Insight, wit and analysis as BBC correspondents, journalists and writers take a closer look at the stories behind the headlines. Presented by Kate Adie and Pascale Harter.
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In Afghanistan, there’s growing concern over a wave of attacks against human rights activists, moderate clerics, aid workers and others. For a young educated generation of Afghans, one death in particular has sparked anguish and anxiety over where their country is heading, despite imminent peace talks, as Lyse Doucet reports. In Russia, a controversial national vote on constitutional reform this week has given President Putin the right to run for two more terms when the current one runs out....
Japan has some very densely populated cities and the world’s highest proportion of elderly citizens. A disaster waiting to happen in the coronavirus pandemic? But the country has had a low death rate, despite only imposing a mild lockdown. What's the secret, or was it just luck, asks Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Tokyo. The George Floyd anti-racism protests have been supported in Asia too, but the conversation around race and colour is very loaded for South Asians themselves – where the...
Italy's northern region of Lombardy became the epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic in February. Death rates soared. In Bergamo, six thousand people died in March. Mark Lowen returns to Lombardy to meet some of the bereaved and finds that politicians are passing the buck as to why cities locked down too late. Colombia had a thriving economy before the pandemic, and has been host to almost two million Venezuelans who fled their country due to its economic and political crisis. Now, their dreams...
Germany had eased its lockdown, but after a spike in cases at a meat-packing factory the authorities have re-imposed lockdown restrictions in two districts, affecting over half a million people. Is this the start of a second wave or just something to be expected asks Damien McGuinness? The Islamist militant group Boko Haram has operated in north-east Nigeria for years, despite the Nigerian army's efforts to defeat them. Recently there has been a new spate of attacks, in the garrison town of...
In Australia, the killing of George Floyd in the US has resonated strongly with indigenous Australians, who often face prejudicial policing, and make up a disproportionate number of Australia's prison population. Shaimaa Khalil met members of the Aboriginal community in Sydney. Turkey has so far had relatively few deaths from coronavirus, for the size of its population. That's according to the official data. But in the past week numbers of new infections have surged, following the easing of...
In the Philippines two journalists, Maria Ressa, the head of an investigative news website called Rappler, and one of their former writers, Reynaldo Santos Jr, have been sentenced to prison for libel, in a case that many see as an attack on freedom of the press, and on critics of the government, as Howard Johnson reports. In Spain, healthcare workers, from doctors and nurses to hospital porters, were badly affected by the coronavirus, making up twenty percent of confirmed cases. Ed Habershon was...
In the latest programme of the monthly series, Mishal Husain introduces dispatches from journalists and writers which reflect the range of contemporary life in the UK. Emir Nader of BBC Arabic tells the story of the family of Dr Adil El Tayar, who was originally from Sudan and himself an early casualty of Covid-19. With two doctors among his children, how do they all come to terms with the enormity of the tragedy that has befallen them and the professional dilemmas they face? With most people...
India's commercial capital, Mumbai, is now the city worst-hit by the coronavirus. Hospitals are struggling to cope with the number of patients in need. Even money can't buy you treatment. As a result, many are dying before they can receive medical care, as Yogita Limaye has found. It's a time of re-examining slavery and colonial history. Andrew Harding's grandfather was a young entomologist who moved from England to what was then Tanganyika to study termites to prevent them destroying crops....
In the US, authorities all over the country are working on police reform. Jo Erickson is a black journalist working in Minneapolis, and has been stopped by armed police herself. She recounts her experience. Yemen has the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, following years of civil war. And now, on top of malnourishment and a decimated healthcare system, comes Covid-19. Iona Craig was in the worst-hit city, Aden, when the virus started to spread. South-East Asian countries have been easing...
When President Emmerson Mnangagwa came to power in Zimbabwe after the end of Robert Mugabe’s decades-long rule, there was hope that the country could turn a corner. It was supposed to be a fresh start, with better economic management, and fairer politics. But that is not at all how it is turning out, says Andrew Harding who is in neighbouring South Africa. New York City has been particularly hard-hit by the coronavirus, with 20,000 deaths in the city alone. As Laura Trevelyan reports from...
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