Bonus: The Explanation

The back-story of Gaza, from the 1940s to the 2010s, told through the personal experiences of a wide variety of ordinary people - a teacher, a smuggler, a bird-watcher, musicians, doctors and others. Tim Whewell finds out how the tiny territory was created, how it first filled wi ... Show More

Following the ceasefire in Gaza, this week has seen the release of hostages and prisoners on both sides and the beginning of the return of the remains of some of the deceased. Over the past two years, The Fifth Floor has been speaking to language service colleagues reporting on t ... Show More

Zohran Mamdani catapulted on to New York’s political scene this summer when he captured the Democratic nomination to run for Mayor this fall. A young politician, Mamdani campaigned on issues that mattered to New Yorkers including lowering the cost of living, but unlike other cand ... Show More

A special episode looking at who's really responsible for war crimes — the soldiers on the battlefield or the commanders and politicians who sent them? 

​On the conclusion to our series, we talk about just how the murders went down, who the people behind them were, how we know the players involved, and why no one ever went down for the crimes.  

This 2019 episode is about the man often described as the person who coined the term genocide. He was also the driving force behind the existence of the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. 

Warning: This episode contains some upsetting descriptions of human suffering. The Rwandan Genocide is a dark and pivotal moment in modern history; the catastrophic consequence of ethnic division and global inaction. Over 100 days in 1994, it's estimated around 800,000 predominan ... Show More

Warning: This episode contains content that some listeners may find upsettingNo matter the war being fought, it's a sad fact that war crimes take place all around the world - we need only look to Russia's offensive war in Ukraine to see how civilians can be illegally targeted in ... Show More

Gideon discusses the history of international humanitarian law since the first world war with Boyd van Dijk, a historian at Oxford university and author of a recent book, Preparing for War - The Making of the Geneva Conventions. They discuss current efforts to prevent war crimes ... Show More