The Documentary

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 have stalled, as the opposing sides - French settlers and indigenous Kanak - both demand their rights. Peter Hadfield has been to New Caledonia to see if a new deal can be made.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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 comfort

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?

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.

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.

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

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 ac

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.