The Documentary Podcast Folgen

For thousands of years we have gazed up at the stars and wondered: is anybody out there? The idea of meeting aliens has been the inspiration for countless books and films; for art and music. But today, thinking about meeting life on, or from, other planets is no longer dismissed as pure make-believe - it is the focus of political consideration and cutting-edge space science. Farrah Jarral presents the story of the fantasy and the reality of preparing for first contact with extra-terrestrials.

The global economy is shrinking but our costs are rising, and as people around the world find things harder, many are deciding to go on strike for better pay and conditions. Around the world, we are seeing the likes of teachers, nurses, postal and transport workers taking industrial action. We bring together some of those workers to hear about their jobs and why they are taking to the picket lines.

Paks, a small Hungarian town on the bank of the River Danube has prospered from its nuclear power station, built by the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s. Hungary has prospered too. Paks provides some 40 per cent of the country’s power requirements. But the four reactors are now approaching the end of their lives and are slated for retirement in 2032; so, in 2014 agreement was reached with Russia to build two more, with the help of a Russian loan worth several billion Euros, Russian engineers, and a small army of Ukrainian welders. But the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army in February 2022 has thrown these plans into disarray. Construction has begun, in the sense that bulldozers have been clearing the ground. But the project is already delayed, and there are those who believe that the new reactors will never be built. As Nick Thorpe discovers, people who thought they had a job for life in Paks are worried about their future and the future of a town whose lively shops and restaurants owe everything to the nuclear industry. Now the centre-piece of prime minister Viktor Orban’s energy empire, Paks may soon become the country’s rustbelt.