Crossing Continents
359 episodes - English - Latest episode: 4 days ago - ★★★★★ - 68 ratingsSeries focusing on foreign affairs issues
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Episodes
Yemen's Swap Marriages
December 04, 2014 11:15 - 28 minutes - 26 MB'I'll marry your sister if you marry mine. And if you divorce my sister, I'll divorce yours.' That is Yemen's 'Shegar', or swap marriage, an agreement between two men to marry each other's sisters, thereby removing the need for expensive dowry payments. But the agreement also states that if one marriage fails, the other couple must separate, too, even if they are happy. BBC Arabic's Mai Noman returns to her native Yemen and hears the stories of two women who have loved and lost because of Sh...
Searching for Annie in Liberia
November 27, 2014 11:15 - 28 minutes - 25.7 MBGabriel Gatehouse reports from the Liberian capital Monrovia on the devastating impact of Ebola upon its people. In one case, a patient called Annie, 38, was discovered in her crowded shared house in harrowing conditions. She was taken away to hospital but disappeared into the system. Gabriel and his team go in search of Annie and along the way meet the medics and families on the front line of the Ebola crisis.
Hunting the Taliban
November 20, 2014 11:15 - 28 minutes - 25.6 MBMobeen Azhar reports from Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city, where police are at war with the Taliban. Given rare access to the work of the police by a Senior Superintendent in Karachi's Criminal Investigation Department, Mobeen joins officers on a night time raid in search of the men who train suicide bombers. He meets a suspect in custody who brags about planting bombs and describes how he urges teenage boys to sacrifice their lives in violent jihad. Mobeen also talks to a businessman who w...
Ivory Coast's School for Husbands
September 18, 2014 10:15 - 28 minutes - 25.9 MBIn one remote district in Ivory Coast, men are going back to school. Their studies are part of a UN-backed project dubbed 'the school for husbands' and designed to save the lives of women and children. The idea is to teach decision makers - the men - about the importance of family planning, check-ups, and pre-natal care for their wives. The aim is to help women and also improve general welfare in farming villages where food is scarce and incomes are dependent on the weather and good fortune....
Thailand's Slave Fishermen
September 11, 2014 10:15 - 27 minutes - 25.4 MBIt has one of the largest fishing fleets in the world and much of the catch from Thailand's fishing boats ends up on Japanese, European and American plates. Yet the industry stands accused of profiting from slave labour. The BBC's Becky Palmstrom investigates this tale of modern day slavery. She travels to Thailand and Myanmar to find out why and how illegal migrants are being forced onto Thai fishing boats, many of them working for months unpaid. She hears allegations of cruelty and even m...
A Song for Spanish Miners
September 04, 2014 10:15 - 28 minutes - 25.7 MBIn the Spanish mining town of Turon a male choir meets once a week for rehearsals. They often sing to the patron saint of miners Santa Bárbara Bendita. Since 1934 miners have been singing this beautiful song in memory of four miners killed in a mining accident in the Maria Luisa mine. Coal mining, once a major industry in Spain, has been in decline for years and in the next few years the EU's subsidies for non-profitable pits will stop altogether. For most miners the closure of pits signals ...
Guatemala's Addicts Behind Bars
August 28, 2014 10:15 - 27 minutes - 25.6 MBThe last decade has seen a dramatic increase in cocaine trafficking through Guatemala en route north, to the United States. Part of the fallout locally, has been a rise in addiction. As a result, more than 200 drug rehabilitation centres have been set up in the capital alone. Many of these are run by Pentecostal churches, with little oversight or regulation. Often addicts are swept up from the streets by 'hunting parties', and forced to attend such a centre. Linda Pressly travels to Guatemal...
Goodbye Ireland; Goodbye Gaelic Football
August 21, 2014 10:15 - 28 minutes - 25.8 MBGaelic Football is Ireland's most popular sport - there are clubs in every parish of the country. The game is very much part of the Irish identity. But it is losing its lifeblood. And all because of emigration. John Murphy goes to the far west of Ireland, to learn about this uniquely Irish game and hear how clubs are struggling to keep going as more and more young people leave the country, to find jobs abroad. Helen Grady producing.
Chasing China's Doomsday Cult
August 14, 2014 10:15 - 26 minutes - 24.7 MBAlmighty God vs the Red Dragon: It sounds like a fantasy action film but it is in fact a real and disturbing struggle in China. The most vivid case involves a group of people who beat a stranger to death in a fast food restaurant. They said they had no choice because the victim was a 'demon'. The killers are fanatical followers of the Church of the Almighty God, a Christian doomsday cult which claims millions of members across China and pledges to overthrow the Chinese Communist Party - whic...
Crimea: Paradise Regained
August 07, 2014 10:15 - 28 minutes - 26.1 MBEurope and the US have imposed the toughest sanctions on Russia since the Cold War amid anger over the Kremlin's support for east Ukrainian separatists who stand accused of shooting down a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet. But the crisis began further south with Russia's annexation of Crimea in March. Crimea's idyllic scenery drew Soviet visitors for years - some called it the Communist Cote d'Azur. The collapse of communism did little to dent Russia's appetite for their bit of paradise on t...
Fearless Women in Turkish Kurdistan
July 31, 2014 10:15 - 28 minutes - 26.1 MBFor decades, Turkey's Kurds have been struggling against a state that used to deny their very existence as a separate people. In the low level war between the Turkish military and the militant Kurdish group, the PKK, both side have been accused of atrocities. In the 29 years of fighting up to last year's ceasefire, at least 40,000 people died and hundreds of villages were destroyed. But now, just when Kurds in neighbouring Iraq are considering establishing an independent state, and many beli...
Tornado Hide and Seek
July 24, 2014 10:15 - 28 minutes - 25.7 MBWhen a twisting funnel drops from the sky with tearing winds of up to 500 km/h, what do you do? In Oklahoma, people thought they knew the answer. The state is in the heart of tornado alley in the USA, where the public is regularly drilled on storm awareness. But when the largest storm ever recorded formed on the outskirts of Oklahoma City last year, people ignored the best advice and nearly died in their thousands. Now, officials are nervously watching where the next storm will form...and tr...
The Reykjavik Confessions
May 15, 2014 10:15 - 28 minutes - 25.7 MBIn 1974, police launched one of the biggest murder investigations Iceland has ever seen. The case was eventually solved when six people confessed to their parts in the murders of two men whose bodies have never been found. Forty years on, a government review has found that the confessions were unreliable and a campaign is underway to quash the convictions. But some of those who were wrongly convicted are struggling to accept their innocence. Simon Cox investigates what's seen by many as a st...
Argentina: GM's New Frontline
May 08, 2014 10:15 - 27 minutes - 25.5 MBThe transgenic revolution in agricultural production turned Argentina into one of the world's largest producers and exporters of genetically modified soybean and corn. But there is unease across the nation's vast GM belt, especially about health. In the northerly province of Chaco, the Minster of Public Health wants an independent commission to investigate cases of cancer and the incidence of children born with disabilities. Produced and presented by Linda Pressly.
Arizona: The Missing Migrants
May 01, 2014 10:15 - 28 minutes - 25.8 MBEach year, thousands of illegal migrants try to enter the United States via a treacherous journey across the Arizona desert. Some succeed, while others are captured by US border patrols and are immediately deported - but not everyone is so fortunate. A growing number simply drop dead from exhaustion. The Missing Migrant Project works on identifying the deceased, piecing together clues found in the personal effects collected alongside the decomposed bodies found in the desert. In this progr...
Central African Republic: A Road Through Hatred
April 10, 2014 10:15 - 28 minutes - 25.8 MBHow do you restore peace to a country now being torn apart by a vicious campaign of ethnic and religious cleansing? Two men in the Central African Republic believe they have the answer - friendship. Tim Whewell joins the Catholic Archbishop of Bangui, Dieudonne Nzapalainga and the country's Chief Imam, Oumar Kobine Layama as they travel across the country trying to reconcile Christian and Muslim communities.
Ukraine: The Paper Trail to Corruption
April 03, 2014 10:50 - 28 minutes - 26.1 MBWhen the former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych jumped into a helicopter and flew into hiding in mid-February, the Kiev protest movement that had opposed him flung open the gates of his abandoned estate. Ordinary Ukrainians poured in to visit the 140-hectare grounds and to catch a first glimpse of the luxurious lifestyle Yanukovych had enjoyed at his country's expense. Many gawped at the extraordinary opulence from the gold fittings to the marble floors and the private zoo. But a grou...
Syria: The Silent Enemy
March 27, 2014 11:15 - 28 minutes - 25.9 MBThere's a silent enemy at work in the civil war in Syria and it's threatening the lives of young children. The war has placed the country's health system under intense pressure and in certain areas vaccination programmes against a range of preventable diseases have not taken place. In October 2013 the Syrian Ministry of Health verified the first polio case in 15 years. Now there are 25 laboratory confirmed cases in the country with another 13 confirmations pending. With the huge movement of ...
Uzbekistan: Searching for Googoosha
January 16, 2014 11:15 - 28 minutes - 26.1 MBNatalia Antelava goes in search of Gulnara Karimova - pop star, philanthropist, socialite, intellectual - oh, and incidentally (according to leaked US Embassy cables) the most hated woman in Uzbekistan. The image that graces the screens and billboards of Tashkent is one of a glamorous, dynamic, celebrity who flits from Cannes to New York to Moscow, fronting glossy music videos under her musical alias GooGoosha, with stars like Julio Iglesias and Gerard Depardieu. She runs charities and helps...
Russia: Digging up the Dead
January 09, 2014 11:15 - 28 minutes - 26.1 MBOf the estimated 70 million deaths attributed to World War two, 30 million died on the Russian front. Of those, as many as 4 million Soviet soldiers are still "missing in action". These men - more than the entire population of Ireland or New Zealand - are still unaccounted for. Despite all the official rhetoric on Victory Day, many in power today would rather not contemplate the fate of these men. They lie forgotten and unrecognised by Russia's top brass and the state. But as Lucy Ash disc...
Greenland: To dig or not to dig?
January 02, 2014 11:15 - 28 minutes - 26 MBCould Greenland become the world's next resource hotspot? The government there hopes so - they've been travelling the world touting the country's vast reserves of oil and gas, and huge deposits of iron ore, gold and rare-earth elements. As melting icecaps make all these resources more accessible, mining promises riches for Greenland and the ultimate prize of full independence from Denmark. But there's a catch - many of the rare earth minerals are surrounded by uranium, pitching Greenland int...
Brazil: Fighting Slavery
December 26, 2013 11:15 - 28 minutes - 25.8 MBBrazil's anti-slavery hit-squads are unique. Since 1995, these committed bands of labour inspectors, accompanied by heavily armed police, have rescued 46,000 people deemed to be working as slaves. But Brazil's legal definition of slavery is contentious. It includes degrading conditions of work, which campaigners say amount to coercion. Some employers reject that. And now the stakes have been raised by proposals to confiscate land from bosses found to be flouting the anti-slavery standards. I...
Bangladesh: Trials of Strength
December 19, 2013 11:15 - 28 minutes - 25.7 MBFarhana Haider investigates the prosecution of alleged war criminals and asks if the trials are being used to target the opposition. There were numerous reports of atrocities during the brutal war of 1971 between Pakistan on one side and the new state which was to become Bangladesh, which had support from India. The Pakistani Army and Islamic sympathisers in Bangladesh were accused of rape and of mass killings which some have described as genocide. In 2010 the governing Awami League set up ...
Indonesia's humungous healthcare plan
December 12, 2013 11:15 - 28 minutes - 26 MBOn 1 January 2014 Indonesia will launch the largest public health insurance scheme in the world. It will unite a bewildering array of current schemes to cover the entire population, with the poor getting their health care free. Former BBC Jakarta Correspondent Claire Bolderson asks whether the world's fourth most populous country has the resources and organisational skills to make such an ambitious scheme work? Producer: Mike Gallagher.
India: Resisting Rape
December 05, 2013 11:15 - 28 minutes - 26.1 MBOne year on from the horrific attack in Delhi, Joanna Jolly hears from three women who've chosen to report a rape in a country that is at last waking up to the problem. The authorities have introduced tougher laws since the young student was raped on a bus last December but is the experience of women who choose to prosecute their attackers getting any better? Three women talk about their struggle: reporting rape to a not always sympathetic police, being examined in the government's often ove...
Mexico: Exorcising Evil
November 28, 2013 11:15 - 27 minutes - 25.4 MBVladimir Hernandez follows the Mexican priests who believe they can fight the evil of drug trafficking through the ancient Catholic practice of exorcism. It is estimated that 60,000 people have died in Mexico in the "drug wars" linked to the narco-traffickers, who are among the most vicious criminals in the world. To some Catholic priests and believers, this is clear evidence that the Devil has taken hold among much of the population. They also point to the popularity of cults like that of ...
Moldova - Sour Grapes
November 21, 2013 11:15 - 28 minutes - 25.7 MBWine making in Moldova is a source of national pride - they have been growing vines for centuries. During Soviet times the country was encouraged to become one of the USSR's major wine suppliers and it has remained so ever since. But recently Russia banned the importation of Moldovan wine for the second time in a decade. Tessa Dunlop visits the prestigious Cricova winery - whose cellars have 120km of underground roads and holds bottles for the likes of Angela Merkel and President Putin - to...
Indonesia's Mercury Menace
September 19, 2013 10:15 - 27 minutes - 25.6 MBUp to 20% of the world's gold is produced by informal mining, with millions of people in the developing world relying on it for a living. The quickest and easiest way for them to extract gold is by mixing finely ground rock with mercury, a highly toxic metal, and burning it off. Linda Pressly visits Indonesia, and finds gold workers and communities who are already showing signs of mercury poisoning. There are paddy fields with the highest concentration of mercury ever tested in rice. Experts...
Matchmaking in Modern China
September 12, 2013 10:15 - 28 minutes - 25.8 MBAccording to a recent study by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 24 million Chinese men will be unable to find wives by 2020 because of the country's gender imbalance. Before the mass migration from the villages to the cities, young men could rely on their parents to find them a wife. Now many of those single women live in the cities, working in factories. They only see their parents during the spring festival so the chances of finding a wife are limited. It's a particular challenge fo...
Venezuela - Out of Stock
September 05, 2013 10:30 - 28 minutes - 25.8 MBDespite its massive natural oil wealth, Venezuela is a country sliding into recession, and has one of the highest inflation rates in the world. With prices of some products rising as much as 50% or more annually, the crisis presents a simple human predicament - how to lay your hands on the ever-dwindling supply of price-capped essentials that government shops pledge to provide. The trouble is that many of these basic goods like milk and toilet rolls, are disappearing from the supermarkets wi...
Inside Gay Pakistan
August 29, 2013 10:30 - 27 minutes - 25.5 MBMobeen Azhar investigates gay life in urban Pakistan and despite the country's religious conservatism and homosexuality being a crime there, he finds a vibrant gay scene, all aided by social media. He meets gay people at underground parties, shrines and hotels and finds out what it's really like to be gay in Pakistan. As one man tells him, "The best thing about being gay in Pakistan is you can easily hook up with guys over here. You just need to know the right moves and with a click you ca...
Turkey's New Opposition
August 22, 2013 10:30 - 27 minutes - 25.6 MBChange is in the air in Turkey following anti-government protests centred on a park in Istanbul - but where will it end? Emre Azizlerli of the BBC Turkish Service explores the strange new alliances forged in Turkey's anti-government protests, and asks if this diverse movement can hold together. He meets the anti-capitalist Islamists who have made common cause with environmentalists and secularists as well as gay and lesbian groups. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan refers to the protesters...
Kazakhstan's Living Gulags
August 15, 2013 10:30 - 28 minutes - 26 MBThe Kazakh steppe was once home to the infamous Soviet forced labour camps which formed part of the Gulag. Today, the Gulag system is said to live on in Kazakhstan's jails where a growing prison population faces daily torture, humiliation and lawlessness. Despite its poor human rights record, many developed nations, including Britain, are rapidly strengthening relations with Kazakhstan. BBC Central Asia Correspondent Rayhan Demeytrie investigates why the Gulag violence persists and asks why ...
Romania, Religion and Riches
August 08, 2013 10:30 - 28 minutes - 26.2 MBSince the fall of Ceaucescu's dictatorship, the Romanian Orthodox Church has flourished. It has built thousands of new churches across the country and is now constructing a huge new cathedral in the capital Bucharest. The Cathedral is right next to Ceaucescu's gargantuan "Palace of the People" and, when completed, is intended to be taller - a physical manifestation of the Church's power and influence. Much of the money for the construction of these new churches and the cathedral has come fro...
Kermit Gosnell: Doctor and Murderer
August 05, 2013 20:00 - 28 minutes - 25.9 MBDr Kermit Gosnell had a reputation as the 'abortion doctor of last resort' along the East Coast of the United States - until his arrest in 2010. He regularly performed abortions well past the legal limit of 24 weeks with the help of untrained staff. At least two women died because of the treatment they received at his Philadelphia clinic. He has now been sentenced to three life sentences for the murder of three babies born alive. But authorities only acted against Gosnell when they suspected...
Spain: Operation FGM
July 25, 2013 10:30 - 28 minutes - 25.9 MBIn Barcelona, a doctor offers reconstructive surgery to women who had female genital mutilation when they were children. Recorded over 6 months, Linda Pressly hears the stories of Rosa and Wenkune - Spanish women of African origin. FGM has caused them both a good deal of trauma. Will the operation change how they feel about themselves? What difference will it make to their intimate relationships? And what motivates Dr Barri Soldevila - a busy surgeon in a private hospital - to prioritise the...
Sweden
May 24, 2013 08:30 - 28 minutes - 25.7 MBWriter Andrew Brown tries to find out if the rural heart of Sweden still lives on in the modern age. In an entertaining and unpredictable journey he goes in search of wolves, egg-tossing merrymakers and the ideal of the Swedish summer.
Romario Tackles Brazil
May 16, 2013 10:30 - 28 minutes - 25.8 MBBrazil is getting ready to host the 2014 World Cup. But the preparations have become marred in controversy. And leading the charge against over-budget stadiums, vested interests and corruption is an unlikely figure: Romario. Brazil's World Cup-winning footballer has transformed himself into a serious, hard-working politician. Tim Franks meets him for Crossing Continents. Is this a genuine transformation for one of Brazil's most notorious celebrity bad-boys? Producer: Linda Pressly.
Return to Ghana's Oil City
May 09, 2013 10:30 - 28 minutes - 25.8 MBTwo and a half years ago, oil started flowing from Ghana's first commercial offshore oilfield. Shortly after the taps were turned on, Rob Walker visited the hub for the new industry: the once sleepy port of Takoradi. He found a mixture of ambition and uncertainty in a rapidly expanding boomtown. Rob now returns to Takoradi to meet people he met last time and find out whether their dreams have been realised. Producer: Katharine Hodgson.
Hazaras, Hatred and Pakistan
May 02, 2013 10:15 - 28 minutes - 26.1 MBMobeen Azhar travels to the Pakistani city of Quetta to investigate how it has become the scene of violent and indiscriminate attacks by Sunni militants against the local ethnic Hazara community. It's a city which has become effectively a no-go area for foreign journalists due to the persistent and intensifying violence. Mobeen tells the story of a single day in January of this year when over 100 people lost their lives in twin bombings in Quetta. Claiming responsibility was the Sunni milita...
Belarus's university in exile
April 25, 2013 10:30 - 27 minutes - 25.5 MBBelarus has been described as the last dictatorship in Europe. Few dare speak out against President Alexander Lukashenko and his ruling elite. But the opposition has found a way of making its voice heard through an academic community which has taken refuge abroad. Lucy Ash visits the European Humanities University which teaches Belarusian students on its campus in neighbouring Lithuania. She talks to teachers and students, many of whom commute back and forth across the border. Is the EHU d...
Mexico's Village Vigilantes
April 18, 2013 10:30 - 28 minutes - 25.7 MBInsecurity dominates the lives of millions of Mexicans, who are caught between the murderous drug cartels and absent or corrupt law enforcement. So, communities have begun to take the law into their own hands, and Crossing Continents reporter Linda Pressly travels to the southern state of Guerrero to meet a fledgling vigilante force which has grown into an organisation numbering thousands of members. Since coming into force earlier this year, dozens of arrests made by untrained, armed civil...
Ukraine's HIV battle
April 11, 2013 10:30 - 27 minutes - 25.6 MBTwelve years ago Lucy Ash investigated Ukraine's fight against HIV infection, which was mainly caused by injecting drug users. After the Orange Revolution in late 2004, the government promised to do everything it could to fight the disease and the situation seemed to improve. But now Ukraine has the second highest infection rate in Europe, surpassed only by Russia. Around the world, other countries are managing to reduce rates of HIV infection and AIDS-related deaths. Lucy Ash travels to Kyi...
Nepal: Getting Away with Murder
April 04, 2013 10:30 - 28 minutes - 25.7 MBThe fate of hundreds of people who went missing during Nepal's brutal civil war is threatening to undermine the country's fragile democracy. Around 100,000 people were displaced during the bloody insurgency and an estimated 17 thousand were killed. A peace agreement was signed six years ago in which both sides promised that war crimes would not go unpunished. But relatives are still waiting for justice. Joanna Jolly finds out why the scars from the conflict are still raw despite attempts by ...
Mongolia's Mining Boom
March 28, 2013 11:15 - 28 minutes - 25.6 MBThe Oyu Tolgoi mine in Mongolia's freezing Gobi Desert is one of the the world's biggest - extracting a vast seam of copper, gold and silver the size of Manhattan. It's turned this country of camel and yak herders into the world's fastest growing economy. Fancy boutiques, top-end car dealerships and coffee shops are springing up across the capital. But, as Justin Rowlatt discovers, riding the boom is not easy. He meets a rapper who says the government is simply selling the country's assets t...
Trafficking girls in India
January 10, 2013 11:15 - 28 minutes - 25.7 MBIn a major investigation, Natalia Antelava reports on the abduction of tens of thousands of young girls in India for forced marriages. Thousands more are sold as prostitutes and domestic servants. She follows the route of the traffickers, who take girls from destitute households in places like West Bengal to wealthier areas in Northern states, where a shortage of women is blamed by many on sex-selective abortions. It's a problem the United Nations describes as of 'genocidal proportions'. Nat...
Forced Confessions in Japan
January 03, 2013 11:00 - 28 minutes - 25.8 MBMariko Oi investigates forced confessions of suspects in the Japanese criminal justice system. She asks if the use of prolonged questioning and other dubious tactics by police and prosecutors might be one reason for Japan's astonishingly high conviction rate. Producer: Nina Robinson.
Burma
December 27, 2012 11:30 - 28 minutes - 25.8 MBLucy Ash asks what the explosion in popular protest over a Chinese-backed copper mine says about changes in Burma and asks if this is a test case for the government's commitment to democratic reforms. Farmers' daughters Aye Net and Thwe Thwe Win have led thousands of villagers in protest against what they say is the unlawful seizure of thousands of acres of land to make way for a $1 billion expansion of a copper mine run by the military and a large Chinese arms manufacturer. They have been...
Poland's New Immigrants
December 20, 2012 11:30 - 28 minutes - 25.7 MBFor decades, Poland has been a country of emigrants travelling to build new lives abroad, not least in the UK. But could things be about to change? Paul Henley travels to the country at the eastern edge of the EU, where the financial crisis has, so far, been avoided. He meets the migrants already making a life in Europe's least multicultural society, and explores the conditions that suggest Poland could be on the cusp of becoming a destination; home to a new wave of migrants. Producer: Lila ...
Libya: Life after the Revolution
December 13, 2012 11:30 - 28 minutes - 25.7 MBThe city of Misrata arguably suffered the most during the Libyan conflict as missiles rained on it for months on end. By the end of the revolution though, fighters from Misrata had exacted their revenge on neighbouring towns and had been responsible for the capture of Colonel Gaddafi, as well as Gaddafi strongholds. More recently Misratan fighters have been in action against the city of Bani Walid. Many residents of Bani Walid, accused of being Gaddafi supporters, have been expelled from the...