The Documentary Podcast

What is the pandemic like for people with autism? We hear from three parents in Chile, Spain and India who discuss the impact lockdown has had on their children with autism. They explain how their children seem happier away from the social environment of school, but that they are also concerned about the impact on their social skills. Plus, three American editors who work on newspaper pages writing obituaries of people who have died with coronavirus.

What did you learn about sexual pleasure when you were growing up?

In Rwanda we find out about a cultural practice that allegedly puts female pleasure first, but is also linked to a controversial form of female genital modification.

The World Health Organisation does not explicitly mention labial elongation as a form of female genital mutilation. It periodically reviews the typology and classification of certain practices and the next review is envisioned for 2020-2021. In this documentary, we look at competing attitudes when it comes to female sexual pleasure and explore the collision zone between individual rights and preserving cultural practices.

The 2020 Champions League final was due to be held at the Atatürk Olympic Stadium on Saturday 30 May, exactly 15 years after the most extraordinary night in the competition's history, when Liverpool completed “The Miracle of Istanbul”. AC Milan had a star-studded line up and were overwhelming favourites, especially after they raced into a 3-0 lead. However Liverpool launched the most amazing second-half comeback that culminated in winning the trophy in a penalty shootout. To mark that anniversary, we take you back to that iconic night with those who were there - including penalty-saving hero, Jerzy Dudek.

Alan Dein connects with people who are experiencing sleepless nights during the coronavirus pandemic. Salina is a Nepalese student stranded in Bangkok after the borders were closed. With no income, she’s kept awake in her stifling, windowless room as her money runs out. Meanwhile, Keenya is a hairdresser in Detroit, anxious about feeding her seven children as Covid-19 spreads through her community. And Mursalina in Afghanistan worries about increasing poverty on the streets of Kabul in the midst of the pandemic.

Belarus’s all-powerful President has focused global attention on his country by ostentatiously downplaying the coronavirus pandemic. Alexander Lukashenko has allowed shops, markets and restaurants and football stadiums to remain open and is encouraging people to go out to work. In early May he laid on a grand military spectacle celebrating victory in WW2, in defiance of social distancing advice. He told Belarussians they could stay healthy by drinking vodka and driving tractors in the fields and dismissed concerns over the virus as “psychosis.” But medics and bereaved families say otherwise. And with a doubling of infections every two or three days, there is not much to laugh about in Belarus. Medical staff have allegedly been sacked and even detained for speaking out about poor conditions in hospitals and the inaccurate death certificates.

Assignment explores what lies behind President Lukashenko’s position. We hear from community activists, war veterans, tech-wizards and many other diverse people in Belarus. Lucy Ash pieces it all together with reporting by Ilya Kuziatsou.

Produced by Monica Whitlock

(Image: Jana Shostak’s Angry Mask. Human Constanta, a Belarusian human rights organisation, asked eight artists to design facemasks focusing on the coronavirus pandemic. Credit: Jakub Jasiukiewicz)

When Anthony Ray Hinton was sentenced to death for a double murder, he used his time behind bars to create a book club for his fellow death row inmates. It was to get him through 28 years of solitary confinement. Now a free man after the State of Alabama dropped all charges against him, he takes listeners back to the echoing corridors of death row and introduces them to his book club.

Giving birth is an emotional experience, but what about during this pandemic? And then there is bringing a baby into a world of lockdowns and restrictions. We hear from new mums in New York, Dublin and London. What is it like to be in prison and pregnant?

Leena Vuotovesi, the leader of environmental work in Europe’s greenest town, Ii in Finland, travels to Chile and Spain to compare recycling practices. First she visits La Pintana - Chile’s unlikely climate champion: an impoverished neighbourhood plagued by crime and violence that recycles more than any other town in Chile. Leena then goes to a pristine part of southern Spain - a country where municipal recycling rates lag way behind EU targets. She speaks to children, teachers and waste management experts to find out why Spanish people don’t appear to care about recycling and to see what could be done to reduce environmental and economic damage.

In Mumbai, Chinu has been has been providing food to the city’s migrant and daily labourers who have been unable to work since the country’s lockdown. Getting up at 4.30am each day, he has served over 415,000 hot meals so far. In Nigeria, optometry student Ismail has been sleeping in a mosque since his college closed its doors three and a half months ago, but is holding on to his dreams of working for the WHO or UN. And deep in the Amazon rainforest, Tatiana, a state politician and academic forecasts trouble ahead.

The story of how chef Marcus Samuelsson made Harlem his home is nothing short of remarkable. He was born in a tiny village in Ethiopia, too small to even appear on maps. Aged two, he contracted TB. His mum carried him for 75 miles to the capital for treatment. She died, but he survived and was adopted by a Swedish family who taught him a love of cooking. Marcus is now a leading light of New York cuisine running an international restaurant chain but with his heart firmly grounded in the stories of Harlem.