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bbcff_2012_01-08
BBC World Service - Fifth Floor
23.03.17
Original insights, playful perspectives and surprising stories from the World Service's 27 language sections. Every week with David Amanor. - Ein wöchentlicher Blick hinter die Kulissen der 27 Sprachdienste des Weltdienstes der BBC, moderiert von David Amanor.
Archivnummern: AP/m_mm1/bbcff_2012_(Sendedatum)
© Urheber
| Datei | Datum | Inhalt | Dauer |
| 0114 | 14.01 | 1) ARAB SPRING REVOLUTIONS: IT'S A FAMILY AFFAIR On the first anniversary of the downfall of president Ben Ali of Tunisia, we hear from a husband and wife team working for BBC Arabic. Egyptian journalist Reda el Mawy joins The Fifth Floor from Tunis, while his wife, Tunisian producer Wafa Zaiane is with us in the studio. They talk about the impact of reporting the Arab Spring on family life - and jostling for the TV remote control as both watched the revolutions unfold at home and at work. 2) JAKARTA JOURNEYS For BBC Indonesia, Dewi Safitri reports on the perilous lengths that commuters go to get their ride back home - clambering, in their thousands, onto the rooftops of trains. 3) DIARY: A WEEK IN NIGERIA "I finally got to the hospital after taking a long way round to avoid the feared Kaduna hoodlums who could either harm me or smash my vehicle." In a chaotic week in Nigeria, there's dangerous reporting and a difficult task for Nurah Ringin, the Kaduna correspondent for the Hausa Section. 4) ONLINE GREATEST HITS 5) IT'S ALL A CONSPIRACY! Earlier this week, the embattled Syrian leader President Assad made a rare public address pointing the finger at a "foreign conspiracy" for the troubles in Syria. And the following day we awoke to hear the news that Iran was accusing Israel of assassinating one of their nuclear scientist. So how do you make the distinction between conspiracy and conspiracy theory? We gathered together Aamer Ahmed Khan head of the Urdu Service, Josephine Hazeley from BBC Africa, and Persian TV reporter Hossein Sharif for a discussion. | 26:56 |
| 0121 | 21.01 | 1) DIARY: BURMA, COMING IN FROM THE COLD The opening of political dialogue and democratic change in Buma have been huge developments for the Burmese Service - one of the first language sections to have ever broadcast from Bush House. Soe Win Than, editor of BBC Burmese, talks about what it's like to report freely from his hometown Rangoon, after years of exile. 2) NEHRU JACKETS From Karzai's shawl, to Arafat's keffiyeh and Castro's track suit, what have been the world's top political fashion statements? For the BBC Hindi Service, Shalu Yadav has been dusting off her prized Nehru jacket, the iconic closed-neck attire once sported by India's first prime minister. 3) ONLINE GREATEST HITS 4) PARIAH'S, PASSPORTS… AND POO After decades of isolation and stigma as a pariah state run by the military, Burma seems to be coming in from the cold. But what of those places still considered as "pariah", "rogue" or "failed states". What is it like to report from there and to be a national of those countries? BBC Somali's Mogadishu reporter Mohammed Moalimo, Ali Hamedani from Persian TV, and Olexiy Solohubenko BBC World Service Multimedia Editor editor discuss the issues. Also, we put our panel to the test with some of the stories on the World Service this week - for instance, which world leader complained of excrement being poured on him all day long by a certain media outlet? | 26:28 |
| 0128 | 28.01 | 1) ARAB SPRING: REPORTER'S VIEW FROM IRAN AND AFRICA The Arab Spring anniversary season is well underway and the BBC's Arabic Service has been in overdrive - but what of the other language sections across the World Service? What challenges have their reporters faced? In Cairo to mark the beginning of Mubarak's end, Ranyah Sabry for BBC African English and Mehrdad Farahmand of Persian TV swap stories of the tumultuous and tremendous days in Tahrir Square. 2) LETTER FROM… A REVOLUTION JUNKIE Last year no fewer than 13 countries across North Africa and the Middle East experienced mass protests. And the narrative of revolution could still spring a few surprises this year in the Arab world and beyond. So who wants to be part of a revolution? Pakistani writer Mohammed Hanif is desperate to be part of a revolution. But before he can usurp a despot or hoist a redesigned flag, domestic life somehow gets in the way. 3) ONLINE GREATEST HITS 4) NONSENSICAL NEWS How many words can you weave together and still say nothing at all? BBC Russian's Artyom Liss, Nga Pham of the Vietnamese section and Rafid Jabboori of the Arabic Service dip their toes into the murky waters of journalistic jargon and cliche. | 26:56 |
| 0204 | 04.02 | 1) REPORTING SYRIA: INSIDE THE 'UGC HUB' "International media outlets are restricted in Syria, making it difficult to verify the claims of either side" is a line you may often come across in BBC News articles and stories about the unrest in Syria. This week on The Fifth Floor we explore the implications of this for the Arabic Service - with such tight reporting restrictions, how do they verify the videos and reports coming out of the country? TV editor Edgard Jallard and reporter Feras Kilani give a remarkable insight into how they try to separate fact from fiction, and how social media websites and user-generated content (UGC) have revolutionised their newsgathering operations. 2) FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE From the BBC's Moscow bureau, Maria Vassilieva gives her five step survival guide to a wintry Russian protest 3) ONLINE GREATEST HITS 4) BEATING THE CENSORS A number of the World Service's language sections are banned or restricted in several countries. For instance, BBC Persian is banned in Iran where the authorities consider it to be untrustworthy, and the Chinese Service website - or BBC Zhongwen - is blocked by the censors there who say it is incompatible with China's media laws. So does the BBC World Service beat the censors? And why should our language services attempt to circumvent censorship in the first place? Karl Kathuria from World Service Future Media, Ibrat Safo of BBC Uzbek and the Chinese Service's Lili Wang discuss the issues - and get tested on some censorship myths. | 26:57 |
| 0211 | 11.02 | 1) STORIES FROM THE FRONTLINE "I grew up in Beirut. I have a very good background in surviving war… without that, I don't think I'd be alive today." BBC Arabic's Mohammed Ballout is no stranger to bangs and bullets having reported from several battle-fronts, including the Balkans, Rwanda, Lebanon, DR Congo and more recently Libya - where the conflict almost claimed his life. Listen to his personal perspective of war-reporting. 2) LETTER FROM DELHI: "PORNGATE" SCANDAL BBC Urdu reporter Suhail Haleem on the latest indiscretions of Indian ministers. 3) BE MY VALENTINE? For the Uzbek Service Ibrat Safo reports on how Tashkent has turned its back on Valentines Day. 4) ONLINE GREATEST HITS 5) BEFORE I WAS A JOURNALIST… And the former lives of World Service journalists - how does someone go from doing body massage to making news programmes on the BBC? As the head of the Nepali Service Rabindra Mishra makes his feature film acting debut at the Berlinale, we scout around Bush House to find out about the jobs that people did before they became journalists … | 26:57 |
| 0218 | 18.02 | 1) I'M COVERING THE EURO - GET ME OUT OF HERE! Its been a desperate week for Greece as the Eurozone crisis hits home once again. There was smoke and cinders in Athens a week ago - the aftermath of riots over the latest austerity measures, and then followed arguments over whether some countries wanted Greece in or out of the Euro club. But whether or not Eurogedden descends, economic terms like deficit, bailout and austerity have cropped up so many times in the past three years, it leaves some programme makers tearing their hair out to think up new ways of relating the story to their audiences. How do they do it? The Fifth Floor brought together Artyom Liss of BBC Russia, BBC Africa's deputy editor Josephine Hazeley, and the head of the Urdu Service Aamer Ahmed Khan. 2) BEATEN IN BIHAR We heard this week that our BBC Arabic reporter in Yemen, Abdullah Ghorab, was attacked in Sanaa by an armed gang - thought to be supporters of the outgoing president. And last week we got a close-up account of war reporting from Mohammed Ballout, but as a journalist you don't have to be posted to a conflict zone to get your bones bruised or broken. Amarnath Tewary, a reporter based in the Indian State of Bihar, was recently assaulted outside his home. He tells us how he believes the attack was politically motivated. 3) ONLINE GREATEST HITS 4) DESPERATE JOURNEYS For journalists, sometimes just getting to the story itself poses unusual and perilous risks. Hear about journeys traversing the mountains of Afghanistan, the rivers of Nicaragua, and the city streets of Vietnam. | 26:57 |
| 0225 | 25.02 | 1) REMEMBERING FALLEN COMRADES "I believe that it's endless. (For) every casualty… we will remember all our colleagues who are gone." As the World Service these week reported the deaths of journalists Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik in Homs, we remember our colleagues in the Language Services who died on duty. Meena Baktash was head of the BBC's Kabul bureau when Afghan journalist Ahmed Omed Khpulwak was killed by a US soldier last July. 2) BEHIND THE SCENES AT BBC SOMALI This week a major conference was held in the UK about the future of Somalia - how to end years of fighting and instability that shows no sign of abating. As presidents, prime ministers and politicians gathered in London world to deliberate and diplome, we spoke to Yusuf Garaad Omar and Abdullahi Abdi of the Somali section to get the inside stories. 3) ONLINE GREATEST HITS 4)THE ARABIC SERVICE AT THE OSCARS Reporter Wassim Sayegh swaps his flak jacket for a tux. The BBC Arabic correspondent who has reported from war-torn Iraq and Lebanon, heads to Hollywood for a rather different assignment - this year's Academy Award ceremony, and to an infamous aftershow party. | 26:56 |
| 0303 | 03.03 | 1) ELECTION EXTRAVAGANZA This year (2012) looks like a year for election watchers with several important presidential and parliamentary polls under the spotlight. The Fifth Floor looks back, forward, and sideways to get some insights from the people behind the language services. 2) TEA IN THE MOSCOW KITCHEN Reporters from the Vietnamese, Bengali, Chinese and Persian Service have descended on Moscow to cover the Russian presidential elections. Maria Vassilieva has the latest gossip from the bureau kitchen 3) REPORTING ELECTIONS How do you make a predictable election sound interesting, and how do you cope when events get out of control? Solomon Mugera of BBC Africa, Gulnara Kasmambet from the Kyrgyz Service and Persian TV's Siavash Ardalan share their insights and memories of ballot box reporting. 4) REMEMBERING GUJARAT On 28 February 2002, Rehan Fazal was in the Indian state of Gujurat to cover a riot for the Hindi service. A train carrying Hindu pilgrims had been set on fire in the city of Gohdra the day before - 59 pilgrims were burnt to death, and in the violence that followed more than a 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed. Ten years on, Rehan still has vivid memories of what happened, not least because he himself is a Muslim. 5) ONLINE GREATEST HITS Internet guru Falko Mortiboys gives the rundown on the big-hitting stories across the World Service language sites this week - including a Pakistani at the Oscars, a rude Chinese man in Singapore, and the BBC World Service's 80th birthday | 26:57 |
| 0310 | 10.03 | 1) IRAN: BRIDGING THE GAP? "Recently, for the first time they complained to the BBC and I was so happy - because that is what we would like to happen." Sadeq Saba, the head of the Persian Service, speaks about his hopes for any form of dialogue with Tehran. BBC staff have been banned from Iran since the 2009 presidential elections, and Persian section journalists subjected to growing intimidation and harassment from the Iranian authorities. Will relations always be this tense, and can the gap ever be bridged? 2) TREASURE TALES For BBC Mundo, Matias Zibel Garcia finds out who's staking a claim to the $134m worth of treasure in waters off the coast of Portugal. A quick dip into the Atlantic Ocean plunges him into the murky deep waters of Spanish history. 3) PEEK INTO BURMA As you might have heard, the BBC World Service is leaving its headquarters in Bush House and moving to a spangly new building - our original home, Broadcasting House. The Burmese Service will be the first language section to broadcast from the 5th floor of the building, and we caught up the head Tin Htar Swe to get an inside peek on their special planned programme. 4) THE JOURNALIST AND HIS HANDLER Arabic Service reporter Omar Abdul Razek has just returned from assignment in Syria - his reportage took him around the country from Damascus, Aleppo and Latikia. We speak to him and Adel Soliman, his desk editor in London - who was anxiously awaiting his dispatches and news of his safety. 5) ONLINE GREATEST HITS | 26:55 |
| 0317 | 17.03 | 1) MASSACRE IN KANDAHAR Reporter Mamoon Durrani was one of the journalists on the scene of the terrible massacre in Kandahar, in which an American soldier allegedly killed 16 civilians last week. He shares his experiences of on the ground reporting and what it's like to be on good terms with both the Taliban and the US military. 2) ONLINE GREATEST HITS 3) KONY LETTER "When I saw that Joseph Kony was trending big time on Twitter I immediately wondered if it was because he was dead." Journalist Paul Bakibinga reflects on the viral sensation caused by an American not-for-profit video about the Ugandan rebel leader, Joseph Kony. And asks, why this hunt for Kony now? 4) TWITTER DISCUSSCION And is Twitter just chatter for the chattering classes or an essential tool for newsgathering? The World Service's own Twitterati, former Russian service editor Dmitry Shishkin and Mexico correspondent Ignacio de los Reyes, talk about the effectiveness of the social media tool and how far it skews the news agenda. 5) THE LIFT PITCH There's only five floors to go – BBC Swahili’s Wazir Khamsin gives a quick rundown in the Bush House lift on why the Maasai have become keen cricketers. | 26:55 |
| 0324 | 24.03 | 1) RUMBLE IN THE NEWSROOM Remember the good old days when you had to hurl a typewriter across the newsroom to get your editor’s attention? The head of the Turkish section Murat Nisancioglu swaps stories with Silvia Salek of BBC Brasil and Mohamed Yehia from the Arabic service on the tricky business of setting the news agenda – and the battle to get your story heard. 2) WELCOME TO THE FIFTH FLOOR? Nowhere to hide, but everywhere to run. The boss-man from BBC Urdu Aamer Ahmed Khan, observes the differences in his colleagues in a new, open plan office. 3) ONLINE GREATEST HITS 4) REPORTING SRI LANKA Elmo Fernando, a Sri Lankan-based journalist with a career spanning 45 years, is retiring at the end of this month. He shares some moving - and uncomfortable - moments reporting for the Sinhalese section. 5) THE LIFT PITCH There’s only five floors to go – from BBC Kyrgyz, Gulnara Kasmambet squeezes past some cattle to save a bride | 26:56 |
| 0331 | 31.03 | 1) RELEASING A HOSTAGE An extraordinary 16-hour trek through the remote hills and forests of India's Orissa State, interviewing a Maoist rebel commander and witnessing the release of an Italian hostage - all in a day's work for Sandeep Sahu from the BBC's Hindi Service. And all with a bad back too! 2) PAPPON'S PICKS Our new internet guru Thomas Pappon gives a rundown on the big-hitting stories across the World Service language sites this week 3) REPORTING A FAMINE A thick cloud of dust, desertification, and children struggling to smile through a food crisis in the Sahel, some images from the audio diary of BBC Africa's Venuste Nshimiyimana. His team has been in Niger, one of the sub-Saharan countries worst hit by famine. 4) WHAT'S IN A NICKNAME Remember these: Dear Leader, the Laughing Cow, Comrade Bob, Mr Boom, Slick Willie, Commander In Briefs. While some leaders accept ridicule as an occupational hazard, others take serious offence. Nga Pham from our Vietnamese Service and Josephine Hazeley of BBC Africa ponder over the nicknames politicians attract. 5) USES AND ABUSES OF A BIRTHDATE For many people in South Asia, a birth date is nothing more than a scribble on a piece of paper. Suhail Haleem of our Urdu Service explores the uses and abuses of a flexible birth date. And as he points out, your mother surely has the best memory of approximately when you were born. | 26:56 |
| 0407 | 07.04 | 1) BANGLADESH: A POTTED HISTORY A declaration of independence, a dramatic assassination and an unexpected encounter with an African-American boxer, the greatest of the time. The head of the Bengali service Sabir Mustafa relives his youth and remembers the dramatic decade when his country Bangladesh was “liberated” from Pakistan in 1971. 2) PORN ON THE ARABIC SERVICE BBC Arabic TV has made its first ever full length documentary on pornography. Producers Wissam Sayegh and Eli Melki travelled to Los Angeles to better understand the industry and we join them behind the scenes. There apparently is as much demand for porn in the Arab world as elsewhere – so why did they focus on this, and how much graphic detail did they actually televise? 3) THE LIFT PITCH There’s only five floors to go – and Silvia Salek dodges a gang of brutish Brazilian blondes. 4) DIARY: FROM DAKAR TO NAIROBI For BBC Afrique, Laeila Adjovi leaves her west African comfort zone in Senegal and - for the first time - heads east to Kenya. A culture shock awaits as well as some training in TV. 5) MALVINAS’ MUSICAL INSPIRATION Reporter Maximiliano Seitz delves into how the Falklands – or Malvinas – war spawned a meteoric rise of home grown rock music in Argentina. | 26:28 |
| 0414 | 14.04 | 1) BO'S DOWNFALL Groomed for greatness, tipped for the top - but now one of China's most popular politicians is stranded in the gutter. Bo Xilai has been stripped of all status in the governing communist party and now his wife is detained as a suspect in a murder investigation. It's a plot that's stranger than fiction. Raymond Li, editor of BBC Chinese, recounts the spectacular downfall of the former shining star Bo Xilai. 2) WORLD'S HIGHEST BATTLEFIELD It's 20,000 icy feet above sea level and more than 20 degrees below zero. The Siachen Glacier is also the world's highest battleground. A week ago more than 100 Pakistani soldiers were buried there in a huge and deadly avalanche. Now BBC Urdu's Zaheeruddin Babar is the first Pakistani journalist to have been given access to report from there. But he is following in the footsteps of Mukesh Sharma of BBC Hindi, who was the first BBC journalist to have been to granted access to the glacier in 2006. 3) ONLINE: PAPPON'S PICKS 4) THE LIFT PITCH Ibrat Safo gets into the lift on the first floor to tell us about a printing error on a vodka bottle that's proved an explosive cocktail in Kazakhstan. There's only five floors to go before the doors open. So what's the story? 5) REPORTING BY PROXY In the wake of Bo Xilai's purge in China and gradual opening up of the once restricted Burma, how did the BBC's language services cover big stories in places with restricted media access. Lily Wang of the Chinese service joins Soe Win Than of the Burmese service to explore the many techniques of reporting by proxy. | 26:56 |
| 0421 | 21.04 | 1) AFGHAN ATTACKS What do you say to a suicide bomber? The BBC's Kabul bureau chief Waheed Massoud tells us of his extraordinary telephone encounter with two young men on a suicide mission for the Taleban. He took the call as the city was being rocked by one of the most violent and elaborate insurgent attacks in recent years. 2) THE SANITATION TSAR Gennady Onishenko is Russia's chief public health official, but he is becoming well known for the unlikely and surprising things he has banned, claiming they are bad for Russian people's health. This week, he sprang another surprise by lifting his own ban on cheese from Ukraine. He's made quite an impression on Russians including our own Maria Vassilieva in the Moscow Bureau. 3) COUP PLOTTERS Following the recent coup d'etats in Mali and Guinea Bissau, we take a leaf from the BBC's African service to present the first instalment of our three-part series: Coup Plotters. Captain Mbango and Sergeant Zumzoom, inspired by The Resident Presidents as heard on the African stream, seized the Fifth Floor microphone this week using that dastardly weapon - the pen of former editor Robin White. What follows is simply unreal... 4) PAPPON'S PICKS 5) MEMORY LANE: ARABIC SERVICE The BBC's oldest language section, the Arabic Service, is looking back at its seventy-four year illustrious history through a special programme - Memory Lane. It's presenter Fouad Abdelrazak and Arabic service veteran, Aftim Kreitim take us through some of their favourite milestones in broadcasting along with some remarkable archive audio that they have dusted off for this series. | 26:57 |
| 0428 | 28.04 | 1) TAYLOR ON TRIAL This week the former Liberian President Charles Taylor was found guilty of aiding and abetting war crimes during Sierra Leone’s civil war, and he becomes the first former head of state to be indicted by a special court since the Nuremberg trials. What has the coverage been like across the African Services? Mansur Liman of BBC Hausa, Ally Mugenzi from the Great Lakes and Swahili service’s Ali Saleh give the regional context from Nigeria, Rwanda and Kenya. And BBC Africa’s deputy editor Josephine Hazeley, originally from Sierra Leone, is back home to report on the trial. We speak to her from Freetown about the time she once had dinner with the warlord. 2) COUP PLOTTERS: PART TWO Captain Mbango and Sergeant Zumzoom have made their move. A coup has been plotted but there are still presidential palaces to loot, UN mediators to dodge and a few other strictly constitutional activities. To be continued … 3) LIBYA’S TORTURE FARMS Feras Killani of BBC Arabic was reporting in Libya in March last year when he was detained by Gaddafi forces. He was taken to military barracks in Tripoli and held in blood stained cells, separated from his colleagues, beaten and subjected to a mock execution. He was released after 22 hours but five months after he was released, the same prison was the site of one of the largest single atrocities of the Libyan revolution when 50 prisoners were shut into a warehouse, grenades were thrown in, bullets were sprayed and the bodies were set on fire in an attempt to destroy the evidence. Feras recently returned to this prison and tells us about confronting his own demons whilst coming to terms with some of the horrific stories that leave the prospect of reconciliation in Libya a distant dream. 4) PAPPON'S PICKS 5) HANIF’S HELLO! A rather well-known celebrity lifestyle magazine has just launched in Pakistan. With a satirical twinkle in his eye, writer Mohammed Hanif imagines if he was the launch editor of the first edition. | 26:54 |
| 0505 | 05.05 | 1) BUSY WEEK FOR BBC HAUSA Nigeria has been in the grip of increasing violence by the militant Islamist group Boko Haram this week. A surge in attacks means our BBC Hausa service has had a busy time reporting events. But for one man in the team it has been particularly hard. Jimeh Saleh is from Maiduguri, the birthplace of Boko Haram. He was back in his home town recently and in a moving interview he tells us he was shocked by the changes he saw there. 2) PAPPON'S PICKS 3) BIN LADEN BACK IN THE HEADLINES A year ago this week in the then little known town of Abbotabad a dramatic event was taking place which was first reported by an unsuspecting tweeter. It's a year since the world's most wanted man - Osama Bin Laden - was caught and killed by US forces and the occasion was marked by the release of some of his personal letters seized during the raid. Aamer Ahmed Khan, the head of the Urdu Service got his head down and waded through hundreds of pages of script to give us his insights into what Osama's missives mean. 4) COUP PLOTTERS: PART THREE Captain Mbango and his sidekick Sergeant Zumzoom have ousted their government, but the African Union is upset, so is a former UN chief, and rebels in the north of the country have declared independence. And now relations have gone sour between the captain and the sergeant and things are about to turn.... 5) PUTIN ON THE RITZ As President Putin prepares for his third inauguration, BBC Russian's Artyom Liss gives an overview of the grand spectacle - and compares the modern ceremony with the coronotion of Tsars past. And, here's a handy hint when you're remembering your Russian rulers: bald, hairy, bald, hairy...Lenin was bald, Stalin was hairy, Khrushchev was bald and Brezhnev was hairy, Gorbachev bald and Yeltsin hairy, then there's Putin who's receding followed by Medvedev with hair, and now Putin again. This pattern goes all the way back to 1825. Never say you never learnt anything from The Fifth Floor. | 26:54 |
| 0512 | 12.05 | 1) ME, MY MOBILE PHONE, AND THE MAOISTS Just over a month ago we spoke to Sandeep Sahu - journalist with the Hindi Service who had been called to a hostage handover by Maoist insurgents in India. Last week another Hindi Service journalist was again drawn into facilitating negotiations to secure the release of a man held hostage by the Maoists. Salman Ravi explains how his mobile phone became the only means of communications for the rebels - which meant he had government officers as well as journalists queuing outside his house overnight to find out the latest developments in a complex negotiation. We also speak to the head of BBC Hindi in Delhi, Amit Barua, to find out why his journalists are the favourite mediums of the insurgents and what dangers that poses for them. 2) LETTER FROM DELHI She's the Indian government minister who wears flip flops to state banquets and wishes to paint Kolkatta blue. Our regular contributor Suhail Haleem imagines the world - or perhaps just West Bengal - according to Mamata Banerjee 3) A JOURNEY THROUGH HOMS Arabic service reporter, Omar Abdel-Razek was this week part of a media pack accompanying a UN observer mission through the embattled Syrian city of Homs. But the caveats were strict - he couldn't talk to the observers, or follow them into the frontline of the fighting. So what did he learn? On foot through downtown Homs he found a shortcut through the national museum, now used as a "safe corridor" to avoid the street sniper and shelling. And in the neighbourhood of Baba Amr he found only a ghost city - and children who left him a surprise on his tape recorder. 4) PAPPON'S PICKS 5) DIED AND SURVIVED "The report of my death was an exaggeration" is a Mark Twain quote that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez might want up his sleeve. In the past few months he's reported to have died a fair few times on Twitter - and journalists in BBC Africa were recently watching President Mugabe's tentative steps off a plane in Singapore to see if he was indeed gravely ill as many suspected. In sections across the BBC the final words on someone's passing are already written - the obits are ready to roll. We speak to the journalists on death watch about the false starts and preparations for final goodbyes. With insights from former Ukrainian boss Olexiy Solohubenko, BBC Mundo's Hernando Alverez, Swahili service's Noel Mwakugu, and Afghan anecdotes from editor Emal Pasarly. | 26:56 |
| 0519 | 19.05 | 1) AUSTERITY TRAVELS As Europe continues to lurk in the murky shadows of economic woe, Central Asian editor Hamid Ismailov reflects on what it was like to grow up poor in Uzbekistan - where as a boy, getting butter was his only bonus. 2) JORDANIAN CARE HOME EXPOSE A BBC Arabic undercover investigation into abuse at care homes for disabled children in Jordan has caused an international outcry. The extent of the physical and mental abuse discovered was so shocking that it has got the King of Jordan demanding answers. The documentary's reporter Hanan Khandagji speaks to The Fifth Floor's David Amanor about the vulnerable children who had been beaten up, tied to chairs all day and one who had been left to bleed from an injury. And editor Mohamed Yehia describes the huge reaction from the Arab audience - some expressing their "pain and disgust" at the footage. 3) PAPPON'S PICKS 4) A RESCUE AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD Last month Zaheer Babar of the Urdu Service became the first BBC journalist to get permission to go to the Siachen glacier - a Pakistani military base in the hotly disputed region of Kashmir, often described as the highest battleground in the world. An avalanche there had buried 139 men, including one of Zaheer's school friends. As the rescue operation continued he made a diary of his time up there in the biting winds and driving snow, more than 13,000 feet above sea level. 5) D-I-Y DICTATOR As Hollywood turns its glitzy eye to dictatorship with the release of a Sacha Baron Cohen spoof on the subject (aptly named The Dictator), what could the movie kings have learned from Brazil, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Russia, Turkmenistan, Ivory Coast and the fantasy lands of Bollywood? Our mic roams The Fifth Floor and compiles a series of attributes to make the ultimate despot. Madness seems to be key, as does being married to a tough first lady and having a strange sense of smell. With Juliana Iootty, Christophe Farah, Priyath Liyanage, Olexiy Solohubenko, Mark Grigoryan, Lamine Konkobo and Rajesh Priyadarshi. | 26:55 |
| 0526 | 26.05 | 1) EUROVISION AND ME Dejan Radojevic is a long-time fan of Eurovision and remembers when his country - Yugoslavia - was hosting the contest. He was an ardent supporter of Yugoslavia's entry that year - the girl who looked like Marilyn Monroe and wore a pink mini dress. Yugoslavia then broke up into bloody civil war - and Eurovision allegiances changed - but who would have guessed that just 15 years later the nations of the former Yugoslavia would be studiously doling out 12 points to each other, much to the annoyance of those in western Europe. Years later Dejan is now head of the Azeri Section and the Eurovision is back on his home turf. 2) ON THE OTHER SIDE One of the features about working at the World Service is the careful ground you sometimes have to tread across cultural sensitivities and political divides and nowhere is that more apparent than when a reporter from one ethnic group is called on to live and report from the other side. Priyath Liyanage joins us to talk about working as Sinhalese man in Tamil territory in Sri Lanka, and Jiyar Gol a Persian reporter and Iranian Kurd talks about reporting from Baghdad and Turkey 3) THE VIAGRA-SELLER OF KABUL The Afghan Stream has been investigating the story of little blue pills. The Afghan Health Ministry has issued warnings about the non-prescription use of Viagra in Afghanistan. Every year they allow the import of up to two million Viagra pills but they believe that what enters the country illegally is probably double that amount - which means that Afghan men are consuming around four million Viagra pills per year. We hear from editor Emal Pasarly and Dari Service reporter Khalil Noori. 4) PAPPON'S PICKS 5) WORLD SERVICE SINGS Eurovision, schmeurovision. We host our very own musical extravaganza with singing from Brazil, Iran, Vietnam, Burundi, Syria and Bangladesh. | 26:56 |
| 0602 | 02.06 | 1) UKRAINE IN THE SPOTLIGHT The Ukrainian service has been feeling the aftershocks of the BBC Panorama documentary which exposed racism in Ukraine's football stadiums ahead of the Euro 2012 tournament. The investigation showed disturbing footage of Asian students being attacked on the terraces by fellow supporters, seemingly for no other reason than the colour of their skin. It comes at a time when the country has faced a deluge of negative press. Irena Taranyuk and Andriy Kravets from the Ukrainian Service have been in demand explaining the story and assessing reactions in Ukraine. They tell us about picking their way through troubled waters and the backlash against the BBC back in Kiev. 2) AUDIO DIARY FROM BENIN BBC Afrique reporter Laeila Adjovi has packed the Fifth Floor microphone in her suitcase and taken it on her travels to Benin where she is making features for the launch of BBC Africa TV next month. She leads us through the busy traffic choked streets and introduces us to voodoo, an oracle and her own subversive grandma. 3) PAPPON'S PICKS 4) DO'S AND DON'TS FOR A QUEEN There seems to be no escaping The Queen's Diamond Jubilee this weekend. But if you've had your fill of British royals here's your antidote: on the Fifth Floor we are joined by Prime Ndikumagenge from the Great Lakes, BBC Persian's Hossein Sharif and our very own real-life princeling, Dawood Azami from the Afghan Stream. They will be sharing royal anecdotes from their experiences of past monarchies and offering up some do's and dont's for the Queen. | 26:55 |
| 0609 | 09.06 | 1) WHEN KYRGYZ AND UZBEKS COLLIDE In June 2010, Kyrgyzstan's second largest city Osh descended into chaos of fighting between the Kyrgyz and Uzbek communities - which came after weeks of political turmoil after the ousting of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. More than 400 people died in the violence and half a million people fled their homes. Two years on, Osh is still a big story for the Central Asian section. But what about the journalists sitting in the same room and having to report on the two opposite sides of the story? Gulnara Kasmambet from BBC Kyrgyz and Diloram Ibrahimova of the Uzbek service talk about covering a conflict that divided them both professionally and personally. 2) ONLINE GREATEST HITS 3) DOUBLE DATING IN THE ARABIC SERVICE It turns out that there is a relatively high number of married couples working alongside each other in the World Service - the Arabic section has at least six! And the better half of just one of these couples happens to be our very own Shaimaa Khalil. She takes her husband Ahmed Zaki on a double date with two other colleagues from BBC Arabic - Mohammed Abdul Qader and his wife Omayma El Zulafi. So what happens when you work with your spouse? 4) MONITORING: SPOTLIGHT ON NORTH AFRICA BBC Monitoring which is a little-known but oft-used section of the World Service that trawls, tracks and of course monitors media sources around the world. Journalist Mohanad Hashim covers the North Africa region and gives us the latest goings on in his patch - focusing on Libya, Egypt and Sudan. 5) THE LIFT PITCH There’s only five floors to go – and Siavash Ardalan ponders the prospect of either Pepsi or Ayatollah Khomeini being projected onto the moon. | 26:56 |
| 0616 | 16.06 | 1) MONITORING: SPOTLIGHT ON RUSSIA This week saw another round of protests in Russia - thousands of people on the streets of Moscow with flags, banners and posters condemning the re-election of President Vladimir Putin earlier this year. But some of the demonstrators also held up fake bus tickets. Kyrill Disayanake of BBC Monitoring has been looking at some of the creativity and comedy coming out of the Russian protests. 2) RWANDA REPORTING GENOCIDE "My father was ill. He was 1.95 metres tall so they wouldn't treat him at the hospital because they thought he was a Tutsi." What is it like to experience a genocide as a child and then be reporting on its aftermath 18 years later? Prudent Nsengiyumva, the Kigali correspondent for our African English and Great Lakes services, is currently reporting the official end of Rwanda's Gacaca community-based courts set up in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide. 3) INDIA'S AMBITIOUS IDENTITY SCHEME Since it launched two years ago, 200 million Indians have already signed up to India's biometric identity exercise. Our man in Delhi, Suhail Haleem joins the queue. 4) PROTEST COOKBOOK Is revolution a tasty affair or does protest put you off your pudding? Shaimaa Khallil in Cairo, and Maria Vasilieva in Moscow tell us about the Tahrir pots and pans and Russia's conspiratorial cookies. | 26:56 |
| 0623 | 23.06 | 1) AUNG SAN SUU KYI ON THE FIFTH FLOOR The fifth floor of Broadcasting House was buzzing with excitement this week during the visit of Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. She's free and travelling the world after spending more than twenty years mostly under house arrest. We hear why language service staff were tripping over themselves to greet her in the corridors and what it was like for Burmese producer David Kim and his team to have a more private meeting with her. 2) IN THE LINE OF FIRE BBC Mundo's Ignacio De Los Reyes has been trailing Mexico's presidential candidates as they visit some of the most dangerous parts of the country hoping to win votes in the country's upcoming elections. He tells David about travelling to these areas where drugs gangs commit gruesome acts of violence and how security concerns can get in the way of telling the story. 3) ONLINE HITS 4) RADIO TO TV STAR This week the BBC launched Focus On Africa TV expanding their flagship radio programme for African news into the dazzling light of global television. Other language services have already made this transition, but how easy is it? Presenters Peter Okwoche of Focus on Africa and Pooneh Ghoddoosi from Persian TV and senior producer for Russian TV Maria Grechaninova sit around the Fifth Floor table to share their thoughts. 5) CARTOON CONTROVERSY IN BANGLADESH Kids in Bangladesh are going crazy for a popular imported Japanese cartoon, which is dubbed into Hindi, called Doraemon. However their parents aren't so thrilled, they fear their children are becoming more fluent in Hindi than their mother tongue Bangla or the international language English because of the show. Bengali service reporter and cartoon fan, Mir Sabbir, looks at the story. | 26:58 |
| 0630 | 30.06 | 1) POSTCARD FROM BURUNDI Hausa service journalist Naziru Mikailu is on a roadtrip across Burundi, travelling with a band of other BBC Africa reporters to mark the country's 50th year of independence. He sends a postcard with his impressions. 2) GREAT LAKES: LIFELINE RADIO As both Rwanda and Burundi mark 50 years of independence, on the Fifth Floor we delve into history and look at the very beginning of the Great Lakes service that serves those two countries. It started in 1994 as a lifeline to reunite families separated during the Rwandan genocide. Head of the section Ally Mugenzi was a producer at the time trying to find missing persons - including members of his own family. 3) DRINKING IN TEHRAN "Wine is in our culture, in our blood." Arash Ahmadi recalls his drinking days in Tehran - and explains why reports about a rise in the consumption of smuggled alcohol and home-made hooch in Iran shouldn't come as a surprise. 4) ARMY CAKES IN ARMY OVENS Egypt's armed forces are not just Africa's largest band of men in arms but also a huge ongoing business - so why are they so interested in beach resorts, pasta and mineral water? From Cairo Shaimaa Khalil - who spent her childhood as an army kid - explains why. 5) PRESIDENTIAL PROMISES Promises, promises, promises - Mohammed Mursi, Egypt's new President gave 64 of them during his election campaign. Are leaders prone to over-promise on their promises? Safaa Faisal from BBC Arabic, Artyom Liss of the Russian Service and Carolina Robina from BBC Mundo swap stories on the pledges made by their presidents. 6) ONLINE GREATEST HITS | 26:56 |
| 0707 | 07.07 | 1) TORTURED IN TAJIKISTAN He was so severely beaten and electrocuted that his family barely recognised him, BBC Central Asian service reporter Urunboy Usmonov tells The Fifth Floor about his arrest and torture in Tajikistan a year ago. Security officials accused him of having links with a banned organisation, a charge he vehemently denies and colleagues were holding vigils for his release outside Bush House. Urunboy is still fighting to clear his name and despite his ordeal trying to get permission to work as a journalist again. We also speak to head of the Central Asian section Hamid Ismailov who travelled to Dushanbe to secure Urunboy's release. 2) ONLINE GREATEST HITS 3) TIMBUKTU'S TREASURES People around the world have been horrified by the destruction of centuries old artefacts in Timbuktu by an Islamist group who has taken control of the ancient city. One person on The Fifth Floor who was lucky enough to see some these treasures before they disappear forever is BBC Africa's Manuel Toledo, he tells us about his travels to Timbuktu. 4) AMERICA AND PAKISTAN: A BAD MARRIAGE? If music be the food of love, then America and Pakistan - some might say - play on to a recipe of double-dealing, drones, and the odd coup here and there. It's an on-off, tempestuous relationship while the rest of the world - teetering on various edges and brinks of global security - watches on. From Karachi, writer Mohammed Hanif plays marriage counsellor. 5) IS SORRY THE HARDEST WORD? This week US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave Pakistan a long-awaited apology for the death of 24 soldiers seven months ago. Pakistan responded by reopening a Nato supply route in the region. All better now? Well, perhaps not. When does an apology really count - or feel deserved. We tour the floor to get some sorry stories from Pakistan, Iran, Sierra Leone, China and Serbia. With Aamer Ahmed Khan, Hossein Sharif, Josephine Hazeley, Yuwen Wu, and Dejan Radojevic. | 26:54 |
| 0714 | 14.07 | 1) RUSSIA: REPORTING A DISASTER. Last week has been a busy one for Russian Service video reporter Oleg Boldyrev. As flash floods hit southern Russia, he was the only BBC journalist who went to the region. Having covered a natural disaster from a town in panic, where some drowned while sleeping in their beds, Oleg recounts his hectic four days in Krymsk. 2) PAPPON'S LONDON 3) STUDIO SCUFFLES. The internet is awash with scenes of politicians throwing punches or worse - like the sensational case of the Jordanian MP who brandished a gun during a live television debate. (Okay, go ahead, watch it online.) Parliaments are the most popular venues to have political fistfights, it seems! What should we make of this? Three BBC editors have a "gentlemen's debate". In the red corner it's Emal 'the Afghan Avenger' Parsarly, in the blue corner Sam 'Lightening Lebanese' Farah and hot from Ukraine heckling in the front row is Olexiy Solohubenko. Can they keep it civilised? 4) INSPECTOR KILLJOY. A certain policeman has been making partying in Bollywood's hometown a bit of a chore. Mumbai's assistant police commissioner Vasant Dhoble is known to the city's midnight ravers as the "killjoy cop". He's been leading a campaign against unregulated nightlife - raiding dance parties, bars, massage parlours, late night cafes and allegedly any activity deemed to be morally decadent. BBC Urdu's Suhail Haleem has been following the party shenanigans in Mumbai. 5) SMUGGLING HORSEMEAT Kazakhs love their horsemeat. It's considered a delicacy. Now the Kazakh Olympic team has announced that they will have "kazy" (dried horsemeat sausage) specially shipped to Britain to power their sportsmen with some good old home cuisine. Ibrat Safo and Nasiba Abeiva from BBC Uzbek tell the shadowy tale of smuggling some horsemeat from back home. And, even worse, eventually having to bin the sausage at airport customs. | 26:56 |
| 0721 | 21.07. | 1) SYRIANS REPORTING SYRIA."There was a sniper at the bus stop... just a few metres from my father's house." As the conflict in Syria deepens, with fighting now in the capital city and senior officials of the governing regime killed, we turn to the Syrian journalists in the Arabic section who have been reporting the ongoing crisis for more than a year. What have been the challenges of a reporting a story that so dramatically affects your home country and your family - and can it ever be harmonious in a newsroom where underlying tensions and opposing viewpoints become part of a day's work? Syrians Feras Killani and Dina Waqqaf give their insights. 2) FROM THE OTHER SIDE: VIEWS FROM RUSSIA AND IRAN ON SYRIA Russia and Iran have their own alliances with Syria - not to mention gripes against the West - and their own complex perspective of the conflict. For BBC Russian's Artyom Liss and Kasra Naji of the Persian Service, reporting the Syrian war for their audiences has been a delicate balancing act. 3) PAPPON'S PICKS 4) REMEMBERING RAJESH Vineet Khare from the Hindi Service had a rather unusual impetus to get up for his early morning jogs when he used to report from Mumbai. The chance of getting a glimpse of his neighbour - the cigarette-puffing Bollywood superstar Rajesh Khanna, who passed away this week. The fan letters written in blood, the dogs named after his wife - Vineet fondly remembers what the film star meant to girls of his mother's generation and the stories she told him. 5) HELLO, PRIME MINISTER? How would it be like to get through to the mobile numbers of Bangladesh's prime minister Sheikh Hasina? Well, good luck if you are trying. Though she gave out her 'personal' numbers to 150 million Bangladeshis to report any corruption, our Bengali Service reporter Akbar Hossain has failed to find anyone who has actually been able to speak to her. So, The Fifth Floor's very own Mahfuz Sadique imagines making that futile call. | 26:54 |
| 0728 | 28.07 | 1) THE OTHER OLYMPICS: OFF THE PITCH The 2012 games have begun - over 10,000 athletes in the starting line up, more than 200 countries represented in London.But what are the Olympics, if not the largest display of physical prowess in the world, if not a rush for gold, and the biggest flag waving event in any news calendar? Though for many journalists here on The Fifth Floor, the Olympics are all the more interesting with a good helping of politics, personal dramas, and a sprinkling of trivia. Anastasia Uspenskaya of BBC Russian and Pooria Jafereh of BBC Persian take us behind the curtain. 2) PAPPON'S PICKS 3)THE LIFE AND TIMES OF DR. LATIF The head of BBC Afghan, Dr Lutfullah Latif, has worked for the BBC's Pashto and Dari language services for more than 20 years and he has a tale or two to tell about growing up in Afghanistan. Managing a news team who work in one of the world's busiest trouble spots, being tortured, and serendipitously being held in the same prison at the same time as another former head of his service. 4) DEATH OF AN AFRICAN PRESIDENT When an African president dies, a political vacuum and crisis usually follows. Security forces may be put on high alert, borders may be closed, in some cases constitutions have been covertly rewritten to usher in a chosen successor. But this week in Ghana, a new president was sworn into office without fuss and within a few hours of the untimely death of his predecessor. Did Ghana break the stereotype? African Service news editors Josephine Hazeley and Mansur Liman look at past political shenanigans. | 26:56 |
| 0804 | 04.08 | 1) JOURNALIST IN HIDING Pakistan's western province of Balochistan - so dangerous, lawless and neglected that even its chief minister doesn't live there. Since 1998 BBC reporter Ayub Tareen has been reporting from the provincial capital Quetta but last week was forced to go into hiding after receiving a death threat from one of the many separatist groups operating there. This wasn't the first time his life was threatened - so this time round, what tipped things over the edge? He speaks to us from his secret location. And from the 5th floor, the head of the Urdu section Aamer Ahmed Khan explains why Balochistan is such a minefield. 2) PAPPON'S PICKS 3) THE POWER BALLAD OF DELHI One tenth of the world's population was left without power last week during India's epic electrical failure. It's the biggest blackout in history - a dubious distinction indeed for Delhi. Suhail Haleem takes a peek into the darkness and is unsurprised by how quickly he gets accustomed. Plus, South Asia editor Shahzeb Jillani and Nga Pham of the Vietnamese Service delve into the politics of power - who decides when and where the lights go on? 4) NO PICNIC FOR TEDDYBEARS IN BELARUS In Belarus two men have been arrested and the air force and border security chiefs have been sacked after a team of parachuting teddy bears brought havoc to the country recently. The bears were launched on their stealth mission from the skies above Minsk carrying banners calling for freedom of speech and human rights violations to stop. What's the story? BBC Russian's Artyom Liss takes us into the woods. | 26:53 |
| 0811 | 11.08 | 1) OVERHEARD AT THE OLYMPICS Match-making in the pool, a million dollars for a Russian medal and other tales from the Olympic park. Zhuang Chen and Anastasia Uspenskaya give the lowdown on the sporting gossip doing the rounds in the Chinese and Russian camps. 2) SPOTLIGHT ON SOMALIA Things are moving fast in Somalia's capital Mogadishu. Last week a constitution was written and agreed, this week marked a year since Al-Shabab's official withdrawal from the city, and from next week the process will begin to pick a parliament and a new president. We head to the Somali Service to speak to two producers there - Farhan Jimale and Yonis Nur. One is optimistic about the countdown to a new government, but the other is not - he believes decades of infighting will be hard to overcome. 3) ONLINE GREATEST HITS 4) REPORTING MOGADISHU "My mother sits outside of the house and waits until I come. She won't go inside until I come back." Mohammed Moalimu has been BBC Somali's Mogadishu correspondent for the past five years. The city is synonymous with danger but are things changing? This year saw a slow return to normalcy in the city - the return of traffic police, the opening of dry cleaners, and a ladies gym. But the more things changed, the more they stayed the same - this year alone, Moalimu lost six of his friends to the violence. He recalls vividly what it's like to live and report from Mogadishu. 5) STRICTLY CONSTITUTIONAL It's not just Somalia that's been writing its constitution this year - in fact there is something of a constitutional fever. The Egyptians are busily writing and debating, the Libyans are about to begin and we're also awaiting fresh blueprints from Zimbabwe and Nepal - the latter having gone back to the drawing board following years of disagreement. But what should be in a constitution and does it make your country a better governed one? Or are some countries overly obsessed with constitutions? Editor Olexiy Soluhobenko, BBC Africa's Rachael Akidi and Navin Singh Khadka of the Nepali service lock horns. | 26:55 |
| 0818 | 18.08 | 1) SECRET WORLD OF VIETNAMESE WORKERS IN RUSSIA. It started with a phone-call. Last month BBC Vietnamese got a distress call from a woman in northern Vietnam claiming her daughter and son-in-law were being forced to work in slave-like conditions in a Vietnamese-owned factory in Russia. The story was picked up and the result was a major piece of investigative reporting by the Russian and Vietnamese Services - which ultimately lead the Russian authorities to raid the factory and free the workers. BBC Vietnamese's Hung Nguyen and BBC Russian's Oxana Vozhdaeva describe the collaboration - the thrill of being on the scent of such a remarkable story and the sorrow of what it revealed. 2) ONLINE GREATEST HITS 3) AN IRANIAN IN ISRAEL Kambiz Fattahi is the Persian Service reporter in Jerusalem. Not an easy role when the two countries are at such loggerheads. Kambiz talks about the minefields he has to pick his way round and the rich mix of Persian and Afghan Jews that fill his microphone.4) RAMADAN TV DINNERS Breaking the fast in Egypt during Ramadan happens in front of the TV. Every year specialist soaps are created for this event - this year around 70 soaps have topped the listings. Naglaa El-Emary, head of BBC Arabic's Cairo bureau looks at what's been dished out on TV this year - a mix of sex and violence and assesses what it says about Egypt today.5) WHERE IS CAMEROON'S FIRST LADY? You may have heard about the seven members of the Cameroon Olympic team who have failed to return home after the games, but they are not the only prominent Cameroonians to go missing. For many months now, the First Lady Chantal Biya has been conspicuously absent from public life. Although traditionally she has been beside her husband for almost every official outing, the President has now carried out three major public engagements without her. This has raised many eyebrows in the country as to the whereabouts and real condition of the First Lady. As of yet there has not been any official announcement about her. What could possibly be going on? BBC Africa's Veronique Edwards gives her theories. | 26:55 |
| 0825 | 25.08 | 1) REPORTING ASSAM.India's north-east region is often considered one of the country's most under-reported areas - with long-running tensions between the indigenous tribal Bodo community and Muslim settlers, chronic under-development, and deep poverty. Last month saw some of Assam's worst ethnic riots - 70 people dead. What followed later was of the biggest mass migrations in India since partition, with migrants from the north-east fleeing other Indian cities for fear of reprisal attacks. As a result trains carrying thousands of north-eastern migrants began pouring into Assam - and now over 300,000 refugees are in relief camps. BBC Bangla's Suvojit Bagchi was in Assam and spoke to both communities. "Assam has not received the coverage it deserves." Discuss. From our South Asia hub Kumar Malhotra and Sabir Mustafa delve into the messy politics of India's north-east. Why has Assam remained so under-reported? 2) ONLINE GREATEST HITS 3) BACK HOME IN LEBANON BBC Arabic has a new correspondent on the ground in Beirut, although Carine Torbey isn't really a newcomer, she's reported from Iraq and other places but not from Lebanon her home country which she left seven years ago. Her family are pleased to have her back but avoid watching her on television... Now why is that? 4) SCRAMBLED TO ADDISHe hadn't been seen for weeks but last week (it was last week wasn't it?) it was announced that the Prime Minister of Ethiopia Meles Zenawi had died and there was no BBC reporter in the country (that's true isn't it?), come in Noel Mwakugu from Kenya. He's reported on Ethiopia before but was in our Nairobi studio as the news broke. So Noel's task was to pick up his papers, pack a bag, negotiate the city traffic, and fly to Addis Ababa as soon as possible. What he didn't account for was the showcasing of a new aeroplane. 5) HAS GU KAILAI GOT A DOUBLE? A new twist in the Chinese courtroom drama of Gu Kailai. Some China watchers are suggesting the woman who appeared in court was not her but a body double. Yuwen Wu takes up the tale. | 26:56 |
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