

Fifth Floor
BBC World Service
Faranak Amidi takes a fresh look at the stories of the week with journalists from our 40 language sections.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Nov 2, 2018 • 9min
My Hanoi Childhood in Five Pictures
Queuing for vegetables, fetching boiling water, and jumping the trams: a newly published collection of black and white photographs of Hanoi, taken not long after the end of the Vietnam War, has transported Ha Mi of BBC Vietnamese back to her childhood. Image: A queue outside a Hanoi vegetable shop
Credit: John Ramsden

Oct 26, 2018 • 8min
Edible Gold
Renowned for its colour, price and fragrance, 90% of the world's saffron is grown in Iran. The BBC's Golnoosh Golshani has family ties to a famous saffron-growing region and she tells us about her relationship with this precious spice. Image: Iranian saffron in a gold box
Credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Oct 19, 2018 • 8min
Makoko: Stories of Hope
Makoko is a floating slum in Lagos with a lawless reputation. BBC Pidgin’s Dan Ikpoyi has been a victim of extortion there himself, but his latest video shows a community full of life and optimism.
(Image: Makoko floating slum in Lagos. Credit: BBC)

Oct 12, 2018 • 10min
Spies In The Spotlight
The two Russian "tourists" linked to the Salisbury poisoning have been unmasked as secret agents, using little more than open source websites. So is the golden age of Russian spycraft over? Famil Ismailov and Andrei Soshnikov of BBC Russian share insights. Image: A Man Silhouette In The Night
Credit: Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images

Oct 5, 2018 • 9min
Bolsonaro: The Man Dividing Brazil
Brazilians vote this weekend for a new President and currently ahead in the polls is right-wing candidate Jair Bolsonaro. To his supporters he’s the man to clean up politics and restore order, to his detractors he’s a misogynist who openly supports the former military dictatorship. Camilla Costa of BBC Brasil has been following a campaign she describes as “quite a ride”. Image: Brazilian Presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro
Credit: HEULER ANDREY/AFP/Getty Images

Sep 28, 2018 • 10min
Don’t Tell Us What to Wear
Kyrgyz singer Zere Asylbek showing her bra in music video, Uzbek teachers in mini-skirts, and controversial portraits of Tajik women. Diloram Ibrahimova of BBC Uzbek and Gulnara Kasmambet of BBC Kyrgyz discuss stories from Central Asia that have started a debate about how women should behave and what they should wear.Image and credit: Zere Asylbek, Kyrgyz singer

Sep 21, 2018 • 9min
Reclaiming Mogadishu’s Sports Stadium
In 1979 Somalia opened a state of the art sports stadium to host international sporting events. But with the beginning of the civil war in the 1990s the stadium became a base for successions of fighting forces. Last month it was formally handed it back to the state, so can it reclaim its former glory? BBC Somali’s Ahmed Abdinur was a sports official at the stadium during its glory days.Image: Mogadishu athletics track overgrown with grass and trees after decades of war in Somalia
Credit: Mohamed Abdiwahabafp/Getty Images

Sep 14, 2018 • 10min
Pakistan's Ahmadiyya Problem
Last week Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Imran Khan, appointed a renowned Pakistani economist to an advisory economics panel. But Professor Mian is also a member of the Ahmadiyya religious community, which many Muslims consider to be sacrilegious. Following protests he resigned. So why do the Ahmadiyya stir such passions in Pakistan? BBC Urdu's Khalid Karamat explains.Image: A man cries as he prays at the graves of victims killed in attacks against Ahmadiyya community mosques in 2010.
Credit: Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images

Sep 7, 2018 • 10min
The Bengali Kitchen Divide
Bengalis are united by a love of good food, but divided over who cooks it. West Bengalis love poppy seeds and sugar, East Bengalis dried fish and chilli. BBC Bangla journalists Manoshi Barua from India's West Bengal state, and Masud Khan from Bangladesh, shed light on the Bengali kitchen divide.Image: Shukti, or dried fish, is popular in Bangladesh
Credit: Majority World/UIG via Getty Images

Aug 31, 2018 • 10min
Lost Stories from Uzbekistan
A chance encounter in a Tashkent street brought BBC Uzbek's Ibrat Safo an amazing story. A local academic took him to a museum dedicated to the Uzbek victims of Stalin's purges, and shared some of the stories he'd uncovered.Image: Brothers Muhammadjon and Rahmatjon Avazjanov
Credit: Bahrom Irzayev