The Documentary Podcast

Before he announced he would run to become the Republican Party presidential candidate Donald Trump was already known around the world. He had amassed a fortune through his real estate company and his career in reality TV which had made him famous. But what about his politics?

The BBC’s former North America Editor Justin Webb has been to New York to explore Donald Trump’s political roots. How does an Ivy League educated billionaire manage to appeal to people from across the political spectrum? Justin hears from Mr Trump’s friends and former colleagues including the woman who built Trump Tower.

(Photo: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a press conference at the Trump National Golf Club Jupiter, 2016. Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Mexico, with its history of drug-war violence and corrupt police, has one of the highest kidnapping rates in the world. Official figures for 2015 state that just over 1500 people were taken. Unofficially the figures are said to be much higher…..running into the tens of thousands. In the past the crime tended to target the rich but now it has become much more egalitarian. Victims these days are often shopkeepers, taxi drivers, service employees and people working in Mexico’s informal economy. Victims tend to be young – students with parents willing to pay ransoms, are frequently targeted. Kidnapping and ransom operations form a large part of drug cartels’ criminal portfolio. With a lack of trust in the authorities there’s been a significant rise in the number of private negotiators who deal with the ransom negotiations. The BBC’s Vladmir Hernandez has obtained exclusive access into the world of these private negotiators and tells their rarely told story. He also has a disturbing interview with a kidnapper.

Warning: this programme contains strong language and graphic description of violence

Produced by John Murphy

Edit .Each year some of the poorest pupils in the country enter the hallowed corridors of Eton on full scholarships. Penny Marshall meets some of those applying for places and follows them and those they inspire as they prepare for exams that could change the course of their lives. Andrew Isama reflects on the move from one of Liverpool’s toughest comprehensives to the cobbled square, 15th century chapel and Olympic rowing lake at Eton. He says that preconceptions about the school get turned on their head when scholarship pupils like him arrive: far from being with boys who eat pate and listen to classical music he was surprised to find out just how normal his fellow pupils were: “People had the same interests as me.” The Headmaster at Eton, Simon Henderson, wants more bursaries for boys from disadvantaged backgrounds, so that anyone with the necessary talent can be financially supported at the £35,000-a-year school. Penny joins him and some of the pupils to find out what they hope to gain from the experience. The transition can be a difficult one and some struggle with the move to an institution which has educated 19 British prime ministers, including the present incumbent. But Andrew Isama believes that the influx of scholarship pupils like him also helps those who have come from privileged backgrounds - “A lot of them have never been exposed to anything else. They want to be successful but to do that they have to know how to get on with a range of people.”

Sixty-five-year-old Hiromitsu Shinkawa survived the 2011 Tsunami by riding the tin roof of a destroyed home. He spent two days alone and adrift at sea on his makeshift raft before rescue. Shortly afterwards he met Miwako Ozawa, a young Japanese translator hired by a journalist to interview him. Five years on, Hiromitsu’s remarkable story of survival and renewal is told through the two halves of their unlikely friendship.

(Photo: Hiromitsu Shinkawa as crew members of Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force (JMSDF) sail to rescue him on 13 March 2011. Credit: JIJI Press/AFP/Getty Images

It’s high noon in the American high desert, and the cowboys are gearing up for the fight of their lives. The armed occupation of a wildlife refuge in the far western state of Oregon has highlighted a long and deepening land dispute between rural communities and the federal government in Washington DC, which owns vast tracts of isolated and scenic territory.

Ranchers and farmers say the land should be kept available for their cattle to graze; they say their historic way of life will be doomed otherwise. But other Americans, especially those in cities, want to see federal land conserved and protected from overuse.

For Assignment, Neal Razzell travels to Oregon to see how these differences are fuelling a cultural battle over what it means to be American.

Produced by Michael Gallagher

Alvin Hall explains how gospel became a global force in popular music. He reveals how Aretha Franklin’s pop success introduced the gospel world to an international audience. He looks at the rise of the gospel choir in the 1970s and 80s and discovers how this religious music increasingly became a money-making industry. And, he meets leading gospel stars Kirk Franklin and Donnie McClurkin.

Alan Kasujja meets the start-ups in Kampala which are trying to turn the industry around by making it safer and enabling riders to increase their profit margins. He speaks to the Kampala City Authorities and the city's Traffic Police to find out whether it is possible to control this sprawling industry, and whether there are other means of employment for the riders. He also meets Kampala's only female boda-boda rider and explores the political pressures on this hugely lucrative but unregulated industry.

Thousands of Christian refugees who have fled religious violence in Pakistan are stranded in Thailand. They travel there because of cheap tourist visas but quickly get caught in a tangle of asylum bureaucracy which can mean waiting years to move on to a third country. It happens because Thailand does not offer asylum to refugees, but passes them on to the UNCHR for processing; but the UN is overwhelmed, leaving many to suffer poverty and deprivation while they await news of their cases.

In some cases men, women and children are rounded up by the Thai authorities and incarcerated in grim detention centres or even imprisoned.

For Assignment, the BBC’s Chris Rogers reports from the backstreets of Bangkok where many of the refugees are in hiding and goes undercover to expose the treatment of these people in Thailand’s detention system.

Produced by Michael Gallagher

(Photo: Illegal immigrants in Thailand find themselves in detention)

Gospel's uplifting and rejoicing sound is world famous, a multi million-dollar music genre that in many ways has ended up being the beating heart of American popular music. But can gospel be gospel if it entertains and makes money as well as praises the Lord? Financial educator Alvin Hall explores how this American religious music genre has been affected by commercialisation.

For many Ugandans boda bodas are the transport of choice. They are quick and cheap, and can be a vital mode of transport in remote areas. They have also become one of the best ways to make a living in Uganda which has a high rate of youth unemployment. But the motor taxis are also divisive, and a lack of regulation means they are hated by many in the capital Kampala, and outlawed in some other African cities.