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Monday 17 June 2013, 18:55
It would be hard to find a place more full of contrasts than Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan. This vast lunar landscape is now home to more than a hundred thousand Syrians who've fled the fighting in their own country.
It's a place of safety for sure, but also a place where understandable distress and frustration can quickly take on an ugly hue.
Water is in short supply despite the best efforts of aid agencies from around the world. Heat and dust seem to goad you every step of the way.
Surges in the numbers of people arriving a couple of months ago put even more pressure on the UNHCR.
Their senior man on the ground here, Killian Kleinschmidt, tells me he drops into people's tents and caravans (really they're nothing more than a container with windows and a door) to listen to their requests and complaints and to involve the refugees themselves in as much of the decision making as possible.
You lose a lot when you become a refugee. First your home, your possessions, then your passport, even your freedom.
The camp has a perimeter fence past which people cannot go. Some of it is topped with barbed wire and there are checkpoints too all around.
It looks and feels like a punishment and...
Read more about Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan
Friday 14 June 2013, 19:06
By Dino Sofos, BBC Radio 5 live’s Senior Political Producer:
This weekend Pienaar's Politics is coming from Lough Erne in Northern Ireland to cover the G8 summit for 5 live. John’s guests will include Prime Minister David Cameron and the Archbishop of York John Sentamu.
The G8 is the yearly gathering of the leaders of the world’s eight wealthiest countries (UK, US, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and Canada).
These summits tend to be held in high end holiday resorts in the middle of nowhere. This is mainly for security purposes.
This year’s venue is a golf resort surrounded by a moat-style lake. As you can imagine, eight of the most powerful people in the world discussing further globalisation in a hotel, is bound to cause the security services a bit of a headache.
It’s symbolic that David Cameron has decided to host the G8 in Northern Ireland. He’s keen to show how much things have improved in areas like Enniskillen since the troubles. You can bet that the police will be on high alert though.
This is my first G8, but John has been going to them since I was in short trousers.
I’ve been to my fair share of political conferences and summits though, and as with all...
Read more about Pienaar's Politics in Northern Ireland for G8
Friday 14 June 2013, 16:26
Newspaper and online reports this week claimed the Duchess of Cambridge is using hypnotheraphy techniques in advance of giving birth later this month. Here Bump Club contributor Beverley Turner talks about her personal experiences with hypnotheraphy during childbirth:
By Beverley Turner: Perhaps more remarkable than the reports of Duchess of Cambridge using hypnotherapy to prepare for birth is the public response to the story. Just a few years ago, such a suggestion could have prompted cries of outrage at such mumbo jumbo: “What will she do: get up off the bed and start clucking like a chicken?”.
It’s amazing that we reserved Brits no longer leap to such conclusions about something sounds so ‘alternative’. Having said that, at a Royal Society of Medicine I conference I attended last week the researchers in charge of the first NHS clinical trial into hypnotheraphy - results of which will be released in July - noticed a significant uptake in volunteers when they dropped the word ‘hypnosis’ and replaced it with ‘deep relaxation.’
Fundamentally, that’s all it is: ‘deep relaxation'. ‘Hypnobirthing’ stems from a traditionally American model developed in the...
Read more about Bump Club: Beverley Turner on hypnotheraphy and childbirth
Thursday 13 June 2013, 10:16
During free practice 3 at the recent Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal I had the chance do something I have never done before in 23 years in F1: to go on a team’s pitwall stand. I’ve listened in on team radio and observed in plenty of garages, but never sat plugged into the famous ‘prat perch’ and got a detailed insight into operations.
It gave me a chance to get closer to the sport; to really understand how a team like Marussia operates. It was an eye-opener.
With Marussia technical director Pat Symonds staying in the UK that weekend, there was a spare seat on the pitwall. Marussia...
Saturday 25 May 2013, 03:03
When I last sat down in the 5 live studios with Glenn Hoddle we were talking about the role of the number ten for Glenn's Top Ten Number Tens programme.
While discussing the number ten role we found a distinct lack English names cropping up- especially current English players. The Premier League has them a plenty - Mata, Silva, Bale, Corzola, Coutinho - but none of those are English. So even though we watch creative players every week, when international week comes round, they all disappear.
What interested me most was Glenn talking about how he was coached and how he wanted our young players to...
Saturday 18 May 2013, 18:21
After a hat-trick of awards for Gareth Bale, we've got award fever of our own in the 606 office and are currently building up to the inaugural 606 End of Season Awards.
As part of 5live's Big Day Out on June 1 we'll be celebrating the best calls, fans, teams, trips, designated drivers and football tweeters of the season with you for company. If you haven't got your tickets yet go here.
The 606 judging panel* will decide the majority of the awards but call of the year is going to be voted for by you. We'll announce the shortlist on the show on Saturday 11th May and you'll...
Friday 17 May 2013, 11:48
Netball? On the radio?
Earlier this year, we did something that had never been done before: 5 live Sports Extra broadcast the very first commentary of a game of netball on UK radio.
Last summer, during the London Olympics, 5 live and 5 live Olympics Extra tried its hand at most sports. Remember back to August, when Peter Allen and Colin Murray seamlessly steered 5 live's coverage from Stott and Bailey's slalom canoeing gold, Peter Wilson's shooting triumph, to Gemma Gibbons' silver in the Judo? All in the space of five minutes of magical radio.
The Olympics brought us many firsts...
Read more about Superleague Netball: bringing you another radio first
Thursday 16 May 2013, 17:39
This week on 5 live has seen the start of our new schedule changes.
As I write this our late night news team are busy planning the first of our new Thursday night politics shows – 'Question Time Extra Time'. This is a chance to partner with a great brand like Question Time and showcase how we do politics on 5 live. Stephen Nolan and John Pienaar are the hosts and, within the programme, they will simulcast BBC 1’s Question Time and then will continue the debate after the show. If you can, join the show tonight from 10pm and have your say.
In other changes we’ve also added a...
Read more about Question Time Extra Time, the Sonys and Rajars
Tuesday 14 May 2013, 15:20
Some people have told me that I have one of the best jobs in the world as the producer of Test Match Special.
It is true that I get to sit at international cricket matches, listening to my favourite radio programme with an almost constant supply of cake!
But then again I do also have to work with Geoffrey Boycott.
However, there is no doubt that I feel especially fortunate this summer with such a potentially thrilling six months of cricket ahead.
Later in the summer we of course have England’s defence of The Ashes so look out for details of our exciting coverage across the BBC.
There is also...
Wednesday 1 May 2013, 09:29
No current footballer divides opinion like Luis Suarez.
There are no grey areas. You’re either with him or against him.
Given the outrage triggered by his bite on Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanovic – the second of his career, remember – it seemed highly likely that former colleagues and team-mates would all go to ground.
A friend of mine, a Liverpool fan since the Shankly era, emailed me in the aftermath of the Chelsea game, “media hype succeeds and judges a peck on the arm, which didn't mark or break skin, a worse offence than lunging two footed challenges and violent stamps.”
I knew...
Read more about Footballer of the Year or a savage and a lout?
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