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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: Iran's Kurdish Smugglers

Documentaries

Iranian Kurdish smugglers

10/02/2017 GMT

Iran's Kurdish Smugglers

BBC World Service - The Fifth Floor, Iran's Kurdish Smugglers

The old and sick men risking death on mined and snowy border crossings

Life and death with Iran's Kurdish smugglers; Colombian accents; Russia's poison history; India's Irula snake-catchers in Florida; Romanian protests, with David Amanor.

Jiyar Gol recently met the Iranian Kurdish strongmen who haul dozens of tyres on their backs over the border from Iraqi Kurdistan.  It's a story that went out on BBC Persian, and had a big impact in Iran, as it coincided with the death this week of three smugglers in an avalanche.  Jiyar tells us more about the people he met and the dangerous border crossing.

The many accents of Colombia 
Cachaco, pastuso, caleño - not new Latin dance fads, but just three of the dozens of dialects spoken in Colombia. For BBC Mundo, Beatriz de la Pava enlisted people from across her country to share words and accents with the rest of Latin America. She speculates about why there's such diversity in Colombia - and analyses her own accent.

A brief history of Russian poisoning 
The Russian opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza was this week reported to be in a coma in hospital.  His wife claims that he had been poisoned, and for the second time.  He's not the first troublesome Russian to be the victim of suspected poisoning: from Rasputin to Litvinenko, traces of poison run through Russia's political history.  Over to BBC Russian news editor Famil Ismailov.  

Indian snake-catchers in Florida
The Irula tribesmen from southern India are serious snake-catchers, hunting snakes and milking them for their venom.  Their fame has spread to the Florida Everglades, where two Irula snake-catchers have been called in to help catch Burmese pythons which have been eating their way through the local wildlife.  Soutik Biswas in Delhi has been following their progress and investigating their lucrative snake venom trade.

Protesting Romanian-style 
Recent demonstrations in the Romanian capital Bucharest have caught the world's attention. The catalyst was a government move to soften anti-corruption legislation, and last Sunday an estimated half a million people took to the streets. Ioana Dumitrescu of BBC Monitoring is our guide to the language and style of Romanian protests.

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

Image: Iranian Kurdish smugglers  
Credit: BBC

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