Crossing Continents

Crossing Continents joins a British doctor volunteering to help women and children stranded in Tunisian refugee camps while the men fight Gaddafi's forces in the mountains south of Tripoli.

The BBC's Kim Ghattas has gained exclusive, behind the scenes access to the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during one of her recent overseas visits. Code named "Special Air Mission 883", the trip took eight days, covered thirty thousand miles and touched down in four countries in the Middle East and Africa.

Kim joins what is affectionately known as "the bubble", the travelling band of diplomatic staffers, special security detail, international press and handlers that accompany the Secretary, or "S" as she is known, on the trip.

We share their thoughts and hopes, priorities and frustrations as Hillary Clinton pursues United States foreign policy goals. There are meetings of high diplomacy with kings and rulers as well as more grass roots events like the promotion of democracy and good governance at an African womens collective.

A surprisingly intimate portrait of the Secretary and her closest aides.

Producer: Jane Beresford.

Early-onset Alzheimer's has stalked a poor extended family in Medellin, Colombia. The family carries a dominant gene that means that half are at risk. The disease strikes family members as young as 25 and by their 40s sufferers are in the grip of full-blown dementia. Alzheimer's is by and large a disease of the developed world, if for no other reason than that people in the developing world don't live long enough to suffer from it. Now by using the Colombian family to trial new drugs, researchers say they may be on the road to a global cure for Alzheimer's. Bill Law asks if this represents an unfair exploitation of desperate people - many of them barely literate - to benefit those in the West? Or is it a case of bringing hope to those in a hopeless situation?

Following the discovery that Osama Bin Laden was living close to the heart of Pakistan's military establishment in Abbotabad, Owen Bennett-Jones investigates the ties between elements of Pakistan's army, intelligence and government with jihadi and Taleban forces.

In South Africa a mining company whose owners include the grandson of Nelson Mandela and the nephew of President Jacob Zuma has left thousands of its employees without work and, they claim, without pay.

Back in 2009 the company, Aurora Empowerment Systems, bid R605 million (£55 million) to take over two gold mines on the outskirts of Johannesburg, despite having no experience in mining industry. Aurora promised steady jobs, housing and bursaries for miners' children.

The reality has been poverty, despair and even suicide, and mining unions claim the company still owes workers around R12 million in unpaid wages (£1.1 million). Aurora denies this, and says they have paid 80 per cent of the outstanding salaries.

Martin Plaut travels to South Africa and sees first hand the personal despair of the affected mine workers, and learns how the Aurora debacle has created a schism between the ruling ANC party and the working-class black South African voters, who feel the country's political elite no longer care about their plight.

Producer: Richard Fenton-Smith.

Lucy Ash revisits some of the significant stories covered in recent years and discovers what has changed since our initial reports.

David Goldblatt looks at whether Berlin's alternative culture is under threat from commercial pressures. Or do developers and artists need each other to exist?

Berlin has long been a magnet for artists from within Germany and abroad. After the wall fell in 1989 they flooded into the vast deserted buildings left in the Mitte area of the former East of the city. But over the last few years developers have been moving into this increasingly fashionable area, increasing rents and evicting squatted buildings.

Today the right and left banks of the Spree river, the district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, has become home to underground clubs and artists studios. But developers are increasing their grip on this area too. A few years ago they joined together to create an consortium called "MediaSpree" with the aim of turning the East bank of the Spree into a media hub. Universal Studios and MTV were two of the first companies to locate themselves in the converted warehouses of a deserted port in 'no man's land' where the border wall once ran. They were attracted, in part, by the alternative vibe of the area.

But now increasing rents in this area are pushing artists and original residents out - and with them the clubs and galleries that attracted the media businesses in the first place. Will developers and the alternative culture find a way to co-exist?

Three years ago Bill Law travelled to Egypt for Crossing Continents to meet five extraordinary women who were fighting for human rights and equal pay for women in Egypt. For this programme, Bill returns to Egypt to tell the story of the unfolding revolution through the eyes of those very same five women. Their stories are a unique insight into how the revolution came about and raise questions about its future.

The Ecuadorian Amazon region is one of the most bio-diverse on the planet. In one area, nearly 600 bird species, 80 kinds of bat and 150 varieties of amphibian have been recorded. And it's possible that the density of one of the rarest wild cats, the jaguar, is twice as high as anywhere else in the world. This is also home to two of the last uncontacted groups of indigenous people in the world, who choose to live undisturbed in voluntary isolation.

But beneath the rich tropical soil lies another treasure - nearly a billion barrels of untapped oil, 20% of this Latin American nation's reserves. Ecuador has calculated that if it were to exploit this petroleum, it would make over $7 billion. That is a significant sum of money for a relatively poor nation. But instead, the government has a radical plan: if the international community will compensate Ecuador for half of the loss of revenue, the government will pledge to protect this unique environment and keep the drillers out. With the funds raised, Ecuador will invest in social projects and non-carbon forms of energy, and aims to create a global template for other poor equatorial countries with oil.

This is what's known as Plan A in Ecuador, and President Correa has set a deadline of the end of 2011 to collect the first US $100 million. If donors don't materialise, he has always said he will implement Plan B - to begin the process of extracting crude from this particular oil block, known as Yasuni-ITT.

For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly travels deep into the rainforest to find out what is at stake. She visits a community of Haorani indigenous people who have a history of resisting - often violently - the encroachment of oil companies in the Amazon. And with the recent court judgement against the US oil giant Chevron - who took over Texaco - and a resulting hefty fine of over US$8 billion for pollution, she traces the often dirty history of oil exploitation in Ecuador.

But how realistic is the Yasuni-ITT initiative? Ecuador's economy is dependent on oil exports. Technology too has moved on, and an oil investor and analyst tells Crossing Continents that not only has the industry learnt some lessons, but also that it is now possible to extract oil from the pristine forest with minimal damage to the ecosystems.

So far it seems the Ecuadorean people support Plan A. But although international donors have shown moral backing for the government's idea to save the rainforest, this hasn't been matched by contributions to the fund. And with less than half the $100 million pledged, the clock is ticking for one of the world's most unique and precious habitats.

Producer: Emil Petrie.

Anna Cavell investigates the human trafficking of Ugandan women to Iraq. They were lured there by promises of well-paid jobs - but instead found themselves effectively in slavery, beaten and in some cases raped. She hears the story of how a Ugandan security contractor and an American officer together organised a courageous freelance raid which freed nine of the women. And she discovers that despite the rescue, the practice appears to be continuing.