The Documentary Podcast

When Chinese policeman Dong Guangping wrote an article commemorating the 10th anniversary of the 1989 military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing, it kicked off a chain of events that led to him serving jail time and losing his job. But it also sparked the beginning of a deep desire to live more freely. So Dong began planning how he might escape China. Just a few weeks ago, back in late May, he finally achieved his dream, having taken the huge risk of crossing China's Yellow Sea in a dinghy to reach South Korean waters. Phoebe Kong, based in the BBC's Hong Kong bureau, explained how rare Dong's achievement really is.
Yemen has faced decades of economic hardship and war, but the khat industry is thriving. Khat is a plant, and when chewed it acts as a stimulant. It is estimated to consume one-third of Yemen's groundwater and occupy much of the country's agricultural land. Dalia Haidar of BBC Arabic has been looking into Yemen's relationship to khat and the problem it can cause.
The Fifth Floor is at the heart of global storytelling on the BBC World Service, bringing you the best stories from journalists in the BBC's 43 language services. We're here to help you make sense of the stories making headlines around the world; to excite your curiosity and to get to grips with the facts.

Recent episodes have investigated Russia’s youth armies and how they make soldiers of Ukrainian children; featured the BBC team who were the first journalists to the site of the Nigerian school kidnappings and reflected the effects of internet blackouts in Iran, Uganda and India.

If you want to know more about Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, and the legacy of Hugo Chavez; or how Vladimir Putin’s network of deep cover spies operates; or why Donald Trump signed an executive order granting white South Africans asylum in the US, we have all those stories and more.
This episode of The Documentary comes to you from The Fifth Floor, the show at the heart of global storytelling, with BBC journalists from all around the world.
Presented by Faranak Amidi.
Produced by Laura Thomas and Caroline Ferguson
(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)

Wildfires continue to burn across the continent. Thousands of people have been evacuated on the Greek island of Crete, as well as in western France, Spain, Portugal and Turkey. A blaze in central Spain has burned almost 80,000 hectares over the last week and is now considered the largest recorded wildfire in Spanish history. With temperatures hitting more than 40 degrees Celsius in south-western France, firefighters, planes and helicopters have been battling fires there. Muriele in France and Julian in Spain share their experiences of escaping the flames. Robin – on holiday with his family – describes what it was like as the fire approached their French campsite. “The pool was getting filled up with ash, you could see all black pine needles, bits of bark that were burnt, it blocked out the sun,” Robin tells us. We also bring together volunteers in France, helping to provide food and shelter for people displaced from their homes.

What does it mean to inherit a faith that served as a fortress for your father, but feels like a contradiction to you? Throughout his childhood in Oxford, Silas Gray was surrounded by the sights, sounds, and symbols of his father’s Rastafarian identity. He was even named after the Rastafarian spiritual figurehead, Emperor Haile Selassie I.
But this legacy weighs heavily. It anchors him to a complex world leader he’s not sure he’s aligned with. And he feels like an imposter carrying a name associated with a faith he doesn’t practise.
Desperate to find a version of this legacy he can comfortably own, Silas decides to do what his father spent forty years dreaming of but never actually did: he books a flight to Ethiopia and travels to the Rastafarian spiritual motherland of Shashamane, the land granted to the global black diaspora by the Emperor himself.
Silas encounters a living, breathing community where three generations of Rastafarians exist under one roof.
This is a deeply personal pilgrimage about a son trying to see what his father sees, heal a generational disconnect, and finally make peace with his name.

The 1st of July 1916 is still one of the deadliest days in the history of warfare. Nearly 20,000 men from the British Army and 6,000 German soldiers were killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. The World War One battle would last another four months and was one of the first examples of industrial warfare; three million men fought in it, over a-million soldiers were wounded, missing or killed. Jordan Dunbar investigates how, 110 years on, the battle still affects people and communities, and discovers new insights about its impact on his own family and on the history of Ireland.

Ed Butler investigates how one of Europe’s most wanted drug smugglers, Jos Leijdekkers, ended up in Sierra Leone while evading justice.
He also explores reports linking Leijdekkers to the family of Sierra Leone’s president, including claims that he has married the president’s daughter.
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Presenter/producer: Ed Butler