As piracy returns off the coast of Somalia, we hear from Pakistani and Iranian fishermen who fear being kidnapped. After years of being pushed back, the problem is once again on the rise.
Also, find out how Africa's genetic variation could benefit the medical world.
And how financial technology is changing business transactions on the African continent.
Presenter: Audrey Brown
Producers: Bella Hassan, Nyasha Michelle and Yvette Twagiramariya
Technical Producer: Gabriel O'Regan
Senior Journalist: Joseph Keen
Editors: Alice Muthengi and Andre Lombard
Mukesh Ambani caught the world’s attention when he forked out $600m on his son’s wedding, including a performance by Rihanna – but how did he become Asia’s richest person?
Mukesh grew his father’s polyester trading company, Reliance Industries, into a conglomerate. But when he died without a will, Mukesh had to fight his brother for control of the family business. BBC business editor Simon Jack and journalist Zing Tsjeng follow Mukesh Ambani’s story from living in a Mumbai slum to building the world’s most expensive private residence - featuring an ice cream parlour and an artificial snow room - then decide if they think he’s good, bad, or just another billionaire.
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Charlotte and Dave met as strangers in a moment of crisis, and went on to marry. Also, the son who reunited with his father after 19 years, and the friends that have been meeting up every week in the same spot since 1968
Presenter: Jannat Jalil. Music composed by Iona Hampson.
Fungi are a mysterious and understudied life form. And to add to the intrigue, some of them actually glow in the dark. This phenomenon has sparked CrowdScience listener Derek's curiosity, and he's asked us to investigate.
Presenter Caroline Steel gets on the case. This is just one example of the natural wonder that is bioluminescence – living organisms that glow. How do they produce their light, and is there any reason for it? Caroline visits a bioluminescent bay in Puerto Rico, and Dr Brenda Soler-Figueroa explains what makes it sparkle.
But it turns out there are many different explanations for why living things glow. Fungi, which listener Derek is particularly interested in, are neither plants nor animals, but an entirely different kingdom of life that we know much less about. Professor Katie Field takes on the task of trying to grow us some bioluminescent mushrooms, while Prof Cassius Stevani explains how – and importantly, why – they glow.
And finally – could we ever harness the power of bioluminescence to our advantage in the future?
Presenter: Caroline Steel
Producer: Hannah Fisher
Editor: Cathy Edwards
Production co-ordinator: Ishmael Soriano
Studio Manager: Neva Missirian
(Photo: Omphalotus nidiformis, or ghost fungus, Penrose, NSW, Australia Credit: Louise Docker Sydney Australia via Getty Images)
Botswana's President Mokgweetsi Masisi concedes defeat, marking the end of rule for the Democratic Party (BDP). What went wrong for the party that has been in power since independence in 1966?
Plus, we hear from the Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi, who says government tactics to silence critics are from a bygone era.
And the separatist Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) group, that is seeking to break away from the rest of Nigeria, has been in court to reverse its designation as a terrorist organisation. But what is the history behind the movement, and will they ever achieve their aims?
Presenter: Audrey Brown
Producers: Yvette Twagiramariya and Nyasha Michelle a in London. Charles Gitonga in Nairobi, and Blessing Aderogba in Lagos
Technical Producer: Francesca Dunne
Senior Journalist: Patricia Whitehorne
Editors: Alice Muthengi and Andre Lombard
Ahead of its 20th anniversary early next year, the author Kate Mosse talks to Harriett Gilbert and readers from around the world, about her globally bestselling novel, Labyrinth.
It’s a historical thriller set between medieval and contemporary France where the lives of two women, living centuries apart, are linked in a common destiny. In 13th century Carcassonne, seventeen-year-old Alaïs is given a mysterious book by her father which he claims contains the secret of the Grail. While 700 years later, archaeologist Dr Alice Tanner discovers two skeletons in a forgotten cave in the French Pyrenees and sets out to investigate their origin.
Ahead of its 20th anniversary early next year, the author Kate Mosse talks to Harriett Gilbert and readers from around the world, about her globally bestselling novel, Labyrinth.
It’s a historical thriller set between medieval and contemporary France where the lives of two women, living centuries apart, are linked in a common destiny. In 13th century Carcassonne, seventeen-year-old Alaïs is given a mysterious book by her father which he claims contains the secret of the Grail. While 700 years later, archaeologist Dr Alice Tanner discovers two skeletons in a forgotten cave in the French Pyrenees and sets out to investigate their origin.
On this weekend ahead of the US election, we clock the importance of so-called swing states – and swing into action looking into not politics, but the science of swings.
We examine how a pendulum swung by French physicist Foucault demonstrated that the earth is spinning, and hear about how the gibbon became the king of swingers – and what current-day elite climbers can learn from them.
We also hear from educator Francis Mavhunga at the University of Eswatini who has regularly used swings in his physics classes, and now shows a new generation of teachers how to integrate children’s lived experiences into the classroom.
Plus, how science has revealed new secrets about the ancient silk road, and what your brain can see when your eyes can’t. And, just to swing back to the beginning, presenter Marnie Chesterton digs into the archives to find out if science and tech can provide a foolproof voting system, and how astronauts vote.
Presenter: Marnie Chesterton with Chhavi Sachdev and Godfred Boafo
Producer: Harrison Lewis with Florian Bohr, Julia Ravey, Dan Welsh and Imaan Moin
Sound Engineer: Gareth Tyrrell
This week at least 150 people have been killed due to devastating flash flooding sweeping through areas of Valencia in Spain. Ana Camarasa Belmonte, Professor of Physical Geography at the University of Valencia, has been studying the flood patterns and hydrology of the area for years. Even she was astounded by the magnitude of the inundation. And, as Jess Neumann of Reading University in the UK tells Roland, part of the tragedy is that the effective communication of risk somehow relies on citizens being able to adequately imagine the almost unimaginable.
Ten years ago this week, Friederike Otto and colleagues founded the World Weather Attribution network. The network aims to provide quick analysis of climate change's impact on on extreme weather events. They have already found that the Spanish flooding was made more intense, and more likely, by our warming world. Earlier in the week they published a different analysis of the 10 most deadly, extreme-weather events of this century. They concluded that all 10 events were made more extreme or more likely by climate change, and that these 10 events alone account for some 570,000 deaths.
In the US, Scientists have tested the strain of H5N1 bird flu swabbed from the eye of an infected Texan farm worker. They found it to be both lethal and transmissible via the respiratory tract of mice and ferrets. It contains a mutation PB2-627K, common in avian viruses in mammalian cells, as Amie Eisfeld of the Universoity of Wisconsin-Madison explains.
Presented by Roland Pease
Produced by Alex Mansfield
Production Coordination by Jana Bennett-Holesworth
(Image: Aftermath of catastrophic floods in Spain's Valencia. Credit: Anadolu via Getty Images)
Civil society groups have warned the risk of sexual violence in Sudan is so severe that some women are taking their own lives. Campaigners have told the BBC of several cases of women taking their lives, either after enduring sexual violence or to avoid it. On Tuesday, a major UN report highlighted 'staggering' levels of sexual violence in Sudan, attributing the worst atrocities to the paramilitary RSF group.
Aslo, find out how upcoming elections in the US could impact Africa.
And could Compressed Natural Gas provide an alternative to petrol in Nigeria?
Presenter: Audrey Brown
Producers: Bella Hassan and Victor Sylver in London. Blessing Aderogba in Lagos.
Technical Producer: Nick Randell
Senior Journalist: Joseph Keen
Editors: Alice Muthengi and Andre Lombard
