Stephen Sackur looks back at some of HARDtalk’s most impactful and thought-provoking interviews of 2023.

HARDtalk: 2023 in review

A window into our world. Original BBC documentary storytelling, bringing award-winning journalism, unheard voices, amazing culture and “unputdownable” audio. New episodes every week from The Documentary, Assignment, Heart and Soul, In the Studio, BBC OS Conversations and The Fifth Floor.

New Caledonia is an island archipelago in the south Pacific. It has an incredible diversity of birds and plants. Its history includes a period serving as a 19th century penal colony for the French colonisers and being an allied naval base during World War Two. An agreement signed 26 years ago about how the islands are run is expiring. But talks to make a new one are bogged down, as the opposing sides - French settlers and indigenous Kanak - both demand their rights. For Assignment, Peter Hadfield has been to New Caledonia to see if a new deal can be made.

Assignment: New Caledonia - new agreement needed

Public swimming pools are more than just concrete and water. Often, they are the heart of a community, a place to exercise, to meet people and connect. Paralympic gold medallist Ellie Simmonds explores what it takes to design and build a swimming pool, and asks why they are so important in a post-pandemic era. She joins award-winning Dutch architects VenhoevenCS as they sign off their biggest project to date - the aquatic centre for Paris 2024. Their lead architects talk us through their plans for the new pool, looking at sustainability, accessibility and safety. She also hears from British architect, author and swimming advocate Chris Romer Lee about the importance of public pools, and why he thinks more of us should be getting into the water.

In the Studio: Ellie Simmonds

During El Salvador’s brutal civil war hundreds of children were separated from their families. Some were seized by soldiers during military operations against left-wing rebels, and later found living with new families in Europe and North America. Others were given up for adoption by mothers forced into poverty or displaced by the conflict. Three decades on some of those adopted are trying to piece together their lives and find their birth relatives. Former BBC correspondent in Central America, Mike Lanchin, follows their dramatic stories. Mike meets Jazmin who was raised in France and two sisters who managed to locate the son of one of their younger siblings and Flor who has long struggled to understand why her birth mother gave her up.

El Salvador's missing children

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. It’s a period of prayer, celebrations and community gatherings and Muslims worldwide observe it by fasting from dawn to sunset. As this year’s Ramadan draws to a close, Faranak Amidi is joined by three BBC World Service colleagues who share their personal experiences and the stories that made headlines in their countries during this year’s celebrations.Asif Farooqi, Aalia Farzan and Deena Easa have been looking at how conflict, natural disasters and the cost-of-living crisis are impacting people in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Gaza. Plus... Ramadan cricket, why do people want to get married during the Holy Month, and the TV series that everyone’s talking about.Produced by Alice Gioia and Caroline Ferguson(Image: Presenter Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich)

The Fifth Floor: My Ramadan

The world was shocked to hear the news that the Princess of Wales is being treated for cancer. In her video message, Catherine encouraged everyone facing the disease not to lose hope. Presenter James Reynolds, speaks to young women around the world who talk candidly about their diagnosis; how it has affected them, their families and their approach to the future, particularly when their news came as young adults. According to research from the World Health Organisation, one in five people will develop cancer in their lifetime. Two young mothers talk about the challenge of explaining a diagnosis of cancer to their children.

BBC OS Conversations: Living with cancer

As India completes 10 years of being governed by the Hindu nationalist BJP, Divya Arya explores the divergent political and religious views of different castes in modern day India. Despite government-led programmes to increase job opportunities and reduced caste based discrimination, inequalities still exist particularly in smaller towns and villages. Divya meets a young Brahman influencer who makes reels about her caste pride, a man from the lower Dalit caste who has moved away from Hinduism and another Dalit man who has joined an organisation with close links to the ruling BJP.

Heart and Soul: The caste faultlines in Modi’s India

Imagine for a moment what it would be like to live in darkness underground for 80 days, while bombs and missile strikes rain down from above and rations are so tight you can only eat once a day. Next, imagine having to choose between feeding yourself and feeding your baby. This was the reality for those trapped in Azovstal steelworks in the Spring of 2022 while Russian military continued their assault. Every day was a gamble with death. Senior journalist for the BBC's Ukraine Service, Diana Kuryshko, meets the Ukrainian citizens and soldiers who survived to tell the tale.

Azovstal: The 80 day siege

Nobel Prize-winning scientist Venki Ramakrishnan considers both why we might live longer, and the dilemmas this raises. In the last few years, medical advances have led to treatments that really do offer the potential to tackle life-threatening cancers and debilitating diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. In discussion with Nuala McGovern, Venki also explores the questions such treatments raise. Initially, they will be expensive, and we already have a global society in which there is a direct link between life expectancy and affluence; will access to these treatments, or lack of it, increase that disparity? 
And although your incurable disease may now be cured, what about the rest of your quality of life? Can the planet support an increasingly needy older and older generation? Does trying to live longer become a selfish act?Nobel Prize-winning molecular biologist Venki Ramakrishnan heads a research group at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England.This is the first in a series of four programmes from the Oxford Literary Festival, presented by Nuala McGovern and produced by Julian Siddle.Recorded in front of an audience at Worcester College, Oxford.

Forward Thinking: Is it ethical to live longer?

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.

Assignment: Secret Sisters. Political prisoners in Belarus

Maria Grachvogel’s design have been worn by many famous names including actors Emma Thompson and Angelina Jolie, as well as Spice Girl and now designer Victoria Beckham. As she celebrates 30 years in the fashion business, the BBC’s Rachel Royce follows Maria as she creates her new collection for her autumn-winter season 2024. From design sketches and colour palettes, to draping fabric over mannequins, Maria then always tries the garments on herself and her team before finalising every piece.

In the Studio: Maria Grachvogel

A bonus episode from the Lives Less Ordinary podcast. The Jordanian coach who started a refugee kids’ football team in the US after being rejected by her own family. For more extraordinary personal stories from around the world, go to bbcworldservice.com/liveslessordinary or search for Live Less Ordinary wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
 
Presenter: Jo Fidgen
Producer: Helen Fitzhenry

Bonus: Lives Less Ordinary

A bonus episode from the Global Jigsaw podcast.Who is behind the Crocus City Hall attack? Within an hour of last week’s deadly attack on a concert hall outside Moscow, a campaign was gathering momentum to blame Kyiv for the atrocity while a parallel storyline claimed it was a Russian false flag operation. We track the blame game: the narratives and the counter-narratives underpinned by generous doses of disinformation.
Producer: Kriszta Satori
Presenter: Krassi Twigg
For more, search for The Global Jigsaw wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Bonus: The Global Jigsaw: Moscow attack: disinfo wars

BBC OS producer Kristina Völk has been following the lives of several people in Gaza since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war in October last year. They have been in contact with her via voice messages, text updates or chats whenever they are able. Kristina shares the experiences across a timeline of six months of four women: Batool, Sanabel, Aseel and Layan. Kristina guides us through the messages that give a sense of the resilience, fear, strength and despair experienced under the bombardments of war.

BBC OS Conversations: Messages from Gaza

The Eudist Servants of the Eleventh Hour is a Catholic order of nuns made up of mature women called to a religious life in their later years. It was founded by Mother Antonia Brenner – a twice-divorced, former Hollywood socialite and mother of seven, who ministered to the incarcerated for three decades in the notorious La Mesa prison in Tijuana, Mexico. At first the Catholic Church declined to support Mother Antonia – indeed, as a divorcee, she was unable to take Holy Communion herself for many years. Then Pope John Paul II gave her his blessing, and Mother Antonia began the process of forming a religious community. The order was founded in 1997. Mother Antonia died in 2013. But her work continues on both sides of the US/Mexico border through women who have vowed to dedicate the remainder of their time on earth – in the eleventh hour of their lives – to uplifting the poor. For these nuns it’s a kind of ‘encore’ dedicated to Jesus Christ. So, who are the women in their 50s and 60s who leave their often comfortable and privileged lives behind to minister in La Mesa prison and work with people who find themselves at the bottom of everyone’s pile? [Photo Credit: Sister Viola, one of the Eudist Sisters of the Eleventh Hour, in the women’s section of La Mesa prison in Tijuana, Mexico. The sisters visit the prisoners every day to pray with them and provide spiritual support. They also bring toiletries and treats.Photo by Tim ManselProducer/ Presenter: Linda Pressly
Producer: Tim Mansel
Producer in Mexico: Ulises Escamilla
Series Producer: Rajeev Gupta
Production Coordinator: Mica Nepomuceno
Sound:Tanzy Leitner

Heart and Soul: An ‘Encore’ for Jesus

A bonus episode from HARDtalk, in-depth, hard-hitting interviews with newsworthy personalities. 
Stephen Sackur is on the road in Guyana, South America, home to globally significant ecosystems and now one of the world's biggest offshore oil and gas reserves. As Guyana experiences record economic growth, will its people feel the benefit?

Bonus: HARDtalk

For a period earlier this month, the historic city of Chiang Mai in northern Thailand had the worst air of any city in the world.The city gained the same unwanted accolade last year. The practice of agricultural burning in the hills around Chiang Mai renders the air so toxic from February to April that it becomes unsafe to breathe. Respiratory problems and allergies caused by PM2.5, a type of pollution, led to more than 12,000 people being admitted to hospital in 2023.The bad air affects everyone, including the young and physically fit. In December 2023, Krittai Tanasombatkul, a 29-year-old doctor and basketball fanatic, succumbed to lung cancer. Like 40% of people with the disease in the city, he was not a smoker.

Assignment: Choking in Chiang Mai

Victoria Uwonkunda makes an emotional journey back to Rwanda, where she grew up. It is the first time she has visited since the age of 12, when she fled the 1994 genocide with her family. Victoria retraces her journey to safety out of the capital Kigali, to the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. Along the way she speaks to survivors of the violence – both victims and perpetrators - to find out how the country is healing, through reconciliation and forgiveness. Victoria meets Evariste and Narcisse, who work together on a reconciliation project called Cows for Peace. Evariste killed Narcisse’s mother during the 1994 genocide. And she meets Claudette, who suffered unimaginable horrors at the hands of a man, Jean Claude, sitting next to her as she tells her story.

Rwanda 30 years on

A bonus episode from the Amazing Sport Stories podcast - The Black 14. Sport, racism and protests are about to change the lives of “the Black 14” American footballers. It’s 1969 in the United States. They’ve arrived on scholarships at the University of Wyoming to play for its Cowboys American football team. It was a predominantly white college. The team is treated like a second religion. Then, the players make a decision to take a stand against racism in a game against another university. This is episode one of a four-part season from the Amazing Sport Stories podcast. Content warning: This episode contains lived experiences which involve the use of strong racist language

Bonus: The Black 14

Michael Volle is a baritone singer who has made his name with magisterial operatic performances, particularly Wagner. Helmut Deutsch has been playing the piano alongside the great and the good of the classical world for five decades, including the soprano Ileana Cotrubas and the tenor Jonas Kaufmann. Performing the 24-song cycle that Franz Schubert wrote at the end of his short life, Die Winterreise, or the Winter’s Journey, is considered the pinnacle of the recital repertoire, even for such accomplished musicians. The trust between singer and pianist must be absolute, because the two performers are, in Volle’s words, “naked and pure on stage”. Deutsch and Volle have a 20-year friendship and working partnership to build on, a musical connection that brings them together to perform this “summit” of singing over and over again. Yet their next performance will be something out of the ordinary. They are undertaking a staged performance at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, in Barcelona. The musicians will be joined by actresses on the stage, photographs accompanying the music, and newly developed poems interspersed between songs. How will the staging affect the relationship between singer and pianist, and how will it impact the music? Writer and journalist Lluís Amiguet joins rehearsals in Barcelona to find out. Image: Helmut Deutsch (Credit: Kartal Karagedik) and Michael Volle (Credit: David Ruano)

In the Studio: Helmut Deutsch and Michael Volle - Staging Winterreise

A bonus episode from The Global Story podcast. Rare access inside Sudan's forgotten war. The Global Story brings you one big story every weekday, making sense of the news with our experts around the world. Insights you can trust, from the BBC, with Katya Adler. For more, go to bbcworldservice.com/globalstory or search for The Global Story wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Bonus: The Global Story

Bjarke Ingels is the Danish architect who is responsible for creating the flood defence project for Manhattan. In 2012 Hurricane Sandy saw flood water rise up to 2.4 metres. Lives were lost, the city’s transportation system was brought to a stand-still and the New York Stock exchange was closed for two days. As a child, Bjarke wanted to draw comic books and walk on roofs and the buildings that he’s designed include a power station with a ski slope. How can he build his sense of fun and creativity into vital protection against climate change? 
Razia Iqbal meets Bjarke for The Cultural Frontline on the BBC World Service.

The Cultural Frontline: Bjarke Ingels

Long lines of tractors have become an increasingly common site in recent months on the streets of many European cities. In Poland, farmers blocked roads this week in protest at rising costs and competition from cheaper imports from Ukraine. Farmers have also been protesting in the UK, Hungary, Belgium, Spain, Greece and Italy on a range of issues from fuel prices to new environment rules. To understand the challenges farmers are facing – but also get an insight into their lives, we speak to farmers in the UK, France and an aspiring farmer in Germany who share their experiences. We also bring together three farmers in India. With a forthcoming national election, thousands recently marched – once again – on the capital Delhi. They tell us why they farm and share with us their emotional connection to the land.

BBC OS Conversations: Protesting farmers

Next Year will mark 50 years since the start of a seven-year violent military dictatorship in Argentina. During this period, many who opposed the fascist regime were detained, kidnapped, tortured – and in some cases they disappeared never to be seen again. The Catholic church has always been very powerful in Argentina, and closely linked to the state. While some in the church were victims themselves, the hierarchy of the Church has been accused of playing a role in the dictatorship. At best, it has faced allegations of knowing what was going on and not doing enough to stop it. At worst, it has faced allegations of being actively complicit in some of the abuse the military was perpetrating. A group of mothers and grandmothers during this period set up a campaign to try and find their missing children. The ‘Madres’ and ‘Abuelas’ of Plaza de Mayo movement started on a pilgrimage in 1977, where the women wore the white cloth of their missing children’s diapers on their heads to identify themselves. Today, many of them are still looking for their children, and still identifiable by the white headscarves they wear to campaign each week. In this episode of Heart and Soul, the BBC’s Ione Wells and Jessica Cruz travel to Argentina to speak to some of the victims of the dictatorship. These include people who were kidnapped, detained and in some cases tortured themselves – sometimes in the presence of Church officials. And one of the ‘Madres’, aged 93, who still hopes to find her missing son before she dies. How did this affect their relationship with the Church? And how did witnessing atrocities like this impact their faith? Presenter: Ione Wells Producer: Jessica Cruz / Ione Wells Researcher: Emma Smith Series Producer: Rajeev Gupta

Heart and Soul: How the Church’s role in Argentina’s dictatorship shook the nation’s faith

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 Border Stories, 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.

Assignment: Border Stories, part 2 - Coyotes and Kidnap

The Philippines is one of the most at risk countries in the world from the effects of climate change, with typhoons becoming more severe. At the same time, it has some of the most expensive energy in Southeast Asia. The country currently relies heavily on imported coal. But a recent report by the NGO Climate Analytics found that, by 2050, the Philippines could get its energy entirely from renewable sources. In this episode Hannah Gelbart is joined by three Filipinos - a journalist, an activist and an engineer - to talk about the future of energy in the Philippines. Jhesset Enano, Mitzi Jonelle Tan and Joshua Miguel Lopez also discuss the importance of protecting indigenous communities, and they share examples of how localised solar panels have helped power rural communities.
 
This programme was recorded in Manila, in the Philippines, and is an extended version of the What in the World podcast – a daily podcast which explain what in the world is going on.
 
Producers: Mora Morrison and Emily Horler

Bonus: What in the World

In 2020, the people of Portland, Oregon - a famed city of progressives and counterculture - voted to pass Measure 110, the USA’s boldest drug policy reform yet. It came after years of campaigning, and was aimed at inverting the thinking of the war on drugs.Measure 110 decriminalised possession of all illicit substances, including heroin, methamphetamine and oxycodone. The campaigners accurately predicted that the new law would ease tensions around racial disparities within policing, but it also coincided with the spread of the deadly and addictive drug fentanyl, and a tidal wave of homelessness. Fentanyl is up to 50 times stronger than heroin, and is now the drug of choice for nearly all heroin users. It’s also more deadly - activists and the police now regularly carry the opioid-blocking drug Narcan to treat people overdosing on the streets. Homelessness also continues to rise as the cheap and available fentanyl spreads, creating an epidemic on two fronts.Local journalist Winston Ross explores the complex issues behind Portland’s fentanyl crisis, speaking across the political divide and to many of those in the eye of the storm.

A reckoning with drugs in Oregon

A story of humanity in the face of inhumanity.It starts with women from Malawi who travel to Oman in the hope of improving their lives. Instead, they find themselves trapped in servitude as domestic workers. BBC Africa Eye has spent months uncovering evidence of physical and sexual abuse through voice notes, videos, and texts. But as reporter Florence Phiri reveals, there’s a network of women working across continents, fighting to try to bring them home. Warning: Some people may find details in this story distressing.Presenter: Florence Phiri
Producers: Nicky Milne and Rob Wilson
Editors: Tom Watson and Rebecca Henschke 
Sound engineer: Rod Farquhar

Trapped in Oman

Irish author Colm Tóibín is among the world’s most celebrated contemporary writers. His works includes novels such as Nora Webster and The Blackwater Lightship, but also journalism, criticism, drama and more. His book Brooklyn was adapted into an Oscar-nominated film starring Saoirse Ronan, and his writing has been translated into over 30 languages. Alongside the release of his debut collection of poems, Vinegar Hill, Colm gives fellow Irish writer Helen Cullen an insight into how he works, taking her through his writing process, how he gathers his ideas and his approach to refining his work.

In the Studio: Colm Tóibín

A bonus episode from The Global Story podcast. Panama Canal: It's running dry and it's going to cost us. The Global Story brings you one big story every weekday, making sense of the news with our experts around the world. Insights you can trust, from the BBC, with Katya Adler. For more, go to bbcworldservice.com/globalstory or search for The Global Story wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Haiti is facing its most most acute humanitarian crisis for more than a decade. There’s been a surge in violence with armed gangs in control of most of the capital. The prime minister has resigned, there’s a month long state of emergency and a curfew has been extended. The gangs have destroyed police buildings and, after storming a prison in the capital Port-au-Prince, thousands of escaped prisoners are back on the streets. Hosted by Lukwesa Burak and Luke Jones, they hear from Haitians caught up in this latest violence

BBC OS Conversations: Haiti gangs and stray bullets

They are the top questions asked to anyone who is fasting for Ramadan: no food or water? But what is Ramadan? Why Fast? And how do young Muslims manage Ramadan in their respective lives and work? Former teacher turned journalist Mehreen Baig goes in search of the answers by speaking to Muslims from different cultural backgrounds. She explores all aspects of fasting like abstaining from food, sex, music and of course…water.this edition was first published in 2022

Heart and Soul: Not even water?

In 2018 the US government under President Trump introduced a policy of “Zero Tolerance” at its border with Mexico. Anyone attempting to enter the US without documentation would be prosecuted, even if it was a first offence. If they were travelling with children, their children would be taken from them. The policy was cancelled within weeks but not before thousands of families had been separated. Six years on, several hundred are still to be reunited.
 
Migration is perhaps the most important battleground in this year’s presidential election. Both President Biden and his challenger, Donald Trump, have made recent visits to the border. And Zero Tolerance still resonates.Linda Pressly hears about the pain of separation as experienced by a man from Guatemala; speaks to the people still trying to put families back together; and asks if a new administration might turn again to Zero Tolerance in an attempt to deter would-be migrants to the United States.

Assignment: Border Stories, part one - Zero Tolerance

It is hard to believe but the world is running out of sand. Our insatiable appetite for the substance that makes everything from skyscrapers to smartphones has led to environmental destruction in countries like Cambodia, where there has been a long history of illegal sand mining along the Mekong river. We are in the rapidly developing city of Phnom Penh to hear from the people whose lives and livelihoods have been threatened by the struggle for sand. Those who have fished the river for decades are finding that their nets are empty as the sand miners move in. People living alongside the Mekong have seen their houses crumble into the water as the riverbanks collapse.

Running out of sand

A bonus episode from Lives Less Ordinary podcast. Miracle on the ocean floor. Have you ever locked eyes with a stranger and wondered, "What’s their story?" Step into someone else’s life and expect the unexpected. Extraordinary stories from around the world. For more, go to bbcworldservice.com/liveslessordinary or search for Live Less Ordinary wherever you get your BBC podcasts.Producers: Eric Mugaju and Harry Graham

In 2021, with UK Covid restrictions putting plans for his creative collaborations on hold, British artist and musician Peter Beatty decided to take the plunge into animation. He wanted to create an animated film as a music video to accompany a song he had written called Tell Me Where to Go. To make things extra interesting (and complicated!) he decided to shun modern digital approaches and instead to build a multiplane camera – a meticulous, painstaking system for stop-motion animation invented by Disney Studios in the 1930s and now rarely used. He then set to work animating with his film-making/photographer friend Joseph Boyle. Neither had made a stop motion animation before, but their final film has won seven international awards - and counting!

In the Studio: Peter Beatty

A bonus episode from The Global Story podcast. Why young people are having less sex. The Global Story brings you one big story every weekday, making sense of the news with our experts around the world. Insights you can trust, from the BBC, with Katya Adler. For more, go to bbcworldservice.com/globalstory or search for The Global Story wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Nigeria is experiencing its worst economic crisis in a generation. Over the past year the price of the staple food, rice, has more than doubled and a litre of petrol now costs more than three times what it did. Host Kupra Padhy hears what this means for people trying to make a living, feed their family or run a business. We bring together two women who run food businesses in the country. Onimba, a chef in Port Harcourt, tells us how on a recent visit to the market the price of a bag of sugar had doubled overnight. Plus, three health workers tell us how rising prices are not only having a direct effect on their families, but also their patients.

BBC OS Conversations: The cost of living crisis in Nigeria

Bara’atu Ibrahim speaks to Jibra’il Omar, formerly Timothy Weeks; an Australian educator who was held captive for three years in Afghanistan by the Taliban. However Jibra’il Omar made news six years ago, after he converted to Islam whilst in captivity and astonishingly became a full-fledged member of the Taliban after his release. For some months, Bara’atu built up a relationship with Jibra’il over a messaging service whilst he was in Kabul. She spoke to him on two occasions, where he shared his story and gives the reasons of why he decided it was right for him to become a Muslim and moreover celebrate with his captors once they came back into power.
This podcast has been edited since it was originally published.

Heart and Soul: I joined the Taliban after they kept me hostage

Schools in Tibet are changing - and not for the better, say activists. Micky Bristow investigates China’s educational reforms: children as young as four separated from their families and forced into boarding schools, it’s claimed, learning in Chinese, not Tibetan. Is this an attempt at social engineering to undermine Tibetan culture, or is it, as China claims, a bold effort to bring progress to an underdeveloped region?

Assignment: Educating Tibet

Diving With a Purpose is a collective of Black scuba divers who search for long-lost slave wrecks. They are on a mission to raise the silent voices of the captive Africans who went down with those vessels and bring them back into our collective memory. We join their youth diving program - YDWP - in Biscayne National Park, Florida Keys, as they head out onto the ocean in search of the Guerrero. The Guerrero was a pirate ship being chased by a British ship HMS Nimble when it ran aground in 1827. It had 561 captive Africans on board, of which 41 drowned.

Diving With a Purpose

How is Robert F Kennedy’s long record of spreading anti-vaccine misinformation impacting on his bid to be elected US President in 2024? 	
In 2024 yet another Kennedy is making a bid for the White House. Robert F Kennedy Jr - nephew of the late President John F Kennedy - is enjoying strong polling numbers for an independent candidate. He’s running on a platform of promising to take on powerful vested interests to create a better life for the average American. 
But away from his Camelot-infused stump speeches, he is facing questions about his long and controversial record of spreading misinformation about the safety of vaccines.
In this episode, the BBC’s Health and Disinformation Reporter Rachel Schraer investigates how Kennedy is building a base from across the political spectrum, in spite of, or because of, his views on public health policy.

Trending - The anti-vax candidate?

Tumaini (‘hope’ in Swahili) Festival is a unique refugee-led celebration of music, culture and solidarity in Dzaleka Refugee Camp, Malawi. Founded by Tresor Mpauni, who lived in the camp after being forced to leave the Democratic Republic of Congo, it uses arts and culture to build connections between refugees and the host community in Malawi. Each year it welcomes musicians and artists from all over Africa, and hosts guests from all over the world within the camp; providing a space to celebrate the artistic skills and organisational talents of an increasingly marginalised refugee community. Against considerable odds, they’ve created the largest festival in Malawi with over 50,000 people attending and over 115 artists performing in 2023. It is the refugee camp’s largest source of commercial income.

Tumaini

Ghawgha is a singer-songwriter originally from Afghanistan. Growing up between Afghanistan and Iran, she now lives in Norway, as part of ICORN programme - a residency for artists at risk. However, the situation facing women and minorities in her native country still run deep in her music and her songs reflect the current situation in Afghanistan under a second Taliban rule. Ghawgha’s single of 2019, I Kiss You Amid the Taliban, celebrated the hard-gained freedoms of the new generation in Afghanistan before the Taliban takeover in 2021. Kawoon Khamoosh follows Ghawgha as she works on and records her new album called Qaf. Qaf refers to a mysterious mountain that exists in legends where the mythological bird Simurgh had her nest and Ghawgha has been working with both poets from Afghanistan, as well as writing her own lyrics.

In the Studio: Ghawgha

A bonus episode from The Global Story podcast. Are you ever too old to have a baby?. The Global Story brings you one big story every weekday, making sense of the news with our experts around the world. Insights you can trust, from the BBC, with Katya Adler. For more, go to bbcworldservice.com/globalstory or search for The Global Story wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

The latest Beyoncé song, Texas Hold ‘Em, has topped the charts in the US and UK. More significantly, however, this is the first time a black woman has gone to No. 1 in the US country music charts, provoking several talking points about diversity within the country music genre. Host James Reynolds brings together three African American women in country music, including musician Rissi Palmer who first reached the country charts in 2007 and has had several hits since. And, three people involved in country music on three continents, in Argentina, Nigeria and Sweden, tell James about their love for country.

BBC OS Conversations: Beyoncé and the changing face of country music

Dr Irena Bradley and Kelly Latimore are both iconographers taking the ancient tradition of iconography into the 21st Century. Both interpret their icons very differently. Irena is more traditional in her approach - creating an icon is an act of worship and to bring in the faithful who look at them in the presence of God. However Kelly’s approach maybe considered more modern, painting images that reflect modern day social injustices within biblical settings. Nastaran Tavakoli-Far hears from both of them. What drives them to do what they do and do they see their work as inspired by god? She brings them together to hear how they relate to and interpret one another’s work.

Heart and Soul: The new iconographers

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.

Assignment: Botswana - living with elephants

"A flood of disinformation has erupted across social media in the online propaganda battle that’s being waged alongside the physical conflict between Israel and Hamas.Everything from video game clips falsely presented as genuine combat footage, to the outright denial of civilian deaths, have been deployed to try to skew the online narrative and warp public perceptions.BBC Verify’s Olga Robinson and Shayan Sardarizadeh examine the trends in this alternative war over the Middle East with the help of Eliot Higgins, founder of Bellingcat, the independent investigative organisation."

Trending - The disinformation war in the Middle East

In the mountainous east of Nepal many communities are dependent on tea. The nitrogen-rich soil of the high-elevation estates allow tea bushes to produce a unique flavour, but the picking has to be done by hand. Phanindra Dahal talks to farmers, factory managers, tea estate supervisors and leaders in the business to find out how this small nation is looking to compete globally and the challenges they are up against. One challenge is a complex relationship with its neighbour, India.

Storm over a teacup

Claudia Piñeiro is a multi-award winning novelist, with many of her books being adapted for television. She's one of Argentina's most translated writers, as well as being a popular screenwriter and playwright. The BBC's Andrea Kidd joins Claudia in her apartment in Buenos Aires, as she works on her latest, as yet, untitled novel. It follows the story of two step-sisters, one a radio journalist, the other an escort, both unaware of the other's existence, until a dramatic incident brings their lives together. But was it an accident or something more sinister?

In the Studio: Claudia Piñeiro

A bonus episode from The Global Story podcast. Is #Me Too finally exploding in French cinema?. The Global Story brings you one big story every weekday, making sense of the news with our experts around the world. Insights you can trust, from the BBC, with Katya Adler. For more, go to bbcworldservice.com/globalstory or search for The Global Story wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Russian authorities have announced the death of one of the country’s most significant opposition leaders Alexey Navalny in a remote penal colony in the Arctic Circle. Stephen Sackur spoke to him in Moscow in 2017 about the risks involved in being a prominent critic of President Putin.

Bonus: Hardtalk - Defying Putin

It is two years since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The war has claimed tens of thousands of lives, left millions of Ukrainians as refugees, and wrought much destruction. When your home is invaded and everything is shattered and turned upside down, what happens to your life? Host James Reynolds hears from three women in Ukraine who, despite the dangers of war, chose to have a baby. At the start of the war, millions of women and children escaped to safety abroad. With the passing of time, some have decided to return. Three of those women come together to discuss their decisions to go back home.

BBC OS Conversations: Ukraine war babies and returning home

The Bengal Famine, particularly the experiences of people in the rural areas who suffered the most, is not well remembered today. There is no memorial, museum, or plaque to the victims or survivors anywhere in the world.One man has made it his life’s work to record their testimonies with paper and pen. Kavita hears from him, and tries to understand more about why the three million people who perished aren’t better remembered or memorialised in India, Bangladesh and Britain.Presenter: Kavita Puri
Series producer: Ant Adeane
Editor: Emma Rippon
Sound design and mix: Eloise Whitmore
Production coordinators: Maria Ogundele and Sabine Schereck
Original music: Felix TaylorWith thanks to Dr Janam Mukherjee and Professor Joya Chatterji

Three Million: 5. Ghosts

Kavita Puri discovers a set of cassette tapes containing rare interviews with Indian civil servants who were on the ground across Bengal during the famine, shedding new light on colonial responsibility. And as the need for relief in Bengal becomes ever greater, more pressure is put on the British government from India’s new Viceroy. He asks for more food imports. Could the War Cabinet and Prime Minister Winston Churchill have done more to help alleviate the famine in the middle of the war? Presenter: Kavita Puri
Series producer: Ant Adeane
Editor: Emma Rippon
Sound design and mix: Eloise Whitmore
Production co-ordinators: Maria Ogundele and Sabine Schereck
Original music: Felix TaylorWith thanks to Dr Janam Mukherjee and Professor Joya ChatterjiInterviews conducted by Lance Brennan courtesy of University of CambridgeInterviews with GS Khosla courtesy of University of Cambridge

Three Million: 4. The tapes

Colonial authorities wanted to censor the famine. They were worried that Britain’s wartime enemies - the Germans and the Japanese - would use it as propaganda against them.But as more and more starving people arrive in cities across Bengal, it becomes harder to suppress. Indian writers, photographers and artists document the humanitarian catastrophe, but it was risky, as the censor forbade mention of the famine. A British journalist and editor of the English language Statesman newspaper, in Calcutta, decides to challenge the censor and begins publishing photographs and scathing editorials about what was really going on in Bengal. It shocks the world. In London, the BBC reports on “famine conditions” and, as we uncover, the British government tries to pressurise the broadcaster to tone down its coverage.Presenter: Kavita Puri
Series producer: Ant Adeane
Editor: Emma Rippon
Sound design and mix: Eloise Whitmore
Production coordinators: Maria Ogundele and Sabine Schereck
Original music: Felix TaylorWith thanks to Dr Janam Mukherjee, Professor Joya Chatterji and Dr Diya Gupta

Three Million: 3. The f-word

A boy decides how much rice he can give from a cigarette tin to hungry people. A Christian missionary sets up a makeshift relief hospital. A small child watches through the gates of his house in Calcutta as emaciated women clutching children ask for food. As the food crisis deepens, shocking testimonies from the countryside show the extent of starvation. Many thousands of hungry people begin moving from the rural areas towards the cities.Indians - including children - are forced into life-or-death decisions.Presenter: Kavita Puri
Series producer: Ant Adeane
Editor: Emma Rippon
Sound design and mix: Eloise Whitmore
Production coordinators: Maria Ogundele and Sabine Schereck
Original music: Felix TaylorWith thanks to Dr Janam Mukherjee, Professor Joya Chatterji and Dr Diya Gupta.Interview with Alan McLeod courtesy of the University of Cambridge

Three Million: 2. The cigarette tin

During the Second World War, at least three million Indian people, who were British subjects, died in the Bengal Famine. It was one of the largest losses of civilian life on the Allied side. But there is no memorial to them anywhere in the world - not even a plaque. Can three million people disappear from public memory?From the creator and presenter of the award-winning series Three Pounds in my Pocket and Partition Voices, this is the story of the Bengal Famine of 1943. For the first time it is told by those who were there - farmers and fishermen, artists and writers, colonial British and everyday citizens. Nearly all of the testimony in the series has never been broadcast before. Eighty years on, those who lived through it are a vanishing generation. Time is running out to record their memories.We begin in 1942. As the Japanese sweep through South East Asia, Calcutta (now Kolkata) is inundated with hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers from all over the world. Fear of a Japanese invasion of British India provokes a consequential decision.Presenter: Kavita Puri
Series producer: Ant Adeane
Editor: Emma Rippon
Sound design and mix: Eloise Whitmore
Production coordinators: Maria Ogundele and Sabine Schereck
Original music: Felix TaylorWith thanks to Dr Janam Mukherjee, Professor Joya Chatterji and Dr Diya Gupta. Interviews with American soldiers courtesy of The National World War II Museum, New Orleans: nationalww2museum.org/ Interviews with G S Khosla and Debotosh Das Gupta courtesy of the University of Cambridge Major General Dharitri Kumar Palit interviewed by Gillian Wright, 1987, British Library reference C63/195/09. Audio © British Library Board and the interviewee. The British Library has been unable to locate the family of the interviewee. Please contact oralhistory@bl.uk with any relevant information.

Three Million: 1. War

For centuries, the Judaeo-Spanish language of Ladino was spoken in the vibrant streets of Thessaloniki. But today, it is a language on the verge of fading away, its echoes becoming fainter with each passing generation. Journalist and language enthusiast Sophia Smith Galer heads to the city to find out what happened to Ladino, and where its traces may still be found today - hearing from the teachers, community members and even singers who do not want Greece to forget one of their linguistic jewels.

Heart and Soul: Ladino - Saving Greece’s ancient Jewish language

Journalists in Pakistan say they’re under threat of abduction and even of being killed if they criticise the state authorities. Whoever is in power, legal action against journalists who’ve spoken out against the authorities is nothing new. Press freedom campaigners say that in 12 months 140 journalists were threatened or attacked with some saying that democracy itself is under attack. For Assignment Mobeen Azhar hears the allegations made by those who say they’ve been targeted to shut them up - allegations which the authorities deny.Archive: AAJ News, May 2023 GNN, February 2023, Naya Daur February 2022, GEO TV October 2022

Assignment: Pakistan - journalists under fire

In Malaysian Borneo, indigenous people have struggled for land rights against companies and the state. Using new mapping technology, communities in Borneo’s rainforests are racing to prove their claims. We explore how technology and social media are being used and misused to shift the balance of power.

Trending: The new fight for land rights

As the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches, Oleg Boldyrev reports on how ordinary Russians are dealing with life in a country at war with its close neighbour. Are there new economic and social challenges, and what do we know of attitudes to the invasion? We talk to Russians across the country to gauge the mood.Photo by ANATOLY MALTSEV/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock (14329432c)
People stand at a bus stop near an image depicting St. Isaac's Cathedral (back) on a sunny day in St. Petersburg, Russia, 02 February 2024. Temperatures in St. Petersburg, Russia's second largest city, reached minus two degrees Celsius on the day.

Two Years of War: Voices from Russia

Vik Muniz says he owes his artistic career to being shot as a young man, not because he had an epiphany about the meaning of his life, but because he won enough compensation from the accident to move to New York and kick-start his career in the art world. He is now probably one of Brazil’s most successful visual artists and his pieces can range from tiny specs that are photographed by microscopes to giant landscapes captured from helicopters. He is known for working with unconventional materials; some of his most famous works have been created out of sugar, chocolate and a plate of left over spaghetti. Andrea Kennedy went to New York to meet him as he prepared for an exhibition full of illusions.

In the Studio: Vik Muniz

Radio can be a lifeline for women: a place to speak out in safety; a place to find their voices. We hear from women taking to the air and making waves in the cracks left by the Taliban in Afghanistan; in Fiji's scattered archipelago threatened by climate change; in the migrant farmworker community of the Yakima Valley in North America's Pacific north-west; and in the Ecuadorean Amazon, where indigenous women are coming together to save their land from pollution and destruction by oil companies.

World Wide Waves '24

Putin’s re-election is certain, but there is still a lot at stake for the Kremlin. We look into the efforts aimed at achieving unequivocal victory in what seems to be the most oppressive election in Russia for two decades. What are the stories state media can and cannot touch, how much of a headache does dissent from the mothers and wives of soldiers pose to the authorities and does Putin really have body doubles? We have the answers. Producer: Kriszta Satori
Presenter: Krassi Twigg
Editor: Judy King
Twitter handle of contributors: @VitalyBBC, @jen_mon1, @oivshina
Original music: Pete Cunningham
Sound engineer: Martin Appleby

Bonus: The Global Jigsaw - Does Russia’s election matter?

When we first reported on the earthquake in February 2023, the scale was overwhelming. We heard from families who had escaped as buildings around them collapsed and rescue workers described the devastation as the worst they had ever seen. Each day the casualty figures mounted. It is now thought that at least 55,000 people died.A year on, we have been catching-up with survivors to hear how their lives have changed. One family – Iman, Karim and their 7-year-old daughter Nada – had fled from the war in Syria to have a new life in Turkey. They lost family, friends and their home in the earthquake. When host James Reynolds called the family up in the last few days, they told him they were doing much better. Young Nada, however, is still having nightmares about the floor shaking and people she has lost. “I have a dream about my friend Iman, she died from the earthquake,” Nada tells James. “I’m so sad about her, and I have a friend who moved to Canada – I miss her so much.”We also hear messages from BBC listeners in Turkey and reunite with Harun, an English teacher in southern Turkey, and Bilal who is living in the east of the country and had his business destroyed last year. A Boffin Media production in partnership with the BBC OS team.

BBC OS Conversations: The earthquake in Turkey and Syria – one year on

Bonus: HARDtalk - Alexey Navalny: The interview

Doctor Gwen Adshead is a forensic psychiatrist working with the UK’s most violent offenders, many of them serving life sentences at Broadmoor Prison for murder. Gwen believes that empathy starts with a recognition that there is a capacity for evil in all of us. She believes that for her patients, “no matter what their history”, therapeutic treatment works. She speaks to the writer and convicted murderer Erwin James. Together they reflect on Erwin’s life story and how he came to commit the crime he did. Erwin asks Gwen about her relationship with Christianity and how it has supported her in her work.

Heart and Soul: The killer's counsel

Millions of residents living in Istanbul face the dilemma of whether or not to find out if the buildings where they live are resilient to earthquakes. Many cannot afford to do anything about it even if they are unsafe. A year on from the earthquakes in south-east Turkey that killed over 53,000 people, it is clear poorly built homes, hospitals and hotels that collapsed within seconds contributed to the high death toll. There are warnings that a similar fate awaits Istanbul, where scientists predict a major earthquake could strike any day now. Emily Wither looks at the challenges facing Istanbul and discovers a story of politics, poor urban planning and a struggle to find safe housing.

Assignment: Tempting fate - Istanbul's earthquake dilemma

When an audio recording alleged to be from the Mayor of one of the world's largest cities started circulating online, reality was called into question. Mexico City's mayor, claimed the clip- which sounded like he was discussing a campaign against a political candidate- was AI generated. Others are convinced the audio is real. In this episode of Trending’s Power season, Jack Goodman and Laura García go on the hunt for answers. Using the latest AI detection tools, they explore the possibilities and limitations of verifying such content, and question how disinformation may shape Mexico's general election in June. Could AI disrupt elections around the world?

Trending: The Mexican mayor and a deepfake scandal

Greece is the birthplace of democracy. But how free is Greece’s media? Nikos Papanikolaou travels to his home town, Athens, to speak to journalists who have had their phones hacked by an advanced new spyware, been sued for defamation, and been under surveillance by the Greek national intelligence agency. In the south of the city he visits the widow of the an investigative journalist – murdered just outside their family home. Nikos also hears from Members of the European Parliament – those who want the EU to withhold funds until Greece improves the position for journalists – and those outraged by the idea that Greece does not already have a free media. Presented by Nikos Papanikolaou Produced by Giles Edwards.This podcast was edited after it was published

Reporting Greece

Jon Foreman is a land artist. He creates work in natural spaces using natural materials like stones, sand, leaves and driftwood. Known for his mesmerising sculptures that harmonise with nature, Jon’s work has captured the imagination of art enthusiasts worldwide. His artwork may last as little as 10 minutes before the sea washes it away, but his sculptures are not meant to last; his art is a testament to the beauty found in the ephemeral moment. From the ancient tools he uses to create his sculptures to the modern technology he employs to capture it, we follow Jon's creative process as he takes us to his favourite location to work - the pristine beach of Lindsway Bay on the Pembrokeshire coast, west Wales.

In the Studio: Jon Foreman

A bonus episode from The Global Story podcast. Could Taylor Swift swing the US election?The Global Story brings you one big story every weekday, making sense of the news with our experts around the world. Insights you can trust, from the BBC, with Katya Adler.
For more, go to bbcworldservice.com/globalstory or search for The Global Story wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Some claim that the romance between Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce has been manufactured by the NFL for political gain, and whilst that is clearly nonsense we look at the impact of Swift's relationship with the NFL.Shaquem Griffin was born with amniotic band syndrome causing the fingers on his left hand not to fully develop. The pain was so intense that at 4 years of age he grabbed a butcher knife, planning to cut the hand off. His mother took the knife away, and scheduled an amputation the next day… Despite the obvious setback of only having one hand, Shaquem still fulfilled his dream and played in the NFL for four seasons. He tells us his story.And Cyndy Feasel who watched on helpless as her husband, former NFL star Grant Feasel died the victim of alcohol abuse and a degenerative brain disease known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. She tells us about one NFL wife’s story of concussions, loss, and the faith that saw her through.Plus, in the year America elects its next president we explore the relationship between the Super Bowl and the Commander in Chief.And we speak to SpongeBob Square pants best friend Patrick Starr as he prepares to give an alternative commentary of Sunday's game for younger viewers!

Bonus: Sportshour at the Super Bowl Las Vegas edition

After explicit faked photos of Taylor Swift went around the world, US politicians have called for new laws to criminalise the creation of deepfake images. The term ‘deepfake’ describes how artificial intelligence – AI – can be used to digitally alter pictures, audio or video and trick us into seeing or hearing something that is not real.It is not just the famous who are being targeted. Host James Reynolds hears the story of how a daughter’s voice was copied and used to make a scam phone call to her mother. “She said mom I messed up, and all of a sudden a man said ‘put your head back and lay down’ and that’s when I started to get really concerned that she was either really hurt or something more was going on,” Jennifer tells us. “And then she goes ‘mom, mom, these bad men have me, help me, help me and she starts crying and sobbing.”Thankfully her daughter, Brianna, had not been kidnapped but the call has had a lasting effect on the family.Technology has made the process of adjusting images easier but artificial intelligence provides the means to create media from scratch to generate completely fake content. We bring together two women – in the US and Australia – who have had their faces manipulated using AI to produce malicious pornographic images and videos.

BBC OS Conversations: Deepfake attacks

What does it mean to be a Buddhist today? For this last programme in a special series on religion in the 21st century, Heart and Soul on the BBC World Service brings together three global Buddhists from Singapore, the USA and the UK. Venerable Canda Theri Bhikkhuni is the only fully ordained bhikkhuni, or female Buddhist monastic, in the UK. She founded the Anukampa Bhikkhuni Project, which aims to provide the country’s first monastery where women can train towards full ordination.Heng Xuan Tio is based in Singapore and is the co-founder of Handful of Leaves, an online community which aims to show young people how Buddhism is relevant to their modern lives.And Lama Rod Owens is a Black gay Buddhist teacher and author based in the USA. His teaching focuses on social change, identity, and spiritual practice.For this special discussion programme, the BBC’s Alice Bhandhukravi brings them together to discuss Buddhism’s difference branches, how it’s been interpreted in western countries, the differences between monastic and lay Buddhism, and the unique challenges of following a 2,500-year-old faith tradition in the present day. Presented by Alice Bhandhukravi.

Heart and Soul: Religion in the 21st century - Buddhism (episode 3)

Ireland is known as the land of a hundred thousand welcomes. But the government says the country has run out of accommodation to house all new eligible refugee arrivals. Some properties earmarked to house asylum seekers have been fire-bombed and others are subject to protests. Hundreds of people seeking asylum have been forced to sleep in tents in Dublin and elsewhere. Ireland has taken in around 100,000 people from Ukraine and the number of people seeking international protection from other countries has increased four-fold since pre-Covid times. The government has slashed benefits for new arrivals from Ukraine and limited to three months the time it will guarantee to house them. As the country leads up to local, national and European elections, migration is rising up the political agenda. Is Ireland’s reputation for tolerance under threat?

Assignment: Is Ireland’s reputation for tolerance under threat?

Fentanyl is deadly. Thousands of Americans die every year from a drug overdose – the majority of them after using a synthetic opioid like fentanyl. It was developed as a legal, and effective, pain killer. Now, fuelled by insatiable US demand, it is illicitly produced in makeshift laboratories in Mexico by organised crime groups.
 
In the first part, Assignment travels to the Mexican Pacific port of Manzanillo. This is one of the main entry points for the chemical ingredients required to make fentanyl. It is a town where Mexico’s powerful cartels have fought for control, and where the mayor lives under armed guard after a failed assassination attempt.
 
In the second part, we cross the border into the US from Mexico to explore the devastation this lethal drug has left in its wake in San Diego County.
 
Presenter / producer: Linda Pressly
Producer: Tim Mansel
Producer in Mexico: Ulises EscamillaThis Podcast was originally published in March 2023

Bonus: Killer drug: Fentanyl in Mexico and the US

Over the summer, a mysterious Twitter persona published details of over 14,500 social media accounts - all of them controlled by real-life Serbian citizens, it's claimed. They stand accused of posting… whatever the President’s party tells them to.It’s long been rumoured that Serbia’s ruling SNS party commands the online activity of a small army of citizens, dubbed ‘bots’ by the opposition. But this kind of list, naming and shaming thousands of ordinary Serbians, is unprecedented.If true, their activity represents a form of political corruption according to Serbia’s public prosecutor. The government’s response has alarmed observers - it shrugged off the story, publishing instead a veiled tongue-in-cheek ‘admission’.But who is behind the list, and can it be trusted? BBC Trending has analysed the data in an attempt to establish if the ‘bots’ are indeed real people. And whether their accounts show evidence of co-ordinated activity.Featuring interviews gathered on the ground in Belgrade, we hear from opposition politicians, pro-democracy activists and a self-professed real-life ‘bot’. She tells us she trolled the President’s opponents under threat of losing her job – as a receptionist at a state-controlled electricity company in a small Serbian town.Reporter: Sam Judah

Trending: Serbia’s real life ‘bots’

Modern Cairo is a crowded metropolis. The city’s ‘thousand minarets’ are now dwarfed by a new skyline of slick tower blocks. Modern highways fly over bustling kiosks where residents gather to smoke and buy soda drinks. Inspired by the lives of their neighbours, playing out among mosques, high rise buildings and on busy streets, Egyptian writers and graphic artists, including Deena Mohamed, Shennawy and Mohamed Wahba bring their thousand-year-old capital to life.

Cairo in comics

The Pakistani author, Awais Khan, is working on his latest thriller, His Sister’s Secret, a look into the dark side of dating and family life. But Awais is also struggling with a familiar challenge for many authors - writer’s block – which is stopping him finishing the book he hopes could win him a global publishing deal. Join fellow author Paul Waters as he watches Awais take a radical step to tackle this problem and try to finish his first draft. Along the way Paul meets other international authors who share how they cope when the words won’t flow. But will Awais manage to finish his own story?

In the Studio: Awais Khan - Overcoming writer’s block

A bonus episode from The Global Story podcast. Elon Musk says Chinese electric vehicles could destroy competition.
The Global Story brings you one big story every weekday, making sense of the news with our experts around the world. Insights you can trust, from the BBC, with Katya Adler. 
For more, go to bbcworldservice.com/globalstory or search for The Global Story wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

The BBC revealed this week that more than half the buildings in the Gaza Strip have been damaged or destroyed since Israel launched its retaliation for the Hamas attacks in October. The war has left tens of thousands dead or injured…and an estimated 1.7 million people have been displaced. There are shortages of water, food, and medicines.This week, three US doctors who recently left Gaza share their experiences of working in a hospital in the territory with host James Reynolds. “Blast waves hit the operating room, you can see your metal table with all the instruments rattle, doors slam, the plaster falling off the walls,” Dr Chandra Hassan, from international humanitarian NGO MedGlobal tells us. “You learn to live with that, and you sleep out of exhaustion.”The escalation of the military activities left many people with no choice but to flee their homes. 35-year-old Layan and her two daughters, 12-year-old Sama and Elya, who’s 8, had to take a long – and at times dangerous – journey from Gaza City to Khan Younis in the south. They have since managed to cross the border into Egypt, where they are now living safely in Cairo. They share their experiences of leaving the Gaza Strip and Layan tells us why she feels guilty leaving the rest of her family behind. A Boffin Media production in partnership with the BBC OS team.

BBC OS Conversations: Leaving Gaza

What does it mean to be a young Hindu in 2024? The world's Hindu population is projected to rise by 34%, by 2050 to nearly 1.4 billion. So how does one of the world’s oldest religions fit with today's world more than 4,000 years after its inception? In the second of three discussion programmes looking at religion in the 21st century, Rajeev Gupta is joined by 36-year-old Indian-born banker Om Dhumatkar who runs a YouTube channel explaining Hindu scripture, 23-year-old Prasiddha Sudhakar, a student of information security at Carnegie Mellon University and 22-year-old Thomas Awad, a student at Cambridge University and follower of the Swaminarayan Hindu sect. With Rajeev, they discuss how they apply ancient traditions in the modern world, the way people respond to their Hindu identity and the things they want others to learn about their faith.

Heart and Soul: Religion in the 21st Century - Hindus (episode 2 of 3)

When Spanish football boss Luis Rubiales kissed Jenni Hermoso after her team’s world cup victory last summer, it set a match to Spanish gender relations. On every chat show, on every campus, in every couple’s bedroom, arguments started - does a kiss count as sexual violence? What is consent? Has feminism gone too far? 53% of Spaniards think it has, and that it is discriminating against men. Now, Rubiales is facing criminal trial. “Se acabó” (it’s over) trended after the kiss, but this battle is far from over. For Assignment, Sofia Bettiza travels to Madrid to hear how the Rubiales case tapped into a rift in Spanish society that has been splitting further apart for decades.

Assignment: Spain, the kiss and the culture war

Crude fakes in Uganda
A BBC investigation has uncovered a network of fake social media accounts seemingly working together to promote the Ugandan government and the East African Crude Oil Pipeline. Online, an information battle appears to be going on – one being waged by hundreds of social media accounts set on pushing narratives in line with those of the Ugandan government. As part of a coordinated campaign, they have been artificially inflating support for EACOP online and viciously targeting those that oppose the project – both at home and abroad. But who is behind these accounts? And how influential have they become?

Trending: Power

Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, killing more than 1,200 people and taking around 240 hostages, including children and babies, women, and elderly people. The exact numbers are still changing. Some of the hostages have been released under a deal brokered by Qatar, but many remain in captivity inside Gaza. Anna Foster talks to people who were there when the attacks happened at the kibbutzim and the Nova music festival.

The Israeli hostages

The search is on to find new ways to document the lives of the homeless – nowhere is this more true than in America, with increasing numbers of people sleeping rough. Sue Mitchell talks to filmmaker, Leonard Manzella, who has risen to the challenge with his award-winning film, Shoeshine Caddie.The film follows a year in the life of 61-year-old African American, Adrian Spears. He certainly stands out in the sleepy Californian town where he makes a living shining shoes: dancing around with his bowler hat, starched shirt and bright red uniform. The film opens as he folds up the cardboard sheets he sleeps on at night and makes his way to the storage unit where he keeps clothes and an iron. Everything he owns is immaculately pressed, and it was partly his quiet dignity which drew Leonard to Adrian, and which resonates throughout the movie.Leonard had thought his days in the movies business were over: he gave up his Hollywood career 30 years ago to retrain as a family therapist and through Adrian’s story he has reclaimed his passion. The BBC Producer, Sue Mitchell, came across Leonard’s film whilst recording with a homeless man living just a few miles away. She was intrigued and began exploring the background to the film and examining why it was proving so popular with audiences.

In the Studio: Shoeshine Caddie

Caucuses, primaries and Super Tuesday. Justin Webb, former BBC US correspondent, unpicks some of the terminology associated with the US election.

Understand: The US election

With concerns around further instability in the Middle East – as well as international trade – Yemen is the focus for many around the world. The Red Sea runs along part of the country’s coastline, and it is in these waters where cargo ships have been attacked. The US and UK have responded with air strikes against the Houthis, the armed political and religious group, which is responsible for targeting the ships. These events are against the backdrop of a recent civil war in Yemen and one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. We wanted to talk to people in Yemen to get a sense of what day to day life is like. Host, James Reynolds, is joined by two Yeminis who live and work in the capital, Sanaa, which is controlled by the Houthis. “It looks like normal life,” Radhya tells us. “But if you are sick you will not find a proper health system, there is no good education system at all – the disaster in Sanaa is not something you can see with your naked eye.”Others inside Yemen have sent us messages and we bring together three people who have left the country. They talk about their home and hopes to one day return. “I imagine Yemen before the nightmare, before the war,” says Ahad. “It was a beautiful place and I wish for it to go back to how it was before.”A Boffin Media production in partnership with the BBC OS team.

BBC OS Conversations: Life in Yemen

What does it mean to be a young Muslim in the world today? In the first of three discussion programmes looking at religion in the 21st century, a panel of young Muslims look at Islam and discuss their hopes, feelings and grievances on how they see their religion shaping up in the modern era.

Heart and Soul: Religion in the 21st Century: Islam

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.

Assignment: American mercenaries - killing in Yemen

Since the devastating 2011 tsunami, Japan has been piloting risk reduction solutions in areas prone to severe damage from earthquakes and tsunamis. Better communication is key to these efforts - 35% of people living in affected areas in 2011 apparently did not hear the radio announcements. Sendai City is working to solve the challenge of reliable communications by developing an emergency announcement system that uses fully automated drones. These can quickly be dispatched to tell people to evacuate when tsunami alerts are issued. This new system uses a dedicated private wireless communication network and an infrared camera mounted on a drone transmits pictures of affected areas to the city's disaster response headquarters in real-time.

Solutions Journalism: Reducing risks in a risky world

What happens if you give a homeless person a house, with no strings attached?In 2007 Finland decided to switch to a radical new approach to homelessness called ‘housing first’, in which homeless people are simply offered their own apartment, with no expectations of them except paying the rent (usually covered by their benefits); alongside this they are given whatever support they need to remain housed, for as long as they need it. Proponents of 'housing first' argue that it is much easier for homeless people to sort out issues such as addiction or poor mental health when they have a secure home.The results so far seem to bear this out: around 90% of people offered an apartment remain housed, a much higher rate than under the previous system. However, critics argue that the approach could be much harder to implement in countries without Finland’s extensive social welfare system or good stock of affordable housing.Erika Benke visits the Väinölä Housing Unit outside Helsinki, an emergency shelter which was converted into 35 individual flats for formerly homeless people. What difference has having their own place made to the residents? And are they off the streets for good?

Solutions Journalism: Ending homelessness the Finnish way

Another chance to hear from production designer Maria Djurkovic, as she takes us behind the scenes of Harry Styles' movie, My Policeman, which was made in the middle of the pandemic. Lockdown presents a number of challenges, expected ones like social distancing and sick crew members. And unexpected ones, like studios being too full and staff being in short supply because more movies were being made during the pandemic, rather than less. Maria kept an audio diary during these unprecedented times for the British film industry, as she battles with crew shortages, schedule changes and a possible bout of Covid.

In the Studio: Maria Djurkovic

In the France World Cup squad, 11 were from Paris and there were also players born in the city's suburbs representing Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal, Qatar, Cameroon, Ghana, Portugal and Germany. What is it about Paris's banlieues that helps create such amazing football talent? We go inside the clubs that created Kylian Mbappe, William Saliba and Moussa Diaby, and speak to the coaches who helped launch their incredible careers. We also meet some of the street footballers who turned into international stars. We investigate why Paris Saint-Germain has often missed out on the talented players on its doorstep and hear about the dangers posed by agents, scouts and pushy parents.

Paris: Football’s greatest talent factory

The inspiring story of nurse and mother Cindy Mullins from Kentucky in the United States has captured a lot of attention online and has raised awareness of a condition that affects millions of people around the world.
 
Following an infection that led to sepsis, Cindy’s doctor told her she would need to have both of her arms and both legs amputated. Cindy and her husband, DJ, share their experiences and emotions with host James Reynolds. 
 
“I told the doctor to shoot it to me straight and he explained what they had to do to save my life and that the very next day I would lose my legs from the knees down,” Cindy tells us. “I was okay with it, I was at peace, I was just happy to be alive.”
 
Sepsis – sometimes known as blood poisoning – occurs when the body's immune system has an extreme reaction to an infection and starts to damage the body’s own tissues and organs. Recent figures suggest there are 50 million cases of sepsis a year worldwide.
 
We also bring together two other survivors of sepsis who have had to adapt to life without legs or arms. Caroline from the UK contracted sepsis after falling sick from Covid-19 and pneumonia. Shan from South Africa, contracted sepsis after being bitten by a mongoose. She has since had dozens of surgical procedures but still regularly works out in the gym.A Boffin Media production in partnership with the BBC OS team.

BBC OS Conversations: Surviving sepsis

When the Russian Orthodox Church set up its own outpost in Africa in late 2021, just months before the invasion of Ukraine, it was considered a blatant challenge to the historic authority of the Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa. It sparked a major split in the global Orthodox community. Moscow’s move was in response to Alexandria’s support for the newly independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine. But it was also an opportunity for Russia to try to extend its influence across the African continent. Lucy Ash hears how priests in Kenya have been lured into joining the Russian Orthodox Church and asks whether President Vladimir Putin’s crusade for hearts and minds will succeed.

Heart and Soul: Russia’s Africa crusade

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 Assignment, 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.

Assignment: Bulgaria - the people smugglers

Jo Glanville meets Berliners who have researched the stories of the Jewish families who once lived in their homes. Marie, Hugh, Anke and Matthias all became fascinated by the history of the families who lived in their flats before them when the Nazis were in power and wanted to find out what happened to them. Their discoveries are an intimate portrait of how lives were turned upside down and offer a new way of honouring the memory of Berliners who lost everything in the Holocaust. Jo visits one of the surviving residents - 95-year-old Ruth, now living in the UK, who vividly remembers what it was like to grow up in Nazi Germany. She tracks down the house in Berlin where her own mother spent part of her childhood. It is a journey that uncovers the past through forgotten family stories, revealing how the Nazis deprived Jews of the right to live in their homes.