The Documentary Podcast: Archive 2015

In the West we are used to stand-up comics but in Japan they have sit-down comedy. Chie Kobayashi introduces the ancient story-telling art of Rakugo which dates back to the 18th Century and has changed little over the centuries.

Hugh Sykes travels to Zanzibar, a semi-autonomous archepelago in Tanzania, to investigate the religious tensions at play. In South Africa he finds schools still overcrowded and under-equipped - a lingering shadow of the Apartheid education system. He meets the growing business elite with a taste for fine wines, and reports on the increasing influence of China on the region.

Profiles of the Buddha; Mahavira Jain; Ashoka and Aryabhata. Rupa Jha introduces four portraits of eminent Indians by Professor Sunil Khilnani.

In Paraguay, two girls under 14 give birth every day. It’s been called an epidemic. So why are Paraguayan children so vulnerable to abuse?

Stories of change from Ethiopia, Mozambique, Tanzania and South Africa. Hugh Sykes meets those bringing positive change in the fields of education, health, woman's rights and the media.

A young man vanishes on a night out in Antwerp. His disappearance triggers a massive campaign to find him yet, two years on, no-one knows whether he's alive or dead.

Hip hop, since its inception has been seen by many as the musical voice of modern revolutions. In the Middle East, Arab hip hop became a voice of protest as young Arabic people took to the mic and used this vocal art form as a way of expressing their discontent with incumbent governments. Jackson Allers explores the effect of hip hop on the Arab Spring.

Coastal erosion is washing away a football field of land every hour. Meet one community facing the reality of losing their past and their future.

Could recent developments in 3D printing benefit the natural world or bring extinct species back to life?

Britain’s former mould-breaking ambassador to Lebanon, Tom Fletcher., Tom Fletcher. Appointed at only 36 at the height of the Arab uprisings in 2011, Fletcher calls himself the ‘Naked Diplomat’ – a title that suggests a new brand of 21st-century statecraft: flexible, transparent, engaged with the public as much as with political decision-makers.

Lucy Ash meets the Harragas of Algeria - the young people who burn their identity papers and head north across the Mediterranean leaving family, friends and stability behind.

Trista Goldberg looks at the story of Vietnamese Amerasians - children fathered by American servicemen during the Vietnam War.

An interview with one of Iran's vice presidents, Masoumeh Ebtekar, in Tehran. Tehran is a modern city of 12 million people, a study in contrast between bazaars and shopping malls, between hardline clerics and millennial hipsters. Iran’s Vice President first became famous, in 1979 as the spokesperson for the students holding the hostages at the American Embassy. 36 years later Iran has signed a nuclear deal with six world powers but really it’s all about Iran and the United States. How does Masoumeh Ebtekar feel about the relationship between the two countries?

In early 2002, following the fall of the Talban, Osama Bin Laden's abandoned compound in the Afghan city of Kandahar was ransacked. Among the finds was a collection of more than 1500 audio cassettes featuring sermons, speeches, songs and candid recordings of Arab-Afghan fighters, recorded between the 1960s up until the 9/11 attacks.The collection served as an audio library for those who gathered under Bin Laden's roof between 1997 and 2001 – a key era in Al Qaeda's development and growth. BBC Security correspondent Gordon Corera speaks to Prof Flagg Miller from the University of California-Davis, who has spent more than a decade translating and analysing the tapes.Through pain-staking detective work Prof Miller has sought to understand what the tapes say about the evolution of Bin Laden, presenting his findings in the book 'The Audacious Ascetic: What the Bin Laden Tapes Reveal about Al-Qaeda'. The collection features over 200 speakers, with around 20 tapes featuring Bin Laden himself – among them some ra

Will Grant takes a ride in Cuba to discover how people get around and whether the thaw in relations with the United States will make any difference to their lives.

The gun attack on the beach resort of Sousse that killed 38 tourists, deterred many holiday-makers from travelling to Tunisia. But not journalist, Frances Stonor Saunders. She packed her bags, no flak jacket in sight, and set off for an all-inclusive package deal to Hammamet, a nearby seaside resort. What did she find? As well as deserted beaches and eerily empty hotels, Frances has a chance meeting with a man who helped foil a previous terror attack on a popular tourist site; and she finds out why Tunisians are refusing to go to local hotels, despite desperate pleas from hotel owners.

Peter Oborne investigates why bank accounts of some British Muslims were closed.

China has become a top maker and taker of underground ketamine. Celia Hatton sees the impact of the drug and explores The Fortress - the drug village at the centre of the trade.

Farkhunda, a 28-year-old Afghan woman and religious scholar, was beaten to death in the streets of Kabul in March this year. She had reportedly been arguing with a Mullah about the practice of selling charms in front of a mosque. He accused her of burning the Koran.

Former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko died in a London hospital in 2006, after drinking tea poisoned with the highly radioactive material - polonium. But who wanted him dead, and why? And where did his killers get the polonium from?