selected BBC World Service Podcasts

Rajan Datar discusses news priorities with the editor of news and current affairs for the World Service, Andrew Whitehead, in response to queries from a listener about the relative importance of recent stories about the trapped miners in Chile and the floods in Pakistan. Another listener challenges the editor of The Interview about her choice of interviewees, arguing that there are too many Americans. And Rajan asks whether Digital Planet should have explained the political background to one of its recent stories; the programme’s producer thinks not.

Karzai forms Afghan Peace Council; protests in France against the expulsion of Roma; and a new biography of Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal.

French Roma demos; New Zealand earthquake; Blair interview, Darfur attacks, new Morrissey controversy

There's a dilemma for Jill McGivering, covering the floods in Pakistan; Gabriel Gatehouse in Baghdad on the changing lexicon as America redefines its mission in Iraq; Wyre Davies is in Jerusalem and detects little optimism for the Middle East peace talks which have restarted in Washington; James Reynolds is at the mine in the Atacama Desert where 33 miners are trapped far undergound and Andy Kershaw visits the arena in Kinshasa which was the site of the world's greatest boxing encounter.

Satiago Roncagliolo; Egyptian publishing; Adeniyi Olagunju; Peepli Live; Savory Jazz; David Grossman.

Tony Blair tells Newshour about the threat from radical Islam; North Korea's next possible leader; and the talking stamp

Match-fixing in international sport; Portugal's paedophile scandal, and Juliette Binoche vs Gerard Depardieu.

Israel and the Palestinians talk peace in Washington; Afghanistan's banking crisis; and do advances in physics make God unnecessary?

Hamas on the attack of two Israelis today and their reaction to the first face to face negotiations in two years and the ex-coach of the Pakistan cricket team calls for the Chairman Ijaz Butt to resign.

Can President Obama break the deadlock between the Israelis and the Palestinians? And Jermaine Jackson in The Gambia

Tony Blair admits in his memoirs that he did not expect what he described as the nightmare in Iraq after the invasion; the end of the US combat mission in Iraq is marked; and British doctors warn against foreign stem-cell treatments.

Obama marks the end of combat ops in Iraq, and could the latest Israeli deaths threaten the revived peace process?

US forces officially end their combat role in Iraq; what were the two Yemeni men flying to Schipol trying to conceal? And Iceland's plan for a global 'Top Gun' academy.

The UN climate change panel is told it needs fundamental change. Has it strayed from scientific fact to advocacy? Following the latest allegations linking cricket and a gambling scam, we debate whether there are any clean sports left. And what's driving South African baboons to drink?

Soul searching in Pakistan as the national team reels from scandal; a gunman goes on a shooting spree in Bratislava and in South Africa are the government and the unions on the verge of a deal?

Pakistani cricket - a British newspaper says it has caught some players helping illegal betting rings - police have arrested a man the paper filmed predicting what would happen on the pitch. Hurricane Katrina 5 years on, and Israeli artists boycott performance in Jewish settlement.

Filmmaker Huma Beg witnesses the scale of the flooding around Thatta near the Pakistan coast. We profile Mohammed al Baradei the man who many want to be the next Egyptian President. The British newspaper story that alleges bribery and corruption in Pakistani cricket.

How the brain decodes reality is discussed on today's programme, with guest presenter Philippe Sands, celebrated barrister and Professor of International Law. French neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene on the amazing feat of reading which involves the brain splitting and processing words. Celebrated Danish Novelist Carsten Jensen on how truth is stranger than fiction, and how a novel reaches truth with the help of a lie. And Mexican historian Jimena Canales on why our perceptions are always a tenth of a second behind the world.

After the floods, the disease - the UN warns that thousands of child victims of Pakistan's floods could die. Conservatives rally in Washington - but why did they choose the anniversary and the place of Martin Luther King's historic speech?

Pakistan floods threaten Thatta, Bradford protests, and Afghan attacks.