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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: On the Road Again

Highway One, Afghanistan

04/10/2013

On the Road Again

BBC World Service - The Fifth Floor, On the Road Again

Displaced Syrians; Calcutta's bike chaos; Afghan ring road; Banning toy guns in Brazil; Strained relationships in Tunisia; and Syrian opera singer

Millions Displaced
BBC Persian's Jiyar Gol has just returned from a trip to Northern Iraq. He tells us about the anger towards journalists among those displaced by the civil war across the border in Syria.

Bike Ban
Calcutta is bucking the trend and telling people to get off their bikes to stop clogging up the roads. Rahul Tandon sends his report from the chaotic streets.

Ring Road Relay
The BBC Afghan Service is launching a major new series, Life Along Highway One, which follows the people who live along the 3,360km ring road connecting Afghanistan's major cities. BBC Kabul editor, Meena Baktash, who was born in the same year that building began on the road, tells us what the project means to her.

Online Greatest Hits 
Fifi Haroon brings us some of the stories that have caught our eye this week from the BBC's website.

Child's Play
A gunshot is never far away in Brazil - but the federal government in Brasilia has just banned toy pistols. BBC Mundo's Gerardo Lissardy asks whether the measures will have any impact on gun violence.

Returning Home
BBC Africa's Sihem Hassaini grew up in a Tunisian 'cocoon' in France. She describes how deep divisions that have grown in Tunisian society since the overthrow of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali have affected those close to her. 

Singing For Home
BBC Arabic's Soumer Daghastani speaks to renowned Syrian opera singer Razek-François Bitar, who is raising money for refugees from his home country.

(Picture: Traffic moves along Highway One on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan. Credit: Massoud Hossaini /AFP/Getty Images)

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