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Kate Adie introduces stories from Los Angeles, Cambodia, Argentina, Nigeria and Washington DC.The Los Angeles wild fires have left thousands of people homeless, and caused damage costing billions of dollars. Among those Angelenos who narrowly escaped disaster there is an overwhelming sense of relief - and, for some, a sense of guilt. BBC LA correspondent David Willis tells the story of his own close call.Cambodia's 12th Century temple complex, Angkor Wat, is the world's biggest religious site and a huge tourist attraction. Authorities want to increase visitor numbers, which has led to locals living in the jungle around the site being evicted from their homes. Jill McGivering went to investigate.Javier Milei was elected president of Argentina a little over a year ago, following an eccentric campaign in which he promised radical economic reform. Charlotte Pritchard visited a chewing-gum factory in Buenos Aires, to find out what business owners think of the progress the country is making so far.In Nigeria we navigate the bustling urban sprawl of Lagos to find a wildlife sanctuary in an unlikely spot. It's the work of a local school teacher who wants to teach locals about conversation and the importance of biodiversity. Kirsty Lang paid a visit.Washington DC is making preparations for Donald Trump's inauguration next week. As he enters the White House, the Republicans will control of all three branches of government. Paddy O'Connell looks back to his own time working in Washington, when American voters were seemingly much more willing to share support for both political parties.Series producer: Serena Tarling Production coordinators: Sophie Hill & Katie Morrison Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith
Tourists are flooding to Cambodia's "8th wonder of the world," the ancient temple complex at Angkor. But the rapid expansion of the site comes at a terrible cost, as tens of thousands of people are ousted. The authorities call some "illegal squatters" and claim others volunteered to leave. But human rights groups say the evictions are forced, illegal and target families who've worked the land for generations. Many say they're now debt-ridden and struggling to survive. Jill McGivering travelled to Angkor to meet those at the heart of the crisis.
Tourists are flooding to Cambodia's "8th wonder of the world", the ancient temple complex at Angkor. But the rapid expansion of the site comes at a terrible cost, as tens of thousands of people are ousted. The authorities call some "illegal squatters" and claim others volunteered to leave. But human rights groups say the evictions are forced, illegal and target families who've worked the land for generations. Many say they're now debt-ridden and struggling to survive. Jill McGivering travelled to Angkor to meet those at the heart of the crisis.Produced by Caroline Finnigan Mixed by David Smith Production Coordinator Gemma Ashman Editor Penny Murphy
In 2007, the UN deployed its first all-female contingent of peacekeepers in Liberia in West Africa. The country was still recovering from its long civil war when the Indian policewomen arrived. In this programme first broadcast in 2019, Jill McGivering hears from Seema Dhundia of India's Central Reserve Police Force who led the unit. (Photo: Seema Dhundia. Credit: Getty Images)
There’s a new climate of fear in Sri Lanka. This time it’s the Muslim community who are fearful of the future. The Easter bomb attacks in Sri Lanka - targeting churches and international hotels - horrified the island. It’s suffered civil war - between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils - but never known jihadi violence. But the attacks also intensified a creeping campaign by the Sinhala Buddhist majority against the Muslim community - with Muslims murdered, their businesses burned or boycotted. Jill McGivering investigates the growing climate of fear now driving many Muslims to emigrate and casting a shadow over those left behind. Caroline Finnigan producing.
There’s a new climate of fear in Sri Lanka. This time it’s the Muslim community who are fearful of the future. The Easter bomb attacks in Sri Lanka - targeting churches and international hotels - horrified the island. It’s suffered civil war but never known jihadi violence. But the attacks also intensified a creeping campaign by the Sinhala Buddhist majority against the Muslim community - with Muslims murdered, their businesses burned or boycotted. Jill McGivering investigates the growing climate of fear now driving many Muslims to emigrate and casting a shadow over those left behind. Producer: Caroline Finnigan (Image: Muslim boy on a bicycle in Kattankudy, Sri Lanka. Credit: Allison Joyce/Getty Images)
Throughout Sri Lanka's decades long conflict, attention has focused on the confrontation between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils. The country’s Muslims, who are just 10 per cent of the population and see themselves as a separate ethnic group, have often been ignored. But that changed after this year's Easter Sunday attacks, carried out by a small cell of Sri Lankan Islamists, which claimed 250 lives. Since then many Muslims feel they have been demonised and ostracised. Our South Asia editor Jill McGivering has been in the main city, Colombo, to investigate. Over the past few weeks there has been a fierce crackdown by the Iranian authorities on protests across the country. The number of fatalities keeps being revised upwards, but getting precise details is tricky when the Iranian government seems determined to keep outsiders and its own citizens in the dark. As Jiyar Gol explains, even under normal conditions, BBC Persian’s journalists, who broadcast to 20 million around the world and 10 million inside the country, must resort to ingenious tactics to gather and broadcast the news. In the middle of popular unrest and a media blackout, their job is even harder. Celebrations have been taking place in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, after the transitional authorities officially dissolved the former ruling party of the deposed president, Omar al Bashir. Our former Sudan correspondent James Copnall went back to explore the changes and began in a girls' school in Khartoum. He found a new openness in almost every conversation and that newly gained freedoms have also led to a series of unprecedented street protests. Protests are back again in the Georgian capital Tbilisi as thousands demand electoral reform. Recently police used water cannons to disperse protesters picketing the parliament building. Campaigners want a switch to proportional representation which they say would ensure a more democratic multi- party parliament. Since 2012 the country’s legislature has been dominated by the governing Georgian Dream party. Rayhan Demytrie talks to those who fear that Georgia’s fragile democracy may be at risk, thanks to one man -a billionaire with a James Bond style hilltop lair. And how do you cover protests as a journalist when you are also pumping breast milk? Our South America correspondent Katy Watson needs to keep up the supply of milk for her new baby but she doesn't have an office job where she can plug a in pump and sit at a desk.
The UN deployed its first all-female contingent of peacekeepers in Liberia in West Africa. The country was still recovering from its long civil war when the Indian policewomen arrived in 2007. Jill McGivering has been hearing from Seema Dhundia of India's Central Reserve Police Force who led the unit. Image: Seema Dhundia in front of her contingent of Indian policewomen on their arrival in Monrovia, Liberia, in January 2007. (Credit:Issouf Sanogo/AFP/Getty Images)
Caroline Finnegan is a dynamic and courageous freelance content producer. She often works with author and award-winning journalist Jill McGivering covering hard stories for the public. Caroline and Jill recently created a program for the BBC highlighting the crisis of Western men preying upon little boys in Nepal. These predators are not just abusing the kids sexually, they’re filming it for the Dark Web. Please Listen to my talk with Caroline Finnigan. Also, Listen to Caroline Finnigan's BBC Assignment: Nepal Fights Foreign Paedophiles Hunting western paedophiles is a priority for a new police unit tasked with safeguarding children in Nepal. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003rj9
Hunting western paedophiles is a priority for a new police unit tasked with safeguarding children in Nepal. Mired in poverty and still recovering from a devastating earthquake in 2015, Nepal is increasingly being targeted by foreign paedophiles who recommend it as a destination when they share child abuse tips on the dark web. In recent years a series of western men have been charged with raping or sexually assaulting Nepali boys. Jill McGivering follows the under-resourced police unit, hears the stories of victims and perpetrators and examines what makes Nepal so vulnerable to abuse by western men. This programme contains descriptions of child sexual abuse which some listeners may find distressing. Producer: Caroline Finnigan (Photo: Nepalese children play in Kathmandu. Credit: Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)
Hunting western paedophiles is a priority for a new police unit tasked with safeguarding children in Nepal. Mired in poverty and still recovering from a devastating earthquake in 2015, Nepal is increasingly being targeted by foreign paedophiles who recommend it as a destination when they share child abuse tips on the dark web. In recent years, a series of western men have been charged with raping or sexually assaulting Nepali boys. For Crossing Continents, Jill McGivering follows the under-resourced police unit, hears the stories of victims and perpetrators and examines what makes Nepal so vulnerable to abuse by western men. This programme contains descriptions of child sexual abuse which some listeners may find distressing. Produced by Caroline Finnigan.
Marching bands in Myanmar as the army celebrates, but it's an army accused of genocide. Nick Beake arrives at the dead of night to witness the festivities. Jill McGivering reports from Kathmandu on a dark and disturbing side to western tourism in Nepal. In Kazakhstan the country's founding president has just stepped down. They've renamed the capital in his honour, but Rayhan Demytrie asks what his real legacy is. Rebecca Henschke has just left Jakarta after years as a correspondent there. She pays tribute to the women who enable her to juggle her dual roles of journalist and mother. And in Los Angeles, it doesn't rain but it pours. Dan Johnson reports from LA Torrential
Kate Adie introduces correspondents' stories. Jill McGivering investigates the cow protection squads in northern India, some of which have been accused of extreme violence against Muslims. Colin Freeman gets a Blue Feeling moment in Gambia as he explores why so many young men are leaving the country. Turkmenistan has one of the world's most repressive governments, and now the president's personality cult includes a nationwide health kick. Abdujalil Abdurasulov asks if that means everybody has to jump to it. Fifty years ago, South Africa's apartheid government razed the District Six neighbourhood of Cape Town: as a multiracial, rackety, creative hotbed it didn't fit a model of strict segregation. Lindsay Johns has personal links to the area, and considers how the evictions destroyed far more than just homes among the Coloured community. And Katie Razzall is in West Virginia, in the coal mining areas, where people voted in droves for Donald Trump. They're hoping he'll re-open the mines and bring jobs back to the area but will real life return to the bars and hotels?
Analysis, colour, wit and observation from journalists worldwide. Today: Pascale Harter chronicles the fury in Spain at reports that politicians are lining their pockets while the people are making painful sacrifices in the name of austerity. James Harkin on the death of a young engineer who wanted to help build a new Syria after the revolution. Jill McGivering on the Indian women being talked into hysterectomies by doctors eager to make more money. Orla Guerin meets an Afghan governor who says don't worry about the Taliban, peace is at hand - although he does keep an assault rifle close at hand! And Thomas Fessy, in newly-liberated Timbuktu, unearths the beer that had to be buried when the fabled city was seized by Islamist rebels. Produced by Tony Grant.
Jill McGivering investigates health clinics in rural India where thousands of unregulated private clinics are accused of performing unnecessary hysterectomies.
Will Grant in Cuba: 50 years after the Missile Crisis, Fidel Castro still has the power to made headlines. Jill McGivering in Shenzhen sees the gulf between different generations in modern China. Kate McGeown looks at the hopes for peace in the Southern Philippines. Kim Philley experiences the art of animist 'spirit possession' in Burma. And Steve Evans explores the etiquette of cycling in Berlin.
Kevin Connolly has the latest from Cairo, awash with conspiracy theories after the authorities delayed the results of Egypt's presidential election. Jill McGivering's travelling across northern India investigating a growing water crisis. Major rivers are contaminated by pollution and wells are running dry. As delegates at the Rio conference study papers on future energy sources, Jonny Dymond's been to Kentucky where livelihoods built around coal mining are now in doubt. There's a building boom going on in the central African state of Chad but Celeste Hicks tells us it's still blighted by violence, poverty and disease. South Koreans are being urged to dress down now that high summer's arrived. But Lucy Williamson's been finding out they won't listen to entreaties that they should slip into something something cooler.
Jill McGivering, the BBC World Service South Asia editor, investigates the discovery of thousands of bodies in mass graves in Indian Kashmir. Human rights groups suspect they are just some of the victims of "disappearances" at the hands of the Indian military in this contested region. The authorities respond that the bodies are in fact those of militants who have infiltrated from Pakistan. Will an official investigation reveal the truth? Producer: Michael Gallagher.
The polar bear's back in the news - this time it's at the centre of controversy in Canada where some believe it's a far better animal to be the country's national symbol than the one which currently holds the honour, the beaver -- Lorraine Mallinder has been finding out that some Canadians reckon the beaver's just too boring for the job. At the end of another stressful week in the eurozone Chris Morris tells us that the Germans don't seem too concerned -- the Christmas party season's on their minds! The revolution's brought a new look to Libya but Tarik Kafala, who's been back to Tripoli after many years away, says not everything's changed. Jill McGivering's in Indian Kashmir where questions are being asked about thousands of unmarked graves. And a celebrated bookshop owner passed away this week in Paris and Christine Finn, who worked in his shop recently, tells us what made this store, over the bridge from Notre Dame, so special.
A dark secret lies beneath the earth in Indian Kashmir. Bodies - thousands of them. Who are they and how did they die? Jill McGivering reports for Assignment.
A very French murder story: Hugh Schofield tells how France has been transfixed by an appalling human drama -- the killing of a mother, three sons and a daughter. Owen Bennett Jones questions whether depicting the news from Syria as 'brutal suppression of peaceful protestors' might be, to some extent, misleading. A climate of fear is stifling discussion about Pakistan's controversial blasphemy laws -- that's the contention of the BBC's Jill McGivering who's been touring the country investigating. Richard Wilson makes a return trip to Antarctica and is shocked at how the continent's changing. Gareth Armstrong visits an Indian classroom and hears the students voice outrage at how the British regard the work of the children's author Enid Blyton.
Jill McGivering reports from Pakistan where calls for debate about the country's controversial blasphemy laws have been almost silenced by death threats and violence. The laws stipulate the death penalty if blasphemy is proven but critics say the laws are frequently being used to target innocent people. For Assignment Jill goes in search of the accused and their accusers.
Why Pakistan's flood victims feel they've been let down by their rulers – Jill McGivering's been investigating; Peter Day's just back from China with the story of a victim of the Cultural Revolution who emerged from prison and made a fortune. Russia's policemen fail to see the funny side of a campaign of ridicule as we discover from a despatch by Lucy Ash. Justin Marozzi mingles with the crowds at a football tournament being held, controversially, in Yemen while Barbara Plett is in New York with a tale of shame and horror at a BBC office there.
More than six million people in Pakistan now face the start of winter without adequate shelter because their homes were destroyed in the devastating floods in August. Jill McGivering, who reported on the floods at the time, returns to one of the worst hit areas to investigate claims that corruption played a major part in the flood damage itself.
There's a dilemma for Jill McGivering, covering the floods in Pakistan; Gabriel Gatehouse in Baghdad on the changing lexicon as America redefines its mission in Iraq; Wyre Davies is in Jerusalem and detects little optimism for the Middle East peace talks which have restarted in Washington; James Reynolds is at the mine in the Atacama Desert where 33 miners are trapped far undergound and Andy Kershaw visits the arena in Kinshasa which was the site of the world's greatest boxing encounter.
Jill McGivering travels to Pakistan's largest city, Karachi, to meet a doctor who is battling against the odds to prevent women from dying in childbirth. Listeners may find parts of this Assignment programme distressing.
In this week's edition of Assignment, Jill McGivering travels through Pakistan, hearing the stories of some of the two million people who fled their homes as a result of the fighting between government forces and the Taliban in the country's North West – and assesses the consequences of the humanitarian crisis for Pakistan and its people.
Last year our correspondent Jill McGivering reported from Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan on the constant violence and the struggle to bring development to the region. Now she's returned, one year on, to see if there's been any progress.
Jill McGivering explores whether China is doing enough to provide healthcare to 1.3 billion people and what it can learn from the struggles of the developed world.
Jill McGivering follows the trail of fake drugs, from the marginalised communities at risk, to the country accused of being the main source.