Crossing Continents

Kirsty Lang and Lucy Ash ask what the French obsession with film festivals - of which they have 168 - says about the nation.

Andrew Harding meets the Somali/British Mayor trying to clean up his city. Can the former student from London tackle the impact of mass corruption and violence while staying alive?

After the feminist punks, Pussy Riot, sparked outrage in Moscow Cathedral, Lucy Ash explores the complex relations between Church, State and protest in Putin's Russia.

The East German secret police, The Stasi, loved to keep records and built up a library of hundreds of thousands of files on its own people. When the order came to destroy those files after the fall of the Berlin Wall, there was so much paper to get through the state’s shredders collapsed under the pressure. Two decades on, Chris Bowlby visits Berlin to meet the archivists using modern technology to restore this nearly-destroyed record of Germany’s communist past and learns how the search for the truth within the archives is as important as ever to many Germans who grew up in the Stasi era.

America needs to re-invent itself. Claire Bolderson taps into the under exploited potential of America's fastest growing minority and asks if Latinos hold the key to a reborn USA.

Israel's ultra-Orthodox Jews have been exempt from conscription - but now that could change. Linda Pressly investigates how the issue is exposing deep faultlines in Israeli society

A proposed gold mine at Rosia Montana in Transylvania promises much-needed jobs and a multi- bilion dollar boost to the Romanian economy - but this open-cast gold mine, which would be Europe's largest, has caused a political storm across the country.

In Bulgaria no fewer than 15 football club bosses have been murdered in the last decade. Crossing Continents investigates the longstanding connection between crime, politics and football in Bulgaria and asks is violence and corruption in the game getting further out of control?

Coal mining is proving a popular career choice in south east Poland where young people have found work in re-opened coal mines. Travelling to Katowice, Lucy Ash also finds other young job seekers resorting to illicit means because they say the country's taxes are crippling them.

Hungarian university students with state funded places must sign a contract promising to stay in the country for a decade after they graduate - even longer for medical students. The Hungarian government introduced the measures as it is desperate to avoid a brain drain, but many claim the new law violates freedom of movement within the EU.

BBC Seoul correspondent Lucy Williamson explores the growing popularity of South Korean Host Bars where female customers select and pay for male companions.

The Five Star Movement is a new force in Italian politics, launched by the country's best known comedian, Beppe Grillo. Lucy Ash meets one of the movement's proteges, 22-year-old Mattia Calise, a political science student and Milan city councillor. Mattia is passionate about transparency and irritates the mainstream parties by recording council sessions and putting them on his blog. He has also campaigned to reduce the influence of the Mafia.

When the economic crisis hit, Latvia introduced some of the strictest austerity measures to be found anywhere in Europe and its GDP fell by 25 per cent. Now it is hailed by the IMF as a great success story, but Lucy Ash discovers that life for young people is still extremely tough. She speaks to those who have lost their homes but still owe the banks huge debts, while others have simply left the country.

As the euro crisis deepens and schisms emerge, Lucy Ash travels across Europe to meet the continent's next generation, who face an uncertain future. She travels to the affluent German town of Schwabisch Hall. Short of skilled workers, the town appealed to job seekers across Europe and recieved thousands of applications overnight. But how are the new arrivals adjusting to life in Germany?

Karachi has a population of 20 million, of whom an estimated half a million are chronic heroin addicts. Mobeen Azhar finds out how a charity is helping them and their families.