Has Ghana's ‘Year of Return’ been a success?

When Anthony Ray Hinton was sentenced to death for a double murder, he used his time behind bars to create a book club for his fellow death row inmates. It was to get him through 28 years of solitary confinement. Now a free man after the State of Alabama dropped all charges against him, he takes listeners back to the echoing corridors of death row and introduces them to his book club.

26 Touko 202027min

Giving birth is an emotional experience, but what about during this pandemic? And then there is bringing a baby into a world of lockdowns and restrictions. We hear from new mums in New York, Dublin and London. What is it like to be in prison and pregnant?

24 Touko 202027min

Leena Vuotovesi, the leader of environmental work in Europe’s greenest town, Ii in Finland, travels to Chile and Spain to compare recycling practices. First she visits La Pintana - Chile’s unlikely climate champion: an impoverished neighbourhood plagued by crime and violence that recycles more than any other town in Chile. Leena then goes to a pristine part of southern Spain - a country where municipal recycling rates lag way behind EU targets. She speaks to children, teachers and waste management experts to find out why Spanish people don’t appear to care about recycling and to see what could be done to reduce environmental and economic damage.

23 Touko 202050min

In Mumbai, Chinu has been has been providing food to the city’s migrant and daily labourers who have been unable to work since the country’s lockdown. Getting up at 4.30am each day, he has served over 415,000 hot meals so far. In Nigeria, optometry student Ismail has been sleeping in a mosque since his college closed its doors three and a half months ago, but is holding on to his dreams of working for the WHO or UN. And deep in the Amazon rainforest, Tatiana, a state politician and academic forecasts trouble ahead.

23 Touko 202024min

The story of how chef Marcus Samuelsson made Harlem his home is nothing short of remarkable. He was born in a tiny village in Ethiopia, too small to even appear on maps. Aged two, he contracted TB. His mum carried him for 75 miles to the capital for treatment. She died, but he survived and was adopted by a Swedish family who taught him a love of cooking. Marcus is now a leading light of New York cuisine running an international restaurant chain but with his heart firmly grounded in the stories of Harlem. Jaylene Clark Owens is a spoken word artist, actor and born and bred Harlemite. She’s woven the story of her changing neighbourhood into a play - Renaissance in the Belly of a Killer Whale. Cultural historian John T Reddick gives us a personal tour of his neighbourhood. And Martina da Silva and John Thomas share their musical tribute to Harlem.

23 Touko 202048min

People crossing the Central Mediterranean in rubber boats are always putting their lives in danger. Now a bleak situation is made worse by Covid 19 as ports in Malta and Italy are closed to migrants and coastguards are reluctant to mount rescue operations. Over the Easter weekend several boats set out from the Libyan coast. Some made it to Sicily themselves. Two others drifted for days. The engines were broken and the people, including children and babies, ran out of food and water. Twelve people died. Dozens of others were picked up and taken back to Libya where they now languish in hellish detention centres. Others made it to Europe. This is the story of that weekend, told through recordings of distress calls from the boats and the testimony of a network of activists as they monitored the desperate situation. Producer and presenter: Lucy Proctor (Image: Migrants in a dinghy at sea. Credit: Reuters/Yannis Behrakis)

21 Touko 202027min

More than 17,000 people have died in the UK after testing positive for coronavirus. Among them are frontline medical staff. Dr Adil El Tayar, a British-Sudanese doctor, became the first working medic to die of coronavirus in the UK. His story is illustrative of the many international medics who even now are battling Covid-19. A vast number of doctors, nurses and others have come to Britain and other Western countries after training in the developing world. Naturally, they want to improve their standards of living and work in more sophisticated medical systems. But is it fair for the rich world to benefit by effectively cherry-picking the brightest and best from poorer countries?

20 Touko 202027min

Lina Mounzer in Lebanon speaks about the protests which have seen people take to the streets despite lockdown. John McRae shares some good news from Australia and Matthew Krupczak from Atlanta, Georgia, tells us why he is worried that the easing of restrictions in his neighbourhood could mean the sacrifices so far could be for nothing. And Rajesh Kumar Shaw gives us his insights from The Sundarbans in India, where the return of migrant labourers could mean the spread of Covid -19 in an area with only basic medical help.

19 Touko 202027min