Crossing Continents Folgen

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 the game of chess. Its status has partly been achieved by funding from a controversial multi-millionaire, whose childhood included time in an orphanage. Rex Sinquefield is well known for his fascination with the game and his enthusiasm is shared by many others. There is a thriving chess centre, elite tournaments which attract some of the top players, a Chess Hall of Fame and chess lessons in local schools.St Louis is one of America's most violent cities and has most recently been in the news for race riots which erupted when an unarmed black man was shot by police. Can the game of chess serve to lessen racial tension and unite its citizens across the board?Producer: Mark Savage.

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 families suspected of violating the country's draconian rules on child bearing, handing out crippling fines, confiscating property and sometimes forcing women to have abortions. But with an eye on improving child welfare in the countryside, there is a plan to redeploy many of these officers as child development specialists. Lucy Ash visits a pilot project in Shaanxi Province training former enforcers to offer advice and support to rural grandparents who are left rearing children while the parents migrate to jobs in the big cities. If successful, the scheme could be rolled out nationwide to redeploy an army of family planning workers and transform the life prospects of millions of rural children.

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 live in the diaspora - almost two hundred thousand of them living here in Britain. Nkem wants to know why he was never taught Igbo as a child and why the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation, UNESCO, has warned that Igbo faces extinction in the next fifty years. In this week's Crossing Continents, Nkem travels to the Igbo heartland in the southeast of Nigeria to explore the demise of a once proud language. He discovers that recent history has had profound effects on Igbo culture and identity. He discovers too that some Igbos are seeking to reassert their language and culture. Part of this is a resurgence of Igbo identity under a new 'Biafran' movement. Is this likely to find traction or will it ignite painful divisions from the past and lead to renewed tensions across Nigeria. From Nkem's own London-based family - where his wife is teaching both him and their son to speak Igbo - to the ancestral villages of Anambra State, 'Forgetting Igbo' reveals shifting perspectives on Nigeria's colonial past, emerging new ambitions for its future - and deep fault lines at the heart of its society.Produced by Michael Gallagher.