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2,058 episodes — Page 35 of 42

Forced labour in China

We hear from the western Chinese province of Xinjiang, where perhaps 1.5 million Uighur Muslims are believed to be held in what Chinese authorities call 're-education' camps, and where we hear testimony of forced labour in factories. Vice News journalist Isobel Yeung tell us what she saw on a recent visit to the province. Darren Byler, a social anthropologist affiliated with the University of Colorado at Boulder, tell us about the extent of the forced labour operation there.(Photo: A watchtower on a high-security facility near what is believed to be a re-education camp where mostly Muslim ethnic minorities are detained, on the outskirts of Hotan, in China's northwestern Xinjiang region, Credit: Getty Images)

Jan 27, 202017 min

What next for Africa's richest woman?

Isabel dos Santos faces charges in her native Angola. The daughter of the former long-time president is accused of corruption after a leak of documents. Ed Cropley, former Reuters sub-Saharan Africa bureau chief, discusses what could happen next. Mark Hays from the campaign group Global Witness explains why the role of international banks and accountants in the scandal shouldn't be a surprise. Tom Keatinge from the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank, argues that countries like the UK have made some progress in tackling money laundering.(Photo: Isabel dos Santos in 2018, Credit: Getty Images)

Jan 24, 202017 min

The products used again and again and again...

Why don't more manufacturers embrace the principles of the circular economy? It's a pertinent question, given the dire state of the recycling industry.Manuela Saragosa speaks to one company that has already implemented the principles of the circular economy. Cardboard box manufacturer DS Smith tracks its products throughout their life, and can reuse the fibres they contain up to 25 times, according to the firm's sustainability lead, Sam Jones.So why don't more manufacturers do the same? Manuela speaks to circular economy expert Alexandre Lemille, Jarkko Havas of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and Josephine von Mitschke-Collande of EIT Climate-KIC in Switzerland.(Picture: Old plastic water bottle on a beach; Credit: s-c-s/Getty Images)

Jan 23, 202018 min

Mapping paradise

Katie Prescott revisits the efforts of the Zanzibar government to chart its territory by flying drones across the African spice island.A year ago she met planning minister Mohammed Juma, the brains behind this ambitious project that aims to clarify land property rights, provide information to local residents about the location of services and amenities, and help the government plan everything from flood management to urban redevelopment.Katie catches up with Edward Anderson of the World Bank, who headed up the drone mapping project, to find out how the data they have gathered is now being crunched by artificial intelligence algorithms, and being made available to the public.Producer: Sarah Treanor(Picture: Aerial view of Zanzibar beach; Credit: den-belitsky/Getty Images)

Jan 22, 202018 min

Cities at a standstill

How strikes and protests affect the economies of major cities. Will Bain visits Paris to see how strikes on the transport network are affecting local businesses, while Ed Butler speaks to author and former Hong Kong civil servant Rachel Cartland about the economic impact of anti-China protests in the region.(Photo: Protests against the policies of French president Emmanuel Macron in Paris in January, Credit: Getty Images)

Jan 21, 202017 min

Being watched at work

The monitoring of employees in the workplace is becoming commonplace. Ed Butler speaks to Sean Petterson, boss of StrongArm Technologies, a company that monitors construction and warehouse workers to reduce workplace accidents. Griff Ferris from the anti-surveillance campaign group Big Brother Watch explains why workplace monitoring could be imposed without employees' consent. Brian Kropp from the advisory firm Gartner questions the value of all the data being generated by monitoring technology.(Photo credit: Getty Images)

Jan 20, 202018 min

Insomnia and the smartphone

Modern tech is accused of interfering with our sleep, keeping us up late anxiously staring at our phone screens. But could a phone app provide the cure?Roughly one in three people in most developed countries typically tell surveys that the suffer from insomnia. The BBC's Laurence Knight is one of them. He seeks the advice of sleep physician Dr Guy Leschziner of Guy's Hospital in London, who explains how sleep and anxiety can become a vicious circle.The good news is that there is a new non-drug treatment that is proving remarkably successful - cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia. The bad news is that there are nowhere near enough trained clinicians able to provide treatment. That provides a gap in the market - and one that Yuri Maricich of US medical tech firm Pear Therapeutics hopes to fill with a mobile phone app of all things.(Picture: Cell phone addict man awake at night in bed using smartphone; Credit: OcusFocus/Getty Images)

Jan 17, 202018 min

Microworkers teaching robots

How the rise of 'microwork' is helping develop artificial intelligence. Ed Butler speaks to New York Times reporter Andy Newman about his experience on Mechanical Turk - the Amazon-owned platform that offers tiny jobs for tiny wages. Microworker Michelle Munoz explains how she makes a good living from online microwork in Venezuela. Ronald Schmelzer, analyst at Cognilytica, an AI market research firm, explains why data-labelling tasks common on microworking sites play a central role in developing artificial intelligence. And researcher and author Mary Gray warns about the impact of microwork on workers' rights.Producer: Edwin Lane(Photo credit: Getty Images)

Jan 16, 202018 min

Where has all the good soil gone?

Soil degradation is reducing crop yields and adding to climate change. It's a big headache not just for farmers, but for all of us.But fear not, as Ed Butler heads to a wheat field in eastern England where farmer Simon Cowell thinks he has a simple, counter-intuitive solution to the problem: Cut back on fertilisers and pesticides, and plough less. He claims it restored his land in two years. But if it's this simple, why isn't everyone doing it? And what happens if we don't do anything? How quickly will we run out of usable soil, and how much carbon will our soils emit into the atmosphere?The programme also features interviews with Ronald Vargas of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization; professor of soil conservation Jane Rickson of Cranfield University; and geologist David Montgomery of the University of Washington.Producer: Josh Thorpe(Picture: Close-up young plant growing in the soil; Credit: Mintr/Getty Images)

Jan 15, 202018 min

The power-hungry internet

Why our growing use of technology is a threat to the planet. Ed Butler speaks to Ian Bitterlin, a visiting professor at the University of Leeds in the UK and an expert in the data centres that underpin the internet and use vast amounts of energy. Ruiqi Ye, a climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace in Beijing, explains why data centres are adding to the climate change problem. Halvor Bjerke from Norway's DigiPlex, the Nordic region’s leading data centre supplier, tells us why putting more data centres in colder parts of the world could be part of the solution.Producer: Josh Thorpe(Photo: Servers in a data centre in the UK, Credit: Getty Images)

Jan 14, 202018 min

The next big thing

How easy is it to predict where tech will take us in the next decade, and have we hit a plateau in the pace of innovation?Manuela Saragosa speaks to author and artist Douglas Coupland, who retells how a mind-bending run-in with a Google research team left him convinced that the next huge development hurtling towards us like a meteor is what he calls "talking with yourself".Science fiction predictions of the future are notoriously wayward - where are the hoverboards and ubiquitous fax machines promised by the Back to the Future films? Nonetheless, forecasting tech developments can be 85% accurate over a 10-year time horizon, according to professional futurologist Dr I D Pearson.But while tech may continue to take us to new and strange places in the long term, has Silicon Valley run out of earth-shattering new products, at least in the short term? The BBC's Zoe Kleinman reports from a rather subdued CES 2020 tech conference in Las Vegas.Producer: Laurence Knight(Picture: Cracked egg containing computer circuitry; Credit: sqback/Getty Images)

Jan 13, 202018 min

Brand Meghan and Harry

Royal brands and the value of the monarchy. Manuela Saragosa speaks to the BBC's royal correspondent Jonny Dymond about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's decision to move away from the royal family. David Haigh from the consultancy Brand Finance outlines the value of the British monarchy to the economy and discusses what Harry and Meghan might do next. Mauro Guillen, professor of international management at the Wharton School in the US, discusses the economic impacts of monarchies around the world.(Photo: The British royal familyon the balcony of Buckingham Palace, Credit: Getty Images)

Jan 10, 202017 min

OK Boomer...

Are millennials being given a financial raw deal by their parents' generation? And who do the Baby Boomers expect to pay for their retirement?Manuela Saragosa looks at the intergenerational contract - the promise that the younger generation will see an improvement in their living standards, in return for which they will care for the older generation in their old age. But is the contract broken?Many of those born in the developed world in the 1980s and 1990s face inflated housing costs and student fees, stagnant wages and insecure jobs, and little prospect of saving for their retirement. Manuela speaks to one such Millennial - BBC colleague Faarea Masud, whose own podcast series About The Money! charts the precarious financial state of her generation.Plus Laura Gardiner of think tank The Resolution Foundation explains how the different generations need to work together to manage the demographic challenge of an ageing population, rather than get mired in the "OK Boomer" culture war that has broken out on social media.Producers: Laurence Knight, Sarah Treanor(Picture: Close-up of irritated Millennial man with Boomer father looking on; Credit: SDI Productions/Getty Images)

Jan 9, 202017 min

North Korea: Suffering under sanctions?

How does North Korea raise foreign currency, and are the toughest economic sanctions in the world actually having any effect?Ed Butler looks at one of the country's major sources of income - migrant workers. According to Artyom Lukin, professor of international relations at Russia's Far Eastern Federal University, the workers who used to frequent his hometown of Vladivostok have been shooed away by the Russian authorities.But analyst Lee Sang Hyun of South Korea's Sejong Institute is sceptical that the Chinese are clamping down heavily on Pyongyang, while Ian Bremmer of US think tank the Eurasia Group says the American government has little to show for the pressure it has been applying.(Picture: North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un; Credit: Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images)

Jan 8, 202017 min

Uber and Lyft vs California

A battle is looming over the future of the gig economy. A law classifying Uber and Lyft drivers as employees came into force in California on 1 January, but the ridesharing giants say their drivers are independent contractors, and proposed their own laws. Ed Butler speaks to Edan Alva, a Lyft driver in San Francisco and a member of the advocacy group Gig Workers Rising, and to Stacey Wells, spokesperson for the Coalition to Protect App-Based Drivers & Services – the group sponsored by Uber and Lyft to push alternative legislation in California. And Ken Jacobs, chair of the UC Berkeley Labor Center, tells us what this means for the broader gig economy.(Photo: Lyft and Uber pickup point in Los Angeles, California. Credit: Getty Images)

Jan 7, 202017 min

The US and China in 2020

How the battle of the superpowers might unfold this year. Ed Butler speaks to Ian Bremmer, president and founder of the Eurasia Group, Linda Yueh, economist and author of The Great Economists, and Ngaire Woods, professor of global economic governance at the University of Oxford, and founding chair of the Blavatnik School of Government.(Photo: Chess pieces representing the US and China. Credit: Getty Images)

Jan 6, 202018 min

LA's housing crisis

Regan Morris looks at the housing crisis in LA where around 60,000 rough sleepers bed down each night. In a city of sky high rents and scarce availability, are dormitories the answer for young professionals struggling to rent or buy a place of their own? We take a tour of the city's 'pod' accommodation which houses multiple men and women in one room for $50 a night. We also look at zoning - a controversial policy which designates specific areas on the sidewalk for rough sleepers and would cut down the space available to bed down. And will tough restrictions on Airbnb help ease the pressure on housing?Picture description: A man closes his tent after a night on the streets of Los Angeles, California Picture by Frederic.J.Brown for AFP via Getty Images

Jan 3, 202017 min

The workplace re-imagined

As a new decade dawns, Elizabeth Hotson asks if workplace design needs to be rethought to make work a more positive experience. We visit London-based customer finding company, MVF, which allows employees to bring their dogs into the office. The canine theme is continued at Sanity Marketing, where a Chihuahua called Lola calls the shots in the morning meeting. We try out the giant slide in the office of cloud computing company, Rackspace and visit The Wing which provides a work space for a mostly female membership base. We crowd into the sauna at global money transfer company Transferwise and Joshua Zerkel from technology firm, Asana in California extols the virtues of one meeting-free day a week. Meanwhile, Tom Carroll from property consultancy JLL, tells us what employees really want from workplaces. Producer: Elizabeth HotsonPhoto Description: Some offices have a dog-friendly office policy Photo by Elizabeth Hotson

Jan 2, 202017 min

Rights of nature

In July 2019 Bangladesh took the unusual step of granting all its rivers “legal personhood”. It was the result of a long fight by environmental campaigners, alarmed by the damage done to the country’s vital river system by pollution and the effects of climate change. But does passing a law recognising that nature has rights, just as humans do, automatically guarantee its protection? According to its supporters, the movement for the Rights of Nature is an expanding area of law, but are those laws anything more than just symbolic? We talk to Dr Mohammad Abdul Matin by the banks of the Buriganga River in Dhaka about the future for the country’s rivers and in New Zealand to Chris Finlayson, who was attorney general in the centre right government that in 2017 passed a law recognising the Whanganui River as a living entity. And Cardiff University law professor, Anna Grear, tells us why giving natural phenomena the same legal status as humans is no safeguard against exploitation. Join Tamasin Ford on the foreshore of the River Thames to find out more about the rights of nature.(Photo: Fisherman throwing his net into the Buriganga River, Credit: BBC)

Jan 1, 202017 min

Phosphates and the disputed corner of north-west Africa

Phosphate mining is crucial to global food production, given that phosphorus is an essential ingredient in commercial fertilisers. By far, the largest reserves of the world’s phosphates are in Morocco. And while Morocco is the third-largest miner of phosphates, a small percentage of its production comes from the disputed territory of Western Sahara. Morocco considers the territory as part of its country, something the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and the Polisario Front vehemently disagree with.Matt Davies travels to Morocco to speak to Nada Elmajdoub, an executive at the national phosphate company OCP. He also hears from Mohamed Kamal Fadel, a spokesperson for the Polisario Front, which is bringing legal challenges against Morocco's phosphate exports in its bid to win independence for Western Sahara.Meanwhile Professor Stuart White of the University of Technology Sydney questions the sustainability of the planet's usage of mined phosphates to boost crop yields, plus Stephen Zunes, a professor of Middle East politics at the University of San Francisco, explains the history of the Western Sahara conflict and how Morocco gained the upper hand.(Picture: Phosphate rock; Credit: prim91/Getty Images)

Dec 31, 201918 min

Reinventing capitalism

Can corporations be repurposed to prioritise society and the environment over profit? Ed Butler discusses the question with BBC Business Editor Simon Jack, who says he sees signs of real change. With a climate emergency upon us, many people in business and finance appear to be having a genuine change of heart about economist Milton Friedman's famous maxim that the corporation's sole purpose should be to maximise shareholder value. Perhaps corporations have other responsibilities too?Among the capitalists talking this new talk are Stephen Badger, chairman of the giant family-owned US confectionary company Mars, and Alan Jope, chief executive of Anglo-Dutch consumer goods conglomerate Unilever.(Picture: A cute piggy bank sits astride a large pile of coins; Credit: Petmal/Getty Images)

Dec 30, 201918 min

Are friends electric?

When will artificial intelligence be capable of providing intelligent conversation? Jane Wakefield looks at two AI systems that still fall well short in the so-called Turing Test of passing themselves off as human. Amazon's virtual assistant Alexa may be capable of ordering your groceries or even cracking a joke, but shockingly she has never heard of Business Daily. Despite this clear evidence of limited intelligence, head scientist Rohit Prasad insists that his baby has smarts.Meanwhile a more glamorous build-you-own-buddy is Sophia (pictured), the android capable of 60 facial expressions, which apparently was enough to earn her Saudi citizenship. But is she more than just a pretty latex face? Jane speaks to her creator and biggest fan, David Hanson.(Picture: The humanoid robot Sophia, which was granted citizenship in Saudi Arabia; Credit: Pavlo Conchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Dec 27, 201918 min

Hack my brain

Facebook and Elon Musk are among those interested in the potential use of brain probes to read minds and enhance human capabilities.Jane Wakefield looks at the technology of inserting electronic implants into the brain, and the ethical implications. Dr Ali Rezai of the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute uses the probes to treat people with conditions such as epilepsy and drug addiction, but fears where commercialisation of the technology could lead.Jane also speaks to bioethicist Dr Sarah Chan of the UK’s Royal Society; and with Noel Sharkey, professor of artificial intelligence at the University of Sheffield.(Picture: MRI scan of a patient treated with a deep brain stimulation implant at Grenoble University Hospital in France; Credit: BSIP/UIG Via Getty Images)

Dec 26, 201918 min

Will flying taxis ever take off?

Will giant drones one day ferry us all through the heavens all on our way to and from work? Jane Wakefield speaks to two German companies who are working on that vision. Daniel Wiegand, co-founder of Lilium, says his company's sleek battery-powered creation can neither be seen nor heard as it whizzes through the air - which apparently is a good thing. Meanwhile Alexander Zosel, founder of rival Volocopter, assures Jane that commuters will be perfectly safe as they are raised aloft in his pilotless aircraft.But aerospace analyst Richard Aboulafia questions whether these services will ever be affordable to the average bus or train passenger. Plus Jeremy Wagstaff.(Picture: Visitors watch a prototype of the first flying taxi, the eVTOL by the company Lilium, at the Digital Summit in Nuremberg, Germany; Credit: Christof Stache/AFP via Getty Images)

Dec 25, 201918 min

Smart cities: Big Data's watching you

City streets are becoming a valuable source of big data, so should we care who is gathering it and how it is being used?In Shenzhen in China, the authorities are using video footage and facial recognition technology to reward or punish citizens' good or bad behaviour - such as littering or running red lights - via "social credit" systems. Meanwhile in the Canadian city of Toronto, a new waterfront redevelopment is introducing similar sensors and smart tech from Google subsidiary Sidewalk Labs. But does this just represent another data bonanza for the tech giant at the expense of people's privacy?Jane Wakefield speaks to Sidewalk Labs' head of urban systems Rit Aggarwala, local activist Julie Beddoes, as well as tech consultant Charles Reed Anderson, (Picture: CCTV security camera front of a city office building; Credit: nunawwoofy/Getty Images)

Dec 24, 201918 min

Smart cities: How Barcelona learned to listen

Smart sensors can improve citizens' lives, especially when residents are put in charge of gathering the data.Jane Wakefield reports from the Placa del Sol in Barcelona, where Guillem Camprodon of the city's Fab Lab explains how his initiative of placing noise detectors around the square helped residents finally get the city council to take the problem of night-time disturbances seriously.Michael Donaldson, the city's commissioner for digital innovation argues that public authorities ought to be able to collect more user data, in the same way that online businesses do, in order to improve public services. But tech consultant Charles Reed Anderson warns that the hype around the potential for smart cities far exceeds what is currently achievable, while Sandra Baer of Personal Cities argues that humans need to remain at the centre of such efforts.(Picture: Noise level sensor in Barcelona; Credit: BBC)

Dec 23, 201918 min

How 24/7 life is rewiring our brains

A group of artists look at how our modern hyper-connected always-on lifestyles are affecting our behaviour and interfering with our sleep.Their work has been brought together in an exhibition at London's Somerset House, called 24/7: A Wake-Up Call for our Non-Stop World. Manuela Saragosa takes a tour with director and co-curator Jonathan Reekie.Plus the Canadian artist and author Douglas Coupland tells Manuela how he religiously guards his sleep hours in the name of creativity, and how he remembers the moment he realised his brain was being rewired by the internet back in the 1990s.Producer: Laurence Knight(Picture: Sprites I by Alan Warburton, showing at Somerset House; Credit: Alan Warburton via Somerset House)

Dec 20, 201917 min

Our digital afterlife

What happens to your online presence when you die, and who owns your data? Manuela Saragosa speaks to Carl Ohman, a researcher in the digital afterlife from the Oxford Internet Institute, and Dr Elaine Kasket, a counselling psychologist and author of All The Ghosts In The Machine: Illusions of Immortality in the Digital Age.(Picture: Cloud in the form of a mouse cursor arrow; Credit: cinek20/Getty Images)

Dec 19, 201918 min

Have you paid your taxes?

Tax evasion is rife in many parts of the world, but might that be partly because we are we taxing the wrong things?Ed Butler looks at two countries overwhelmed by the problem. Bolivia has the proportionately largest tax-avoiding black economy in the world (at least of countries that gather statistics on these things). Katy Watson reports from a hilltop flea market where paying tax is simply considered bad for business.Meanwhile Greek economist Nicholas Economides discusses his country's clampdown on the 30% of the economy that operates below the tax radar by encouraging a shift away from cash towards electronic payments that can be more easily monitored.But are all these efforts being directed at the wrong targets? Most of the tax burden falls on labour in the form of income tax, but comedian and author Dominic Frisby says wealth, land and capital are let off far too lightly.(Picture: Bolivian woman carrying her baby; Credit: hadynyah/Getty Images)

Dec 18, 201918 min

When women aren't counted

Gender bias in data collection. Manuela Saragosa speaks to Caroline Criado Perez, author of Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, winner of the Financial Times business book of the year. Why are there no female crash test dummies? We ask Lotta Jakobsson from the Volvo Cars Safety Centre in Gottenburg in Sweden. And The BBC's Stephanie Hegarty on efforts to steps to make the city of Barcelona more women-friendly. (Photo: Crash test dummy heads on display, Credit: Getty Images)

Dec 17, 201917 min

Brexit: What happens next?

Three experts on the next steps for Boris Johnson, Britain and the EU, after a big win for the sitting British prime minister in national elections. Ed Butler speaks to Jill Rutter from the research group UK in a Changing Europe, Sir Andrew Cahn, former head of UK Trade & Investment - a UK government department, and Rebecca Christie, visiting fellow at the Bruegel Institute in Brussels. (Photo: Boris Johnson after his election victory, Credit: Getty Images)

Dec 16, 201918 min

The death of expertise

Why do so many people think they know best? And are they putting dolts in charge of government?Ed Butler speaks to Professor Tom Nichols of the US Naval War College, himself an expert on national security, who wrote a book about why everyone from surgeons to electricians to academics find themselves under attack from novices and ignoramuses who think their opinions should have equal weight.We also hear from Michael Lewis, whose new book The Fifth Risk examines the extent to which President Trump has neglected the US civil service. Is there a risk of something going catastrophically wrong - for example a nuclear waste containment or a natural disaster response - through the sheer inattention and incompetence of the people put in charge? Plus, might the root of the problem be the Dunning-Kruger Effect - a psychological trait whereby the inept are unaware of their own ineptness? We ask Professor David Dunning from the University of Michigan.Producer: Laurence KnightRepeat. First broadcast on 13 November 2018.(Picture: Two-year-old girl plays with carpentry tools; Credit: lisegagne/Getty Images)

Dec 13, 201918 min

Old city v new city

Should we protect historic neighbourhoods from redevelopment when new homes are desperately needed?Manuela Saragosa looks at two cities at opposite ends of the spectrum. Historian Qin Shao tells of the destruction of her home city of Shanghai over the last 30 years, as entire districts have been demolished to make way for sparkling new high rise buildings. Meanwhile Laura Foote of the campaigning group Yimby Action explains why young residents of San Francisco like her are demanding the construction of many more affordable homes.So is it possible to strike a balance between the need to conserve and the need to build? Manuela visits one London building recently saved from the developers - the Smithfield market in London's financial district - and asks Chris Costelloe of the Victorian Society where he would draw the line.Producer: Laurence Knight(Photo: An old residential building being demolished to make room for skyscrapers in Shanghai; Credit: Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images)

Dec 12, 201918 min

Surviving the surveillance state

Facial recognition tech is spreading everywhere, but it can still be fooled with a bit of face paint. So should we be worried?Ed Butler speaks to Professor Alan Woodward, professor of computer science at the University of Surrey, and James Stickland, chief executive of facial recognition tech developer Veridium.Meanwhile the BBC's China media analyst Kerry Allen tells the grim story of a man who tried to use a dead girl's face to get a bank loan. Plus Ed's face is transformed into a Mondrian painting by anti-surveillance activists The Dazzle Club.(Picture: Ed Butler's face covered in anti-surveillance paint; Credit: Ed Butler)

Dec 11, 201918 min

Delivering in the gig economy

How online shopping is fuelling insecure work for delivery drivers. British film director Ken Loach talks about his new film Sorry We Missed You, looking at the impact of insecure work on family life. The BBC's Edwin Lane rides along with a gig economy worker delivering Amazon parcels. And analyst Andrew Lipsman from eMarketer explains how Amazon Prime is driving demand for faster delivery times.(Photo: Amazon-branded delivery vans seen in May 2019, Credit: Getty Images)

Dec 10, 201917 min

US drug companies and the NHS

Is Britain's health service really up for sale? Ahead of a general election in the UK, Ed Butler looks at why the NHS probably gets a good deal on drug prices compared with other countries, and why US drug companies might want the health service on the table in any post-Brexit trade deal between the US and the UK. We hear from the BBC's health editor Hugh Pym, US pharmaceutical industry analyst Nielsen Hobbs and Professor Allyson Pollock, director of the Institute of Health and Society at Newcastle University.(Photo: Protestors show support for the NHS at a protest in London, Credit: Getty Images)

Dec 9, 201918 min

A machine to break down all language barriers

The BBC's Kizzy Cox in New York tries out the developers at tech firm Waverly Labs say can translate between any of 20 spoken languages in just a couple of seconds. Harvard Business School professor Tsedal Neeley describes what happened when one Chilean company switched from Spanish to English overnight. And Melanie Butler, editor of the English Language Gazette, explains why there's a global shortage of English teachers.Producer: Laurence Knight(Photo: Hello in different languages, Credit: Getty Images)

Dec 6, 201917 min

How 'cheap' English is conquering the world

English language proficiency has become a basic skill worldwide, and kids are picking it up in some surprising places.Manuela Saragosa - herself trilingual - asks Melanie Butler, long-time editor of the English Language Gazette, how English has become the unavoidable common currency of global communications. Meanwhile linguistic sociologist Jan Blommaert of the University of Tilburg says a new generation is growing up into a vast plethora of global English-speaking communities, from academic conferences to online computer gaming.Plus Mario Monti, the former European commissioner and Italian prime minister, explains why he thinks the European Union should continue to use the English language as its main means of internal communications, despite the imminent departure of its major English-speaking member state.Producer: Laurence Knight(Photo: Man wearing headphones playing video games late at night; Credit: Kerkez/Getty Images)

Dec 5, 201918 min

Taking football global

The pitfalls when soccer tries to break into the US and Asian markets - and when American football tries to break into Europe.Ed Butler looks at the plan by Javier Tebas, president of La Liga, to take the top-flight Spanish football league international. It includes an as yet unsuccessful attempt to stage a regular football fixture in the USA. Dan Jones, head of the sports business group at Deloitte, says Tebas is correct to see great opportunities, but Spanish sports journalist Alvaro Romeo explains why he's run into so much resistance.Tebas can look to the success of the UK's Premier League in internationalising its brand, or indeed America's National Football League. But has the NFL actually made any profit from its long-running campaign to build a fan-base in the UK? Ed speaks to the their UK director Alistair Kirkwood.(Picture: Marcelo of Real Madrid takes the shot on goal during the International Champions Cup Friendly match between Atletico de Madrid and Real Madrid at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, America; Credit: Ira L. Black/Corbis via Getty Images)

Dec 4, 201918 min

Hidden art

Why the owners of movies and artworks don't want you to see them. Tamasin Ford explains why Disney is removing a catalogue of movies from the cinema circuit following its deal to buy 21st Century Fox, and why artwork is being hidden in tax-free warehouses around the world instead of being displayed in galleries. Producer: Frey Lindsay. (Photo: An illustration of Mickey Mouse at the Disney store in New York, Credit: Getty Images)

Dec 3, 201918 min

China moves from imitator to innovator

Chinese tech giants are gaining further ground in innovation, with development in e-commerce, social media and more, even outstripping the west. Rebecca Fannin, author of Tech Titans of China, explains the rapid growth and how it’s changing domestic consumption. But amid concerns of Chinese state intervention and difficulties in translating domestic apps for a global market, can Chinese tech companies truly enter the world stage? William Bao Bean of Chinaccelerator explains how AI can help tech firms adapt to foreign markets. (Picture: A customer making a payment on a self-service cashier at a supermarket in Jiangsu province, China. Picture credit: Zhang Peng/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Dec 2, 201918 min

Meetings, meetings everywhere...

It's not unusual for office workers to complain about the number of meetings they have to attend, but are they a distraction from real work, as some claim? And why are we having more meetings than ever?It's a question researchers at the University of Malmo in Sweden tried to answer. Patrik Hall, the university's professor of political science, tells us it has to do with the growing number of large organisations. The BBC's former Indonesia correspondent Rebecca Henschke tells us about meeting culture in that country, and Joseph Allen, professor of industrial and organisational psychology at the University of Utah, gives advice on how to make meetings more efficient.

Nov 29, 201918 min

The sea they plan to cover in turbines

Offshore wind power is about to hit the big time in northern Europe, yet 20 years ago many saw the plan to build such complex engineering in the middle of the sea as madness.Laurence Knight investigates how the North Sea - once famous for its oil and gas industry - has now become the global centre for a carbon-free energy industry.Wind enthusiast Dr Robert Gross of Imperial College London talks about the colossal scale of modern turbines. Mud enthusiast Dr Carol Cotterill of the British Geographical Survey describes the Ice Age landscape she has helped explore at the bottom of the sea. And sea enthusiast Michiel Muller of the North Sea Wind Power Hub describes his consortium's plan to build islands and generate lots of hydrogen.(Picture: Wind turbines of the Thorntonbank offshore wind farm in the North Sea at sunset; Credit: Arterra/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Nov 28, 201918 min

How to change your career

Ever thought about changing your career? With people living longer and job security decreasing, sticking with the same career for the whole of your working life is becoming a thing of the past.Edwin Lane speaks to John McAvoy, an armed robber turned record breaking rower, about his career in crime, and when he realised it was time for a change. And Business Daily regular Lucy Kellaway talks about her decision to give up her career in journalism and become a teacher, while labour market economist John Philpott discusses the challenges facing mid-life career switchers. Plus Freakanomics professor Steven Levitt on deciding to make big changes.Repeat(Picture: Businessman tearing off his jacket and shirt; Credit: bowie15/Thinkstock)

Nov 26, 201918 min

What happened to austerity?

As the UK approaches a general election, both major parties have been promising billions of extra pounds to go into hospitals, social care and other public benefits. All this spells an apparent end to ten years of a policy of limited government spending, also known as austerity. The BBC’s Andy Verity explains austerity and what it was meant to do. But why has it ended now? Economists Vicky Pryce and Ryan Bourne debate the relative merit of austerity, whether it succeeded, or indeed whether it was a good idea to begin with. And if indeed the UK is returning to an age of more spending, Alberto Gallo of Algebris Investments warns those funds ought to be spent wisely.(Picture: A man holds up an anti-austerity banner outside Number 10 Downing Street on October 20, 2012 in London, England. Picture credit: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Nov 26, 201918 min

Cryptocurrency's new frontier

Cryptocurrency mining is booming across parts of the former Soviet Union, with a number of regions expending gigawatts of power on mining operations. Ed Butler visits a facility in Georgia run by a firm called BitFury. We’ll also hear why the breakaway Russian-speaking regions of Abkhazia and Transnistria are getting into ‘bitmining’ and what concerns that is raising for environment and corruption investigators.(Photo: A cryptocurrency mining centre in Kirishi, Russia, on August 20, 2018. Credit: Olga Maltseva/AFP/Getty Images)

Nov 25, 201918 min

Why Americans are loving trade unions again

Trade unions in the United States have seen a historic decline since their heyday in the mid-20th Century. But in many sectors labour organisation is making a come-back, particularly in new media and gig economy jobs. Lowell Peterson, executive director of the Writers Guild of America East explains how they have helped a number of digital websites unionise, and Tyler Sandness, a Lyft driver and unionist in Los Angeles, explains the challenges facing gig workers. We also hear from Janice Fine, assistant professor of Labour Studies and Employment Relations at Rutgers University in New Jersey, on why support for trade unions is at its highest in years. (Photo: Rideshare drivers wave flags as they line up their cars during a protest outside of Uber headquarters on 27 August 2019, San Francisco, California. Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Nov 22, 201918 min

Mental health in Africa

One of the continent's most neglected issues is finally getting some attention. Africa is affected by mental illness just like everywhere else, but with the added challenges associated with past civil wars and poverty, and a rapidly growing and urbanising population. Yet just 1% of government health budgets have typically been spent funding mental health services.Manuela Saragosa reports from the Mental Health in Africa Innovation and Investment conference, where policymakers, investors and practitioners have gathered to learn some of the innovative ways that Africans are promoting mental wellbeing despite the lack of resources.The programme features interviews with Dr Victor Ugo, founder of the Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative; Dr Florence Baingana, advisor at the WHO regional office for Africa; Olayinka Omigbodun, professor of psychiatry at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria; Dr Nick Westcott, director of the Royal African Society; and Dr Julian Eaton of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.(Picture: Young man hiding his face; Credit: BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Nov 21, 201918 min

The fight over the Parthenon Marbles

Greece hopes to regain the ancient sculptures from the British Museum, which were taken from Athens two centuries ago by the Earl of Elgin.Tamasin Ford is given a personal tour of the marbles by the museum. But Dr Elena Korka of the Greek Ministry of Culture expresses the outrage felt by her country at the loss of these national treasures, including statues that were physically dismembered in order for sections to be carted away. Both sides assert a legal right to the marbles, although the matter has yet to be definitively settled. We hear the claims and counter-claims from barrister Geoffrey Robertson, as well as from Dr Tatiana Flessas, associate professor of law and the London School of Economics.(Picture: A marble sculpture from the Parthenon in Athens depicting a battle between a centaur and a lapith, on display at the British Museum; Credit: Leon Neal/AFP via Getty Images)

Nov 20, 201918 min

Africa's tech hub explosion

What impact has it had on the continent's tech startup scene? Tamasin Ford speaks to Bosun Tijani, founder of the CcHub in Lagos, about why tech hubs have been so important in driving innovation in recent years, and Ghanaian entrepreneur Charles Ofori Antipem who discusses what tech hubs can do better. The BBC's Massa Kanneh reports from Liberia on the challenges affecting tech hubs in Africa's less developed countries.(Photo: An IT professional in a server room, Credit: Getty Images)

Nov 19, 201918 min