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The Fifth Floor

Factual: Life Stories

Global stories from the BBC’s 40 Language Services, with Faranak Amidi

Faranak Amidi presents global stories from the Fifth Floor, home to the BBC’s 40 Language Services.

Faranak Amidi presents global stories from the Fifth Floor, home to the BBC’s 40 Language Services

The Fifth Floor: 29/09/2012

29/09/2012

BBC World Service - The Fifth Floor, 29/09/2012

What's behind the words? The pitfalls and perils of translating world leaders.

A fresh look at the week's global news from across the World Service's 27 language sections, with Pooneh Ghoddoosi.

A BRIEF ENCOUNTER WITH MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD
An adhoc question fired at the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, by BBC Persian reporter, Bahman Kalbasi at the UN headquarters in New York has caused a bit of a stir in social media this week. In the footage, now viewed by over 300,000 users on YouTube, Mr Ahmadinejad appears to give a brief dismissive reply while walking past a crowd of journalists, but it's very hard to hear exactly what he says. And that started the lip-reading guessing game on Twitter and Facebook. The Fifth Floor caught up with Bahman and asked him about his brief encounter with the president.


TRANSLATING WORLD LEADERS
It's been a busy week at the United Nations with global leaders gathering to take centre stage at the General Assembly podium and share their words of wisdom.  But spare a thought for the people who have to translate their speeches. Gleb Levin from the BBC Russian Monitoring Team and Driss Mekkaoui from BBC World News who is known as "the voice of the dictators" reveal what it takes to bring clarity to their listeners. 


ONLINE GREATEST HITS
Highlights from the World Service's language sections with Thomas Pappon of BBC Brasil. This week we have lucky babies, Russian terriers and toilet flushing in Zimbabwe. 


REPORTING THE SOUTH AFRICAN MINER'S STRIKES
One story which has been making the headlines and has really shaken South Africa in recent weeks is the miner's strike at Marikana.  One of their protests ended in a violent conflict when police opened fire and killed 34 of them. The miners have finally gone back to work after many tense hours of discussion over their pay. Among the journalists who lived and breathed this story for several weeks working to all hours of the day, is Omar Mutasa from the BBC's Swahili service. He finally got a moment to look back and share some of the key moments of those tumultuous days.

THE ISI WIVES: PART THREE
The final instalment of our playful piece of creative writing imagining the shenanigans that go on behind the scenes amongst the wives of Paksitani Intelligence officials. In parts one and two we met Bushra and Fuff who are both married to officers in the ISI - the Pakistani Intelligence Services - they are bitter rivals, constantly trying to outdo each other and fight their way up the ladder of power and influence. The only person Fuff can share her woes with is her long time friend Sana - but she is unfortunately rather wrapped up in her new American boyfriend. Where will all the back stabbing end?

(Image: President Ahmadinejad Mahmoud Credit: AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

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