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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: Afghanistan's Saur Revolution: 40th Anniversary

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Afghan communist supporters in Kabul 1979

27/04/2018 GMT

Afghanistan's Saur Revolution: 40th Anniversary

BBC World Service - The Fifth Floor, Afghanistan's Saur Revolution: 40th Anniversary

'Don't play with the revolution: it is a fire': a reporter's memories from 1978

Memories of revolution; street cricket in India; Benin mangrove forests; Belgrade's disappearing statue; Venezuelan banknotes; Moscow landfill hazards. With David Amanor

Forty years ago the Afghan Communist party overthrew President Mohammad Daoud.  Abdullah Shadan from BBC Afghan Service was a journalist at the state broadcaster at the time, and watched events unfold.

Indian Street Cricket
This month BBC Tamil staged a tournament to celebrate the street cricketers of Tamil Nadu.   Finalists came together to fight it out in Chennai, umpired by cricket fan Vivek Anand of BBC Tamil with commentary by Parag Phatak of BBC Marathi.

Small head, big outcry: Belgrade's statue problem
A bronze bust of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin caused outrage and ridicule in Belgrade.  The tiny head on a huge plinth was invisible from street level, and swiftly disappeared, as Jelena Maksimovic of BBC Serbian explains.

Bolivar handbags
BBC Mundo's Boris Miranda returned from Colombia's border with Venezuela with an interesting souvenir: a handbag made from Venezuelan bolivares.  It seems it's more profitable to make handicrafts from bolivares than to spend them.

Benin's mangrove voodoo 
Conservationists have called on a voodoo deity to help protect mangrove forests in Benin, where voodoo is an official state religion.  BBC Afrique's Franck Noudofinin explains why the protection of the nightwatchman deity Zangbeto is so effective. 

Moscow's controversial landfill sites
BBC Russian's Nataliya Zotova has been reporting from a huge landfill site at Volokolamsk near Moscow, which local people say is making them ill.  She describes the physical effects of being near the tip, and encounters a football playing turkey on its perimeter.

Image: Afghan communist supporters in Kabul 1979
Credit: S.SOBOLEV/AFP/Getty Images

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