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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: Poet, Painter, Lover: Kahlil Gibran

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Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)

03/08/2018 GMT

Poet, Painter, Lover: Kahlil Gibran

BBC World Service - The Fifth Floor, Poet, Painter, Lover: Kahlil Gibran

In praise of Kahlil Gibran; Buenos Aires slums; in praise of India's monsoon; Mauritania's sea bedouin; My Home Town Shanghai; and Herat’s myna birds. With Faranak Amidi.

A new musical called Broken Wings is on in London this week, based the life of Lebanese-born writer Kahlil Gibran. BBC Arabic's Nahed Najjar is a fan, and explains why Gibran remains so popular across the Arabic-speaking world nearly 90 years after his death.  

The 'White Elephant' of Buenos Aires
The 'White Elephant' building is part of a slum in south-west Beunos Aires. Conceived as South America's largest hospital, it was soon abandoned and instead became home to hundreds of families with nowhere else to go. Now President Mauricio Macri wants to redevelop this and other slums across the country. But is this too big a task? BBC's Valeria Perasso is from Buenos Aires and has more. 

In Praise of the Monsoon
It's monsoon time in India.  The season lasts several months, and for many is a time of misery, with flooding and travel chaos.   But it's not all bad - Janhavee Moole is a journalist for BBC Marathi based in Mumbai - and has taken to social media to celebrate the annual monsoon rains.  

Mauritania's Sea Bedouin
Head north up the coast of Mauritania and you’ll find the Banc d’Arguin.  It is a huge national park, its wetlands home to an extraordinary number of birds, its seas full of fish, and there to catch them are the Imraguen people, or sea nomads.  BBC Arabic’s Bassam Bounenni recently went to meet them.

My Home Town: Shanghai
In this episode of My Hometown, where we ask colleagues on the Fifth Floor to take us to the towns or cities where they grew up, we hear from Vincent Ni of BBC Chinese. He tells us about soupy dumplings, his first ever radio broadcast and the dancing ladies of Shanghai.

The bird smugglers of Herat
Herat Province in Afghanistan is the centre of a lucrative illegal trade in wild birds, particularly mynas – famous for their ability as mimics.  The biggest market is in Iran, where they’re prized by farmers as a means of pest control.  Mohammad Qazizada in Herat has been covering the story for BBC Afghan.

(Photo: Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931). Credit: Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

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