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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: India's secret soldiers

Documentaries

Funeral Nayima Tenzin in Leh, Ladakh CROP.jpg

09/10/2020 GMT

India's secret soldiers

BBC World Service - The Fifth Floor, India's secret soldiers

The funeral that revealed India’s covert force of Tibetan refugee fighters

The funeral that revealed a covert force of Tibetan refugee fighters on Indian-administered-Kashmir's disputed border with China in Ladakh.

This year armies from India and China clashed along the disputed border between Indian-administered Kashmir and China.   A recent funeral with full military honours on the Indian side revealed an intriguing story.  Nayima Tanzin was a Tibetan refugee, who his family say was serving with a covert Indian regiment, the Special Frontier Force, a force never acknowledged by Indian authorities.    The BBC’s Aamir Peerzada travelled to Ladakh to find out more.  

Flights to nowhere
Here’s an odd phenomenon. Airlines in South East Asia are offering “flights to nowhere” – you fly, you don’t land, you come back.  So what’s going on?  Hong Kong-based BBC Chinese journalist Martin Yip fills us in. 

Hotels of Pyongyang 
Why would South Koreans be interested in a new book showing photographs of hotel restaurants and reception areas?  Because these hotels are in the North Korean capital Pyongyang.  The BBC’s Julie Yoonnyung Lee tells us more about the fascination of the photographs for Koreans.

A clean sweep!  The Russian cleaner who became mayor 
Until recently, Marina Udgodskaya was employed to clean the mayor’s office in her small village in Russia.  But a strange chain of events led her to standing for, and then winning, the local elections.  BBC Russian’s Petr Kozlov went to meet her.

Maasai Ceremony 
Once every 15 years, young warriors of the Maasai community of East Africa graduate to become elders.   It’s a colourful, joyful ceremony, observed this year by BBC Nairobi journalist Ian Mafula.  

Image:  Funeral with full military honours of Tibetan refugee Nayima Tenzin in Ladakh
Credit:  Nisar Hussain

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