The Documentary Podcast

What is it like to work in Jerusalem right now? BBC journalist Shaina Oppenheimer shares her experience of living in Israel and monitoring the conflicting narratives published on Israeli and Palestinian media. Plus, BBC Mundo's Alicia Hernandez explains why Equatorial Guinea is the only African country which has Spanish as one of its official languages and shares the unusual local Spanish words she discovered.

Sudan has experienced a year of civil war. It’s been described by the United Nations as “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history”. Over the past 12 months, we’ve heard from people in Sudan living through the violence and destruction. More than 14,000 people have died and more than 8 million people have been driven from their homes . In this edition, with Luke Jones and James Reynolds, we hear from Omnia, a recent college graduate, whose been separated from her family for a year. Her life stopped when the fighting began: “I have experienced displacement four times. I have experienced living in a war zone under bombings and shellings and mass shootings. Life has changed completely from what it was. But I would also say it’s a year of resilience and strength that I did not know I had in me.” Another of our guests is Samreen. She is an aid worker in Sudan, herself displaced by the war. She describes how overwhelmed she can be by requests for help: ”Knowing that you’re an aid worker, they ask you for stuff, they ask you to flee the country, they ask you to get to other safer locations, they ask you to help them in asylum seeking and there’s so little that we can do.” A Boffin Media production in partnership with the BBC OS team.

A bonus episode from The Global Story podcast: Washington’s antitrust cases against Amazon, Apple, Google and Meta

So, who is the woman taking on Silicon Valley? And can she succeed? To answer these questions, host Adam Fleming speaks the BBC's North America business correspondent Michelle Fleury and former North America tech reporter James Clayton.

An episode of Heart and Soul from our Archive.

What are the moral challenges of this work for a person of faith? Are 'enhanced interrogation techniques' ever justified? What if these methods help to prevent more deaths in the future? In this edition of Heart & Soul for the BBC World Service, Colm Flynn explores these questions with Dr Jennifer Bryson. He discovers how her faith guided her through what she regards as the most radical time of her life.

Producer/ Presenter: Colm Flynn

A bonus episode from the What in the World podcast.

When it comes to elephant conservation, Botswana is the world leader. It is now home to more than 130,000 elephants — or around a third of the world's elephant population. But this growing number poses major problems for humans: the animals destroy homes and crops, and even injure and kill people.

To manage its elephant population, Botswana allows so-called “trophy hunting”. Hunters from abroad pay for permits to shoot and kill elephants — and can then take a piece of the elephant home. Botswana then re-invests this income into conservation efforts. It’s a controversial practice. Animal rights activists want Botswana’s government to seek alternatives to trophy hunting, which they deem as cruel. And in Germany — Europe’s biggest importer of African elephant trophies — the government has suggested there should be stricter limits on importing them. The president of Botswana recently threatened to send 20,000 elephants to Germany as part of the dispute.

Shingai Nyoka, a BBC reporter in neighbouring Zimbabwe, explains the laws that govern trophy hunting and why they’re up for debate.

And John Murphy, a BBC News reporter in London, recounts his experience visiting an “elephant corridor” — regular routes taken by elephants in their daily commute between their feeding grounds on one side and water on the other.

Instagram: @bbcwhatintheworld

In 1967, Jocelyn Bell Burnell discovered a previously unknown kind of star, the Pulsar. A Nobel prize followed, but not for Jocelyn; her male boss took the honour. Jocelyn has never been bitter about the award, but says that today things should have moved much further than they have. More women are working in space research, but is it enough?

In conversation with Nuala McGovern, she argues that different perspectives are essential for moving the science forward. One of these is a more global, inclusive vision to exploring the cosmos. India and China have prestigious space programmes, and the low-key space missions of Japan and South Africa collaborate with international partners from around the world. We discuss how global enthusiasm for space research can be used to propel change.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell is professor of astrophysics at the University of Oxford.

This is the second of a series of four programmes from the Oxford Literary Festival, presented by Nuala McGovern, produced by Julian Siddle.

Recorded in front of an audience at Worcester College Oxford.

New Caledonia is an island archipelago in the south Pacific. It has an incredible diversity of birds and plants. Its history includes a period serving as a 19th Century penal colony for the French colonisers and being an allied naval base during World War Two. An agreement signed 26 years ago about how the islands are run is expiring. But talks to make a new one have stalled, as the opposing sides - French settlers and indigenous Kanak - both demand their rights. Peter Hadfield has been to New Caledonia to see if a new deal can be made.

Public swimming pools are more than just concrete and water. Often, they are the heart of a community, a place to exercise, to meet people and connect. Paralympic gold medallist Ellie Simmonds explores what it takes to design and build a swimming pool, and asks why they are so important in a post-pandemic era. She joins award-winning Dutch architects VenhoevenCS as they sign off their biggest project to date - the aquatic centre for Paris 2024. Their lead architects talk us through their plans for the new pool, looking at sustainability, accessibility and safety. She also hears from British architect, author and swimming advocate Chris Romer Lee about the importance of public pools, and why he thinks more of us should be getting into the water.

During El Salvador’s brutal civil war hundreds of children were separated from their families. Some were seized by soldiers during military operations against left-wing rebels, and later found living with new families in Europe and North America. Others were given up for adoption by mothers forced into poverty or displaced by the conflict. Three decades on some of those adopted are trying to piece together their lives and find their birth relatives. Former BBC correspondent in Central America, Mike Lanchin, follows their dramatic stories. Mike meets Jazmin who was raised in France and two sisters who managed to locate the son of one of their younger siblings and Flor who has long struggled to understand why her birth mother gave her up.

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. It’s a period of prayer, celebrations and community gatherings and Muslims worldwide observe it by fasting from dawn to sunset. As this year’s Ramadan draws to a close, Faranak Amidi is joined by three BBC World Service colleagues who share their personal experiences and the stories that made headlines in their countries during this year’s celebrations.

Asif Farooqi, Aalia Farzan and Deena Easa have been looking at how conflict, natural disasters and the cost-of-living crisis are impacting people in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Gaza. Plus... Ramadan cricket, why do people want to get married during the Holy Month, and the TV series that everyone’s talking about.

Produced by Alice Gioia and Caroline Ferguson

(Image: Presenter Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich)