The Documentary Podcast

In the wind-swept desert of south-west Algeria, thousands of athletes prepare to run a marathon through the forgotten land of Western Sahara.

Identified at a young age as a talented cross-country athlete, Salah was forced to run under the Moroccan flag. At the end of a crucial race, victorious, he waved the Saharawi flag – illegal in Morocco – and was immediately exiled from the country.

Nicola follows Salah as he returns home to be reunited with his family and friends, many of whom he hasn’t seen since he left several years ago.

Reporter: Nicola Kelly

**Podcast has been updated**

With the closing ceremonial of the 2018 London Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting barely over, BBC radio’s Royal Correspondent Jonny Dymond excavates the Commonwealth of Nation’s 19th Century origins in the British Empire and its formal institution in 1949 as a post-colonial worldwide network of states ‘free and equal’ within the organisation.

Some have joked that the long shadow of its colonial origins has made it the ‘after-care service of Empire’. And with Her Majesty the Queen as its Head, the Commonwealth in the 1980s and 1990s became a powerful tool in the pursuit of majority rule in Zimbabwe and South Africa. But since then it has struggled to clearly define itself for the closely interconnected 21st Century.

Jonny Dymond samples the colour and the conversation of the London summit, visits the institution’s palatial London home, Marlborough House, and talks to Secretary General Patricia Scotland about the Commonwealth’s value in the modern world.

(Photo: Prime Minister Theresa May chairs a meeting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) in London, 2018. Credit: Getty Images)

No reporters, no studios. The Response China hears directly from the citizens of the most populous county on the planet - using the recording power of smartphones. The contributors are normal working people, students, telling stories about the world of work in China, about their relationships, and the influence of family members on their lives. Hear how an online gamer nearly derailed his education, how a young worker in a big company struggled with full time employment, about coping with bipolar disorder and how one woman’s love for a Northern Irish actor has opened up new horizons. The programme was compiled using an initial prompt on social media and all stories were submitted directly from smartphones.

Presented by Howard Zhan

Photo: The Phoenix Tower which is the highest building inside Shenyang Imperial Palace, China. Credit: Feng Li/Getty Images

In North Carolina presenter Tim Samuel finds the contradictions and cultural clashes that are playing out across the US – with men often in the middle of the fallout. Heading through the Appalachian mountains – where traditional blue-collar jobs have collapsed - he sees the social ravages of opioid addiction. Indeed, a doctor reveals that for the first time in generations male mortality is starting to move in the wrong direction; we are in the midst of a man crisis, he says.

Odebrecht was one of Brazil’s premier companies – the largest construction firm in Latin America. But some of its success in securing multi-million dollar contracts across the region was built on a policy of colossal bribery. The testimony of Odebrecht executives in plea-bargain agreements with prosecutors continues to have fall-out, especially with former President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva now in jail on charges related to Brazil’s wider corruption scandal. Across the region, heads have rolled in the wake of the revelations. Peru’s president was recently forced to resign and Ecuador’s vice-president is in prison. Linda Pressly visits Panama, where Odebrecht remains in the headlines, and where there are demands to terminate the company’s on-going contracts.

Thousands of young Russian Muslim men were lured to join so-called Islamic State - taking their wives and children with them. But since the "caliphate" fell last year, those families have vanished - and grandmothers back in Russia are desperate for news. The Kremlin wants to bring the children home. It says they've committed no crimes. But finding them and their mothers is hugely difficult. Iraqi authorities say they're holding many IS families - but they won't name them. Gradually though, dramatic scraps of information are emerging - a scribbled note from a prison, whispered phone messages, photos and videos on social media. For months, Tim Whewell has been talking to the grandmothers as they've gathered such clues - and now he travels to Iraq in search of more information, tracing the route the fighters and their families took when they were defeated - and trying to solve the mystery of what happened to them. What was the fate of the men after they surrendered at a remote village school? And what of the reports that many of the women and children were subsequently abducted by a militia? As the story unfolds, Tim confronts a powerful Shia warlord. Will the jihadis' children be released? What kind of justice will their mothers face? And what will the grandmothers - convinced of their daughters' innocence - do to try to get them back?

Presenter Tim Whewell

In a radical turn of events – Bermuda has become the first country in the world to repeal same-sex marriage. In May 2017, Bermudian lawyer Mark Pettingill and his client Winston Godwin won a case in the Bermuda Supreme Court for marriage equality for all people in the LGBTQ+ community. However, less than a year later – a new government introduced the Domestic Partnership Act - taking away the rights of gay couples to marry, and given them instead the option of civil partnerships.

Regina Lepping travels around her homeland – the Solomon Islands – to discover how this remote Commonwealth country in the Pacific is on the front line of climate change. Sea levels here are rising three times faster than the global average, some islands have already been lost and people have had to relocate their homes.

On the 50th anniversary of the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy, presenter Michael Goldfarb tells the story of how they came to be murdered. He speaks with their children and close associates about how the pair’s lives and deaths affected their own pathway. And he looks at how their words and deeds continue to shape America.

A one-woman whirlwind of passion and energy, Sukayna Muhammad Younes is a unique phenomenon in Iraq. A council official in the half-destroyed city of Mosul, former stronghold of so-called Islamic State, she's on a mission to find and identify the thousands of children who went missing during the conflict – and reunite them with their families. It’s a massive task – and deeply controversial because Sukayna makes no distinction between children who are victims of IS – and those who belonged to IS families. “They're all just children - all innocent,” she says.

Tim Whewell follows Sukayna through the rubble of the city, visiting her orphanage, trying to find missing parents, meeting families who want to reclaim children. Can she solve the mystery of Jannat – an abandoned fair-haired girl who may be the daughter of a foreign IS family? Can she help Amal, sister of a dead IS fighter, to adopt her baby niece? How can families afford the expensive DNA tests the authorities require before families can be reunited? As she tries to solve these problems Sukayna also has to look after her own family of six children - and cope with personal tragedy. Two of her brothers were killed by jihadis; her family home, used as an IS base, is now in ruins. Highly charismatic - Sukayna now wants to go into politics. "I am a mini-Iraq,” she says – her family includes members of many communities - and she believes the country desperately needs more dynamic, tolerant people like her, to bring real change and overcome divisions. But it’s hard to be a high-profile, energetic woman in patriarchal Iraq – and she’s faced death threats both from remaining IS supporters - and those who think she’s too ready to help “terrorist” families.

Presenter Tim Whewell