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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: Unravelling an Uzbek Mystery

Documentaries

Gulnara Karimova (credit: Yves Forestier/Getty Images for Style.Uz Art Week 2013)

02/12/2016 GMT

Unravelling an Uzbek Mystery

BBC World Service - The Fifth Floor, Unravelling an Uzbek Mystery

The rise and fall of the late president's daughter.

Shedding light on the fate of Gulnara Karimova; Castro's tracksuits; Palestinian women's songs; Iran's Koranic reciter scandal; Delhi's Afghan kitchen, with David Amanor.

Whatever happened to Gulnara Karimova, favourite child of the late President Islam Karimov, who fell from grace two years before his death? She disappeared from public view and is said to be under house arrest.  BBC Uzbek's Diloram gained rare insight into her fate when she and her colleagues obtained an interview with Gulnara's son - we hear what she discovered.

Palestinian women singers 
Palestinian folk traditions have a clear divide between the songs of men and women.  BBC Arabic's Nahed Najjar - a Palestinian from Lebanon - grew up with the songs of her mother and has retained a lifelong love of Palestinian folk music. She explains what makes women's songs so distinct from men's.

Afghan Kitchen
There are thousands of Afghan refugees in India, and life can be especially difficult for widows and single mothers. Sumiran Preet Kaur from the BBC's Hindi service has been to visit a group of these women in Delhi, who are cooking their way out of poverty and introducing India to the joys of Afghan food on the way. 

Castro's tracksuits
In the aftermath of Fidel Castro's death, Emilio San Pedro of BBC Monitoring looks into the archive to see how the Cuban leader's outfits changed during his decades in power. What do his evolving fashion choices say about  changes in the image he wanted to project?

Iran's Koranic reciter scandal
BBC Persian recently ran a story about allegations of sexual abuse made against one of Iran's most high profile Koranic reciters.  The allegations - which he denies - prompted much debate inside and outside the Islamic Republic.  Majid Afshar is one of the journalists who worked on the story.

And Fifi Haroon's pick of the world wide web.

Image: Gulnara Karimova at a press conference during Style.Uz Art Week 2013 in Tashkent
Credit: Yves Forestier/Getty Images for Style.Uz Art Week 2013

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