A cancelled election, a cancelled candidate and a divided country – is Romania’s democracy under threat?

Last December the country’s Constitutional Court cancelled the presidential election two days before the final vote, citing outside interference, with the nationalist pro-Putin candidate, Calin Georgescu, riding high in the polls. TikTok sensation and portraying himself as an outsider, Georgescu’s anti-EU and anti-NATO message resonated with an unhappy electorate. His sudden success was unprecedented, as was the cancelation of a European democratic election.

The political establishment claim that cyberwarfare and Russian interference gave them no choice. Georgescu has now been eliminated from May’s Presidential re-run.

Historian Tessa Dunlop asks how this happened, why it matters and what next for this strategically important country on the eastern edge of the EU and NATO?

Amin Gulgee defies easy categorisation: he’s a metal sculptor, a curator, and one of Pakistan’s most innovative and cherished artists, the beating heart of his home city of Karachi’s creative scene. His metalwork is as dramatic and eccentric as Amin is. He’s in your face, uncompromising, a living and breathing performance piece.

Amin also comes from a prestigious family: his father, Ismail Gulgee, was one of Pakistan’s most famous modernists, creating abstract paintings that have been exhibited across the globe, and even sketching heads of state like Reagan and Gaddafi. In 2007, Ismail and Amin’s mother Zaro were tragically murdered by their driver. It was Amin who found their bodies, in their house which adjoins his own studio and gallery. Much of Amin’s work since has been an attempt to come to terms and heal from this most tragic of events.

Presenter Harry Stott meets Amin on location in his Karachi studio-cum-gallery-cum-home, as he prepares to open a new museum of his father’s work – the ‘most momentous’ thing he has ever attempted. We listen in as Amin shows us the calligraphy adorned doors which he has created for the museum’s entrance. We go inside his studio to hear about his creative process more widely. And we hear Amin come to terms with the tragedy of his parents’ death and the solace that he finds in his workshop.

Amidst the tumult of this momentous museum opening in the already tumultuous city of Karachi, this episode of In the Studio attempts to understand how Amin’s two year process of creation, curation and healing will change his creative process for the years to come.

Presenter & Producer: Harry Stott

A Message Heard Production

Image: Amin Gulgee (Credit: Humayun Memon)

In China today, looking good is seen as key to career success. With beauty videos promoting extreme weight-loss flooding social media, beauty apps making booking surgery click of a button away, China’s cosmetic surgery industry is booming. But the surge in demand has led to a shortage of qualified practitioners and licensed clinics. Hundreds of accidents are happening inside Chinese clinics every day. We talk to young women pressured into cosmetic procedures and expose the surgeon behind one of China’s most notorious botched surgeries.

Presenter: Natalia Zuo

This episode includes a clip from The Most Beautiful You in the World (世界上最动听的你), aired on WeTV.

There are over 90,000 hi-definition CCTV cameras in Kabul, watching everyone’s movements. What are the Taliban using this footage for? BBC Afghan Services' journalist Mahjooba Nowrouzi was granted exclusive access into the country’s top security control room. Plus, BBC Mundo's William Márquez on the history of Charles Darwin's house, and Mayuresh Konnur Gopal reports for BBC Marathi on the geological and historical relevance of India's Lonar Crater Lake.

Presented by Faranak Amidi

(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)

The issue of colourism was highlighted in a recent BBC news report about a Nigerian woman who bleached the skin of her six young children leaving them with discoloured skin, burns and scars. It is a form of racism where light skin is more highly valued than dark skin amongst people of the same ethnic group. In our conversations, we hear from women who share experiences of colourism in India including Chandana who has faced colourism from an early age. We also bring together two black women who work in the fashion and beauty industry, where appearance is everything. Beauty journalist, Ateh, shares her experiences of colourism with Nyakim, a Sudanese-American model known as Queen of the Dark after her naturally dark skin tone.

Sacred Harp pioneer and former punk frontman, Tim Eriksen, takes us into the hair-raising sound of shape note singing, an American choral tradition experiencing a resurgence across the US and in Europe. All people and all faiths are welcome. As a new edition of the songbook approaches publication, Tim explores why this music is drawing more singers and how it is managing to remain inclusive despite increasing political polarisation in the wider culture.

Built around a game of braille Scrabble, Emma Tracey presents a celebration of braille, 200 years after it was invented. Emma, who’s been blind since birth, talks to others who love the six tiny dots: Geerat Vermeij, one of the world’s leading experts in molluscs; Yetnebersh Nigussie, an Ethiopian lawyer, who describes her blindness as "a lottery I won at the age of five"; Sheri Wells-Jensen, a linguistics professor who’s been a linguistic consultant on Star Trek and is on the US advisory board for messaging extra-terrestrial intelligence; Japanese concert pianist, Nobuyuki Tsujii, who learnt to play using braille music; and Emma's friend and Scrabble partner, Ellie. And there’s a chance encounter with the most famous braille user of them all, Stevie Wonder.

Presenter: Emma Tracey

Olympique Lyonnais is the most successful club in women’s football, dominating Europe over the last 15 years winning eight Champions League titles. Only Barcelona have recently been able to compete. Lyon's success is the vision of club president Jean-Michel Aulas who wanted to create an iconic team, with the best players, but in the case of Aulas he also promised to ensure both male and female players were treated equally. This included the first mixed football training academy.

In Olympique Lyonnais: The Champions League trailblazers we find out the story of how the French club raised the standard of women’s football, going behind the scenes with striker and Ballon d’Or winner Ada Hegerberg, Chelsea and England defender Lucy Bronze and France and Lyon captain Wendie Renard who have all witnessed huge success and then change with Europe’s elite catching up. Now South Korean born businesswoman Michele Kang has taken over the the French giants, with big ambitions for the club.

Photo: Players of Olympique Lyonnais celebrate after winning during the UEFA Women's Champions League final match between FC Barcelona and Olympique Lyonnais at Juventus Stadium on May 21, 2022 in Turin, Italy. (Credit: Ciancaphoto Studio/Getty Images)

Māori in New Zealand have been resisting moves by the current right-of-centre government to abolish certain indigenous-specific rights aimed at combatting disadvantage.

In a 9-day hikoi or march of defiance they walked from the top of New Zealand down to the capital Wellington, joined by non-Māori supporters - all opposed to the changes.

A separate Māori Health Authority has been dismantled, for example. It was set up by the previous centre-left government to tackle health inequalities that mean indigenous people live seven years less than other New Zealanders. Māori also come bottom in statistics for employment, housing and education, and are highly overrepresented in prison.

Most divisive though, a new law proposal about the principles of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi - New Zealand’s founding document, sought to do away with what has been a form of affirmative action, and instead treat everyone the same, regardless of heritage.

Some feel this is all necessary to achieve proper equality. Others feel that Māori progress will be undone and inequality or inequity entrenched.

For 60 years, New York composer Steve Reich has been one of classical music’s most celebrated revolutionaries. Pioneering minimalism in the 1960s, a musical style based on repetition and shifting rhythms, his strange experiments with cassette tape led to orchestral masterpieces – now performed around the world. His career has not only helped define the latest era of classical music, but had an enormous influence on pop, rock and electronica. He has helped shape 20th Century music in a way few can claim to match. To mark 60 years since his first major piece,1965’s It’s Gonna Rain, he takes Alastair Shuttleworth through the process and stories behind some of his greatest works, including Clapping Music, Different Trains and City Life. He also reflects on his legacy, his plans for the future and what, at the age of 88, still inspires him to compose