The Documentary Podcast

All over the world engineers are being called on to re-purpose and solve the problems the global pandemic creates. We bring together an audience of engineers and the general public from six continents to share insights to inspire innovation worldwide.

How are engineers reinventing our world to fight the virus? What can they do to re-imagine the everyday and make life safer and easier across the globe?

Presenter Kevin Fong is joined by a panel of four leading engineers from around the world who respond to questions, comments and first-hand accounts from a global audience linked by Zoom.

The panel:

This is a special edition of an annual event series staged in partnership with the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851.

East Africa has seen the worst invasion of desert locusts for decades and there are warnings of even larger swarms to come. Millions of people across the region, who are already feeling the impact of coronavirus and floods, will now face increased hunger and poverty. Just an average swarm can eat the same in a day as 2,500 people for a year.

For Assignment, the BBC’s Senior Africa Correspondent Anne Soy joins Albert the Samburu herdsman turned locust hunter as he struggles to track the pests who have been decimating crops and pastures across his native northern Kenya. It is a race against time to exterminate this generation before they breed another, larger, more voracious generation.

Producer: Charlotte Atwood

(Image: Man chasing away a swarm of desert locusts in Samburu County, Kenya. Credit: Fredrik Lerneryd/Getty Images)

Public health leader Dr Tom Frieden reflects on the ongoing global pandemic. An expert on infectious disease, Dr Frieden is a former director of the US States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He was a leading figure in the global response to the Ebola outbreak and he now heads Resolve to Save Lives, an Initiative of Vital Strategies, an organisation dedicated to the prevention of epidemics. From his New York apartment, Dr Frieden provides his unique insight on the unfolding international situation. He records his response to key moments in the development of the pandemic and the measures being taken to face it in the United States, Africa and across the world.

BBC Media editor Amol Rajan and a panel of guests analyse how the coronavirus pandemic has created new opportunities to change our world. They range across topics including geopolitics and the rise of China; the role of technology and ownership of information; and perceived and genuine inequality. Guests will include: Kevin Rudd, former Australian prime minister Michelle Bachelet, former president of Chile George Osborne, former UK chancellor Zoltan Kovacs, Hungarian secretary of state for public diplomacy

As the pandemic continues to impact the world, BBC World Service's Nina Robinson, talks to journalists from two daily newspapers in India and the United States as we explore its impact on people in their regions. Working with experienced editors and reporters from the daily Mumbai Mirror and Kentucky’s Courier Journal, this documentary gets under the skin of two newsrooms during this time of great uncertainty as each country comes to terms with coronavirus, handling lockdowns, hospital admissions and the unequal impact the virus is having on the poor and on ethnic minorities.

The pandemic has led to job cuts and reduced salaries, so does going to university still make financial sense? And if you took a cut in wages during lockdown but are now back at work, how should you talk to your boss about pay? Listeners share their stories and get expert advice on managing money in the time of coronavirus, including: - How to increase your chances of getting a job in the post-pandemic world. - Whether a change of career is a good idea right now. - And where you can get financial help if you are struggling to survive.

We speak to people in China's capital, Beijing, where a fresh spike of Covid-19 cases has been detected. Fan Fan and Richard tell us what it feels like to go through lockdown all over again. Meanwhile, the most intense outbreaks are now in Latin America. We hear accounts of how communities in countries including Peru and Colombia are dealing with the disease. As restrictions ease elsewhere, businesses are preparing to open again in a very different world. We bring together business owners in Botswana, Turkey and the United States to talk about the challenges they face and their hopes for the future.

Since the outbreak of coronavirus something strange has been happening – attacks on telephone masts and telecom workers are being reported all across the world. That’s because some people think that 5G can make you sick – from coronavirus to cancer and a whole host of other symptoms. Even more worryingly, some scientists say they can prove that it’s harmful. But at a time when many businesses are struggling, could this apparent threat be helping to fuel a whole industry of strange and expensive products? And worse, could stoking these fears actually be damaging people’s health? Assignment investigates how bad science could be making you sick.

Presenter: Tom Wright

(Image: A banner draped across a Place Royale statue during an anti-5G protest in Nantes, France. Credit: Estelle Ruiz/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

When a name very similar to journalist Michelle Madsen’s was used as the cover for a fake news hatchet job on a Senegalese politician, she found herself entangled in a web of deception that she is seeking to unravel.

How has Latin America dealt with the pandemic? The lockdown, the needs of the economy, cash pay-outs to the poor, culture, tradition and safety in a time of crisis are all discussed with an expert panel and questions from the public across the region. Presenter Jonny Dymond is joined by Dr Denise Dresser - political scientist, Mexico. Luiz Philippe de Orleans e Braganca - Chamber of Representatives, Social Liberal Party, Brazil, Laura Alonso - former head of Argentina's Anti-Corruption office. Margarita Lopez Maya - Venezuelan historian and Dr Marcus Espinal - Pan American Health Organisation.