The Documentary

Colombia produced a record 1.5 million kilograms of cocaine last year - about 70% of the world’s supply. In the regions where coca is grown, gangs fight for control of territory and smuggling routes, killing anyone who stands in their way. These are some of the most dangerous places in South America. A peace deal signed in 2016 with the FARC rebel group was meant to reduce coca growing by offering farmers alternatives. But instead, cocaine production has rocketed, flooding markets in the US and Europe.In this Assignment, Michael Buchanan investigates what’s behind Colombia’s booming cocaine trade. He gains rare access to smugglers and producers, as well as meeting the indigenous people who are standing up to the traffickers, and often paying with their lives. Producers: Josephine Casserly and Almudena Garcia Parrado Editor: Bridget Harney(Image: Farmer picking coca leaves. Credit: BBC)

Climate change is lapping at the shores of Poruma, a tropical island in Australia’s Torres Strait. It is a dot in the Pacific Ocean, just two kilometres long and 300 metres wide, that sits halfway between the northern tip of Australia and the south of Papua New Guinea. Christianity came to the Torres Strait in the late 1800s and it has been embraced by the Islanders. But when the people of Poruma gained this faith, they lost parts of their culture and language. Siobhan Hegarty journeys to the Torres Strait where the locals are fighting to save their land, their language and their cultural traditions – before it’s too late.

Academic expectations, job competition and financial pressures are forcing some young South Koreans to give up on relationships, marriage and kids. This phenomenon is known as the ‘sampo’ or ‘give up’ generation. The daily struggle to succeed within a patriotic and competitive culture is a shared experience. The suicide rate in Korea is the second highest among developed countries. In recent years, the quality of life reached such a low point, young people started referring to the country as, ‘hell Joseon’.

In the heart of Hitler’s Nazi Germany, members of the Resistance worked tirelessly and at great risk to themselves to help those whose lives were threatened. Amongst them was Elisabeth Charlotte Gloeden – known as Liselotte or “Lilo” – who, along with her husband Erich, hid Jews in their home in Berlin, before arranging safe passage for them out of Germany. The couple’s efforts went undetected until 1944 when they took in General Fritz Lindemann, who was being hunted by the Gestapo for being part of the plot to assassinate Hitler.

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

Why do we hold our opponents in contempt? Former British politician Douglas Alexander believes that disagreement is good - it is how the best arguments get refined. But, today, public discourse has become so ill-tempered, snide and lacking in respect that we are no longer engaged in a battle of ideas but a slanging match. Time to dial down the rhetoric, rein in the insults - they will persuade no-one that your opinion is worth listening to - and pay attention.

“Did you actually kill hundreds of people, Dad?” This is certainly not a question that many people feel the need to ask their parents. But for a group of young women in Argentina, it was one they could no longer ignore. Their fathers have been accused, held under trial and in some cases sentenced for some of the worst crimes in Argentina’s history – all members of the military and police forces during the country’s last military regime, that kidnapped, tortured and killed thousands of people over a period of seven years. Forty years later, these women have come together and decided to speak up against their fathers. The BBC’s Valeria Perasso followed them on their journey to become a voice in the ongoing public conversation about human rights to help heal the country – and themselves.

Kate Molleson visits the world’s largest island to explore the role of traditional and new music for its communities today. Between the capital of Nuuk and smaller fishing town of Maniitsoq, Kate encounters drum dancers resurrecting a traditional Inuit practice which almost died out on Greenland’s west coast, discovers the political and sonic influence of the Greenlandic language on music from hymn singing to hip-hop, meets artists using their lyrics to engage with issues from the climate to the country’s deep-rooted social problems, and visits a music school offering a safe space to young people.

Psychedelic plants, the spiritual tourism backlash - and sexual abuse. Increasing numbers of tourists are travelling to the Peruvian Amazon to drink ayahuasca, a traditional plant medicine said to bring about a higher state of consciousness. Foreigners come looking for spiritual enlightenment or help with mental health problems like trauma, depression, and addiction. But not everyone is happy about Peru’s booming ayahuasca tourism industry. A group of indigenous healers are fighting back against what they see as the exploitation and appropriation of their cultural heritage by foreigners - who run most of the ayahuasca retreats popular with tourists. This coming together of cultures has thrown up another serious problem too: vulnerable women being sexually abused while under the influence of charismatic healers and this powerful psychedelic. Reporter: Simon Maybin Producer: Josephine Casserly Editor: Bridget Harney(Image: Forest canopy, Peru. Credit: Getty Creative)

In 2010, Katie Williams – a former palliative care nurse – started the first Coffin Club in her garage. The idea was that elderly New Zealanders would come together to sand, assemble and decorate their own coffins. Word got around and now - nearly a decade later - The Coffin Club, Rotorua, is a huge success and has inspired spin-offs around the world. Award-winning documentary-maker Cathy FitzGerald visits Katie and meets club members.

This year, 2020, sees the 75th anniversary of the end of World War Two. Its legacy remains. Nowhere more so than in Germany, where the rise of Nazism led to the war, and terrible crimes against humanity. Chris Bowlby explores how post-war Germans have faced this inheritance and discovers how a search for justice in relation to Nazi crimes has continued, despite heavy pressure to stop.

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

In Japan to change gender, people must be sterilised, have gender reassignment surgery, not have any children under the age of 20 and must be single. The government further state you cannot have gender reassignment surgery if you are on any type of hormone replacement - and you must accept the psychiatric diagnosis of "gender identity disorder". Mariko Oi investigates The controversial laws over how people can change gender in Japan.

For more than a century, the world has revolved around fossil fuels. Wars have been fought over them. The nations that had oil and gas had power. They controlled the price, they controlled the supply and could tell their customers what to do. What will happen as countries around world develop enough renewable energy to end their dependence on hydrocarbons?

Polajee “Billy” Rakchongcharoen was last seen on April 17, 2014. At the time the human rights activist was working with lawyers in Bangkok to stop the eviction of Karen indigenous people from Thailand’s Kaeng Krachan National park. For five years his wife fought to solve the mystery of his disappearance, suspecting a cover up by local park authorities. But this summer Billy’s body was found burned and stuffed into a 200-litre oil drum which had been dumped in a reservoir on the outskirts of the national park. BBC Thai’s correspondent, Chaiyot Yongcharoenchai, investigates Billy’s murder and discovers how his death could end up helping the families of other disappeared people in Thailand. Producer, Charlotte Pamment. (Image: Billy Rakchongcharoen. Credit: Muenor Rakchongcharoen)

Space travel is not always high-tech. When the Apollo astronauts landed on the Moon in 1969, seamstresses made their spacesuits at a company famous for stitching latex into Playtex bras. During the Space Shuttle era, a group of 18 women were in charge of all soft goods - the fabrics for machine and hand sewing the spaceplane’s thermal blankets. These women became known as the Sew Sisters. Presenter, artist and former Nasa astronaut Nicole Stott meets some of the sew sisters from past and present missions and celebrates their contributions.

The story of the Soviet war in Afghanistan told through its teenage soldiers and the music they created. The 10-year conflict from 1979 to 1989 was one of the most dramatic and consequential wars of modern times. It saw the end of an empire, and triggered a political shockwave that we still live with today. Time Has Chosen Us tells the story of this under-examined war through the oral histories of Soviet soldiers who reveal honest, sad and funny accounts of their teenage years on the frontlines.

Iceland's glaciers are melting at an unprecedented rate, with scientists predicting that they could all be gone 200 years from now.How is this affecting the lives of local people, and the identity of a nation that has ice in its name?Maria Margaronis talks to Icelandic farmers and fishermen, scientists and environmental activists about their (sometimes surprising) responses to climate change, and asks why it’s so difficult even for those who see its effects from their windows every day to take in what it means.(Image: Glacier lagoon with icebergs, Vatnajokull, Iceland. Credit: Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images)

The town of Ii in northern Finland is a green trailblazer. It has managed to stop burning fossil fuels and will have reduced carbon emissions by 80% by 2020; that is 30 years ahead of the EU target. It is also aiming to be the world’s first zero-waste town. It is happening because of the collective effort of the community. Erika Benke discovers how everyone is involved; from local businessmen to the mayor and from schoolchildren to their parents and grandparents.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the leading liberal Judge on the US Supreme Court. At 86 she has spent many decades fighting for women’s rights, including equal pay and access to abortion. A pioneer, this is a rare interview with a living legend. Razia Iqbal presents this special programme from New York as she receives the $1m Berggruen Prize for philosophy and culture.