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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: Healing Iraq's mental wounds

Documentaries

Karim Wasfi playing his cello in Baghdad (credit:SABAH ARAR/AFP/Getty Images)

03/05/2019 GMT

Healing Iraq's mental wounds

BBC World Service - The Fifth Floor, Healing Iraq's mental wounds

Hope after trauma: healing the people traumatised by decades of violence

Iraq's invisible war wounds; a trip to the Arabat Arrow; smiling etiquette around the world; Moroccan hashish - winners and losers; and living with no street names in The Gambia.

Namak Knoshnaw spent a year making the BBC Arabic documentary 'Iraq: A State of Mind’.   It follows the stories of three people dealing with the psychological impact of decades of war, invasion, sectarian violence and occupation by the so-called Islamic State.  Namak grew up in Iraq, and it's a story close to his heart.  

The villages that wanted to be Russian 
Anastasiya Gribanova of BBC Ukrainian travels to the so-called Arabat Arrow, a spit of land that runs along the east coast of Crimea. There she meets Ukrainian villagers who were disappointed not to become part of Russia along with Crimea, when it was annexed in 2014.

Smile! 
When you smile does the whole world smile with you or just give you strange looks? We're talking about smiling etiquette around the world, with Ibrat Safo of BBC Uzbek, Sucheera Maguire of  BBC Thai, Qalib Barud and Aisha Afrah of BBC Somali, and Oxana Vozhdaeva of BBC Russian.

Who’s getting rich from Moroccan hash? 
This is the question asked in a film made by BBC Arabic reporter Emir Nader.  He tells us what he found along the cannabis trail from remote farms in the Rif Mountains of Morocco to the coffee shops of Amsterdam.

Living without street names 
How do you direct someone when your street doesn't have a name? BBC Africa's Ade Daramy recently moved to The Gambia.  He tells us about adapting to the lack of house numbers and street names once you leave the centre of the capital Banjul.  

Image: Karim Wasfi playing his cello in Baghdad  
Credit: SABAH ARAR/AFP/Getty Images

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