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PODCAST

The Documentary Podcast

BBC World Service

The best documentaries from the BBC World Service. Hear the voices at the heart of global stories. Where curious minds can uncover hidden truths and make sense of the world. From Australia"s relationship with China, to Turkey"s sinkhole problem, to understanding the behaviour of dictators, we go beyond the headlines. Each week, all year round, we bring you the stories shaping our world. From the personal voices behind the headlines to perspectives on faith and spirituality and how work and money

society & culture documentary

All Episodes

24:15

Experiences of drought

The Documentary Podcast ·

2026/08/15

It’s been several weeks since there has been any significant rainfall in many parts of the world. Across Europe, a prolonged heatwave and little rain have dried-up waterways, hit crop production and have contributed to the wildfires that continue to burn in many areas. In our conversations we hear from Germany and Hungary – areas where low water levels are impacting transport and tourism - and we speak to Austin from Florida who used to run fishing tours. We are also joined by farmers in India,

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26:27

The creator of France's 'Untouchables'

The Documentary Podcast ·

2026/08/14

Laurent de Cherisey was fresh out of business school and looking forward to earning a lot of money when his sister had a car accident that left her severely disabled. This led him to rethink everything. Including finding faith. He founded what has become a string of houses where accident victims and non-accident victims live side by side. They’re called the Simon of Cyrene houses, named after the man Jesus chose to help him carry his cross. The project was financed in part by the box office receipts

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29:28

Tree of diplomacy

The Documentary Podcast ·

2026/08/13

How has botany been able to function as one of the longest-lasting soft powers between the two world powers - China and the US? Journalist and producer Finn Aberdein has been focused on China for over two decades. He hears from policy analysts, supply chain diplomats and leading Chinese and US botanists working tirelessly to keep their boots on the ground trips operating. From the secretive walled-gardens of China’s communist elite, to the gingko picnic spaces of Bostonian college lawns, and ancient

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22:59

The world's largest wildlife crossing

The Documentary Podcast ·

2026/08/12

When it opens in December, the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing will be the largest in the world. Stretched over a 10-lane freeway, it is meant to save the California Mountain Lion population, which has become fragmented by the highway. It could also serve as a model for other projects, as crossings of this kind have often been viewed as too large to be effective. So, will the crossing work? We examine the construction and the existing scientific data to find out.

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27:57

Victoria Falls: An environment on the edge

The Documentary Podcast ·

2026/08/11

The Victoria falls, on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe, is considered one of the natural wonders of the world. But as Isa Jacobson reports, there is concern that development around the waterfall could threaten the delicate ecosystem and exacerbate conflict between humans and wildlife.

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26:50

Special forces on trial

The Documentary Podcast ·

2026/08/09

South African police detective Frans Mathipa told his boss he feared that he would be killed by the country’s military. Two days later he was found shot dead in his car by the side of a motorway.At the time of his death, Mathipa had been investigating whether special forces soldiers were behind the disappearance of Abdella Abadigga, a suspected member of so-called Islamic State or ISIS, and his bodyguard. So was Mathipa killed, as his colleagues believe, because of fears about what his investigation

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26:43

Africa's first film city

The Documentary Podcast ·

2026/08/09

In Lagos, a vast patch of scrubland is being imagined as the future home of Kebulania: an ambitious African film city on the edge of Nigeria’s biggest metropolis, and one of the centres of Nollywood, the country’s multi-billion dollar film industry. Nigerian journalist Samuel Okocha follows the project in its earliest, most uncertain days – when the vision is big, but the buildings are yet to rise. At the proposed site, he joins community members, contractors and staff from Del-York Creative Arts, a

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26:37

Rapping behind bars in Cameroon

The Documentary Podcast ·

2026/08/08

New Bell Prison in Douala, Cameroon, operates a bit like a city within a city. The facility has its own "taxis" (inmates who hand deliver messages), its own law enforcement (prisoners who help police the facility) and a market. The jail is overcrowded and under-resourced, and the occupants of New Bell have sometimes adapted the jail's overstretched systems to work for them. An on-site music studio and label, Jail Time Records, has also sprung up and found an international audience. Wedaeli

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20:40

Ariana Grande and the public scrutiny of women

The Documentary Podcast ·

2026/08/08

Ariana Grande says she will be taking ‘a step back’ from public life. The reason, it seems, is the constant public commentary she faces – particularly surrounding her appearance. We bring together fans of the multi-award-winning singer and Oscar nominated actor to discuss the scrutiny facing women in the public eye. We also hear from women who have received abuse after posting on social media, including Ella, a high jump athlete from Finland. “I never imagined when I started doing sports as a little

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26:29

A singer’s search for peace

The Documentary Podcast ·

2026/08/07

In Lithuania, singer Rūgilė Daujotaitė was becoming a familiar face on television. She was performing at major music events, competing for a place at Eurovision, and building a life that, from the outside, appeared successful. But privately, she says she was struggling. Raised in a family shaped by New Age spirituality and occult beliefs, Rūgilė grew up searching for God through a mixture of traditions. As an adult, she moved to Amsterdam to study jazz, became involved in shamanic practices and

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26:30

The teenagers who wired Romania

The Documentary Podcast ·

2026/08/06

In the late '90s, in daring feats of DIY networking on rooftops across Romania’s capital, Bucharest, teenagers are stringing computer cables between tower blocks to share an internet connection. This guerilla infrastructure starts out scrappy, but it sprawls into an impressive improvised network that catches the attention of telecom giants. Told by those who built it, this is the extraordinary story of how a homemade system became the backbone of a city - a reflection of what the internet was meant

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49:29

The engineers: Flying at the edge

The Documentary Podcast ·

2026/08/05

Aviation is being reimagined for a changing planet: Vertical take-off passenger cars for city centres. Hydrogen powered planes for zero carbon travel. Hyper-sonic flights to take the London to Sydney journey to under two hours. Kelly Latimer, US Aerospace engineer, flight test pilot, and former Flight Test Director of Virgin Galactic; Rob Miller, Net-zero aviation pioneer and Director of the Whittle Lab at Cambridge University, UK and Daniel Moczydlower, president of the Brazilian future aircraft

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26:45

Getting Gaza back online

The Documentary Podcast ·

2026/08/04

Amid the tents and the rubble Gaza is developing once again as an unlikely tech hub. Even before the 7 October 2023 attack and the subsequent war between Israel and Hamas, NGOs, with the backing of Google, had sought to develop tech start-ups in the Gaza strip. The digital economy was one of the few areas in which young Gazans in particular could seek to earn money for their families. During the two years of war they struggled for food and water. Forced to move from place to place, most of them lost

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26:29

Skatepark designers Nine Yards

The Documentary Podcast ·

2026/08/03

Nine Yards, the designers behind the Paris 2024 Olympic skatepark, get to work on their next big challenge: the rebuild of Olympiaplein, one of Amsterdam's oldest and most cherished skating spots. Sean Allsop joins designers Jesper Kuipers and Jeroen Van Eggermond in the Netherlands, as they work through sketches and plans before presenting their vision to local skaters for crucial feedback. Then the team head out onto the building site, with concrete trucks, tight deadlines, and one shot to get the

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27:27

What is so-called 'Jihadi cool'?

The Documentary Podcast ·

2026/08/02

The extremist content quietly spreading on TikTok and Instagram, targeting unsuspecting young people. Through what is disguised as innocuous lifestyle content, supporters of jihadist groups like IS and al-Qaeda reach audiences outside their echo chamber. This is a recruitment drive that signals a move from direct operational instructions to “do-it-yourself jihad", with the aim of potentially inspiring lone wolf attacks. The Global Jigsaw explores the tactics used to obscure and evade detection, the

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26:37

A Chinese dissident's journey

The Documentary Podcast ·

2026/08/01

When Chinese policeman Dong Guangping wrote an article commemorating the 10th anniversary of the 1989 military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing, it kicked off a chain of events that led to him serving jail time and losing his job. But it also sparked the beginning of a deep desire to live more freely. So Dong began planning how he might escape China. Just a few weeks ago, back in late May, he finally achieved his dream, having taken the huge risk of crossing China's Yellow Sea in a

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23:34

Wildfires in Europe

The Documentary Podcast ·

2026/08/01

Wildfires continue to burn across the continent. Thousands of people have been evacuated on the Greek island of Crete, as well as in western France, Spain, Portugal and Turkey. A blaze in central Spain has burned almost 80,000 hectares over the last week and is now considered the largest recorded wildfire in Spanish history. With temperatures hitting more than 40 degrees Celsius in south-western France, firefighters, planes and helicopters have been battling fires there. Muriele in France and Julian

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26:29

Rastafari and I

The Documentary Podcast ·

2026/07/31

What does it mean to inherit a faith that served as a fortress for your father, but feels like a contradiction to you? Throughout his childhood in Oxford, Silas Gray was surrounded by the sights, sounds, and symbols of his father’s Rastafarian identity. He was even named after the Rastafarian spiritual figurehead, Emperor Haile Selassie I. But this legacy weighs heavily. It anchors him to a complex world leader he’s not sure he’s aligned with. And he feels like an imposter carrying a name associated

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32:10

A battle that changed Ireland

The Documentary Podcast ·

2026/07/30

The 1st of July 1916 is still one of the deadliest days in the history of warfare. Nearly 20,000 men from the British Army and 6,000 German soldiers were killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. The World War One battle would last another four months and was one of the first examples of industrial warfare; three million men fought in it, over a-million soldiers were wounded, missing or killed. Jordan Dunbar investigates how, 110 years on, the battle still affects people and communities,

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18:28

Sierra Leone: The cocaine trail

The Documentary Podcast ·

2026/07/29

Ed Butler investigates how one of Europe’s most wanted drug smugglers, Jos Leijdekkers, ended up in Sierra Leone while evading justice.He also explores reports linking Leijdekkers to the family of Sierra Leone’s president, including claims that he has married the president’s daughter.for more programmes like this search Business Daily wherever you get your BBC PodcastsPresenter/producer: Ed Butler

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