Crossing Continents
Stories from around the world and the people at the heart of them.
- Update frequency
- every 7 days
- Average duration
- 28 minutes
- Episodes
- 392
- Years Active
- 2010 - 2025
Going Hungry in Venezuela
Oil-rich Venezuela is struggling to feed its own people as a result of a spiralling economic and political crisis which has brought the country to its knees. Vladimir Hernandez returns to his home co…
Syria's Secret Library
Away from the sound of bombs and bullets, in the basement of a crumbling house in the besieged Syrian town of Darayya, is a secret library. It's home to thousands of books rescued from bombed-out bui…
Stealing Innocence in Malawi
Ed Butler explores the secretive and shocking world of Malawi's "hyenas". These are the men hired to sexually initiate or cleanse adolescent and pre-adolescent girls - some said to be 12 years old, o…
'Islamic State's' Most Wanted
Chloe Hadjimatheou tells the astonishing story of a group of young men from Raqqa in Syria who chose to resist the so-called Islamic State, which occupied their city in 2014 and made it the capital o…
Checkmate Me in St Louis
Dave Edmonds travels to the mid-western city of St Louis (location for the musical 'Meet Me In St Louis', starring Judy Garland) for the US chess championships. The city has become a world centre for…
China's Family Planning Army
Now that China has ended its One Child policy, one group of state employees may soon be out of a job - the country's hated population police. Hundreds of thousands of officers used to hunt down famil…
Forgetting Igbo
Nkem Ifejika cant speak the language of his forefathers. Nkem is British of Nigerian descent and comes from one of Nigeria's biggest ethnic groups the Igbo. He's one of the millions of Nigerians, who…
Norway: Parents Against the State
Norway's widely regarded as one of the world's most progressive societies, yet it's at the centre of an international storm over its child protection policies. Campaigners accuse its social workers o…
Born Free, Killed by Hate in South Africa
In 1994 apartheid ended in South Africa and Nelson Mandela was elected president. He promised in his inauguration speech to "build a society in which all South Africans will be able to walk tall, wit…
Thai Buddhism - Monks, Mercs and Women
An unholy spat is stirring the Sangha, Thailand's top Buddhist authority - who will become the next Supreme Patriarch, Thailand's most senior monk? Meanwhile, allegations of 'cheque-book Buddhism', c…
Romania: The Shepherds Revolt
Lucy Ash asks why thousands of angry Romanian shepherds recently stormed the parliament in Bucharest. Sparked by an amendment to Romania's hunting law, the unprecedented protest was over plans to lim…
Molenbeek, Through the Looking Glass
After the terror attacks in Paris, the world's attention turned to an inner-city district of the Belgian capital, Brussels, where several of the attackers came from. Molenbeek has been notorious for …
Brazil Versus Sleaze
Brazil is in crisis. Confronted with a massive downturn in the economy, its currency has crashed, while its political class sinks in a quagmire of corruption allegations linked to the state oil compa…
The Battered Champions of Aleppo
A fuzzy team photo from the 1980s sends Tim Whewell on a journey to track down football players from a small town in northern Syria who were once the champions of Aleppo province. In the last four ye…
Saving India's Parsis
India's Parsis are one of the subcontinent's most successful communities. But their future looks precarious because their numbers have fallen dramatically. Some Parsis believe the answer could be to …
Cambodia: Trust Me, I'm not a Doctor
The Cambodian government has recently announced a clampdown on unlicensed doctors. This comes after a mass infection of HIV in a rural village, blamed on an unlicensed doctor re-using syringes. The "…
Malaysia's Runaway Children
The deaths of five school children in Malaysia have provoked an anguished debate about education and what it means to be Malay. The children ran away from their boarding school in Kelantan State and …
Albania: Shadows of the Past
Maria Margaronis explores the debris of Albania's painful past-the prison labour camps, concrete bunkers and secret police headquarters--as archives are unlocked and new monuments put up in an effort…
Greece: No Place to Die
They say you can't take it with you but if you live in Greece how much money you have at the end of your life makes a big difference. Permanent plots in the country's packed cemeteries can cost as mu…
The Drugs Mules of the Andes
Peru is the world's largest producer of cocaine. A staggering one-third of it travels on foot, on the backs of young men like Daniel. He is 18, full of bravado, and claims he does this work so he wil…