The Compass

Robin talks to fellow journalists around the world who have to walk the fine line between an espousal of free speech rights and their own safety. Is there reason to be optimistic about the future? He travels to Paris to the former office of Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical magazine which saw many of its cartoonists and journalist murdered by jihadist gunmen. He meets the editor of the magazine which is currently forced to operate from a secret location for security reasons. On the streets of Hong Kong he joins journalists working for small online publications, reporting from the front line of the clashes between protesters and police in an environment where the larger press organisations are increasingly believed to be under the influence of Beijing.

(Photo: Man sits in a cafe reading Charlie Hebdo, a satirical French magazine. Credit: Reuters)

Robin goes back to his own days as a young reporter when he covered the last blasphemy trial ever held in the UK. At the time it appeared archaic and the end of an era, but blasphemy still exists in many countries across the world. In many ways it is the oldest of all challenges to free speech, so can religions ever truly countenance a world in which free speech is held to be sacred?

(Photo: Asia Bibi, a Christian woman sentenced to death in Pakistan for blasphemy in 2010 and acquitted by the Supreme Court in 2018. Credit: Martin Bureau/AFP/Getty Images)

Robin visits universities in Hong Kong, Oxford and Washington to establish how important free speech is to them and whether moves to block controversial speakers is compatible with what appears a fundamental freedom of expression in places where all ideas are encouraged and tested. Robin explores where the line is drawn regarding freedom of speech in universities, who draws it and what happens to those who cross it.

Presenter/reporter: Robin Lustig

(Photo: Hong Kong Polytechnic University campus, in Hong Kong, 2019. Credit: Getty Images)

Robin Lustig begins his journey in Washington DC where the first amendment is housed in the National Archive and serves as an almost sacred document. In this programme he asks how Courts around the world make decisions on Free speech. Can they find a line in the sand that shouldn’t be crossed? How do they decide what is, in the modern parlance, ‘hate speech’ and what is merely strongly expressed personal opinion? And can they ever be more than extensions of the political environment they inhabit?

(Photo: The US Supreme Court, 5 February, 2009, Washington, DC. Credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Why do people who live in five communities around the world – known as Blue Zones- consistently outlive the rest of us on the planet? Professor Cregan-Reid goes in search of the secret of a long life. He visits Sardinia home to one of those long lived communities where several villages boast dozens of people aged 100 or more.

What used to kill us routinely no longer does so - at least not in such numbers. By rights many, many more of us should be emulating the residents of the Blue Zones and living well beyond 100. Instead we are succumbing to lifestyle diseases and longevity could even be about to fall for future generations. The good news is researchers in the Blue Zones have identified seven easily adapted rules for a longer life!

(Photo: Ushi Okushima, a 105-year-old woman from the village of Ogimi, Okinawa, Japan. The village is known as "longevity village" due to the long life span of residents there. Credit: Mie Kohiyama/AFP/Getty Images)

Professor Cregan-Reid explores why we have all grown so fast recently. For four millennia we barely grew an extra inch but in the 20th Century pretty much every nation in the world shot up by between three and six inches.

But it is not a uniform story; the Dutch have carried on growing and today their men and women tower over the world but in the US and the UK, height plateaued decades ago. And is being tall good for you? Yes, it seems, if you are a politician or industrialist; less so if you hanker after a career in entertainment.

The orthodox thinking says nutrition is the key but Professor Cregan-Reid hears about new thinking which claims height is determined by how optimistic society feels about the future- is it really all in the mind?

(Photo: A tall and small businessman look at each other. Credit: Getty Images)

For two million years we evolved in synch with our environment and our bodies were perfectly adapted for a physically rigorous outdoor life. That all changed when the Industrial Revolution brought about a transformation in how we lived and worked for which our bodies were unprepared.

Professor Vybarr Cregan-Reid, describes how the great move indoors to a more comfortable but sedentary experience was changing our feet, our faces and our backs. In this second series he considers how modern life has impacted on the whole body experience, specifically on our sleep, our height and our longevity.

In the first episode about sleep, he learns that sleep is not just good for us but the bedrock of our health. The modern world has helped us sleep better in some ways; our homes are more secure, our beds more comfortable and we can control our sleeping environment more effectively than in the past.

But, we live in a noisy world. The electric light has banished true night, our jobs mean many of us are at work when we should be asleep and we have become dependent on personal devices that make it harder for us to drop off and to get a good night's sleep.

(Photo: Young sleepy female using mobile phone, yawning late at night, lying in bed. Credit: Getty Images)

It is a time of political change in Poland. The recent general election saw the biggest turnout since 1989 and the end of communism. And gender has become one of the most fraught political issues, with the ruling Law and Justice Party holding up LGBT rights and so-called 'gender ideology' as being enemies to the Polish way of life. Anything that goes against traditional values has the potential of being held as a threat to Polish identity.

Tim Samuels and Anna Holligan travel to Warsaw and meet a young man who is struggling to get custody of his son because of what he sees as the prioritising of mothers over fathers; they look at why the far-right is on the rise among young men in Poland, and they go to a Legia Warsaw game to find out what men in Warsaw are really thinking about at this pivotal point for gender relations in Poland.

(Photo: A man holds a sign reading We are Polish, we have Polish duties, during the March for Life, an anti-abortion march in Warsaw. Credit: Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto/Getty Images)

Tim Samuels and Anna Holligan travel to Warsaw to find out what's on the minds of men and women. It's a time of political change in Poland. The recent general election saw the biggest turnout since 1989. Gender has become one of the most fraught political issues, with LGBT rights and so-called 'gender ideology' being held up by prominent politicians as threats to the Polish way of life. It has been a challenging time for many women, with a proposed tightening of abortion laws and many women's organisations under threat.

Producer: Ant Adeane and Barney Rowntree

(Photo: Protesters with banner that reads - Freedom - in Gdansk, Poland, 2018. Credit: Getty Images)

Tim Samuels and Anna Holligan travel to Mexico City. As parts of the world go through something of a gender reckoning, have these forces made much of a dent in Mexico? Last time, Anna spent time with women in this sprawling metropolis, hearing how the ever-present threat of violence lingers below the surface for many. In this episode she hears from men. The first wisps of the MeToo movement have belatedly started to blow into Mexico, but this is unlikely to be fertile soil for an outburst of equality. This is a country where six out of 10 women say they have experienced some kind of violence. We hear from a teacher working in one of the most dangerous neighbourhoods of Mexico City, a psychologist, the editor of a men’s magazine and the father of a girl who was murdered by her boyfriend.

Producers: Barney Rowntree and Ant Adeane

(Photo: Men holding a Mexican flag tinted in red symbolising blood during a march for peace and to protest against a wave of violent crimes. Credit: Pedro Pardo/AFP)