Crossing Continents

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China's World Cup Dreams May 10, 2018

Show notes

China's football-loving President Xi Jinping says he wants his country to qualify for, to host and to win the football World Cup by 2050. The men's national team has recently been defeated 6-0 by Wales, so there's some way to go yet. But they're spending billions trying to boost football in the country. Chinese entrepreneurs have also spent vast sums investing in local and foreign clubs, partly to help create a passion for playing football in the Chinese and to bring the latest training techniques back home. Another official target for the Chinese government is to eradicate poverty within three years. For Crossing Continents, Celia Hatton visits a special primary school in Gansu, in China's far west, which is setting out to turn those World Cup dreams into reality. Made up of children whose parents have migrated to the cities for work, the school drills the young pupils in football skills each day, to give them direction and purpose, but also in the hope that some of them will use football as route out of poverty and to garner Chinese success on the pitch.

Producer: John Murphy.

The Belarus Tractor Factory May 03, 2018

Show notes

One in ten tractors in the world is made in Belarus. You can find them ploughing furrows and shifting snow in the US, Canada, Pakistan, Thailand...and on the farms of Somerset...At the heart of this big wheeled empire is the Minsk Tractor Works. Impossible to visit until recently, the MTW is opening its doors as part of a new country wide charm offensive. Belarus, long famous for secretiveness and isolation, has relaxed its visa regime since January 2018, and is rebranding itself as a dynamic hub for business and tourism.

Stalin founded the tractor works in 1946 as part of a colossal effort to feed a famished Soviet Union after World War 2. It developed as a cradle-to-grave complex, with its own apartment blocks, holiday camps, hospitals, Palace of Culture, and even water bottling plant. Generations of loyal Belarusians have lived and died knowing no other job.

The IMF and World Bank advisers wrote off such complexes as wasteful when they came to help implement shock therapy privatization in the 1990s.

But MTW is still there. Its 18,000 employees still live in a MTW world - with regular, if modest, pay packets. It's as though the communist-era model has been kept in the freezer to emerge a generation later. For Crossing Continents, Lucy Ash meets the workers and their families who still live and work much in the way their grandparents did. She wonders if the MTW is a preposterous dinosaur or a socially responsible business model, fit for the 21st century.

Presenter: Lucy Ash Producer: Monica Whitlock.

Corruption Incorporated: The Odebrecht Story Apr 26, 2018

Show notes

Corruption Incorporated - the Odebrecht Story Odebrecht was one of Brazil's premier companies - the largest construction firm in Latin America. But some of its success in securing multi-million dollar contracts across the region was built on a policy of colossal bribery. This edifice of graft began to crumble when the Brazilian authorities started to investigate the state-owned oil company, Petrobras. As a result, CEO Marcelo Odebrecht was convicted of paying millions of dollars in bribes to Petrobras executives in cash-for-contracts. The testimony of Odebrecht executives in plea-bargain agreements with prosecutors continues to have fall-out in an election year, especially with former President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva now in jail on charges related to Brazil's wider corruption scandal.

Linda Pressly explores the organisation at the heart of the Odebrecht scandal - a whole corporate department set up to administer bribes. And she meets the company's new CEO, Luciano Guidolin, who tells her the company will be compliant. It will not tolerate corruption. Meanwhile, the Federal Police of Brazil continue to attempt to crack the codes that prevent them from fully accessing Odebrecht's encrypted computer system.

Presenter: Linda Pressly Producer in Brazil: Jessica Cruz.

The Mystery of Russia's Lost Jihadi Brides Apr 19, 2018

Show notes

Thousands of young Russian Muslim men were lured to join so-called Islamic State - taking their wives and children with them. But since the "caliphate" fell last year, those families have vanished - and grandmothers back in Russia are desperate for news. The Kremlin wants to bring the children home. It says they've committed no crimes. But finding them and their mothers is hugely difficult. Iraqi authorities say they're holding many IS families - but they won't name them. Gradually though, dramatic scraps of information are emerging - a scribbled note from a prison, whispered phone messages, photos and videos on social media. For months, Tim Whewell has been talking to the grandmothers as they've gathered such clues - and now he travels to Iraq in search of more information, tracing the route the fighters and their families took when they were defeated - and trying to solve the mystery of what happened to them. What was the fate of the men after they surrendered at a remote village school? And what of the reports that many of the women and children were subsequently abducted by a militia? As the story unfolds, Tim confronts a powerful Shia warlord. Will the jihadis' children be released? What kind of justice will their mothers face? And what will the grandmothers - convinced of their daughters' innocence - do to try to get them back?

Presenter Tim Whewell Producers Nick Sturdee & Mike Gallagher.

The Child Saver of Mosul Apr 12, 2018

Show notes

A one-woman whirlwind of passion and energy, Sukayna Muhammad Younes is a unique phenomenon in Iraq. A council official in the half-destroyed city of Mosul, former stronghold of so-called Islamic State, she's on a mission to find and identify the thousands of children who went missing during the conflict - and reunite them with their families. It's a massive task - and deeply controversial because Sukayna makes no distinction between children who are victims of IS - and those who belonged to IS families. "They're all just children - all innocent," she says. Tim Whewell follows Sukayna through the rubble of the city, visiting her orphanage, trying to find missing parents, meeting families who want to reclaim children. Can she solve the mystery of Jannat - an abandoned fair-haired girl who may be the daughter of a foreign IS family? Can she help Amal, sister of a dead IS fighter, to adopt her baby niece? How can families afford the expensive DNA tests the authorities require before families can be reunited? As she tries to solve these problems Sukayna also has to look after her own family of six children - and cope with personal tragedy. Two of her brothers were killed by jihadis; her family home, used as an IS base, is now in ruins. Highly charismatic - Sukayna now wants to go into politics. "I am a mini-Iraq," she says - her family includes members of many communities - and she believes the country desperately needs more dynamic, tolerant people like her, to bring real change and overcome divisions. But it's hard to be a high-profile, energetic woman in patriarchal Iraq - and she's faced death threats both from remaining IS supporters - and those who think she's too ready to help "terrorist" families.

Presenter Tim Whewell Producers Nick Sturdee & Mike Gallagher.

Greece's Haven Hotel Apr 05, 2018

Show notes

In a rundown neighbourhood in Athens there is a hotel with 4,000 people on its waiting list for rooms. But the roof leaks and the lifts are permanently out of action. None of the guests pay a penny, but everyone's supposed to help with the cooking and cleaning. City Plaza is a seven-storey super squat housing 400 refugees from 16 different countries and the volunteers who support them. The hotel went bankrupt during the financial crisis. It remained locked and empty until 2015, when Europe closed its borders leaving tens of thousands of refugees trapped in Greece. Then a group of activists broke in, reconnected the electricity and water and invited hundreds of migrants from the streets to take up residence with them. The leftist Greek government has so far turned a blind eye and now mainstream NGOs like MSF and even the UNHCR have started co-operating in this illegal project. For Crossing Continents, Maria Margaronis finds out how the hotel operates and get to know the people inside.

Producer: Chloe Hadjimatheou.

Digging Up the Past in Catalonia Mar 29, 2018

Show notes

Why is troubled Catalonia now opening up civil war mass graves?

Spain has the second largest amount of mass graves in the world after Cambodia. Over 100,000 people disappeared during the 1930s civil war and the ensuing Franco dictatorship. Decades later, the vast majority are still unaccounted for.

Forgetting Spain's painful past and the disappeared is what allowed democracy and peace to flourish, the argument has long gone.

But many have not forgotten - including in the region of Catalonia, where bitter memories of Franco's rule are just beneath the surface. Before Madrid imposed direct rule last October, the pro-independence Catalan government began an unprecedented plan to excavate civil war mass graves and collect DNA from families looking for their lost relatives.

Estelle Doyle travels to the politically troubled region and finds out how, despite direct rule, those seeking answers are more determined than ever to recover the past and to confront Spain's painful history. Others worry that their actions will only but reopen old wounds and further divide the country.

Presenter: Estelle Doyle Producer: John Murphy.

**This podcast has been changed: Correction: El Soleras is in the West of Catalonia, while Catalonia itself is in the North East of Spain**

Sweden's Child Migrant Mystery Jan 18, 2018

Show notes

For nearly two decades, Swedish health professionals have been treating asylum-seeking children who fall into a deeply listless state. They withdraw from the world, refuse to speak, walk and eat - most end up being tube-fed. They are known as, "the apathetic children" in Sweden. More recently this illness has been termed Resignation Syndrome. Experts agree it is children who have experienced deep trauma who are vulnerable. Doctors link the condition to an uncertain migration status. But why, asks Linda Pressly, does it only seem to happen to children in Sweden, and how can they recover?

Ukraine's Frontline Bakery Jan 11, 2018

Show notes

Lucy Ash meets the staff and customers of a bakery which is the one bright spot in war-torn east Ukraine. The war there between Russian-backed rebels and the Ukrainian army has dropped out of the headlines and there seems to be little political will to make peace. More than 10,000 people have been killed and as it enters its fourth year, this has become one of the longest conflicts in modern European history. But in the frontline town of Marinka there's one bright spot amidst the gloom - the bakery. It's the first new business in the town since the fighting began and it is bringing some hope and comfort to its traumatised citizens. We meet staff and customers from the bakery to explore a community living on the edge. "The aroma of fresh bread," says the man behind the enterprise, " gives people hope. It smells like normal life." Producer Albina Kovalyova.

Black and Proud in Brazil Jan 04, 2018

Show notes

For decades, Brazil has presented itself as a colour-blind nation in which most citizens are, at least to some extent, racially mixed. But a controversial education law is encouraging black Brazilians to assert their own distinct identity. Federal public universities now have to comply with government quotas for black students, as well as others deemed to be at risk of discrimination. Yet, since the rules allow applicants to self-define their colour, there have been numerous alleged frauds, and some universities are now creating inspection boards to assess students based on whether they appear phenotypically black. On the political right, there's a backlash among those who say the quotas are divisive and even racist. While some people of mixed race complain that they are 'not black enough'. But many black Brazilians themselves say they finally have a reason to acknowledge their ethnicity in a country where privilege all too often belongs to those of European descent. For Crossing Continents, David Baker reports on an issue that is at the heart of what it means to be black in Brazil.

Michael Gallagher producing.

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