The Compass

By BBC World Service

What's The Compass about?

Surprising stories from unusual places. With ideas too big for a single episode, The Compass presents mini-series about the environment and politics, culture and society.

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The Compass episodes:

03.08.2023
The sacred song of war
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...
03.01.2023
Catherine the Great and the question of Europe
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....
02.22.2023
The Invention of Russia: The empire strikes back
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. ...
02.15.2023
The invention of Russia: A tale of two Ivans
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...
01.11.2023
Sounds of the city: Tel Aviv
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...
01.04.2023
Sounds of the city: Los Angeles
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...
12.21.2022
Bhopal: Part one
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...
12.14.2022
How to be a former president: Part three
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)
12.07.2022
How to be a former president: Part two
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...
11.30.2022
How to be a former president: Part one
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...
11.23.2022
Stories from the New Silk Road: Mexico
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...
11.16.2022
Stories from the New Silk Road: Jamaica
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...
11.09.2022
Stories from the New Silk Road: Panama
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...
11.02.2022
Stories from the New Silk Road: Ecuador
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,...
10.26.2022
On the Border: Narva
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...
10.19.2022
On the Border: Kinshasa and Brazzaville
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....
10.12.2022
On the Border: Niagara Falls
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...
10.05.2022
On the Border: Maastricht
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...
09.28.2022
Life in soil: Tasting the earth in France
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...
09.21.2022
LIfe in soil: The death of soil
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,...
09.14.2022
Life in soil: The psychology of soil in California
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...
08.31.2022
Green energy: Finance
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...
08.24.2022
Green energy: Iceland
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...
08.17.2022
Green energy: Renewables
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...
08.10.2022
Green energy: Transport
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...
08.03.2022
The reclaimers: The games people play
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....
07.27.2022
The reclaimers: Into the valley
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...
07.20.2022
The reclaimers: Return to Zambia
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....
07.13.2022
The reclaimers: Bronzes and Birmingham
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,...
06.29.2022
Walking the Iron Curtain: Booming Balkans
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...
06.22.2022
Walking the Iron Curtain: Wild lands reunited
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...
06.15.2022
Life on the line
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...
06.08.2022
Saving Asia’s water towers
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...
06.01.2022
High lives
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...
05.25.2022
Money, money, money: Power
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...
05.18.2022
Money, money, money: Psychology
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...
05.11.2022
Money, money, money: Value
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...
05.04.2022
Money, money, money: Trust
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...
04.27.2022
Slick: 4. The oil thieves
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. ...
04.20.2022
Slick: 3. Black creeks
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...
04.13.2022
Slick: 2. On trial
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...
04.06.2022
Slick: 1. The great white hope
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...
03.30.2022
Emotional Baggage: June Angelides
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...
03.23.2022
Emotional Baggage: Halima Begum
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...
03.16.2022
Emotional Baggage: Maya Youssef
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...
03.09.2022
Emotional Baggage: Dina Nayeri
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...
03.02.2022
It's a Bird's World: Noise pollution
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...
02.23.2022
It’s a Bird's World: Viruses and infection
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....
02.16.2022
It's a Bird's World: Toxic substances
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...
02.02.2022
Why We Play: Old age
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. ...

What's The Compass about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

The Compass episodes:

The sacred song of war

Catherine the Great and the question of Europe

The Invention of Russia: The empire strikes back

The invention of Russia: A tale of two Ivans

Sounds of the city: Tel Aviv

Sounds of the city: Los Angeles

Bhopal: Part one

How to be a former president: Part three

How to be a former president: Part two

How to be a former president: Part one

Stories from the New Silk Road: Mexico

Stories from the New Silk Road: Jamaica

Stories from the New Silk Road: Panama

Stories from the New Silk Road: Ecuador

On the Border: Narva

On the Border: Kinshasa and Brazzaville

On the Border: Niagara Falls

On the Border: Maastricht

Life in soil: Tasting the earth in France

LIfe in soil: The death of soil

Life in soil: The psychology of soil in California

Green energy: Finance

Green energy: Iceland

Green energy: Renewables

Green energy: Transport

The reclaimers: The games people play

The reclaimers: Into the valley

The reclaimers: Return to Zambia

The reclaimers: Bronzes and Birmingham

Walking the Iron Curtain: Booming Balkans

Walking the Iron Curtain: Wild lands reunited

Life on the line

Saving Asia’s water towers

High lives

Money, money, money: Power

Money, money, money: Psychology

Money, money, money: Value

Money, money, money: Trust

Slick: 4. The oil thieves

Slick: 3. Black creeks

Slick: 2. On trial

Slick: 1. The great white hope

Emotional Baggage: June Angelides

Emotional Baggage: Halima Begum

Emotional Baggage: Maya Youssef

Emotional Baggage: Dina Nayeri

It's a Bird's World: Noise pollution

It’s a Bird's World: Viruses and infection

It's a Bird's World: Toxic substances

Why We Play: Old age