BBC OS Conversations: Three months after the fall of Assad

Journalists in Pakistan say they’re under threat of abduction and even of being killed if they criticise the state authorities. Whoever is in power, legal action against journalists who’ve spoken out against the authorities is nothing new. Press freedom campaigners say that in 12 months 140 journalists were threatened or attacked with some saying that democracy itself is under attack. For Assignment Mobeen Azhar hears the allegations made by those who say they’ve been targeted to shut them up - allegations which the authorities deny.Archive: AAJ News, May 2023 GNN, February 2023, Naya Daur February 2022, GEO TV October 2022

22 Feb 202426min

In Malaysian Borneo, indigenous people have struggled for land rights against companies and the state. Using new mapping technology, communities in Borneo’s rainforests are racing to prove their claims. We explore how technology and social media are being used and misused to shift the balance of power.

21 Feb 202418min

As the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches, Oleg Boldyrev reports on how ordinary Russians are dealing with life in a country at war with its close neighbour. Are there new economic and social challenges, and what do we know of attitudes to the invasion? We talk to Russians across the country to gauge the mood.Photo by ANATOLY MALTSEV/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock (14329432c) People stand at a bus stop near an image depicting St. Isaac's Cathedral (back) on a sunny day in St. Petersburg, Russia, 02 February 2024. Temperatures in St. Petersburg, Russia's second largest city, reached minus two degrees Celsius on the day.

20 Feb 202427min

Vik Muniz says he owes his artistic career to being shot as a young man, not because he had an epiphany about the meaning of his life, but because he won enough compensation from the accident to move to New York and kick-start his career in the art world. He is now probably one of Brazil’s most successful visual artists and his pieces can range from tiny specs that are photographed by microscopes to giant landscapes captured from helicopters. He is known for working with unconventional materials; some of his most famous works have been created out of sugar, chocolate and a plate of left over spaghetti. Andrea Kennedy went to New York to meet him as he prepared for an exhibition full of illusions.

19 Feb 202427min

Radio can be a lifeline for women: a place to speak out in safety; a place to find their voices. We hear from women taking to the air and making waves in the cracks left by the Taliban in Afghanistan; in Fiji's scattered archipelago threatened by climate change; in the migrant farmworker community of the Yakima Valley in North America's Pacific north-west; and in the Ecuadorean Amazon, where indigenous women are coming together to save their land from pollution and destruction by oil companies.

18 Feb 202450min

Putin’s re-election is certain, but there is still a lot at stake for the Kremlin. We look into the efforts aimed at achieving unequivocal victory in what seems to be the most oppressive election in Russia for two decades. What are the stories state media can and cannot touch, how much of a headache does dissent from the mothers and wives of soldiers pose to the authorities and does Putin really have body doubles? We have the answers. Producer: Kriszta Satori Presenter: Krassi Twigg Editor: Judy King Twitter handle of contributors: @VitalyBBC, @jen_mon1, @oivshina Original music: Pete Cunningham Sound engineer: Martin Appleby

17 Feb 202436min

When we first reported on the earthquake in February 2023, the scale was overwhelming. We heard from families who had escaped as buildings around them collapsed and rescue workers described the devastation as the worst they had ever seen. Each day the casualty figures mounted. It is now thought that at least 55,000 people died.A year on, we have been catching-up with survivors to hear how their lives have changed. One family – Iman, Karim and their 7-year-old daughter Nada – had fled from the war in Syria to have a new life in Turkey. They lost family, friends and their home in the earthquake. When host James Reynolds called the family up in the last few days, they told him they were doing much better. Young Nada, however, is still having nightmares about the floor shaking and people she has lost. “I have a dream about my friend Iman, she died from the earthquake,” Nada tells James. “I’m so sad about her, and I have a friend who moved to Canada – I miss her so much.”We also hear messages from BBC listeners in Turkey and reunite with Harun, an English teacher in southern Turkey, and Bilal who is living in the east of the country and had his business destroyed last year. A Boffin Media production in partnership with the BBC OS team.

17 Feb 202423min

Russian authorities have announced the death of one of the country’s most significant opposition leaders Alexey Navalny in a remote penal colony in the Arctic Circle. Stephen Sackur spoke to him in Moscow in 2017 about the risks involved in being a prominent critic of President Putin.

16 Feb 202425min