Documentaries

On the Berlin Wall's 50th anniversary, Gerry Northam looks at its political context and its human consequences.

Can a young Canadian man with Down's Syndrome get a university degree? Alisa Siegal follows the story of Ashif Jaffer who wants to fulfil his dream for a university education and the degree that goes with it.

Have you bought a diamond recently? Would you really know where it came from? Assignment goes into Zimbabwe's Marange diamond fields and uncovers evidence of torture camps and wide-scale killings.

BBC Security correspondent Gordon Corera tells the untold tale of how the Americans hunted their most wanted man - from the caves of Tora Bora in Afghanistan through to his stronghold in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.

Nina Robinson reports from India where the booming economy has fuelled a demand for cheap domestic labour. She finds that children are filling the gaps, with evidence of trafficking and youngsters being set to work in households, where they are open to abuse with little hope of ever going to school.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is Iran's Supreme Leader, a position he has held since 1989. Ayatollah Khamenei is the most powerful man in Iran, though one of the country's least scrutinised politicians. So who is this man? And how has he consolidated the Revolution? The BBC's Iran correspondent, James Reynolds, charts the Ayatollah’s reign and, through a number of interviews with relatives, biographers and politicians, builds a profile of Iran's most powerful man.

Ten years after foreign forces invaded Afghanistan, they've begun to hand full responsibility back to Afghans. Lyse Doucet, who's been covering Afghanistan for more than 20 years, travels around Afghanistan to meet the Afghans in charge.

To mark ten years since the invasion of Afghanistan, key decision-makers reveal the inside story of how the West was drawn ever deeper into the Afghan war. John Ware charts the history of a decade of fighting and looks at when the conflict may end.

A medium tells Colette Kinsella what it's like to have a life like the film, The Sixth Sense, how bored spirits play havoc with her love life, and why grocery shopping is a challenge.

Cuba and Venezuela describe Luis Posada Carriles as the Bin Laden of the Americas. Rob Walker goes on the trail of the man who for 50 years has opposed Cuba’s Fidel Castro and who leaves in his wake intrigue, alleged terrorist plots and assassination attempts.

BBC Environment Correspondent Richard Black explores the history and likely future of the nuclear energy industry. In part two, Richard compares how the world's nations are having very different approaches to the nuclear landscape in the wake of Fukushima.

Is outsourcing pregnancy to India exploitative or mutually beneficial? Over the course of nine months, we follow two women, who in each other seek solutions to the problems of poverty and infertility.

In this week's Assignment the BBC's State Department correspondent Kim Ghattas has gained rare "behind-the-scenes" access to one of Hillary Clinton's recent overseas trips. Join her on "special air mission 883" as it heads from the U.S. to the Middle East and Africa.

BBC Environment Correspondent Richard Black explores the history and likely future of the nuclear energy industry. Did the first atomic nations develop the best and safest technologies possible, or have they left the world with a ticking bomb?

Sharon Mascall follows 18 young Aboriginal men through a new rehabilitation programme at Port Augusta prison in South Australia.