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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: Kashmir: After the Floods

Flooded houses in Kashmir

17/10/2014

Kashmir: After the Floods

BBC World Service - The Fifth Floor, Kashmir: After the Floods

Surviving in Srinagar: coming to grips with life after last month's record floods

A musical tour of Tanzania; Surviving in Srinagar; Somalia's "firsts"; Why world leaders like to disappear; and Lebanon's WWI forgotten history

Riyaz Masroor works for BBC Urdu and is from Srinagar in Kashmir. This month, skirmishes across the border that divides Indian and Pakistani Kashmir have killed 21 people and driven hundreds from their homes. Riyaz knows what it's like to be forced out of home: only a month ago that he and his family fled to higher ground when record floods hit the region. He tells us about reporting story - and living the story - in Kashmir. 

Also in the Programme:

Tanzania: Hear My Country
We challenge our Tanzanian colleagues to pick just one song that defines their country. Zuhura Yunus is joined by the Swahili service's Salim Kikeke and Zawadi Machibya to discuss - and to sing - the songs that mean Tanzania to them.

Somalia's Firsts
The last two years have seen big changes in Somalia. Back in 2012 Somalia got its first constitution and first functioning government in more than 20 years. Since then, Somalia's "firsts" keep on growing. There's been the first bakery, the first gym, the first florist, and this week the first postal service in the country in the last two decades. BBC Somali's Abdullahi Abdi reflects on what these "firsts" say about a country and people that have experienced years of uncertainty.

Disappearing Leaders
Why do politicians like to play hide and seek? This week North Korean leader Kim Jong-un made his first public appearance in over a month. Mr Kim's absence from public view had prompted a flurry of media speculation about an illness or even a possible change of power. Olexiy Solohubenko reflects on why leaders - especially those from the Soviet Union - would often disappear - and what that says about a country's power politics and media control.

WWI Forgotten History: Lebanon
It's 100 years since the outbreak of the First World War, a landmark which is being remembered throughout the year on the World Service because some of the people worst affected by the war were nowhere near its famous battlefields.  One tragedy of the period happened in Mount Lebanon - a region now known as modern Lebanon. BBC Arabic's Carine Torbey reports.

Online Greatest Hits
Digital diva Fifi Haroon gives the lowdown on the weird and wonderful stories across the web, including a seven tonne cheese giveaway and a bilingual barking parrot.

The Fifth Floor is guest-presented by Zuhura Yunus. 

Picture: Flooded houses in Kashmir, Credit: Getty Images

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