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The Power of Life and Death

Stories from the men convicted of Bosnian war crimes; the Nicaraguan villages lit up by renewable energy; Inuit wisdom in Nunavut; the journeys of Kashmir's Tibetan community

Pascale Harter introduces personal stories from around the world.

After the notorious former general Ratko Mladic - aka the "Butcher of Bosnia" - was convicted in the Hague of war crimes committed in the 1990s, Mark Urban reports from Bosnia on what other men convicted by the same tribunal, who've already served their sentences, now think about the process. How do Serb, Croat and Muslim communities now view men found guilty by the international court?

Margaret Ward hears how renewable energy - whether powered by sun, wind or even volcano - is changing domestic life for rural women in Nicaragua. For the first time, appliances like blenders are within reach - and they don't have to ride for hours to charge up a phone any more.

Juliet Rix asks whether devolving more power to Inuit (indigenous) areas in Nunavut, in Canada's far north, has improved the lot of some of the country's most deprived and abused communities. Has local traditional wisdom - "what the Inuit have always known" - really been given its due?

And Andrew Whitehead traces the tangled history of an unusual ethnic enclave: the small Tibetan community of Srinagar, Kashmir. They've been crossing borders for centuries in search of trade and culture - but are now rather hemmed in by modern India and China.

Photo: Pic A woman walks past a graffiti depicting former Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic and reading 'Serbia' , painted on a wall in Belgrade, Nov 22, 2017. (OLIVER BUNIC/AFP/Getty Images)

Available now

23 minutes

Last on

Sun 26 Nov 2017 10:06GMT

Broadcasts

  • Sat 25 Nov 2017 00:06GMT
  • Sat 25 Nov 2017 03:06GMT
  • Sun 26 Nov 2017 03:06GMT
  • Sun 26 Nov 2017 10:06GMT