The Documentary Podcast: Archive 2009

By BBC World ServiceSociety & Culture Personal Journals

The Documentary Podcast: Archive 2009 episodes

October 21, 2009 Rebranding Nigeria - Part One
Can the home of 419 internet scams, corruption and voodoo ever transmit a positive image? Is changing Nigeria's image an impossible mission?
24 min
October 19, 2009 MI6 - A Century in the Shadows
In Programme Two, we find out what were spies really up to behind the Iron Curtain.
MI6 chief John Scarlett describes his clandestine meeting with an agent, and the Russian defector Oleg Gordievsky talks about his reasons for coming over to the other side.
24 min
October 15, 2009 Assignment Armenia: The cleverest nation on the planet
Every two years teams from all over the world compete with one another in the Chess Olympiad. In the last two Olympiads, the winning medal has gone to a small country in the Caucasus. How has this nation done it? Gabriel Gatehouse investigates.
23 min
October 15, 2009 John Simpson Returns to 1989
The BBC's World Affairs Editor John Simpson tells the story of 20 years of post-communist life. Through personal stories, he traces the different roads that East Germany, the Czech Republic and Romania have taken since 1989.
24 min
October 12, 2009 MI6 - A century in the shadows
An unprecedented look inside MI6 - Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, which marks its centenary this year.
Programme One - Gadgets & Green Ink explores the early years of MI6, set up by Sir Mansfield Cumming, a formidable figure known as 'C' who signed his name in green ink.
24 min
October 09, 2009 Memento, part two
Imagine that conflict and violence force you to flee your country, leaving behind all that you know and love. In the chaos and panic, you have to choose a single object to take with you - something so full of resonance that it will always remind you of the life and people that you left behind. In the second part of Memento, we meet people who have fled to Britain.
23 min
October 08, 2009 Assignment - Three Strike Lifers
A life sentence for stealing a pair of socks. In California the tough 'three strikes' law is sending people to prison for life even if their third crime is a non-violent one. Now a group of law students is trying to change things. Rob Walker reports.
24 min
October 07, 2009 Yiddish - a Struggle for Survival - Part One
Yiddish was the language of the Jewish Diaspora, the language of a people on the move across Europe. It has suffered a dramatic decline over the last century. What will become of it now?
24 min
October 05, 2009 The Crash: Back from the brink
The third part of the BBC's definitive series on the banking crash tells the extraordinary story of how politicians reacted, and asks what has been learnt from the entire calamity. Could it happen again?
24 min
October 02, 2009 Memento, part one
Imagine that conflict and violence force you to flee your country, leaving behind all that you know and love. In the chaos and panic, you have to choose a single object to take with you - something so full of resonance that it will always remind you of the life and people that you left behind.
23 min