Crossing Continents

Mariko Oi investigates forced confessions of suspects in the Japanese criminal justice system. She asks if the use of prolonged questioning and other dubious tactics by police and prosecutors might be one reason for Japan's astonishingly high conviction rate. Producer: Nina Robinson.

Lucy Ash asks what the explosion in popular protest over a Chinese-backed copper mine says about changes in Burma and asks if this is a test case for the government's commitment to democratic reforms. Farmers' daughters Aye Net and Thwe Thwe Win have led thousands of villagers in protest against what they say is the unlawful seizure of thousands of acres of land to make way for a $1 billion expans...

For decades, Poland has been a country of emigrants travelling to build new lives abroad, not least in the UK. But could things be about to change? Paul Henley travels to the country at the eastern edge of the EU, where the financial crisis has, so far, been avoided. He meets the migrants already making a life in Europe's least multicultural society, and explores the conditions that suggest Poland...

The city of Misrata arguably suffered the most during the Libyan conflict as missiles rained on it for months on end. By the end of the revolution though, fighters from Misrata had exacted their revenge on neighbouring towns and had been responsible for the capture of Colonel Gaddafi, as well as Gaddafi strongholds. More recently Misratan fighters have been in action against the city of Bani Walid...

Linda Pressly investigates why rape and sexual abuse is so common in America's huge prison system - and asks if new measures to fight it will succeed. Producer: Helen Grady.

Many schoolchildren in South Africa's northern Limpopo province have gone for months without school textbooks. There was money to buy them. There was also a contract to deliver the books. Yet they didn't arrive. Students and parents are furious with politicians of the governing ANC - and say the problem is due to mismanagement and corruption. They say the issue typifies the faults of the political...

In one of the most violent countries on earth, peace has broken out. In March, a truce was brokered between El Salvador's two most violent street gangs; they agreed to stop killing each other. The Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 are criminal outfits that trace their origins to Los Angeles. In the 1990s, older members were deported from the US and forged local 'branches' on the streets of El Salvado...

Andrew Harding meets the Mayor with the job of running Somalia's capital, Mogadishu. Can the man nicknamed "Tarzan" tackle mass corruption and the physical and psychological impact of years of brutal warfare? Andrew joins Mohamed Ahmed Noor who, by request of the president, has returned with his wife and family from a life in London to try and clean up Mogadishu. The mayor discusses his ambitious...

When Israel was established, its tiny community of ultra-Orthodox Jews were, uniquely, exempted from the normal requirement of service in the Israeli Defence Force. They were seen as keepers of the spiritual soul of the nation, and their vital duty of studying religion and Jewish law was more important than wielding guns. 70 years on, and the community's numbers have grown massively - and there ar...

Tessa Dunlop travels to Romania to investigate why a proposed open-cast gold mine has caused the longest-lasting political storm in the country since the end of Communism. The mine, in the rural community of Rosia Montana in the Transylvanian mountains in western Romania, would be Europe's largest. Its supporters, including most locals, say it would bring much-needed jobs to the area, which has su...

No fewer than 15 football club bosses have been murdered in Bulgaria's top football league in the last decade alone. In this edition of Crossing Continents Margot Dunne investigates reports that many have been deeply involved in mafia businesses. There are continuing reports that the game is riddled with corrupt practices including match-fixing and the illegal procurement of European Union passpor...

South Korean women, tradition says, are hard-working, respectful to family, and know their place in Korea's Confucian hierarchies. But the country's rapid economic development has meant some startling changes below the surface of that conservative social structure. Perhaps the most controversial is the advent of Host Bars - all night drinking rooms where female customers can select and pay for mal...

Karachi is facing a drugs epidemic. Pakistan's sprawling port city has an estimated half a million chronic heroin addicts. The drug is cheap and easily available as it comes across the Pakistan/Afghanistan border, before being shipped to Europe and the US. Mobeen Azhar finds out how a charity is trying to help addicts and their families. An NGO called the Edhi Foundation operates what is thought t...

Rwanda is a nation of bicycles; large cumbersome machines, piled high with sacks of coffee or potatoes, so heavy they can only be pushed up the steep winding roads in this "land of a thousand hills." Rwanda -- a country known only for the genocide of 1994, when an estimated 800,000 people, mainly ethnic Tutsis, were murdered in cold blood in a mere 100 days -- is also a nation in need of heroes. I...

The state-of-the-art Aeropuerto Don Quijote in Ciudad Real opened for business at the end of 2008. The vision was to create an air hub in the heart of Spain, and its backers believed it would bring business, jobs and tourists to this underdeveloped region. But just over three years later the airport closed - bankruptcy proceedings are on-going. Now it lies abandoned and empty, the silence broken o...

In just three years China's main microblogging site, Sina Weibo, has surpassed Twitter's entire global membership. More than 300 million Chinese are now tweeting, with millions more joining the national conversation every month. Shanghai-based journalist Duncan Hewitt finds out how microblogging is changing China. Thanks to social media China is witnessing the emergence of a civil society of activ...

Writer and broadcaster Maria Margaronis follows the route taken by migrants fleeing war or poverty who are risking their lives to reach the Europe Union. It is estimated that around 75 thousand people are attempting to make the perilous journey each year in the hands of unscrupulous traffickers. They are fleeing from war-torn countries like Afghanistan and Somalia or simply in search of a better l...

In this week's Crossing Continents, Mukul Devichand tells the stories of Shanghai's rapidly ageing population. China's natural ageing process has been accelerated by the One Child Policy. Mukul tells the stories of an ageing city and asks whether China's rapid economic growth could be undermined. Shanghai's image is youthful and contemporary, of a globalised metropolis buying into a new lifestyle...

Lucy Ash visits Russia's new energy frontier in the Arctic Yamal region and explores the impact oil and gas extraction is having on the indigenous people there. Gradually but inexorably, reindeer give way to railroads and gas rigs. She goes to stay with a family of herders near the base of the Yamal Peninsula, whose name in the local Nenets language means "the end of the earth." Yamal is home to t...

Honduras has the highest murder rate in the world. The People's Funeral Service deals daily with the fall-out from these extreme levels of violence. Set up by the Mayor of Tegucigalpa, the capital city, it distributes coffins, maintains two funeral homes, and even offers a mobile service where employees take everything necessary for a wake - including bread and coffee - to someone's house or local...

In Bangladesh, twenty percent of girls are married before their fifteenth birthday. Jemy is likely to be one of them. She is thirteen years old and due to marry a cousin in three days time. Meanwhile, twelve-year-old Oli is touring the slums of Dhaka, telling parents not to marry off their daughters. And in the wards of the Dhaka Medical College lies Poppy, awaiting an operation to repair a body b...

There's a Turkish saying that every man is born a soldier; and in Turkey every man is conscripted for military service of up to 15 months. There is no alternative to this; Turkey does not recognise the concept of conscientious objection. But one group of people are exempt - homosexuals. Their presence in the army is deemed damaging to morale and operational effectiveness. But the process by which...

Natalia Antelava reports on Uzbekistan where women have become the new target of one of the most repressive regimes on earth. She uncovers evidence that women are being sterilised,often without their knowledge, in an effort by the government to control the population. The programme speaks to victims and doctors and highlights the fear and paranoia that have made this such a difficult story to tell...

Tim Franks looks at the case of two US inmates who have been held in solitary confinement in Louisiana for what will be 40 years this month. It's believed to be the longest period of time in US penal history. For most of their confinement Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace were held in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, a prison often known as "Angola", after the origin of the people who worked ther...

Canada's First Nations communities are in crisis. Addiction to prescription pain-killers is rife, and it's devastating the fragile communities of northern Ontario. OxyContin - an opioid drug capable of inducing a high like heroin - is widely abused in Canada. But on isolated reserves, people talk of an epidemic. For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly travels to Fort Hope - Eabametoong First Nation...