The Documentary Podcast: Archive 2008

In a multi billion dollar deal China has promised to rebuild DR Congo's crumbling infrastructure in exchange for a valuable slice of Congo's vast mineral wealth. What's being called the Contract of the Century was negotiated in secret and has left some people in the country wondering who stands to benefit most from the deal - for Assignment Tim Whewell travels to the DR Congo to find out.

China says hosting the Olympics has accelerated national reforms, technological advances and greater freedoms overall but Gerry Northam investigates claims that life has gotten worse for China's poor.

Kate Clark gains rare access to the fight against the Afghan opium trade and asks how effective attempts to control it have been.

Campaigners for improving maternal health have been lobbying the G8 to get the topic on the agenda for the next meeting in Japan. In programme two of the series Health for All, Uduak Amimo asks is there enough political will to combat maternal mortality?

As the world counts down to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Gerry Northam investigates China's claims of 'vigorous growth in the public practice of religion' but he discovers people are still being persecuted and oppressed for practising religion.

In the third part of this series, Audrey Brown travels to Atteridgeville, a township outside the capital, Pretoria, to explore what really lay behind the recent attacks by South Africans on foreigners.

Is health for all a fact or just fiction? Helen Sharp asks if the world has the will, people and money to deliver basic good health to everyone.

This week's Assignment tells the story of the Burmese cyclone through the eyes and ears of the few BBC journalists who managed to get into the country after the disaster. Hear the story of the cyclone unfold told by those who witnessed it first hand. That's Reporting The Cyclone, from Assignment this week.

In the second part of this series, Audrey Brown travels to South Africa to explore how privilege and access to resources is increasingly being seen as an issue of colour.

Sheila Dillon reports on the work of restaurateurs, farmers, fishermen and activists to restore the culinary heritage of a devastated city.