Misha Glenny's final programme on Russia - what it is and where it came from - looks at the country's attitude to war. What has been the long lasting effect of the great patriotic wars against Adolf Hitler and Napoleon Bonaparte? Plus the Poles, the Mongols, and the British in Crimea. With contributions from Antony Beevor, author of Stalingrad, Rob…

It was Peter the Great who created a new capital on the Baltic, and Catherine the Great who extended Russian influence south and west. Sweden, Poland, and the Ottomans all felt the Russian expansion in a century of geopolitical drama. This, says presenter Misha Glenny, is all part of the build up to today's war in Ukraine. With contributions from V…

Russia's massive empire was not like that of Britain or France. It expanded across the land, making it more like the United States of America. And from very small beginnings, it became the biggest contiguous landmass in the world. Presenter Misha Glenny speaks to James Hill of the New York Times about travelling to the edges, and also to Janet Hart…

Countries look so cohesive on the map - sturdy borders, familiar shapes. Don't be misled. They didn't always look like this. This is the story of Russia, biggest contiguous country on the planet, told from the time when it was still very small. With contributions across the series from Janet Hartley, author of a history of the Volga; Rhodric Braith…

Tel Aviv is a bustling place and for a blind person it can be a little daunting, as BBC journalist, Peter White, discovers. The narrow streets in the older parts of town are full of open air cafes, buskers and people visiting the markets and local shops. It is a lively place and Peter's first challenge comes when he tries to navigate the local buss…

In a new series of Sounds of the City Peter White, who has been blind since birth, uses the sounds to guide him as he explores new parts of the globe. In Los Angeles the sea quickly beckons and although it's a struggle, Peter dons a wetsuit and prepares for his first surfing lesson! He also explores the huge metropolis by metro, comes across tales …

When one of journalist Rajkumar Keswani's friends dies at the Union Carbide plant after exposure to toxic gas, he decides to investigate. Local government officials dismiss him, but safety reports smuggled to him open his eyes to the potential for disaster. Rajkumar Keswani wrote his first article 40 years ago, warning of the dangers posed by safet…

Giles Edwards looks inside the private clubs of former world leaders to see how they are still trying to influence global politics. (Photo: Helen Clark speaks at a 2022 meeting of the Global Leadership Foundation)By BBC World Service

Giles Edwards investigates the many opportunities offered by globalisation, and speaks to some of the former presidents and prime ministers who have run, or worked for, international organisations from civil society to the United Nations. (Photo: Anders Fogh Rasmussen at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit, June 2022. Credit: Ritzau Scanpix/Philip Dava…

What happens to presidents and prime ministers when they stop running their countries, and leave politics behind? Giles Edwards has spent 10 years finding out what they do next. He shares some of his conversations with former world leaders, takes us inside their organisations and helps us understand their thinking. Giles begins at the Clinton Globa…

The town of El Triunfo in Tabasco state is not far from the Mexican border with Guatemala. Translated from Spanish, ‘El Triunfo’ means ‘The Triumph’ and being miles from the nearest city, with just over 5000 inhabitants, it does not usually attract much attention. However, that changed in 2018 when Tren Maya was announced and China Communications C…

From highways to hospitals, Chinese construction firms continue to work on a number of high-profile projects across Jamaica. In the face of soaring debts they have not proceeded without controversy, with particular criticism of the use of Chinese labour for jobs that Jamaicans might do, and concerns of so-called ‘debt-trap diplomacy’. ‘Highway 2000…

The Panama Canal is a great feat of engineering and a place of huge global significance for trade and shipping. An artificial waterway that connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, literally dividing North and South America, whilst saving thousands of miles of shipping time round Cape Horn at the very southern tip of South America. The Americans b…

The Cordillera del Condor mountain range in the east of Ecuador is where the mountains meets the jungles and the Andes meets the Amazon. In this region a Chinese run copper mine, Mirador, has grabbed the headlines over recent years, leading to controversy, resistance and talk of impending disaster. It has become a huge challenge for a government tr…

Tim Marshall on Narva where The EU, Europe and Nato meet the Russian Federation. It's a city in Estonia where 95% of the population are ethnically Russian. Identity crises are nothing new in Narva which has found itself on the edge of empires, kingdoms and duchies during its long history. Today residents cannot trace family here back further than t…

Tim Marshall delves into the strange story of Kinshasa and Brazzaville the only capitals straddling a border. Their peoples share a common culture but were split by Empires and now kept apart by a river border which has no bridge. Presenter: Tim MarshallProducer: Kevin Mousley (Photo: Sapeurs from a group belonging to Papa Griffe, a Sapeur leader, …

Tim Marshall considers Niagara Falls, the busiest crossing point on the world’s longest border. The fortunes of the two cities either side of the famous Falls have varied over the years as the advantages of being one side of the line, or the other, have played out. Today it is the Canadian side in ascendance but as Tim finds out, the border continu…

Tim Marshall profiles Maastricht, the city where 30 years ago the European Union was born. Have these economic measures dented relations between the communities that sit on one of Europe’s linguistic and cultural fault lines? (Photo: Aerial view of the city of Maastricht. Credit: N. Bellegarde/Getty Images)…

Writer and environmentalist Isabelle Legeron is in France to see how cultivating a healthy soil, teeming with fungi and microbes, can enhance the flavour profile of food and drink - from cheese to coffee to wine. She explores the fundamental role soil plays in the notion of “terroir’ - the conviction that the natural environment in which plants are…

Isabelle Legeron travels to Giessen in Germany, to the original laboratory of Justus Von Liebig the brilliant 19th century chemist whose work made way for the 20th century Haber and Bosch process. Liebig joined the spirit of the Industrial Revolution, where technical solutions were set to end starvation; he set out to make the soil more productive,…

Isabelle Legeron travels to California, a part of the world whose soil holds a complex history. She meets the indigenous Californians reviving ancestral methods of tending to the land, and the soil scientists exploring the impact of colonisation and agriculture on the soil of the Golden State. With indigenous Californian land steward Redbird (Pomo/…

How is the world going to get to net zero by 2050 and who is paying the bill? Former governor of the Bank of England, and UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance, Mark Carney, recently put the figure we need to spend at 100 trillion dollars at least. Switching to renewable sources of energy, needs the global financial markets to pay for the …

For over 100 years, Iceland has produced renewable energy from geo-thermal and hydro power to heat its homes and power industry. Iceland harnesses the volcanic hot water under the earth’s crust and the energy from damming its plentiful rivers and waterfalls that run through the island. It produces five times more green energy than its population ne…

Allan Little investigates the best way to capture, store and redistribute the renewable sources of energy freely available all over the world – wind, solar and hydro. The sun gives earth enough potential power in one hour to provide the total energy needs of the globe for a year – if only we could catch and store it. From a purely economic angle, t…

Allan Little looks at the challenges we face as we wean ourselves off gas and oil to renewable sources powering our cars, trucks, ships and aeroplanes. Green transport is crucial to a net zero future, but how transparent are the supply chains bringing the world the components we need? And how green is the electricity we are using to power electric …

As the former ‘British Empire Games’ draws nearer, actor and musician Kema Sikazwe finds out what the world of museums can learn from the communities, artists and curators who are struggling to reclaim global stories about their culture and identity. Kema sees photographer Vanley Burke’s new exhibition, Blood and Fire, curated with Candice Nembhard…

Travelling from Lusaka to the Gwembe Valley and then on to Kabwe, Kema Sikazwe hears from people living in communities where artefacts were taken. In the shadow of the Kariba Dam, Kema meets people who were forced from their land when the valley was flooded who explain how promises made at the time have not been kept. Finally, at the lead-mining si…

Returning to Zambia for the first time since he was three years old, Kema Sikazwe continues his journey exploring the impact of colonial legacies through museum collections. Since 1972, Zambians have campaigned to reclaim the ‘Broken Hill Skull’ from Britain. Kema learns what has led to the current stalemate, as the repatriation movement gathers pa…

Actor and musician Kema Sikazwe is on a mission to uncover his own personal history as he leaves the UK to return to his homeland of Zambia for the first time since he was three years old. As Kema travels, he learns how museums are telling the uncomfortable stories behind some of the objects in their collection. He joins pupils from his old primary…

The borders of the Balkans have been splintered, cracked and remade countless times over centuries. Suspicions and hatreds, ancient and modern, still scar the landscape. Travelling through the southernmost regions bisected by the Iron Curtain, Mary-Ann Ochota meets the conservationists convinced that a shared love of the region's landscape and wild…

In May 1952 East Germany sealed its entire border with the capitalist west. Over the next 37 years 75,000 people would be arrested trying to flee the Communist East and hundreds would die in the attempt. Today the barbed wire and machine guns are gone and the old border has been transformed into a protected wildlife zone. It's a home to lynx, wolf …

Ladakh is a region at the centre of the 50-year-long border dispute between India and China, which flared up again in June 2020. Journalist and broadcaster Ed Douglas speaks to local village leaders whose communities are struggling to preserve their lives and livelihoods amidst perpetual military unrest. He also speaks to former politicians and pol…

If the Himalayan glaciers melt, a billion lives and whole ecosystems will be at risk. Journalist and broadcaster Ed Douglas joins innovative community projects in Ladakh and Nepal looking to mitigate the impact of climate change now and in the future. Their success or failure will determine the future environmental security beyond their local regio…

Spanning five countries, the Himalaya is home to peoples who have adapted to living in the harshest of conditions. Journalist and broadcaster Ed Douglas, author of the first major history of the Himalaya has been visiting these remote communities for 30 years. Now they are opening up to him about the challenges of living on the roof of the world. E…

Do we still have faith in money? Trust expert and fellow at the Said Business School at Oxford University, Rachel Botsman, investigates the shifting power plays in the global management of money, gathering pressures towards decentralisation and optimism in the world of finance. Presenter: Rachel BotsmanProducer: Frank Stirling and Leo Schick A Stor…

Rachel Botsman, a Trust expert and fellow at the Said Business School at Oxford University, looks into the psychology and the morality of money. Among others, she talks to Jain accountant Atul K. Shah, activist and onetime refugee Ghias Aljundi and psychologist and happiness guru Dr. Laurie Santos. Producer: Frank Stirling and Leo Schick (Photo: Bu…

In the second episode Rachel explores the subject of value. Beginning with the volatility of Bitcoin, she goes on to find out about growing up in Brazil's years of hyperinflation, living in the gift economy of an Indonesian island and whether money is the root of happiness. Producers: Frank Stirling and Leo Schick (Photo: A representation of the vi…

Do we still have faith in money? Trust expert and Fellow at the Said Business School at Oxford University, Rachel Botsman, talks to people from all over the world about their relationship with cash, with banks, with currencies, with credit cards and crypto. In this first episode she asks how much we should trust money. With politician and former Gr…

The newest player in the Niger Delta is not a multinational company, it is Nigeria’s enormous illegal oil industry. Oil thieves cut the pipelines, siphoning off oil, which they refine in the bush and sell on the black market. BBC West Africa correspondent Mayeni Jones meets an oil thief king pin, as well as an exuberant local politician, taking on …

BBC West Africa correspondent Mayeni Jones travels to the creeks of the Niger Delta to investigate the impact that oil pollution continues to have on communities and their environment. What she finds is alarming. And she speaks to Shell to ask them who is to blame for the ongoing environmental damage. Presenter: Mayeni Jones. Producer: Josephine Ca…

In the 1990s, as oil spills devastate the environment, Shell becomes persona non grata in Ogoniland. Then, when Ken Saro-Wiwa, Ledum Mittee and other activists leading the charge against Shell, are accused of incitement to murder, they come face to face with the power of Nigeria’s military government. BBC West Africa correspondent Mayeni Jones inve…

When oil company, Shell D’Arcy first struck black gold in Nigeria, there were celebrations on the creeks of the Niger Delta. Many of the locals had no idea what this thick black substance was, but it would go on to shape their lives and those of everyone in the region for decades to come. BBC West Africa correspondent Mayeni Jones hears about how h…

Psychiatrist Henrietta Bowden Jones talks to June Angelides about how she set up Mums In Tech on maternity leave, and how she was inspired by her entrepreneurial family in Nigeria, and particularly by her late grandmother. June reveals why she gave up a good job to set up the first coding academy in the United Kingdom for young mothers. And talks a…

Halima Begum is the CEO of the race equality think tank The Runnymede Trust. Her career as a civil rights campaigner began when she formed Women Against Racism in 1993, which was forged by her experiences of being racially abused by the National Front every day she went to school in East London. She reveals just how her mother coped with the threat…

Musician Maya Youssef talks about her painful decision not to return to her parents' house in Damascus when the civil war in Syria began. She reveals how playing music brings back such vivid memories of her homeland that she feels she has returned to her birthplace, even though she has not been there for over a decade. (Photo: Maya Youssef and her …

Psychiatrist Henrietta Bowden-Jones talks to novelist Dina Nayeri about her experience of escaping Iran and seeking asylum. The author of The Ungrateful Refugee reveals why she left her homeland without her father, her "co-conspirator in life", and why that sense of loss that has always stayed with her. (Photo: Iranian American novelist Dina Nayeri…

When noise levels rise, birds react. Noise is one of the top environmental hazards to which humans are exposed. It has also been linked to reduced breeding success and population decline in birds. So what happened to birds during the coronavirus pandemic lockdown when our cities fell silent? Many people said they could hear birds as they were singi…

Just like us, birds can become infected with viruses – and some of these can be transferred to us. As we’ve seen with the coronavirus pandemic, there are real challenges when it comes to controlling the spread of viral infections. Any attempt to try and stay one step ahead of a virus requires really good monitoring, especially as many birds travel …

How the deaths of vultures and sparrowhawks have alerted the world to serious environmental problems. Like the canaries which were used to detect toxic gases in coal mines, birds play a vital role in alerting us to substances which can damage a healthy environment. The price they pay to alert us can be losing their lives. Presenter: Mya-Rose Craig …

Many of today’s old people grew up in an era when life was hard, retirement short, and opportunities for play limited. But as we live longer, we need to seek out playful activities, for both physical and mental health. We visit a bridge club for older people, where many members started to learn the game after they retired, to keep their brains shar…