Fifth Floor

Fifth Floor

By BBC World ServiceNews
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Fifth Floor episodes

  • The Venice of Venezuela

    El Morro was conceived as the Venice of Venezuela, a place of canals and luxury yachts on the Caribbean Sea. But even here the economic and political crisis is evident, as BBC Mundo’s Guillermo Olmo discovered.

    Picture: Luxury yacht in El Morro, Venezuela

    Credit: G. D. OLMO/BBC

    12 min
  • Who were the Blikkiesdorp 5?

    The BBC Africa film “Murder Town” explores South Africa's Cape Town, both a popular tourist destination, and one of the most divided and violent cities in the world. Journalist Vauldi Carelse went to the site of one brutal mass killing in the Blikkiesdorp neighbourhood to tell the stories of the people living and dying there.

    Picture: a mother overlooking Cape Town.

    Credit: BBC

    14 min
  • Ebola crisis: fighting fear and despair

    It's a year since the outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo began. More than 1,800 people have died, with the latest cases in Goma, a large city and important transport hub. It's an area BBC Africa's Gaius Kowene knows well.

    Image: Congolese health worker administers Ebola vaccine
    Credit: REUTERS/Olivia Acland

    11 min
  • Life at 124°C for Indian brick makers

    A report this month looked at the impact of working in a warmer planet. India got a particular mention, and Indian languages journalist Anant Prakash decided to see what this meant on the ground. He went to Uttar Pradesh to meet the brick makers enduring temperatures of up to 124°C.

    Image: Indian brick kiln worker

    Credit: BBC

    13 min
  • My ancestors, the slave traders

    When BBC Mundo's Jaime Gonzalez began to suspect that his merchant ancestors traded not only in goods but also in slaves, he set off on an investigation that took him to Spain and Chile. He made a documentary about what he found.

    Image: BBC Mundo's Jaime Gonzalez against montage of historic slavery images

    Credit: BBC

    12 min
  • Where do ancient treasures belong?

    A small bust of Tutankhamun has been sold in London this week for £4.7 million. The sale was challenged by the Egyptian government, which claims the sculpture was removed illegally from the country. Reda El Mawy of BBC Arabic has been gripped by the story.

    (Picture: Tutankhamum bust auctioned at Christie's, London. Credit: AFP PHOTO/CHRISTIE'S AUCTION HOUSE)

    9 min
  • Why Pakistan is not polio free

    In Pakistan, attempts to eradicate polio stalled when the vaccination programme became tangled in international politics, religious decrees and social media scare stories. Vaccination workers have been attacked and even killed. BBC Urdu’s Shumaila Jaffery met vaccination workers, parents, and clerics for a BBC World Service series, "Vaccines: A Crisis of Trust".

    (Image: Doctor vaccinates child against polio. Credit: BBC)

    12 min
  • Fit to report - welcome to BBC Nairobi

    Join David Amanor in the BBC’s Nairobi bureau, home to six different language services. Find out what people's names can tell us: David Wafula’s surname tells us he was born in the rainy season, Bashkas Jugsodaay’s name contains a World War II story, and Cyuzozo Samba is called ‘last born’, although he has two younger siblings!

    Plus stories close to our colleagues' hearts: twins, wigs and camels with Hamida Aboubakar, Issa Abdul and Sharon Machira.

    And join Roncliffe Odit on a personalised My Home Town tour of his favourite places in Nairobi: Toi Market, Uhuru Park, and a Swahili restaurant.

    Image: Hassan Lali leads Nairobi Bureau colleagues in a plank challenge

    Credit: BBC

    23 min
  • A love story between former enemies

    It’s 10 years since Sri Lanka’s civil war ended. The war pitted the country's two main ethnic groups, Tamils and Sinhalese, against each other, and divisions remain. But BBC Sinhala journalist Suneth Perera marked the anniversary with an unusual love story between former enemies: Gauri Malar, a former Tamil Tiger child soldier, and Roshan Jayathilake, a Sinhalese Civil Defence Force recruit.

    Image: (L) Gauri and (R) Roshan

    Credit: BBC

    10 min
  • ‘Are we wrong to miss our children?’

    In 2014, so-called Islamic State attacked the Yazidi religious group in northern Iraq, killing hundreds of men and capturing around 6,000 women and children. The women were used as sex slaves and although many are now free it’s emerged that the price of returning home is giving up the children fathered by their IS captors. BBC Persian journalist Nafiseh Kohnivard spent a year investigating the story for her documentary The Yazidis’ Secret Children.

    Photo: Yazidis community celebrating in Iraq

    Credit: BBC

    11 min

About Fifth Floor

From the publisher's feed

Faranak Amidi takes a fresh look at the stories of the week with journalists from our 40 language sections.

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