The Documentary Podcast Folgen

Less than three years after winning a landslide victory, the UK’s Conservative party Prime Minister Boris Johnson has resigned. It follows a series of political scandals, election defeats and his own party’s loss of trust and confidence in his leadership. During his time in office, Johnson had to deal with a number of unexpected global situations: a pandemic, the economic fallout of war in Ukraine and the ongoing cost of living crisis. But it was questions about his character that brought him down and scandals such as ‘Partygate’ where he attended group gatherings at 10 Downing Street, during lockdowns. Two journalists in Belgium and France discuss Boris Johnson’s reputation abroad and the reaction of European leaders with host James Reynolds.

How would you cope it you were at the centre of a war? In March 2022, the BBC told the stories of four young women whose lives were changed forever by war in Ukraine. They were not soldiers, activists or politicians. They were civilians, not used to war or how to deal with it. They kept audio diaries that told a raw truth about loss, hope and even love. Some packed up and left with their children while others remained in the eye of the storm. Among them, a language teacher in Kyiv called Alexandra who did not know if her parents were still alive in the besieged city of Mariupol. Mari, a model and dancer, who was caught up in shelling in Chernihiv. And Yulia, who gave birth as bombs rained down on Kharkhiv. But what’s happened to them since? Assignment tries to trace them, to discover how their lives have changed in four months of war.(Photo Credit: Mari Margun)

The city of Macapá is in the middle of a river archipelago with around 50 villages and 14,000 inhabitants, where the Amazon meets the Atlantic Ocean. Some of these communities are almost impossible to reach, with dense mangroves and fluctuating water levels making the journey dangerous. For a long time, conflicts were resolved by local leaders, from theft, to land disputes, to rape. The machete was often the quickest recourse to justice. Judge Sueli Pini visited Macapá 20 years ago. Seeing the problem, she founded a system that’s unique in the world, the “floating court.”