Record numbers are fleeing the island in the wake of a brutal economic crisis – perhaps one in twenty five Sri Lankans left last year alone. Some 300,000 went for contracted positions, mostly in the Gulf. But hundreds of thousands of others took less official routes. Many of them get scammed, some even lose their lives, as illegal migrants in what looks like a web of corruption and organised crime. Ed Butler speaks to some of those who are involved in this industry, who’ve taken this perilous option, and asks why aren’t more Sri Lankans, and even the government, speaking out more loudly about what some see as a national tragedy? Produced and presented by Ed Butler Production coordinator Helena Warwick Cross Series editor Penny Murphy

The Gran Chaco Forest is Latin America’s second largest ecosystem. It is a mix of hot and arid scrublands, forests and wetlands, part of the River Plata basin, so large it extends into Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia. Large parts of the forests have already been cleared to make way for farms. Now a new highway being driven through it is heralding further change. The so called Bi-oceanic Corridor will transport the produce of cattle ranchers and soya-bean farmers in Brazil and Paraguay across to ports on the west coast. Members of some indigenous communities like the Ayoreo see it as a further threat to their way of life. The new road is being cautiously welcomed by some members of the Mennonite Community, a Christian religious group who came to the Gran Chaco 100 years ago via Prussia, Russia and Canada and bought land from the government to farm. Will the impact of the road on the indigenous and Mennonite communities - and the environment - be worth the economic benefits? Jane Chambers travels across the Gran Chaco. Produced by Bob Howard. The Paraguay producer was Santi Carneri.

In Britain we have have failed for decades to build enough houses with good design and make living in them affordable – whether rented or bought. All this affects millions, especially young people. One place which seems to have a far better record is Vienna. Rents are affordable, the housing is high quality, there’s a good social mix with new estates designed with everyone in mind. So how has the City achieved this? And with pressures like a growing right to buy ethos, how sustainable all this in the face of future challenges? While the great Social Democratic tradition that Vienna’s housing embodies seems to have faded or disappeared across much of Europe, here it seems to have thrived. Is Vienna’s housing dream a one-off, or can it be a place everywhere else can learn from? Reporter: Chris Bowlby Producer: Jim Frank

Why did people take to the streets, risking arrest and a barrage of bullets? After protests turned violent and hundreds of people were killed, four Iranians tell the story of why they risked their lives. What has been happening in Iran to drive them out onto the streets to face bullets? ‘Agrin’ tells Phoebe Keane she’s tired of being objectified as a woman, and having no faith that the authorities will take sexual assault seriously when the police themselves are accused of raping prisoners. Mahsoud tells how he was shot during a protest but feared going to the hospital in case the authorities put him in jail. When plain clothed police loitered outside his family home, he decided to leave Iran. Still bleeding and with a metal pellet lodged in his ear impairing his hearing, he finally made it across the border to Iraq. ‘Nazy’ tells of being arrested by the morality police while walking to work and being shoved in a van as the heels on her shoes were too high. She started to protest every day and now walks through the streets with her hair blowing in the wind, an act of defiance. ‘Farah’ remembers a time in Iran when women could dance and sing in public and protests because she wants her daughter to live a life without fear. Presenter: Phoebe Keane Producers: Ed Butler, Ali Hamedani, Khosro Isfahani and Taraneh Stone Series editor: Penny Murphy

In 2018 the town of Paradise in the hills of northern California was wiped out by one of the worst wildfires in California's history. The disaster made headlines around the world - regarded as a symbol of the dangers posed by climate change. So what does the future hold for communities like Paradise in a region increasingly threatened by wildfire? Four years on, Alex Last travelled to Paradise to meet the survivors who are rebuilding their town. Photo: A home burns as the Camp fire tears through Paradise, California on November 8, 2018. (Josh Edelson /AFP via Getty Images) Reporter and producer: Alex Last Sound mix: Rod Farquar Series Editor: Penny Murphy Production coordinator: Iona Hammond

Southern Italy is home to some of Europe's most powerful criminal organisations; the Sicilian Mafia, the Camorra in Naples and the Ndrangheta based in Calabria. For many, crime is a family business. So a judge in Sicily has come up with a radical plan to prevent young people becoming the next generation of mobsters. He’s been taking children away from Mafia families. This controversial policy is now being considered by other countries around the world. Daniel Gordon travels to Sicily to meet those involved in the programme and find out whether it actually works. Photo: A 17 year-old girl, Letizia, supported by her uncle, addresses an anti-mafia meeting in the Sicilian town of Messina. Her mother is missing and is believed to have been killed by local gangsters. (Photo: Rocco Papandrea, Gazzetta de Sud.) Reporter: Daniel Gordon Producer: Alex Last Series Editor: Penny Murphy Sound engineer: Graham Puddifoot Production coordinator: Iona Hammond

“It’s like living in a cemetery.” Jung Seongno lives in a banjiha, or semi-basement apartment in the South Korean capital Seoul. Last August parts of Seoul experienced major flooding. As a result several people, including a family of three, drowned in their banjiha. Seongno dreams of having a place where the sunlight and the wind can come in. These subterranean dwellings are just one example of a growing wealth divide in Asia’s fourth largest economy. With almost half of the country’s population living in Greater Seoul, the struggle to find affordable housing has become a major political issue. It also contributes to Korea’s worryingly low birth rate. The inability of young people to afford a home of their own means they are not starting families. Many have given up on relationships altogether. John Murphy reports from Seoul, where owning a home of your own is so important and yet increasingly unattainable. Produced and presented by John Murphy Producer in Seoul: Keith Keunhyung Park Studio mix: Rod Farquhar Production coordinator: Iona Hammond Series editor: Penny Murphy

As in many countries, obesity in Brazil is a major issue with one in four Brazilians now classified as obese and more than half the population overweight. But rather than focusing just on trying to lower this rate by promoting exercise and healthier ways of eating, campaigners and some city councils are successfully implementing changes which accept that high rates of obesity are probably here to stay and society should adapt to this. In a country famed for pressure to have the perfect beach body, these changes include schools buying bigger chairs and desks, hospitals buying bigger beds and MRI machines and theatres offering wider seats. Brazilian lawyers are starting to make legal challenges, particularly against discrimination in the workplace. Women are holding plus sized beauty contests to celebrate their larger bodies. Schools are hosting discussion clubs where they talk about how body shapes are perceived by their peers and wider society. Even so, campaigners say there’s a long way to go for bigger bodies to be culturally accepted in Brazil and overcoming what is known as “gordofobia” – belittling or discriminating against people who are larger than average. Camilla Mota travels to the south eastern coastal city of Vitoria to meet a plus size influencer and a lawyer campaigning to stop discrimination and trying to make the city more tolerant. She then flies 1500 kilometres north to another port city, Recife, where some changes have now taken place. Is this transformation away from the stereo-typical “body beautiful” only skin deep or the shape of things to come across the western world? Presenter: Camilla Mota Produced by Bob Howard Studio mix by James Beard Production coordinator Iona Hammond Series editor Penny Murphy

To many of us, the passionate music and dance known as flamenco is an important marker of Spanish identity, and perhaps even synonymous with it. So much so, that UNESCO has recognised the art form as part of the world’s Intangible Cultural Heritage. Yet its place within the country of its birth is both more complicated – and more precarious - than this might suggest. During the Covid lockdowns, a third of all flamenco venues closed down, and with many yet to reopen, training opportunities for new artists remain in short supply. The pandemic has also exacerbated the struggle of many singers and dancers to make ends meet. Meanwhile, to the outrage of purists, other practitioners see a future in fusing traditional flamenco with new, more commercially viable genres, such as pop and hip-hop. Still others see flamenco as a stereotype, and unhelpful to their country’s modern image. For Crossing Continents, the BBC’s Madrid correspondent Guy Hedgecoe takes us on a colourful journey, reflecting on flamenco’s intriguing origins among the downtrodden folk culture of southern Spain, its difficult present, and its possibly uncertain future. Presenter: Guy Hedgecoe Producer: Mike Gallagher Studio mix by: Rod Farquhar Production coordinator: Iona Hammond Series editor: Penny Murphy

Paks, a small Hungarian town on the shore of the River Danube an hour or two south of Budapest has prospered from its nuclear power station, built by the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s. Hungary has prospered too. Paks provides some 40 per cent of the country’s power requirements. But the four reactors are now approaching the end of their lives and are scheduled for closure in 2032; so in 2014 agreement was reached with Russia to build two more, with the help of a Russian loan, Russian engineers, and a small army of Ukrainian welders. But the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army in February 2022 has thrown these plans into disarray. Construction has begun, in the sense that bulldozers have been clearing the ground. But the project is already delayed, and there are those who believe that the new reactors will never be built. As Nick Thorpe discovers, people who thought they had a job for life in Paks are worried about their future and the future of a town whose lively shops and restaurants owe everything to the nuclear industry. Now the centre-piece of prime minister Viktor Orban’s energy empire, Paks may soon become the country’s rustbelt. Presenter: Nick Thorpe Produced by Tim Mansel Studio mix by Neil Churchill Production coordinator Iona Hammond Series editor: Penny Murphy

In California, cannabis is legal for recreational use and it’s created a multi-billion dollar industry. But who’s been reaping the rewards? For decades people from Black and Latino communities have been disproportionately arrested and imprisoned on cannabis drugs charges – and yet few appeared to benefit from the legal cannabis boom. So to make amends, California has been pioneering a policy to give those targeted in the war on drugs, a chance to share in the new cannabis industry. But is it working? Sharon Hemans has been to the city of Oakland to find out. Presenter: Sharon Hemans Producer: Alex Last Studio engineer: Neil Churchill Series editor: Penny Murphy Production Co-ordinator: Iona Hammond

Sasha Koltun volunteered to fight in Putin's war against Ukraine, though his mother Yelena begged him not to go. Four days later, he was dead, one of several dozen new recruits from across Russia who never even reached the battlefield. What happened to him - and will his mother, battling official indifference and obstruction, ever discover the truth? With the Kremlin currently restricting access to Russia for Western reporters, Tim Whewell picks up the phone to talk to her and other people in and around the city of Bratsk, in central Siberia, about how the war has affected them. Many are afraid to talk. But others describe their anxiety as they wave goodbye to their menfolk, their confused feelings about the war - a mixture of patriotism and doubt - and the chaotic organisation of the call up. Some recruits have had to buy their own uniform and equipment. Others have suffered as discipline breaks down at some training camps. Tim talks to a former policewoman determined to encourage support for the war, who makes stretchers for wounded Russian soldiers - and to a young woman who believes it was her boyfriend's duty to be a soldier. But Yelena Koltun - who lost her son Sasha - cannot understand what her country is fighting for. Presented and produced by Tim Whewell, with additional production by Khristina Stolyarova. Studio mix by Graham Puddifoot Series editor Penny Murphy

China’s President Xi Jinping says that Taiwan‘s reunification with the mainland “must and will be fulfilled.” The view from democratic Taiwan is somewhat different. It’s a threat the islanders have been hearing ever since the 1949 Chinese Civil War, when the Government of the Republic of China was forced to relocate to Taiwan allowing the Chinese Communist Party to establish a new Chinese state: the People’s Republic of China. But some sense that the increased rhetoric from China in recent months poses a real and present danger. Taiwanese billionaire Robert Tsao has pledged millions of pounds to train three million ‘civilian warriors’ in three years to defend the island should it be required. But will it come to that? John Murphy is in Taiwan to talk to people there about what they think about the threat from China and whether they’d be prepared to fight to protect what they have. Presenter: John Murphy Producer: Ben Carter Local producer and translator: Joanne Kuo Production Coordinator: Iona Hammond Sound Engineer: James Beard Series Editor: Penny Murphy

The bakers and farmers trying to wean Senegal off imported wheat. Trotting along on a horse and cart, over the bumpy red dirt roads, through the lush green fields of Senegal’s countryside, Oule carries sacks of cargo back to her village. She is the bread lady of Ndor Ndor and she’s selling French baguettes. As a former French colony, the baguette is such a staple of the Senegalese diet, that 8 million loaves are transported out to remote villages, roadside kiosks and high end city bakeries every morning. But wheat doesn’t grow in the West African country, so they are at the mercy of the global markets. Usually they import the majority of their wheat from Russia and Ukraine, but since the war, there have been immense pressures on availability and prices have been soaring. So much so, the government has stepped in to subsidise wheat to keep the cost of a baguette down. But the war has forced bakers to question whether there could be another way of feeding Senegal’s huge appetite for bread. Tim Whewell meets the bakers experimenting with local grains, like sorghum, millet and fonio, that can grow in Senegal’s climate. But can they convince their customers to change their tastes and say bye-bye baguette? Produced by Phoebe Keane

Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community is struggling to come to terms with high-profile sex abuse scandals. In the past year, two of its leading lights were accused of taking advantage of their status to sexually assault vulnerable women, men, and children. What has added to the shock is how, after one of the alleged attackers committed suicide, religious leaders in this insular, devout community defended him and even blamed his victims for causing his death by speaking out. The response sparked anger and triggered an unprecedented wave of activism to raise awareness of hidden sex abuse within the ultra-Orthodox world. Some are describing it as a “me-too” moment. The BBC’s Middle East Correspondent, Yolande Knell hears from survivors of sexual assault and the campaigners within the ultra-Orthodox community working towards lasting change. Presenter: Yolande Knell Producers: Gabrielle Weiniger and Phoebe Keane Editor: Penny Murphy Photo: A child sex abuse survivor prays at the grave of his alleged abuser.

The Allan B. Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Texas, used to be known as the Terror Dome for its high rates of inmate violence, murder and suicide. Polunsky houses all the men condemned to death in Texas (currently 185) and nearly 3,000 maximum security prisoners. But since the pandemic, a prison radio station almost entirely run by the men themselves has helped to create community--even for those on death row, who spend 23 hours a day locked alone in their cells. The Tank beams all kinds of programmes across the prison complex: conversations both gruff and tender; music from R&B to metal; the soundtracks of old movies; inspirational messages from all faiths and none. The station’s steady signal has saved some men from suicide and many from loneliness; it lets family members and inmates dedicate songs to each other and make special shows for those on their way to execution. Maria Margaronis tunes in to The Tank and meets some of the men who say it's changed their lives—even when those lives have just weeks left to run. Produced by David Goren. Photo credit (Michael Starghill)

Illegal oil is big business in the Niger Delta. Oil thieves cut the pipelines, siphoning off oil, which they refine in the bush and sell on the black market. This vast underground industry is a huge employer in the region but it’s a dangerous business. Earlier this year, over 100 people were killed in an explosion at an illegal refinery. The local government has been cracking down on the illegal oil trade. They say the business is responsible for the worryingly high levels of pollution in the Niger Delta, where a thick black smog hangs over the city of Port Harcourt and oil runs through the waterways, destroying mangroves. BBC West Africa correspondent Mayeni Jones meets an oil thief king pin, an exuberant local politician, taking on this illegal business and treks deep into the forests of the Niger Delta to visit an underground refinery. Presenter: Mayeni Jones Producer: Josephine Casserly Editor: Penny Murphy Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Why are Native Americans striving to ‘reclaim’ the game of lacrosse? Lacrosse may have the reputation as a white elitist sport, played in private schools. In fact, it was originally a Native American game, practiced across North America before European colonisers arrived. As white settlers pushed westwards, taking land and resources, they also took lacrosse as their own. They stopped Native Americans from playing it, alongside prohibiting other spiritual and cultural practices. But now a Native American grassroots movement is aiming to 'reclaim' what they call "the Creator's game". In doing so they want to promote recognition for their peoples and nations. Rhodri Davies travels to Minnesota, in the American Midwest, to talk to Native Americans about how lacrosse is integral to their identity. Producer: John Murphy Editor: Penny Murphy Studio Manager: Rod Farquhar Production Coordinators: Iona Hammond and Gemma Ashman

Sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine, the former Soviet Republic of Moldova has recently been awarded EU candidate status. In an echo of what happened in Ukraine, Moldova lost a chunk of its eastern territory to separatists in a short war 30 years ago. The separatists were backed by elements of the Russian army. Since then Transnistria has remained a post-Soviet “frozen conflict.” In recent months almost 500,000 Ukrainian refugees have crossed into Moldova – the highest per capita influx to a neighbouring country. Up to 90,000 have remained in Moldova, one of Europe’s poorest countries. The republic’s president has warned that President Putin has his sights set on her country. Tessa Dunlop travels to Moldova to hear what Moldovans think about the war in Ukraine and their country’s future. Produced by John Murphy (Image: A Russian armoured vehicle at the border crossing with the breakaway enclave of Transnistria in the village of Firladeni, Republic of Moldova. Credit: BBC/John Murphy)

When the president stands accused of drug trafficking, what hope is there? From 2014, for eight years Juan Orlando Hernandez ruled Honduras like his personal fiefdom. A Central American strongman comparable with some of the worst from decades past, under his presidency Honduras began a rapid descent into a so-called “narco-state”. The allegations against his government soon started to mount up: human rights violations, corruption and impunity; accusations of torture and extrajudicial killings by the police and military. And at its heart, the claim by US prosecutors of a multi-million dollar drug smuggling ring, overseen from the presidential palace itself. Just weeks after he left power in January 2022, Juan Orlando Hernandez was arrested and extradited to the US to face drug trafficking charges. American prosecutors allege he used his security forces to protect some drugs shipments and eliminate competitors. Will Grant, the BBC’s Central America Correspondent, finds out what life was like under the disgraced president and meets some people trying to instil a little hope in a nation which hasn’t had any for a long time. He meets Norma, the mother of Keyla Martinez, who was killed in a police cell. Initially, the police said she had killed herself but hospital reports later proved this wasn’t the case. Now, can Norma Martinez’s campaign for justice bring a sense of hope to those who don’t trust the authorities and have endured years of rampant corruption and police impunity? Producer: Phoebe Keane Fixer in Honduras: Renato Lacayo

Ukrainian forces have launched a counteroffensive to retake Kherson, the largest city captured by Russia in this year's invasion. But the occupiers are redoubling their efforts to integrate the city and surrounding region into Russia - and they need the help of local collaborators. A few Ukrainians are eagerly serving the invaders. But many key workers - teachers, doctors and other state employees - are forced into a cruel choice. They must agree to work according to Russian rules, betraying their country - or else lose their jobs. Tim Whewell reports on life behind Russian lines in Kherson - and talks to some of those who've thrown in their lot with the occupiers, including the eccentric former journalist and fish inspector who's now deputy head of the region's Russian-backed administration.

Tigers are making a remarkable comeback in Nepal. The small Himalayan nation is on track to become the first country to double its wild tiger population in the last decade. A new census will be released on International Tiger Day (29th of July). The recovery is the result of tough anti-poaching measures that have involved the military and the local community. Other iconic species including rhinos and elephant populations have also increased. But this has come at a cost, there has been an increase in tiger attacks on humans. Rebecca Henschke travels to Bardia national park, to find out what’s behind the conservation success and what it means for the community living with the Tigers. (Photo Credit: Deepak Rajbanshi) Presented by Rebecca Henschke Produced by Kevin Kim and Rajan Parajuli, with the BBC Nepali team Studio mix by Neil Churchill Production coordinators Gemma Ashman and Iona Hammond Editor Penny Murphy

Can music and culture help unite Estonia? Guitar riffs lilt through the air and over the narrow river that marks the border between Estonia and Russia. It’s the first time Estonia’s annual festival Tallinn Music Week has been held in Narva, bringing coach loads of musicians from 30 countries around the world to a normally sleepy city. The organiser moved the festival when the war in Ukraine broke out in order to send a message of unity and to encourage Estonians from the capital to mix with people in Narva, where 97% of Estonians have Russian as their mother tongue. Many can barely speak Estonian at all. Across Estonia, one quarter of the population are Russian speakers, prompting many to describe this as a threat. When Putin invaded Ukraine on the premise of liberating Russian speakers there, it lead to many in the press to ask ‘is Narva next?’ but a new generation of Russian speaking Estonians are increasingly frustrated by this rhetoric and say it simply isn’t true. Russian speakers are even signing up to Estonia’s volunteer defence force, ready to fight to defend Estonia should the worst happen. Their allegiance is clear. But is music and culture enough to unite Estonia’s Russian speakers? Presenter: Lucy Ash Producer: Phoebe Keane Music Credits: Artist: Trad Attack! Track: Sõit Writers: Jalmar Vabarna, Sandra Vabarna, Tõnu Tubli Artist: Gameboy Tetris and Nublu Track: Für Oksana Writers: Pavel Botsarov, Markkus Pulk, Fabry El Androide, Ago Teppand Artist: Pale Alison Track: забывай Writers: Evelina Koop, Nikolay Rudakov Artist: Jaakko Sound Installation: On the Border / Rajalla

While some countries fight to reclaim antiquities that were stolen centuries ago, Cambodian investigators are dealing with far more recent thefts. Many of the country’s prized treasures were taken by looters in the 1980s and 1990s and then sold on to some of the world’s most prestigious museums, including the British Museum and the Victoria & Albert museum. At the centre of many of the sales was a rogue British art dealer. Celia Hatton joins the Cambodian investigative team and gains unprecedented access to looters who have become government witnesses. The Phnom Penh government has now launched a legal campaign in the UK to get some of its most prized statues back. For many Cambodians these are not simply blocks of stone or pieces of metal, they are living spirits and integral to the Khmer identity. The Gods, they say, are cold and lonely in foreign collections and they want to come home. Producer: John Murphy Producer in Cambodia: Eva Krysiak

Resistance and division among Mexico’s indigenous Yaqui people. Anabela Carlon is a legal advocate for the indigenous Yaqui of Sonora – a fierce defender of her people’s land. She is no stranger to the immense dangers that face her in northern Mexico, a region dominated by organised crime. In 2016, she and her husband were kidnapped at gunpoint by masked men. And now one of her biggest cases is representing the families of ten men from her community who disappeared last year. In Mexico, the Yaqui of Sonora are known as, ‘the undefeated’. In spite of being hunted, enslaved and exiled, they are the only indigenous group never to have surrendered to Spanish colonial forces or the Mexican government. Somehow, eight communities survived along the River Yaqui. But there are deep divisions. Most of all, over whether a gas pipeline should be allowed on their land. Anabela Carlon is adamant it will not happen. Presenter: Linda Pressly Producer: Phoebe Keane Producer in Mexico: Ulises Escamilla

A form of oral poetry accompanied on the accordion is the basis of a wildly popular form of music in Lesotho, southern Africa. But jealousy between Famo artists has triggered warfare that’s killing hundreds. Some of the genre’s best-known stars became gang bosses, and their rivalry has helped make rural, stunningly beautiful Lesotho the murder capital of Africa, with the sixth highest homicide rate in the world. Musicians, their relatives, producers and DJs have all been gunned down. Whole communities live in fear, and are now demanding action from politicians and police who are accused of protecting the Famo gangsters. Tim Whewell tells the story of a style of music that developed among Basotho migrant workers in the tough world of South African mines. He meets some of Famo's greatest artists - now disgusted by the violence - and talks to the families of victims of a cycle of revenge that the authorities appear unable to end. Presented and produced by Tim Whewell.

Myanmar is now in a state of civil war. What started in February 2021 as a mass protest movement against the military coup is now a nationwide armed uprising. The junta is under attack across the country from a network of civilian militias called the People’s Defence Forces who are fighting to restore democracy. The BBC gained rare access to the jungle training camps where young protests are being turned into soldiers. We follow a single mother and a student who have sacrificed everything to join the fight. They're up against a well-trained military that’s willing to use brutal tactics to stay in power. As the death toll mounts and the world looks away, can they restore democracy? Reporter, Rebecca Henschke. Produced with Kelvin Brown, Ko Ko Aung and Banyar Kong Janoi.

Hundreds of thousands of Russians – mainly young and well-educated - have fled abroad since their country invaded Ukraine. It’s the biggest brain drain in a short period of time in Russian history. Some fear a political crackdown. They worry they could be arrested for expressing opposition to the war, and young men might be drafted into the army. Others are escaping economic sanctions, trying to keep their businesses afloat now it’s become hard to transfer money into or out of Russia. Tim Whewell travels to Russia’s southern neighbour, Georgia, to meet some of the 25,000 Russians who’ve fled there. Some are strong opponents of Vladimir Putin, who are now showing their support for Ukraine by volunteering for a new project by Russian exiles, ‘Helping to Leave’, that organizes evacuations of Ukrainian civilians from the war zone. Others are business people – often in IT, who try to steer clear of politics, but hope they can help Georgia’s economy by creating a new ‘silicon valley’ there. But Georgia, itself invaded by the Kremlin’s forces in 2008, has a tense relationship with Russia. Georgia’s a hospitable country – but the new arrivals are not universally welcome. Georgians worry that the exiles – often wealthier than local people – will force them out of the property market. And they fear the Russian influx may include spies and provocateurs who might provide Putin with a pretext to intervene there again. The new exiles may sympathise with Ukraine – but do they understand Georgia’s long struggle with Russia? Reporter: Tim Whewell Produced by Tim Whewell and Rayhan Dmytrie. (Image: Russian exile, Katya Lapsha Credit: Lago Gogilashvili /BBC)

Just before Christmas, 2021, Joel Vilard was driving his cousin home on a dual carriageway just south of Rennes in Brittany. Suddenly, a bullet flew through the window and hit the pensioner in the neck. He later died in hospital of injuries accidentally inflicted by a hunter firing a rifle from a few hundred metres away. A year earlier Morgan Keane, was shot dead in his garden, while out chopping wood. The hunter says that he mistook the 25 year old man for a wild boar. Mila Sanchez was so shocked by her friend Morgan’s death that she collected hundreds of thousands of signatures to change the hunting laws. She gave evidence to the French Senate and put the topic on the political agenda. The Green Party is now calling for a ban on hunting on Sundays and Wednesdays. But the Federation National des Chasseurs, which licenses the 1.3 million active hunters across France, is fighting back. It argues hunting is a vital part of rural life and brings the community together. Its members were delighted when President Macron recently halved the cost of annual hunting permits. Yet public opinion, concerned about safety and animal rights, is hardening against hunting and the battle for la France Profonde is on. On the eve of presidential elections, Lucy Ash looks at a country riven with divisions and asks if new laws are needed to ensure ramblers, families, residents and hunters can share the countryside in harmony. Presenter, Lucy Ash. Producer, Phoebe Keane. Editor, Bridget Harney

Imagine walking down a street in a European capital and meeting your torturer. For many Syrian refugees fleeing war and human rights abuses, Europe was meant to be a sanctuary. So it was a shock when people began bumping into their torturers out shopping or in a cafe. In fact many of those involved in the Syrian government’s notorious interrogation facilities are hiding in plain sight in European cities having used the refugee wave as a “ratline” out of the country. More and more are now being investigated, arrested and put on trial in European courts. But with President Assad firmly in control in Syria the long arm of the state is reaching those willing to testify. For Crossing Continents, Chloe Hadjimatheou and Michael Ertl look at how the Syrian war is continuing to play out in Europe. Presented and produced by Chloe Hadjimatheou and Michael Ertl Editor, Bridget Harney

It’s been called the priciest piece of tarmac in the world. In 2014 the government of Montenegro signed a contract with a state-owned Chinese company to build part of a 170 kilometre-long highway – a road that would connect its main port with the Serbian border to the north. The price-tag on the first 42 kilometres of asphalt was a staggering $1 billion - most of which has been borrowed from a Chinese bank. In Montenegro, questions continue to be asked about why the project went ahead when some experts said that it was not viable. The River Tara – a UNESCO protected site – has been impacted by the building works, and allegations of corruption and kickbacks have hung around like a bad smell. Meanwhile, the economy has taken a massive hit as a result of the pandemic, and some Montenegrins worry about the country's ability to repay the loan. Worse still, a clause in the road contract states that Montenegro may relinquish sovereignty over unspecified parts of its territory if there is a default. But is everything as it seems? Crossing Continents investigates. Presenter: Linda Pressly Producer: Mike Gallagher Editor: Bridget Harney

A giant new canal for the world’s biggest ships is the most ambitious engineering plan yet proposed by Turkey’s President Erdogan, whose massive infrastructure projects have already changed the face of his country. The proposed waterway would slice through Istanbul, creating in effect a second Bosphorus, the busy shipping lane that is now the only outlet from the Black Sea. The president himself has called the project 'crazy'. But he says it would 'save the future of Istanbul', easing traffic in the Bosphorus and reducing the risk of a terrible accident there. The plan has met a storm of opposition. Istanbul’s mayor says it would “murder” the historic city. Critics claim the canal would be an environmental disaster, cost billions of dollars that Turkey can’t afford – and provoke severe tensions with Russia, which is determined to preserve existing rules on traffic into and out of the Black Sea. Tim Whewell reports from a divided city. He sails down the Bosphorus with a pilot who knows all its twists and turns, joins a marine biologist diving for coral in the Sea of Marmara, meets a woman whose Ottoman-era mansion was wrecked by a ship, has tea with a former admiral who was arrested over his opposition to the project, and visits the tranquil forests around the city, now threatened by development. Will the canal still go ahead? Who would lose – and who would benefit?

Peru has been battered by Covid-19. It has the highest known death toll in the world per capita. But behind the figures there’s another hidden pandemic. By the end of April 2021 around 93,000 children had lost a father, mother, grand-parent, or other primary caregiver to the virus - that’s one in every hundred children. For Crossing Continents, Jane Chambers travels to Lima to meet the families struggling to cope. The immediate urgency of the health crisis is masking a much deeper malaise; that of a generation of children mentally and physically scarred by loss and poverty. Reported and produced by Jane Chambers. Editor, Bridget Harney (Image: Jhoana Olinda Antón Silva and her children in their home at the shrine they built for their father who died of Covid-19. Credit: Paola Ugaz)

Hundreds of young women from Sierra Leone, West Africa, have been trapped in the Arabian sultanate of Oman, desperate to get home. Promised work in shops and restaurants, they say they were tricked into becoming housemaids, working up to 18 hours a day, often without pay, and sometimes abused by their employers. Some ran away, to live a dangerous underground existence at the mercy of the authorities. Now, they are being rescued with the help of charities and diplomats. Back home, some have empowered themselves for the first time, joining a women’s farming collective. But others can’t easily recover from the ill-treatment and isolation they suffered in Arabia. Reporter: Tim Whewell. (Photo: Sierra Leonean women hoping for repatriation after leaving their employers in Oman. Credit: Do Bold)

Every weekend night in Copenhagen's red light district of Vesterbro, a group of volunteers pull up and park a red van. This is no ordinary vehicle. The interior is lit with fairy lights. There is a bed – and a ready supply of condoms. The Red Van constitutes a harm reduction strategy like no other. It is designed for use by women selling sex on the streets – somewhere they can bring their clients. Just as health workers might argue addicts should have a safe place where they can take their drugs to prevent overdoses, the Red Van NGO’s volunteers believe they are creating a more secure environment for Copenhagen’s sex workers or prostitutes. For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly reports from Copenhagen. Series editor: Bridget Harney

Thousands of people – mostly migrants from the Middle East - are camped in freezing weather at the Poland-Belarus border. Many have spent thousands of dollars to fly into Belarus on tourist visas, with the hope of an easy crossing into the EU. They’re pawns, trapped in a battle of wills between Belarus’ autocratic president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, and Poland and the European Union. The Polish government is taking a tough line, imposing an exclusion zone along the border and sealing off the area to journalists and aid workers. Migrants caught in the forest are arrested and sent back to Belarus. Several, including two children, have died from the cold and more deaths are expected as winter sets in. Meanwhile local residents are divided about how to deal with the humanitarian disaster unfolding on their doorstep. For Crossing Continents, Lucy Ash visits towns and villages in the area to see what impact the crisis is having on people’s lives. Reporter: Lucy Ash Produced by: Lucy Ash and Eva Krysiak Editor: Bridget Harney Research: Grzegorz Sokol (Image: Polish volunteers provide relief to injured migrants stranded in the icy forest. Credit: Agnieszka Sadowska / Agencja Wyborcza.pl)

Korea is one of the most stressed and tired nations on earth, a place where people work and study longer hours than anywhere else. And statistics show they are finding it increasingly difficult to switch off and relax; they sleep fewer hours and have higher rates of depression and suicide than almost anywhere else. And as a result sleeplessness and stress has become big business in Korea; from sleep clinics where doctors assess people overnight, to ‘sleep cafes’ offering naps in the middle of the working day, to relaxation drinks. Even Buddhism is moving in on the action with temple retreats and monk-led apps to help stressed out Koreans to relax. There is a lot of money to be made but some Koreans have become worried that in trying to sell religion to the next generation, some faith leaders might be losing touch with Buddhist principles themselves. For Crossing Continents Se-Woong Koo reports from Seoul on a nation that’s wired on staying awake. Producer, Chloe Hadjimatheou.

In the Port of Rotterdam they are preparing for a ‘White Xmas’ - but no one is talking about snow. Europe’s North Sea coast has overtaken the Iberian peninsula as the primary point of entry for cocaine reaching the continent. Industrial-sized labs have been busted in the Netherlands, and mafia-style executions have occurred on the streets. Most recently the crime journalist, Peter R de Vries was shot and mortally wounded in busy Amsterdam. For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly asks how the Netherlands has become one of the largest illicit drug economies of the world. Reporter, Linda Pressly Producer, Michael Gallagher Editor, Bridget Harney (Image: CCTV footage from the port of Rotterdam showing cocaine ‘collectors’ – young men charged with retrieving smuggled narcotics from shipping containers. Credit: Kramer Group)

A bitter fight over fish is playing out in the American West. Sockeye salmon make one of the great migrations in the world, swimming 900 miles from the Pacific Ocean to 6,500 feet up in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, where they spawn and die - but that journey may not happen much longer. In addition to the gauntlet of predators the fish face, from orcas on the west coast to eagles in the mountains, they are running into a man-made obstacle: dams. Most scientists agree the dams need to go for the fish to live, but the dams provide clean energy and an inexpensive way for farmers to get their crops to international markets. Heath Druzin investigates how a bitter fight is underway in the American West pitting Native American tribes, fisherman and conservationists against grain growers and power producers. Meanwhile, time is running out for the iconic species. Presented by Heath Druzin Produced by Richard Fenton-Smith Editor, Bridget Harney

It’s ten years since Libya’s dictator Col Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown. But the country’s still not a a democracy – or even a unified functioning state. The militias that brought down the dictatorship in 2011 never disbanded. They turned the country into a battleground, abducting and murdering countless citizens. Since last year, there’s been a ceasefire in the long civil war. Elections are planned. But how powerful are the militias – even now? And how hopeful are Libyans about their future? Reporter Tim Whewell, who covered the uprising in 2011, returns to find out what happened to Libya’s revolution. At spectacular horse-races in the city of Misrata, he meets Libyans who say they have more opportunities now than under Gaddafi. But many writers and activists have fled the country or gone silent, fearing they might disappear if they say anything that displeases armed groups. Some militias have officially been turned into security arms of the state. But that’s given them access to valuable state resources - and militia commanders are accused of becoming mafia bosses. Tim meets possible future leader Fathi Bashagha, who vows to tame the armed groups. But would he prosecute their commanders for past crimes? And can the eastern and western sides of Libya, effectively still under separate authorities despite a unity government, be brought together? Many think war may break out again, and some young Libyans, despairing for their country’s future, are even risking the dangerous passage across the Mediterranean, to emigrate. Producer: Bob Howard

Gordon Corera investigates the mysterious illness that has struck American diplomats and spies. It began after some reported hearing strange sounds in Havana 2016, but reports have since spread around the world. Doctors, scientists, intelligence agents and government officials have all been trying to find out what exactly causes these sounds and the lingering health effects. Some call it an act of war, others wonder if it is some new and secret form of surveillance while others believe it could even be in the mind. So who or what is responsible? Producer, Emma Wells. Editor, Bridget Harney.

The fire that destroyed the sprawling Moria asylum seekers’ camp on the Greek island of Lesvos last September made headlines around the world. For the asylum seekers who lost their makeshift home and most of their possessions, it was a devastating setback. For Greece, still hosting thousands of migrants Europe won’t take in, the fire intensified a determination to move them on elsewhere What’s happened to some of Moria’s former residents since then? Working with Athens-based journalists Katy Fallon and Stavros Malichudis,, Maria Margaronis follows a few of them—all Afghans--as they negotiate the search for safety and stability some migrants call “the game.” After the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, tens of thousands of Afghans are trying to leave their country. These are the stories of some who had already made the journey. Presented and produced by Maria Margaronis. Special thanks to Lighthouse Reports for their support in gathering this material.

Spain has a history of squatting. After the property crash of 2008 many families were forced to occupy homes that did not belong to them because they could not pay their mortgages. Now a darker side to ‘okupacion’ has emerged. Organised crime has seen an opportunity. Some flats in Barcelona have become ‘narcopisos’ - properties used to process or sell drugs. Other empty properties have been ‘sub-let’ by gangs to families who cannot afford a commercial rent. And the pandemic has spawned a new commercial model – extortion. These are cases where squatters occupy a property and demand a ‘ransom’ from the owner of several thousand Euros before they will leave. Enter the controversial ‘desokupa’ companies – firms run by boxers and bouncers who will evict unwanted 'tenants'. Producer / Presenter: Linda Pressly Producer / Presenter in Spain: Esperanza Escribano Editor: Bridget Harney (Image: Jorge Fe, director of FueraOkupas – a company dedicated to evicting squatters and unwanted tenants. Credit: BBC/Esperanza Escribano)

What would it be like if everyone believed you were dead? Lal Bihari knows exactly what that feels like. When he was 22-years-old, the Indian farmer was told by his local government office that he was dead and no protestations that he was standing before them would persuade the bureaucrats otherwise – after all, his death certificate was there as proof. Whether the victim of a scam or a clerical error, the end result for Bihari was to lose his business and all the land he was hoping to inherit. It took him more than two decades to reinstate himself among the living during which time he tried everything from going on hunger strike to kidnapping someone in the hopes that the police would be forced to concede that a dead man could not be arrested. Today, more than a quarter of a century later, Bihari runs the Association for the Living Dead of India through which he says he has helped thousands of people who have fallen victim to the same thing. He tells his extraordinary story to Chloe Hadjimatheou for Crossing Continents. Production Team in India: Ajit Sarathi; Kinjal Pandya; Piyush Nagpal and Praveen Mudholkar Editor: Bridget Harney

Israel’s Arab population is in the grip of a violent and deadly crime wave. Since the start of the year, scores of Arab citizens have lost their lives and increasingly, even women and children are victims of drive-by killings, point-blank shootings and escalating gang warfare. Arabs account for only around one in five of all Israelis, yet they are now the vast majority of the country’s murder victims. The BBC’s Yolande Knell meets victims’ families and those in authority to find out what is going on, and asks what hope there is for an end to the carnage. Reporter: Yolande Knell Producer in London: Michael Gallagher Editor: Bridget Harney

Since December, armed gangs have seized more than a thousand students and staff from schools across northern Nigeria. Parents face extortionate demands in exchange for the freedom of their sons and daughters and many families in Africa’s most populous nation are now too afraid to send their children to class. The wave of abductions has devastating consequences for the country, which already has the highest number of children out of education anywhere in the world. For Crossing Continents, the BBC’s Mayeni Jones travels to the region and meets those affected in order to understand what’s fueling Nigeria’s kidnap crisis. Producers: Naomi Scherbel-Ball in Lagos and Michael Gallagher in London Editor: Bridget Harney

A year ago Johnny Khawand saw the home he grew up in ripped apart by the massive explosion in a chemical dump in the port of Beirut, Lebanon – one of the largest non-nuclear blasts in history. For hours Johnny fought to save neighbours trapped in the rubble, seeing some die in front of him. Now, after months of restoration work, he’s coming back to try to rebuild his life, hoping that the unique spirit of his close-knit, multi-faith neighbourhood – Karantina – will survive. As he enters his house again for the first time, memories flood back – both comforting and distressing. Johnny and other survivors have formed close bonds with some of the volunteers, including engineers and architects, who’ve spent the last year rebuilding the district for free. They’re passionate about restoring its ancient buildings exactly as they were before. But they’re angry that they’ve received no help from the Lebanese state, which is accused of negligence over the explosion. And Johnny and others now fear that wider redevelopment plans will bring in big money and change Karantina’s character forever. For Crossing Continents, Tim Whewell asks if Beirut’s “village in a city”, with its many layers of history and memory, can survive? Reporter and producer: Tim Whewell Producer: Mohamad Chreyteh Editor: Bridget Harney

The Mexican state of Sinaloa is synonymous with drug trafficking. With the profits from organised crime a driver of the local economy, the tentacles of ‘narco cultura’ extend deep into people’s lives – especially those of women. In the city of Culiacan, plastic surgeons service demand for the exaggerated feminine silhouette favoured by the men with guns and hard cash. Often women’s surgery will be paid for by a ‘sponsor’ or ‘godfather’. Meanwhile, a group of women trackers spend their weekends digging in isolated parts of the state, looking for the remains of loved ones who disappear in Sinaloa’s endless cycle of drug-fuelled violence. Producer / presenter: Linda Pressly Producer in Mexico: Ulises Escamilla Editor: Bridget Harney (Photo: Lawyer Maria Teresa Guerra advocates for women in Sinaloa. Credit: BBC/Ulises Escamilla)

Jacques Cousteau called Mexico’s Sea of Cortez, ‘the aquarium of the world’. It is home to one of the most critically endangered species on earth. The vaquita is a small porpoise facing total extinction, whose numbers have dwindled to less than a dozen. In particular, the vaquita get caught in the nets used to catch totoaba. Casting nets for this large marine fish is illegal. But the totoaba’s swim bladder is believed to have potent medicinal properties in China, and sells for thousands of dollars in a trade controlled by Mexican organised crime. So efforts to save the vaquita have brought conflict to poor fishing communities in northern Baja California – people who often rely on an illicit income from totoaba. On New Year’s Eve, 2020 one fisherman was killed and another seriously injured in an altercation between local boats and an NGO ship patrolling to stop the sinking of illegal nets that kill the vaquita. Linda Pressly reports from the coast of Baja California on a dangerous clash of interests. Can the vaquita be saved? Producer: Michael Gallagher Producer in Mexico: Ulises Escamilla Haro Editor, Bridget Harney (Image: Illustration of a vaquita in Mexico’s Sea of Cortez. Credit: Greenpeace/Marcelo Otero)

More than 750 people have been killed by the Myanmar military since they seized power in a coup three months ago. Mass protests demanding a return to democracy and the release of elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi have been met with brutal force. Borders are closed and the internet effectively blocked. This is a story the military does not want the world to hear. But people are bravely documenting their resistance. We follow three young activists now in a fight for their future. As their options close, can they win back democracy? Produced and presented by Rebecca Henschke with Kelvin Brown Reporting team: Banyol Kong Janoi, Phyu Zin Poe and Zarchi

Can Norwegians with psychosis benefit from radical, drug-free treatment? In a challenge to the foundations of western psychiatry, a handful of Norway’s mental health facilities are offering medication-free treatment to people with serious psychiatric conditions. But five years after the scheme began it is still being questioned by the health establishment. For Crossing Continents, Lucy Proctor hears the testimony of Norwegian psychiatric patients, and the doctors who have aligned themselves on either side of the debate. Why is this happening in Norway? And how much power should people with debilitating psychosis have over their own lives? Presenter: Lucy Proctor Producer: Linda Pressly Editor: Bridget Harney (Image: Artwork depicting a young woman, with her head in her hands. Credit: Malin Rossi)

All over the world, frontline workers have paid the ultimate price during the pandemic. But in Kenya the story of one young doctor’s heroism has made headlines for all the wrong reasons. 28-year old Stephen Mogusu died from Covid 19 in December after working on an isolation ward and complaining he lacked adequate protective clothing. Despite his vital service, he hadn’t been paid for five months. Stephen’s tragedy exposes a wider malaise in Kenya’s health system: A corruption scandal involving overpriced masks, aprons and other protective clothing. Meanwhile, across the country, a series of on-off strikes have disrupted care, as doctors, nurses and clinicians made sporadic protests against mismanagement and a devolved power structure they say is dysfunctional. As Kenya continues to battle against the virus, Lucy Ash finds out what’s ailing Kenya’s healthcare system. Produced by Michael Gallagher. Editor, Bridget Harney

Soldiers returning from the line of duty with injuries affecting sexual performance are universal to all militaries around the world, but Israeli psychologist Dr Ronit Aloni set about making hers the only nation that offers a unique therapeutic approach to restoring the sexuality of their troops as a matter of course: surrogate partner therapy (SPT), or sexual surrogacy. After studying the niche treatment in the US in the early nineties, Dr Aloni conducted studies, lobbied the government and met with religious leaders in order to make this therapy, considered fringe and often taboo in other nations, available to those who need it via Ministry of Defense funding. But why is Israel alone in this? The therapy is best described as traditional psychotherapy combined with intimate sexual therapy with a surrogate lover, in every form that can mean, and it was Dr Aloni’s dogged belief in its life-changing benefits for her clients that caused her to pursue provision for the troops. For Crossing Continents, Yolande Knell tells the story of that policy through Dr Aloni’s work and her Tel Aviv clinic, the work of surrogate partner Seraphina, and two military veterans who have accessed the service: one of the first to be offered it on the MoD’s time in the late nineties, and one a conscripted young man paralysed by his injuries who after years of begging for death, says the therapy “restored his humanity”. Produced by Philip Marzouk. Editor, Bridget Harney

Can Denmark's mink industry rise again? Denmark was the world's top producer of mink for the luxury market. Last year a coronavirus variant was found in the animals, and transmitted to people. There was a fear the variant - Cluster 5 - might interfere with the efficacy of any vaccine developed for humans. So in November, the Danish government ordered a cull of all 17 million farmed mink. But questions have continued to be asked about the decision to effectively end production. Was it driven by an anti-fur, political agenda? Was the science reliable? For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly and Danish journalist, Rikke Bolander, meet some of those with skin in the game. What are the chances of a revival of Denmark's mink business? Producers / presenters: Linda Pressly and Rikke Bolander Editor, Bridget Harney

More than a century after its brutal colonisation of Namibia, including what it now accepts was the genocide of the Herero and Nama peoples, Germany is negotiating with the country’s government to heal the wounds of the past. The eventual deal may set a precedent for what other nations expect from former colonisers. But how do you make up for the destruction of entire societies? Germany has agreed to apologise - but Namibia also wants some form of material compensation. What should that be, and who should benefit? Namibians are now divided about how the talks are being conducted - and some in the country’s German-speaking minority, descendants of the original colonists, question the very idea of compensation. Tim Whewell travels to Namibia to ask how far full reconciliation - with Germany, and within the country - is possible. Produced and presented by Tim Whewell Editor, Bridget Harney

Bucharest, in Romania, is arguably Europe’s most dangerous capital city. It’s not the crime that’s the problem – it’s the buildings. Many of them don’t comply with basic laws and building regulations. Permits are regularly faked. And yet Bucharest is the most earthquake prone European capital. A serious quake would cause many of the buildings to collapse, with a potential loss of life into the thousands. Some years ago a red dot was put on a number of buildings in the city which were in danger of collapse. Nothing else has happened since. A microcosm of the problem is a type of building called ‘camine de nefamilisti’ or, ‘homes for those without families’. These were built during the Ceaucescu era to temporarily house workers brought in from the countryside and people who were still single after university. The single room flats, the size of a prison cell, with one communal shower and three Turkish style toilets per floor were never meant for families. But after the fall of Communism many of these ‘matchboxes’ ended up in private hands and conditions deteriorated with whole families moved into spaces designed for a single person. Simona Rata grew up in one of these buildings. For Crossing Continents she returns to the ‘camine de nefamilisti’ and finds little has changed since her childhood. The overcrowded blocks with poor sanitary conditions make tackling Covid difficult and the stability of the buildings remains a source of grave concern. Reporter and producer: Simona Rata. Editor, Bridget Harney

The migrant shipwreck that rose again… In April, 2015 more than a thousand refugees and migrants drowned when the old fishing boat they were travelling on sank. It was the worst shipwreck in the Mediterranean since World War Two. But the people who died are not forgotten. Not by their families and friends - and not by a professor of forensic pathology at the University of Milan. “There’s a body that needs to be identified, you identify it. This is the first commandment of forensic medicine,” says Dr Cristina Cattaneo. Crossing Continents tells the story of the raising of the fishing boat from the Mediterranean's seabed, and Dr Cattaneo's efforts to begin to identify the people who lost their lives on that moonless night on the edge of Europe. Producer and presenter: Linda Pressly Editor: Bridget Harney

Amid the anarchy of post-Revolution Libya, seven ruthless brothers from an obscure background gradually took over their home town near Tripoli. They're accused of murdering entire families to instill fear and to build power and wealth. They created their own militia which threw in its lot, at different times, with various forces in Libya's ongoing conflict. And they grew rich by levying taxes on the human and fuel traffickers crossing their territory. Now, the full horror of their reign of terror is being exposed: since they were driven out in June, more and more mass graves are being discovered. The Libyan authorities - and the International Criminal Court - are investigating what happened. But the four surviving Kani brothers have fled. Will they ever face justice? And what does their story tell us about why the 2011 overthrow of Colonel Gaddafi brought not democracy, but chaos, to Libya? Tim Whewell reports. Editor: Bridget Harney

A young woman is desperately searching for her brother in Lagos. On the night of 20th October, Nigerian soldiers opened fire at a peaceful demonstration camped at the Lekki tollgate in Lagos. The government say they fired into the air, but witnesses insist that unarmed protesters came under deliberate attack. Amnesty International says that 12 people died. The incident has traumatised a highly popular political reform movement that began as a demand to close down the S.A.R.S., a notoriously corrupt and brutal police squad. In the aftermath, many of the movement’s young supporters are keeping a low profile. Some have had their bank accounts frozen and passports seized. Others have even fled overseas, in fear of their lives. The BBC’s Nigeria correspondent Mayeni Jones has been talking to some of them, including a witness to the Lekki shooting, and Peace, who is tirelessly searching for her brother, Wisdom, who is still missing after attending the demonstration. Mayeni finds a country whose traditionally deferential society and elderly leadership seem suddenly vulnerable; shaken by a perfect storm of youthful idealism, social media activism, and the crippling economic fallout of the Covid pandemic. Producers: Naomi Scherbel-Ball & Michael Gallagher With additional research by Jonelle Awomoyi Editor: Bridget Harney

The Mapuche are Chile’s largest indigenous group – a population of more than 2 million people. And, they are fighting for their right to heal. They want Chileans to value their unique approach to healthcare and give them control of land and their own destiny. But, it’s a tough sell when there’s so much distrust and violence between the two communities. Jane Chambers travels to their homeland in the Araucania region in the south of Chile, where she’s given rare access to traditional healers and political leaders. Presenter / producer: Jane Chambers Producer in London: Linda Pressly Editor: Bridget Harney (Image: Machi Juana at her home by her sacred altar. Credit: Jane Chambers/BBC)

After 17 years of conflict costing 300,000 lives a peace agreement offers new hope to Sudan’s troubled Darfur region. It comes as UNAMID, the United Nations and African Union peacekeeping force, prepares to finally pull out at the end of this month. But with nearly two million displaced people still living in camps and some armed groups yet to sign the agreement, who will protect civilians if the peace fails? For Crossing Continents, Mike Thomson gains rare access to Darfur to hear the stories of those still living with deep uncertainty. Producer, Bob Howard. Editor, Bridget Harney

The bitter war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Caucasian region of Nagorno Karabakh may have come to an end, but the business of fighting may continue for at least some of its combatants. There’s growing evidence that hundreds of soldiers in this war were mercenaries recruited from mostly rebel-held regions in northern Syria - even though that's strongly denied by Azerbaijan. In this week’s Crossing Continents Ed Butler hears testimony from a number of young Syrians, who say they fought in a war which in most cases they didn't realise they were signing up for. Some speak of shame at having to work this way – a symptom of the increasing economic desperation that's affecting the embattled regions of northern Syria where they live. Produced and presented by Ed Butler Editor, Bridget Harney

Minsk, early December. A wall of masked men in black body armour, beating their truncheons on steel shields. In front of them stand women bundled in winter coats and teenagers wrapped in red and white flags. They’re singing a protest song once heard in the revolutionary shipyards of Gdansk a generation before - an anthem for democracy and change. For more than one hundred days these versions of Belarus have advanced and retreated - and now they seem locked in impasse. Despite sanctions, despite disapproval so loud that even foreign diplomats are demonstrating - the government of Alexander Lukashenko stands firm. For Crossing Continents Lucy Ash explores the world of the security forces that keep Lukashenko in power, peeling back the ubiquitous balaclavas to find the men and women beneath. Producer, Monica Whitlock Editor, Bridget Harney

18 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. Gen Khalifa Haftar – the warlord with authority over the east of Libya – is demanding a prisoner swap: the freeing of 4 Libyans in jail in Sicily convicted of human trafficking and implicated in the deaths of 49 migrants, in return for the fishermen. For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly explores a little-known conflict in the Mediterranean - the so-called War of the Red Prawn, and its fall-out.

“First we were enslaved. Then we were poisoned.” That’s how many on Martinique see the history of their French Caribbean island that, to tourists, means sun, rum, and palm-fringed beaches. Slavery was abolished in 1848. But today the islanders are victims again – of a toxic pesticide called chlordecone that’s poisoned the soil and water and been linked by scientists to unusually high rates of prostate cancer. For more than 10 years chlordecone was authorised for use in banana plantations – though its harmful effects were already known. Now, more than 90% of Martinicans have traces of it in their blood. The pollution means many can't grow vegetables in their gardens - and fish caught close to the shore are too dangerous to eat. French President Emmanuel Macron has called it an ‘environmental scandal’ and said the state ‘must take responsibility’. But some activists on the island want to raise wider questions about why the pesticide was used for so long – and on an island divided between a black majority and a small white minority, it’s lost on no-one that the banana farmers who used the toxic chemical and still enjoy considerable economic power are, in many cases, descendants of the slave owners who once ran Martinique. Reporting from the island for Crossing Continents, Tim Whewell asks how much has changed there. Is Martinique really an equal part of France? And is there equality between descendants of slaves and the descendants of their masters, even now? Produced and presented by Tim Whewell Editor, Bridget Harney

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 withheld funds to six of the towns involved, and some of their twinning partners in Europe have broken off ties. Meanwhile, politicians within Poland’s conservative ruling coalition stand accused of exploiting the divisions to further a reactionary social agenda. Lucy Ash reports. Mike Gallagher producing.

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 protests - what they call a farmers' uprising - in response to a suggestion from a leading politician that the number of farm animals in the country should be cut by half. This is meant to bring down levels of ammonia, a nitrogen compound produced by dung and urine. The proposal comes even though their cows, pigs and chickens have helped make the tiny Netherlands into the world's second biggest exporter of food. Farmers think they're being sacrificed so that the construction industry, also responsible for some nitrogen pollution, can have free rein to keep building, as the country's population, boosted by immigration, grows relentlessly. What do the Dutch want most - cows or houses? Will there be any room in the future for the ever-shrinking patches of nature? And in a hungry world, shouldn't the country concentrate on one of the things it's best at - feeding people? Tim Whewell travels through a country that must make big choices, quickly.

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 brewers, both legal and illegal, on the impact the ban has had on their livelihoods and on people’s health, and since the ban has ended, from those considering what lessons the nation might learn from its experiment with being ‘dry’. (Image: Barman working at a bar which has re-opened under new regulations in Val, South Africa, 07 August 2020. Credit: EPA/Kim Ludbrook)

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 lap top, he knew his life was again in danger. That same day, with his wife and two small children, he began a perilous journey to safety in Finland – an odyssey that would last four years. The family would survive shooting on the Turkish border, a voyage across the Aegean Sea on an overcrowded makeshift vessel with fake lifejackets, and then the nightmare of refugee camps in Greece. It was here that Chloe Hadjimatheou met Reza, and for Crossing Contintents she tells the story of a remarkable journalist who’s continued to ply his trade - in spite of the odds stacked against him. Producer: Linda Pressly (Image: Said Reza Adib. Credit: Sayed Ahmadzia Ebrahimi)

Spain’s King Juan Carlos – a story of entitlement and dynasty… The emeritus king, Juan Carlos, has left Spain. But the man who propelled his nation from dictatorship to democracy is under intense public scrutiny. At the heart of allegations against the former king is a $100 million gift from the Saudi Royals. The Supreme Court in Madrid is investigating whether Juan Carlos can be accused of any crimes related to this cash. Spain’s often unquestioning acceptance of its monarchy began to unravel in 2012 when King Juan Carlos fractured a hip during an elephant-hunting trip to Botswana. Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, his former lover, was with him in Africa. She talks exclusively to Crossing Continents about a multi-million Euro gift from the king, claims she was pursued by Spain's intelligence service, and - that elephant. Presenter / producer: Linda Pressly Presenter / producer in Spain: Esperanza Escribano Editor: Bridget Harney

In March and April, Guayaquil in Ecuador was the epicentre of the Covid pandemic in Latin America. The city’s health services began to collapse fast, so that the bodies of the dead were not collected from homes. Being at a loss to know what to do, desperate families deposited the remains of their loved ones in the streets. Eventually they were picked up, but in the chaos, some of the remains of those who died went missing. For Crossing Continents, Mike Lanchin follows the story of Rita Baque as she searches for the body of her late husband. Producer in Ecuador: Blanca Moncada. Editor: Bridget Harney

A mysterious illness appears out of nowhere. The number of cases rises exponentially, as the authorities attempt to downplay the severity of the disease. There is a shortage of medical staff, equipment and arguments about whether people should wear masks. People are forbidden to leave their homes and many are left stranded in unfamiliar places, separated from loved ones. Albert Camus’ novel The Plague set in the Algerian city of Oran under French colonial rule was published more than 70 years ago. But today it almost reads like a current news bulletin and seems more relevant than ever. This edition of Crossing Continents revisits Oran in the age of the coronavirus and investigates the parallels between now and then. For the time being, it seems the pandemic has achieved something the authorities have tried but failed to do for the past year – clear the streets of protestors. Lucy Ash investigates Algeria’s plague of authoritarianism and finds that the government has been using Covid 19 as an excuse to crack down harder on dissent. Reporter: Lucy Ash Producer: Neil Kisserli Editor: Bridget Harney

A failed coup in Venezuela - a story of hubris, incompetence, and treachery… At the beginning of May, the government of Nicolas Maduro announced the armed forces had repelled an attempted landing by exiled Venezuelans on the coast north of Caracas. Some were killed, others captured. This was Operation Gideon – an incursion involving a few dozen, poorly-equipped men, and two former US Special Forces soldiers. The hair brained plan to depose Nicolas Maduro, and force a transition in Caracas was conceived by Venezuela's political opposition in neighbouring Colombia, the United States and Venezuela. Command and control of Operation Gideon allegedly lay with another former US Special Forces soldier, Jordan Goudreau. But why would men with decades of military experience between them join a plan that, from the outset, looked like a suicide mission? For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly goes in search of answers. Presenter / producer: Linda Pressly Producer in Venezuela: Vanessa Silva Editor: Bridget Harney (Image: Jordan Goudreau and Javier Nieto address the Venezuelan people on 3 May, 2020. Credit: Javier Nieto)

The untold story of Abood Hamam, perhaps the only photojournalist to have worked under every major force in Syria's war - and lived to tell the tale. At the start of the uprising he was head of photography for the state news agency, SANA, taking official shots of President Assad and his wife Asma by day - and secretly filming opposition attacks by night. Later he defected and returned to his home town, Raqqa, where various rebel groups were competing for control. Other journalists fled when the terrorists of so-called Islamic State (IS) took over, but Abood stayed - and was asked by IS to film its victory parade. He sent pictures of life under IS to agencies all over the world - using a pseudonym. As the bombing campaign by the anti-IS coalition intensified, Abood moved away - but returned later to record the heartbreaking destruction - but also the slow return of life, and colour, to the streets. For months, he roamed through the ruins with his camera, seeing himself as ”the guardian of the city." Raqqa's future is still very uncertain, but Abood now wants everyone to see his pictures, which he posts on Facebook, and know his real name. He hopes the colours he's showing will tempt the thousands of families who've fled Raqqa to return home, and rebuild their lives, and their city. Reporter: Tim Whewell Producer: Mohamad Chreyteh Sound mix: James Beard Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman Editor: Bridget Harney

Thousands of Bulgarian parents pulled their children out of school in a mass panic last October, fearing they would be abducted by social workers. Many more are protesting against a draft law they say puts 70 per cent of children at similar risk. Are they right to be scared? Or have rumours and fake news spread hysteria about the power of the state? Suddenly, campaigns to defend the “traditional family” are gathering strength in Bulgaria – and across eastern Europe. What’s behind them? And why do they treat one Western country – Norway – as the ultimate source of evil? Tim Whewell investigates.

Are lithium-powered electric vehicles as ‘green’ as we think they are? With the advent of electric cars, manufacturers tell us we’re racing towards a clean-energy future. It’s lithium that powers these vehicles. Most of the world’s stocks of this lightest of metals are found in brine deep beneath salt flats, high in the Andes. In Argentina, in Jujuy - the province with the highest percentage of indigenous households in the country - massive projects are underway. But in a super-dry region, with water the most precious resource, and lithium extraction demanding huge quantities of it, there’s anxiety - and outright opposition. Presenter / producer: Linda Pressly Producer in Argentina: Gert De Saedeleer Editor: Bridget Harney

Why did so many people die in just one elderly care home in Madrid? After Covid-19 smashed its way across the globe, Spain - one of the worst-hit nations of Europe - is beginning to take stock of the devastation the virus has left in its wake. Most painful perhaps, will be an assessment of how the deadly contagion was able to rip through Spanish care homes at such speed, killing thousands of elderly people. In March 2020, the alarm was first sounded in a privately run institution, Monte Hermoso in Madrid. It is a story that has stayed with the BBC’s producer in Spain, Esperanza Escribano. She was in the capital when the reports of deaths at Monte Hermoso came to light. For Crossing Continents, she joins Linda Pressly, to piece together the story of what happened within the care home’s red brick walls. Editor: Bridget Harney (Photo: Isabel Costales and her husband Ramon Hernandez. Isabel died during the coronavirus pandemic in a care home in Madrid. Photo Credit: Paula Panera)

Ireland’s government is in crisis mode dealing with the public health emergency caused by the coronavirus pandemic. But another crisis in its housing provision has long haunted the country’s young people. Ireland has booming investment and lots of new jobs but people cannot find adequate and affordable housing. Anger about this, and fear of mass emigration by the young are issues with deep roots in Irish memory. And the housing crisis was a crucial factor in February’s Irish election result which shocked the main parties and saw big gains for the nationalists of Sinn Fein. For Crossing Continents, Chris Bowlby travels to the city of Cork in the southwest of the country. He traces the roots of the crisis in a crazy house buying boom a few years ago. And he hears how a lack of good, affordable housing is affecting everyone from students to young families to Ireland’s many younger migrants who hope to stay in Ireland, but have nowhere to call home. Produced and Presented by Chris Bowlby Editor: Bridget Harney

A much anticipated referendum in Chile on a new constitution has been postponed till the autumn amid safety concerns over the spread of the coronavirus. President Sebastian Piñera had agreed to the vote and a range of reforms following months of civil unrest. Since last autumn, the country has been experiencing a wave of protests with people on the streets angry at the level of inequality in the country. Amongst them thousands of university students, teachers and school children – who have been prepared to face tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets – in a bid to change the education system in Chile. They say a privileged few have access to all the best jobs and the rest are given a substandard schooling with leaky roofs in winter, boiling hot classrooms in summer and inadequate teaching. For Crossing Continents, Jane Chambers spent time with the protestors calling for a fairer education for all. Presented and produced by Jane Chambers. Editor, Bridget Harney

California is one of the wealthiest states in America yet it has the largest population of homeless people – more than 151,000 - in the US. In the Silicon Valley many find shelter on the bus route 22 which runs an endless loop from Palo Alto to the Valley’s biggest city, San Jose. Along the way it passes some of the world’s biggest tech giants: Google, Apple, Hewlett-Packart and Facebook. It is the Valley’s only all night bus and many of its night-time passengers ride it to keep warm and sleep. But now the state is in the grips of the coronavirus pandemic the overnight service has been suspended. Earlier this year, Sarah Svoboda took a ride on the bus, known to many as Motel 22, to hear the stories of its travellers. Reporter/producer: Sarah Svoboda Editor: Bridget Harney

Romania's forests are the Amazon of Europe - with large wilderness areas under constant pressure from loggers. For years, corrupt authorities turned a blind eye to illegal felling. But now a series of killings in the woods has intensified demands across the continent to end the destruction. Six rangers - who defend forests from illegal cutting – have been killed in as many years. Two died in the space of just a few weeks late last year. The latest victim, Liviu Pop, father of three young girls, was shot as he confronted men he thought were stealing timber. But the men weren’t arrested. They say the ranger shot himself. And in the remote region of Maramures, where many people are involved in logging, that version is widely believed. Locals are afraid to talk about what happened. Is the lucrative logging business protected by powerful interests who turn a blind eye to murder? And are rangers sometimes complicit in the rape of the forest? For Crossing Continents, Tim Whewell tries to find out exactly how a young man employed to protect nature met his death. And he asks how Romania can save its wilderness when more than half the trees cut down are felled illegally? Reporter: Tim Whewell Editor: Bridget Harney

Saying no to dating is part of a growing ultraconservative social movement in Indonesia being spread through Instagram and WhatsApp. “When I look at couples, I see my old self, how I used to be affectionate in public, holding hands, hugging,” says 23-year-old Yati, “and now I think that’s disgusting.” When Yati broke up with her ex, she didn’t just swear off dating; she joined Indonesia’s anti-dating movement - Indonesia Without Dating. Its leaders say dating is expensive, gets in the way of study, and - most importantly - is against religious teaching. For Crossing Continents, Simon Maybin discovers it is part of a wider youth-led surge in conservative Islam in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country. Opponents see the phenomenon as a backwards step for women and a threat to Indonesia’s religious pluralism. Presenter: Simon Maybin Producer: Josephine Casserly Editor: Bridget Harney Music at the end of the programme was Tubuhku Otoritasku by Tika and The Dissidents.

Growing numbers of tourists are travelling to the Peruvian Amazon to drink ayahuasca, a traditional plant medicine said to bring about a higher state of consciousness. Foreigners come looking for spiritual enlightenment or help with mental health problems like trauma, depression, and addiction. But not everyone is happy about Peru’s booming ayahuasca tourism industry. A group of indigenous healers are fighting back against what they see as the exploitation and appropriation of their cultural heritage by foreigners - who run most of the ayahuasca retreats popular with tourists. This coming together of cultures has thrown up another serious problem too: vulnerable women being sexually abused while under the influence of charismatic healers and this powerful psychedelic. Reporter: Simon Maybin Producer: Josephine Casserly Editor: Bridget Harney If you would like information and support with sexual abuse, details of relevant organisations are available at bbc.co.uk/actionline, or you can call for free, at any time to hear recorded information on 0800 077 077.

Ninety year old Galina is one of the last witnesses to the wild natural world that preceded the Chernobyl zone in southern Belarus. 'We lived with wolves' she says 'and moose, and elk and wild boars.' Soviet development destroyed that ecosystem. Forests and marshland were tamed and laid to farmland and industrial use. But when the Chernobyl reactor exploded in 1986, the human population was evacuated; their villages were buried beneath the earth as though they had never existed. A generation on, it seems that the animals Galina knew are returning. But how are they are affected by their radioactive environment? And what can we infer about the state of the land? Monica Whitlock visits the strange new wilderness emerging in the heart of Europe. Produced and Presented by Monica Whitlock Editor, Bridget Harney

Fatmata, Jamilatu and Alimamy all see themselves as failures. They’re young Sierra Leoneans who risked everything for the sake of a better life in Europe. Along the way, they were imprisoned and enslaved. They saw friends die. Eventually, they gave up. Now, they’re home again - facing the devastating consequences of what they did to their families before they left, actions that have left them ostracised by their nearest and dearest. Who will help them to survive back home? Can they rebuild their lives, and achieve any reconciliation with their parents? And if they can’t, will they be tempted to set off again, to seek their fortunes abroad? Produced and presented by Tim Whewell Editor, Bridget Harney

Iceland's glaciers are melting at an unprecedented rate, with scientists predicting that they could all be gone 200 years from now. How is this affecting the lives of local people, and the identity of a nation that has ice in its name? Maria Margaronis talks to Icelandic farmers and fishermen, scientists and environmental activists about their (sometimes surprising) responses to climate change, and asks why it’s so difficult even for those who see its effects from their windows every day to take in what it means. Producer: Richard Fenton-Smith Editor: Bridget Harney

How do you achieve net-zero carbon emissions in just fifteen years? In Finland, a fisherman-turned-climate scientist believes he has part of the answer: re-wilding the country’s peat fields. Gabriel Gatehouse travels to the country's frozen north to meet Tero Mustonen, as he battles lobbyists and vested interests in government and the peat industry, in a race to mitigate the consequences of climate change. Michael Gallagher producing. Editor, Bridget Harney.

Life in Lebanon is a daily battle to beat the power cuts caused by the country's chronic electricity shortage. If you live in a block of flats, you have to time when you go in and out to avoid getting trapped in the lift. Food goes bad because fridges don't work, families must often choose between air-conditioning and watching TV, and those on life-support machines live in constant fear of a switch-off. But if it's hell for citizens, it's heaven for operators of illegal private generators who profit by filling the gap left by the failures of the national grid. Some are former warlords who led militias in Lebanon's civil war. They're given an unofficial licence to operate, often in return for favours to the authorities in Lebanon's chaotic and often corrupt sectarian system. Now a huge protest movement is demanding change in Lebanon - and a constant power supply is one of the demonstrators' main demands. They want to break the power of the "fuel mafia" that imports diesel for the generators and has close links to the country's leading politicians. For them, the fight for light is a fight against corruption. But can Lebanon's feeble state ever manage to turn all the lights on? Reporter: Tim Whewell Producer: Anna Meisel

There’s a new climate of fear in Sri Lanka. This time it’s the Muslim community who are fearful of the future. The Easter bomb attacks in Sri Lanka - targeting churches and international hotels - horrified the island. It’s suffered civil war - between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils - but never known jihadi violence. But the attacks also intensified a creeping campaign by the Sinhala Buddhist majority against the Muslim community - with Muslims murdered, their businesses burned or boycotted. Jill McGivering investigates the growing climate of fear now driving many Muslims to emigrate and casting a shadow over those left behind. Caroline Finnigan producing.

Raed Fares, founder of Syria's legendary Radio Fresh FM, was mowed down by unknown gunmen as he left his studios in rebel-held Idlib in November 2018. The death of the man who fought hatred with humour and laughed in the faces of President Assad, ISIS and al-Qaeda, sent shockwaves way beyond his troubled homeland. When ordered by Islamist extremists to stop broadcasting music he had replied with bird song and clucking chickens. On being told to take his female presenters off air, he put their voices through software to make them sound like men. In tribute to its founder, Raed Fares's radio station has refused to die with him. One year on from his killing it continues to broadcast the comedy programmes he loved, as Assad's troops close in and bombs fall around it. Presenter: Mike Thomson Producer: Joe Kent

Domestic abuse in Russia is endemic with hundreds maybe thousands of women dying at the hands of their partners every year. Despite this a controversial law was passed in 2017, which scrapped prison sentences for first-time abusers. Beatings that do not cause broken bones or concussion are now treated as administrative offences rather than crimes. As one activist puts it: “the punishment for beating your wife now feels like paying a parking ticket.” But Russian society is waking up to the crisis. The case of three girls - the Khachaturyan sisters - who face long prison sentences for murdering their tyrannical father, has sparked mass protests. More than 300,000 people have signed an online petition urging prosecutors to drop the murder charges. The girls’ mother tells reporter Lucy Ash that her daughters were acting in self-defence against a man who had abused them physically, emotionally and sexually for years. Lucy also meets the mother of a woman stabbed to death by her husband who was discovered in her blood soaked bed by her seven year old son. In both cases, the frightened women had appealed to the police but to no avail. These tragedies might have been averted if only the authorities had taken earlier warnings seriously. In Moscow, Lucy talks to activists who are fighting back by supporting victims, pushing for legal reforms and drawing attention to the cause through art, video games and social media. And she meets a lone feminist MP in the Russian Duma who is trying to bring in restraining orders for violent husbands, boyfriends and family members. Today Russia has no such laws and domestic violence is not a standalone offence in either the criminal or the civil code. Producers: Josephine Casserly and Albina Kovalyova Research: Nina Nazarova (Image: This woman asks whether silence is really golden – more Russian women are speaking out against domestic violence. Credit: Sergei Konkov\TASS via Getty Images)

Every August tens of thousands of Kurdish migrant workers, including children, toil long hours for a pittance in the mountains of northern Turkey picking hazelnuts for the spreads and chocolate bars the world adores. Turkey provides 70% of all hazelnut supplies – and the biggest buyer is Ferrero, maker of Nutella and Kinder Bueno. The confectionery giant says it’s committed to ethical sourcing, and aiming for its hazelnuts to be 100% traceable next year. But how is that possible in Turkey, with its half a million tiny family orchards, where child labour is rife? Tim Whewell investigates Ferrero’s complex supply chain and finds that while hazelnuts are celebrated in Turkish culture and song, it’s a sector where workers and farmers feel increasingly unhappy and reform is very hard to achieve.

Precipitous mountain roads, specially modified bikes, and deadly consequences. Simon Maybin spends time with the young men who race down the steep roads of Colombia’s second city Medellin. Marlon is 16 and he’s a gravitoso - a gravity biker. He hooks onto the back of lorries or buses climbing the precipitous roads to reach high points around the city. Then, he lets gravity do its thing and - without any safety gear - hurtles back down the roads, trying to dodge the traffic. This year, two of his friends have died gravity biking and Marlon has had a near-fatal accident. But he’s not quitting. So what drives young men like him to take their lives into their own hands? And what’s being done to stop more deaths? Produced and presented by Simon Maybin.

Marawi in the southern Philippines is a ghost town. In 2017, it was taken under siege for five months by supporters of Islamic State who wanted to establish a caliphate in the predominantly Muslim city. After a fierce and prolonged battle, the Philippine army regained control – but Marawi was left in ruins. Two years on, reconstruction has barely begun and over 100,000 people are yet to return home. Philippines Correspondent Howard Johnson tells the story of Marawi from the siege to the present day, through the eyes of two of its residents: a Muslim who risked his life to save his community and a Catholic priest who was held hostage by extremists. Produced by Josephine Casserly. Image: Grand Mosque pockmarked by bullet holes and artillery fire in the Most Affected Area (MAA) or Ground Zero of the siege of Marawi Credit: Howard Johnson/BBC

China’s New Silk Road reaches across all parts of the globe; building roads, bridges and towering cities where before there were none. In Kazakhstan, China’s neighbour to the west, this vast project has created a port. But there’s no water there, just desert… and trains running all the way from China through to Europe and the Middle East. Meeting the hundreds of shoppers and traders, it’s astonishing to think that just a few years ago this border was a closed military zone - the frontier between two giant communist states. But turn the clock back further and we discover this part of Central Asia has always been closely tied to China, in languages, culture and contested history. For Crossing Continents, Rose Kudabayeva returns to her home country Kazakhstan, to meet people living along the New Silk Road and record how their world is changing. Produced by Monica Whitlock A BlokMedia production

Everybody in Romania knows someone who has died in a road accident. The country has the highest road death rate in the European Union – twice the EU average and more than three times that in the UK. A young businessman, Stefan Mandachi, has built a metre long stretch of motorway near his home in the rural north-east of the country, as a visual protest against political inaction and corruption. For Crossing Continents, Tessa Dunlop travels to one of Romania’s poorest regions, Moldova, to meet this new champion of road safety, and the families who have paid the highest price for the country’s poor transport networks. Producer, John Murphy.

Who will shape the future of the hurricane-hit, tropical isle of Barbuda? In 2017, category-5 hurricane Irma devastated much of Barbuda's 'paradise' landscape, and its infrastructure. The national government – based on the larger, neighbouring island of Antigua – evacuated the population of some 1800 people. But within days, although the people weren’t allowed to return, bulldozers were clearing ancient forest to build an international airport. Critics called this another case of, 'disaster capitalism' – governments and business taking advantage of catastrophe to make a profit. Barbuda has long been viewed as ripe for more tourism – Hollywood actor Robert De Niro is part of a commercial enterprise working on the opening of an exclusive resort. One of the obstacles to widespread development has been the island’s unique system of tenure – all land has been held in common since the emancipation of Barbuda’s slave population in the 19th century. But last year the government repealed the law guaranteeing those communal rights, partly to attract investment to the island. Meanwhile, although the hurricane season began on June 1st, families are still living in tents. With the main opportunity to earn revenue coming from tourism, the national government is thoroughly irked by Barbudans' resistance to profit from top-dollar visitors. It argues that projects can be environmentally-friendly. But in the wake of Irma, the impact of climate change hangs heavily on Barbuda. How can this pristine island preserve its future and still develop the economy? Presenter / producer: Linda Pressly

An icon of Italian design; a centrepiece of a community; a tragedy waiting to happen? When the Morandi bridge opened in 1967, it was one of the longest concrete bridges in the world, connecting the port of Genoa with the rest of Italy and Italy with northern Europe. Built during the post-war economic boom, it was the centrepiece of Italy’s plans to modernise its roads and was a proud symbol of the country’s engineering and architectural expertise. But all that came to a tragic end in August last year when a section of the bridge collapsed killing 43 people and leaving 600 people without a home. Helen Grady speaks to people whose lives have been touched by the bridge from the moment it was built to the moment it collapsed. And she asks how such a vital piece of infrastructure, carrying thousands of cars and lorries every day, could be allowed to fail. Producer Alice Gioia Translations by Rachel Johnson, Alice Gioia and Helen Grady Voiceovers by: Shaun Mason (Davide Capello) Gemma Ashman (Mimma Certo) Greg Jones (Emmanuel Diaz) Neil Koenig (Remo Calzona) Jim Frank (Alessandoro Campora) Jonathan Griffin (Carmelo Gentile) Will Kirk (Danilo Toninelli) Andrew Smith (Paolo d'Ovidio)

A small town goes on life-support after its lone hospital closes. The story of Jamestown, Tennessee, recorded in the emotional hours and days after its 85-bed facility shut. Rural hospitals are closing across the United States, leaving patients dangerously exposed. Can Jamestown buck the trend and reopen? Produced and presented by Neal Razzell.

When Azeteng, a young man from rural Ghana, heard stories on the radio of West African migrants dying on their way to Europe, he felt compelled to act. He took what little savings he had and bought reading glasses with a hidden camera – his “secret spectacles”. Then he put himself in the hands of people smugglers and travelled 3,000 miles on the desert migrant trail north, aiming to document the crimes of the traffickers. Along the way he saw extortion, slavery, and death in the vast stretches of the Sahara. In this edition of Crossing Continents we tell the story of his journey – a journey that thousands of young Africans like him attempt each year. Reporter, Joel Gunter. Producer, Josephine Casserly. (Photo: Azeteng's secret spectacles. Credit: Charlie Northcott/BBC)

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 are campaigning to free the convicted men. More than 100 women and children were attacked in the colony of Manitoba, and their courage in telling their stories secured penalties of 25 years for the rapists. But within Mennonite circles, doubts continue to be aired about the imprisonment of the men. They too protest their innocence, claiming their initial confessions in Manitoba were forced under threat of torture. The culture of abuse in the old colonies – physical and sexual – has often been commented on. And, as Linda Pressly reports, it’s partly this that gave the impetus for the foundation of one of Bolivia’s newest Mennonite communities. Hacienda Verde has been hacked out of virgin forest, and is home to 45 families. These are people who were excommunicated in their old colony homes, often because they rejected the harsh rules of conservative Mennonites – rules that govern every facet of life, from the clothes and hairstyles that are allowed, to the rejection of any kind of technology. Presenter / producer: Linda Pressly (Photo: Bolivia Mennonite colony, Belice, Girl at school. Photo Credit: @jordibusque)

The dangers of flying in the great wilderness of the Brazilian rainforest. When a light aircraft carrying two families from a local Indian tribe disappeared over the Amazon in December, relatives scoured the rainforest for weeks until hunger and sickness forced them to give up. The Brazilian authorities ignored appeals for an official ground search – just as they’ve ignored appeals over many years to regulate local flights in the Amazon. Without air traffic control, pilots must fly clandestinely – making already-hazardous travel between the tiny landing strips even more dangerous. Now, Brazil has a new right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, who has spoken out against the communal rights of indigenous people – and, as Tim Whewell reports, tribal leaders fear the failure to find the missing plane may be a sign of growing official indifference to their needs. Producer in Brazil, Jessica Cruz. (Image: Before the tragedy - Jeziel Barbosa de Moura, pilot of the vanished plane, minutes before he took off on the doomed flight. Credit: Family archive)

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’s been nicknamed the, ‘Lapland of Spain’ because its population density is so low. With only a handful of families left in his village, and people continuing to leave for the cities, Antonio struggled to find a partner. Then Maria Carvajal arrived. She came in a bus full of single women – a ‘caravana’ - to attend an organised party with men like Antonio. The Caravans of Women - or Caravans of Love as they are known - began as a response to Spain’s epic story of rural depopulation. More than half the country is at risk, and in nearly 600 municipalities there isn’t one resident under the age of 10. But as Linda Pressly finds out, there are many initiatives now to reverse the decline of the Spanish countryside, including a movement of young people – the ‘neo-rurales’ – who have begun to occupy abandoned villages. Presenter and producer: Linda Pressly Producer in Spain: Esperanza Escribano (Image: Antonio Cerrada, a shepherd who found love. Credit: BBC, Esperanza Escribano)

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. The Yaba epidemic has ripped through the population of Bangladesh, urban and rural, poor, middle-class and rich. This is a drug that's manufactured in industrial quantities in the jungles of neighbouring Myanmar. As the economy of Bangladesh has boomed, drug lords have worked to create new markets for their product. And the Rohingya crisis - when nearly a million fled Myanmar for Bangladesh - has created further opportunities for the traffickers, as desperate refugees have been employed as drug mules. The Bangladeshi Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, declared a 'war on drugs' last May. Thousands have been arrested. But critics see a disturbing trend - hundreds of suspected Yaba dealers have been killed by law enforcement. Presenter / producer: Linda Pressly with Morshed Ali Khan

Brazilians wept when their 200-year-old National Museum went up in flames last September. Twenty million items, many of them irreplaceable, were thought to have been reduced to ash when it was gutted by a massive fire. Staff said the loss to science and history was incalculable - and the tragedy, possibly caused by faulty wiring in the long-underfunded institution, led to much national heart-searching about the country's commitment to its heritage. The museum, housed in Brazil's former Imperial Palace in Rio de Janeiro, held unique collections of fossils, animal specimens, indigenous artefacts, as well as Egyptian and Greek treasures - and the oldest human skull found in the Americas. Some scientists, who saw their entire life's work go up in flames, were in despair - but others vowed to work to rebuild and restock the museum. Now, months on, painstaking archaeological work in the debris has uncovered items that can be restored, while other specialists are setting out on expeditions to acquire new specimens. Tim Whewell reports from Rio on the agonies - and occasional small triumphs - of the slow, exhausting effort to bring a great national institution back to life.

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 fighting the Soviets has become the focus of tension in a small community in one of Europe’s oldest forests. Those taking part believe the partisans – known as the Cursed Soldiers – were national heroes, but others remember atrocities committed by them 70 years ago. Some partisans were responsible for the burning of villages and the murder of men, women and children in and around Poland’s Bialowieza forest. The people living the forest are Orthodox and Catholic, Belorussian and Polish; this march threatens to revive past divisions between them. Many believe that far-right groups have hijacked this piece of history to further their nationalist agenda. For Crossing Continents, Maria Margaronis visits the forest to find out why this is causing tensions now; why the locals feel the march is making them feel threatened; and how this reflects wider political rifts in Poland today. Produced by Charlotte McDonald.

Hunting western paedophiles is a priority for a new police unit tasked with safeguarding children in Nepal. Mired in poverty and still recovering from a devastating earthquake in 2015, Nepal is increasingly being targeted by foreign paedophiles who recommend it as a destination when they share child abuse tips on the dark web. In recent years, a series of western men have been charged with raping or sexually assaulting Nepali boys. For Crossing Continents, Jill McGivering follows the under-resourced police unit, hears the stories of victims and perpetrators and examines what makes Nepal so vulnerable to abuse by western men. This programme contains descriptions of child sexual abuse which some listeners may find distressing. Produced by Caroline Finnigan.

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 be brewing in the west of the country, between Ukraine and Hungary. Some have accused the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban of trying to create a breakaway state in impoverished Transcarpathia, once part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Ukraine and Hungary both expelled diplomats from each other’s nations, following a row over passports and a Hungarian cultural centre has been repeatedly firebombed. Lucy Ash meets people in the Ukrainian border town of Berehove and investigates whether deepening tensions could destabilise the region and further dash Ukraine’s hopes of being a unified country inside NATO and the EU. Producer: Josephine Casserly (Image: Pupil at a Hungarian-language secondary school in Berehove in Western Ukraine walks down a corridor bearing a portrait of Lajos Kossuth, the 19th Century political reformer after whom the school is named. Credit: Balint Bardi)

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 number has quadrupled in the last two decades, a result it seems of rising elderly poverty and loneliness, as seniors become increasingly cut-off from their over-worked offspring. In jail old people at least get a bed, a routine and a hot meal, and for many, as Ed discovers, the outside world can seem like a threatening place. For the prison authorities it means an increasingly ageing population behind bars and the challenges of dealing with a range of geriatric health issues. Produced and reported by Ed Butler.

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 a means of normalising relations between these former foes. Since the bloody Kosovo war ended with NATO intervention in 1999, civility between Belgrade and Pristina has been in short supply. Redrawing borders along ethnic lines is anathema to many, but politicians in Serbia and Kosovo have their eyes on a bigger prize... For Serbia, that is membership of the European Union. But the EU will not accept Serbia until it makes an accommodation with its neighbour. Kosovo wants to join the EU too, but its immediate priority is recognition at the United Nations, and that is unlikely while Serbia's ally, Russia, continues to thwart Kosovo's ambitions there. Both of these Balkan nations want to exit this impasse. And a land-swap, giving each of them much-coveted territory, might just do it. For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly and producer, Albana Kasapi, visit the two regions at the heart of the proposal - the ethnically Albanian-majority Presevo Valley in Serbia, and the mostly Serb region north of Mitrovica in Kosovo. (PHOTO: Hevzi Imeri, an ethnic Albanian and Danilo Dabetic, a Serb, play together at the basketball club Play 017 in Bujanovac – one of very few mixed activities for young people in Serbia’s Presevo Valley. BBC photo.)

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 was signed by one of the country’s top teams - but was also starting to realise he couldn’t be true to himself and be a footballer. By 21, he’d quit the game. He knew he was gay and felt there was no place for him in a macho culture where homophobia is commonplace and out gay men are nowhere to be seen. Now, at 36, Douglas lives in a country that just elected a self-styled “proud homophobe” as president, which some football fans have taken as a licence to step up their homophobic abuse and threats. But Douglas is back on the pitch and - with a growing number of other gay footballers - fighting back. Reporter David Baker Producer: Simon Maybin

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 search for survivors – among them a team of British firefighters. Now, with reporter Tim Whewell, two of those men are returning - to see how the town’s been rebuilt - and to remember a rescue effort that marked a turning point in East-West relations. The disaster came as Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was developing his policy of glasnost (openness) – and his request for foreign assistance was the first such appeal the Kremlin had made in decades. The firefighters relive the drama, grief and courage of those days – and renew old friendships. They discover that Spitak has still not fully recovered from the quake, with many living to this day in squalid temporary housing. Reporter Tim Whewell.

Where do you come from? Tracing your ancestry in the USA is one of the most popular hobbies along with gardening and golf. TV is awash with advertising for the do-it-yourself genetic testing kits which have become much sought after gifts, especially at Christmas time. The kits have revolutionised family tree research and gone are the days of sifting through old documents. But, as Lucy Ash reports, the DNA results are now revealing far more than many had bargained for. How do you react when you find out your mother had a secret affair half a century ago…and the man who raised you isn’t your dad? Produced by Charlotte McDonald.

China is accused of locking up as many as a million Uighur Muslims without trial across its western region of Xinjiang. The government denies the claims, saying people willingly attend special "vocational schools" to combat "terrorism and religious extremism". But a BBC investigation has found important new evidence of the reality - a vast and rapidly growing network of detention centres, where the people held inside are humiliated and abused. Using detailed satellite analysis and reporting from a part of the country where journalists are routinely detained and harassed; China correspondent John Sudworth offers his in-depth report on China's Hidden Camps.

An investigation into the 'killing machine' of one of Africa's most repressive and secretive countries. Three years ago there was widespread unrest in the East African country of Burundi when the country’s president ran for a third term. Protestors said he was violating the constitution that limits presidential terms to just two. Since then street protests have ended but a BBC investigation has now uncovered evidence of government sponsored torture and killings designed to silence dissent. The government has always denied any human rights violations, and declined to comment on the allegations in this programme. Reporter Maud Jullien. Producers Charlotte Atwood and Michael Gallagher. *This programme contains graphic scenes of torture and killing. (Image: A computer generated image of an alleged detention house in Burundi’s capital, Bujumbura. A red liquid, which looked like blood, was seen pouring from its gutter. Credit: BBC)

In a Cambodian hospital, a group of terrified new mothers nurse tiny babies under the watch of police guards. They're surrogates, desperately poor women promised $10,000 to bear children for parents in China. But they were arrested under new anti-trafficking rules, and now they face an agonising choice: either they agree to keep children they didn't want and can't easily afford to bring up, children who aren't genetically theirs - or they honour their surrogacy contracts, and face up to 20 years in jail. Tim Whewell reports on the suffering as country after country in Asia cracks down on commercial surrogacy - and asks whether the detained mothers are criminals - or victims.

Nigerian patients held in hospital because they can’t pay their medical bills. In March 2016, a young woman went into labour. She was rushed to a local, private hospital in south-east Nigeria where she gave birth by caesarean section. But when the hospital discovered this teenage mother didn’t have the money to pay for her treatment, she and her son were unable to leave. They remained there for 16 months – until the police arrived and released them. This is not an isolated case. In Nigeria, very few health services are free of charge, and campaigners estimate that thousands have been detained in hospitals for failing to pay their bills. It’s become an increasingly high-profile issue – one couple have been awarded compensation after going through the courts. For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly explores a widespread abuse – meeting victims, and the hospital managers attempting to manage their budgets in a health system under enormous pressure, where only 5% of Nigerians are covered by health insurance. Producer: Josephine Casserly (Photo: Ngozi Osegbo was awarded compensation by a court after she and her husband were detained in a hospital because they couldn't pay their medical bills. BBC PHOTO)

Simon Cox is in Austria where the authorities have launched an unprecedented operation against a new far right youth organisation, Generation Identity. They prosecuted members of the group including its leader, Martin Sellner, for being an alleged criminal organisation. They are currently appealing the judge's not guilty verdict. The Austrian group is at the heart of a new pan European movement that is vehemently opposed to Muslims and immigration. GI says it is not racist or violent. In Germany more than 100 offences have been committed by its members in just over a year. And the group's co leader in Britain stepped down after he was revealed to have a Neo Nazi past. Simon Cox reporting. Anna Meisel producing.

The dark secrets of Chile's Catholic Church. El Bosque is the wealthy Santiago parish where Fernando Karadima, a charismatic priest, attracted hundreds of young men to the priesthood. In 2010, he was exposed as a paedophile after survivors revealed he had sexually abused them. The Vatican sentenced Karadima to a life of penance and prayer. But this was no one-off, rogue priest. This year the scale of Chile's abuse scandal has been revealed - multiple allegations of sexual exploitation and cover-up are now being investigated across this Andean nation, including allegations made by a congregation of nuns. At first Pope Francis failed to respond. Subsequently he was forced to send his experts in sex crime to Santiago to hear evidence. Most recently, bishops have resigned, and nearly a hundred priests are being investigated by Chile's prosecutors. For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly travels to Chile to meet survivors of sexual abuse, whistle-blowers and devout Catholics, and explores a story that continues to haunt the Francis papacy. Presenter: Linda Pressly Producer in Chile: Jane Chambers (Photo: Javier Molina, survivor of clerical sexual abuse. When he reported the abuse in 2010, the Catholic Church took no action.).

In parts of Nevada, prostitution is legal - the only such state in the US. The 'live and let live mentality' is a hangover from the gold rush days and in certain counties, brothels have been officially licensed since 1971. Today no fewer than seven of them are owned by one man, Dennis Hof, a gun-toting restaurateur, entrepreneur and reality TV star. He calls himself the "Trump from Pahrump," - after a town where he recently won the Republican primaries for the Nevada State Legislature. Now though, there is a backlash from religious and social activists who have managed to get a referendum on the ballot during this November's mid-term elections. Voters in Lyon County will be asked if the legal brothels there should be allowed to continue to operate - and ultimately, the campaigners aim to end legal sex work across the whole state. They say it is an exploitative, abusive trade and prevents other businesses from investing in the area. But some sex workers are worried that a ban could push them onto the streets where they would face potential danger. Lucy Ash talks to Dennis Hof, the women who work for him, and those who are pushing for change. Producer Mike Gallagher.

'He was using prisoners like oxen for ploughing for his own gain'. An ex-convict recalls the prison officer in charge of the prison farm he worked on in Uganda. The country has one of the most overcrowded prison systems in Africa. It also has one of the continent's most developed systems of prison labour. For Crossing Continents, Ed Butler reports from Uganda where most of the country's 54,000 inmates are now serving an economic purpose, working for the benefit of an elite collection of private farmers and other business interests - even though half of them have not been convicted of any crime. He speaks to current and former prisoners, to find out how the system works, and asks: is the country breaking its international pledges on prisoner treatment? Presented and produced by Ed Butler. (Image: Prisoners at Patongo Prison, Uganda. Credit: David Brunetti).

When someone in Jamaica emigrates to the UK, it is said they have 'gone to foreign'. Over the past 70 years several hundred thousand Jamaicans have done this, following in the footsteps of the so-called 'Windrush generation' who first arrived in Britain in the late 1940s. But the spirit of adventure and optimism those early pioneers bought with them has changed over the years and a recent political scandal now finds some of them unwanted and rejected by Britain. Following changes to immigration law and failing to comply with citizenship requirements, they have been designated illegal immigrants. On returning from holiday in the Caribbean, some of the children of the Windrush generation (now in their 50s and 60s) have been refused entry back to Britain, and others have been deported from Britain back to the Caribbean. For Crossing Continents, Colin Grant travels to Jamaica to meet two men who, despite having lived in the UK for decades, working and paying taxes, find themselves in limbo, trapped and unable to return to the place they call home. What happens when you are stranded in a place you were never really familiar with, an island which you have little memory of, and may not have returned to for half a century? Grant hears of their endeavour to return to the UK and how they have struggled to keep up hope in the face of a very painful and public rejection. Colin Grant reporting and producing.

Seaweed is liberating women in a conservative corner of east Africa. Thousands of women have gained more control over their lives thanks to Zanzibar's seaweed farms. In a traditional island village there is a surprisingly high divorce rate and women have safeguarded their interests with earnings from this salty crop which has given them a much needed income and new independence. At first the husbands were outraged - they complained that seaweed farming made women too tired for their matrimonial duties. The women eventually prevailed but their hard won freedom is now threatened by climate change. Lucy Ash meets the seaweed farmers of Paje village and looks at the ways they are fighting to save their livelihood and raise their families. Producer: Chloe Hadjimatheou.

In January, Aurelia Brouwers - a 29 year old Dutch woman, with a history of severe mental illness - lay down on her bed to die. She had been declared eligible for euthanasia a month earlier - Dutch law permits the ending of a life where there is, 'unbearable suffering' without hope of relief. Aurelia's death provoked an outpouring on social media, and widespread discussion within the Netherlands... What if a death wish is part of someone's illness? And does someone with serious mental health challenges have the capacity to make a decision about their own demise? These are questions now being debated in the Netherlands as a result of Aurelia's death. Crossing Continents features recordings of Aurelia made in the two weeks before she died, hears from some of the friends closest to her, and explores the complex terrain of euthanasia for people with psychiatric problems in Holland. Reported and produced by Linda Pressly. (Image: Aurelia Brouwers. Credit: RTL Nieuws, Sander Paulus) If you're feeling emotionally distressed and would like details of organisations that offer advice and support, go online to bbc.co.uk/actionline. Or you can call for free to hear recorded information - 0800 066 066.

The conviction of a prominent expert in Norway's troubled child protection system - for downloading images of child sex abuse - has put the organisation under scrutiny once again. In April this year a child psychiatrist was convicted of downloading thousands of the images on his computer. Up until his arrest he played a key role in decisions about whether children should be separated from their parents for their own good. But there has been no public discussion in Norway about the implications of his conviction, no outrage in the newspapers, no plans to review cases he was involved in - even though the country's child protection agency, Barnevernet, has been much criticised in recent years for removing children from their families without justification. In April 2016 Tim Whewell reported on the story for Crossing Continents after Barnevernet attracted an international storm of protest over its child protection policies. Tim now returns to Norway to report on this extraordinary twist in the story and to find out why child protection in one of the world's wealthiest countries appears to be in crisis. Produced and Reported by Tim Whewell. (Image: A row of family shoes. Credit: BBC)

Why does South Korea have the lowest fertility rate in the world? The average South Korean woman is expected to have 1.05 children in her life - exactly half the rate needed to maintain a population. That means a shrinking workforce paying less taxes and more elderly people who will need expensive care. South Korea's government has pumped tens of billions of pounds into dealing with the problem over the past decade, but the fertility rate is still going down. In this whodunnit, Simon Maybin finds out who's not doing it - and why. Producer: John Murphy Presenter: Simon Maybin.

Israel gives all Jews the right to citizenship - but has it become less welcoming to African Jews? Since its founding in 1948, after the horrors of the Holocaust, Israel has seen itself as a safe haven for Jews from anywhere in the world to come to escape persecution. But now that policy is under threat. As Jewish communities in Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya are finding, a debate has arisen about who is "Jewish enough" to qualify. David Baker investigates claims that decisions are being made not on the basis of ancestry or religious observance but on the colour of people's skin. Producer: Simon Maybin Presenter: David Baker.

China's football-loving President Xi Jinping says he wants his country to qualify for, to host and to win the football World Cup by 2050. The men's national team has recently been defeated 6-0 by Wales, so there's some way to go yet. But they're spending billions trying to boost football in the country. Chinese entrepreneurs have also spent vast sums investing in local and foreign clubs, partly to help create a passion for playing football in the Chinese and to bring the latest training techniques back home. Another official target for the Chinese government is to eradicate poverty within three years. For Crossing Continents, Celia Hatton visits a special primary school in Gansu, in China's far west, which is setting out to turn those World Cup dreams into reality. Made up of children whose parents have migrated to the cities for work, the school drills the young pupils in football skills each day, to give them direction and purpose, but also in the hope that some of them will use football as route out of poverty and to garner Chinese success on the pitch. Producer: John Murphy.

One in ten tractors in the world is made in Belarus. You can find them ploughing furrows and shifting snow in the US, Canada, Pakistan, Thailand...and on the farms of Somerset...At the heart of this big wheeled empire is the Minsk Tractor Works. Impossible to visit until recently, the MTW is opening its doors as part of a new country wide charm offensive. Belarus, long famous for secretiveness and isolation, has relaxed its visa regime since January 2018, and is rebranding itself as a dynamic hub for business and tourism. Stalin founded the tractor works in 1946 as part of a colossal effort to feed a famished Soviet Union after World War 2. It developed as a cradle-to-grave complex, with its own apartment blocks, holiday camps, hospitals, Palace of Culture, and even water bottling plant. Generations of loyal Belarusians have lived and died knowing no other job. The IMF and World Bank advisers wrote off such complexes as wasteful when they came to help implement shock therapy privatization in the 1990s. But MTW is still there. Its 18,000 employees still live in a MTW world - with regular, if modest, pay packets. It's as though the communist-era model has been kept in the freezer to emerge a generation later. For Crossing Continents, Lucy Ash meets the workers and their families who still live and work much in the way their grandparents did. She wonders if the MTW is a preposterous dinosaur or a socially responsible business model, fit for the 21st century. Presenter: Lucy Ash Producer: Monica Whitlock.

Corruption Incorporated - the Odebrecht Story Odebrecht was one of Brazil's premier companies - the largest construction firm in Latin America. But some of its success in securing multi-million dollar contracts across the region was built on a policy of colossal bribery. This edifice of graft began to crumble when the Brazilian authorities started to investigate the state-owned oil company, Petrobras. As a result, CEO Marcelo Odebrecht was convicted of paying millions of dollars in bribes to Petrobras executives in cash-for-contracts. The testimony of Odebrecht executives in plea-bargain agreements with prosecutors continues to have fall-out in an election year, especially with former President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva now in jail on charges related to Brazil's wider corruption scandal. Linda Pressly explores the organisation at the heart of the Odebrecht scandal - a whole corporate department set up to administer bribes. And she meets the company's new CEO, Luciano Guidolin, who tells her the company will be compliant. It will not tolerate corruption. Meanwhile, the Federal Police of Brazil continue to attempt to crack the codes that prevent them from fully accessing Odebrecht's encrypted computer system. Presenter: Linda Pressly Producer in Brazil: Jessica Cruz.

Thousands of young Russian Muslim men were lured to join so-called Islamic State - taking their wives and children with them. But since the "caliphate" fell last year, those families have vanished - and grandmothers back in Russia are desperate for news. The Kremlin wants to bring the children home. It says they've committed no crimes. But finding them and their mothers is hugely difficult. Iraqi authorities say they're holding many IS families - but they won't name them. Gradually though, dramatic scraps of information are emerging - a scribbled note from a prison, whispered phone messages, photos and videos on social media. For months, Tim Whewell has been talking to the grandmothers as they've gathered such clues - and now he travels to Iraq in search of more information, tracing the route the fighters and their families took when they were defeated - and trying to solve the mystery of what happened to them. What was the fate of the men after they surrendered at a remote village school? And what of the reports that many of the women and children were subsequently abducted by a militia? As the story unfolds, Tim confronts a powerful Shia warlord. Will the jihadis' children be released? What kind of justice will their mothers face? And what will the grandmothers - convinced of their daughters' innocence - do to try to get them back? Presenter Tim Whewell Producers Nick Sturdee & Mike Gallagher.

A one-woman whirlwind of passion and energy, Sukayna Muhammad Younes is a unique phenomenon in Iraq. A council official in the half-destroyed city of Mosul, former stronghold of so-called Islamic State, she's on a mission to find and identify the thousands of children who went missing during the conflict - and reunite them with their families. It's a massive task - and deeply controversial because Sukayna makes no distinction between children who are victims of IS - and those who belonged to IS families. "They're all just children - all innocent," she says. Tim Whewell follows Sukayna through the rubble of the city, visiting her orphanage, trying to find missing parents, meeting families who want to reclaim children. Can she solve the mystery of Jannat - an abandoned fair-haired girl who may be the daughter of a foreign IS family? Can she help Amal, sister of a dead IS fighter, to adopt her baby niece? How can families afford the expensive DNA tests the authorities require before families can be reunited? As she tries to solve these problems Sukayna also has to look after her own family of six children - and cope with personal tragedy. Two of her brothers were killed by jihadis; her family home, used as an IS base, is now in ruins. Highly charismatic - Sukayna now wants to go into politics. "I am a mini-Iraq," she says - her family includes members of many communities - and she believes the country desperately needs more dynamic, tolerant people like her, to bring real change and overcome divisions. But it's hard to be a high-profile, energetic woman in patriarchal Iraq - and she's faced death threats both from remaining IS supporters - and those who think she's too ready to help "terrorist" families. Presenter Tim Whewell Producers Nick Sturdee & Mike Gallagher.

In a rundown neighbourhood in Athens there is a hotel with 4,000 people on its waiting list for rooms. But the roof leaks and the lifts are permanently out of action. None of the guests pay a penny, but everyone's supposed to help with the cooking and cleaning. City Plaza is a seven-storey super squat housing 400 refugees from 16 different countries and the volunteers who support them. The hotel went bankrupt during the financial crisis. It remained locked and empty until 2015, when Europe closed its borders leaving tens of thousands of refugees trapped in Greece. Then a group of activists broke in, reconnected the electricity and water and invited hundreds of migrants from the streets to take up residence with them. The leftist Greek government has so far turned a blind eye and now mainstream NGOs like MSF and even the UNHCR have started co-operating in this illegal project. For Crossing Continents, Maria Margaronis finds out how the hotel operates and get to know the people inside. Producer: Chloe Hadjimatheou.

Why is troubled Catalonia now opening up civil war mass graves? Spain has the second largest amount of mass graves in the world after Cambodia. Over 100,000 people disappeared during the 1930s civil war and the ensuing Franco dictatorship. Decades later, the vast majority are still unaccounted for. Forgetting Spain's painful past and the disappeared is what allowed democracy and peace to flourish, the argument has long gone. But many have not forgotten - including in the region of Catalonia, where bitter memories of Franco's rule are just beneath the surface. Before Madrid imposed direct rule last October, the pro-independence Catalan government began an unprecedented plan to excavate civil war mass graves and collect DNA from families looking for their lost relatives. Estelle Doyle travels to the politically troubled region and finds out how, despite direct rule, those seeking answers are more determined than ever to recover the past and to confront Spain's painful history. Others worry that their actions will only but reopen old wounds and further divide the country. Presenter: Estelle Doyle Producer: John Murphy. **This podcast has been changed: Correction: El Soleras is in the West of Catalonia, while Catalonia itself is in the North East of Spain**

For nearly two decades, Swedish health professionals have been treating asylum-seeking children who fall into a deeply listless state. They withdraw from the world, refuse to speak, walk and eat - most end up being tube-fed. They are known as, "the apathetic children" in Sweden. More recently this illness has been termed Resignation Syndrome. Experts agree it is children who have experienced deep trauma who are vulnerable. Doctors link the condition to an uncertain migration status. But why, asks Linda Pressly, does it only seem to happen to children in Sweden, and how can they recover?

Lucy Ash meets the staff and customers of a bakery which is the one bright spot in war-torn east Ukraine. The war there between Russian-backed rebels and the Ukrainian army has dropped out of the headlines and there seems to be little political will to make peace. More than 10,000 people have been killed and as it enters its fourth year, this has become one of the longest conflicts in modern European history. But in the frontline town of Marinka there's one bright spot amidst the gloom - the bakery. It's the first new business in the town since the fighting began and it is bringing some hope and comfort to its traumatised citizens. We meet staff and customers from the bakery to explore a community living on the edge. "The aroma of fresh bread," says the man behind the enterprise, " gives people hope. It smells like normal life." Producer Albina Kovalyova.

For decades, Brazil has presented itself as a colour-blind nation in which most citizens are, at least to some extent, racially mixed. But a controversial education law is encouraging black Brazilians to assert their own distinct identity. Federal public universities now have to comply with government quotas for black students, as well as others deemed to be at risk of discrimination. Yet, since the rules allow applicants to self-define their colour, there have been numerous alleged frauds, and some universities are now creating inspection boards to assess students based on whether they appear phenotypically black. On the political right, there's a backlash among those who say the quotas are divisive and even racist. While some people of mixed race complain that they are 'not black enough'. But many black Brazilians themselves say they finally have a reason to acknowledge their ethnicity in a country where privilege all too often belongs to those of European descent. For Crossing Continents, David Baker reports on an issue that is at the heart of what it means to be black in Brazil. Michael Gallagher producing.

A journey up the 'suicidal' Pilcomayo river that separates Paraguay from Argentina... The Pilcomayo is the life-force of one of Latin America's most arid regions. But it is also one of the most heavily silted rivers of the world. As it courses down from the Bolivian Highlands in the months of December and January, half is water, half sand. This means it often causes flooding. Or, it changes course, failing to deliver water to those who depend on it. So in order to benefit communities, this is a river system that needs careful management, and a lot of human input to ensure the water flows. Compounding the fickleness of the Pilcomayo are 3 years of drought in the region. Gabriela Torres travels north from Asuncion up the course of the Pilcomayo during the dry season, visiting communities where the wildlife is dying and the economy under threat. How will the people - and animals - cope this year?

There are 33 ways to dispel a mistress according to one of China's top love detectives. An unusual new industry has taken hold in some of the country's top cities. It's called "mistress-dispelling", and it involves hired operatives doing what it takes to separate cheating husbands from their mistresses. With the surge in super-affluent families in China, there has also been an apparent upsurge in the number of men choosing to keep a concubine. And for wives who see divorce as a humiliating option, almost no expense is sometimes spared in seeing off the rival. For Crossing Continents, Ed Butler meets some of these private detectives and "marriage counsellors", heads off on a mistress "stake-out", and asks whether this is all a symptom of a deeper crisis in gender relations in China. Reported and produced by Ed Butler.

The brutal, unsolved murder of Malta's most outspoken blogger has blackened the image of the Mediterranean holiday island. Since Daphne Caruana Galizia was blown up by a car bomb in October, her son has denounced his country as a mafia state. European leaders say they're deeply concerned about the rule of law there. But on Malta, Daphne was a divisive figure - admired by some as a fearless investigative journalist, detested by others as a snobbish "queen of bile." She herself said there were "two Maltas" - and the reaction to her murder has proved that. So was Daphne's death a political assassination - as one Malta says - or a criminal killing without wider implications, as the other Malta insists? Tim Whewell goes looking for answers on an island where everyone knows everyone, but belongs firmly to one camp or the other. Producer: Estelle Doyle.

As they retreat from Northern Iraq so-called Islamic State has left thousands of women and children behind. Some are the abandoned families of IS fighters, others are being held as prisoners or slaves. There are also boys who were forced to fight for IS. A desperate effort is now underway to reunite these women and children with the families they have been separated from - and to rehabilitate those whose minds have been stolen by the group. Tim Whewell reports from Iraq on the children left behind by the fighters of Islamic state.

In the West Bank hundreds of families share a passion for breeding horses. Amid the narrow streets and cramped apartment buildings small stables can be found with owners grooming beautiful Arabian colts and fillies. These new breeders are now making their mark at Israeli horse shows where competition to produce the best in breed is intense. As Palestinian and Israeli owners mingle on the show ground, political differences are put to one side as they share a passion for the Arabian horse. For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly follows one Palestinian owner and his colt as they navigate their way through Israeli checkpoints to the next big event in the Israeli Kibbutz of Alonim. Winning best in show is the plan but will they even get there? Estelle Doyle producing.

The chilling story of a massacre of Rohingya muslims in a small village in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. On 30 August government soldiers swept through the village setting fire to homes, raping and killing dozens, possibly hundreds of its muslim inhabitants. An ongoing military crackdown in the state has seen more than 500,000 Rohingya muslims flee to neighbouring Bangladesh since late August. The government of Aung San Suu Kyi has faced international condemnation over the crisis. She says the military is responding to attacks by Rohingya militants. But the Rohingya have long been persecuted in Myanmar: denied citizenship, decent healthcare and education. For Crossing Continents, Gabriel Gatehouse investigates the massacre in Tula Toli. Speaking to survivors in camps in Bangladesh, he pieces together a picture of horrific violence, perpetrated in what has been described as a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing." And he hears evidence that suggests the violence may have been planned in advance. Producer John Murphy.

Panama's idyllic islands are threatened by a rising sea, but one community has a plan... The Guna Yala archipelago is made up of dozens of tiny, tropical, low-lying islands off the Caribbean coast of Panama. They are populated by the Guna people - Latin America's most fiercely independent, and many would say, most savvy, indigenous group. But the Guna are in trouble. Rising sea levels as a result of climate change, together with a growing population, threaten island life. The Guna aren't alone of course - millions of people around the globe could be displaced from coastal villages as the oceans envelop land in the coming decades. But unlike most vulnerable groups, the Guna of Gardi Sugdub island have a plan. They are intent on building a new community on the mainland, and re-locating. Could their efforts provide a model for other communities confronting climate displacement in the region, and even beyond? Photo Credit: Simon Maybin.

Uganda has now taken in more than a million refugees who have fled civil war in neighbouring South Sudan. And more are coming every day. It's said that Uganda has the most generous refugee policy in the world, with new arrivals given land and allowed to work. But the majority of South Sudanese refugees are women and children who have lost almost everything and, as Ruth Alexander discovers, the reality of starting a new life from scratch is far from straightforward. Produced by John Murphy.

What's it like to live in the country with the fastest-shrinking population in the world? In the mountain village of Kalotinsi in western Bulgaria, there is no shop, no school, no bus service. Until a few decades ago, 600 people lived here but now most of the houses stand empty. Thirteen residents remain, struggling to make a life in a place most people have given up on. There are many other near-deserted villages like this in Bulgaria. With women having few children, and many choosing to work abroad, Bulgaria is facing a population crisis. Ruth Alexander travels to the country to find out what life is like for those left behind, and to ask what is being done to reverse the population decline. Producer: John Murphy.

A young Somali refugee struggles to live the American dream in the USA's whitest state, during the rise of Donald Trump. Is the dream still possible? In December 2014, in 'Abdi and the Golden Ticket,' the BBC's Leo Hornak followed Somali refugee Abdi Nor Iftin as he battled to make it to America through the US green card lottery. Since then, Abdi been trying to make a new life for himself in the US state of Maine, striving to become a 'real American'. He hopes to get educated and start a career, but the pressures of supporting a family in Mogadishu make this seem ever more difficult. And then there is the plan to have his brother Hassan join him. The state of Maine remains almost entirely white, and amid growing public fear of Muslims and immigration, Abdi's American dream runs into obstacles that he never expected. Using personal conversations and audio diaries recorded over three years, 'Abdi in America' documents the highs and lows of one man's struggle to become American. Producer - Michael Gallagher.

Tim Whewell meets the sailors of Sevastopol. The Crimean coast of the Black Sea has such an allure that Russia risked the world's censure by seizing it from Ukraine in 2014. Home of the Black Sea fleet; seaway to the Middle East and spiritual heart of Russian orthodox Christianity, Crimea and it's naval port, Sevastopol, is a defining part of Russian identity. The Russian navy is now modernising and expanding its historic fleet so as to strengthen Moscow's campaign in Syria in support of President Assad, and against the so-called Islamic State. But what have been the costs of gaining this valuable prize? Producer: Monica Whitlock.

It's a state that most of the world says doesn't exist. But remote Abkhazia, on the far north-east shore of the Black Sea, has had the trappings of independence for a generation, since it broke away from Georgia in a short but brutal war. Foreign reporters rarely visit Abkhazia - but Tim Whewell gets there by horse-drawn wagon, as it's hard to cross the frontier by car. He finds a stunningly beautiful country still recovering physically and psychologically from the war, that's determined to preserve its independence and ancient culture - including a pagan religion built around animal sacrifices. But the price of statehood is deep isolation - and a future for many young people without opportunities. How long can this "frozen conflict" - and others around the Black Sea - continue? Producer, Monica Whitlock.

Inside Romania's live, web-camming world - the engine of the online sex industry... Crossing Continents explores the fastest growing sector of so-called, 'adult' entertainment. Locally, it's known as 'video-chat'. And in Romania there are thousands of women logging on, and in 'private' one-to-one sessions undressing (and more) for the international clients who pay to watch them. It is not sex work in the traditional sense - the relationships are virtual, there is no meeting or touching. Linda Pressly meets the women employed in studios and from home, and others with experience of this burgeoning industry.

On December the 14th last year the BBC's Mike Thomson awoke to a desperate voicemail message. It came from a frightened mother of three in besieged East Aleppo. Head teacher, Om Modar, who had been in regular contact with Mike, was pleading for help. Syrian government forces were closing in on the rebel-held area and bombs were falling around the shelter she shared with dozens of petrified children. Her voice, crackling with fear, said: "Please, please help us get out of Aleppo by safe corridor.....we are terrified.....please help us." That was the last Mike heard from Om. Months of silence followed. Finally, he became convinced she was dead. Then out of the blue came a two-line text. It revealed the fate of Om Modar and led Mike to near the Syrian border.

Pakistan is at a crossroads when it comes to gender identity. Kami calls herself Pakistan's first transgender supermodel. She's championing a new transgender identity in a country where there's a strict cultural code for people like her. It's the long established culture of the 'the third gender', also known as Khwaja Sira or Hijra. The community are celebrated as 'Gods chosen people' by many Pakistanis. But the reality is that many Hijras experience discrimination in daily life and complain that basic access to jobs, welfare and familial support is denied. For Kami and others like her this is no longer acceptable. Yet many Hijras shun the new transgender identity and believe it is alien to the established culture of the region. In their view, the very notion of a 'transgender woman' is wrong and could threaten the systems and structures that have provided support for Khwaja Siras for centuries. For Crossing Continents Mobeen Azhar meets Kami and Mani, one of the few openly transgender men in the country, and talks to Khwaja Sira sex workers, dancers and even aspiring politicians. Inside Trans Pakistan explores the tension between the emerging transgender identity in Pakistan and the established 'third gender' culture.

President Donald Trump has pledged to chase what he called the 'bad hombres' out of America. One of the organisations the President is targeting is the notorious Mara Salvatrucha gang, better known as MS-13 whose members deal in drugs, human smuggling and underage prostitution. They aggressively recruit young Latino immigrants in U.S. cities and suburban communities and have recently been responsible for a number of shockingly brutal murders, including the killing of two teenage girls with machetes and baseball bats. Lucy Ash travels to Long Island in New York and to Maryland to investigate. She asks what impact such crimes have on the heated debate about illegal border crossings and she asks if tougher immigration policies will really make America safe again.

Every year elephants kill dozens of people in Sri Lanka. Hundreds of these huge mammals are slaughtered too - often by farmers attempting to protect their land. For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly travels to the east of the island - one of the regions devastated by over two decades of civil war. Thousands of people fled their homes during the fighting, and in their absence, the elephants moved in. With peace came resettlement, but many villages are now forced to negotiate a precarious existence with the wild herds, and death-by-elephant is not uncommon. Meanwhile, the government is attempting to take action against the illegal ownership of elephants, and prosecutions are in train. In Sri Lanka, elephants are a status symbol for the rich and powerful, and they are also highly revered in Buddhist culture - no pageant is complete without a slow-moving procession of elephants. But there are claims the confiscation of illegally-kept animals has created a shortage for religious rituals, and criticisms that the government is over-responding to the animal rights lobby. In a fractured nation, elephants are becoming increasingly politicised. Linda Pressly reporting.

Since the beginning of time, man has lived in awe and fear of death, and every culture has faced its mystery through intricate and often ancient rituals. Few, however, are as extreme as those of the Torajan people on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Here, the dead are a constant presence, with corpses often kept in family homes for many years. When funerals are eventually held, they don't mean goodbye. Once every couple of years, the dead are dug back out for a big family reunion. Is this a morbid obsession? Or could it be a positive way of dealing with the grief of losing a loved one? For Crossing Continents, Sahar Zand enters these remarkable communities where the dividing line between this world and the next is like a thin veil - a place with lessons for all of us. Exploring these traditions, Sahar seeks to understand the Torajan way of death and finds it changing her own thinking towards the loss of her own father. Producers Rebecca Henschke and Bob Howard.

Men in the Faroe Islands are having to look far beyond their shores for marriage. The remote, windswept archipelago between Norway and Iceland, with close ties to Denmark, has seen an influx of women from South-East Asia who have come to marry Faroese men. In recent years the islands have been experiencing a declining population. Young women in particular have been leaving the islands, often for education, and not returning. One complaint from them is that their close-knit community has too conservative and masculine a culture where sheep farming, hunting and fishing are still dominant. For some women Faroese society is simply too small, too constraining. There are now approximately 2,000 fewer women of marriageable age in the total population of 50,000. In response, some men have been looking elsewhere for partners, from countries like Thailand and the Philippines. For Crossing Continents, Tim Ecott meets these foreign women adjusting to life in this isolated group of islands where the elements are harsh and the language impenetrable. John Murphy producing.

Lung cancer is America's biggest cancer killer. But there is hope: the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has sanctioned trials of CimaVax - a treatment created in Cuba that has extended the lives of hundreds of patients on the island. This is the first time a Cuban drug has been tested in the US. American cancer patients got wind of CimaVax five years ago. Patients like Judy Ingels - an American with a stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis - arrive regularly in Havana, hoping for a miracle. It's traffic that's increased since the US / Cuba thaw. The creation of Cuba's biotech industry was Fidel Castro's idea back in the 1980s. Today it employs 22,000 people, and sells drugs all over the world - excluding the US. When Presidents Obama and Castro made their momentous move to end hostilities, doctors and patients on both sides of the Florida Straits hoped everyone might benefit from an exchange of life-saving treatments. Now there's deep anxiety. Will President Trump re-freeze the thaw, and jeopardise a revolutionary collaboration? For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly explores Cuba's bio-tech industry. How has this small Caribbean nation been able to develop world-class drugs with its limited resources?

For generations those who, for biological reasons, don't fit the usual male/female categories have faced violence and stigma in Kenya. Intersex people - as they are commonly known in Kenya - were traditionally seen as a bad omen bringing a curse upon their family and neighbours. Most were kept in hiding and many were killed at birth. But now a new generation of home-grown activists and medical experts are helping intersex people to come out into the open. They're rejecting the old idea that intersex people must choose a gender in infancy and stick to it and are calling on the government to instead grant them legal recognition. BBC Africa's Health Correspondent Anne Soy meets some of the rural families struggling to find acceptance for their intersex children and witnesses the efforts health workers and activists are making to promote understanding of the condition. She also meets a successful gospel singer who recently came out as intersex and hears from those who see the campaign for inter-sex recognition as part of a wider attack on the traditional Kenyan family. Helen Grady producing.

Last summer the emergency services rescued two children from an out-of-control fire in an old industrial building in the commercial area of Hong Kong. It was discovered that a number of people were living in the building. Charlotte McDonald explores the reasons which would drive a family in one of the wealthiest cities in the world to live illegally in a place not fit for human habitation. It's estimated that around 10,000 people live in industrial buildings - although the true number is not known due to the very fact it is not legal. Hong Kong consistently ranks as one of the most expensive places to rent or buy in the world. Already around 200,000 have been forced to rent in what are known as subdivided flats. But now attention has turned to those in even more dire conditions in industrial blocks. From poor government planning, the loss of industry to mainland China and exploitative landlords, we uncover why people are choosing to live in secrecy in neglected buildings. Charlotte McDonald reporting Alex Burton producing Photo credit: SCMP.

Eighty years ago, the Brazilian writer Jorge Amado published Captains of the Sands, a powerfully moving novel about the lives of a gang of orphaned children living on the streets of Salvador. The book had a huge impact, showing wealthy Brazilians the truth about the inequality in their country and the humanity of the children they were used to regarding as "pests". It is now a literary classic and read by almost every Brazilian child at school. Eighty years on, though, thousands of adolescents and children still live in the streets in Salvador. Their lives are still marked by poverty and crime, intensified since Amado's day by the growth of the drugs trade and the addiction and violence it brings. And they still find alternative bonds of family in the kind of gangs that Amado would have recognised. For Crossing Continents, David Baker meets these modern-day Captains of the Sands and hears their stories and those of the people trying to help them. James Fletcher producing.

Young Russians have gained a reputation on social media for taking the most extreme selfies, often involving death-defying stunts on top of skyscrapers, all for the sake of internet fame. Lucy Ash travels from Moscow to Siberia to meet some of this trend's most high-profile figures. They explain how they are building themselves into living brands, and the ways they can make money out of their risky roof-top photographs. They reveal what initially motivated them to chance their lives in this way - and an indifference to the rising number of selfie-related deaths in Russia. The government is less nonchalant though. and around 18 months ago it launched a 'safe selfie' campaign, to warn young people of the risks of taking photos in moving traffic, on top of radio towers, with loaded weapons or with wild animals. But why has this phenomenon taken root in Russia? Crossing Continents reveals how a mixture of provincial malaise, a misdirected sense of masculinity, and lax law enforcement has allowed extreme selfie culture to flourish. Contributors include: Alexander Chernikov Angela Nikolau Kirill Vselensky Producer: Richard Fenton-Smith Researcher: Tatyana Movshevich.

On the night of the 1st July 2016, five young Bangladeshi Islamist militants stormed a Dhaka restaurant popular with foreign residents and visitors. The siege at the Holey Artisan Bakery was an unprecedented attack in Bangladesh. 29 people lost their lives that night - the majority of them non-Bangladeshis, shot or butchered with machetes. But not everyone was killed. For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly together with local journalist, Morshed Ali Khan, tell the story of what happened inside the restaurant over 11 hours - the chef forced to cook sea bass by the killers, the kitchen worker locked for hours in a single toilet cubicle with 7 other people. There are tales of escape and resistance. Above all, there is courage amidst the carnage, and in the face of bloody adversity. (Photo L to R: Delwar Hossain, Sumon Rezar, Shishir Sarker. Credit: Linda Pressly/BBC copyright)

Thousands of women - and men - took to the streets in Poland recently in protest against attempts to ban all abortions-and the issue seems to have crystallised a growing unease with the country's move to the right and the power of the Catholic Church. 'We are not putting our umbrellas away' went one of the slogans as women stood in the pouring rain to voice their concerns. The size of the protest surprised even the participants; organised by the feminist movement, it attracted women and men from many different backgrounds. Where did this surge of activism come from? Some argue that the revolution that began with Solidarnosc in the 1980s ignored the needs and voices of Polish women. Communism may have been defeated, they say, but it's been replaced by a different kind of repression. Maria Margaronis investigates. Mark Savage producing.

The Mexican state of Michoacan was the birth place of the Mexican drug war. The town of Cheran is much like other mainly indigenous communities, but it is unique - Cheran has no mayor, no police, and political parties are banned. There are no elections here. Cheran governs itself, after it fought and won a legal battle for political autonomy. The people of Cheran used to suffer as much as their neighbours - extortion, kidnap and murder. But by 2011 they'd had enough. That's when the community - led by women - rose up. They threw out the paramilitary loggers and organised criminal groups who had devastated their forests, then chased away the mayor and the municipal police who were colluding with them. Five years later, the town still runs itself, and the forces of law and order have been replaced by an armed, community militia. Serious crime has plummeted, and the town is re-planting its devastated forest. So how has Cheran survived - and thrived -in such a harsh environment? Reporter: Linda Pressly Producers: Tim Mansel & Ulises Escamilla.

Malaysia's government is mired in scandal. Billions of dollars have been looted from a state investment fund. The Prime Minister is accused of receiving $681 million into his personal bank account, although he has denied any wrongdoing. Earlier this year, punk-inspired artist Fahmi Reza captured public dissatisfaction with an artwork caricaturing the PM as a clown. The image went viral, earning Reza comparisons to street-art provocateur Banksy. It also got him arrested and charged, one of an increasing number of Malaysians facing prison as the government ramps up its suppression of free speech and dissent. James Fletcher travels to Malaysia on the eve of a major protest rally in Kuala Lumpur. The protest movement is known as 'Bersih', meaning 'clean', and over the past few years they've mobilised hundreds of thousands of people on the streets, dressed in yellow t-shirts, to demand transparency, fair elections, and the PM's resignation. This year they're aiming for their biggest turnout yet. Fahmi Reza is designing placards for the protesters, and plans to attend carrying a giant version of his clown carricature. But the government is doing everything it can to stop the protest. And there's a new threat - pro-government protesters called the "redshirts", who have disrupted rallies with violence and threatened independent media and free speech advocates. James spends time with all sides as the protest unfolds. Can art and activism bring Malaysians on to the streets and spur change? Or will the government's crackdown, and the more direct methods of the "redshirts", dampen the protests and allow the PM to ride out criticism and stay in power? Image: The artist Fahmi Reza with his caricature of Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak at the Bersih 5 protest rally held on November 19, 2016. Photo Credit: BBC

Protecting cows has now become the focus of armed Hindu vigilante groups intent on asserting Hindu radicalism under India's Hindu nationalist government.

Black sporting talent is still struggling to break through into South Africa's top teams.

Linda Pressly and Albana Kasapi investigate the 'Green Gold' rush in this Balkan nation

The bizarre and extraordinary story of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the eccentric Russian tycoon and president of FIDE, the international chess governing body. His twenty years in office have been dogged by allegations of corruption and vote-rigging and he’s recently been banned from entering the United States by the US Treasury for his alleged involvement in assisting the Assad regime in Syria. It’s prevented him from presiding over this month’s World Chess Championships in New York. For Assignment Tim Whewell reports from Moscow and New York on the deeply politicised game of chess and asks if it’s finally checkmate for the king of chess. Dina Newman producing. Photo: Kirsan Ilyumzhinov with the letter from the US Treasury informing him why he had been placed under US sanctions. Credit: K.Ilyumzhinov’s archive

Public employee one day, enemy of the state the next. The post coup reality in Turkey for thousands of state employees accused of being associated with the Gulen movement.

India has some of the world's most dangerous roads. The government says almost 150,000 people died on them last year. Nowhere saw more crashes than the booming city of Mumbai. The carnage is relentless, affecting people at every level of society. Neal Razzell meets the Mumbaikers who are saying, enough: a vegetable seller who fills potholes in his spare time after his son died in one; a neurosurgeon whose experience treating victims has led him to try to build trauma centres along one of the worst roads; and an unlikely combination of engineers, activists and police officers with an ambitious plan to bring the number of deaths on a notorious expressway down to zero. It's hoped there will be lessons in Mumbai for all of India. The country is in the midst of an historic road-building push. By 2020, Prime Minister Modi wants to pave a distance greater than the circumference of the earth. Produced by Michael Gallagher.

Can you learn to code if you've spent your life studying religious texts? Can you be part of the fast-paced, secular world of technology and startups if you're from a conservative religious community? Israel has been called the "Startup Nation", with a flourishing technology sector playing a big role in the country's economy. But one group who haven't traditionally been involved are ultra-Orthodox Jews, known as Haredim. They often live apart from mainstream Israeli society and adhere to strict religious laws covering everything from diet to dress and technology. Many men don't work or serve in the army, spending their lives studying the Torah, subsidised by the government. It's a way of life that leaves many Haredim in poverty, and other Israelis resenting picking up the tab. But in recent years, the ultra-orthodox have been increasingly joining the high-tech world, working in big international tech companies and founding their own startups. David Baker travels to Israel to meet the new breed of high tech Haredim, and find out how they reconcile taking part in the "Startup Nation" with traditional Torah life. Produced by James Fletcher.

The United States is in the throes of a heroin and opiate epidemic. For Crossing Continents, India Rakusen travels to Lorain County, in the state of Ohio, where addiction has become part of everyday life. West of the city of Cleveland, Avon Lake is a wealthy suburb - its large, expensive properties back onto the shores of Lake Eerie, and wild deer frolic on neat lawns. But behind this façade, there is a crisis. Many families have felt the damaging impact of addiction. And across Lorain County, opiates - pharmaceutical and street heroin - have killed twice as many people in the first six months of 2016 alone, as died in the whole of 2015. Producer Linda Pressly.

After the last elections in Russia, mass protests against vote-rigging led to clashes in the centre of Moscow. The events on Bolotnaya Square were the biggest challenge President Putin has ever faced to his rule. Four years on, several demonstrators are still serving long prison sentences, the laws on protesting have been tightened and the arrests continue. As Russia gears up for parliamentary elections in September, Sarah Rainsford talks to some of those caught up in the Bolotnaya protests, and asks what their stories tell us about Putin's Russia today. Producer: Mark Savage.

In the Colombian capital of Bogota, Lucy Ash meets two people who fear they will never be able to return to their homes. They both come from Choco, which is one of the poorest provinces and most violent parts of the country. Maria, an Afro-Colombian mother of four, fled her town after she was abducted and brutally attacked by paramilitaries. Plinio was trying to help members of his indigenous community go back to their farms when he received death threats from a splinter group of left wing guerrilla (the ELN) and his friend was assassinated. Their stories illustrate a nationwide trauma - the government may be on the brink of a historic peace deal with the FARC rebels, but Colombia has even more internally displaced people than Syria. More than 200,000 have been killed and seven million driven off their land during half a century of war. Lucy travels down the River Baudo to meet people uprooted from their jungle villages in violent clashes earlier this year and finds that Latin America's longest insurgency is far from over. Reported and produced by Lucy Ash.

Playing war-games in the woods has become an ever-more popular pastime in Poland as thousands of young people join paramilitary groups to defend their country against possible invasion. Others - so-called "preppers" - are building bunkers and storing food supplies so their families can survive any disaster. Now the government plans to recruit such enthusiasts into a state-run volunteer defence force - to counter a possible Russian threat. But are the authorities stoking fear - and creating an amateur force that's no use in 21st Century warfare? Tim Whewell reports from the forests of north-eastern Poland, close to the Russian border. Producer: Estelle Doyle.

Oil-rich Venezuela is struggling to feed its own people as a result of a spiralling economic and political crisis which has brought the country to its knees. Vladimir Hernandez returns to his home country where thousands queue for many hours in order to buy even the most basic of food stuffs. Malnutrition and starvation, unthinkable only a few years ago, are becoming a reality for some communities and particularly the poor.

Away from the sound of bombs and bullets, in the basement of a crumbling house in the besieged Syrian town of Darayya, is a secret library. It's home to thousands of books rescued from bombed-out buildings by local volunteers, who daily brave snipers and shells to fill its shelves. In a town gripped by hunger and death after three years without food aid, Mike Thomson reveals how this literary sanctuary is proving a lifeline to a community shattered by war. Produced by Michael Gallagher and additional research and translation by Mariam El Khalaf. *Omar, the FSA soldier pictured above who was the last voice heard in this programme has been killed in fighting.*.

Ed Butler explores the secretive and shocking world of Malawi's "hyenas". These are the men hired to sexually initiate or cleanse adolescent and pre-adolescent girls - some said to be 12 years old, or even younger. It's a traditional custom that is endorsed and funded by the communities themselves, even the children's families. We meet some of the victims, the regional chief campaigning to stop the practice, and the hyenas themselves, and ask if enough is being done to stamp out a custom that's not just damaging on a human scale, but is also undermining the country's economic development. Reported and produced by Ed Butler.

Chloe Hadjimatheou tells the astonishing story of a group of young men from Raqqa in Syria who chose to resist the so-called Islamic State, which occupied their city in 2014 and made it the capital of their "Caliphate". These extraordinary activists have risked everything to oppose IS; several have been killed, or had family members murdered. IS has put a bounty on the resistance leaders' heads. But the group continues its work, under the banner 'Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently'. Chloe meets the group's founders, some of whom are now organising activists in Raqqa from the relative safety of other countries.

Dave Edmonds travels to the mid-western city of St Louis (location for the musical 'Meet Me In St Louis', starring Judy Garland) for the US chess championships. The city has become a world centre for the game of chess. Its status has partly been achieved by funding from a controversial multi-millionaire, whose childhood included time in an orphanage. Rex Sinquefield is well known for his fascination with the game and his enthusiasm is shared by many others. There is a thriving chess centre, elite tournaments which attract some of the top players, a Chess Hall of Fame and chess lessons in local schools. St Louis is one of America's most violent cities and has most recently been in the news for race riots which erupted when an unarmed black man was shot by police. Can the game of chess serve to lessen racial tension and unite its citizens across the board? Producer: Mark Savage.

Now that China has ended its One Child policy, one group of state employees may soon be out of a job - the country's hated population police. Hundreds of thousands of officers used to hunt down families suspected of violating the country's draconian rules on child bearing, handing out crippling fines, confiscating property and sometimes forcing women to have abortions. But with an eye on improving child welfare in the countryside, there is a plan to redeploy many of these officers as child development specialists. Lucy Ash visits a pilot project in Shaanxi Province training former enforcers to offer advice and support to rural grandparents who are left rearing children while the parents migrate to jobs in the big cities. If successful, the scheme could be rolled out nationwide to redeploy an army of family planning workers and transform the life prospects of millions of rural children.

Nkem Ifejika cant speak the language of his forefathers. Nkem is British of Nigerian descent and comes from one of Nigeria's biggest ethnic groups the Igbo. He's one of the millions of Nigerians, who live in the diaspora - almost two hundred thousand of them living here in Britain. Nkem wants to know why he was never taught Igbo as a child and why the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation, UNESCO, has warned that Igbo faces extinction in the next fifty years. In this week's Crossing Continents, Nkem travels to the Igbo heartland in the southeast of Nigeria to explore the demise of a once proud language. He discovers that recent history has had profound effects on Igbo culture and identity. He discovers too that some Igbos are seeking to reassert their language and culture. Part of this is a resurgence of Igbo identity under a new 'Biafran' movement. Is this likely to find traction or will it ignite painful divisions from the past and lead to renewed tensions across Nigeria. From Nkem's own London-based family - where his wife is teaching both him and their son to speak Igbo - to the ancestral villages of Anambra State, 'Forgetting Igbo' reveals shifting perspectives on Nigeria's colonial past, emerging new ambitions for its future - and deep fault lines at the heart of its society. Produced by Michael Gallagher.

Norway's widely regarded as one of the world's most progressive societies, yet it's at the centre of an international storm over its child protection policies. Campaigners accuse its social workers of removing children - some from immigrant backgrounds - from their parents without justification, and permanently erasing family bonds. Tim Whewell meets parents who say they've lost their children because of misunderstood remarks or "insufficient eye contact" - and Norwegian professionals who call the system monstrous and dysfunctional. Is a service designed to put children first now out of control?

In 1994 apartheid ended in South Africa and Nelson Mandela was elected president. He promised in his inauguration speech to "build a society in which all South Africans will be able to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts ... a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world." These promises were enshrined in South Africa's post-apartheid constitution, the first in the world to outlaw all forms of discrimination. In 1994 Motshidisi Pascalina Melamu was born, making her one of the first of the so-called 'born free generation'. Pasca, as she was known, dreamed of becoming a politician, and studied hard at school. She loved singing, dancing and football. And girls - Pasca was a lesbian. In December last year, Pasca's body was found in a field. She had been beaten and mutilated. She was one of three LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex) people murdered in a six-week period last year. Hate crimes against the LGBTI community have long been a problem in South Africa, and the government has tried to tackle them. But activists say these recent crimes are just one sign that things aren't getting better. James Fletcher travels to the townships south of Johannesburg to speak with Pasca's family and friends, and to ask whether the government is failing LGBTI South Africans.

An unholy spat is stirring the Sangha, Thailand's top Buddhist authority - who will become the next Supreme Patriarch, Thailand's most senior monk? Meanwhile, allegations of 'cheque-book Buddhism', cronyism and corruption abound - including allegations about tax-evasion on an imported vintage Mercedes car. In Thailand, where the majority of the population profess Buddhism, seeking ordination isn't unusual. But salacious stories about monks who commit serious crimes - everything from sex offences to wildlife trafficking - continue to shock. Watching quietly from the side-lines is the Venerable Dhammananda - female, and a Buddhist monk since 2003. Although the Sangha bars women from ordination, there are now around 100 bhikkhunis, as female monastics are known, in Thailand. And their growing acceptance by some Buddhist believers might partly be explained by a widespread disillusionment with the behaviour of some male monks. For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly explores the rifts and sexual politics challenging Thai Buddhism and its devotees.

Lucy Ash asks why thousands of angry Romanian shepherds recently stormed the parliament in Bucharest. Sparked by an amendment to Romania's hunting law, the unprecedented protest was over plans to limit numbers of sheepdogs and restrict grazing rights. The increasing size of flocks is leading to growing conflict with both hunters and conservationists over land use. Romania has an influential hunting lobby - around two thirds of MPs are hunters - and they accuse shepherds dogs of scaring off or sometimes even killing their quarry. They also claim overgrazing is damaging the natural habitat of the deer, the boar and other wild animals they hunt. Environmental campaigners are concerned that winter grazing by ever larger flocks is having a catastrophic effect on biodiversity. At heart this is an argument about what the countryside is for. Is its main purpose an economic one? Is it primarily for leisure? Or should it be about the people who live there? Shepherds insist the law is an attack on centuries of sheep-rearing and their culture and traditions.

After the terror attacks in Paris, the world's attention turned to an inner-city district of the Belgian capital, Brussels, where several of the attackers came from. Molenbeek has been notorious for many years as a breeding-ground for Islamist extremism - and the Belgian government vowed to "clean it up". But do the authorities really have any plan to prevent the radicalisation of young Belgians? Tim Whewell has been travelling back and forth to Brussels since the Paris attacks to talk to local people as they hold up a mirror to themselves and search for explanations - and attempt to have a dialogue with a sometimes dysfunctional state. Lode Desmet producing.

Brazil is in crisis. Confronted with a massive downturn in the economy, its currency has crashed, while its political class sinks in a quagmire of corruption allegations linked to the state oil company, Petrobras. In the northern state of Maranhao - dominated for decades by the powerful Sarney family - a new governor from the Communist Party of Brazil is attempting to bring a fresh broom to one of the country's most undeveloped states. Already he claims to have cut expenses by millions of Reals just by removing seafood and champagne from state banquet menus. But the malaise runs deep in Maranhao. In the small community of Bom Jardim, a 25-year-old mayor is under house arrest accused of skimming the education budget and running council business remotely using WhatsApp. And with the cancelling of a project to build a huge Petrobras refinery, Maranhao is feeling the economic pressure. Linda Pressly reports from one of Brazil's least known regions.

A fuzzy team photo from the 1980s sends Tim Whewell on a journey to track down football players from a small town in northern Syria who were once the champions of Aleppo province. In the last four years of war their hometown, Mare'a, has become a war zone - bombed by the Assad regime, besieged by Islamic State, subject even to a mustard gas attack. And the civil war has torn through what was once a band of friends - some now pro-rebel, some pro-regime. They're scattered across Syria and beyond, some fighting near Mare'a, some in refugee camps abroad. What have they gone through since they won that cup? And do they think they can ever be reunited? Shabnam Grewal producing.

India's Parsis are one of the subcontinent's most successful communities. But their future looks precarious because their numbers have fallen dramatically. Some Parsis believe the answer could be to accept converts, and re-write the rules on who's deemed a Parsi. Others are resistant to change. Now the Indian government has stepped in to fund fertility treatment for couples who dream of parenthood. For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly travels to Mumbai to meet them.

The Cambodian government has recently announced a clampdown on unlicensed doctors. This comes after a mass infection of HIV in a rural village, blamed on an unlicensed doctor re-using syringes. The "doctor", recently convicted of manslaughter, has just begun a 25 year prison sentence. For millions of people, self-taught, unlicensed doctors are often their cheapest - and only - option if they fall ill. Cambodia has one of the world's lowest numbers of doctors per head of population, on a par with Afghanistan. For Crossing Continents, John Murphy travels outside the capital Phnom Penh to see whether the government clampdown is having an effect. He finds evidence that self-taught doctors are still operating in villages, without hindrance - and with plenty of local support. Producer Helen Grady.

The deaths of five school children in Malaysia have provoked an anguished debate about education and what it means to be Malay. The children ran away from their boarding school in Kelantan State and died of starvation in the jungle. They were afraid of harsh punishment from their teachers. Two girls survived eating grass and wild fruits but were found emaciated and close to death 47 days later. The children came from the Orang Asli community, one of the poorest and most marginalised in the country. For Crossing Continents, Lucy Ash travels to the remote region where the children came from and talks to their bereaved parents. Many families are now refusing to send their children to school and campaigners accuse the government of not doing enough to protect rights of the Orang Asli community. Jane Beresford producing.

Maria Margaronis explores the debris of Albania's painful past-the prison labour camps, concrete bunkers and secret police headquarters--as archives are unlocked and new monuments put up in an effort to redefine who Albanians are. The country's citizens are trying to come to terms with history and move on from Enver Hoxha's dictatorial regime, the pyramid schemes and the political and economic collapse that followed. Instead of moving on, though, many are moving out of the country altogether. Do their leaders' efforts represent real change, or are they just an attempt to plaster over the cracks and reinforce Albania's plan to enter the EU?

They say you can't take it with you but if you live in Greece how much money you have at the end of your life makes a big difference. Permanent plots in the country's packed cemeteries can cost as much as a small flat so most graves are rented for a three year period and once that time is up the dead are exhumed and their bones collapsed into a small box to be kept at the cemetery. Those relatives who can't afford the cost of the exhumation or the storage charge for the box of bones will have their loved one's remains thrown in a so called 'digestion' pit with countless others' where they are dissolved with chemicals. In the current economic climate and with continued capital controls, Greeks are struggling to pay for the burial costs and unclaimed bodies are piling up at mortuaries. But there are few cost effective alternatives because Greece happens to be one of the few EU countries without a crematorium - each time plans have been made to build one it has been blocked by the Greek Orthodox Church. Instead Greeks are forced to send their relatives' bodies to Bulgaria for cremation. For Crossing Continents, Chloe Hadjimatheou reports on the business of dying in Greece. Producer: David Edmonds.

Peru is the world's largest producer of cocaine. A staggering one-third of it travels on foot, on the backs of young men like Daniel. He is 18, full of bravado, and claims he does this work so he will be able to go to university and take care of his family. Daniel is one of thousands known as 'mochileros' - backpackers, in Spanish - who hike their illicit cargo from the tropical valley where most of Peru's coca is produced, up to Andean towns, out towards the border with Brazil, and to clandestine airstrips. For Crossing Continents Linda Pressly meets the 'mochileros' who are mostly young men from isolated, peasant villages. They have grown up in coca-growing communities that suffered some of the worst atrocities of Peru's dirty war with Shining Path rebels in the 1990s. All of them do it for the money - payments of hundreds of dollars in a region where the incidence of poverty is more than twice the national average. It is a perilous occupation. Armed gangs, a re-emerging Shining Path, the military and police all conspire to stop or control the trade. Daniel says that on every trip he makes, three or four young men will die. Highland prisons are bursting with mochileros who were caught, but in many ways they are the lucky ones - others die on the trails, their bodies devoured by wild animals. The Drug Mules of the Andes tells the story of the 'mochileros', their families and the Peruvian authorities charged with interdiction.

In Norway, the sacking of a newspaper editor, allegedly after pressure from Russia, has caused a political storm over media freedom, and raised questions over what price the country should pay for good relations with its powerful eastern neighbour. Thomas Nilsen is a veteran environmental activist who edited a paper in the far north of Norway, in a region which has enjoyed a unique cross-border relationship with Russia. Now that's threatened by rising tension between Russia and NATO. And relations have been further strained by the flow of refugees, now coming through Russia into the far north of Norway. Tim Whewell reports on what it means for the Norwegian outpost of Kirkenes, where Norwegians and Russians work closely together in the oil and fishing business and where cooperation and friendship go back decades.

In April, the case of a 10 year old girl who became pregnant after her step-father raped her became front-page news in Paraguay, and across Latin America. Abortion is legal in this small South American nation only if the mother's life is deemed to be in danger. In this case, the authorities ruled there was no threat to the girl, and the pregnancy continued. But this isn't a one-off example of children getting pregnant: more than 700 girls aged 14 and under gave birth in 2014. That's more or less two a day. The 10 year old's pregnancy spawned a series of demonstrations and huge debate: about abortion, sex education, and the failure of the criminal justice system to prosecute the perpetrators of the abuse of children. For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly meets some of the schoolgirl mothers, and explores the reasons why Paraguayan girls are especially vulnerable to abuse. Why are families, the state and the law failing to protect them?

The last time anyone saw Hodei Egiluz, a 23-year-old computer engineer from Spain, was on a night out in the Belgian port of Antwerp in October 2013. Hodei is one of roughly 10,000 people who disappear in Europe every year. But his case has sparked a remarkable response. Practically his entire home town in Spain got behind the Belgian police search in one way or another. The search for Hodei triggered a campaign which eventually drew in figures such as footballer Ronaldo and the prime minister of Spain. But two years on Hodei is still missing. For Crossing Continents, Neal Razzell retraces Hodei's last hours in Antwerp and tries to unravel the mystery surrounding his disappearance. Producer: Charlotte McDonald.

Ten years ago Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, leaving over 1800 people dead and causing billions of dollars of damage. It was dramatic and destructive - but Katrina has been described as 'like a cold suffered by a cancer patient'. The cancer is the erosion of the coastal wetlands of Southern Louisiana, a slow motion environmental disaster that has continued almost unabated since Katrina. Caused by the taming of the Mississippi and oil and gas exploration, a football field of coastal land washes away every hour, and with it the homes, places and livelihoods that have sustained the storied Cajun culture. James Fletcher travels to Bayou Lafourche and the town of Leeville to get to know one community facing the reality of losing their past and their future.

Why are so many young people leaving Algeria? Unlike Syria or Libya, Algeria is supposedly a beacon of stability in a troubled region and it enjoys vast wealth from its oil and gas resources. Yet it remains a major source of illegal migrants to Europe and thousands continue to risk their lives crossing the sea to get there. They are known as 'Harraga', derived from the verb to burn in Arabic because they burn their identity documents. President Bouteflika's right hand man has called the harraga phenomenon "a national tragedy". Lucy Ash meets some of those heading for Europe's Eldorado and those bereaved friends and families of harragas who have disappeared in the Mediterranean. John Murphy producing.

Will Grant takes a ride in Cuba to discover how people get around and whether the thaw in relations with the United States will make any difference to their lives. The country is known the world over for its classic cars, a consequence of the American trade embargo imposed after the revolution in 1959, when, as one motoring journalist quipped, 'the tail fin was still a recent innovation in automotive design'. There are a few collectibles but spare parts are almost impossible to come by and most vehicles are held together with sticky tape and glue. It is almost as if Cuba has been stuck in a time warp for half a century with around 60 thousand vintage cars now attempting to navigate the country's notoriously bad roads. Car ownership is still the dream for most people but the reality is a chaotic bus service, a bone shaking ride in a horse and cart or hitching a lift. How do people cope and will things change? Produced by Mark Savage.

Celia Hatton goes undercover to The Fortress, the Chinese village at the centre of the world's illicit ketamine problem. She hears how China is a top maker and taker of the drug. Celia visits karaoke bars where ketamine is snorted regularly; she hears from those trying to wean themselves off their addiction; and hears from police who took part in a major raid on a village accused of producing vast quantities of illegal ketamine. A local farmer complains that his land and his crops have been destroyed by the drug gangs and Celia discovers how Chinese ketamine has led to the problem known as "Bristol bladder" back in the UK. John Murphy producing.

South Africa is in crisis as the national electricity generator, Eskom, struggles to provide an adequate power supply and rolling blackouts hit the country on a regular basis. As Neal Razzell reports, there's now concern that jobs and growth are at risk from the power cuts, and the ruling ANC - which blames the problem on inheriting an apartheid-era network designed only for the white population - stands accused of complacency and incompetence. Michael Gallagher producing.

In one of the largest operations of its kind, thousands of migrants, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, were pulled off cramped, unseaworthy boats in the Mediterranean in June. Gabriel Gatehouse has had rare access to the operation. He follows two young men as they try to find a new home in Europe, from the moment they board a privately-funded search and rescue ship, to their attempts to evade the Italian police.

The global trade in wildlife is worth an estimated US$20 billion a year. Peru is one of the most biodiverse nations on the planet. But its government estimates 400 species of fauna and flora are in danger of extinction - illicit trafficking is one of the biggest threats. The illegal wildlife trade supplies live birds and animals - macaws, parrots, monkeys, turtles - for both the local market and overseas collectors. It also commercialises body parts - the rare Andean bear, and the feathers of condors. So how is Peru attempting to protect its precious resources? For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly goes on operations with the wildlife police. Produced by John Murphy.

Natalia Antelava asks if the creeping influence of the Orthodox Church in Georgia's schools is turning them into a breeding ground for radical Christianity. Georgia's liberal politicians say only alignment with Europe and US will allow Georgia to overcome its post-Soviet past and survive as an independent nation. But in the way of Georgia's pro-Western course stands its Orthodox neighbour Russia and, increasingly, the country's own Orthodox Church. Natalia Antelava visits her old school in Tbilisi to see how the country's most conservative, anti-Western institution is influencing the next generation. Wesley Stephenson producing.

In rural India, wrestling often attracts larger crowds than cricket. And for poor, farming communities in Maharashtra, a wrestler in the family can also mean a ticket out of poverty. For Crossing Continents, Rupa Jha meets the young fighters and their families, and explores how this ancient sport is breaking down caste barriers. Linda Pressly producing.

Does Portugal have a problem with police brutality and racism? In February a group of young black men from the Lisbon suburb of Cova da Moura allege they were beaten and racially abused at a police station. Police claim the men tried to invade the station. Residents of Cova da Moura are mostly from immigrant backgrounds, and they say this is just the latest of a number of serious incidents in the past few years, and claim that the neighbourhood has become a 'police state'. James Fletcher travels to Cova da Moura to investigate whether police are too heavy handed towards black and immigrant communities, and whether those communities are bearing the brunt of Portugal's austerity driven spending cuts. (Warning: Contains strong language).

Teatr doc was founded 12 years ago by playwrights who couldn't find a venue willing to stage their documentary-style plays that often challenge the status quo. In December the theatre was raided and forced to shut its doors but it quickly reopened in new premises and is still cocking a snook at the authorities. "Doc" as it is known to those who frequent it, has been recognised internationally as one of Russia's most prolific, innovative, and socially engaged theatre companies. For Crossing Continents Lucy Ash attends the opening night in the theatre's new home, and asks its actors, directors and its audience what the theatre says about life in Russia today.

Are excessive traffic fines and debtors' jails fuelling community tensions in suburban Missouri? Claire Bolderson reports on a network of ninety separate cities in St Louis County, most of which have their own courts and police forces. Critics say that their size makes them financially unviable and allege that some of them boost their incomes by fining their own citizens and locking them up when they can't pay. This edition of Crossing Continents goes out and about in St Louis County to meet the people who say they are victims of a system which sees arrest warrants issued for relatively minor misdemeanours. Many of the victims are poor and black. The programme also takes us into the courts, and out onto the freeways with some of the County's police, who say they are upholding the law and promoting road safety. The US government is not so sure. One of the towns in question is Ferguson where riots erupted after a white police officer shot a young black man dead last summer. In a recent report on the riots, the Department of Justice concluded that the Ferguson police had been stopping people for no good reason. It said they were putting revenue before public safety. Claire Bolderson investigates how widespread the practice is and considers the impact on relations between citizens and the authorities that govern them. Produced by Michael Gallagher.

In northern Tanzania there is a tradition of FGM - female genital mutilation. The 'cutting season' lasts for six weeks. Afterwards, the adolescent victims are often expected to marry. But girls in Serengeti District are saying 'no' to FGM. And dozens of them have fled to a new safe house in the town of Mugumu to escape this bloody, life-threatening rite of passage. For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly travels to Mugumu to meet the girls - and the woman who has given them refuge, Rhobi Samwelly. She listens in as Rhobi engages in delicate and often emotional negotiations with parents intent on mutilating their daughters. Will the girls ever feel safe enough to return home?

It has been hidden away in a dusty corner of an abandoned theatre, unplayed and almost forgotten - a magnificent instrument allowed to moulder away in a territory whose Islamist rulers banned public performances of music. But now Gaza's only grand piano is getting a new lease of life. A small Brussels-based charity is restoring it to its former glory and at the same time is working to bring music back into schools. With Hamas control steadily weakening the charity has begun a unique project to train teachers in Gaza to re-introduce music into the curriculum - not through music classes but through subjects such as mathematics and geography. It is helping disturbed children in this war torn territory to concentrate - and it is exciting teachers. Tim Whewell gets exclusive access to the story of Gaza and its grand piano.

The cleaners whose protest has captured the imagination of those opposed to the harsh austerity programme in Greece. Mostly middle-aged or nearing retirement, they have refused to go quietly. The women have kept up a day and night vigil outside the Finance Ministry in Athens, taken the government to court and resisted attempts by the riot police to remove them by force. They've challenged representatives from the International Monetary Fund and raised their red rubber gloves in a clenched fist at the European Parliament. Some say they represent the plight of many women and the poorly paid, others that they are being manipulated by the left. Maria Margaronis hears the women's stories and asks what makes them so determined. Producer: Mark Savage.

In Japan, manga and anime are huge cultural industries. These comics and cartoons are read and watched by young and old, men and women, geeks and office workers. Their fans stretch around the world and their cultural appeal has been used by the government to market 'Cool Japan'. Manga and anime can be about almost anything, and some can be confronting - especially those featuring young children in sexually explicit scenarios. The UK, Canada and Australia have all banned these sorts of virtual images, placing them in the same legal category as real images of child abuse. Last year, Japan became the last OECD country to outlaw the possession of real child abuse images, but they decided not to ban manga and anime. To many outsiders and some Japanese, this seems baffling - another example of 'weird Japan', and a sign the country still has a long way to go to taking child protection seriously. James Fletcher travels to Tokyo to find out why the Japanese decided not to ban. Is this manga just fodder for paedophiles, and is Japan dragging its feet on protecting children? Or is Japan resisting moral panic and standing up for freedom of thought and expression?

In Comuna 13, one of Medellin's poorest and most violent districts, there is a giant rubbish dump - la escombrera. Local people say it's where the truth lies buried. They're talking about the disappeared - dozens of victims of Colombia's bloody, civil conflict concealed beneath the mountains of junk. La escombrera stands in contrast to the 'Medellin Miracle' - the city's transformation over two decades from the darkest days of Pablo Escobar and his drug trafficking cartel, to its triumph in being voted the world's most innovative. For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly reports on the move to begin digging for human remains.

Each year, the US government does a strange and slightly surprising thing: it gives away 50,000 green cards (permanent resident visas) to people chosen at random via a lottery. But becoming an American is not easy, even if you do win a golden ticket. For Crossing Continents, Leo Hornak follows the story of Abdi Nor, a young Somali lottery winner living in one of the toughest slums in Kenya, as he prepares for his final US embassy interview and the chance of a new life in the States. But as Abdi's interview date approaches, the obstacles to him achieving his American dream appear to grow ever greater.

Russian support for the separatists in eastern Ukraine doesn't all come directly from the Kremlin. The rebellion there may be stoked, and armed, by Vladimir Putin - but it's also become a personal cause for young Russian volunteers recruited by a variety of nationalist and far-right groups. Many say they're motivated by their Orthodox faith - and their dream to restore Novorossiya, or New Russia, the territory which encompassed eastern Ukraine under the Tsarist Empire. Passionate members of re-enactment societies, they've spent their weekends reliving Russia's historic battles. But now they're fighting - and sometimes dying - for real, in what they see as a test of their own, and Russia's, "manhood". Tim Whewell has gained rare access to the weird, shadowy world of Russia's radical nationalists. He travels with volunteers from the grand old imperial capital, St Petersburg, to the chaotic, muddy battlefields of eastern Ukraine - and reveals a movement whose leaders have become increasingly influential in Putin's Russia - but is now in danger of becoming an embarrassment to the Kremlin. Producer: Dina Newman.

Fans of the Washington Redskins, one of the most popular American football teams in the country, are fiercely proud of their dark crimson Indian head logo. They say it is a sign of respect and that the name 'Redskins' goes back 80 years. But to many Native Americans, the indigenous people who lived in the United States before the arrival of European settlers, the word Redskins is hateful. For them it's a painful reminder of how their people have been oppressed and neglected even to this very day. Mike Wendling travels from North Dakota, to Minneapolis to Washington DC to explore the controversy which, thanks to social media and a growing number of Native American campaigners, has now become a burning national issue. On the Turtle Mountain reservation, Mike meets Jordan Brien, a young hip-hop artist with a troubled past who is determined to get the name of the team changed. He says his people shouldn't be reduced to mascots, and he urges young Native Americans to take a stand against racism. His cause has got the support of some in the US Congress and even President Obama has said that if the name is offensive to a sizeable group of people, the owners should "think about changing it". But for diehard fans like Chap Petersen, who has been going to Redskins games for four decades, such a change is unthinkable. And the club's owner Daniel Snyder has vowed never to discard the name whatever the press, pollsters and politicians say.

'I'll marry your sister if you marry mine. And if you divorce my sister, I'll divorce yours.' That is Yemen's 'Shegar', or swap marriage, an agreement between two men to marry each other's sisters, thereby removing the need for expensive dowry payments. But the agreement also states that if one marriage fails, the other couple must separate, too, even if they are happy. BBC Arabic's Mai Noman returns to her native Yemen and hears the stories of two women who have loved and lost because of Shegar. Nadia lives in the village of Sawan on the outskirts of the capital Sana'a with her family. She was married off at the age of twenty two and has three children. But because of her family's decision to marry her in the Shegar tradition she was forced to divorce when the other couple's marriage failed. Now she and her mother have to live with the stigma attached to divorce, and she only has limited access to her children, who remain with her ex-husband's family. Nora and her brother Waleed had little say in marrying their cousins through Shegar. But when one marriage failed, hard choices had to be made by everyone. Mai asks why an old tradition that forces you to love only to force you to part, is still practised in Yemen. Producer: Arlene Gregorius.

Gabriel Gatehouse reports from the Liberian capital Monrovia on the devastating impact of Ebola upon its people. In one case, a patient called Annie, 38, was discovered in her crowded shared house in harrowing conditions. She was taken away to hospital but disappeared into the system. Gabriel and his team go in search of Annie and along the way meet the medics and families on the front line of the Ebola crisis.

Mobeen Azhar reports from Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city, where police are at war with the Taliban. Given rare access to the work of the police by a Senior Superintendent in Karachi's Criminal Investigation Department, Mobeen joins officers on a night time raid in search of the men who train suicide bombers. He meets a suspect in custody who brags about planting bombs and describes how he urges teenage boys to sacrifice their lives in violent jihad. Mobeen also talks to a businessman who was kidnapped for ransom and meets the families of police officers who have been killed by the militants. Assassinations linked to political parties have blighted the city for over a decade but today, more than 70 groups representing the militant Taliban are also fighting for control. This guerrilla war, once confined to the tribal belt of Waziristan has moved into Karachi with devastating results.

In one remote district in Ivory Coast, men are going back to school. Their studies are part of a UN-backed project dubbed 'the school for husbands' and designed to save the lives of women and children. The idea is to teach decision makers - the men - about the importance of family planning, check-ups, and pre-natal care for their wives. The aim is to help women and also improve general welfare in farming villages where food is scarce and incomes are dependent on the weather and good fortune. Lucy Ash hears stories from the schools for husbands and finds out why Ivory Coast's health system is struggling to recover from the post-election crisis three years ago, even as the country's economy roars ahead. Producer: Mike Wendling.

It has one of the largest fishing fleets in the world and much of the catch from Thailand's fishing boats ends up on Japanese, European and American plates. Yet the industry stands accused of profiting from slave labour. The BBC's Becky Palmstrom investigates this tale of modern day slavery. She travels to Thailand and Myanmar to find out why and how illegal migrants are being forced onto Thai fishing boats, many of them working for months unpaid. She hears allegations of cruelty and even murder. In Thailand Becky meets Ken, from rural Myanmar, who hoped to make a better life for himself and his ageing parents. He ended up being trafficked twice onto Thai fishing boats. The BBC team was able to bring his parents, back in Myanmar, the first news they had had of their son for four years. The Thai authorities admit that most of their fishing fleet is unregistered and much of it relies on illegal migrant labour. The Thai government insists it is making every effort to clamp down on trafficking and forced labour in its fishing industry. Yet the US State Department has recently downgraded Thailand to Tier 3 in its "Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP)" - a measure of how little it believes Thailand is doing to curb the problem. Producer: John Murphy.

In the Spanish mining town of Turon a male choir meets once a week for rehearsals. They often sing to the patron saint of miners Santa Bárbara Bendita. Since 1934 miners have been singing this beautiful song in memory of four miners killed in a mining accident in the Maria Luisa mine. Coal mining, once a major industry in Spain, has been in decline for years and in the next few years the EU's subsidies for non-profitable pits will stop altogether. For most miners the closure of pits signals the death of their communities. Natalio Cosoy travels to northern Spain to talk to the miners and their families. Will Santa Bárbara Bendita watch over them as they face an uncertain future? James Fletcher producing.

The last decade has seen a dramatic increase in cocaine trafficking through Guatemala en route north, to the United States. Part of the fallout locally, has been a rise in addiction. As a result, more than 200 drug rehabilitation centres have been set up in the capital alone. Many of these are run by Pentecostal churches, with little oversight or regulation. Often addicts are swept up from the streets by 'hunting parties', and forced to attend such a centre. Linda Pressly travels to Guatemala City to investigate compulsory drug rehabilitation.

Gaelic Football is Ireland's most popular sport - there are clubs in every parish of the country. The game is very much part of the Irish identity. But it is losing its lifeblood. And all because of emigration. John Murphy goes to the far west of Ireland, to learn about this uniquely Irish game and hear how clubs are struggling to keep going as more and more young people leave the country, to find jobs abroad. Helen Grady producing.

Almighty God vs the Red Dragon: It sounds like a fantasy action film but it is in fact a real and disturbing struggle in China. The most vivid case involves a group of people who beat a stranger to death in a fast food restaurant. They said they had no choice because the victim was a 'demon'. The killers are fanatical followers of the Church of the Almighty God, a Christian doomsday cult which claims millions of members across China and pledges to overthrow the Chinese Communist Party - which it calls the 'Great Red Dragon'. Gracie uses her fluent Chinese to gain access to families of those caught up in the cult, including a man who infiltrated it to save his wife.

Europe and the US have imposed the toughest sanctions on Russia since the Cold War amid anger over the Kremlin's support for east Ukrainian separatists who stand accused of shooting down a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet. But the crisis began further south with Russia's annexation of Crimea in March. Crimea's idyllic scenery drew Soviet visitors for years - some called it the Communist Cote d'Azur. The collapse of communism did little to dent Russia's appetite for their bit of paradise on the Black Sea along with the thousands of Ukrainian holidaymakers who flocked there each year. But now the Ukrainians are staying away and the Russian government is trying to fill the gap by urging employers in Russia to send staff on subsidised breaks in Crimea. A holiday in the newly annexed peninsula has become every Russian's patriotic duty. For Crossing Continents, Lucy Ash visits Crimean tourist resorts and explores the motives behind Vladimir Putin's fateful decision to reclaim Russia's paradise.

For decades, Turkey's Kurds have been struggling against a state that used to deny their very existence as a separate people. In the low level war between the Turkish military and the militant Kurdish group, the PKK, both side have been accused of atrocities. In the 29 years of fighting up to last year's ceasefire, at least 40,000 people died and hundreds of villages were destroyed. But now, just when Kurds in neighbouring Iraq are considering establishing an independent state, and many believe the chaos in Syria will change borders across the region, Kurds in Turkey are increasingly reconciled to remaining within existing frontiers. As Turkey pursues peace talks with the PKK, the militant movement's supporters talk of changing society, not borders. And already, they've initiated some radical experiments. Pro-PKK towns and villages across eastern Turkey are now each governed by two co-mayors, male and female, and the new system has propelled many dynamic young women into power in regions that were once socially conservative. One is a survivor of domestic violence determined to use her position to encourage other women to speak up about what until now has been a taboo subject. She's not just the first woman mayor of her town, but also the first woman ever to get a divorce there. Tim Whewell travels to the region to meet her and other social reformers, and discover why so many of Turkey's Kurds say they have turned their back on nationalism, and want to express their identity in ways they say are more modern. Producers: Charlotte Pritchard and Guney Yildiz.

When a twisting funnel drops from the sky with tearing winds of up to 500 km/h, what do you do? In Oklahoma, people thought they knew the answer. The state is in the heart of tornado alley in the USA, where the public is regularly drilled on storm awareness. But when the largest storm ever recorded formed on the outskirts of Oklahoma City last year, people ignored the best advice and nearly died in their thousands. Now, officials are nervously watching where the next storm will form...and trying to figure what people will do when it does. Neal Razzell goes out and about with the storm chasers in Oklahoma City.

In 1974, police launched one of the biggest murder investigations Iceland has ever seen. The case was eventually solved when six people confessed to their parts in the murders of two men whose bodies have never been found. Forty years on, a government review has found that the confessions were unreliable and a campaign is underway to quash the convictions. But some of those who were wrongly convicted are struggling to accept their innocence. Simon Cox investigates what's seen by many as a stain on Iceland's justice system and finds out how it's possible to confess to the murder of someone you have never met. Helen Grady producing.

The transgenic revolution in agricultural production turned Argentina into one of the world's largest producers and exporters of genetically modified soybean and corn. But there is unease across the nation's vast GM belt, especially about health. In the northerly province of Chaco, the Minster of Public Health wants an independent commission to investigate cases of cancer and the incidence of children born with disabilities. Produced and presented by Linda Pressly.

Each year, thousands of illegal migrants try to enter the United States via a treacherous journey across the Arizona desert. Some succeed, while others are captured by US border patrols and are immediately deported - but not everyone is so fortunate. A growing number simply drop dead from exhaustion. The Missing Migrant Project works on identifying the deceased, piecing together clues found in the personal effects collected alongside the decomposed bodies found in the desert. In this programme, the BBC's Mexico correspondent Will Grant travels to Tucson, Arizona to meet project co-founder Robin Reineke to learn of the challenges facing her office in the small southwestern city of Tucson - which has the third-highest number of unidentified bodies in the United States, after New York and Los Angeles. Migrant rights groups say the vast expansion of the US Border Patrol has exacerbated the problem because the heightened policing of the border along traditional urban crossing points has forced clandestine border crossers out into the wilds of the desert. Such tough border protection is popular among many American voters, especially in conservative border states like Arizona and Texas - but some locals have shown sympathy, heading out into the desert to leave water, food and blankets in the hope of saving the lives of desperate migrants. In Mexico, Crossing Continents also meets the relatives of those who have died in the desert, revealing their motivations to move north - motivations which they share with many men, women and children from across Latin America, who are still willing to risk their lives embarking on this increasingly dangerous and potentially deadly trip. Reporter: Will Grant Producer: Richard Fenton-Smith.

How do you restore peace to a country now being torn apart by a vicious campaign of ethnic and religious cleansing? Two men in the Central African Republic believe they have the answer - friendship. Tim Whewell joins the Catholic Archbishop of Bangui, Dieudonne Nzapalainga and the country's Chief Imam, Oumar Kobine Layama as they travel across the country trying to reconcile Christian and Muslim communities.

When the former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych jumped into a helicopter and flew into hiding in mid-February, the Kiev protest movement that had opposed him flung open the gates of his abandoned estate. Ordinary Ukrainians poured in to visit the 140-hectare grounds and to catch a first glimpse of the luxurious lifestyle Yanukovych had enjoyed at his country's expense. Many gawped at the extraordinary opulence from the gold fittings to the marble floors and the private zoo. But a group of journalists were more excited by a different kind of treasure floating in the nearby lake. Thousands of documents had been dumped in the water by staff when their boss fled. The papers contained proof - not just of Yanukovych's wildly extravagant tastes - but also of systematic bribery, corruption, nepotism and state sponsored violence. Investigative reporters immediately realised these waterlogged documents could provide crucial evidence for future criminal proceedings. Anxious to preserve them, they worked around the clock painstakingly drying and sorting each sheet of paper. Since then other incriminating papers have been found around the Kiev's city centre. Lucy Ash talks to the journalists on the paper trail and asks why divers, archivists, lawyers, accountants and so many ordinary volunteers are eager to help them.

There's a silent enemy at work in the civil war in Syria and it's threatening the lives of young children. The war has placed the country's health system under intense pressure and in certain areas vaccination programmes against a range of preventable diseases have not taken place. In October 2013 the Syrian Ministry of Health verified the first polio case in 15 years. Now there are 25 laboratory confirmed cases in the country with another 13 confirmations pending. With the huge movement of populations across regional borders there are fears that polio, along with other infectious diseases, is spreading. In March UNICEF announced a massive polio vaccination campaign for the whole region. For Crossing Continents Tim Whewell travels to the Turkish border and to Lebanon to talk to the doctors and health care workers struggling to cope with a growing crisis.

Natalia Antelava goes in search of Gulnara Karimova - pop star, philanthropist, socialite, intellectual - oh, and incidentally (according to leaked US Embassy cables) the most hated woman in Uzbekistan. The image that graces the screens and billboards of Tashkent is one of a glamorous, dynamic, celebrity who flits from Cannes to New York to Moscow, fronting glossy music videos under her musical alias GooGoosha, with stars like Julio Iglesias and Gerard Depardieu. She runs charities and helps children all in an attempt to win the hearts of the Uzbek people for what some say is a bid to succeed her father as president. But her ambitions have taken a hit and the princess of Uzbekistan's star is falling. Described as a 'robber baron' in cables from the US Embassy, her business dealings are getting her into trouble. Natalia travels to Sweden to find that Karimova us connected to a bribery case which is linked with a money laundering investigation in Switzerland and France. Karimova's rivals for power are now taking advantage. Her TV stations have been shut down and her charity has been subject to a tax investigation. With the story hitting the headlines, Karimova has taken to Twitter to defend herself, including a virtual encounter with Natalia herself. What is the future for GooGoosha and what does this power struggle say about the nature of power in one of the world's most repressive states? Producer: Wesley Stephenson.

Of the estimated 70 million deaths attributed to World War two, 30 million died on the Russian front. Of those, as many as 4 million Soviet soldiers are still "missing in action". These men - more than the entire population of Ireland or New Zealand - are still unaccounted for. Despite all the official rhetoric on Victory Day, many in power today would rather not contemplate the fate of these men. They lie forgotten and unrecognised by Russia's top brass and the state. But as Lucy Ash discovers, a growing number of volunteers, armed with spades and metal detectors, are now searching for the soldiers. Seventy years after World War II, they feel compelled to look for their remains. Olga Ivishina, a journalist with the BBC Russian Service from the city of Kazan, belongs to this Diggers Movement. While many young Russians professionals spend their holidays on beaches in Thailand, Olga gives up her free time to camp in the forest. Many days she has to wade waist-deep through mud, sometimes in pouring rain, to find the bodies of these fallen soldiers. Ilya Prokofiev, one of the most experienced diggers, is scathing about what he calls the 'cult' of the Unknown Soldier. "Officials pay tribute at the eternal flame monument every 9th May', and I tell them: 'You're the ones who made this soldier nameless, what are you proud of? Have you no conscience? This soldier had a family, he had children, he had a surname, a name and patronymic, he had a life, he had a love of his own. What are you proud of?".

Could Greenland become the world's next resource hotspot? The government there hopes so - they've been travelling the world touting the country's vast reserves of oil and gas, and huge deposits of iron ore, gold and rare-earth elements. As melting icecaps make all these resources more accessible, mining promises riches for Greenland and the ultimate prize of full independence from Denmark. But there's a catch - many of the rare earth minerals are surrounded by uranium, pitching Greenland into the world of nuclear politics and environmental hazard. Nowhere is this clearer than in the small town of Narsaq in the country's south. Two proposed rare-earth mines could reverse the town's economic decline, but one just miles away will mine uranium too. James Fletcher travels to Narsaq to ask whether mining will be a blessing or a curse.

Brazil's anti-slavery hit-squads are unique. Since 1995, these committed bands of labour inspectors, accompanied by heavily armed police, have rescued 46,000 people deemed to be working as slaves. But Brazil's legal definition of slavery is contentious. It includes degrading conditions of work, which campaigners say amount to coercion. Some employers reject that. And now the stakes have been raised by proposals to confiscate land from bosses found to be flouting the anti-slavery standards. In a journey that takes her from cattle country on the edge of the Amazon, to the parched, rocky badlands of the north-east, Linda Pressly meets the campaigners, employers and politicians on both sides of the argument, and hears powerful testimony from the workers trapped in the middle. Producer: Stephen Hounslow.

Farhana Haider investigates the prosecution of alleged war criminals and asks if the trials are being used to target the opposition. There were numerous reports of atrocities during the brutal war of 1971 between Pakistan on one side and the new state which was to become Bangladesh, which had support from India. The Pakistani Army and Islamic sympathisers in Bangladesh were accused of rape and of mass killings which some have described as genocide. In 2010 the governing Awami League set up war crimes trials which have started to hand down convictions this year, attracting strong public support. However, many international observers have criticised the conduct of the trials as less than free and fair. And supporters of the largest Bangladesh's largest Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami have reacted furiously to the conviction of several of their leaders, saying the process is politically motivated. Farhana Haider asks whether the legal process will really enable Bangladesh to come to terms with its bloody beginnings. Producer: John Murphy.

On 1 January 2014 Indonesia will launch the largest public health insurance scheme in the world. It will unite a bewildering array of current schemes to cover the entire population, with the poor getting their health care free. Former BBC Jakarta Correspondent Claire Bolderson asks whether the world's fourth most populous country has the resources and organisational skills to make such an ambitious scheme work? Producer: Mike Gallagher.

One year on from the horrific attack in Delhi, Joanna Jolly hears from three women who've chosen to report a rape in a country that is at last waking up to the problem. The authorities have introduced tougher laws since the young student was raped on a bus last December but is the experience of women who choose to prosecute their attackers getting any better? Three women talk about their struggle: reporting rape to a not always sympathetic police, being examined in the government's often overcrowded hospitals and finally standing up in court. Joanna Jolly talks to the senior policewoman running the Delhi's Women and Children's Unit, a leading gynaecologist who has treated rape victims in the city and to those who've worked in the Indian legal system. Will the public outcry over the attack over a year ago make it easier for women to report rape and will their experience of India's overburdened courts be any better? Producer: Mark Savage.

Vladimir Hernandez follows the Mexican priests who believe they can fight the evil of drug trafficking through the ancient Catholic practice of exorcism. It is estimated that 60,000 people have died in Mexico in the "drug wars" linked to the narco-traffickers, who are among the most vicious criminals in the world. To some Catholic priests and believers, this is clear evidence that the Devil has taken hold among much of the population. They also point to the popularity of cults like that of "Santa Muerte", the saint of death, who is a figure of popular veneration among some of the narco-gangs. The priests are responding by practicing exorcisms, both in private and public, as they seek to expunge this evil. Vladimir watches dramatic individual and mass exorcisms, hears from those who have been through the rite and talks to critics and supporters of the practice. Producers: Keith Morris and Mark Savage.

Wine making in Moldova is a source of national pride - they have been growing vines for centuries. During Soviet times the country was encouraged to become one of the USSR's major wine suppliers and it has remained so ever since. But recently Russia banned the importation of Moldovan wine for the second time in a decade. Tessa Dunlop visits the prestigious Cricova winery - whose cellars have 120km of underground roads and holds bottles for the likes of Angela Merkel and President Putin - to see how the ban is affecting the poorest country in Europe. Moldova fears that a continuing embargo will devastate its fragile economy. The Moldovan president has condemned it as an aggressive move by Russia to bully Moldova into reconsidering its comittment to forging closer relations with the European Union. Many Moldovans believe Russia wants to make their country reconsider ratifying an agreement with the EU at the end of November. The result is that growers have vats maturing wine that may have no market. Enterprising younger wine producers, many of whom bought out former state enterprises, fear their investment may have been a mistake. Workers are concerned they may lose their jobs with little chance of alternative employment in the poorest country in Europe. For Moldova this is symbolic of a bigger problem - it wants to join the EU party and become part of Europe but its economy remains heavily dependent on Russia for gas and cash. Meanwhile the 14th Russian army is based just miles from their capital in the disputed territory of Transnistria. Moldova faces difficult choices Producer: Jane Beresford.

Up to 20% of the world's gold is produced by informal mining, with millions of people in the developing world relying on it for a living. The quickest and easiest way for them to extract gold is by mixing finely ground rock with mercury, a highly toxic metal, and burning it off. Linda Pressly visits Indonesia, and finds gold workers and communities who are already showing signs of mercury poisoning. There are paddy fields with the highest concentration of mercury ever tested in rice. Experts tell her this is a slow-burn disaster, which could lead to irreversible harm to the health of people across the globe. Producers: Emil Petrie, Nina Robinson.

According to a recent study by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 24 million Chinese men will be unable to find wives by 2020 because of the country's gender imbalance. Before the mass migration from the villages to the cities, young men could rely on their parents to find them a wife. Now many of those single women live in the cities, working in factories. They only see their parents during the spring festival so the chances of finding a wife are limited. It's a particular challenge for men with low income, who don't own their own apartment or who don't have a good job. In some parts of rural China there are several communities with so many single men they've been labelled 'bachelor villages' The trend has led to a growth in internet dating while at the high end, rich men join 'single entrepreneur' clubs that run competitions to find them that someone special. Lucy Ash reports from China on the ways in which both parents and the single men are attempting to make the perfect catch. Producer: Julie Ball.

Despite its massive natural oil wealth, Venezuela is a country sliding into recession, and has one of the highest inflation rates in the world. With prices of some products rising as much as 50% or more annually, the crisis presents a simple human predicament - how to lay your hands on the ever-dwindling supply of price-capped essentials that government shops pledge to provide. The trouble is that many of these basic goods like milk and toilet rolls, are disappearing from the supermarkets within a few minutes of getting there. Ed Butler explores how gossip and the black market have become a part of the answer for many ordinary citizens. He follows one consumer's quest for goods across the capital, and examines the rumours of smuggling and massive corruption, especially in the west near the border with Colombia. And he hears how the Socialist legacy of the former President Hugo Chavez still casts a big shadow over the nation. Businesspeople complain that his policies have made it almost impossible to produce anything profitably, and have left a legacy of massive red tape. The housing sector has been hit particularly hard with years of under-investment. Ed meets one retired couple unable to reclaim a rented apartment in their own property, who now are forced to live in their own garage.

Mobeen Azhar investigates gay life in urban Pakistan and despite the country's religious conservatism and homosexuality being a crime there, he finds a vibrant gay scene, all aided by social media. He meets gay people at underground parties, shrines and hotels and finds out what it's really like to be gay in Pakistan. As one man tells him, "The best thing about being gay in Pakistan is you can easily hook up with guys over here. You just need to know the right moves and with a click you can get any guy you want." At a gay party he meets an NGO worker who then takes him to one of Karachi's prime cruising locations - a shrine to a 9th Century Muslim saint. Mobeen meets a "masseur", who works on the street advertising his services. The masseur's real job is selling sexual services to men - with the full knowledge of his wife. And with great difficulty, Mobeen speaks to a lesbian couple, who conceal their relationship from their own parents. One of them argues that it is too soon for gay Pakistanis to fight openly for political rights and that they must find happiness in the personal sphere. Mobeen discovers that while urban Pakistanis may easily be able to find sex, being in a relationship is far more difficult. Reporter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Helena Merriman.

Change is in the air in Turkey following anti-government protests centred on a park in Istanbul - but where will it end? Emre Azizlerli of the BBC Turkish Service explores the strange new alliances forged in Turkey's anti-government protests, and asks if this diverse movement can hold together. He meets the anti-capitalist Islamists who have made common cause with environmentalists and secularists as well as gay and lesbian groups. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan refers to the protesters as "piteous rodents". The government has reacted by clamping down and sending in the riot police. Can the very different groups which oppose Erdogan really make common cause? Producer: Mark Savage.

The Kazakh steppe was once home to the infamous Soviet forced labour camps which formed part of the Gulag. Today, the Gulag system is said to live on in Kazakhstan's jails where a growing prison population faces daily torture, humiliation and lawlessness. Despite its poor human rights record, many developed nations, including Britain, are rapidly strengthening relations with Kazakhstan. BBC Central Asia Correspondent Rayhan Demeytrie investigates why the Gulag violence persists and asks why the international community stays silent. Producer: Nina Robinson.

Since the fall of Ceaucescu's dictatorship, the Romanian Orthodox Church has flourished. It has built thousands of new churches across the country and is now constructing a huge new cathedral in the capital Bucharest. The Cathedral is right next to Ceaucescu's gargantuan "Palace of the People" and, when completed, is intended to be taller - a physical manifestation of the Church's power and influence. Much of the money for the construction of these new churches and the cathedral has come from state funds - national, regional and local - as well as donations from congregations. While the Romanian Orthodox Church (ROC) argues that the churches are needed and wanted by most Romanians, there are those who feel that the ROC has too great an influence and is costing too much. Tessa Dunlop hears from believers, politicians, monks and an Archbishop, about how religious the country is, and whether or not the Church is too powerful and too rich. Producer: John Murphy.

Dr Kermit Gosnell had a reputation as the 'abortion doctor of last resort' along the East Coast of the United States - until his arrest in 2010. He regularly performed abortions well past the legal limit of 24 weeks with the help of untrained staff. At least two women died because of the treatment they received at his Philadelphia clinic. He has now been sentenced to three life sentences for the murder of three babies born alive. But authorities only acted against Gosnell when they suspected him of selling prescription medicines. Warnings about the dangers to women and children were ignored. The gruesome story has renewed the abortion debate across the United States. Neal Razzell travels to Philadelphia to find out what went wrong and how his case is being used to change public policy - in ways, some say, will make women less safe. This programme contains some extremely disturbing content. Produced by Smita Patel.

In Barcelona, a doctor offers reconstructive surgery to women who had female genital mutilation when they were children. Recorded over 6 months, Linda Pressly hears the stories of Rosa and Wenkune - Spanish women of African origin. FGM has caused them both a good deal of trauma. Will the operation change how they feel about themselves? What difference will it make to their intimate relationships? And what motivates Dr Barri Soldevila - a busy surgeon in a private hospital - to prioritise these procedures and offer them free of charge? Reporting FGM The police are there to help if you have been a victim of Female Genital Mutilation or have any information about this crime taking place. They advise that you call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 11 or the NSPCC's FGM helpline on 0800 028 3550 to report this crime or for help, advice and support. Be reassured calls will be dealt with sensitively and you can remain anonymous. Foreign and Commonwealth Office Information from the FCO about female genital mutilation, and what to do if you know someone who is at risk of FGM. https://www.gov.uk/female-genital-mutilation If you or someone you know has been affected by FGM, the following organisations can offer information and support. Daughters of Eve works to advance and protect the physical, mental, sexual and reproductive health rights of young people from female genital mutilation practising communities. If you have had any form of FGM they can give you advice, including about the different medical reversal options, advice about childbirth and how to live as healthily as possible with FGM. They can also give advice about what you can do to minimise the risk of FGM happening to you or someone you know. If you would like to contact Daughters of Eve you can email using the contact form on their website or get in touch by text Text: 07983 030 488 www.dofeve.org The Foundation for Women's Health, Research and Development (FORWARD) is a campaign and support charity providing help with FGM. If you have personal experience of, or know of anyone who has undergone FGM, FORWARD can provide support, advice and information about accessing specialist health care and counselling for girls and women affected by FGM. If you would like any help or advice or simply want to talk to someone about your experience you can get in touch - the charity is staffed by sensitive and approachable African women who, as well as English, speak Arabic and several other African languages. Phone: 020 8960 4000 http://www.forwarduk.org.uk/ Details of specialist clinics run by experienced professionals that provide health care and assistance to girls and women affected by FGM http://www.forwarduk.org.uk/resources/support/well-woman-clinics.

Writer Andrew Brown tries to find out if the rural heart of Sweden still lives on in the modern age. In an entertaining and unpredictable journey he goes in search of wolves, egg-tossing merrymakers and the ideal of the Swedish summer.

Brazil is getting ready to host the 2014 World Cup. But the preparations have become marred in controversy. And leading the charge against over-budget stadiums, vested interests and corruption is an unlikely figure: Romario. Brazil's World Cup-winning footballer has transformed himself into a serious, hard-working politician. Tim Franks meets him for Crossing Continents. Is this a genuine transformation for one of Brazil's most notorious celebrity bad-boys? Producer: Linda Pressly.

Two and a half years ago, oil started flowing from Ghana's first commercial offshore oilfield. Shortly after the taps were turned on, Rob Walker visited the hub for the new industry: the once sleepy port of Takoradi. He found a mixture of ambition and uncertainty in a rapidly expanding boomtown. Rob now returns to Takoradi to meet people he met last time and find out whether their dreams have been realised. Producer: Katharine Hodgson.

Mobeen Azhar travels to the Pakistani city of Quetta to investigate how it has become the scene of violent and indiscriminate attacks by Sunni militants against the local ethnic Hazara community. It's a city which has become effectively a no-go area for foreign journalists due to the persistent and intensifying violence. Mobeen tells the story of a single day in January of this year when over 100 people lost their lives in twin bombings in Quetta. Claiming responsibility was the Sunni militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. Mobeen retraces the story of the bombings, and examines the growing security concerns in a district dominated by the Shia Hazara community. He speaks to Fayyaz Mohammed, a candidate in the forthcoming elections who has links to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and talks with Paul Bhatti, who until recently was the Pakistani Minister of National Harmony. Bhatti blames the government's inability to enforce "effective policy" on Pakistan's long history of military dictatorship. Azhar meets blast survivors and the families of victims, and finds out how the security situation is causing many young Hazaras to leave Quetta to seek a better life elsewhere - despite the dangers of putting their lives in the hands of people smugglers. Producer: Julie Ball.

Belarus has been described as the last dictatorship in Europe. Few dare speak out against President Alexander Lukashenko and his ruling elite. But the opposition has found a way of making its voice heard through an academic community which has taken refuge abroad. Lucy Ash visits the European Humanities University which teaches Belarusian students on its campus in neighbouring Lithuania. She talks to teachers and students, many of whom commute back and forth across the border. Is the EHU devoted to intellectual freedom and training future leaders of Belarus or is it a "trampoline for emigration" to the west? Producer: Tim Mansel.

Insecurity dominates the lives of millions of Mexicans, who are caught between the murderous drug cartels and absent or corrupt law enforcement. So, communities have begun to take the law into their own hands, and Crossing Continents reporter Linda Pressly travels to the southern state of Guerrero to meet a fledgling vigilante force which has grown into an organisation numbering thousands of members. Since coming into force earlier this year, dozens of arrests made by untrained, armed civilians hailing from local pueblos and the local community has largely been supportive of their work. But these community police organisations, as they are known, have no legal authority, and should not be carrying guns in the street - and amid claims that some are using violence to enforce the law, Crossing Continents asks who is keeping the vigilantes in check? Reporter: Linda Pressly

Twelve years ago Lucy Ash investigated Ukraine's fight against HIV infection, which was mainly caused by injecting drug users. After the Orange Revolution in late 2004, the government promised to do everything it could to fight the disease and the situation seemed to improve. But now Ukraine has the second highest infection rate in Europe, surpassed only by Russia. Around the world, other countries are managing to reduce rates of HIV infection and AIDS-related deaths. Lucy Ash travels to Kyiv and Odessa to see why fighting HIV is so difficult in Ukraine. Producer: Julie Ball.

The fate of hundreds of people who went missing during Nepal's brutal civil war is threatening to undermine the country's fragile democracy. Around 100,000 people were displaced during the bloody insurgency and an estimated 17 thousand were killed. A peace agreement was signed six years ago in which both sides promised that war crimes would not go unpunished. But relatives are still waiting for justice. Joanna Jolly finds out why the scars from the conflict are still raw despite attempts by both sides to bury the past. Producer: Mark Savage.

The Oyu Tolgoi mine in Mongolia's freezing Gobi Desert is one of the the world's biggest - extracting a vast seam of copper, gold and silver the size of Manhattan. It's turned this country of camel and yak herders into the world's fastest growing economy. Fancy boutiques, top-end car dealerships and coffee shops are springing up across the capital. But, as Justin Rowlatt discovers, riding the boom is not easy. He meets a rapper who says the government is simply selling the country's assets to its old rival, China. And there are fears from foreign investors about attempts by the government to increase its income from the Oyu Tolgoi mine. Can Mongolia become prosperous while sharing its new-found wealth - or will it kill the goose before it has laid any gold (or copper) eggs? Producer: Kent DePinto.

In a major investigation, Natalia Antelava reports on the abduction of tens of thousands of young girls in India for forced marriages. Thousands more are sold as prostitutes and domestic servants. She follows the route of the traffickers, who take girls from destitute households in places like West Bengal to wealthier areas in Northern states, where a shortage of women is blamed by many on sex-selective abortions. It's a problem the United Nations describes as of 'genocidal proportions'. Natalia joins campaigners and police fighting the trade and hears the stories of the trafficked girls and from a trafficker himself. Producer: Natalie Morton.

Mariko Oi investigates forced confessions of suspects in the Japanese criminal justice system. She asks if the use of prolonged questioning and other dubious tactics by police and prosecutors might be one reason for Japan's astonishingly high conviction rate. Producer: Nina Robinson.

Lucy Ash asks what the explosion in popular protest over a Chinese-backed copper mine says about changes in Burma and asks if this is a test case for the government's commitment to democratic reforms. Farmers' daughters Aye Net and Thwe Thwe Win have led thousands of villagers in protest against what they say is the unlawful seizure of thousands of acres of land to make way for a $1 billion expansion of a copper mine run by the military and a large Chinese arms manufacturer. They have been thrown in jail and they have been harassed by their own police and military, and yet they have refused to back down. Their bravery has been celebrated by the poet Ant Maung from the nearest big city Monywa, who wrote: "The struggle made them into iron ladies. . .This is life or death for them - they will defend it at the cost of everything." Burmese officials and the Chinese company say the Monywa copper mine will create jobs and bring prosperity to one of the poorest and least developed nations in Asia. But the villagers complain about pollution, damage to crops and the loss of fertile land. A violent crackdown on the protestors was a stark reminder that the country's transition to democracy remains fraught with difficulties. Some suspect the government acted to avoid scaring away foreign investors. Others say the brutal response shows Burma's military leaders are still in charge behind the scenes and that they are not prepared to tolerate any dissent which encroaches on their economic interests. Meanwhile there is a rising tide of Sinophobia in a country which feels overshadowed by its powerful northern neighbour. How the mine dispute is resolved may provide vital clues about the future of Burma. Producer: Katharine Hodgson.

For decades, Poland has been a country of emigrants travelling to build new lives abroad, not least in the UK. But could things be about to change? Paul Henley travels to the country at the eastern edge of the EU, where the financial crisis has, so far, been avoided. He meets the migrants already making a life in Europe's least multicultural society, and explores the conditions that suggest Poland could be on the cusp of becoming a destination; home to a new wave of migrants. Producer: Lila Allen.

The city of Misrata arguably suffered the most during the Libyan conflict as missiles rained on it for months on end. By the end of the revolution though, fighters from Misrata had exacted their revenge on neighbouring towns and had been responsible for the capture of Colonel Gaddafi, as well as Gaddafi strongholds. More recently Misratan fighters have been in action against the city of Bani Walid. Many residents of Bani Walid, accused of being Gaddafi supporters, have been expelled from their homes. Misrata has, effectively, set itself up as a city state, outside the control of Libya's new government. Writer and journalist Justin Marozzi, who has been visiting Libya over the last twenty years, including during the revolution, returns to examine if this fragmented country can rebuild itself and come together. Is reconciliation possible while different armed groups continue to fight each other? Producer: John Murphy.

Linda Pressly investigates why rape and sexual abuse is so common in America's huge prison system - and asks if new measures to fight it will succeed. Producer: Helen Grady.

Many schoolchildren in South Africa's northern Limpopo province have gone for months without school textbooks. There was money to buy them. There was also a contract to deliver the books. Yet they didn't arrive. Students and parents are furious with politicians of the governing ANC - and say the problem is due to mismanagement and corruption. They say the issue typifies the faults of the political system, and that their children have been the victims. Rob Walker investigates the mystery of the missing textbooks.

In one of the most violent countries on earth, peace has broken out. In March, a truce was brokered between El Salvador's two most violent street gangs; they agreed to stop killing each other. The Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 are criminal outfits that trace their origins to Los Angeles. In the 1990s, older members were deported from the US and forged local 'branches' on the streets of El Salvador. Since the truce - brokered in prisons with the gangs' leaders - the murder rate of this small Central American nation (with the highest homicide rate in the world after Honduras) has been cut by more than half. In Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly visits the imprisoned leaders of both gangs to find out how the deal was done. And she finds many Salvadorans are relieved. Now they can go out at night, and their children can play again on the streets. But the truce has not been without its critics. Should the state sponsor a non-aggression treaty between criminal organisations? And is there more to the agreement than Salvadorans are being told? Many are asking if this is a sustainable peace. Some question whether the murder rate is really falling, alleging that actually the gangs are continuing to kill and hiding the corpses. Claudia thinks this is what happened to her son - a teenager associated with the Barrio 18 who disappeared last month after a local shooting. She says she knows he's dead. All she wants is the return of his body. But for all the uncertainty, the gains are dramatic. Not only has the murder rate plummeted, but the number of public hospital emergency admissions in San Salvador for people injured by guns or knives has fallen by nearly two-thirds. Can the truce last? El Salvador is holding its breath.

Andrew Harding meets the Mayor with the job of running Somalia's capital, Mogadishu. Can the man nicknamed "Tarzan" tackle mass corruption and the physical and psychological impact of years of brutal warfare? Andrew joins Mohamed Ahmed Noor who, by request of the president, has returned with his wife and family from a life in London to try and clean up Mogadishu. The mayor discusses his ambitious vision for a city, much of which currently lies in ruins. He proudly shows off the new Mogadishu Mall and talks about the constant risk of attack by the militant Islamist group al-Shabaab - and narrowly escapes death by a car bomb along the way. Producers: Kate Forbes and Daniel Tetlow.

When Israel was established, its tiny community of ultra-Orthodox Jews were, uniquely, exempted from the normal requirement of service in the Israeli Defence Force. They were seen as keepers of the spiritual soul of the nation, and their vital duty of studying religion and Jewish law was more important than wielding guns. 70 years on, and the community's numbers have grown massively - and there are increasing demands for the ultra-Orthodox to play their part in the defence of the nation. A Supreme Court decision which has cleared the way for the drafting of all Jewish citizens reaching the age of eighteen has divided the coalition government and led to furious rows. Linda Pressly investigates how conscription is exposing deep faultlines among Israeli Jews. Secular and mainstream religious Jews increasingly see the ultra-Orthodox as a drain on the Israeli state, and resent this community ruthlessly exploiting their political power. Meanwhile the ultra-Orthodox see themselves as fulfilling a sacred duty which lies above the day-to-day considerations of politics or defence. Can the rifts be healed - or will Israeli society become irrevocably split? Producer: Mark Savage.

Tessa Dunlop travels to Romania to investigate why a proposed open-cast gold mine has caused the longest-lasting political storm in the country since the end of Communism. The mine, in the rural community of Rosia Montana in the Transylvanian mountains in western Romania, would be Europe's largest. Its supporters, including most locals, say it would bring much-needed jobs to the area, which has suffered very high unemployment since the last mine closed there a few years ago, after two millennia of gold mining. But opponents, ranging from local shopkeepers to NGOs in Bucharest and abroad, argue that the project would destroy what they see as the area's only chance for more sustainable development: turning the 2000-year old Roman mines located in those same mountains into tourist attractions, perhaps as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The mining company admits that many of the Roman galleries would be destroyed by the open-cast mine, but they are largely inaccessible anyway. As a quid pro quo, the company is already restoring those galleries that will be protected, to make them accessible and a tourism destination. Is the destruction of the majority of the Roman mines a price worth paying for the restoration of a few? Or is the conflict about something else entirely? Some campaigners admit that their real fight is not with the company, but with the government, because they suspect official corruption. Meanwhile politicians say it is easier to cut public salaries than to give the go-ahead to a big project like this, precisely because of the ensuing suspicion of sleaze. The project is seen as a test case for prosperity, transparency and good governance for Romania. Producer: Arlene Gregorius.

No fewer than 15 football club bosses have been murdered in Bulgaria's top football league in the last decade alone. In this edition of Crossing Continents Margot Dunne investigates reports that many have been deeply involved in mafia businesses. There are continuing reports that the game is riddled with corrupt practices including match-fixing and the illegal procurement of European Union passports for overseas players. Crossing Continents examines these claims, attending a match which has allegedly been fixed in advance and speaks to a player who says he was offered money to throw a match. The programme also meets Todor Batkov, chairman of one of the country's best known football clubs, Levski Sofia, who accepts that corruption in the national game is as deep rooted as ever. Producer: Ed Butler.

South Korean women, tradition says, are hard-working, respectful to family, and know their place in Korea's Confucian hierarchies. But the country's rapid economic development has meant some startling changes below the surface of that conservative social structure. Perhaps the most controversial is the advent of Host Bars - all night drinking rooms where female customers can select and pay for male companions, sometimes at a cost of thousands of dollars a night. Originally set up to cater to off-duty 'hostesses' and female escorts, they're now proving popular with many other women too. The growth of the industry is throwing up new questions for South Korea's sociologists and politicians as they struggle to reconcile the country's traditional values with the effects of its rapid development. The BBC's Seoul correspondent Lucy Williamson reports.

Karachi is facing a drugs epidemic. Pakistan's sprawling port city has an estimated half a million chronic heroin addicts. The drug is cheap and easily available as it comes across the Pakistan/Afghanistan border, before being shipped to Europe and the US. Mobeen Azhar finds out how a charity is trying to help addicts and their families. An NGO called the Edhi Foundation operates what is thought to be the world's largest drug rehabilitation centre. It's here that Mobeen meets brothers Yusaf and Husein who have checked themselves in. Patients who volunteer for treatment like this can leave whenever they feel ready. But the majority of patients, like 24-year-old Saqandar, are brought in by their desperate relatives, and according to Edhi rules, only the family can decide when they will be released. The centre offers heroin users food and painkillers to ease the physical symptoms of withdrawal - but conventional treatment like methadone is not available. So does enforced cold turkey really work? Mobeen follows the stories of three heroin addicts and finds out how the stress of their addiction takes its toll on them and their families. Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Ben Crighton.

Rwanda is a nation of bicycles; large cumbersome machines, piled high with sacks of coffee or potatoes, so heavy they can only be pushed up the steep winding roads in this "land of a thousand hills." Rwanda -- a country known only for the genocide of 1994, when an estimated 800,000 people, mainly ethnic Tutsis, were murdered in cold blood in a mere 100 days -- is also a nation in need of heroes. It may now have found them: lycra-clad athletes in helmets and wrap-around sunglasses on five thousand dollar racing bikes. They are Team Rwanda, the national cycling team, its tightly packed and brightly coloured peloton now a familiar sight on their training rides on the roads around Ruhengeri in the country's north-west, not far from the border with Uganda. For this week's Crossing Continents Tim Mansel has spent a week with Team Rwanda as they prepare for their latest international competition, the Tour of Eritrea. The team assembles on a Monday night from all over Rwanda. They come by bike, some after riding for three or four hours, one after a ride of six. Their week is a series of gruelling rides, nutritious food, and daily yoga, all under the critical eye of their outspoken American coach, Jock Boyer. It's impossible to spend time in Rwanda without being confronted by the genocide. A large purple banner adorns the main street in Ruhengeri, its message unmissable - Jenocide, it proclaims - and this year's slogan: "Learning from History to build a bright future." And only a few hundred yards from where the riders live is the town's genocide memorial, a walled garden dominated by a disturbing monument - the figure of a man pleading for his life and a machete that appears to be dripping in blood. Team Rwanda is not immune from the genocide, indeed it makes explicit connections. Its website features biographies of several of its riders: Rafiki Uwimana, a small child in 1994, sent by his parents to live in the countryside to escape the horrors of the capital Kigali, forced to hide in the forest from the Hutu militias, and almost dying of malaria before being saved by the Tutsi RPF militia invading from Uganda; or Obed Rugovera, who lost three siblings and two uncles in the carnage. "The genocide has affected every one of the riders profoundly and you can feel it even without talking about it," says the coach, Jock Boyer. "Cycling...gives them the hope that they can buy a house, provide for their family, do something they're good at and that they're recognised for and that the country is not just going to be known for a genocide.".

The state-of-the-art Aeropuerto Don Quijote in Ciudad Real opened for business at the end of 2008. The vision was to create an air hub in the heart of Spain, and its backers believed it would bring business, jobs and tourists to this underdeveloped region. But just over three years later the airport closed - bankruptcy proceedings are on-going. Now it lies abandoned and empty, the silence broken only by birdsong and the occasional whoosh of a high speed train. In Crossing Continents, Pascale Harter tells the story of a project with its roots in Spain's building boom-years. Was the airport doomed by the economic crisis, as its supporters claim? Or was it always fanciful to imagine that a region with little industry and tourism could sustain an airport with a capacity for five million passengers a year? And what does the building of the airport tell us about the relationship between local business, politicians and the now defunct local banks - the Cajas?

In just three years China's main microblogging site, Sina Weibo, has surpassed Twitter's entire global membership. More than 300 million Chinese are now tweeting, with millions more joining the national conversation every month. Shanghai-based journalist Duncan Hewitt finds out how microblogging is changing China. Thanks to social media China is witnessing the emergence of a civil society of activists and justice-seekers. These 'netizens' are using Sina Weibo and other services to publicise miscarriages of justice, instances of corruption and environmental issues and force local and central government to act. The victim of a horrific attack shows Duncan how her desperate plea for redress on Sina Weibo led to a nationwide outcry. In Beijing he meets the dogs saved from a grisly death in the dog-eating South thanks to flashmob rescuers organised on Sina Weibo. And a group of mothers who met on Sina Weibo tell him about their campaign to promote breastfeeding across China. None of this was possible before the internet - but where will it all lead? While some subjects are banned, Sina Weibo has also given Chinese people a new freedom to voice opinions on the news, their lives and their country. Duncan meets the young people of Chengdu in Western China who are now part of a small but growing graffiti, hip-hop and dance scene. Just 15 years ago there was no way they could communicate with fellow fans, never mind the outside world. He'll visit Youku, China's YouTube, to watch their online X-Factor-style competition as it is filmed. And he'll meet the famous cartoonist using animation to ask questions about the materialism of the young and the detention of his fellow artist and friend, Ai Weiwei.

Writer and broadcaster Maria Margaronis follows the route taken by migrants fleeing war or poverty who are risking their lives to reach the Europe Union. It is estimated that around 75 thousand people are attempting to make the perilous journey each year in the hands of unscrupulous traffickers. They are fleeing from war-torn countries like Afghanistan and Somalia or simply in search of a better life where their economic prospects aren't so bleak. Some of them never make it, suffocating in the back of a crowded lorry or drowning in the fast flowing river that marks the border between Turkey and Greece. The programme meets up with migrants in Istanbul, on the narrow Bosphorus Strait, which has served as the crossroads of the world for thousands of years. There are children making the journey on their own and one man who has lost his fingers and toes to frostbite on a perilous journey over the mountains from Iran. Two of his companions died. The Turkish authorities confess to being overwhelmed by the numbers which are estimated to be up to 250 people a day. Illegal migrants are detained but seldom, it seems, sent back to the countries they came from. There has been an attempt to clamp down on the people traffickers but there are huge profits to be made. The most dangerous part of the trip is along Turkey's border with Greece. The Greeks are supposed to be building an eight mile fence but that still leaves a river which is 125 miles long. Traffickers put their charges into cheap inflatable boats and push them across, regardless of whether they are able to handle a boat or to swim. Many of them can't. For those that do make it, there is no Promised Land but an economic crisis and yet more troubles ahead.

In this week's Crossing Continents, Mukul Devichand tells the stories of Shanghai's rapidly ageing population. China's natural ageing process has been accelerated by the One Child Policy. Mukul tells the stories of an ageing city and asks whether China's rapid economic growth could be undermined. Shanghai's image is youthful and contemporary, of a globalised metropolis buying into a new lifestyle at chains like Ikea. But the Ikea Shanghai store is home to a different category -- and age -- of customer. The store canteen has become a meeting point for elderly singles, looking for love and friendship. It's a story repeated across Shanghai: in places you may expect to millions of young people, you'll see the elderly. Like the rest of urban China, Shanghai is growing old. A quarter of the city's resident population is now retired, putting it in the same demographic league as countries like the UK or Germany. But ageing in China is different. Its fertility rates have dropped at a speed unprecedented in modern history because its "One Child" policy. 30 years after the policy started, the speed of ageing is faster in China than anywhere else. The burden of ageing is not only coming faster, it's also much also harsher here, because China is still a developing country -- with hundreds of millions of poor people to support, as well as hundreds of millions of additional elderly. That has led to a deep seated anxiety in China: will the country grow too old to get rich? Nestled amid skyscrapers, Mukul tells the stories of the old Shanghai of inner city districts, a place of tumbledown old blocks where the elderly are concentrated. He meets the couples and families struggling with new complaints, such as dementia and alzheimers, under the burden of low incomes and limited welfare. This story of poverty amid plenty symbolises the deeper worry: of the expense of an ageing China in a country where elderly care has traditionally been managed by the family. In the same city districts, public and private nursing homes are now opening their doors. These cater to a growing demand from families who can't manage the traditional custom of "many generations under one roof" and represent a big cultural change in China. But who will pay for this kind of care nationally? Mukul tells the stories of the rural migrants, caught between the gaps of China's welfare system -- the millions for whom such care is simply not an option. What can be done? One solution is to encourage more babies in each family. But that is antithetical to China's historically draconian "One Child" family planning, which is now deeply entrenched in the culture. Mukul visits a family planning centre, which now encourages some couples to have more than one -- and finds the couples aren't always listening. He speaks to Shanghai's leading family planning officials to ask if they are changing the "One Child" policy, and how fast. At its root, the real problem is not just too many elderly. Rather it's a shortage of young workers, threatening China's economic model itself. A lack of willing youth is a huge issue for a country whose entire business model is based on millions of cheap workers. In the industrial zones south of Shanghai, Mukul tells the stories of a crisis in labour. Will China's factory of the world collapse under the burden of ageing?

Lucy Ash visits Russia's new energy frontier in the Arctic Yamal region and explores the impact oil and gas extraction is having on the indigenous people there. Gradually but inexorably, reindeer give way to railroads and gas rigs. She goes to stay with a family of herders near the base of the Yamal Peninsula, whose name in the local Nenets language means "the end of the earth." Yamal is home to the largest single area of reindeer husbandry in the world and unlike many indigenous people of the north in Canada, the USA and other parts of Russia, the Nenets herders have proved remarkably resilient. They survived both collectivisation in Soviet times and the chaos of the transition to a market economy in the 1990s. But now there is a new threat as Vladimir Putin has vowed to "turn Yamal into the new oil and gas province of Russia." Lucy's host in the tundra, Nikolai Khudi, is philosophical about the changing world around him and wary of criticising the state monopoly Gazprom. The flow of oil and gas revenue to the region has brought social benefits such as decent schools and hospitals. Many nomads have willingly given up their traditional lives, and even those who've remained on the tundra now enjoy snow mobiles, satellite dishes and mobile phones. But Nikolai's brother Yevgeny worries their way of life is endangered and that fish may soon disappear from lakes and rivers because of the drilling. But Moscow is determined to exploit the treasures under the permafrost. The president elect is heavily dependent on hydrocarbons and is counting on them to fulfil recent campaign promises. At the current levels of price and consumption, the natural gas reserves in Russia's Arctic region, would generate enough fuel to feed Europe for around 75 years, with a total value of almost $17 trillion. The fate of this frozen territory thousands of miles from the Kremlin speaks volumes about the Russian state both past and present.

Honduras has the highest murder rate in the world. The People's Funeral Service deals daily with the fall-out from these extreme levels of violence. Set up by the Mayor of Tegucigalpa, the capital city, it distributes coffins, maintains two funeral homes, and even offers a mobile service where employees take everything necessary for a wake - including bread and coffee - to someone's house or local church. All of these services are totally free for poor people in the city. In Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly profiles this unique organisation, and meets some of the families using its services. Among them, is the family of Ramon Orlando Varela, a 26 year old gunned down in the street after dropping his children off at school. It isn't clear why Ramon was targeted. But a toxic mix of gangs, guns, drug cartels - and fear - pervades Honduras. And it's unlikely his killers will ever be caught. Police corruption is endemic, impunity almost a given. But in spite of the everyday challenges, the workers at the People's Funeral Service offer what help they can. At least they can lend some dignity to proceedings for families who have almost nothing.

In Bangladesh, twenty percent of girls are married before their fifteenth birthday. Jemy is likely to be one of them. She is thirteen years old and due to marry a cousin in three days time. Meanwhile, twelve-year-old Oli is touring the slums of Dhaka, telling parents not to marry off their daughters. And in the wards of the Dhaka Medical College lies Poppy, awaiting an operation to repair a body broken by childbirth at the age of twelve. This week's Crossing Continents looks at the issue of Child Marriage, through the eyes of these three children. It is a practice still rife in Bangladesh despite being illegal. Some call it modern day slavery. Child brides drop out of school and are rarely able to undertake any paid work. Often they become victims of domestic violence. And many, like Poppy, suffer severe health problems as a result of giving birth at a young age. They lose their childhood completely. But campaigners are fighting back, trying to persuade rural villagers not to marry off their daughters so young. Reporter Angus Crawford joins them as they try to track down Jemy and halt her wedding. But can they reach her in time? Producer: Tony Smith.

There's a Turkish saying that every man is born a soldier; and in Turkey every man is conscripted for military service of up to 15 months. There is no alternative to this; Turkey does not recognise the concept of conscientious objection. But one group of people are exempt - homosexuals. Their presence in the army is deemed damaging to morale and operational effectiveness. But the process by which homosexual men are asked to prove their sexual orientation is arbitrary and humiliating. Some are asked to provide pornographic photographs of themselves with their partners; others, photographs of themselves dressed as women. This is also a problem for the military psychiatrists who have to compromise their professionalism by "diagnosing" someone as homosexual, despite the fact that homosexuality is no longer regarded internationally as a medical disorder, although it once was. In "The Pink Certificate" Emre Azizlerli lifts the lid on the only country within the NATO military alliance to discriminate against homosexuals in this way. Among his interviewees are gay men who have been humiliated in various ways during the application process for exemption, as well as another man, who wanted to join the military despite his homosexuality and enjoyed a varied sex life during his period of service. Emre also meets a psychiatrist who discusses the ethical dilemma he faced while in the army and being asked to "diagnose" gay men, and a well-known conscientious objector who went to prison for his principles. Producer: Tim Mansel.

Natalia Antelava reports on Uzbekistan where women have become the new target of one of the most repressive regimes on earth. She uncovers evidence that women are being sterilised,often without their knowledge, in an effort by the government to control the population. The programme speaks to victims and doctors and highlights the fear and paranoia that have made this such a difficult story to tell. Women have fled the country in order to escape the practice. Only a few brave Uzbeks have been willing to speak, often telling horrific stories the government don't want told. Producer: Wesley Stephenson.

Tim Franks looks at the case of two US inmates who have been held in solitary confinement in Louisiana for what will be 40 years this month. It's believed to be the longest period of time in US penal history. For most of their confinement Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace were held in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, a prison often known as "Angola", after the origin of the people who worked there when it was a slave plantation. The two were originally imprisoned for armed robbery. The men who later became known as the Angola 2 were linked to the Black Panther party, and fought for better prison conditions for the black inmates, and an end to the widespread rape and harsh work conditions. While in prison there, they were charged with the murder of a prison guard, and convicted on the evidence of a prison inmate who had been promised his freedom if he testified against them. For most of the time since then they have been held in solitary confinement. The official reason has remained the same for 40 years: fear that the men would re-start their Black Panther-type activism and organise younger inmates as militants. The use of solitary confinement has been on the increase in the US - we ask are there good reasons for its use, and whether it is compatible with US law.

Canada's First Nations communities are in crisis. Addiction to prescription pain-killers is rife, and it's devastating the fragile communities of northern Ontario. OxyContin - an opioid drug capable of inducing a high like heroin - is widely abused in Canada. But on isolated reserves, people talk of an epidemic. For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly travels to Fort Hope - Eabametoong First Nation - to investigate the impact of drug use. Fort Hope is accessible only by air, apart from a six week window in winter when you can drive across the frozen lakes on ice roads. It has a population of just 1200 people, but it's estimated up to 80% of the working-age population are abusing OxyContin. The beauty of Fort Hope in deepest winter with its snow-covered streets conceals the fall-out from endemic drug use. This community has experienced a crime wave out of proportion to its size. Murder, theft and arson propelled the Chief to declare a 'state of emergency'. Even with police help it's hard to stop the pills getting onto the reserve. And the mark-up for the pushers - one 80mg tablet of OxyContin sells for up to $600 - means the addicts of Fort Hope are a lucrative market. There's a glimmer of optimism. Doris Slipperjack, a 23 year old mother of three, is fighting back. She's determined to beat her addiction. She's become an inspiration to many First Nations people. But the road ahead is tough. The aboriginal people of Canada have a troubled history of addiction. Alcohol, gasoline and glue sniffing, drugs - this is a community that has experienced it all. But people will tell you that OxyContin is the worst, because it is so highly addictive. Who knows if people like Dave Waswa - a talented artist, will ever be able to kick the habit.

Twenty years ago, the Kurdish region in Northern Iraq achieved effective autonomy after the first Gulf War, establishing a liberal constitution and a democratic assembly. The region is booming economically, thanks to its huge oil reserves. But things are not that simple on the ground. In February, there were protests in the city of Sulaimaniya against corruption and the dominance of the two parties which govern the region. The demonstration was violently suppressed, resulting in the deaths of several activists. Some Kurds believe that the generation of peshmerga guerillas who fought for autonomy in the 1980s and 1990s are now blocking more openness and democracy. Yet even critics concede that the Kurds have achieved far greater stability and security than the rest of Iraq. Gabriel Gatehouse asks if the Kurdish region should be a model for the rest of the Middle East to follow or avoid? Producer: Natalie Morton.

The Amazon rainforest is perhaps the world's greatest single environmental asset. For years the accepted wisdom has been that the remorseless tide of destruction there is unstoppable. Justin Rowlatt travels to Brazil to question this conventional account and finds that over the last five years rates of deforestation have plummeted by more than half. There is now serious and credible discussion about stopping deforestation completely and even replanting rainforest in deforested areas. He joins raids deep in the jungle with a team of armed Brazilian environment agents - and watches as a gang of loggers are caught in the act. He meets the farmers and ranchers who are now conserving rather than cutting the forest, including one of the world's biggest farmers, the man they call the King of Soya, Blairo Maggi. He meets an Indian tribe who have been enlisted as "smoke jumpers" - frontier firefighters protecting the forest from wild fires. He travels to the most remote state in Brazil to see a project which has created a viable market for the traditional industry of wild rubber tapping by building a condom factory in the middle of the jungle. Of course there is still enormous pressure on the forest. 2011 saw a spike in deforestation and a big debate about the management of the forest which has shown the continued power of the rural lobby. While Brazil's success in taming deforestation remains fragile Justin asks if there is cause for hope that the greatest ecosystem on the planet can be preserved. Producer: Keith Morris.

Sir Ernest Shackleton has a heroic place in the annals of Antarctic exploration, famously for his expedition on the aptly-named Endurance in 1914. He intended to cross over the Antarctic landmass. Instead, his ship became stuck in ice which eventually crushed it. Shackleton and his crew made a desperate voyage in three small boats to Elephant Island, where they split up. The men on the island were left under the command of Shackleton's Number 2, Frank Wild. Shackleton and a small team sailed 800 miles to South Georgia, from where they mounted a rescue mission for Wild's group. Nearly a century on, reporter Karen Bowerman joins a group of Wild's relatives retracing his extraordinary journey to the southern seas. They are bearing Wild's ashes, which they bury next to Shackleton, on South Georgia. Producer: John Murphy.

Jill McGivering, the BBC World Service South Asia editor, investigates the discovery of thousands of bodies in mass graves in Indian Kashmir. Human rights groups suspect they are just some of the victims of "disappearances" at the hands of the Indian military in this contested region. The authorities respond that the bodies are in fact those of militants who have infiltrated from Pakistan. Will an official investigation reveal the truth? Producer: Michael Gallagher.

The world economy has pinned its hopes on China's economy, which depends on over 150 million migrant workers and their labour. The system of internal migration, based on the idea that workers do not settle in the places they work, has sustained an economic miracle and rapid development. But the country has seen a summer of unrest, with rioting among migrants in the Pearl River Delta and angry reactions to the injustices of the system. Mukul Devichand visits Guangzhou, the southern metropolis where 7 million migrants form half the population. There is anger and frustration with the hukou, China's "internal passport." Meanwhile, the city is now also home to communities from around the world, with 100,000 Africans adding to the already sensitive ethnic mix. How will the city change under the pressure of migration, and will its economic success survive the social tensions?

Ed Butler reports on a cycle of abuse in the orphanages of Bali. Some seventy orphanages now populate the island, housing thousands of children, many recruited from poor families, on the promise of a decent diet, education, and healthcare. But in some cases the promises are empty, as unscrupulous owners abuse and exploit the children - using them for free labour over long hours, and forcing them to beg. The most lucrative profits come from well-meaning tourists, who are often convinced by the tough living conditions to give generously - the hope being the money will benefit the children, not the owner. Is such charity actually intensifying the misery of Bali's most vulnerable children?

In 2000, President Robert Mugabe introduced "fast-track land reform" to Zimbabwe in a wave of often violent takeovers of mainly white-owned farms. Led by veterans of the second Chimurenga - the Zimbabwe War of Liberation of the 1960s and 1970s - the takeover was seen internationally as a disaster. It was widely reported that cronyism and corruption meant only the country's politically-connected elite were benefiting from the land reform programme, and in the process were leading Zimbabwe's lucrative agricultural export industry into freefall. But what is the situation a decade on? Martin Plaut travels across Zimbabwe to investigate new research which suggests that farm production levels are recovering. He meets some of Zimbabwe's new black farmers - some of whom took part in the land seizures - who reveal how land reform has transformed their lives. He also examines the fortunes of Zimbabwe's remaining white farmers and the black farm workers they employed and asks if country's wider economy has recovered from the massive disruption caused by land reform. Reporter: Martin Plaut Producer: Richard Fenton-Smith.

The main focus of the violence in the North Caucasus these days is in Dagestan, Chechnya's neighbour. Shoot-outs between police and Islamist militants occur almost daily, and suicide bombings and assassinations have become common. In response, the authorities use what many see as excessive force and the violence spirals still further. In the past two years suicide bombings in the Moscow metro and a Moscow airport have been traced to the region. In Dagestan it's a war that has touched almost every community and family, and one where differences between the opposing sides are apparently irreconcilable. For the authorities, Dagestan is part of Russia and subject to its secular laws; for the militants the region should be a sharia state independent of Moscow. After ten years trying to combat the militants and their appeal, Russian businessman Suleiman Kerimov has hit on a new idea - football. Sports facilities and pitches are being built across this impoverished and deeply conservative Muslim republic, encouraging young boys and men to play on the pitch rather than join the militants in the forest, and girls to watch them instead of withdrawing behind the veil. Dagestan's top club Anzhi Makhachkala has been bought up by the pro-Kremlin Dagestani billionaire and now he is buying world-class footballers, including Samuel Eto'o, currently the highest-paid player on the planet. Lucy Ash asks whether this is just bread and circuses for the masses or whether it is making a real difference in this restive Russian republic. Mr Kerimov is bankrolling many other projects from mosque building to job creation, from a glass factory to a glistening vision of an entirely new city. The reclusive billionaire's representative in Dagestan says he is trying to find an economic solution to one of the poorest and most troubled regions in Russia. The government is also trying a new tactic; it has recently set up a commission to persuade young fighters to lay down their arms and return to a peaceful civilian life. Lucy watches an anti-terrorism policeman lecturing university students in the capital, Makhachkala, on the dangers of radical Islam.But with entrenched corruption, heavy-handed policing and a blatant disregard for law, the Islamic underground shows little sign of retreat. More alarmingly, it looks as if the insurgency is spreading from the north to the traditionally peaceful and secular south of the republic. Lucy visits the village of Sovetskoye where in May this year police beat up dozens of young Salafists. A few months later the head teacher was murdered, allegedly because he'd banned the hijab in class. Can a massive injection of cash really neuter deep-seated pressures for change?

Rupa Jha investigates how local-level campaigners against corruption in India face threats and violence - despite promises that the government will stamp out graft. She tells the stories of two whistleblowers in two different states who faced ferocious intimidation after they tried to challenge powerful individuals on the take. Producer: Ed Butler.

Mukul Devichand goes on the road with young children travelling alone on a journey of desperation, danger and hope - south from Zimbabwe and across the border to South Africa. Producer: Judy Fladmark.

David Shukman reports on the thousands who have become ill from the toxic dust that blanketed Lower Manhattan after the Twin Towers collapsed on Sept 11th. The buildings released a cocktail of deadly carcinogens including, asbestos, lead, mercury and PCBs. Frontline responders such as fire-fighters, police and emergency medical workers breathed in the contamination for several weeks as they toiled at Ground Zero. The fires burned for a hundred days and many of the emergency workers toiled without respirators or proper protection amid the dust and debris. Now officials say more than 18,000 people have received medical treatment in the last 12 months for World Trade Center related conditions - many of them serious. The head of the federal programme overseeing victims compensation says he expects more people to die because of their exposure. Nearly three thousand people perished on the day, but the suffering resulting from the attack is far from over. Producer: Linda Sills.

On the 18th of February 2011 a Palestinian engineer by the name of Dirar Abu Sisi boarded a train in eastern Ukraine. He was travelling to Kiev, where he hoped to apply for Ukrainian citizenship. But when the train arrived at its destination the following morning, Mr Abu Sisi was no longer on board. He had vanished. For more than a week, nothing was heard from Mr Abu Sisi, a manager at Gaza's main power plant. Then his wife got a phone call: her husband was in an Israeli jail. Now he is awaiting trial, accused of being the brains behind Hamas' rocket programme. Only twice in the country's history has Israel abducted someone on foreign soil to bring them back to face trial at home. Adolf Eichmann, one of the principal organizers of the Holocaust, was kidnapped in Argentina in 1960, and subsequently tried and executed. In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu was drugged and smuggled out of Italy after revealing the existence of Israel's nuclear programme. So who is Dirar Abu Sisi? Did he really study rocket science at a Ukrainian military academy, as the Israeli indictment claims? Is he a senior Hamas operative? Or is he an innocent victim of mistaken identity? What role if any did the Ukrainian authorities play in his disappearance from that train? In this edition of Crossing Continents, Gabriel Gatehouse unravels the mystery of Dirar Abu Sisi, tracking his journey across Ukraine and beyond, to Israel and Gaza. It's a story that involves the secret services of at least two nations, and goes to the very heart of the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Producer: Smita Patel.

In December, Ghana turned on the taps and began pumping its first commercial oil. Production will top 100,000 barrels a day this year -- enough the government believes to more than double the country's economic growth. At the centre of this oil rush is the once sleepy city of Takoradi. Already things are starting to change here: new businesses setting up to service the offshore oil industry, an increase in population, and, spiralling expectations. So can Ghana - one of the most stable countries in Africa - escape the curse of violence and corruption that has afflicted other big oil producers on the continent? Rob Walker visits Takoradi to find out, and he'll be returning to observe the transformation of Africa's newest oil city over the coming years. Producer: Katharine Hodgson.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of Central Americans leave home and travel north overland, hoping to make a new life in the United States.This has always been a difficult journey. Now it is perilous. Mexican drug cartels have seen a business opportunity in the migrants: they are being systematically kidnapped en route, and held to ransom. Often they have been killed, and Mexico is currently investigating a number of mass graves.With the Mexican government's hardline military campaign against the cartels, these criminal organisations are moving south. The northern Guatemalan department of Peten - an area through which many migrants cross to Mexico - is vulnerable. On May, 27 farmworkers were killed at a remote farm in Peten. This was apparently revenge for a drug debt, and the killers are believed to be Zetas - the bloodiest Mexican cartel. The Zetas are battling other organised crime groups to take control of Peten. There's a fear that if they succeed, not only will they terrorise the local population, but they will begin to kidnap, extort and murder some of the thousands of migrants moving through - as they do routinely in Mexico. Crossing Continents follows part of the migrants' route - from Peten in Guatemala, to the southern Mexican town of Tenosique. Linda Pressly meets two Hondurans who were lucky to escape with their lives after an encounter with the Zetas. She hears from a Franciscan monk dedicated to protecting migrants. But the story of migration is complex. Not only do the cartels abuse the migrants, they also recruit them. And alongside the hopeful, innocent travellers travelling north, come criminals. In Tenosique, she speaks to a local businessman whose son was kidnapped and killed.

Tim Judah travels to Senegal to report on the Mourides, an increasingly powerful Senegalese Muslim movement that stresses the importance of hard workMany of the African street sellers in cities like Paris or Rome, and on Mediterranean beaches, are in fact Mourides. Far from being chancers who washed up on Europe's shores and now barely scrape a living from selling fake designer handbags or miniature Eiffel towers, they are part of a very organised and supportive brotherhood that now wields great economic and political power in Senegal. Thanks to their strong work ethic and the unparalleled networking opportunities the brotherhood provides, Mourides now dominate many sectors of the economy.They are said to constitute up to 40% of Senegalese Muslims (who make up over 90% of the population.) So not surprisingly, senior politicians, if they are not Mourides anyway, are courting the Mouride vote by going on pilgrimage to the Mouride holy city, Touba, several hours' drive east of the capital. The president of Senegal is a Mouride, as is the man who is probably the most famous Senegalese of all: singer Youssou N'Dour, who tells Tim why his Mouridism matters to him, and why it could be a way forward for Africa. So who are the Mourides? What do they believe and what matters to them? Tim travels to Dakar and the fabled holy city of Touba to find out. Producer: Arlene Gregorius.

Lucy Williamson reports from Seoul on the dangerous trade of the people brokers, smuggling desperate people out of North Korea to the safety of the South. She investigates the way the South Korean government tries to integrate refugees from the North into their own modern, open society - and the challenges this creates for people who have only known poverty and extreme political repression.

Crossing Continents joins a British doctor volunteering to help women and children stranded in Tunisian refugee camps while the men fight Gaddafi's forces in the mountains south of Tripoli. Producer: Bill Law.

The BBC's Kim Ghattas has gained exclusive, behind the scenes access to the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during one of her recent overseas visits. Code named "Special Air Mission 883", the trip took eight days, covered thirty thousand miles and touched down in four countries in the Middle East and Africa.Kim joins what is affectionately known as "the bubble", the travelling band of diplomatic staffers, special security detail, international press and handlers that accompany the Secretary, or "S" as she is known, on the trip. We share their thoughts and hopes, priorities and frustrations as Hillary Clinton pursues United States foreign policy goals. There are meetings of high diplomacy with kings and rulers as well as more grass roots events like the promotion of democracy and good governance at an African womens collective.A surprisingly intimate portrait of the Secretary and her closest aides. Producer: Jane Beresford.

Early-onset Alzheimer's has stalked a poor extended family in Medellin, Colombia. The family carries a dominant gene that means that half are at risk. The disease strikes family members as young as 25 and by their 40s sufferers are in the grip of full-blown dementia. Alzheimer's is by and large a disease of the developed world, if for no other reason than that people in the developing world don't live long enough to suffer from it. Now by using the Colombian family to trial new drugs, researchers say they may be on the road to a global cure for Alzheimer's. Bill Law asks if this represents an unfair exploitation of desperate people - many of them barely literate - to benefit those in the West? Or is it a case of bringing hope to those in a hopeless situation? Producer: Natalie Morton.

Following the discovery that Osama Bin Laden was living close to the heart of Pakistan's military establishment in Abbotabad, Owen Bennett-Jones investigates the ties between elements of Pakistan's army, intelligence and government with jihadi and Taleban forces. Producer: Rebecca Kesby.

In South Africa a mining company whose owners include the grandson of Nelson Mandela and the nephew of President Jacob Zuma has left thousands of its employees without work and, they claim, without pay.Back in 2009 the company, Aurora Empowerment Systems, bid R605 million (£55 million) to take over two gold mines on the outskirts of Johannesburg, despite having no experience in mining industry. Aurora promised steady jobs, housing and bursaries for miners' children. The reality has been poverty, despair and even suicide, and mining unions claim the company still owes workers around R12 million in unpaid wages (£1.1 million). Aurora denies this, and says they have paid 80 per cent of the outstanding salaries. Martin Plaut travels to South Africa and sees first hand the personal despair of the affected mine workers, and learns how the Aurora debacle has created a schism between the ruling ANC party and the working-class black South African voters, who feel the country's political elite no longer care about their plight. Producer: Richard Fenton-Smith.

Lucy Ash revisits some of the significant stories covered in recent years and discovers what has changed since our initial reports. In some instances, there have been attempts to bring suspects to justice. In 2009 Crossing Continents uncovered disturbing evidence of alleged atrocities by the Kosovo Liberation Army during the Kosovo War ten years ago. Since then a trial has opened in the capital Pristina and two former KLA leaders are being prosecuted for war crimes. The case began in March 2011, just a few months after Dick Marty, Special Rapporteur of the Council of Europe, released an explosive report claiming that the KLA summarily executed prisoners and harvested their kidneys to sell for organ transplants. Also in 2009 Crossing Continents looked at claims that Rwandans in France and Germany were controlling a deadly African militia in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Reporter Peter Greste tracked down Callixte Mbarushimana to a Paris cafe. The elegantly dressed rebel Hutu leader flatly denied his group was responsible for attacks against civilians. But then, last October, Mbarushimana was arrested and sent to the International Criminal Court in the the Hague accused of 11 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including rape and murder. Bereaved families and victims in Congo have long complained about a climate of impunity - could that be about to change? There appears to be a disheartening lack of change in Turkmenistan. Lucy Ash travelled there undercover in 2005 to find out what ordinary life was like for the citizens of one of the world's most repressive dictatorships. Despite the gold and marble clad buildings in the capital Ashgabat, she found people deprived not only of all rights and freedoms, but also of basic necessities such as healthcare. At that time the country was ruled by a man who renamed the month of April after his mother, outlawed ballet and banned gold teeth. The current president, ex dentist Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov is less flamboyant but his promised reforms have failed to materialise. Doctors Without Borders, the last international nongovernmental organisation operating in the country recently left because the government refused to allow a programme to treat drug-resistant tuberculosis. This special edition also catches up with an American policeman who created a cult following for his "Street Story" podcasts, vivid vignettes of his work for the Tulsa Police Department. And now that India has decriminalised homosexuality, what has happened to the Gay Prince of Rajpipla, once shunned by his family and his community?

David Goldblatt looks at whether Berlin's alternative culture is under threat from commercial pressures. Or do developers and artists need each other to exist?Berlin has long been a magnet for artists from within Germany and abroad. After the wall fell in 1989 they flooded into the vast deserted buildings left in the Mitte area of the former East of the city. But over the last few years developers have been moving into this increasingly fashionable area, increasing rents and evicting squatted buildings.Today the right and left banks of the Spree river, the district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, has become home to underground clubs and artists studios. But developers are increasing their grip on this area too. A few years ago they joined together to create an consortium called "MediaSpree" with the aim of turning the East bank of the Spree into a media hub. Universal Studios and MTV were two of the first companies to locate themselves in the converted warehouses of a deserted port in 'no man's land' where the border wall once ran. They were attracted, in part, by the alternative vibe of the area. But now increasing rents in this area are pushing artists and original residents out - and with them the clubs and galleries that attracted the media businesses in the first place. Will developers and the alternative culture find a way to co-exist? Producer: Jane Beresford.

Three years ago Bill Law travelled to Egypt for Crossing Continents to meet five extraordinary women who were fighting for human rights and equal pay for women in Egypt. For this programme, Bill returns to Egypt to tell the story of the unfolding revolution through the eyes of those very same five women. Their stories are a unique insight into how the revolution came about and raise questions about its future. Producer: Daniel Tetlow.

The Ecuadorian Amazon region is one of the most bio-diverse on the planet. In one area, nearly 600 bird species, 80 kinds of bat and 150 varieties of amphibian have been recorded. And it's possible that the density of one of the rarest wild cats, the jaguar, is twice as high as anywhere else in the world. This is also home to two of the last uncontacted groups of indigenous people in the world, who choose to live undisturbed in voluntary isolation. But beneath the rich tropical soil lies another treasure - nearly a billion barrels of untapped oil, 20% of this Latin American nation's reserves. Ecuador has calculated that if it were to exploit this petroleum, it would make over $7 billion. That is a significant sum of money for a relatively poor nation. But instead, the government has a radical plan: if the international community will compensate Ecuador for half of the loss of revenue, the government will pledge to protect this unique environment and keep the drillers out. With the funds raised, Ecuador will invest in social projects and non-carbon forms of energy, and aims to create a global template for other poor equatorial countries with oil. This is what's known as Plan A in Ecuador, and President Correa has set a deadline of the end of 2011 to collect the first US $100 million. If donors don't materialise, he has always said he will implement Plan B - to begin the process of extracting crude from this particular oil block, known as Yasuni-ITT. For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly travels deep into the rainforest to find out what is at stake. She visits a community of Haorani indigenous people who have a history of resisting - often violently - the encroachment of oil companies in the Amazon. And with the recent court judgement against the US oil giant Chevron - who took over Texaco - and a resulting hefty fine of over US$8 billion for pollution, she traces the often dirty history of oil exploitation in Ecuador. But how realistic is the Yasuni-ITT initiative? Ecuador's economy is dependent on oil exports. Technology too has moved on, and an oil investor and analyst tells Crossing Continents that not only has the industry learnt some lessons, but also that it is now possible to extract oil from the pristine forest with minimal damage to the ecosystems. So far it seems the Ecuadorean people support Plan A. But although international donors have shown moral backing for the government's idea to save the rainforest, this hasn't been matched by contributions to the fund. And with less than half the $100 million pledged, the clock is ticking for one of the world's most unique and precious habitats. Producer: Emil Petrie.

Anna Cavell investigates the human trafficking of Ugandan women to Iraq. They were lured there by promises of well-paid jobs - but instead found themselves effectively in slavery, beaten and in some cases raped. She hears the story of how a Ugandan security contractor and an American officer together organised a courageous freelance raid which freed nine of the women. And she discovers that despite the rescue, the practice appears to be continuing. Producer: Natalie Morton.

Gabriel Gatehouse hears the extraordinary tales of the people coming into and out of Iraq - and paints a portrait of a still troubled country through its international gateway.It's not been the safest of places: one worker describes seeing a car bomb attack on the airport road and you still need to pass through five checkpoints to enter the terminal. Gabriel meets the people entering the country - like British and Ugandan security men, and pilgrims from Iran, bound for Iraq's Shia holy sites. There are the people leaving Iraq, including a Christian family who fear for their lives if they stay. And then there are the people who live in the airport compound - like the American air traffic controller who never leaves, except to return home on holiday.Producer: Becky Lipscombe.

The paddy fields of impoverished Cambodia have suddenly become a prime slice of global real estate. But will the rural poor pay the price? This tiny Asian nation has just begun to recover after dictator Pol Pot's reign of terror, in which around 2 million Cambodians died, and the brutal civil war that followed. But now a very different story is unfolding in the agricultural heartland which once became notorious as the "killing fields." In a world plagued by food shortages, Cambodia is suddenly awash with global investors keen to snap up its cheap fertile land. The global financial elite see it as a recession-proof investment, and the government is desperate to invite in money and development. But it's driving a surreal land boom in the poorest villages: an estimated 15% of the country is now leased to private developers and stories are filtering in from the country's most impoverished farmers who tell of fear, violence and intimidation as private companies team up with armed police to force them from their land. In this week's Crossing Continents, Mukul Devichand samples the heady atmosphere of Cambodia's business elite, uncovers a lawless reality and investigates the claims of corruption and violence visited on the poor. He tells the stories of three very different men, Cambodian and foreign, who have very different plans for Cambodia's land: and asks what's really happening as one of rising Asia's poorest nations struggles to catch up. Producer: Jo Mathys.

It's estimated that nearly one million Indians with conditions like cancer die in acute, unnecessary pain because of the lack of palliative care. Restrictions on morphine prescription are being lifted, but too slowly. One of the most sophisticated systems of palliative care in the developing world has been established in the Indian state of Kerala. The grassroots movement to create a much-valued and effective palliative care system in Kerala has been called a silent revolution. Every week, thousands of volunteers across the state give up their time to go and tend to those who are dying. They may cook food, help with chores, or simply provide a listening ear. Hundreds of thousands more people in Kerala belong to Palliative Care Societies. They donate money regularly - even just a few rupees - to help support this kind of outreach. The hope is that people will not die alone, and in pain, without any support.Linda Pressly travels to Kerala, which has more palliative care centres than the rest of the country put together, and ask whether this is a model to treat the dying that could be rolled out in other nations, as well as other parts of India.

Corruption in Syria is commonplace. You can see it almost everywhere you go: from a small tip for a government worker to process paperwork, to customs officials requiring payments to allow goods into the country. The single-party government says it's stamping out corruption and that it's determined not to let it stand in the way of the country's economic development. But with economic reforms opening Syria up to foreign investment, it's claimed corruption is getting worse. And those who raise the issue in public can find themselves thrown in jail. The BBC's Damascus correspondent Lina Sinjab investigates the impact of corruption and bribery in the country, and looks at whether Syria's drive to modernise is being hampered by the millions of dollars lost in graft.Producer: Duncan Crawford.

It is called "Laamb" or "La Lutte Sénégalaise". Originating in the countryside as a test of strength for farmers and fishermen, Senegalese wresting moved to the city with the migrants. It took on punching to become "La Lutte avec frappe". It involves special charms, singers, drummers and excited crowds, with the champions now earning huge amounts of money. In Crossing Continents David Goldblatt examines how wrestling has become Senegal's most popular sport, deposing even football. Producer: John Murphy.

Bahrain projects itself towards the world as an Arab state that is open to investment, progressive about change and moving confidently toward democracy. But there is another Bahrain where dissent is suppressed and critics jailed. It is a country where allegations are rife that political prisoners are routinely tortured. Bill Law investigates both sides of the Bahrain story and asks what lies behind the apparently heavy-handed repression of those who criticize the ruling al Khalifa family Producer: Caroline Pare.

Rosie Goldsmith profiles Nichi Vendola, the governor of Puglia and the hope for the Italian left. Can this gay, Catholic poet and environmentalist challenge Silvio Berlusconi? Producer: Helen Grady.

The Christmas tree industry is worth almost a billion pounds a year in Europe alone. Most of the ones around us now, covered in baubles and tinsel didn't start life in the UK or even Scandinavia, but in one small village, in the mountains of Georgia close to the border with Russia. Angus Crawford travels to the small town of Ambrolauri in the shadow of the Caucasus mountains. There men risk their lives climbing the big firs to harvest the seeds of Abies Nordmanniana, the Nordman pine. More than forty million are sold in Europe every year. The harvesters are paid little and many are given no safety equipment. If they fall they may be injured or killed. The pine cones they gather are sold abroad and it's foreign companies that make profits from growing and selling the crop. Meanwhile Georgia's villages are dying. Families can't make enough money from farming and move away. Most of those who remain have to live on less than three pounds a day. But things are changing. One Danish firm is working with local people to put more of the profits from the business back into their hands. They pay their workers above the market rate, process the seed locally and for every tree sold abroad money is sent back for development projects. There's talk of starting nurseries near Ambrolauri to feed growing markets in Eastern Europe and bring more foreign capital into the country. Money that Georgia desperately needs. Its economy is still only 60% of what it was in Soviet times, and it now imports eighty per cent of its food. The rusting hulks of abandoned factories litter the countryside. But now some Georgians are asking if the pine cone trade can provide a model of how to breathe new life into their country's crumbling economy.

Russia's police are out of control. They are often referred to as "werewolves in epaulettes" because so many officers prey on the public rather than protect them. Even Prime Minister Vladimir Putin complains about the lawlessness of the country's law enforcers. He once said upstanding citizens cross to the other side of the street as soon as they see a man in uniform. The crimes police commit range from bribe taking to kidnapping, drug trafficking, torture and murder. This brutality is accompanied by corruption. Illegal raids of businesses by police are commonplace as well as the subsequent jailing of their owners on false charges. Victims of police abuse are often helpless in a system of cover-ups long established in the law enforcement forces. Earlier this year, a group of six young men in Primorye, the remote Maritime region of Russia's Far East, decided to fight back. They declared a guerrilla war against the police with the sole purpose of killing as many cops as they could. Their attacks have included shooting of traffic policemen on roads, raiding a village police station and stabbing to death the officer on duty. Bare-chested and brandishing pistols, the 'Primorsky Partisans' posted videos on the internet to explain the motives behind their actions. This summer the gang's exploits gripped the Russian public's imagination. Many people in the Far East and beyond supported them: a poll on Ekho Moskvy radio indicated that 60-75 percent of listeners sympathised with the "young Robin Hoods" and would offer them help. In June the authorities launched a manhunt with tanks and helicopters. Eventually two members of the group died in a shoot-out with police while the rest were captured and are now behind bars awaiting trial. The local government of the Maritime Region is jittery about the case and is reluctant to comment. Local police and the prosecutor's office dismiss them as gangsters. Lucy Ash visits Kirovskiy, the home village of the young men, to investigate what drove the men to act in such an extreme way. Producer: Ibrat Jumaboyev.

Millions of people die on our roads each year. Hundreds of children are killed as they try to get to school each day. Road deaths threaten to overtake malaria and HIV in how many lives they take around the world, particularly in poorer countries. Sheena McDonald visits some of the world's most dangerous roads in Kenya and Costa Rica to find out why the death toll in developing countries is rising, when the solutions to road accidents are so simple. Kenya's poor record improves and then falls again as new transport ministers come and go; while Costa Rica struggles to implement the road safety plan it so confidently launched over 5 years ago. When there's not much money, should reducing road deaths be a priority? The Millennium Development Goals push countries to work hard to improve the mortality rates for children under 5, but there are no goals to stop those same children being knocked down when they start school. Sheena McDonald, who was nearly killed by a speeding police car just over 10 years ago, visits accident blackspots, meets victims and people campaigning for better road safety and challenges those in power who don't believe it's important enough. Producer: Kirsten Lass.

This year's Commonwealth Games will be held in October in the Indian capital Delhi, the largest sporting event ever to be held there. No expense is being spared to build the appropriate facilities and infrastructure. But many are questioning whether spending billions of dollars hosting a two-week sporting event is the best use of resources in a city where poverty is entrenched. As the budget for the games spirals, the organisers are being accused of hiding the true cost, and of diverting funds intended for the very poorest. They're also accused of condoning the displacement of thousands of poor families and a blatant disregard of the rights of the workers building the stadiums. Rupa Jha asks who are the winners and who the losers in Delhi's attempt to turn itself into a "world-class" city. Producer: Tim Mansel.

Christopher Landau explores the explosive growth of christianity in China, with millions flocking to the official Protestant and Catholic churches. The country has the world's largest bible printing press while some factories are run on Christian principles. Why has the Communist state, which is formally atheist, endorsed this transition? There is official interest in the idea of a "Protestant work ethic" aiding the country's economy while some branches of government hope that the church's social services will help care for an ageing population. Producer: Caroline Finnigan.