selected BBC World Service Podcasts

Clinton seeks solution on Syria; Super Bowl gun ad; North Korea's take on A-Ha

Condemnation of Russian and Chinese veto of Syria resolution / Three Tibetans reportedly self-immolate in China / Freezing weather grips Europe

The inside story of the Euro crisis. In "Europe's Choice", Allan Little examines how the rules governing the nascent single currency were broken from the start.

UN Syria veto sparks world anger; Egypt football riot continues; Syrian satirist - too grim for humour?

This week on Over to You Rajan Datar looks at how the World Service is reflecting London in the year of the London Olympics, with the help of two producers of programmes about the capital city.

Russia and China block UN resolution; Bogdanovich on his friend Ben Gazzarra; Jamie and his Russian dolls

Eyewitness Homs/ Moscow protests/ "Your Maj" cartoons

Tens of thousands protest against Putin in Moscow; Russia says UN Syria vote "scandalous"; & "massacre" in the city of Homs

After a journey from the calm of a hotel lobby to a city centre ladies' outfitters and on to the drum-beating heart of Syrian protest, Tim Whewell confronts the question: how much longer will the regime of Bashar al-Assad survive? Alan Johnston tells us Italy's young are worried about the economy and the future -- and many are deciding to emigrate. As protestors in Russia prepare again to take to the streets in anti-Putin demonstrations, James Coomarasamy's testing the public mood outside the capital. Will Ross is in Addis Ababa where the latest Chinese contribution to Ethiopian life is dominating the landscape. And how do you deal with evil spirits, ghosts and fallen angels? Kate McGeown is in a consulting room behind a karaoke bar in the Philippines finding out!

If you face a difficult problem what is the best style of leadership to solve it? Should military discipline be the order of the day - or do effective leaders take a more consensual approach? In The Balance's guests will be drawing on their business experience to share leadership strategies. And with Facebook's 27-year-old founder now worth an estimated twenty eight billion dollars, we'll be asking whether it is possible to do too much too young in business.

Sociologist Alena Ledeneva wants to replace the current formal identity documents, such as passports, ID cards and birth certificates, with a unique song ID for each of us. After all, countries already have their national anthems, so why couldn't everyone have their own, personal one?

Dave Calhoun on The Woman in Black; Jeet Thayil; Macau Literary Festival; Paul Mealor; Agnieszka Holland; Eva Hoffman on Wiswawa Schimborska; Santiago Sierra; Rita Ray with new music from African women

How the 1958 NFL championship match between the New York Giants and the Baltimore Colts made American Football a television phenomenon.

Dave Calhoun on The Woman in Black; Jeet Thayil; Macau Literary Festival; Paul Mealor; Agnieszka Holland; Eva Hoffman on Wiswawa Schimborska; Santiago Sierra; Rita Ray with new music from African women

It can be a shadowy network of power or a blatant request for a bribe from a bureaucrat who otherwise won’t process your paperwork: corruption worldwide takes many forms. So how should we define it? And what steps can be taken to stop it spreading? With the founder of Transparency International Peter Eigen, Pakistani author Mohammed Hanif and Russian sociologist Alena Ledeneva.

Egyptian Google exec / Mammal evolution / Sexual abuse therapy

Alexander Schey is just 26, and in the garage of a fairly ordinary house in west London where he, and a few other fellow London students, built a battery powered electric car. Then, to raise awareness of their new battery management system, they drove along 25-thousand kilometres of the Pan American Highway. But this was more than just an elaborate student escapade; as you can hear in Global Business, it has now become an interesting consultancy business. Producer: Richard Berenger Editor: Stephen Chilcott

Wall Street celebrates as unemployment in the United States falls to its lowest for almost three years. The surprise drop in the US unemployment rate has pushed the Dow share index in New York to its highest level since May 2008, four months before Lehman Brothers went bankrupt.

Should ex-offenders be allowed to forget their crimes; Irish cricket during the great famine

With Daniel Radcliffe's Women in Black on the big screen, is the classic horror making a comeback? And what was worth watching at this year's Sundance Film Festival.