Crossing Continents

The world economy has pinned its hopes on China's economy, which depends on over 150 million migrant workers and their labour. The system of internal migration, based on the idea that workers do not settle in the places they work, has sustained an economic miracle and rapid development. But the country has seen a summer of unrest, with rioting among migrants in the Pearl River Delta and angry reactions to the injustices of the system. Mukul Devichand visits Guangzhou, the southern metropolis where 7 million migrants form half the population. There is anger and frustration with the hukou, China's "internal passport." Meanwhile, the city is now also home to communities from around the world, with 100,000 Africans adding to the already sensitive ethnic mix. How will the city change under the pressure of migration, and will its economic success survive the social tensions?

Ed Butler reports on a cycle of abuse in the orphanages of Bali. Some seventy orphanages now populate the island, housing thousands of children, many recruited from poor families, on the promise of a decent diet, education, and healthcare. But in some cases the promises are empty, as unscrupulous owners abuse and exploit the children - using them for free labour over long hours, and forcing them to beg. The most lucrative profits come from well-meaning tourists, who are often convinced by the tough living conditions to give generously - the hope being the money will benefit the children, not the owner. Is such charity actually intensifying the misery of Bali's most vulnerable children?

In 2000, President Robert Mugabe introduced "fast-track land reform" to Zimbabwe in a wave of often violent takeovers of mainly white-owned farms.Led by veterans of the second Chimurenga - the Zimbabwe War of Liberation of the 1960s and 1970s - the takeover was seen internationally as a disaster. It was widely reported that cronyism and corruption meant only the country's politically-connected elite were benefiting from the land reform programme, and in the process were leading Zimbabwe's lucrative agricultural export industry into freefall. But what is the situation a decade on? Martin Plaut travels across Zimbabwe to investigate new research which suggests that farm production levels are recovering. He meets some of Zimbabwe's new black farmers - some of whom took part in the land seizures - who reveal how land reform has transformed their lives. He also examines the fortunes of Zimbabwe's remaining white farmers and the black farm workers they employed and asks if country's wider economy has recovered from

The main focus of the violence in the North Caucasus these days is in Dagestan, Chechnya's neighbour. Shoot-outs between police and Islamist militants occur almost daily, and suicide bombings and assassinations have become common. In response, the authorities use what many see as excessive force and the violence spirals still further. In the past two years suicide bombings in the Moscow metro and a Moscow airport have been traced to the region. In Dagestan it's a war that has touched almost every community and family, and one where differences between the opposing sides are apparently irreconcilable. For the authorities, Dagestan is part of Russia and subject to its secular laws; for the militants the region should be a sharia state independent of Moscow.After ten years trying to combat the militants and their appeal, Russian businessman Suleiman Kerimov has hit on a new idea - football. Sports facilities and pitches are being built across this impoverished and deeply conservative Muslim republic, encouraging

Rupa Jha investigates how local-level campaigners against corruption in India face threats and violence - despite promises that the government will stamp out graft. She tells the stories of two whistleblowers in two different states who faced ferocious intimidation after they tried to challenge powerful individuals on the take. Producer: Ed Butler.

Mukul Devichand goes on the road with young children travelling alone on a journey of desperation, danger and hope - south from Zimbabwe and across the border to South Africa. Producer: Judy Fladmark.

David Shukman reports on the thousands who have become ill from the toxic dust that blanketed Lower Manhattan after the Twin Towers collapsed on Sept 11th. The buildings released a cocktail of deadly carcinogens including, asbestos, lead, mercury and PCBs.Frontline responders such as fire-fighters, police and emergency medical workers breathed in the contamination for several weeks as they toiled at Ground Zero. The fires burned for a hundred days and many of the emergency workers toiled without respirators or proper protection amid the dust and debris.Now officials say more than 18,000 people have received medical treatment in the last 12 months for World Trade Center related conditions - many of them serious. The head of the federal programme overseeing victims compensation says he expects more people to die because of their exposure.Nearly three thousand people perished on the day, but the suffering resulting from the attack is far from over. Producer: Linda Sills.

On the 18th of February 2011 a Palestinian engineer by the name of Dirar Abu Sisi boarded a train in eastern Ukraine. He was travelling to Kiev, where he hoped to apply for Ukrainian citizenship. But when the train arrived at its destination the following morning, Mr Abu Sisi was no longer on board. He had vanished. For more than a week, nothing was heard from Mr Abu Sisi, a manager at Gaza's main power plant. Then his wife got a phone call: her husband was in an Israeli jail. Now he is awaiting trial, accused of being the brains behind Hamas' rocket programme.Only twice in the country's history has Israel abducted someone on foreign soil to bring them back to face trial at home. Adolf Eichmann, one of the principal organizers of the Holocaust, was kidnapped in Argentina in 1960, and subsequently tried and executed. In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu was drugged and smuggled out of Italy after revealing the existence of Israel's nuclear programme. So who is Dirar Abu Sisi? Did he really study rocket science at a Ukrai

In December, Ghana turned on the taps and began pumping its first commercial oil. Production will top 100,000 barrels a day this year -- enough the government believes to more than double the country's economic growth. At the centre of this oil rush is the once sleepy city of Takoradi. Already things are starting to change here: new businesses setting up to service the offshore oil industry, an increase in population, and, spiralling expectations. So can Ghana - one of the most stable countries in Africa - escape the curse of violence and corruption that has afflicted other big oil producers on the continent? Rob Walker visits Takoradi to find out, and he'll be returning to observe the transformation of Africa's newest oil city over the coming years. Producer: Katharine Hodgson.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of Central Americans leave home and travel north overland, hoping to make a new life in the United States.This has always been a difficult journey. Now it is perilous. Mexican drug cartels have seen a business opportunity in the migrants: they are being systematically kidnapped en route, and held to ransom. Often they have been killed, and Mexico is currently investigating a number of mass graves.With the Mexican government's hardline military campaign against the cartels, these criminal organisations are moving south. The northern Guatemalan department of Peten - an area through which many migrants cross to Mexico - is vulnerable. On May, 27 farmworkers were killed at a remote farm in Peten. This was apparently revenge for a drug debt, and the killers are believed to be Zetas - the bloodiest Mexican cartel. The Zetas are battling other organised crime groups to take control of Peten. There's a fear that if they succeed, not only will they terrorise the local population, but

Tim Judah travels to Senegal to report on the Mourides, an increasingly powerful Senegalese Muslim movement that stresses the importance of hard workMany of the African street sellers in cities like Paris or Rome, and on Mediterranean beaches, are in fact Mourides. Far from being chancers who washed up on Europe's shores and now barely scrape a living from selling fake designer handbags or miniature Eiffel towers, they are part of a very organised and supportive brotherhood that now wields great economic and political power in Senegal. Thanks to their strong work ethic and the unparalleled networking opportunities the brotherhood provides, Mourides now dominate many sectors of the economy.They are said to constitute up to 40% of Senegalese Muslims (who make up over 90% of the population.) So not surprisingly, senior politicians, if they are not Mourides anyway, are courting the Mouride vote by going on pilgrimage to the Mouride holy city, Touba, several hours' drive east of the capital. The president of Seneg

Lucy Williamson reports from Seoul on the dangerous trade of the people brokers, smuggling desperate people out of North Korea to the safety of the South. She investigates the way the South Korean government tries to integrate refugees from the North into their own modern, open society - and the challenges this creates for people who have only known poverty and extreme political repression.

Crossing Continents joins a British doctor volunteering to help women and children stranded in Tunisian refugee camps while the men fight Gaddafi's forces in the mountains south of Tripoli. Producer: Bill Law.

The BBC's Kim Ghattas has gained exclusive, behind the scenes access to the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during one of her recent overseas visits. Code named "Special Air Mission 883", the trip took eight days, covered thirty thousand miles and touched down in four countries in the Middle East and Africa.Kim joins what is affectionately known as "the bubble", the travelling band of diplomatic staffers, special security detail, international press and handlers that accompany the Secretary, or "S" as she is known, on the trip. We share their thoughts and hopes, priorities and frustrations as Hillary Clinton pursues United States foreign policy goals. There are meetings of high diplomacy with kings and rulers as well as more grass roots events like the promotion of democracy and good governance at an African womens collective.A surprisingly intimate portrait of the Secretary and her closest aides. Producer: Jane Beresford.

Early-onset Alzheimer's has stalked a poor extended family in Medellin, Colombia. The family carries a dominant gene that means that half are at risk. The disease strikes family members as young as 25 and by their 40s sufferers are in the grip of full-blown dementia. Alzheimer's is by and large a disease of the developed world, if for no other reason than that people in the developing world don't live long enough to suffer from it. Now by using the Colombian family to trial new drugs, researchers say they may be on the road to a global cure for Alzheimer's. Bill Law asks if this represents an unfair exploitation of desperate people - many of them barely literate - to benefit those in the West? Or is it a case of bringing hope to those in a hopeless situation? Producer: Natalie Morton.

Following the discovery that Osama Bin Laden was living close to the heart of Pakistan's military establishment in Abbotabad, Owen Bennett-Jones investigates the ties between elements of Pakistan's army, intelligence and government with jihadi and Taleban forces. Producer: Rebecca Kesby.

In South Africa a mining company whose owners include the grandson of Nelson Mandela and the nephew of President Jacob Zuma has left thousands of its employees without work and, they claim, without pay.Back in 2009 the company, Aurora Empowerment Systems, bid R605 million (£55 million) to take over two gold mines on the outskirts of Johannesburg, despite having no experience in mining industry. Aurora promised steady jobs, housing and bursaries for miners' children. The reality has been poverty, despair and even suicide, and mining unions claim the company still owes workers around R12 million in unpaid wages (£1.1 million). Aurora denies this, and says they have paid 80 per cent of the outstanding salaries. Martin Plaut travels to South Africa and sees first hand the personal despair of the affected mine workers, and learns how the Aurora debacle has created a schism between the ruling ANC party and the working-class black South African voters, who feel the country's political elite no longer care about thei

Lucy Ash revisits some of the significant stories covered in recent years and discovers what has changed since our initial reports. In some instances, there have been attempts to bring suspects to justice. In 2009 Crossing Continents uncovered disturbing evidence of alleged atrocities by the Kosovo Liberation Army during the Kosovo War ten years ago. Since then a trial has opened in the capital Pristina and two former KLA leaders are being prosecuted for war crimes. The case began in March 2011, just a few months after Dick Marty, Special Rapporteur of the Council of Europe, released an explosive report claiming that the KLA summarily executed prisoners and harvested their kidneys to sell for organ transplants. Also in 2009 Crossing Continents looked at claims that Rwandans in France and Germany were controlling a deadly African militia in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Reporter Peter Greste tracked down Callixte Mbarushimana to a Paris cafe. The elegantly dressed rebel Hutu leader flatly denied his grou

David Goldblatt looks at whether Berlin's alternative culture is under threat from commercial pressures. Or do developers and artists need each other to exist?Berlin has long been a magnet for artists from within Germany and abroad. After the wall fell in 1989 they flooded into the vast deserted buildings left in the Mitte area of the former East of the city. But over the last few years developers have been moving into this increasingly fashionable area, increasing rents and evicting squatted buildings.Today the right and left banks of the Spree river, the district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, has become home to underground clubs and artists studios. But developers are increasing their grip on this area too. A few years ago they joined together to create an consortium called "MediaSpree" with the aim of turning the East bank of the Spree into a media hub. Universal Studios and MTV were two of the first companies to locate themselves in the converted warehouses of a deserted port in 'no man's land' where the b

Three years ago Bill Law travelled to Egypt for Crossing Continents to meet five extraordinary women who were fighting for human rights and equal pay for women in Egypt. For this programme, Bill returns to Egypt to tell the story of the unfolding revolution through the eyes of those very same five women. Their stories are a unique insight into how the revolution came about and raise questions about its future. Producer: Daniel Tetlow.