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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 conflict in the Middle East to the advance of AI, 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

In a summer of world class sporting events, tennis players have been battling it out at Wimbledon - one of the four major Grand Slam tournaments. One of the big stories has been the success of British wildcard entry Arthur Fery who, before Wimbledon, was ranked outside the top 100. His success has come with a big jump in prize money - essential to pay for the international travel, accommodation and coaches required to keep climbing the rankings. For those lower down the ranks, life on the professional circuit can be tough both emotionally and financially. Hamish Stewart, from Scotland, is currently ranked 300 and is all too aware of the personal demands of the job. "I've just missed an ex-college teammate of mine's wedding," says Stewart. He is joined by Jamie Loeb from the US, who is currently ranked outside the top 1,000. She had a career high of 132 and played in the US Open before injury and personal circumstances stalled her rise. We also hear from three coaches - Viktoria Belinsky, Noelle van Lottum and Michael Logarzo - who give us an insight into their jobs, the sport and its parallels with life.

Chasing the Wimbledon dream

In coastal Japan, Yasuo Takamatsu has spent nearly 15 years diving for the remains of his wife, Yuko, who was swept away in the 2011 tsunami. With on-location recording of Yasuo on his 763rd dive, this Heart and Soul documentary explores his search as an act of devotion shaped by Japanese ideals of grief, memory, and the power of nature. A profound story of love and loss, we reveal how one man’s repeated dives became a ritual of remembrance in a land where disaster is part of life.

Presenter: Jake Warren
Producer:: Leo Danczak
Editor:: Macalister Bexon 
A Message Heard production for BBC World Service

Diving for Yuko

Once a quiet hobby for enthusiasts, ant-keeping has exploded into a global, multi-million-dollar business driven by social media and a rising wave of "ant-influencers". Demand for exotic species is fuelling a boom in online trading forums, and a new front in wildlife trafficking. We go to Kenya, where law enforcement has made global headlines arresting gangs as they try to smuggle thousands of prized mated queens out of the country.

Secrets of the ant trade

As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, all this week The Global Story is exploring the surprising and often hidden ways the US has shaped the modern world.

For decades in the US, “Made in China” signified a product that was cheap, poorly made, and, in some cases, produced through exploitative labour. But today, the label signifies something quite different in many American minds - state-of-the-art tech and luxury goods that even rival America, for arguably the first time in US history.

Often overlooked is the fact that China’s ascendance as an economic superpower was far from inevitable. Today we speak to historian Elizabeth Ingleson to trace the evolution of the Made in China brand and to explore what responsibility the United States had for awakening its own economic rival.

The Global Story tells in-depth stories from where the world and America meet. For more episodes, just search 'The Global Story' wherever you get your BBC Podcasts.

Producer: Xandra Ellin and Sam Chantarasak
Executive producer: James Shield
Sound engineer: Travis Evans
Senior news editor: China Collins

Was ‘Made in China’ made in America?

Worried about a ballooning population, the Chinese government introduced its infamous one-child policy in 1980. At the time it seemed urgent to find ways to reduce the number of babies being born. China today has the opposite problem - too few births. Since the one-child policy was scrapped 10 years ago, there have been increasingly desperate attempts to encourage couples to have more children. But nothing has worked. China’s population has already started to fall. That process will gather pace over the coming decades. The population is on track to halve by the end of the century. Micky Bristow, who has reported on China over more than 20 years, looks at why this is happening, and what the consequences could be.

China’s collapsing population

From her secluded mountain cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia, USA, best-selling author Karin Slaughter crafts stories which keep millions awake at night. She tells Lucy Collingwood how she works best – at her bespoke ‘cockpit’ desk, a couple of intense weeks at a time, where she juggles the tv-adaptation of her book The Good Daughter and her latest thriller The Secrets We Hide.

Karin Slaughter: thriller penned in mountain cabin

100 Objects #1: The Century Safe In 1876, Americans filled an iron safe with objects meant to tell their story — to be opened a century later. Roman Mars and historian Jill Lepore trace its long wait, from Reconstruction to Watergate, and the surprising, unsettling contents that emerged in 1976. What do the objects we choose to preserve, or forget, reveal about how we author our own history?

A history of the United States in 100 objects: 1: The Century Safe

When Dr. Mahrang Baloch was a teenager, she joined hundreds of families across Pakistan's southwestern province of Balochistan to search for her father, who had disappeared. Activists and rights groups say thousands of ethnic Baloch people have disappeared over the past two decades, alleging many were detained by security forces, tortured and killed as part of operations against a long-running separatist movement. After three years of being missing, Mahrang's family received a call telling them that her father's body had been found. This led Mahrang herself becoming a campaigner, leading protests and marches demanding information about missing persons in Balochistan. But last year she was arrested and she has now been sentenced to life in prison. Farhat Javed of BBC Urdu tells her story. 

 As the group stage of the World Cup comes to a close, Cape Verde, a tiny nation off the coast of West Africa, is celebrating a remarkable achievement. It's their first ever time at the tournament, but the Blue Sharks, as their team is known, have made it out of the group stage with a series of strong performances where they have held big teams like Spain and Uruguay to account. Meanwhile, in South Korea, a much more seasoned squad packed with international talent have arrived home in defeat after losing to teams their critics feel they should have beaten. The fallout has been painful. Paul Njie, journalist with BBC West Africa and Jake Kwon, Seoul Correspondent for BBC News, reflect. 

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 Irena Taranyuk. 

Produced by Laura Thomas, Caroline Ferguson and Hannah Dean. 

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

Balochistan's disappeared

The people of Venezuela are still reeling from the aftermath of two powerful earthquakes which struck near the capital Caracas in June. 
 
As buildings collapsed, the impact was devastating. Over two and a half thousand are recorded dead but, with tens of thousands of people still missing, the final number will be much higher. 
 
We hear from people who were in Caracas and the nearby port of La Guaira - one of the worst affected areas.
 
Some have been made homeless. Some are students, who were about to graduate and are now mourning the loss of friends. Some, like Gonzalo, are continuing to search for those who are still trapped beneath collapsed buildings.

While rescue teams have arrived from all over the world, Gonzalo is dismayed at the shortage of aid from his own government.

"As Venezuelans right now we cannot afford to stop and process. We are stuck in the loop of helping, helping, helping, helping, helping. We have to get each other out, we have to get each other out, which is a beautiful thing," said Gonzalo. 

"But the painful thing is that it's just a sign of how alone we are. How destroyed the network of this country is and that is the most desolating part of it all."

Host: James Reynolds
BBC producers: Iqra Farooq and Ryan Keane.
Boffin Media producer: Sue Nelson
Editors: Harriet Oliver and Arja Haikonen 

An EcoAudio certified Boffin Media production in partnership with the OS team.

The Venezuelan Earthquakes

Once a respected voice in the pulpit, a Nigerian priest was cast out when his sexuality became known, mirroring a broader pattern in which clergy have been dismissed or barred from ministry in Nigeria over allegations of homosexuality. Listening to his intimate testimony and stark reality, Emily Buchanan explores the cost of authenticity in a society where belief, culture, and law intersect - and where being true to oneself can mean losing everything.

Secrets of the ant trade

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