Documentaries

Music from the rising stars of Africa, including wordsmiths M.Anifest from Ghana and Tumi from South Africa, whose conscious rap uses lyrics to challenge and delight. Also featuring Aziza Brahim from western Sahara, Songhai Blues from Mali, Lala Njava from Madagascar, Nigerian pop diva Omawumi, and The Good Ones from Rwanda.

Tim Whewell is one of the few foreign reporters who’ve made it to Tobruk, last toehold of Libya’s elected authorities – holding out against a growing jihadi menace

India is falling in love with Western classical music. In his home-city Mumbai, Zareer Masani encounters the country's first national ensemble, the Symphony Orchestra of India. He visits Furtado's, the city's oldest music shop, which sells hundreds of pianos a year, and discovers that thousands of children learn a Western instrument. Yet, Zareer finds that this is not the total success it seems.

Everything's bigger in Texas and that goes for the personalities who run for election there. While the Republican party is dominant, Democrats believe that they can change the reddest of the red states blue in the coming years. Can the Democratic Party make big gains in the mid-term elections?

Linda Pressly travels to Kosovo and meets the sister of ISIS’ first suicide-bomber from the Balkans. How could Europe’s most pro-American state have fostered such extremism?

In recent years, sperm has been shipped out of Denmark at an astonishing rate, producing thousands of babies worldwide - many in the UK. In 2006, the UK was not importing any Danish sperm, but by 2010 Denmark was supplying around a third of our total imports. Why are Danish donors in such demand? Kate Brian investigates.

Orania, South Africa, remains a 'whites only' town despite the end of apartheid 20 years ago. BBC reporter Stanley Kwenda travels to Orania to explores whether the people of Orania are clinging to a racist past – or whether it is a close-knit community that just happens to be white.

Neal Razzell goes to work with Copenhagen’s hot dog vendors who tell how the humble sausage is a barometer for changing attitudes to class, identity and immigration.

Since the 18th Century, Tamil fishermen have claimed to navigate by the mysterious music of the singing fish of the Batticaloa lagoon in eastern Sri Lanka. The fishermen's ancient name for the creature is Oorie Coolooroo Cradoo (crying shells); scientists believe that the underwater choristers are some kind of fish. But, after 30 years of civil war and the ravages of the tsunami, does any evidence of this strange nocturnal chorus remain?

The rockets and missiles fly, from Israel into Gaza, from Gaza into Israel. It is the latest iteration of the conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbours, which has flared since the very founding of the Jewish state in 1948. Why does this particular conflict, above all others, attract the attention it does?

Tim Mansel on the lives of people in Sierra Leone as they face a three day "lock-down" designed to counter Ebola which has already killed nearly 500 of their compatriots.

In the late 1930's a young Mildred Cummings from Dayton, Ohio is barefoot, standing in the spotlight on stage, wearing that same old shabby dress and a broken straw hat. This is Little Miss Cornshucks and she has the audience in the palm of her hand, a unique act and larger than life personality. By the 1940's she made top-billing at nightclubs across America, performing heartbreaking ballads. But who remembers her now?

Music from the most promising bands of the Mexican music scene. Hear rapper Eptos One, the rock anthems of Zoé, Mexico’s biggest rock band, and happy-go-lucky artist Caloncho. Plus, we talk to the diva of Mexican pop, Julieta Venegas, Centavrus, Hello Seahorse and Little Jesus.

In Ivory Coast, men are going back to the classroom. It's an innovative project dubbed the 'school for husbands' - and designed to save the lives of mothers and children.

The legacy of jazz pianist James Booker. Classically trained in piano and a child prodigy, Booker toured with Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin and played on sessions with Fats Domino and Little Richard. But, gay at a time when homosexuality was a huge taboo and black in a divided America, Booker died alone, aged 43, after a life of drug and alcohol abuse.