National and regional elections have frequently coincided with internet shutdowns or disruption. Shutdowns can occur whilst polls are open, or are sometimes imposed in response to protests that follow election results.

National elections were held on 12 August 2021 in Zambia, and part way through voting, access to WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter was blocked. We hear from young voters in Lusaka about how the social media blocks affected them.

Reporting in Lusaka by Mutuna Chanda Producer: Beatrice Pickup

(Photo: A woman fills her ballot at a polling station in Lusaka on 12 August, 2021. Credit: Patrick Meinhardt/AFP/Getty Images)

Rhinos at Longleat are playing a role in helping to save the northern white rhino subspecies.

Africa has become a superpower in the world of the novel. Shortlists for the world’s major literary prizes are packed with African authors, while novelists like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie have become international celebrities. But how did Africa become such a hotbed of literary talent? In this fascinating and insightful film, Nigerian-born presenter and historian David Olusoga explores the incredible story of the African novel.

From the 1950s, as African nations fought for independence, writers such as Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Wole Soyinka became the conscience of a continent – often paying a personal price for speaking out against both colonialism and corruption. In their wake, the African novel was to spread around the world - writers of the African diaspora such as Buchi Emecheta and Ben Okri created masterpieces from their adopted home of the United Kingdom. These novelists wrote books that are funny, witty and often tragic. They achieved something that stretched beyond the world of literature – transforming the image of Africa itself.

The programme features interviews with some of the most pre-eminent novelists working today. We hear from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Aminatta Forna and 2019 Booker winner Bernardine Evaristo. The documentary features extraordinary archive of the key novelists and insightful contributions from leading figures whose lives were touched by their writing, including dramatist Kwame Kwei-Armah and MPs Diane Abbott and Kwasi Kwarteng.

A bonus conversation with British rapper and spoken word artist Kojey Radical recorded live at the 6Music Festival, discussing themes of love, his connection to his Ghanaian heritage and his dad.

Naturalist Brett Westwood has been thinking more and more about migration to the UK. He’s spent a lifetime studying migrating birds, but he’s become increasingly alert to the people making a similar journey.

He’s particularly interested in cuckoos. We might think of cuckoos as quintessentially British, but they only spend about 10 to 12 weeks of their year here in the UK. They are native to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Brett considers the journeys of both cuckoos and people from the DRC to the UK. He explores the reasons they come, the routes they take, the perils they face along the way and the lives they live when they get here.

He talks with Mike Toms and Chris Hewson from the British Trust for Ornithology about the work they do in tracking cuckoo migration; to Natasha Walter, Director of the organisation: Women for Refugee Women; and to two asylum-seeking women who have made the perilous journey from the DRC to the UK to make a new life here.

Producer: Rosie Boulton A Must Try Softer production for BBC Radio 4

Dancer and drummer Guy Schalom hunts out the spirit of the new Egypt in one of its biggest cultural exports. To our ears, Baladi is the music of the bellydancer - kitsch and mock-Arab. But in its true form it is the essence of Egypt, 'of the country', 'home' in the deepest sense.

Our journey begins in Berlin, as bejwelled dancers from across Europe gather on a theatre stage ready to do battle for the title 'Miss Bellydance 2012'. They might not all know it, but the music which accompanies their gyrations is a knot of contradictions: an essence of the east inspired by western musical traditions, the spirit of rural Egypt made urban.

But the deepest contradictions rest with the very people who perform Baladi. What seems to us a provocative, alluring, even licentious dance for women in fact has roots in a ceremonial dance for men. As we discover in Cairo, deep divisions remain between those who think it is a vital expression of the oriental spirit and those committed to regenerating sexual stereotypes. So what is the reality of bellydance and Baladi in the new Egypt? Can it find any place amongst the street rappers and pop artists or is this an artform about to be consigned to realms of the tourist-pleasing clubs and cafes? As with so much in this rapidly changing culture, answers prove difficult to find.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2012.

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.