Crossing Continents Folgen

Brazil's anti-slavery hit-squads are unique. Since 1995, these committed bands of labour inspectors, accompanied by heavily armed police, have rescued 46,000 people deemed to be working as slaves. But Brazil's legal definition of slavery is contentious. It includes degrading conditions of work, which campaigners say amount to coercion. Some employers reject that. And now the stakes have been raised by proposals to confiscate land from bosses found to be flouting the anti-slavery standards. In a journey that takes her from cattle country on the edge of the Amazon, to the parched, rocky badlands of the north-east, Linda Pressly meets the campaigners, employers and politicians on both sides of the argument, and hears powerful testimony from the workers trapped in the middle.Producer: Stephen Hounslow.

Farhana Haider investigates the prosecution of alleged war criminals and asks if the trials are being used to target the opposition.There were numerous reports of atrocities during the brutal war of 1971 between Pakistan on one side and the new state which was to become Bangladesh, which had support from India. The Pakistani Army and Islamic sympathisers in Bangladesh were accused of rape and of mass killings which some have described as genocide. In 2010 the governing Awami League set up war crimes trials which have started to hand down convictions this year, attracting strong public support. However, many international observers have criticised the conduct of the trials as less than free and fair. And supporters of the largest Bangladesh's largest Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami have reacted furiously to the conviction of several of their leaders, saying the process is politically motivated.Farhana Haider asks whether the legal process will really enable Bangladesh to come to terms with its bloody beginnings.Producer: John Murphy.

On 1 January 2014 Indonesia will launch the largest public health insurance scheme in the world. It will unite a bewildering array of current schemes to cover the entire population, with the poor getting their health care free. Former BBC Jakarta Correspondent Claire Bolderson asks whether the world's fourth most populous country has the resources and organisational skills to make such an ambitious scheme work? Producer: Mike Gallagher.