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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: Kashmir: The Continuing Conflict

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Kashmiri protestors clash with Indian government forces during a protest against civilian killings in Srinagar

16/09/2016 GMT

Kashmir: The Continuing Conflict

BBC World Service - The Fifth Floor, Kashmir: The Continuing Conflict

Pellet guns, weddings and cartoons: life under curfew in Indian-administered Kashmir

Life under Kashmir's curfew; the Nomad Games; songs to end domestic violence in Kenya; lifting India's Hindu veil; and Syria's new soap opera - with David Amanor.

Indian-administered Kashmir has been living through some of the worst violence for years. It is a dispute that goes back almost seventy years, and the latest trouble follows the recent killing of Burhan Wani, a 22 year old militant with a huge social media following. Mobile communications have been cut, landlines are unreliable, and contact with the local BBC reporter has been intermittent.  But BBC Urdu presenter Aliya Nazki, herself from Kashmir, has been following developments closely. 

World Nomad Games  
Dead goat polo, hunting with eagles, building yurts against the clock - it must be the World Nomad Games!  Gulnara Kasmambet of BBC Kyrgyz has been covering the games in her home country, and she shares her personal highlights with the Fifth Floor. 

The Kenyan band fighting domestic violence
Award-winning Kenyan urban Afro band Elani have released a single calling on women to take a stand against abuse in relationships. The song, and the accompanying graphic video, is called 'sirudi', meaning 'I am not coming back' in Swahili, and they have had a huge impact on social media. BBC Africa's Anthony Irungu and Sophie Ikenye from Focus on Africa discuss the band and the issue.

Behind the ghoonghat 
BBC Hindi's Sumiran Preet Kaur takes the Fifth Floor on a journey from the bright lights of New Delhi to the rural village Mirzapur in Haryana. There she meets a group of women campaigning to live their lives without wearing the ghoonghat, a traditional veil worn by Indian women for centuries.

A Soap for Syria
Can you change hearts and minds in a conflict through a soap opera? Even one as bitter and traumatic as Syria's civil war?  BBC Media Action and BBC Arabic are giving it a try - with a new radio drama call Hay El Matar, Airport District. The drama aims to humanise  people seen as other, or different, or on the other side - whether Shia, Sunni,  Christian or Alawite. BBC Arabic's Lina Sinjab, who's from Syria, told the Fifth Floor about the drama, and the associated discussion programme which she produces.

And Fifi Haroon's pick of weird and wonderful stories from across the world wide web.

Photo: Kashmiri protestors clash with Indian government forces during a protest against civilian killings in Srinagar, Kashmir.
Credit: Tauseef Mustafa/AFP/Getty Images.

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