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Samsung started out as a tiny exporter of dried fish. Today it's one of the world's biggest tech giants; the family-run business accounts for about a quarter of South Korea's entire GDP.This week Samsung was forced to stop production of its new Galaxy Note 7 smartphone after a number of them apparently exploded or caught fire. Samsung's chairman Lee Kun-Hee - son of the firm's founder - saw the value of his company plummet. You'd think he'd be fuming. But he hasn't been seen since he suffered a heart attack in 2014. Some in South Korea think he could be dead. Mark Coles tells the story of Lee Kun-Hee - one of the world's most enigmatic and fascinating business leaders.Researcher: Kirsteen Knight Producer: Smita Patel.

British Professor David Thouless won this year's Nobel Prize for contributions to the field of topology. Two other British physicists, Professor J. Michael Kosterlitz and Professor Duncan Haldane shared the award. Of course the physics is rather complicated, you don't win a Nobel prize for discovering something obvious, but put simply, David Thouless worked out a way of predicting how a material will behave using maths.In this programme, though, we'll focus on the man himself. Who is David Thouless and how did he spend his time when he wasn't thinking about equations? We'll hear about the treats he liked as a school boy during the war, about family holidays from his son, Michael Thouless, himself a Professor of Engineering and we'll also hear that things in the real world didn't often go as smoothly as planned...Audio from the Hubbard Theory Consortium 50th Anniversary Lecture used, with thanks.Producer Smita Patel & Researcher Phoebe Keane.

When Theresa May became Prime Minister she appointed Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy as her joint Chiefs of Staff. It's a role first imported from the US by Tony Blair, when he brought in Jonathan Powell to help oversee the day-to-day running of government. The position puts Timothy and Hill at the heart of decision-making inside Number 10. So who are they? And how much influence do they really have? Mark Coles reports.Producer: Ben Crighton.