The Documentary Podcast

Each year 35,000 New Yorkers end up in jail because they can’t afford bail. Campaigners want to end cash bail to preserve the idea that people are innocent until proven guilty.

When Peter White jets, sails or walks into a new city, it is the sounds, not the sights, which assail him. In this programme Peter explores the twists and turns of Marrakesh. He listens to local radio; he takes in the sounds of restaurants, travel systems and the voices of the locals. He also meets other blind people and uses their experiences of an area to understand it better and to appreciate the aural clues which help guide them.

Why is Germany such a reluctant military power? Germany’s grown in international influence. And its potential military role has been hitting the headlines. US President Donald Trump’s criticised Germany in particular for not spending enough on defence. And Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned that Europe can no longer completely depend on the US - or the UK after Brexit. Germany, she argues, must do more in the military sphere.

But Germans themselves are very reluctant to do this. As Chris Bowlby discovers in this documentary, German pacifism has grown since World War Two, when Nazi armies caused such devastation. Today’s German army, the Bundeswehr, was meant to be a model citizen's force. But it’s often poorly funded and treated with suspicion by its own population.

Some now say the world of Trump, Putin and Brexit demands major change in German thinking - much more spending, more Bundeswehr deployments abroad, even German nuclear weapons. But most Germans disagree. So could Germany in fact be trying something historically new - becoming a major power without fighting wars?

With its reputation for glitz, glamour and gambling, Las Vegas has become one of the world’s foremost tourist destinations, with over 40 million visitors a year. But the bright lights and breathtaking architecture conceal a murky past. After gambling was legalised in Nevada in the 1930s, a raft of hotel-casinos sprang up under the control of gangsters such as Bugsy Siegel and Frank Costello – a state of affairs that continued well into the 1960s.

British politics has become unpredictable. As voters were going to the polls in the UK general election on 8 June, many were contemplating a landslide for the Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May – nearly all polls predicted it. And of course Theresa May and the Conservative Party did win - but they are the largest party in what is a hung parliament - they no longer have overall control, so what happened? Why did people vote the way they did?

Middle Eastern governments are using high tech mass surveillance tools to monitor their citizens. Western companies, including Britain’s largest weapons manufacturer, BAE, are among those selling surveillance technology to these governments. The trade is attracting criticism from human rights organisations who question whether a British company should be selling such equipment, much of it classified, to repressive regimes in the Arab world. BBC Arabic’s Nawal Al-Maghafi investigates.

During Brazil’s boom years the country's rising economy created a new middle class of gigantic proportions - tens of millions escaping from poverty. Brazil felt confident and even rich enough to bid for the 2016 Olympic Games. But then the economy turned. In the last two years the country has endured its worst recession on record. Where did it all go wrong?

Carlos Dews was brought up in a poor area of rural east Texas, travelling every weekend to cockfighting tournaments across the southern states. “I remember,” he says, “limp necks and the lifeless swaying heads of beautiful birds as they were carried by their feet to barrels for burning. I was told not to cry, not to remember these things. But we always remember what we’re told to forget.”

Zahed Tajeddin is a sculptor and archaeologist whose family have lived in Aleppo for generations. He owned a beautiful medieval courtyard house in a neighbourhood called Jdeideh, part of the city's historic centre. But Zahed was forced to abandon his house in 2012, when Jdeideh became a battleground between government forces and rebel fighters. He makes the emotional and dangerous journey to see whether his home survived the conflict.

Dictator Fulgencio Batista knew staging a Grand Prix in Havana in 1958 was risky. Sabotage in Cuban cities and guerrilla wars in the mountains were attracting global headlines. Keen to distract from the turmoil, he offers the world’s greatest F1 driver, Juan Manuel Fangio, a huge fee to drive. But the event ended with the kidnapping of Juan Manuel Fangio and the death of six bystanders.