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Outlook: Outlook Weekend: Pick of the Week

Michael Madanly, Monty Roberts, Stanislav Petrov

19/07/2015

Outlook Weekend: Pick of the Week

BBC World Service - Outlook, Outlook Weekend: Pick of the Week

Syrian basketball star; Eighty years training horses; The man who may have saved the world

Michael Madanly, Syrian basketball star who fled civil war; Monty Roberts' life training horses; Stanislov Petrov, Russian who may have saved the world from nuclear destruction

Could Stanislav Petrov be credited with saving the world? He says he doesn't deserve that reputation - but you be the judge. In 1983, when Stanislav was a software engineer in the Soviet army - the Soviet Union and the United States were engaged in a nuclear stand-off. The system was that if one country launched missiles at the other, there would immediately be a counter-attack - resulting in their mutual destruction. One night Stanislav was on duty at a surveillance centre near Moscow, monitoring alerts for incoming enemy nuclear missiles when he received the signal that the USA had launched an attack. He tells us what he did next.  

Michael Madanly is one of Syria's most famous basketball players. Basketball was once one of the country's top spectator sports and Michael was a household name, playing for the league champions Al Jalaa and the Syrian national team. But when war broke out in 2011, Michael fled the country. He went first to play in the Chinese league and has now moved to the Philippines. 

Monty Roberts has spent a lifetime with horses.  It's been a remarkable ride - he was Elizabeth Taylor's stunt double in the film National Velvet, and the non-violent method of "breaking in" horses he pioneered was the start of a long working relationship with Queen Elizabeth.  Today he uses his horses to help military veterans, and other emergency services workers suffering from post traumatic stress, to get better.  

12 year old Jose Canoy is autistic, and his family decided that he would not do well in mainstream school. But they did not want him to stop learning. So they set up a special café in their home town of Manila in the Philippines, as a place for him and other young adults with autism to learn practical skills. Today, the Puzzle Café is run by Jose's older siblings. Reporter Aurora Almendral went to the café to meet them.

Pictures:
Syrian basketball player Michael Madanly. Picture credit: Getty Images.
Horse trainer Monty Roberts. Picture credit: BBC
Stanislav Petrov, Soviet Army software engineer.  Picture credit: David H. Still taken from The Man Who Saved The World produced by Statement Film

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