BBC World Service Documentary Archive podcasts

Teenagers on the island of Alert Bay, British Columbia, talk openly about the beauty and frustration on living in a remote place.

Thembi Ngubane’s Radio Diary about living with Aids in a South African Township.

It's widely regarded as one of the most secretive religious organisations in the world. It makes heavy demands on its members - and has been accused of cult-like practices. It's also an influential movement within Roman Catholicism. Opus Dei, made famous by Dan Brown's bestselling novel the Da Vinci Code, has many critics - but few have found out what life is like on the inside. The BBC's religious affairs correspondent, Christopher Landau, has been granted exclusive access to the movement's extensive headquarters in Rome. He meets both priests and lay people who devote their lives (and their money) to this movement which, though less than 100 years old, exerts powerful influence over both its members and the wider church.

In this three part series, Ayisha Yahya explores climate change issues in the African desert. In programme one she asks, what are the implications for traditional nomadic desert communities?

In this special edition of Assignment, John Simpson reveals how the protests, and the police reprisals that followed, are intricately linked to the rivalry inside the clique of clerics who created the Islamic state.

When the dried blood of Naples' patron saint fails to liquefy, Neapolitans believe great misfortune will descend upon them. With Mount Vesuvius overdue for a major eruption, Malcolm Billings investigates if tragedy awaits this historic city.

After 28 years in power, President Mubarak's promise of shepherding his country into a stable democracy has all but dissipated.

In a programme first broadcast in April, Ed Butler reports from New York on how the super rich have been dealing with the impact of the financial crisis.

In the final part of this series, Mike Gallagher meets a British farmer working vast landholdings in Hungary and Serbia. Does 'going global' in agriculture really offer a better future?

After 28 years in power, Mubarak's promise of leading Egypt into stable democracy has dissipated. Magdi Abdelhadi reports.

Listen to the story of Suzanne, a single woman in her forties who opted for a trans-racial adoption and became the mother of an African-American baby.

Hundreds of thousands of people have fled from Somalia since civil war broke out there in the early 1990s. Many of them go to refugee camps in Kenya, others to Tanzania - and many have spent more than 15 years living in those camps. But one group has been more fortunate than others - the Somali Bantu, whose ancestors were taken to Somalia as slaves from southern Africa in the 19th Century. In 2001 the Somali Bantu were recognised as an especially vulnerable group by the United States and two years later 12,000 of them were airlifted out of the camps and flown to new, permanent homes in the United States. In this week's Assignment Tim Mansel visits one group of them in the western city of Boise in Idaho.

In this series, Mike Gallagher meets two farmers working outside their own countries. In programme one, a young Ecuadorian visits Hawaii. What farming techniques can he take back to Ecuador?

Justin Webb goes beyond his role as a journalist to explore the issue from the perspective of a parent who is desperate to know what the future holds for his child.

The final programme in the My World series explores the story of Pornthip Rojanasunan, Thailand’s leading forensic scientist who has turned a straightforward autopsy into a battleground for the truth.

The final programme in the My World series explores the story of Pornthip Rojanasunan, Thailand’s leading forensic scientist who has turned a straightforward autopsy into a battleground for the truth.

In this series, David Goldblatt charts the rise of Twenty20 cricket. In the final programme he asks, can the Twenty20 revolution help to make cricket become a truly global game?

A poetic story of survival set against the soundscape of the Mathare slums in Kenya. Meet Kades, a teenage poet who has escaped poverty.

Martin Wolf, of the Financial Times, predicted that the global downturn would be much worse than anyone had reason to believe.

Since the beginning of last year, pirates have succeeded in seizing more than 70 ships off the coast of Somalia. Hundreds of crew members have been held to ransom, and millions of dollars have been paid to the pirates to secure their release. For Assignment Rob Walker has gained exclusive access to the people involved in one of those hijacks – the captain, the ship owner and the mysterious middleman – the pirates negotiator.