The Documentary

Sixty-five-year-old Hiromitsu Shinkawa survived the 2011 Tsunami by riding the tin roof of a destroyed home. He spent two days alone and adrift at sea on his makeshift raft before rescue. Shortly afterwards he met Miwako Ozawa, a young Japanese translator hired by a journalist to interview him. Five years on, Hiromitsu’s remarkable story of survival and renewal is told through the two halves of their unlikely friendship. (Photo: Hiromitsu Shinkawa as crew members of Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force (JMSDF) sail to rescue him on 13 March 2011. Credit: JIJI Press/AFP/Getty Images

It’s high noon in the American high desert, and the cowboys are gearing up for the fight of their lives. The armed occupation of a wildlife refuge in the far western state of Oregon has highlighted a long and deepening land dispute between rural communities and the federal government in Washington DC, which owns vast tracts of isolated and scenic territory. Ranchers and farmers say the land should be kept available for their cattle to graze; they say their historic way of life will be doomed otherwise. But other Americans, especially those in cities, want to see federal land conserved and protected from overuse. For Assignment, Neal Razzell travels to Oregon to see how these differences are fuelling a cultural battle over what it means to be American. Produced by Michael Gallagher

Alvin Hall explains how gospel became a global force in popular music. He reveals how Aretha Franklin’s pop success introduced the gospel world to an international audience. He looks at the rise of the gospel choir in the 1970s and 80s and discovers how this religious music increasingly became a money-making industry. And, he meets leading gospel stars Kirk Franklin and Donnie McClurkin.

Alan Kasujja meets the start-ups in Kampala which are trying to turn the industry around by making it safer and enabling riders to increase their profit margins. He speaks to the Kampala City Authorities and the city's Traffic Police to find out whether it is possible to control this sprawling industry, and whether there are other means of employment for the riders. He also meets Kampala's only female boda-boda rider and explores the political pressures on this hugely lucrative but unregulated industry.

Thousands of Christian refugees who have fled religious violence in Pakistan are stranded in Thailand. They travel there because of cheap tourist visas but quickly get caught in a tangle of asylum bureaucracy which can mean waiting years to move on to a third country. It happens because Thailand does not offer asylum to refugees, but passes them on to the UNCHR for processing; but the UN is overwhelmed, leaving many to suffer poverty and deprivation while they await news of their cases. In some cases men, women and children are rounded up by the Thai authorities and incarcerated in grim detention centres or even imprisoned. For Assignment, the BBC’s Chris Rogers reports from the backstreets of Bangkok where many of the refugees are in hiding and goes undercover to expose the treatment of these people in Thailand’s detention system.Produced by Michael Gallagher(Photo: Illegal immigrants in Thailand find themselves in detention)

Gospel's uplifting and rejoicing sound is world famous, a multi million-dollar music genre that in many ways has ended up being the beating heart of American popular music. But can gospel be gospel if it entertains and makes money as well as praises the Lord? Financial educator Alvin Hall explores how this American religious music genre has been affected by commercialisation.

For many Ugandans boda bodas are the transport of choice. They are quick and cheap, and can be a vital mode of transport in remote areas. They have also become one of the best ways to make a living in Uganda which has a high rate of youth unemployment. But the motor taxis are also divisive, and a lack of regulation means they are hated by many in the capital Kampala, and outlawed in some other African cities.

Tropicalia was a musical revolution in Brazil. Singer and journalist Monica Vasconcelos meets the key artists and contemporary champions of Tropicalia - from Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil to Marcos Valle and Talking Heads' David Byrne - and explores its enduring musical and political force. Burning brightly for only few years in the late 1960s, and politically inspired by the uprisings in Paris in May 1968, the Tropicalia movement electrified Brazilian music, combining the sophistication of bossa nova, samba and baiao with psychedelia, new Beatles-inspired electric sounds and orchestral experimentation.It was a deliberately subversive mix that provoked the country’s military regime and led to the exile and imprisonment of some of Brazil’s star musicians. Tropicalia brought a new wave of liberation and energy into Brazilian music. Earlier in the decade, bossa nova had captured a mood of national optimism but, as the 1960s wore on, the national mood darkened.

Amy Zayed, follows the lives of five Syrians as they attempt to settle into their new home. While many are keen to learn their new language, they are quickly diverted by preoccupations about access to money, securing permanent residency status and health.

Chris Bowlby explores how Germany found itself at the centre of Europe's migration crisis, and learns how the country has received successive waves of refugees since the 1940's.

What happens when your Dad's an African-American soul star and your Mum's a music-loving girl from a Sheffield council estate in the north of England? Are your roots on the terraces at a Sheffield United Football match, or in the stylings of a Spike Lee film? For writer and photographer Johny Pitts, whose parents met in the heyday of Northern Soul on the dance floor of the legendary King Mojo club, how he navigates his black roots has always been an issue. Not being directly connected to the Caribbean or West African diaspora culture, all he was told at school was that his ancestors were slaves. In this programme, Johny heads off to the USA, to trace his father's musical migration and to tell an alternative story of Black British identity. From Pittsmore in Sheffield, to Bedford Stuyvesant in New York, and all the way down to South Carolina where his grandmother picked cotton, Johny Pitts makes a journey of self-discovery.

Gregoire is an ex garage mechanic whose mission in life is to help people in Benin, West Africa, with mental health problems who may otherwise be chained up in the spare room. With family approval he takes patients to his treatment centres, he cuts off their chains allowing them space and giving them help. Gregoire's story and the attitudes that coalesce around it unfold against a backdrop of traditional healers, Western trained psychiatrists, ethnopsychiatry, Evangelical missionary work, Western attitudes to Africa and African attitudes to the West, and government ministries for whom mental health is a low and cash strapped priority.

Simon Maybin spends time with daters in New York, Delhi and Nairobi trying to understand how dating apps technology is changing the way people find romance across the world.

There’s an American saying: “Anyone can become president.” And in the 2016 election they've been trying to prove it. PJ O’Rourke is on the campaign trail in New Hampshire.

Cassandro is no ordinary Mexican wrestler. He is an exotico - or drag queen - who wears long Liberace gowns, sequins and flamboyant make-up. Over an extraordinary 27-year-career, Cassandro has won two championship belts and pioneered the idea that a Mexican wrestler can be openly gay.

Gabriel Gatehouse returns to Libya in search of Colonel Gaddafi’s golden gun, which was seized by rebels when the dictator was captured and killed more than four years ago.

The road to the White House requires stamina and plenty of money. Economist and US Citizen, Linda Yueh, makes a hypothetical run for Congress in the 5th district of Virgina, to find out why it costs so much money to run for office and the increasing importance of the internet in a campaign. On the way she gathers a campaign team, meets her voters and learns about the importance of pizza in politics.

Mukul Devichand and Mike Wendling travel around the United States, talking to Black Lives Matter activists, the parents of young black men shot by police, civil rights elders like the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and police officials. In an election year that will be crucial to the country’s future, can Black Lives Matter change America?

Lipika Pelham investigates a marriage between two Bengali women, and asks what this extraordinary love story says about attitudes to sexuality in this conservative nation.

Music teacher Francesco Lotoro resurrects the music of Holocaust victims, with the help of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. For the past few decades Francesco has been collecting music written in concentration camps from World War Two. Working closely with composer Adam Gorb, together they pick through an archive of 8000 pieces, much of which has never been heard.