Belarus: Masking the virus

Just before Christmas, 2021, Joel Vilard was driving his cousin home on a dual carriageway just south of Rennes in Brittany. Suddenly, a bullet flew through the window and hit the pensioner in the neck. He later died in hospital of injuries accidentally inflicted by a hunter firing a rifle from a few hundred metres away. A year earlier Morgan Keane, was shot dead in his garden, while out chopping wood. The hunter says that he mistook the 25 year old man for a wild boar. Mila Sanchez was so shocked by her friend Morgan’s death that she collected hundreds of thousands of signatures to change the hunting laws. She gave evidence to the French Senate and put the topic on the political agenda. The Green Party is now calling for a ban on hunting on Sundays and Wednesdays. But the Federation National des Chasseurs, which licenses the 1.3 million active hunters across France, is fighting back. It argues hunting is a vital part of rural life and brings the community together. Its members were delighted when President Macron recently halved the cost of annual hunting permits. Yet public opinion, concerned about safety and animal rights, is hardening against hunting and the battle for la France Profonde is on. On the eve of presidential elections, Lucy Ash looks at a country riven with divisions and asks if new laws are needed to ensure ramblers, families, residents and hunters can share the countryside in harmony. Presenter: Lucy Ash Producer: Phoebe Keane Editor: Bridget Harney(Image: Anthony, from the Ile de France branch of the Federations of Hunters, in the forest of Rambouillet west of Paris. Credit: Amélie Le Meur)

7 Apr 202227min

The ocean is central to the Esperance community’s lifestyle and identity. But three fatal shark attacks in three years have had a profound impact on this remote western Australian coastal town. As this small community slowly comes to terms with these recent fatal attacks, they are also navigating their relationship to the ocean and the apex predator that swims within it. ABC producer Fiona Pepper travels to Esperance to hear how this coastal town is grappling with the impact of the great white shark.

5 Apr 202227min

An estimated four million people – mostly women and children – have escaped from Ukraine and its war. Host Karnie Sharp hears from two Ukrainian mental health professionals who discuss the impact of war on the minds of children. One is a psychiatrist who remains in the capital Kyiv, and the other a child psychologist who fled the country a few weeks ago and is now safe in Germany with her family.

2 Apr 202224min

What are the big mysteries that people want to understand about life? How to be happy. How to accept old age and death. Wit questions sent in from all over the world, Buddhist nun Sister Dang Nghiem and Sufi Imam Jamal Rahman offer their wise words on some of life’s eternal questions.

2 Apr 202231min

In April 2015, more than 1000 refugees and migrants drowned when the old fishing boat they were travelling on sank in the Mediterranean. It was the area's worst shipwreck since World War Two. But the people who died are not forgotten. Not by their families and friends, and not by a professor of forensic pathology at the University of Milan.“There’s a body that needs to be identified, you identify it. This is the first commandment of forensic medicine,” says Dr Cristina Cattaneo.Assignment tells the story of the raising of the fishing boat from the Mediterranean's seabed, and Dr Cattaneo's efforts to begin to identify the people who lost their lives on that moonless night on the edge of Europe.Producer/presenter: Linda Pressly(This programme was originally broadcast in December 2020)(Image: Ibrahima Senghor, a survivor of the tragedy of 18 April, 2015 - he was prevented from boarding the boat in Libya. Credit: Ibrahima Senghor)

31 Mars 202227min

The Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, is running for a fourth consecutive term. The election is on 3 April. But now it is taking place against the background of a war on Hungary’s border, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Mr Orban is proud of the personal relationship he has established with Vladimir Putin, and proud of what he calls the “Hungarian Model”, whereby Hungary has membership of Nato and the EU on the one hand and strong political and economic relations with Russia on the other. Russia, for example, fulfils the vast majority of Hungary’s gas needs. Nick Thorpe, who has lived in Hungary since the 1980s, asks if the edifice that Mr Orban has carefully constructed over the last 12 years is now threatened by the war in Ukraine.

29 Mars 202227min

How major news stories are affecting the lives of people around the world

26 Mars 202224min

Guilt can be a nagging sensation that is sometimes very hard to get rid of. Anna, from Switzerland, has experienced this negative feeling since she was very young and constantly feels she has not done enough, for her family, for her work, for the world. She speaks to our new advisor, Rabbi Laibl Wolf, who suggests that focusing on what she can actually do in her life, rather than what is out of her reach, might help her to stop feeling guilty.

26 Mars 202219min