The Documentary Podcast

An interview with one of Iran's vice presidents, Masoumeh Ebtekar, in Tehran.

Tehran is a modern city of 12 million people, a study in contrast between bazaars and shopping malls, between hardline clerics and millennial hipsters. Iran’s Vice President first became famous, in 1979 as the spokesperson for the students holding the hostages at the American Embassy. 36 years later Iran has signed a nuclear deal with six world powers but really it’s all about Iran and the United States. How does Masoumeh Ebtekar feel about the relationship between the two countries?

In early 2002, following the fall of the Talban, Osama Bin Laden's abandoned compound in the Afghan city of Kandahar was ransacked. Among the finds was a collection of more than 1500 audio cassettes featuring sermons, speeches, songs and candid recordings of Arab-Afghan fighters, recorded between the 1960s up until the 9/11 attacks.The collection served as an audio library for those who gathered under Bin Laden's roof between 1997 and 2001 – a key era in Al Qaeda's development and growth.

BBC Security correspondent Gordon Corera speaks to Prof Flagg Miller from the University of California-Davis, who has spent more than a decade translating and analysing the tapes.Through pain-staking detective work Prof Miller has sought to understand what the tapes say about the evolution of Bin Laden, presenting his findings in the book 'The Audacious Ascetic: What the Bin Laden Tapes Reveal about Al-Qaeda'. The collection features over 200 speakers, with around 20 tapes featuring Bin Laden himself – among them some rarely-heard speeches.

While the cassette tape is undoubtedly an instrument for proselytising and propaganda, this collection reveals that the people making recordings seemed to find extraordinary pleasure in capturing the ordinary sounds of life – conversations over breakfast; sounds from the battlefield; wedding celebrations and militants singing Islamic anthems. As diverse as the recordings in the collection are, they offer exceptional insight into Bin Laden's broad intellectual interests in the years leading up to the September 11 attacks in the United States. Presenter: Gordon Corera Producer: Richard Fenton-Smith

(Photo: A cassette tape found in Osama Bin Laden's former compound. Credit: Flagg Miller)

Will Grant takes a ride in Cuba to discover how people get around and whether the thaw in relations with the United States will make any difference to their lives.

The gun attack on the beach resort of Sousse that killed 38 tourists, deterred many holiday-makers from travelling to Tunisia. But not journalist, Frances Stonor Saunders. She packed her bags, no flak jacket in sight, and set off for an all-inclusive package deal to Hammamet, a nearby seaside resort. What did she find? As well as deserted beaches and eerily empty hotels, Frances has a chance meeting with a man who helped foil a previous terror attack on a popular tourist site; and she finds out why Tunisians are refusing to go to local hotels, despite desperate pleas from hotel owners.

Peter Oborne investigates why bank accounts of some British Muslims were closed.

China has become a top maker and taker of underground ketamine. Celia Hatton sees the impact of the drug and explores The Fortress - the drug village at the centre of the trade.

Farkhunda, a 28-year-old Afghan woman and religious scholar, was beaten to death in the streets of Kabul in March this year. She had reportedly been arguing with a Mullah about the practice of selling charms in front of a mosque. He accused her of burning the Koran.

Former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko died in a London hospital in 2006, after drinking tea poisoned with the highly radioactive material - polonium. But who wanted him dead, and why? And where did his killers get the polonium from?

Gabriel Gatehouse follows the journeys of two African migrants, from their dramatic rescue in the Mediterranean, to their attempts to find a new home in Europe.

Snow White is one of the darkest fairytales in the canon – a story of witchcraft, cannibalism and murderous rage. It describes the fury of an ageing woman, who looks into her mirror to discover her beauty has been surpassed. Writer Cathy FitzGerald explores if there are more productive ways of dealing with ugly attitudes to ageing.