The Documentary

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

In 2013 Iceland made history by becoming the first European country to sign a free trade agreement with China. It was aimed at increasing exports from Iceland to China as well as opening up Iceland to cheaper Chinese consumer goods. Geothermal energy has meant that Iceland is effectively carbon neutral. Its expertise in this area has led to collaboration with China and its geothermal model is changing China's energy mix. One man behind this collaboration is Atli Jonsson, CEO of Arctic Green Energy. Anna Holligan asks him how will geothermal help shape the future needs of China's energy consumption and open further opportunities for collaboration?

Kengo Kuma has a philosophy: to enrich the connection between buildings and nature, “almost tuning-in” to the materials. His architecture is inspired by traditional Japanese design, and he is a serious critic of the global dominance of concrete. Kuma’s mission has manifested in iconic buildings including China’s Folk Art Museum, the V&A in Scotland, and Japan’s National Stadium, built for the 2020 Olympics. Broadcaster Nick Luscombe follows Kuma to Japan’s oldest and largest lake, and to the ancient capital of Otsu, where Kuma is attempting to represent the history of the area not by constructing a new building, but by creating a monument to a legendary cow.

Former BBC Taiwan correspondent Cindy Sui meets two young Taiwanese voters, Shirley Lin and Dennis, who have very different views about the island, its future and its relationship with Mainland China. While one is a committed peace campaigner and seeks to reduce antagonism between Taiwan and China, the other has signed up to train with a citizen's army, to be ready for Chinese aggression. We follow them in their work, with their friends and hear their differing reflections on an island and an electorate being watched by a global audience.

World leaders are currently meeting in Dubai for the United Nations’ COP23 climate summit to discuss how to cope with a changing global climate. At the same time, a new study has suggested that air pollution from using fossil fuels is responsible for 5 million avoidable deaths around the world every year. Host James Reynolds brings together three young people in India, Uganda and Bangladesh to hear their concerns and what it’s like to live in a country struggling with air pollution.“I got up, I looked out the window, nothing. I couldn’t even see my own lane. It was extremely sad,” said 12 year old Myra in Delhi, India. “I was getting ready to go to the school. I was going to my bus and I couldn’t see anything. Almost all days smog is covering the entire city. It’s suffocating.”Three women from the United States, India and the UK - all in their twenties - also share why they decided to not have children in order to help save the planet. “Every year has become more significant,” says Melissa in London, “and of

Sarajevo’s most famous artefact, a 700 year-old Jewish prayer book called the Haggadah, captures the story the city wants to tell about itself. But is it accurate? In Sarajevo, Farrah Jarral joins members of the Jewish community to find out. In a city devastated by conflict in the 1990s, she hears stories about living together, and the wish that Jews and Muslims can still live alongside one another, as they had for hundreds of years. And the story of the Haggadah seems to capture that. Saved from the Nazis by a Muslim and a Catholic, and then again from destruction in the 1990s by another Muslim, it captures the possibility of living together, caring for one another's treasures.

Cyprus is one of the main resting stops for songbirds as they migrate between Europe, Africa and the Middle East. For centuries, Cypriots trapped and ate a small number of migrating songbirds, as part of a subsistence diet. But over recent decades, the consumption of songbirds became a lucrative commercial business and the level of slaughter reached industrial levels. Millions of birds were killed each year as trappers employed new technologies to attract and capture birds. The methods used by the trappers are illegal under both Cypriot and EU law. In the last few years, both the Cypriot authorities and environmental groups have been fighting back, dramatically reducing the number of birds being trapped. Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent sees the trappers in action, and meets those determined to stop the mass killing of birds.

Three decades after the momentous transition from Apartheid to a democratic South Africa, Fergal Keane returns to see what happened to the hopes and promises of a better nation. In a famous speech thirty years ago, as he collected the Nobel Peace Prize, Nelson Mandela spoke of a “common humanity” in which all South Africans would live “like the children of paradise.” In this final episode, in which Fergal Keane and Milton Nkosi re-visit some of the places and people they encountered 30 years ago, they are in the Western Cape, around Cape Town. They visit a school in the sprawling Khayelitsha township, and the university in Stellenbosch, once the centre of white and Afrikaner intellectual thought. With the country’s high crime rates, lack of jobs, violence and intense corruption, is all lost or can South Africans still hold onto hope?

Three decades after the momentous transition from Apartheid to a democratic South Africa, Fergal Keane returns to see what happened to the hopes and promises of a better nation. In a famous speech thirty years ago, as he collected the Nobel Peace Prize, Nelson Mandela spoke of a “common humanity” in which all South Africans would live “like the children of paradise.” In this second episode, in which Fergal Keane and Milton Nkosi, re-visit some of the places and people they encountered 30 years ago, they return to KwaZulu-Natal. In the early 1990s, leading up to the country's first democratic elections, the area was a hotbed of political violence. What about today?

Three decades after the momentous transition from Apartheid to a democratic South Africa, Fergal Keane returns to see what happened to the hopes and promises of a better nation. In a famous speech thirty years ago, as he collected the Nobel Peace Prize, Nelson Mandela spoke of a “common humanity” in which all South Africans would live “like the children of paradise.” As the BBC’s South Africa correspondent at the time, Fergal Keane, along with his colleague and friend Milton Nkosi, lived through some of the country’s most desperate times. It was a period of extreme violence and loss, but also of great hope. Now Fergal and Milton travel through the country, re-visiting some of the places and people they encountered in the lead up to the end of Apartheid. Through this series they will explore how and why paradise was lost. Presenter: Fergal Keane Producer: John Murphy

The Norwegian town of Kirkenes set on the coast and inside the Arctic Circle, is on the edge of what the Chinese refer to as the Polar Silk Road. The Northern Sea Route or Northeast Passage is an increasingly valuable shipping route for both Russia and China, hugging the Russian coastline to eastern Siberia. In 2010 a ship departed from Kirkenes bound for China with 41,500 tons of iron ore concentrate, arriving 22 days later. Via the Suez canal, the same journey would have taken over 40 days. It was the first time that a non-Russian ship had been along the Northern Sea Route, showing that this was possible and paving the way for China’s Arctic policy. Anna Holligan shines a light on China’s wider ambitions in the Arctic.

Iryna Tsilyk is one of Ukraine’s best known young documentary makers. She made her name following the lives of soldiers, female paramedics and families living on the frontline in East Ukraine after the region was taken over by Moscow-backed separatists. However after Russia’s full-scale invasion brought the war to Iryna’s home city of Kyiv, she decided she could no longer stay behind the camera. So, in her current project, The Red Zone, Iryna is turning the lens on herself and her family.Iryna’s husband, Artem Chekh, is a well-known novelist and journalist. He volunteered to join the army and found himself in Bakhmut, scene of some of the bloodiest fighting. For five days Iryna did not know if he was alive or dead. She is focusing on the anguish she felt over this period and using a series of flashbacks to illustrate their past lives in peacetime.Iryna tells Lucy Ash that to give herself more artistic freedom she has decided on a radical new tool for her work: this film will be an animation. Making films in w

Sport but not as you know it. A brand new sports storytelling podcast.Imagine being stranded in the “death zone” on one of the world’s highest mountains. How about running 200 miles in a dark tunnel? We’ve been searching the world for the most amazing sport stories. Other podcasts bring you the scores and team news. This one tells the stories you’ll wish you’d known about and now probably won’t forget. You don’t need to be obsessed with sport to find yourself immersed in our mini-seasons and short stories. Search for Amazing Sport Stories wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Or find it here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w13xtvs1/episodes/downloads

Henry Kissinger was one of the most important diplomatic figures of the last 50 years. James Naughtie looks back at his global influence, as he reflects on his own interview with Kissinger, conducted just a year before his death.

A week without war meant that the temporary pause in fighting was replaced by the emotions of family reunions. Before the air strikes resumed on Friday, dozens of the hostages captured by Hamas in the 7 October attacks were released, while Palestinians held in Israeli jails had been allowed to leave.In our conversations host James Reynolds hears a few of those stories of families celebrating seeing loved ones again. “My mum came out of the Earth one day and that was incredible,” Sharone Lifschitz tells us. Her 85-year-old mother, Yocheved, was one of the first hostages to be released but (at the time of recording) her father was still being held. “She told us my father was injured and so we thought that he was gone and now we know that he is there, but we also know so much more about how horrendous the conditions are.”Human rights organisations say the number of Palestinians held without charge in Israeli prisons has increased dramatically since 7 October. There are now thought to be more than 6,000 Palestini

Brought up in a devout Catholic family in the suburbs of Kampala, Frank Mugisha knew that something was different about him even as a small boy. He was gay, although in those days he had no words for it. Growing up, he was subjected to conversion therapy, and his family took him to traditional healers to try and change his orientation. When all his prayers for God to “make him like his friends” went unanswered, Frank gradually came out to family and close friends. He started an organisation to help other LGBTQ+ people. Frank tells Mike Wooldridge why, despite the enormous risk, he has to do the right thing and continue his campaign.

Few people can claim as much influence over the shape of the modern world as Henry Kissinger. The former US Secretary of State and Nobel Peace laureate is loved, loathed and listened to - for the decisions he took, the attitude he espoused and for his knowledge and analysis of world affairs. In 2022, James Naughtie travelled to Kissinger's home to discuss six great leaders and the lessons they taught, as Kissinger reflected on his own role in creating the modern world.this programe was first published in 2022.

The Polish government has built a steel border wall 186km long and 5m high along its eastern frontier. It is meant to stop global migrants from Asia and Africa trying to cross from the Belarusian side. But the wall cuts straight through the Białowieza forest - the largest remaining stretch of primeval forest in Europe and a Unesco world heritage site. Grzegorz Sokol meets environmental scientists, activists and local villagers, such as Kasia Mazurkiewicz-Bylok who treks into the forest with a rucksack of supplies to try to help migrants lost in the dense, trackless forest. And, Kat Nowak, a biologist trying to log the precise effects of the wall, from the plant species brought in with the gravel for the foundation, to the possible effects on wolf behaviour.

English teacher Farida and Khalid, a medical supplier, document through intimate voice messages their struggle to survive the war in Gaza. They tell a story of immense loss and resilience in a worsening humanitarian crisis.The Gaza diaries was produced by Haya Al Badarneh, Lara Elgebaly, Mamdouh Akbiek Mohammad Shalaby and Mary O’Reilly.The editors were Rebecca Henschke and Simon Cox and it was mixed by Graham Puddifoot.A BBC Arabic investigations production for the BBC World Service.

Sweden has become a European hotspot for deadly shootings, rocking its reputation as a safe and peaceful nation. Last year, a record 62 people were killed in gun violence in the Nordic nation, which has a population of just 10 million. Crime researchers say Sweden’s trend for shoot-to-kill murders is unique in Europe. Stockholm-based broadcaster Maddy Savage and Nikoi Djane – an ex-gang member turned criminologist – visit communities impacted by the deadly violence and explore what is being done to tackle the problem.