The Documentary Podcast

A form of oral poetry accompanied on the accordion is the basis of a wildly popular form of music in Lesotho, southern Africa. But jealousy between Famo artists has triggered warfare that’s killing hundreds. Some of the genre’s best-known stars became gang bosses, and their rivalry has helped make rural, stunningly beautiful Lesotho the murder capital of Africa, with the sixth highest homicide rate in the world. Musicians, their relatives, producers and DJs have all been gunned down. Whole communities live in fear, and are now demanding action from politicians and police who are accused of protecting the Famo gangsters. Tim Whewell tells the story of a style of music that developed among Basotho migrant workers in the tough world of South African mines. He meets some of Famo's greatest artists - now disgusted by the violence - and talks to the families of victims of a cycle of revenge that the authorities appear unable to end.

Presented and produced by Tim Whewell

(Image: Famo group leader Ntei Tsehlana was shot at a Democratic Congress (DC) party concert and later died from his injuries. Credit: BBC/Tim Whewell)

On Queensland’s Western Downs the Penfold family, Dan, Karen and their four daughters run 40,000 hectares of beef cattle. The farm has been in the family for four generations and with no sons, it is now the girls who will take over the family business and stay on the land. But they plan to do it differently, embracing the shifting cultures of 21st Century agricultural life; caring for the environment, international trade and sustainability.

Reporting from a war zone is always challenging and accurate information can be hard to establish, but it’s estimated that thousands have been killed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Among them are journalists – more than 20 - from different parts of the world. In this edition, we hear from those who are trying to tell the story of this war as it happens in the place they call home.

Dr Kat Arney takes a deep dive into our genetic make-up and tells the story of four pieces of human DNA: the fat gene, the Huntington gene, the CCR5 gene associated with HIV resistance, and PAX6, the eyeball gene.

Kim Tserkezie faces up to her lifelong dislike of combat sports by exploring Dambe boxing, a Nigerian sport with a history that is said to go back as far as the 10th Century. Kim speaks with promoters and fighters from the African Warriors Fighting Championship, as well as their family members, to find out why Dambe boxing is so important to the Hausa community and whether it can one day become one of the world’s global combat sports.

Myanmar is now in a state of civil war. What started in February 2021 as a mass protest movement against the military coup is now a nationwide armed uprising. The junta is under attack across the country from a network of civilian militias called the People’s Defence Forces who say they’re fighting to create a democratic Myanmar. The BBC gained rare access to the jungle training camps where young protests are being turned into soldiers. We follow a single mother and a student who have sacrificed everything to join the fight. They're up against a well-trained military that’s willing to use brutal tactics to stay in power. As the death toll mounts and the world looks away, can they restore democracy?

Reporter, Rebecca Henschke.

(Photo: Twenty-year-old Myo left home to join the resistance. Credit: Chit Aye/BBC)

Australia is famous for its unique wildlife and landscapes. But Australia also has the highest mammal extinction rate in the world, and there are big declines in frogs, reptiles, and birds caused by introduced predators and land clearing. Some species are hanging on in small numbers on private land. Could paying farmers and indigenous landowners to return parts of their properties to nature or turn them into carbon farms help solve Australia’s biodiversity crisis?

ABC producer Belinda Sommer takes you to the wide plains and sub-tropical forests of Australia to meet the farmers who are combining commerce and conservation.

The United Nations’ children agency, Unicef, has said that almost two thirds of Ukraine’s 7.5 million children have been displaced during the six weeks since Russia’s invasion.

One of Russia’s key targets has been the southern port city of Mariupol. Thousands of civilians are dead, many more have been left trapped and face an horrendous struggle for survival. Pastor Gennady Mokhnenko is a chaplain from Mariupol. He describes what he has seen and heard in the city, and his efforts to help children to escape. He is joined in conversation by Vasylyna Dubaylo, director of the charity Partnership for Every Child. She’s currently in Poland and has been helping foster children find Ukrainian families.

The war has now separated millions of people in Ukraine from loved ones/ Host Ben James introduces us to Olha and Andrii, a young married couple. Olha took an opportunity to leave with her younger siblings, but is now more than five thousand miles away in Canada. Andrii remains in Ukraine, wondering if he will be called upon to fight for his country. Neither of them know when or if they will see each other again, and they discuss how the war has changed their lives.

Guidance: Contains graphic content.

Beirut, 1974. It is the height of the Cold War. A prominent Yemeni politician is shot dead in his car. Some say, had he lived, Yemen would be a different country today. The killer was never caught, the assassination never investigated.

Political assassinations in the Middle East are almost always unsolved, and reliable evidence can be extremely hard to find. The lack of accountability in these cases is often seen as the reason for the pervasiveness of assassinations in the region. In Yemen, power struggles over the last 60 years have left a long list of murdered political figures. One particular case, the unsolved murder of Yemen’s former foreign minister in 1974, sent shockwaves across the country, and was covered widely in the region and then in the West. Mohamed Noman was a liberal and progressive politician who was building a different path for Yemen, away from authoritarian rule. His death at the early age of 41 had arguably paved the way for decades of military rule in Yemen.

In this documentary, his granddaughter, Mai Noman, sets off on a mission to investigate who could have been behind his murder, almost 50 years after his death.