The Documentary Podcast

The Italian town of Monfalcone on the Adriatic coast has an ethnic make-up unique to the country. Of a population of just over thirty thousand, more than six thousand are from Bangladesh. They’ve come to help construct huge cruise ships, providing labour to do the type of manual jobs which Italians no longer want to do.

For years, they worshipped at two Islamic centres in the town. Then, in November, the town’s far right mayor, Anna Maria Cisint, tried to effectively ban collective prayer there, along with stopping cricket - the Bangladeshi national sport - from being played within the town.

She says she is defending Christian values. Her critics say she is building walls rather than bridges. For Assignment, Sofia Bettiza travels to Italy to discover how the country is dealing with the increasing numbers of legal migrants coming to work in a country which needs their labour.

Known to many as breakdancing, breaking sprung up in the economic and social unrest of 1970s New York, as a form of expressive protest. Today, it is also a globalised and dizzyingly virtuosic competitive dance sport - and now it is making its debut at the Paris Olympics. We follow Australian competitor Rachael Gunn (B-girl Raygun) as she hits pause on her day-job as a university lecturer and prepares for her debut on the Olympics stage. In conversations across the final 100 days, as she practises at home in Sydney, tests out new moves in the UK, and gets settled in Paris, we hear about the challenges of training, experimenting, and honing her performance.

Hong Kong's history is being revised and erased - it's early origins, colonial legacy, post 1997 handover period and the crucial years since the mass 2019 democracy protests are being uprooted, overturned and rewritten by a government guided by the ruling Communist Party in Beijing. This 'rewriting' of history is being enforced in schools, universities, libraries, the local media and online. This process has seen library shelves raided, museums closed for 'review', art galleries censored, media archives wiped, commemorations and memorials banned. Every department of government seems affected - library users asked to scour the shelves for 'banned' books, the arts sector to purge itself of 'anti-China elements', the annual commemorations of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre shut down. Democracy activists, authors of children's books, students, and newspaper owners have been jailed for holding contradictory views, telling alternative narratives. All in the few years since 2019 and Covid-19. Hong Kong is a changed place - a place where memory wars are being fought, where history and your interpretation of it can lead to long prison sentences or exile.

This audio was updated on 13th August 2024.

Three years ago the Taliban took control of Afghanistan. BBC Afghan journalists Shekiba Habib and Shoaib Sharifi were living and following the events as they unfolded and continue to do so.

Produced by Caroline Ferguson and Alice Gioia.

(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)

It began as a peaceful student protest against the way some government jobs are reserved for war veterans and their families. The violence that followed is some of the worst the country has witnessed in recent years. More than 200 people are reported dead, with most blamed on police gunfire. Host James Reynolds speaks with those in Bangladesh and hears stories of what they have witnessed; their fears for their safety and that of friends and family. They describe being afraid to leave their homes and being unable to sleep and eat.

Injuries meant wrestler Dan Russell missed out on two opportunities for glory at the Olympics back in the 1990s. But missing the chance to fight for gold twice was not what left him feeling empty when he retired from the sport. Dan had a difficult childhood, suffering abuse from neighbours and enduring a brutal training regime, being made to wrestle all day, every day, by his father. Once retired, Dan’s past traumas began to haunt him, leading to a deep depression. Dan had trophies and medals from his sporting days, but what next? And where was God in his life when he needed Him most? Then, a call from USA Wrestling asking Dan to head up Wrestling for Peace, a charity project bringing people together through wrestling and humanitarian work, changed the course of everything. A dream told him he was destined to move and work in Jordan, in the Middle East and Dan and his wife Joy, moved to Jordan to set up the charity there. Can Dan find redemption as he continues to wrestle, now with life itself rather than in the ring?

In a bonus edition of World Book Club following the death of the acclaimed Irish author Edna O’Brien, who died aged 93 in July 2024, we look back to an interview with Edna from 2008.

Edna O’Brien was born in rural County Clare in 1930, and found her education by nuns suffocating. She moved to Dublin, and subsequently spent much of her life in London. The Country Girls tells the story of two girls from rural Ireland growing up in a convent school before moving to Dublin to begin their adult lives.

World Book Club is a series where the world's great authors discuss their best-known novel. For more episodes, search for World Book Club wherever you got this podcast.

In a bonus episode of The Global Story podcast - Divorce: The art of breaking up.

The Global Story brings you one big story every weekday, making sense of the news with our experts around the world. Insights you can trust, from the BBC World Service. For more, go to bbcworldservice.com/globalstory or search for The Global Story wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Divorce rates have been in decline across the West for decades. Experts put this down to a variety of factors, from fewer marriages to a widening dating pool, but cultural differences mean it is difficult to draw broad conclusions on the trends around splitting up. So how can we judge how attitudes to divorce have changed? On today's episode Lucy Hockings is joined by divorce mediator and former BBC presenter Joanna Gosling, as well as Marina Adshade, a professor at the University of British Columbia who focusses on the economics of sex and relationships. They interrogate some of the stats on divorce, and discuss how the process of dissolving marriage is portrayed in popular culture.

The Global Story brings you trusted insights from BBC journalists worldwide. We want your ideas, stories and experiences to help us understand and tell #TheGlobalStory. Email us at [email protected] You can also message us or leave a voice note via WhatsApp on +44 330 123 9480.

Producer: Alice Aylett Roberts, Laurie Kalus and Emilia Jansson

In a special edition of HARDtalk Stephen Sackur looks back at some of the guests who have risked their personal freedom to disclose secret information. What motivates these whistleblowers?

This is a bonus episode from HARDtalk, a show that brings you in-depth, hard-hitting interviews with newsworthy personalities. For more episodes search for HARDtalk wherever your get your BBC podcasts.

Dr Willard Wigan MBE creates the smallest handmade sculptures in the world. He uses high powered microscopes and custom-made tools formed from shards of diamond, hypodermic needles, and paintbrushes made from eyelashes. Willard’s talent and determination propelled him to international acclaim. His work sells for six-figure sums, and he has exhibited internationally. However, his path to success has been far from easy. As a schoolboy, he struggled with reading and writing due to unrecognised autism, his teachers dismissed him, and he endured routine bullying and racism. Willard's latest sculpture, a tribute to Charles Darwin, is crafted on the end of a pencil – a canvas rich in symbolism.