On Spec Podcast

Whether you live across the street, or across the Atlantic, for many of us social distancing now means you cannot meet in person. Your family, your friends, that person you wanted to date...everything is on hold.  But across the world we are finding new ways of bridging the distances.  Margaux Benn and Menel Raach bring you stories from Canada, Lebanon, Cyprus, and Tunisia, on how we are keeping from getting lonely, even when we are alone.

What's it like to have COVID19 in Turkey?  Hilaneh Mahmoudi, a freelance photographer in Istanbul, spent weeks trying to not catch it, but one day the tell tale symptoms began.  This is her audio diary, told to host Fariba Nawa, of what it's like to have the virus, and the struggle to keep those living with you safe from it as well. See the accompanying photographs here.

You might think you're further away from the world, but in many ways the pandemic is bringing us together.

Journalist Margaux Benn ventures to the remote province of Nimroz, Afghanistan and follows the tracks of ancient artefacts, from the desert straddling Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, to a shop in the capital Kabul. Some could be antiquities ending up on a shelf among fakes, then illegally taken to Dubai and sold at a high price.

Oscar Durand brings you the story of a Bolivian street musician in Istanbul, who like the rest of us, wonders where the years have gone and what he will do with his life.  Oscar, a Peruvian and former engineer, found a common bond with Rupi on speaking Spanish and the meaning of life.  (Rupi's name has been changed per his request.)

As the world grapples with how to serve justice to thousands of foreign ISIS affiliates captured in Syria and Iraq, Australian journalist Tessa Fox travels to northeast Syria to meet the Australians accused of being  affiliated with the group. 

Umar Farooq reports on how Pakistan’s tribal areas, once proud of their fierce independence, are ready to join Pakistan proper, and how youth there worked to end a century-old collective punishment law.  Locals where caught between US drones, the Taliban, and the Pakistani military.  This is the untold story of the war on terror, and what reforms in the tribal areas mean for peace in Afghanistan.

Pesha Magid travels to Anbar to bring you the story of how, and why, locals are risking kidnapping by ISIS to hunt for desert truffles. A  rare but beloved delicacy in Iraq, this was the best year for them since the 1990s. The biggest of the truffles grow far out in the  remotest regions of Anbar province — where at least a thousand ISIS  fighters are suspected to be hiding. With almost no other way of earning a living, Iraqis continue to make the dangerous journey to the desert.

As protesters once again take to the streets of Baghdad, we take a step back to examine whether climate change has a hand in the political crisis in Iraq.  Shawn Carrié brings you a story through the eyes of activists that grounds the climate crisis — by transporting you to Iraq, where a water shortage led to massive protests in a country still reeling from war — and those protests brought down the government.

What's behind the crackdown on journalism in Turkey, and how are local journalists continuing to report? Özge Sebzeci, a Turkish photojournalist, takes us inside Turkey in an era when the country leads the world in jailing journalists.