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The Fifth Floor

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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: Reading The Sky: 21st Century Astrology

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Solar eclipse at Tian'anmen Square, China in 2010

17/02/2017 GMT

Reading The Sky: 21st Century Astrology

BBC World Service - The Fifth Floor, Reading The Sky: 21st Century Astrology

How astrology and astrologers are adapting to a technological age

Exploring astrology, presidents dead or alive, romance without Valentine's Day, the Uzbek-Tajik thaw, and India in space. With David Amanor.

A Sri Lankan astrologer was recently arrested for wrongly predicting the death of his president during January. In many cultures, the advice of an astrologer is a crucial part of everyday life, and often influences business and political decisions. Why are astrologers still so popular in this technological age?  A question for Carol Yarwood of BBC Chinese, Nopporn Wong-Anan of BBC Thai, and Sangeetha Rajan of BBC Tamil.

Dead presidents 
Rumours about Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari's death have been rife this week. He is apparently alive and in London, and has found time to speak on the telephone to Donald Trump.  But it's not unusual for presidents to be killed off long before they actually die, as we find out from Bara'atu Ibrahim of BBC Hausa, Famil Ismailov of BBC Russian and Rafael Chacon of BBC Mundo.

Romance without Valentine's Day
This week's court ban on celebrating Valentine's Day in the Pakistani capital Islamabad put a spotlight on the challenges of enjoying romance in a conservative society. Ghazanfar Hyder of BBC Urdu tells us what it's like to be young and romantic in Pakistan today.

Tajikistan and Uzbekistan: the thaw  
After a freeze of 25 years, relations between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have started to thaw with the re-opening of a direct air link.  The BBC's Khayrulla Fayz - an ethnic Uzbek from Tajikistan - remembers when you could cross from one country to the other without realising. He explains what went wrong in the relationship, and what the current thaw means to people in both countries.

India in space 
India's space agency launched a flock of 104 satellites into space over the course of 18 minutes on Wednesday, nearly tripling the previous record for single-day satellite launches and establishing India as a key player in a growing market. Although there is no direct space rivalry between China and India, some analysts have made comparisons with the US-Soviet space race. We hear from Suniti Singh of BBC Monitoring.

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

Image: Solar Eclipse observed in Asia.
Credit: Feng Li/Getty Images.

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