Crossing Continents Folgen

Men in the Faroe Islands are having to look far beyond their shores for marriage. The remote, windswept archipelago between Norway and Iceland, with close ties to Denmark, has seen an influx of women from South-East Asia who have come to marry Faroese men. In recent years the islands have been experiencing a declining population. Young women in particular have been leaving the islands, often for education, and not returning. One complaint from them is that their close-knit community has too conservative and masculine a culture where sheep farming, hunting and fishing are still dominant. For some women Faroese society is simply too small, too constraining. There are now approximately 2,000 fewer women of marriageable age in the total population of 50,000. In response, some men have been looking elsewhere for partners, from countries like Thailand and the Philippines. For Crossing Continents, Tim Ecott meets these foreign women adjusting to life in this isolated group of islands where the elements are harsh and the language impenetrable. John Murphy producing.

Lung cancer is America's biggest cancer killer. But there is hope: the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has sanctioned trials of CimaVax - a treatment created in Cuba that has extended the lives of hundreds of patients on the island. This is the first time a Cuban drug has been tested in the US. American cancer patients got wind of CimaVax five years ago. Patients like Judy Ingels - an American with a stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis - arrive regularly in Havana, hoping for a miracle. It's traffic that's increased since the US / Cuba thaw. The creation of Cuba's biotech industry was Fidel Castro's idea back in the 1980s. Today it employs 22,000 people, and sells drugs all over the world - excluding the US. When Presidents Obama and Castro made their momentous move to end hostilities, doctors and patients on both sides of the Florida Straits hoped everyone might benefit from an exchange of life-saving treatments. Now there's deep anxiety. Will President Trump re-freeze the thaw, and jeopardise a revolutionary collaboration?For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly explores Cuba's bio-tech industry. How has this small Caribbean nation been able to develop world-class drugs with its limited resources?

For generations those who, for biological reasons, don't fit the usual male/female categories have faced violence and stigma in Kenya. Intersex people - as they are commonly known in Kenya - were traditionally seen as a bad omen bringing a curse upon their family and neighbours. Most were kept in hiding and many were killed at birth. But now a new generation of home-grown activists and medical experts are helping intersex people to come out into the open. They're rejecting the old idea that intersex people must choose a gender in infancy and stick to it and are calling on the government to instead grant them legal recognition. BBC Africa's Health Correspondent Anne Soy meets some of the rural families struggling to find acceptance for their intersex children and witnesses the efforts health workers and activists are making to promote understanding of the condition. She also meets a successful gospel singer who recently came out as intersex and hears from those who see the campaign for inter-sex recognition as part of a wider attack on the traditional Kenyan family. Helen Grady producing.