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The Spanish club Real Mallorca have applied to the courts to go into voluntary administration in the next few days in a bid to sort out their finances.
The club have been struggling with a debt of more than 100-million dollars, but only just missed out on a place in next season's Champions League, finishing fifth in the table.
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It has been 20 years since the disappearance of the leading Libyan dissident, Jaballah Matar, from his home in exile in Cairo.
Now, his son, the Booker short-listed writer, Hisham Matar, is calling for governments around the world who have bi-lateral relations with Libya, to press for information about the fate of his father, but also to engage with Libya on ways to reform and develop the country.
In this special documentary, Razia Iqbal reports on the human cost of abduction and disappearance against the backdrop of delicate diplomatic relations and serious trade and business interests.
First broadcast 21 April 2010
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To many people the name Guantanamo conjures up images of detainees in orange, allegations of torture, controversy and trauma.
But to those who live there, Guantanamo means green hills and tumbling waterfalls, distinctive son and guajira music and mouth-watering Jamaican and French influenced cuisine.
In this programme, award-winning travel writer Polly Evans goes in search of the other Guantanamo, talking to local people about their home and how they feel about it becoming synonymous with what Amnesty International called "the gulag of our times".
She delves into the history of the open-ended American lease of this corner of the island - and asks whether the nearly ten thousand Cubans who held construction jobs on the site (and still draw a favourable US pension) have different feelings about it.
As President Obama faces ever mounting pressure to make good his original pledge to close the infamous camp by January 2010, Polly examines the personal, political and cultural stories of a place almost never out of the news - from a perspective that is seldom considered.
First broadcast on May 5 2010.
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Neil McCarthy travels to Ghana to meet the Apostle Asafo - who is both a preacher and technological innovator.
He has been encouraging young people in his church to realize their potential and produce goods that are "Made in Ghana."
From curtains which open when you clap to luxury vehicles, the products coming out of his workshop are teaching technical skills to young Ghanaians which he hopes will be of use in the wider marketplace.
Neil is guided around his remarkable world of innovations and asks whether his unconventional methods can do anything to promote the development of Ghana's manufacturing industry.
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The BBC's Security Correspondent Gordon Corera gains exclusive access to Britain’s ultra secret listening station where super computers monitor the world's communications traffic. It's also where Britain's global eavesdropping and electronic surveillance operations are conducted.
The layers of secrecy which have surrounded the Government's Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) work are peeled away - but what exactly does it do and who is it listening to?
Intelligent signals
Gordon explores the wide area covered by signals intelligence - from looking for terrorists planning attacks against the United Kingdom to supporting military operations of the type underway in Afghanistan.
He speaks to a team from the counter-terrorism section who describe what it's like to listen in on terrorists’ conversations - and the constant battle to predict where the next attack will come from.
Code-breakers also talk about their work, attempting to find a chink in the armour of a carefully encrypted message sent by a terrorist or a foreign government.
Gordon investigates the technological challenges posed by the internet and the threat of cyber warfare, which has led to the establishment of a new cyber operations centre at the GCHQ in Cheltenham, England.
He also explores the scientific and mathematical breakthroughs which have been achieved at GCHQ, including the discovery of public key encryption, which is used when we shop on the internet.
There has been considerable speculation about whether the government is planning huge databases at GCHQ to keep track of all communications and internet traffic.
Do they really spy on us and how accountable are they? Gordon provides the answers.
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Once, bio-fuels were seen as the answer to global warming and dwindling oil stocks. Today, many who took that line, believe instead that they increase pollution and are behind worldwide environmental havoc, rising food prices, and worsening hunger and poverty.
The first official hint of changing attitudes came in the Gallagher Review of 2007, which expressed concerns that bio fuels - renewable liquid fuels derived from plant or animal material – not only didn’t help climate control, but were making poor people in the developing world even poorer.
Once, bio fuels were seen as the answer to global warming and dwindling oil stocks. Today, many who took that view, believe instead that they increase pollution - and are behind worldwide environmental havoc, rising food prices, and worsening hunger and poverty.
Then, bodies as diverse as the World Bank and major charities defined bio fuels as "a crime against humanity" and "a silent tsunami". And then some alarming facts emerged – for example, that the grain required to fill the tank of a Range Rover with ethanol is sufficient to feed one person for a year, and that American land turned over to bio fuel production every two years alone would fill 250 million mouths.
But that is not the whole story. Governments and multi-nationals fight what they see as a simplistic black-and-white approach, insisting that bio fuels remain our best hope for the future - despite some damaging side-effects. Scientists, meanwhile, working on ‘a second generation’ of bio fuels which, they believe, could eradicate those side-effects.
For this two-part documentary, investigative reporter Gerry Northam finds out exactly how much bio fuels cost and who is paying for it.
First broadcast on 3 May 2010
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The US was once the undisputed global powerhouse. Now it is under threat from contenders who use the influence of culture and lifestyle to fight for global economic and political dominance.
This political manipulation is referred to as soft power – achieving what you want by attracting and persuading others to adopt your customs - thriving on control, not force.
In this series, Philip Dodd investigates how this cultural rivalry is being formed and what weapons of persuasion are being deployed, from global sporting fixtures to cultural events and educational projects.
China's charm offensive
In the first part, he takes a look at how China's global charm offensive is taking shape - why they want to be loved and take the world's attention.
He visits the World Expo in Shanghai and looks at the impact the Beijing Olympics had on China's image.
He also pays a visit to Scotland, where the Chinese government is promoting its language and culture to ordinary people - who they are hoping - will develop a more positive attitude to the country.
Philip also reflects on how America - the country where soft power was first thought of - is not the only model to follow. After the wars in Iraq, and Afghanistan, and the financial crisis - many are even questioning the principal of democracy itself.
Listen as he talks to the key players, from those involved in China's soft power offensive in Africa to the Washington civilians unnerved by their country's loss of influence.
First broadcast on 17 May 2010
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A train is hurtling down a railway line. It's out of control and the breaks have failed. Ahead, five people are tied to the track and apparently face certain death. You, however, are standing by the rails and have a chance to save them.
This is the story of an obese gentleman, runaway trains, killing and saving lives. The programme examines moral philosophy and our deepest moral intuitions through a single famous thought-experiment, would you kill the big guy?
In the first programme we saw how most people believe its acceptable to divert a runaway train away from killing five people who are tied to a track, even if by so doing, the train would crash into and kill one other person.
But the majority of people do not think it’s acceptable to stop a train by throwing a large man in front of it - even if this would save five lives.
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Why does this apparently arcane philosophical puzzle matter in the real world?
Well, the politician, the lawyer, the doctor and the soldier all have to make decisions about life and death - about who should live and who should die. The Trolley Problem casts light on when their actions are moral, and when they’re not.
There have also been dozens of studies on popular intuitions in these cases.
The BBC recently conducted an online poll in which 65,000 people took part. Neuroscientists and psychologists have also jumped on the tramwagon. In Harvard and Princeton, brain scans are showing which bit of the brain is being used in the different scenarios.
This two-part series, presented by Steve Evans will explore the tram puzzles - to see what it tells us about what kinds of moral creatures humans are.
First broadcast on 19 May 2010
