The Documentary Podcast

Many black people in Mexico’s remote Costa Chica area near the Pacific ocean feel ignored and neglected by the state. A lot of Mexicans don’t even know the Afro-Mexicans exist. Outside their towns, they often get stopped by police who don’t believe they can be Mexican. Some have even been deported, despite having Mexican ID papers. So who are the black Mexicans? Lucy Duran meets members of this ethnic community that is struggling for identity and recognition. They use their culture, such as the characteristic Dance of the Devils or Chilena music, to assert their identity and fight for their rights. Activists want the state to accept black people as a separate ethnic minority, distinct from indigenous people, but with the same rights. It is not only about being able to hold your head high. It’s also about money. Those fighting for official recognition say that they’re not eligible for the special kind of financial support that similarly isolated indigenous communities get. They blame their poverty on this lack of funding. Dr Lucy Duran meets black Mexicans ranging from a cowboy to a singer-songwriter and explores how they identify themselves, why even those who do not obviously look as though they are of African descent describe themselves as black, and why their identity has become a political issue. Producer: Arlene Gregorius Consultant and translator: Dr Sergio Navarrete Pellicer (Image: Paula Maximiana Laredo Herrera and Tulia Serrano Arellanes, council workers in Santiago Llano Grande, a black town in the Costa Chica area of Oaxaca state, Mexico)

Everything is up for discussion in the salon, where intimate and frank conversations take place between a woman and her hairstylist. Whether you view a haircut as a luxury or a necessity, a hair salon is at the frontline of how we think about female identity. Six journalists from around the world pay visits to salons across the world, from Tokyo to Johannesburg to Beirut and back. We’ll hear how women view issues of race, class, wealth, sexuality and beauty through the hair on their heads. Step inside the salon, where every haircut tells a story.

This week's massive leak of confidential documents from the Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca, has given unprecedented access to the way the rich and powerful have used tax havens to hide their wealth. But within the eleven and a half million documents, there is also evidence of how some of the shell companies set up by the firm, or the individuals that owned them, have been the subject of international sanctions and have been used by rogue states and oppressive regimes including North Korea and Syria.

The so-called Islamic State has brought terror to the streets of Paris and Brussels, killing hundreds of civilians and wounding many more. But how does the organisation operate in Europe? And who has masterminded the deadly attacks?

The mastermind of the attacks in the French capital was a man called Abdelhamid Abaaoud. During the course of the programme Peter Taylor unveils how this man recruited and trained radicalised young men to carry out attacks. And he also details how the western intelligence services were engaged in a desperate race to stop Abaaoud from bringing terror to streets of Europe.

In answer to the question, we hear from the father and son who share a passion for firearms, a nursery worker whose chances of having a baby have slipped away; a father whose child’s funeral was a like a festival, and one of the last hippies in Amsterdam. These brief portraits have been woven together with the sounds of Amsterdam, to create an unpredictable and poetic listen.

One question - Where are you going? - yields countless surprises about the lives of strangers. We hear from a pigeon-catching drug addict, a woman who is married to her cat, a man dicing with death in his day job and a mother who is travelling to see her daughter who has cancer. "It's not supposed to be that way round" she says. These unpredictable encounters come together to create a unique and fascinating audio portrait of New York City.

How are the ethics, philosophy and lifestyles of the internet pioneers determining the way we all live? Do we have any choice but to live the way they live, or rage against what? The machine? David Baker travels to Silicon Valley to find out what shapes those who are shaping the way we live.

Zaha Hadid was the first woman and first Muslim to win the Pritzker Prize, architecture’s highest honour. She designed the whale-like London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympics Games and the extraordinary Maaxi Museum in Rome. Her designs were challenging and innovative and she was at the forefront of changing tastes in architecture and design today. After years of failing to get her designs built, her distinctive work became highly sought after, all over the world from Germany to the USA and from China to Iraq. Zaha Hadid talked to Razia Iqbal and an audience in London at the Royal Institute of British Architects about her work and the future of architecture. This programme was orginally broadcast in June 2013.

An unholy spat is stirring the Sangha, Thailand’s top Buddhist authority – who will become the next Supreme Patriarch, Thailand’s most senior monk? Meanwhile, allegations of ‘cheque-book Buddhism’, cronyism and corruption abound – including allegations about tax-evasion on an imported vintage Mercedes car. In Thailand, where the majority of the population profess Buddhism, seeking ordination isn’t unusual. But salacious stories about monks who commit serious crimes – everything from sex offences to wildlife trafficking – continue to shock. Watching quietly from the side-lines is the Venerable Dhammananda – female, and a Buddhist monk since 2003. Although the Sangha bars women from ordination, there are now around 100 bhikkhunis, as female monastics are known, in Thailand. And their growing acceptance by some Buddhist believers might partly be explained by a widespread disillusionment with the behaviour of some male monks. Linda Pressly explores the rifts and sexual politics challenging Thai Buddhism and its devotees.

Rana Mitter meets South Korean pop producers, noise musicians and TV directors, to find out what has been driving the Korean Wave. He discovers how, as freedom and wealth bed down, South Koreans are breaking from the conformity that helped them pull off an economic miracle towards a more raucous, more individualist culture.