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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

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The Fifth Floor: Benghazi: My Family Under Fire

Documentaries

Libyan soldiers in Benghazi

05/02/2016 GMT

Benghazi: My Family Under Fire

BBC World Service - The Fifth Floor, Benghazi: My Family Under Fire

The BBC's Muhammad Hussein describes the violence and hardship his family is enduring

Living under fire in Benghazi; a dip into the Fifth Floor melting pot; Thailand's strange Child Angel dolls; Instagram imams in Iran; the trials of a bachelor tenant in India.

Libya has been in chaos since President Muammar Gaddafi was toppled in 2011, with militias and jihadi groups vying for power, and two rival administrations. Muhammad Hussein of BBC Monitoring is from Benghazi, where the revolution started. Many members of his family are still there, living in constant danger from bombardment, violence and kidnapping. He tells us how they're coping.

Bachelor Renters in India
"Bachelor tenants strictly not allowed". What do India's landlords have against single people? Vikas Pandey from the BBC's Delhi office shares his own sorry experiences of trying to rent as a bachelor.

Instagram Imams in Iran
A popular new account on Iranian Instagram features photos of imams doing surprisingly everyday things. The snaps show imams riding motorbikes in the desert, taking a ski-lift, and playing basketball with schoolgirls. Is this a positive campaign to show that imams are ordinary people, or a cynical attempt at propaganda? Nooshin Soluch of BBC Trending has been following the debate. 

Thailand's Child Angels
Thailand's Luk Thep or Child Angels are slightly creepy-looking dolls that have been blessed by Buddhist monks so that a wandering spirit is invited to inhabit the doll.  They made world headlines after an airline ran a promotion offering to sell seats for the "Child Angels" to travel alongside their owners. Pinpaka Ngamsom from BBC Thai tells us that the dolls are believed to bring luck to their owners, many of whom lavish love and gifts on them.  

Mixing on the Fifth Floor
The Fifth Floor is a place of strange synergies, where a Macedonian can work for BBC Persian, a Bangladeshi for the African Service, or a German for BBC Afghan. We explore the new cultures created in the melting pot of the BBC's language services. 

Embrace of the Serpent
The Colombian film Embrace of the Serpent has been nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film award in this month's Oscars. We discover the story behind the film with BBC Mundo's William Marquez, a Colombian who is a former actor and film producer. We are also joined by Valeria Perasso, who covers the Oscars for BBC Mundo.  

(Photo: Soldiers in Benghazi, Libya. Credit: Abdullah Doma/Getty Images)

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