The Documentary Podcast

The documentary tells the story of scientific hubris through the extraordinary life of one chimp, Sheba. Now 44, she lives in sanctuary at Chimp Haven in Louisiana. Born in a cage, raised in a zoo, she spent twenty-four years in a research laboratory. Her life mirrors our evolving relationship with the animal world.
Sheba is the daughter of Nim, a famous chimp who learned sign language. Like her father, she demonstrated remarkable intelligence, learning to add, subtract, and paint. Her story traces back to a bold 1970s idea: if chimps are so genetically and behaviourally close to humans, could they help us learn about ourselves? Many scientists, like Bob Ingersoll, pursued that question through a series of behavioural and social experiments. Others pursued it through invasive biomedical research.
But the deeper they went, the shakier the premise became. As Bob reflects, much of the research proved not only scientifically flawed, but ethically troubling, often meaningless and cruel. That realisation sparked a shift. By 2016, biomedical research on chimpanzees in the U.S. had come to an end. In the UK and European Union, biomedical research ended a few years earlier.
Through Sheba’s journey, we hear about that turning point.
Featuring interviews with those who knew and worked with her, the documentary also includes zoologist Charlotte Uhlenbroek, who, drawing on years of studying chimps in the wild, guides us inside the world of primate research. The documentary confronts a question that is still unresolved: we have the need to experiment, but do we have the right?

People who’ve had to abandon their homes because of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah explain what life is like in Lebanon. A social worker says she believes many people now keep a bag of essential belongings packed by the front door in case they need to leave at a moment’s notice. A mother describes rearranging her daughter’s fourth birthday party because of the threat of missile strikes. Israel’s military forces are currently in southern Lebanon. They say they are there for self-defence and to target Hezbollah’s military capabilities. About a million people are estimated to have left their homes as a result. It’s not clear when, or if, they will be able to return, or whether their homes will still be standing.
Presenter: Carine Torbey
Producer: Nick Holland
Sound: Rod Farquhar
Production Coordinator: Janet Staples
Editor Penny Murphy
(Image: Displaced Lebanese people. Credit: Anwar Amro/AFP via Getty Images)

Describing the joy (and heartache) of football is the job of commentators at this summer's FIFA World Cup in America, Canada and Mexico. In the Studio hears how the loyalties of California's poet laureate Lee Herrick are divided between the USA and his birth country, South Korea, while UK poet Ian McMillan finds inspiration for a new poem in the lines on the pitch.

Each Monday, Ed Butler takes you around the globe to the heart of the stories and meeting those living through them. West Africa is currently the global epicentre for illegal fishing, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation. An estimated 40% of the world's illegal industrial fishing occurs in its waters, costing the region up to 10 billion dollars a year in lost revenue, and severely depleting stocks essential for the food security and livelihoods of over 7 million people. Ed Butler has been hearing about the practice in Sierra Leone, trying to ascertain who is behind it, and finding out how much the government is doing to help.
To hear more, search Business Daily wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Ebola is a frightening and deadly disease, killing on average one half of people infected and spreading rapidly without containment measures. So how do BBC journalists report from the centre of an epidemic? BBC West Africa journalist Emery Makumeno has been reporting from Kinshasa in DR Congo on the Ebola outbreak; Musa Sangarie, Country Director for Sierra Leone for BBC Media Action, led public information campaigns in Sierra Leone in the 2014-16 Ebola epidemic; Camilla Mota, journalist with BBC News Brasil, has reported on the fall-out from the country’s Zika virus outbreak in 2015 and 2016; and Mattias Zibell Garcia, producer at BBC Mundo, reported on the recent Hantavirus outbreak in Ushuaia, Argentina.
The Fifth Floor is at the heart of global storytelling on the BBC World Service, bringing you the best stories from journalists in the BBC's 43 language services. We're here to help you make sense of the stories making headlines around the world; to excite your curiosity and to get to grips with the facts.

Recent episodes have investigated Russia’s youth armies and how they make soldiers of Ukrainian children; featured the BBC team who were the first journalists to the site of the Nigerian school kidnappings and reflected the effects of internet blackouts in Iran, Uganda and India.

If you want to know more about Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, and the legacy of Hugo Chavez; or how Vladimir Putin’s network of deep cover spies operates; or why Donald Trump signed an executive order granting white South Africans asylum in the US, we have all those stories and more.
Presented by Faranak Amidi.
Produced by Laura Thomas, Caroline Ferguson and Hannah Dean.
(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich)