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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: Drug ballads in Mexico

Mexico guitar maker by Getty images

23/02/2013

Drug ballads in Mexico

BBC World Service - The Fifth Floor, Drug ballads in Mexico

Narco corridos - the music of Mexico's drug cartels.

Reporting Pistorius; the poems of Pablo Neruda; Mexican drug ballads; and Azerbaijan's outlawed names.

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

REPORTING PISTORIOUS - A SOUTH AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE 
The case of the paralympian Oscar Pistorius has been occupying headlines in Africa and across the world. How has BBC Africa - and the media in Pretoria - been handling the story? Two South African journalists at BBC Africa, Nick Ericsson and Lebo Diseko, share their insights. 

ONLINE GREATEST HITS 
BBC Brasil's Thomas Pappon gives the lowdown on the big-hitting stories across the World Service language sites. This week Thomas takes on a Chinese challenge, tucks into a Kenyan feast and has a work out in Taiwan. 

POET'S CORNER: THE LIFE AND LOVES OF PABLO NERUDA 
Chilean poet Pablo Neruda is said to be one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. Forty years after his death we speak to Carolina Robino and Constanza Hola from BBC Mundo, and Priyath Liyanage of the Sinhala Service which goes out to Sri Lanka about Neruda's life and works. 

THE MUSIC OF MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS 
BBC Mundo's reporter Juan Carlos Perez Salazar in Mexico has been telling us about the phenomena of  'narcocorridos' - songs in praise of the drug barons and narcotics trade. 

THE NAME GAME IN AZERBAIJAN 
Azerbaijan has a "Terminology Commission" - an authority to regulate the use of language - and the commission now has a plan to stop non-Azeri names from being given to new born babies. As a former Soviet republic Azerbaijan is said to be going through a post-colonial re-orientation, but how do you solve a problem like the name Maria? Leyla Najafova reports. 

(Image: Credit: Getty Images - George Pickow/Stringer )

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