Throughout the week BBC World Service offers a wide range of documentaries and other factual programmes. This podcast offers you the chance to access landmark series from our archive.
To mark the 50th birthday of Youssou N'Dour, Robin Denselow travels to Senegal to profile the best known African musician of recent times.
...MOREMark Doyle reports from Guinea in West Africa on the harrowing events of 28 September when government troops crushed an opposition rally in the centre of the capital, Conakry. This programme contains some graphic description of sexual violence.
...MOREWhat keeps a billion people trapped in the most persistent poverty? Mike Wooldridge travels to Nicaragua to meet Justa who hoped for a better life after the Sandinista revolution.
...MOREThe extraordinary but little-known tale of Russia's three all-female regiments that flew more than 30,000 missions on the Eastern Front. At home they were celebrated as 'Stalin's Falcons' but terrified German troops called them the 'Night Witches'.
...MOREPublic Places, Private Lives is a series of portraits of well known places that reveal the lives and stories of those people who come to a famous spot not to gaze as tourists, but for work or for their own private reasons.
The second programme is set in the Taj Mahal, where we hear the experiences of those people for whom one of the most important sites in India is part of their daily landscape.
Jill McGivering travels to Pakistan's largest city, Karachi, to meet a doctor who is battling against the odds to prevent women from dying in childbirth. Listeners may find parts of this Assignment programme distressing.
...MORENigeria is campaigning for a new image and a new reputation in an effort to attract some much needed investment. Reporter Henry Bonsu follows the many steps of this charm offensive.
...MOREThe head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service Sir John Scarlett, talks for the first time about the interrogation of terrorist suspects and MI6’s role in the run-up to the war in Iraq.
...MOREPublic Places, Private Lives is a series of portraits of well known places that reveal the lives and stories of those people who come to a famous spot not to gaze as tourists, but for work or for their own private reasons.
...MOREWhen a 17 month-old London child died after horrific abuse by his family, it unleashed a barrage of criticism against British social services. For Assignment Catherine Miller gains rare access to the people whose job it is to protect Britain's vulnerable children.
...MORECopyright info: (C) BBC 2009
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