In 1992, the Algerian runner, Hassiba Boulmerka, won gold in the women's 1500m at the Barcelona Olympics.

Before the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, her success had made her a political opponent for extremists. An imam had told her that running in shorts was anti-Islam. "My image didn't fit in at all with their ideology," is how she describes it. She was forced to do all her training abroad.

She defied death threats from Islamist extremists to win one of the best women's middle-distance races of all time.

"This victory reignited a sense of patriotism in the hearts of the Algerian people... It showed that you should fight for things. That you should have courage."

Chloe Arnold talks to Hassiba Boulmerka for Sporting Witness.

This programme broadcast in February 2012.

Picture: Hassiba Boulmerka celebrates her gold. Credit: AFP

Under Colonel Gaddafi, Libya was subject to the dictator's so-called Third Universal Theory. Hugh Miles asks what sort of ideology is likely to dominate in post-Gaddafi Libya.

Western media have been keeping a close eye on Libya's governing National Transitional Council, and there have been warnings about splits between Islamists and secularists, and about Libya's tribal society. But, as Hugh Miles discovers, amongst Libya's new ruling class there is broad consensus about support for one ideology: capitalism.

Gaddafi's idiosyncratic economic and political philosophy fused elements of socialism and Islam. The suppression of free markets was at times taken to bizarre extremes with, at one point, the banning of the entire retail sector. Support for capitalism is perhaps a reaction to the years in which entrepreneurship was suppressed.

Hugh Miles looks at the background of the new rulers and asks how Libyan Islamic capitalism might work.

It is possible that only one per cent of the wonders of ancient Egypt have been discovered, but now, thanks to a pioneering approach to archaeology, that is about to change.

Dr Sarah Parcak uses satellites to probe beneath the sands, where she has found cities, temples and pyramids. Now, with Dallas Campbell and Liz Bonnin, she heads to Egypt to discover if these magnificent buildings are really there.

Luol Deng is a giant - both physically and in the world of American professional basketball where is one of the biggest stars, and reportedly Barack Obama's favourite player. He was born in South Sudan but had to flee as a child because of his father's political activities. His family moved to Brixton where Luol's talents on the basketball court were spotted as a teenager. He's now established a charity working with the "lost boys" of Sudan - young men who have lived their entire lives in refugee camps after fleeing the country as children. Now Sudan is facing the prospects of partition, with a referendum next year expected to endorse splitting the mainly Christian South from the mainly Muslim North. Tim Franks joins Luol Deng as he returns to Sudan to assess the prospects for peace - and of course to show his skills with a basketball. Producer: Edward Main.

Crossing Continents encounters converts in Egypt who live in constant fear. We meet 'Mariam', a convert to Christianity who is secretly married to a Christian and who lives in hiding as her family have threatened to kill her. She is now pregnant, and says that she will never be allowed to officially marry her husband and that her child will have to be raised without official papers.

But there is also a group of Christian TV channels, mostly based in the USA and run by converts, who are targeting the region's Muslims. The programme gains rare access to one of these channels, where they discover converts using shocking language to attack Islam. The largest of these channels, called Al-Hayat, claims to have millions of viewers in the Arab World. Its most prominent preacher, Father Zakaria Boutros, is famous for his incendiary attacks on Islam and the Prophet Muhammad. Father Boutros lives in hiding after receiving numerous death threats. He has inspired a new generation of preachers who are deliberately attacking Islam as a method to convert Muslims to Christianity. His brand of 'shock' preaching has spread across the airwaves and the internet. We track down the Al-Hayat channel to the USA, and find that it is a 'vital partner' of one the USA's most prominent TV evangelists. Joyce Meyer Ministries (JMM) receives tens of millions of dollars a year in donations, and much of it is spent on 'Christian outreach.' While JMM deny any editorial control over the station, the BBC finds they helped to launch it and they buy airtime. A spokesman for JMM eventually sends an email saying that Father Boutros will no longer be hosting a show on Al Hayat. The programme is written and reported by Omar Abdel-Razak of the BBC Arabic Service and narrated by Hugh Levinson.

Madagascar is in crisis. Since a coup last year that brought a DJ in his mid-thirties to power as president, this huge island nation has become a pariah state. For the most part, the international community has refused to recognise the new government. Most seriously for Madagascar, in an effort to persuade the new regime to restore democracy, most aid has been withdrawn. This has created a huge dent in the state's coffers because donor assistance accounted for a staggering half of Madagascar's income.

The fallout for an already poor nation has been profound. Thousands have lost their jobs in garment factories as a result of the United States' decision to suspend favourable trade tariffs for Madagascar. Others eke out a living on the streets, or have headed for the countryside to subsist on what rice they can grow. Hospitals and schools are under serious pressure. Over half of all children are malnourished, and family breakdown is an everyday event.

Now there is evidence that Madagascar's unique and spectacular wildlife - ancient hardwoods, baobabs, and lemurs - is especially endangered by corruption, poverty and a breakdown in the rule of law. The forests are being plundered. Loggers have illegally sought out and exported rare rosewood, and there is anecdotal evidence that hunting for bush meat, and the smuggling of rare wildlife are both on the increase.

As Madagascar celebrates fifty years of independence from French rule, Linda Pressly visits the capital of Antananorivo and travels out to one of the National Parks to find out how people are surviving in this island nation seemingly in freefall.

Peter Greste investigates whether Rwandans in France and Germany are controlling a deadly African militia. For the last 15 years, the rebels of the FDLR have enforced their control through a series of brutal atrocities. Now Crossing Continents has secret intelligence suggesting that they were taking orders from political leaders living openly in Europe.

Magdi Abdelhadi explores what kind of society Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, who has no obvious successor in place, will leave behind when he dies.

Egypt is the most populous country in the Middle East and is pivotal for stability in the region and beyond, but after nearly three decades in power, the absence of a potential successor to the 81-year-old President Mubarak, has raised fears of a succession crisis.

Magdi finds, to his surprise, that nearly 60 years after the military seized power and abolished the monarchy, Egyptians still look to the army for a saviour.

While the world's attention has focused on the conflict in Darfur, an older and even bloodier conflict between the Muslim north and mainly Christian south of Sudan is in danger of reigniting. Four years after a peace deal was agreed, Grant Ferrett travels to Southern Sudan to investigate claims that Africa's biggest nation is sliding back to civil war.