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Emma Jane Kirby has worked as a Foreign Correspondent for the BBC, written documentaries, audio drama, a novel, and so much more. The main reason for their interview is the recent audio series A Most Audacious Heist, that looks in to real life theft of the Sisi Star, which looks into the lives of Empress Sisi herself, and the likable rogue Daniel Blanchard, who sole the star in a way that gives Ethan Hunt from the Mission Impossible films a run for their money. Or did he? The conversation looks at how EJ's history as a foreign correspondent for the BBC has inspired her writing these great stories based on true stories. They also discuss the audio series The Butterfly King, which is about a former European king, who died after meeting Adolf Hitler, and after denying Hitler's request to hand over Jews that were being protected in their country. They also discuss EJ's novel, The Optician of Lampedusa, based on the true story of an optician who whilst vacationing on the Meditteranean Sea, saved a few hundred people trying to escape oppression in their own country, who were floating after their boat sank. Also mentioned during the show is the superb work that production company Blanchard House, under the creative directorship of previous show guest Rosie Pye. We also discuss EJ's history as a former writer for the iconic British radio drama The Archers, which up to now has been around for 74 years, and is still going strong. https://www.blanchard-house.com/ https://linktr.ee/podslikeus/
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
Karen and Georgia announce the new Exactly Right true crime series, The Butterfly King - a World War II murder mystery coproduced with Blanchard House. Host Becky Milligan and producer Emma Jane Kirby discuss their investigation into the death of King Boris III, the Butterfly King. The Butterfly King premieres March 21 with new episodes out every Thursday. https://www.exactlyrightmedia.com/the-butterfly-king Follow, rate and review The Butterfly King wherever you get your podcasts. See historical photos by going to @exactlyright on Instagram. For our sources and show notes, visit www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The attack on a Kabul school on May 8th heightened fears about what will happen when US and NATO troops fully withdraw from the country. More than 80 people were killed – most of them schoolgirls. It was in an area west of the city, home to many from the minority Hazara community, often targeted for attack. Lyse Doucet talked to some of the survivors and heard of their anger at the failure to protect them. In East Jerusalem, a battle over property has channelled long-held tensions and unresolved grievances. In the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, protestors have been trying to stop Israel evicting eight Palestinian families. Israel’s Supreme Court has delayed a hearing on the evictions, but the case, along with complaints of heavy-handed policing of the Al Aqsa compound during Ramadan, ignited the recent round of violence in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel. Paul Adams visited the streets at the heart of the dispute. Indonesia's capital Jakarta is one of the world’s most polluted cities. Now some of its residents have launched a court case trying to push the government to clean up its atmosphere. Rebecca Henschke, who lived in the city for over a decade, reports on their fight to breathe more easily. For now, Portugal is one of the places British tourists can go without quarantining and the hospitality industry in the Algarve is eager to welcome them back. Nick Beake spoke to local businesspeople hoping to get back in gear. Emma Jane Kirby has reported for the BBC from across Europe and beyond – in settings ranging from the glitz of the Cote d’Azur to the squalor of Sangatte. She's covered big stories and described plenty of dramatic scenes, from shipwrecks to furious street protests. But she’s now working in a different world … the fictional universe of the Archers. Producer: Polly Hope
Emma Jane Kirby investigates the extraordinary mystery of 23-year-old Sergeant Paul Meyer, a successful, respected mechanic in the US Air Force who, at the height of the Cold War in 1969, stole a plane from his base in East Anglia and disappeared mid-flight. What made the airman crack so suddenly and why was neither his plane nor his body ever recovered? Paul . . . . . Adam Gillen Jane . . . . . Julianna Jennings Colonel Kingery . . . . . Elliot Cowan Sergeant Alexander . . . . . Ewan Bailey Sergeant Johnson . . . . . Joseph Ayre Sergeant Vince . . . . . Joe Jameson Director . . . . . Sasha Yevtushenko This was originally aired on Radio 4.
In the latest programme of the monthly series, Mishal Husain introduces dispatches from journalists and writers around the United Kingdom reflecting the range of contemporary life in the country. Emma Jane Kirby, in Birmingham, reports on the seeds of magic sown by teachers there in schools serving deprived neighbourhoods - but also on the sometimes shocking realities of daily life at home for a number of the pupils. In Carmarthenshire, David Baker explores the wide range of renewable energy projects being pioneered locally amidst a rich range of Welsh natural resources - and also witnesses a minor drama on his visit to a wind turbine. But who caused it? Nearly thirty years after her aunt took her own life after living with depression for decades, Sima Kotecha reflects on daily life for those living with mental illness and those relatives and friends who witness it. She also considers how hard it remains for those in some South Asian communities to open up about their conditions and what the prospects are for that to change. With buses seemingly now back in political favour across Britain, Christine Finn returns to the Channel Islands to discover how well-connected bus services are on her native Jersey - and embarks on an ambitious journey round the island to find out if she can circumnavigate it entirely on public transport in one day. And Shaun Ley describes what it was like to be greeted by an unwelcome rodent in his home and the steps taken to deal with the visitor. But why are there seemingly more rats in our midst and why have they become bigger and bolder? The local rat catcher has some thought-provoking ideas... Producer: Simon Coates
Until recently, a small, independent and politically neutral Syrian radio station was broadcasting in exile from Istanbul. But Radio Alwan was forced to close when the Trump administration made the decision last year to pull $200m of funding for Syria’s stabilisation projects, knocking the station off air. Some of the station’s staff are scattered across Europe and those who have remained in Turkey say they now feel vulnerable following the Turkish offensive in NE Syria and what they see as a hardening of the country’s position on refugees. So where do you belong if your adopted country no longer welcomes you and the door to your own country is closed? Emma Jane Kirby met ex Radio Alwan broadcasters in Istanbul to try understand why the word “home” no longer has any meaning for them. Across Latin America millions have left their homes to better their families' lives. These have been years of huge outward migration from Venezuela, Central America and Cuba. Will Grant has now spent more than a decade living in countries which many of their own citizens feel forced to leave. In the municipality of Has, in the rural mountainous north of Albania, it’s estimated that one in five people has left over the past ten years. It used to mainly be men, but now even primary age children are making perilous journeys into richer parts of Europe including the UK. Jessica Bateman asked one teacher how it feels to watch your school slowly disappear. If you are forced to leave home, the word evokes a sense of loss. In the early 1970s, the dictator who ruled Uganda, Idi Amin, suddenly decided that the country’s long-standing community of Asians – mostly small business people of Indian origin – should be kicked out. He argued they put ethnic Ugandans at a disadvantage. Reha Kansara grew up with her mother's memories of life in her "East African paradise" and has just made her first visit to Uganda to see the country for herself. The story of the nativity often inspires people to show compassion to the homeless around Christmas. Pregnant women and new mothers are particularly vulnerable. But the challenges of new life don’t end with finding a safe place to stay. On the occupied West Bank, Jeremy Bristow recently travelled with a group of female medics to visit the minority Arab Bedouin population.
Fires are blazing in the far reaches of Siberia - an area the size of Belgium is on fire. Steve Rosenberg goes to have a look, a seventeen hour drive through forests of birch and cedar. But is Russia also burning socially and politically? The Italian island of Lampedusa - halfway between Tunisia and Malta - has long been at the centre of the "migrant crisis"; a welcome haven for the occupants of leaky boats. Dr Pietro Bartolo has been working with migrants for many years but now, as Emma Jane Kirby reports, he's adopted a different approach. The announcement from Delhi this week that Kashmir was losing its autonomous status took the world by surprise. The region has since been on lockdown, the residents left with few means of communication with the outside world. Rahul Tandon talks to young Kashmiris in Delhi, who oppose the new policy, and to Indians who support the government's move. Sex is often a delicate subject. Norms are often very different from place to place – and the penalties for living outside the norm can be serious. Shereen El Feki has been working with a team from BBC Arabic to survey and interview people across the Middle East about their attitudes and their desires. A group of Jewish orphans who survived the Nazi concentration camps and were resettled in Britain became known as The Boys, even though there were girls among them. Hannah Gelbart, the grand daughter of one of them, reports on a special reunion in Prague.
Radio Alwan is an independent radio station that has been entertaining the people of Syria with dramas, phone-ins and their very own version of Woman's Hour since 2014 - as well as providing an independent source of news. Now, as Emma Jane Kirby reveals, its future is in doubt. Kate Adie introduces this and other stories from correspondents around the world. In Uganda, Sally Hayden meets a man who says he was forced to work as a babysitter by the child-soldier turned senior commander in the Lord's Resistance Army - Dominic Ongwen. Chris Bowlby finds out what the Harley Davidson riding bikers of Wisconsin think of President Trump. Sian Griffin dances with a ten-metre long puppet shaped like an eel and finds out why the American Eel population is shrinking in Canada. And John Kampfner visits a Cornish town in Mexico where the Union Jack flies proudly alongside the Mexican flag and the staple dish is the pasty.
Hvordan utspiller båtflyktningenes brutale erfaringer seg i litteraturen? Knut Hoem har tatt for seg to sakprosa-bøker om ett og samme forlis der så mange flyktninger druknet. Det er "Optikeren av Lampedusa" av Emma Jane Kirby, og "Grensa" av Alessandro Leogrande. Hør ham i samtale med Turi Grønbech og Kristian Bendiksen i Studio 2.
Emma Jane Kirby, BBC correspondent and author of the ‘Optician of Lampedusa’ gives a talk for the Reuters Business and Practice of Journalism Seminar Series. Introduction by James Painter.
Kate Adie introduces correspondents' stories: Katerina Vittozzi is in northeastern Nigeria, where assassinations, bombings and kidnapping are now combined with starvation. But amid the bleakness she also finds ingenuity and survival. Emma Jane Kirby goes to the source of much of the fake news that swirled around social media sites during the US presidential election - and it's nowhere near America. In Nicaragua, Nick Redmayne is shown the proposed route of another huge canal, akin to the Panama canal; and he hears how the country's revolutionary fervour, as symbolized by the Sandinistas in the 1980s, is hard to find nowadays. Austrians could be about to elect the EU's first far right head of state. "I'm not a fighter, I'm a calm man," the far right candidate tells Bethany Bell. But others believe he's a wolf in expensive sheep's clothing. And in California, where anything can happen, Kieran Cooke is invited to a wedding. The catch is....he has to do the marrying.
Looking back at some historic FOOC despatches: Allan Little, Bridget Kendall, Emma Jane Kirby, Steve Evans and Gabriel Gatehouse read pieces by Fergal Keane, Caroline Wyatt, Charles Wheeler, John Crawley and Kevin Connolly
Foreign correspondents' stories. In this programme, Kevin Connolly talks of the dogged durability that got Parisians out to work again in the days after the terrorist attacks, 'the foot soldiers' ability to soldier on through the darkness'. Joanna Robertson, also in the French capital, says despite the huge numbers of police deployed in various parts of the city, many in the suburbs are complaining they've been left unprotected. She is asked: 'What's being done to protect our way of life?' Emma Jane Kirby meets up again with an Italian man who can't forget the day he went out boating and came across scores of migrants scattered across the sea, only some of whom he managed to rescue. A way of life comes to an end with the closing of a well-known narrow gauge railway in central India. Mark Tully's among the last to travel on the Satpura Lines in the centre of the country. A station master asks him: 'Why do they have to close such a busy railway?' Steve Evans tells us that in Seoul, a whole building is full of civil servants preparing for the day North and South Korea will finally be united. But that's a development unlikely to happen soon. Perhaps it will never happen and, as a result, Steve finds these are workers not over-burdened with work!
More and more migrants are trying to cross the Mediterranean and there are suggestions the new force charged with rescuing those in danger of drowning isn't up to the job. Emma Jane Kirby's been to Europe's southern shores to see how it's coping. Andrew Harding was in the parliament building in Cape Town when President Zuma's state of the nation speech was interrupted by hecklers. He considers whether the chaos was a sign that democracy's in decline in South Africa. The global crude oil market has collapsed, the price has plummeted. Jon Sopel has been to Texas where the mood is, perhaps surprisingly, not altogether pessimistic. Elections in Nigeria have been postponed. Will Ross says many people there view the decision with deep suspicion. And carnival season's underway in many parts of the world. Dany Mitzman's been witnessing preparations in one Italian town where there were fears this year that this was a party which would never happen.
The European Union's announced plans to support, but not replace, efforts being made by Italy to save lives at sea. Emma Jane Kirby's been to the port town of Syracusa to see the difficulties the Italians have been facing. Will Ross has been meeting children in Nigeria who've been separated from their parents by the war against the militants of Boko Haram. What's it like when a family discovers that a loved one's gone to fight with extremists in the Middle East? Linda Pressly's been finding out in Kosovo. Jamie Coomarasamy's been to the west of Ukraine, hundreds of miles from the fighting in the east of the country, to find out what they think there of the struggle between government forces and the pro-Russia rebels. And the hair industry is big business in China and most of the customers, as Sam Piranty has been finding out, are Africans. But is that human hair they're buying or something else?
Correspondents' stories from around the world, introduced by Kate Adie. Today: Will Grant meets El Salvador's only forensic archaeologist, with the unenviable task of unearthing and identifying murder victims; Emma Jane Kirby is in a French border town, discovering why the Front National is gaining support; Karen Allen visits the former Taleban capital of Kandahar where businessmen are in desperate need of more power; Alex Preston, in Sri Lanka, finds out why rugby is becoming so popular; and Susannah Knights is with the musicians and performers of Tunisia who are poor but flourishing in their new found freedom.
Stepping back in time, BBC News correspondents present a personal perspective on principal cities of the major European powers that fought the First World War. In this Essay, Emma Jane Kirby considers the capital of the largest contemporary modern maritime empire: London.To today's listeners some of Londoners' concerns a century ago will seem extraordinarily familiar. Complaints about the Tube were as frequent and heartfelt then as they are today. To try and divert travellers from their misery, Macdonald Gill - the brother of sculptor and designer Eric Gill - was commissioned to produce a "Wonderground" map. It was intended to amuse them as they waited for their trains which were infrequent, often dirty and overcrowded.The map's whimsical illustrations - together with Cockney asides put in the mouths of some of the invented characters - captured the city's above-ground, pre-war character. It evoked the zeitgeist which George Bernard Shaw simultaneously reflected on stage in "Pygmalion" - and led to a subsequent commission to design a theatreland map during the First World War.Emma Jane Kirby considers the idea of Britain which London was presenting to both the wider world and Britons themselves, and she assesses how far these attitudes still resonate today.Producer Simon Coates.
Emma Jane Kirby considers the idea of London presenting to both the wider world and Britons themselves in 1914. And she assesses how far these attitudes still resonate today.
Reporters' despatches: already this year more than seven thousand people have been killed in the upsurge of violence in Iraq. Andrew Hosken explores a country full of widows, orphans and frightened people mourning the loss of loved ones. In America, two significant anniversaries - Allan Little has been to the locations involved, Gettysburg and Dallas, and uncovers surprising revelations about the state of the USA today. The president of Bulgaria's talking of 'emergency' as demonstrations against the government show no sign of letting up - Emma Jane Kirby's been talking to the protestors in the capital, Sofia. Peter Day visits a Chinese village where they haven't yet turned their backs on the 'Great Helmsman' Mao tse Tung. And as the big Thanksgiving Day American football matches approach, Mike Wendling reflects on a sport facing difficult questions about the safety of its players. The producer of From Our Own Correspondent is Tony Grant
Albania, not so long ago a redoubt of hardline Communism, is now hoping for EU membership. Julia Langdon's been assessing its chances during a visit to the seaside there. Emma Jane Kirby's visiting a company which makes men's pants in France. She's looking into claims that it's harder than ever for French businesses to prosper. Wyre Davies is reporting on the papal visit to Brazil - gauging the impact it's making in a country buoyed up by economic optimism but still, in many places, very poor. Prashant Rao tells us about a favourite supermarket in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, and how its luck finally ran out when it was targeted by bombers. And John Pickford, in the kingdom of Tonga, finds Chinese aid to this archipelago in the Pacific plentiful but sometimes, a mixed blessing. Tony Grant produces From Our Own Correspondent.
Portuguese people are leaving the country in their thousands, travelling to the country's former colonies in search of work - Emma Jane Kirby's in Porto and Lisbon learning how recession's driving many away from their family and loved ones. The exodus from conflict-ridden Syria continues too - Kieran Cooke meets a family from Damascus now selling shoes in the Armenian capital, Yerevan. Kevin Connolly's in Cairo and asks how the military will react at the next election if the people once again select an Islamist candidate to be the country's leader. Beth McLeod has been finding out that a high proportion of Vietnam's sucessful businesses are run by women - she suggests the country's turbulent history may point at some of the reasons why. And far out in the Pacific, John Pickford's on Christmas Island where he stumbles across a reminder that this was the place where Britain carried out some of its first nuclear weapons testing.
A thousand horses. Three thousand sheep. And people, thousands of them too, clustered like locusts around the Old Port in Marseille. What on earth were they all doing there? Anna Magnusson was finding out. European leaders have announced they'll try to tackle unemployment; Emma Jane Kirby's in southern Spain where the under-25s are finding it hardest to get jobs. Qatar has a new ruler, or emir; Frank Gardner's just back from this ultra-rich Gulf state wondering: is this the world's most ironic country? Rupert Wingfield Hayes has been to the Indonesian island of Sumatra to look into South East Asia's worst smog crisis in years. And among the correspondents in Senegal, reporting on the excitement, the rumours and the disruption which accompany a visiting American president, was Caspar Leighton. From Our Own Correspondent is produced by Tony Grant.
Hungry crocodiles are invading homes in northern Australia looking for the family pet, Phil Mercer has that story; the dangers of a drive through increasingly violent Iraq, Paul Martin; what makes an Indian cinema crowd scream at the screen, Mark Tully; the former gangsters trying to reduce gun crime on the streets of LA, Frank Gardner and the controversy surrounding a new TV show in Denmark which features men in suits talking about naked women, Emma Jane Kirby.
As the year draws to an end, Kate Adie presents a feast of highlights from correspondents' despatches across 2012. Fucshia Dunlop is in Shanghai, dancing the the city's glamourous past. Lucy Ash is challenged by a call of nature in Russia's Siberian wilderness. Kate McGowan decides against boiled duck foetus for breakfast in Manila. Allan Little uncovers the great egg crisis in the Falkland Islands. Emma Jane Kirby is feeling distinctly under dressed as she takes a table in St Tropez. And Will Grant discovers that Mexico's 'Day of the Dead' is a suprizingly uplifting experience.
Reporters' despatches from around the world. Afghanistan: as pressure grows on the British prime minister to bring the troops back home early, defence correspondent Caroline Wyatt considers the legacy they'll leave behind. Russia: the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk is the country's prisons capital. Alex Preston has been to meet a former convict trying to help others, recently released, to find a toehold back in Russian society. El Salvador: the murder rate in this Latin American nation has gone down significantly thanks to a truce between two notorious gangs. Linda Pressly has been talking to some of their leaders in a high security jail. France: the infamous Sangatte asylum centre may have closed but Emma Jane Kirby has been finding out that migrants continue to flow into the port city of Calais. Germany: Steve Evans gets offered relatively frugal fare at a dinner party in Berlin. But he isn't surprised.
Greece remains a land where millions go each year to enjoy their holidays. But Mark Lowen's discovered that it's now also a place where increasing numbers of people are finding it hard to cope with the austerity demanded of them. The Russian republic of Chechnya is enjoying the most peaceful time it's seen in years but Oliver Bulloughsays its people seem far from content. Linda Pressly's been to Israel to talk to some of the Haredi, the inclreasingly influential ultra-orthodox, who seem set to play a critical role in the country's future. Emma Jane Kirby is in St Tropez as the new French leader prepares to address his people on TV. She wonders if there might be lessons he can learn from the glitzy Cote d'Azure. Justin Rowlatt, in China, knows Tiananmen, Taiwan and Tibet are subjects the authorities might prefer him to avoid. But now he's learned there's a fourth T - toilets. The Chinese, he's been finding out, do not like people poking fun at their loos.
Female boxer Mary Kom is joined by reporter, Emma Jane Kirby, at a training session in her village in north-east India; 1500m runner Hanner English with her local hero, Roger Bannister; diving champion, and family man, Peter Waterfield at the Aquatic Centre; paralympian and former Formula 1 driver, Alex Zanardi, plus Jacques Rogge, the President of the International Olympic Committee.
Some 80 years after George Orwell chronicled the lives of the hard-up and destitute in his book Down and Out in Paris and London, what has changed? Retracing the writer's footsteps, Emma Jane Kirby finds the hallmarks of poverty identified by Orwell - addiction, exhaustion and, often, a quiet dignity - are as apparent now as they were then.
Mexico's drug wars are notoriously violent and the killings have spread to neighbouring Guatemala. Linda Pressly has been to the scene of a gruesome massacre in northern Guatemala. The "indignados" in Spain began their protests in May, angry at the banks and at the way the government has responded to the economic crisis with spending cutbacks, privatisations and redundancies. Sarah Rainsford recently joined some of the young indignants on the road. Colombia's "Red Zone" is traditionally a no-go area for medics and journalists. But Imogen Foulkes has travelled upriver in this area - long fought over by drug cartels, FARC rebels and the Colombian military. Government cutbacks across Europe, particularly spending cuts for social programmes, are sometimes hitting the most vulnerable hardest. Emma Jane Kirby has been spending time with those who have fallen onto hard times in Paris. Why is it that Poles love to dress up as knights at the weekend? Adam Easton has been finding out.
The investigation following an air disaster is supposed to make air travel safer. But do the reports always get to the truth about why planes crash? Emma Jane Kirby examines claims that international air accident investigations are often slow, incompetent and influenced by political sensitivities. So how does this affect the victims' families as they fight manufacturers and airlines for compensation? And could the blame game be preventing lessons being learned that could prevent future accidents? Producer Jenny Chryss.
Arianna Huffington has had a rich and prolific career. A best selling author and TV presenter, her political transformation saw her first stand as a Republican candidate before switching to the Democrats, as she sought high public office. After setting up the highly sucessful internet newspaper, The Huffington Post, which championed "citizen journalism", this week she agreed a buyout by media giants AOL. But who is Arianna Huffington and what makes her tick? In this week's Profile, Emma Jane Kirby, looks into the life of America's latest media mogul and asks what next for the woman who's been described as "the most upwardly mobile Greek since Icarus".
Ken Clarke has promised a "rehabilitation revolution" in which private investors will fund projects aimed at cutting the re-offending rate. If the projects succeed, the government will pay those investors a return. But if the projects fail, the investors will lose their shirts. You can see why the idea is attractive to ministers. In a period of spending restraint - and with a huge and hugely expensive prison population - a 'payment by results' system promises to fund rehabilitation projects from future savings. But will it work? After all, rehabilitation is hardly a new idea. And so far, it seems, most attempts have made little difference. So the question is whether a new way of paying for criminal rehabilitation might deliver better results. There's unrestrained excitement among some of those working with offenders. And deep scepticism among some criminologists. Emma Jane Kirby investigates. Interviewees include: the Justice Secretary, the Rt Hon Kenneth Clarke MP; criminologists Professor Sir Anthony Bottoms and Professor Carol Hedderman; Geoff Mulgan from the Young Foundation; the welfare expert Professor Dan Finn; Toby Eccles from Social Finance; and Rob Owen, chief executive of the St Giles Trust. Producer: Richard Knight.