Fifth Floor

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What price scaling Everest? May 31, 2019

Show notes

Mount Everest in Nepal draws hundreds of climbers every year keen to scale the world's highest peak. But the effort comes at a high price, both in lives lost, and the cost to the environment. BBC Nepali’s Surendra Phuyal reports on the campaign to clean up the rubbish left behind by the climbers on Nepal's holy mountain.

Image: queuing to reach the peak of Everest Credit: AFP PHOTO/PROJECT POSSIBLE

Orangutan, elephants, and dams May 24, 2019

Show notes

Indonesia's Leuser rainforest in Sumatra is a unique ecosystem where elephants, orangutan, tigers and rhinos still live together. But this biodiverse forest is now threatened by development, as BBC Indonesia's Mehulika Sitepu found out.

Photo: Sumatran orangutan Copyright: BBC

A Rohingya drama for Cox’s Bazar May 17, 2019

Show notes

Aa'rar Kissa, or Our Story, is a radio drama made specifically for the Rohingya refugees now living in Bangladesh, having fled their homes in Myanmar. The radio drama was created by the BBC Media Action's local director, Riad Arfin.

Image: Rohingya Refugee Camp in Cox's Bazaar, Bangladesh Credit: NurPhoto/Contributor/Getty Images

'Time for the guns to be silent' May 10, 2019

Show notes

BBC Africa’s Mohanad Hashim shares his impressions of a Sudan without President Omar al-Bashir, and the historic protests which toppled him from power.

Image: Sudanese protesters gather to break their fast during Ramadan, outside the army headquarters in Khartoum Credit: Mohamed El-Shahed/AFP/Getty Images

Healing Iraq's mental wounds May 03, 2019

Show notes

Namak Knoshnaw spent a year making the BBC Arabic documentary Iraq: A State of Mind. It follows the stories of three people dealing with the psychological impact of half a century of war, invasion, sectarian violence and occupation by the so-called Islamic State. Namak grew up in Iraq, and it is a story close to his heart.

(Photo: Karim Wasfi playing his cello in Baghdad. Credit: Sabah Arar/AFP/Getty Images)

Reporting Sri Lankan bomb attacks Apr 26, 2019

Show notes

Ayeshea Perera is based in the BBC's Delhi office, but flew home to Sri Lanka immediately after Easter Sunday's bomb attacks. She shares her experiences of reporting from Colombo and Negombo, and her memories of civil war the bombings have triggered.

Image: St Anthony's Church, Colombo Credit: EPA

What’s on trend around the world? Apr 19, 2019

Show notes

New fashions and passions are reported daily on the language services, so we’ve brought together some of our favourites: freediving in Colombia, Sufi fusion music in Pakistan, dreadlocks in Nigeria, and a new kind of tourism in South Korea. With Beatriz de la Pava of BBC Mundo, Julie Yoonnyung Lee of BBC Korean, Princess Abumere from BBC Lagos, and Farah Karim from BBC Africa, whose Global Beats programme this week discovers new music in her second home, Pakistan.

Image: hipster girl with pink hair style and binoculars Credit: Massonstock/Getty Images

An Egyptian take on Algeria's protests Apr 12, 2019

Show notes

Large scale protests in Algeria forced President Bouteflika to stand down last week. BBC Arabic's Marwa Nasser visited Algiers to meet the protesters demanding change, bringing back memories of her own country's 2011 protests in Tahrir Square.

Image: People carry a national flag during a protest to push for the removal of the current political structure, in Algiers Credit: REUTERS/Ramzi Boudina

The women who joined IS Apr 05, 2019

Show notes

Thousands of women and children associated with foreign IS fighters are now in limbo following the defeat of the ‘caliphate’. Tse Yin Lee and Matilda Welin are part of a BBC Monitoring team who have been researching why these women joined IS and what happens to them now.

Image: wives and members of IS under the supervision of a female fighter from the Syrian Democratic Forces Credit: BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images

Helmand to Hull: an Afghan journey Mar 29, 2019

Show notes

Auliya Atrafi of BBC Afghan has been reporting from the northern city of Hull, which was his home for 12 years after he arrived in the UK as an asylum seeker in 2000. The city voted overwhelmingly to leave the European Union in the 2016 referendum, and Auliya wanted to assess the impact of the vote.

Image: Auliya Atrafi in Hull Credit: BBC

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