Documentaries

Rastafari's global impact after the explosion of Jamaica's Roots Reggae scene in the 1970s. Does this spiritual and cultural movement still have relevance today?

The classic novel, a parable of America's Great Depression, as applied to the US today. Mark Mardell considers John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath.

The BBC's China Editor investigates an elusive cult at the centre of a grisly murder that has shocked the nation.

How Rastafari turned from an ostracised religious sect into a global phenomenon - and its role in replacing the shackles of colonial rule with a forgotten African identity.

The Helmand valley dam complex, is the biggest engineering project in Afghanistan. How has it withstood the Soviet invasion and the conflict that began in 2001?

Presenter Nihal Arthanayake visits UK immigration lawyer Harjap Singh Bhangal who gives advice to migrants seeking visas to work and live in Britain.

As Ukrainian holidaymakers stay away from Crimea's beaches following Russia's annexation of the peninsula, Lucy Ash meets the Russians who are reclaiming their bit of paradise.

David Loyn investigates how a lost document is helping Afghanistan come to terms with its painful past. A war crimes trial in the Netherlands has unearthed a list of 5,000 prisoners detained, tortured and killed by the radical communist regime that ran the country in 1978-79 - a "death list".

Forty years on from President Nixon’s resignation we hear from Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who broke the Watergate story. Did their reporting make Americans more mistrustful of government and ready to believe the worst of their leaders?

In Colombia’s Marxist guerrilla war, thousands of rebel fighters have been female. When they got pregnant, they were forced to have abortions or give their babies up. Now, many of these rebel mothers have demobilised and are desperate to find their children.

Tim Whewell meets the dynamic young women in Turkish Kurdistan who are defining the future of their society.

Theatre director Mehmet Ergen guides us through the politically charged arts scene of his native homeland Turkey, as he negotiates national and cultural borders to stage work that is as unpretentious as it is provocative.

‘I’ll marry your sister if you marry mine. And if you divorce my sister, I’ll divorce yours.’ That is Yemen’s ‘Shegar’, or swap marriage, an agreement between two men to marry each other’s sisters, thereby removing the need for expensive dowry payments. But the agreement also entails that if one marriage fails, the other couple must separate as well - even if they are happy.

***WARNING: This programme includes graphic descriptions of sexual violence*** 'A humanitarian crisis', that's how the medical charity Medicins Sans Frontiers describes the levels of violence against women they are dealing with in Papua New Guinea - levels they usually only witness in war-zones. Russian photojournalist Vlad Sokhin reports on the untold stories of women subjected to the most extreme violence perpetrated anywhere on earth, including the brutal torture of women accused of witchcraft.

Six talented young writers under 35 explore a great grandparent or grandparent's involvement in World War One. This centenary offers a chance to reflect on the gulf that separates young people from the war. Each writer attempts to bridge the gap, to question what the values and sacrifices of the war mean today.