Documentaries

Documentaries

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.

436 Episodes of this Podcast:

DocArchive: John Simpson Returns to 1989 - Part Two

Published: 2009-11-19 11:13:00

The BBC's World Affairs Editor John Simpson tells the story of 20 years of post-communist life.

Through personal stories, he traces the different roads that East Germany, the Czech Republic and Romania have taken since 1989.

In part two John returns to Prague to speak to those who lived through the Velvet Revolution.

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A Dollar A Day - Part Three

Published: 2009-11-18 05:30:00

In Nepal, severe drought and unreliable monsoon rains have led to acute food shortages. The impact is felt most by people like Charuri who is struggling to feed three children and cannot afford the medical help she needs.

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The Crescent and The Cross: Part Two

Published: 2009-11-16 05:05:00

Owen Bennett Jones explores five crucial battles in the relationship between Christianity and Islam. This episode looks at the Crusades.

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Africa's Forgotten Soldiers

Published: 2009-11-12 09:16:00

Seventy years after the start of the Second World War the overwhelming impression is of a conflict fought on the battlefields of Europe by white troops. Britain’s war effort was bolstered by soldiers from the white Commonwealth – Australia, Canada and New Zealand and later by the United States. The war in the Far East is often overlooked, as is the fighting that took place in Africa. Yet one million African troops participated in the conflict, fighting their way through the jungles of Burma, across the Libyan deserts and in the skies over London.

In this documentary we hear first hand from the African troops who participated in the war – and who played a critical part in freeing the world from the threat of fascism.

Martin Plaut reports.

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DocArchive: Assignment: Better Banking

Published: 2009-11-12 05:06:00

As governments struggle to curb the so-called “casino-banking” practices which some blame for the global financial meltdown, Michael Robinson now reports on growing concerns over super-fast, computerised share-dealing systems which are earning massive new profits for banks.

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DocArchive: A Dollar a Day - Part 2

Published: 2009-11-11 05:05:00

Thrown off nearby farms at the time of Namibia’s independence, the squatters of Otjivero lived a hand-to-mouth existence. Last year a scheme was established to give every inhabitant a basic cash grant of US$10 a month, to spend as they wanted. School enrolment has shot up, small businesses are springing up, and the nurse at the local clinic says malnutrition rates amongst the children have dropped.

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The Crescent and the Cross - Part One

Published: 2009-11-09 06:27:00

The Crescent and the Cross, a four-part series, presented by Owen Bennett-Jones, examines several turning points in the relationship between Christianity and Islam covering Muslim Spain, the Crusades, the Ottoman Empire and the struggle for Africa.

Part One starts by look going back over 1,000 years ago, in what we now call Spain, but was then known as al-Andalus.

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DocArchive: Youssou N’Dour at 50

Published: 2009-11-05 10:12:00

To mark the 50th birthday of Youssou N'Dour, Robin Denselow travels to Senegal to profile the best known African musician of recent times.

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DocArchive: Assignment - Guinea on the Brink

Published: 2009-11-05 04:06:00

Mark 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.

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DocArchive: A Dollar a Day - Part 1

Published: 2009-11-04 05:00:00

What 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.

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Copyright info: (C) BBC 2009
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