The Documentary Podcast: Archive 2009

It's straight out of the pages of a thriller novel: a cargo ship, lost without trace; pirates working the seas at the heart of Europe; whispers of arms smuggling and the scent of international conspiracy. The mysterious disappearance of a Russian-operated cargo ship off the coast of Britain in late July sparked furious speculation that's never been resolved. For Assignment, Sarah Rainsford tries to shine a light on what really happened on board the vessel, the Arctic Sea.

Presenter Jenny Cuffe sets out to find Fereinatu, a teenage girl who was trafficked for sex. She had returned to her impoverished home in Benin City, but she is missing once more and relatives fear she may have been sucked back into prostitution.

This week's Assignment looks at the much-vaunted crackdown on tax havens announced by the G20 earlier this year. The drive is aimed at getting tax havens to agree to yield up information on tax cheats. But is the G-20's weapon of choice, shooting blanks? Is its approach cumbersome and ineffective in the fight to get every dollar that's owed to tax authorities? Lesley Curwen investigates.

The second of this three-part series that examines the boom before the bust of 2008 looks at how our attitudes to risk and debt changed with disastrous consequences.

Can we build our way out of the recession? The Empire State Building was started just weeks after the Wall Street Crash, giving Americans hope in times of depression. Jonathan Glancey, architecture correspondent for the Guardian newspaper in London, looks at the economic and social policies of the 1930s and the parallels we can find today.

Two years ago, Jenny Cuffe followed the journeys of migrants trying to leave Africa and find a better life in Europe.

What were the key moments that led to financial meltdown, and what happened in the aftermath? The first of a three-part series that looks closely at the turbulent events in the autumn of 2008.

If my dog is tough then I'm tough. Killer dogs give teenagers status in Chicago. For Assignment, Nina Robinson, goes right to the heart of the cruel sport of dog fighting that is attracting so many young people in the run down areas of Chicago's south side.

Just weeks after the Wall Street Crash in 1929, work began on the Empire State Building. The Guardian's architecture correspondent Jonathan Glancey assesses the economics of building out of a recession.

President Barack Obama has famously written of the influence exerted on him by his father in his memoir Dreams of My Father, but what of his mother, Ann Dunham? Listen to Judith Kampfner as she unveils more about this unconventional and idealistic woman.