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BBC World Service

Hear the voices at the heart of global stories. Where curious minds can uncover hidden truths and make sense of the world. The best of documentary storytelling from the BBC World Service.
From China’s state-backed overseas spending, to on the road with Canada’s Sikh truckers, to the front line of the climate emergency, we go beyond the headlines.
Each week we dive into the minds of the world’s most creative people, take personal journeys into spirituality and connect people from across the globe to share how news stories are shaping their lives.

The Documentary Podcast

What does it take to make something which has never existed on Earth before? The search for element 120 on the periodic table has begun at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. Cosmologist Andrew Pontzen, who is used to studying the processes of creation, visits the 88-inch Cyclotron facility at Berkeley, where the next new element may be created very soon. To uncover what motivates scientists to pursue something that is possibly only produced in the violent explosions of stars he speaks with the scientists trying it now, the scientists who last made an element at Berkeley 50 years ago, and a historian of the fraught history of element discovery. The answer is not as straight forward as he suspected.

New elements

Kenyan authorities recently reported that 200 of their citizens are fighting for Russia in the war in Ukraine. Many of them have reported that they travelled to Russia after replying to job adverts for roles as drivers, security guards and cooks. It was only on arrival that they were sent for military training, and then sent to the battlefield in Ukraine.BBC Africa's David Wafula has spoken to families trying to find sons and brothers, lost in Russia's war. 

In September 2025 a wave of anti-government protests swept through Indonesia. Bali, however, remained free from demonstrations. Academics and sociologists say this is due to a legacy of terror from the island's 1965 communist purge. This brutal period taught communities a chilling lesson: dissent leads to annihilation. As a result, many Balinese people have become conditioned to avoid confrontation and suppress negative opinions, especially concerning the tourism sector. Tri Wahyuni of BBC Indonesian has looked into Bali's relationship with tourism and its own history. 

In Panna, a diamond mining region in central India, two childhood friends recently made a discovery that they think could change their lives forever. They had rented a small patch of land in the hopes of finding diamonds, and after only 19 days of digging they found one worth an estimated $55,000. Vishnukant Tiwari reports for the BBC in central India and spoke to the brothers. 

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

Kenyans lured to Russia's frontline

In the past few days there have been a number of deaths on ski slopes in the Alps and, in recent months, hikers in Greece, climbers in Italy’s Dolomite mountains, and guides in the Himalayas have all lost their lives.The peak season for these huge and potentially lethal mass movements of snow is now underway in the northern hemisphere. To understand the dangers, and what it’s like to experience an avalanche, we hear from three survivors. For mountaineer Cory Richards in South Africa, the impact of an avalanche while climbing the world's 13th tallest mountain in Pakistan left him and his two climbing partners thinking they were all about to die.
This episode of The Documentary, comes to you from BBC OS Conversations, bringing together people from around the world to discuss how major news stories are affecting their lives.

Surviving an avalanche

*** This programme contains graphic descriptions of body mutilation ***
In the Nepalese Himalaya, one of the world’s rarest and most spiritually profound funeral rites is still practised: the Sky Burial. In some circumstances when a person dies, their body is offered to wild vultures. According to local Bon and Tibetan Buddhist customs, this burial is reserved only for those whose karma is deemed pure and whose astrological signs align with sacred guidance. The ritual represents the highest form of cremation, allowing the soul to ascend freely to the heavens. But the arrival of infrastructure projects and modern roads into these remote valleys have also created challenges for monastics and Sky Burial practitioners too. We follow Tashi Bista as he meets the guardians of this ceremony and comes eye to eye with human mortality.
This episode of The Documentary, comes to you from Heart and Soul, exploring personal approaches to spirituality from around the world.

Eternal horizons

In 1867, the US government bought Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million dollars. At the time, critics questioned the value of purchasing such an inhospitable and remote territory. Yet today, due to its abundance of natural resources, America’s largest state has proved to be a significant investment. BBC foreign correspondent Anna Holligan travels to Alaska to report on the increasing China-Russia-US tension in the region. Supported by Russia, through fishing, shipping and military exercises, China has a growing presence in the Bering Sea, which separates mainland Russia from the US by 55 miles at its narrowest point. As Anna visits the largest Coast Guard base in the world on Alaska’s Kodiak Island, she asks why is China seeking to expand their influence in one of the most dangerous and volatile seas in the world?

Stories from the New Silk Road: The Bering Sea

*** This programme contains very strong language ***
Over the past year, BBC Eye has followed the journeys of young men from Syria, Egypt, and Yemen who travelled to Russia in search of work, only to end up on the frontlines in Ukraine. Why are these men risking their lives in a war that is not theirs?
 
Many, including students, say they were tricked into fighting for the Russian army by a recruiter.
 
BBC Eye investigates their stories, meeting a family grieving the loss of their son and a young Yemeni man now trapped in a prisoner-of-war camp.

Watch the film Into the Void Putin's Foreign Fighters on YouTube: https://youtu.be/y7ruSvJfn_g

Putin's foreign fighters

'Start by lighting a candle every morning.’ In other words, pray. That’s the advice on one social media platform to those looking for a rented property in the Netherlands. The pressure on housing is immense: an estimated shortage of 400,000 homes. It was the number one issue in the recent Dutch general election, with the winning D66 party promising to build '10 new cities'.
 
Desperate times call for desperate measures. Squatting was made a criminal offence over a decade ago, but with an estimated 90,000 homes standing empty, the squatters – krakers – are back. And there are thousands of people breaking the law by living year-round in holiday or recreation parks deep in the Netherlands’ countryside.
 
The authorities are trying to change the dynamics. The city of Amsterdam is cracking down on second homes and owners who leave a property vacant. And last year, in an effort to cool an overheated market and limit the exploitation of tenants, the national government strengthened rent controls. But this has only encouraged landlords to throw in the towel and put their properties up for sale. 
 
There’s also a question mark over plans to build thousands of homes - and new cities - because of an obstacle few seem to have foreseen... Electricity. The Netherlands has enough power, but it doesn’t have the infrastructure to transport it to proposed new developments. 
 
Of course, the Dutch are known for innovation – especially in their management of water. Could floating apartment blocks be one of the answers? 
 
For Assignment, Linda Pressly meets both those at the sharp end of the Dutch housing crisis, and those working to mitigate its fallout.

This episode of The Documentary comes to you from Assignment, investigations and journeys into the heart of global events.

The Netherlands: 10 new cities?

Bianca Raffaella is a partially sighted painter based in Margate. Working entirely by touch and memory, her flower and figure paintings emerge from a world of blurred vision, visual static, and sensory recall. Raffaella paints what she perceives in flickers, dappled fragments of colour, flashes of form, shaped through instinct, fingertips, and palette knives. Sahar Zand meets Bianca in her studio, as she works on her latest project.
This episode of The Documentary, comes to you from In the Studio, exploring the processes of the world’s most creative people.

If you are affected by an issue raised in the programme you could speak to a health professional or an organisation that offers support. If you are suffering distress or despair, details of help available in many countries can be found at Befrienders Worldwide. www.befrienders.org

Bianca Raffaella: A world of blurred vision

Humans have spread to every corner of the globe, transforming ecosystems and reshaping landscapes. Is there anywhere left on Earth that is unaffected by humans? Anywhere we haven’t changed – at all? Presenter Caroline Steel and producer Florian Bohr begin their mission to find No Man's Land, if it exists.

Looking for No Man's Land

A recent BBC Persian documentary, Taraneh, has recieved millions of views online. It features an Iranian actress who is considered an icon in the country and has been starring in films for nearly 30 years. Her name is Taraneh Alidoosti and in 2022 she was arrested for taking a photograph of herself in her home, not wearing a hijab, and holding a sign showing support for the 'Woman, Life, Freedom' protests that are currently spreading across Iran once more. The film's director is BBC Persian's Pegah Ahangarani and she explains why the documentary had to be filmed in complete secret. BBC Monitoring's Sarbas Nazari reflects on why the film resonates so much in the contect of the protests now taking place in Iran. 

In November 2025, Cyclone Senyar caused devastating floods and landslides in Indonesia, resulting in widespread destruction and loss of life. The extreme weather has also been catestrophic for the Tapanuli orangutan population. Only discovered as a separate species in 2017, the Tapanuli orangutan is found in a small area of North Sumatra and haven't been seen or heard since the landslides. BBC World Service Environment Correspondent Navin Singh Khadka explains the importance of the Tapanuli orangutans and their environment. 

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.)

Taraneh: Iran's defiant actress

Doctor Gwen Adshead is a forensic psychiatrist working with the UK’s most violent offenders, many of them serving life sentences at Broadmoor Prison for murder. Gwen believes that empathy starts with a recognition that there is a capacity for evil in all of us. She believes that for her patients, “no matter what their history”, therapeutic treatment works. She speaks to the writer and convicted murderer Erwin James. Together they reflect on Erwin’s life story and how he came to commit the crime he did. Erwin asks Gwen about her relationship with Christianity and how it has supported her in her work.

Heart and Soul: The killer's counsel

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