Coming Soon

Seeking the Endgame

Is it checkmate for traditional Chess?

It's an ancient game that's been played for centuries, but how is Chess faring in modern times.

Self confessed chess fanatic Simon Terrington explores modern chess, which is still loved worldwide from grand masters down to community club players, and finds out how technology and raw computer power is changing the way chess is learned and played.

Seeking the Endgame - on air and online from Friday 10 September

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Afghanistan's Beardless Boys

A controversial tradition continues

In rural Afghan society the sexes are still strictly segregated, hence the tradition of the 'Beardless Boys' or 'bacha bereesh'.

For the third programme in our click World Stories series, Rustam Qobil from the BBC's Uzbek service investigates the tradition of boys who are employed by wealthy Afghan men to dance in ladies clothes at parties, and on some occassions paid to back and sleep with them.

World Stories : Afghanistan's Beardless Boys - on air and online from Wednesday 8 September

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Delhi’s sporting extravaganza

Are the city’s poor the real losers?

Billions of dollars are being spent on this year’s Commonwealth Games in the Indian capital Delhi. But many are questioning whether spending a vast sum of money hosting a two-week sporting event is the best use of resources in a city where poverty is entrenched.

As the budget for the Games spirals, the organisers are being accused of hiding the true cost, and of diverting funds intended for the very poorest. They’re also accused of condoning the displacement of thousands of poor families and a blatant disregard of the rights of the workers building the stadiums.

Assignment: Commonwealth Games – On air and online Thursday 9 September

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Zainab’s Story

One woman’s determination

Zainab Bangura, Sierra Leone’s foreign minister tells her own remarkable story, revealing her personal motivations and how she represents one of the world’s poorest countries.
In the fifty or so years since the country gained independence, Zainab is only the second woman to hold the post. Her father was a strict Muslim cleric who didn’t believe in education for girls. Her mother, though illiterate, fought for Zainab to go to school.

As war swept the country in the 1990s she founded the Campaign for Good Governance which campaigned for the elections that finally drove the junta from power and restored democratic government.

Zainab’s Story – on air and online from Monday 13 September

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