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When Barack Obama stood before a 200,000-strong crowd in Berlin in 2008 his declaration that "now is the time to build new bridges across the globe" was met with jubilation by a crowd which believed the future American president would pursue a gentler foreign policy, completely unlike that of George W Bush. This liberal enthusiasm extended to the Nobel Committee, which awarded Obama its Peace Prize in his first year of office. The man himself accepted the Prize, and the warm feelings, but did he ever intend to pursue the sort of foreign policy which his well-wishers in Europe and on the American left expected of him? And what - when set against their expectations, or indeed his own promises - has President Obama actually achieved on the world stage?Interviewees include: Bruce Riedel, former adviser on foreign policy to Barack Obama Ann Marie Slaughter, former Director of Policy Planning for the U.S. State Department under Barack Obama Daniel Drezner, Professor of International Politics at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University James Fallows, The Atlantic magazine Gregory Johnsen, Near East Studies Scholar, Princeton University Jameel Jaffer, lawyer at the American Civil Liberties UnionPresenter: Mukul Devichand Producer: Richard Knight.

In Britain, the health gap is growing - in the wealthiest parts of the country, people are living on average more than a decade longer than in the poorest parts. An academic discipline which tries to work out why this health gap exists has also grown. It's called social epidemiology. You've probably never heard of it, but the science has influenced governments of both the left and right. So what answers has it thrown up? The most famous comes from the Whitehall II study of civil servants, led by Sir Michael Marmot, which found that people who are in high-pressure jobs, over which they have low control, are at greater risk of heart disease, because of the stress their lowly position causes.The idea that how much control you have over your work and life affects your health has generated talk in policy-making circles about the need to empower people.But the evidence is contested. When economists look at the same data, they see something different.David Aaronovitch hears the arguments.Contributors: Sir Michael Marmot, professor of epidemiology and public health at University College London Anna Coote, former UK health commissioner Danny Dorling, professor of human geography at the University of Sheffield George Davey-Smith, professor of clinical epidemiology at Bristol University Johan Mackenbach, chair of the department of public health at Erasmus University, Rotterdam Angus Deaton, professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University Producer: Ruth Alexander.

If you think that you are rational and unprejudiced, Michael Blastland hopes you will be open minded enough to listen to the evidence which suggests that you are probably not.We might think our views about global warming, nanotechnology or the value of IQ tests are based on scientific evidence. But the beliefs we hold about these issues often say more about our ability to screen out the evidence we dislike than it does about the scientific facts.Michael Blastland investigates the causes of our cognitive biases and our remarkable ability to not let the facts get in the way of a deeply held belief.Contributors include:Jonathan Haidt, Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia Dan Kahan, Professor of Law and Professor of Psychology at Yale Law School Roger Scruton, philosopher.Producer: Chris Bowlby.