Unreported World

Paralympian wheelchair basketball star Ade Adepitan is granted access on a rare scale to some of Cuba's most famous basketball stars, to investigate why some of them have defected to the USA just as the country seems to be opening up. Adepitan and director David Fuller travel to Ciego De Avila, six hours east of Havana, and home to the best basketball team in Cuba. Many of the Ciego Buffalo stars are in the national team, but some of them have made headlines for reasons not to do with performance on the basketball court. Nine months previously, Cuba's government allowed the national team to visit the US territory of Puerto Rico. Within hours they defected, along with three players from other clubs. Adepitan talks to some of their fellow team members, who had the chance to defect, but chose to return to Cuba. 'They went to look for economic improvement,' one of them tells him. 'Players here don't earn very much.' Some of the Buffalo players are good enough to play in top international leagues but, they explain, while ordinary Cubans are now allowed to leave the country for up to two years, high-value people like surgeons and sports stars are not given the same right. The Cuban government says that the players are trained and maintained by the state, so they should stay in Cuba. But that's not what some of the fans tell Adepitan. They say they want their basketball players to travel abroad and play for the best teams, developing their skills and ultimately improving the Cuban national team. And, while self improvement is also high on the agenda of those players considering defecting, the economic effect of the decades-old US trade embargo on sports stars who could be millionaires in other countries also comes into play. The government provides free state education and health care, but there's a shortage of housing. Adepitan and Fuller visit the home of William Lewis. He's one of the top basketball players in Cuba, but lives in a small hou

Aidan Hartley reports from his home town in Kenya on an extraordinary project to rescue the children who live on its streets. Together with director Wael Dabbous, Hartley highlights the inspiring work of the Restart Centre in Gilgil, which is providing a safe shelter for children at risk. The Centre is run on a shoestring budget raised from private donations. Conditions are basic, but crucially, it represents safety for the 70 children who live there. Many of them ended up living rough as result of the bloody chaos which engulfed Kenya following disputed elections five years ago. More than a thousand people were killed, many families were broken up and thousands were made homeless. Hartley and Dabbous follow Restart worker Dan Nderitu, who spends his nights seeking out Gilgil's street children. The first time they meet him, he's in a race against time to rescue two small boys: Ken, seven, and his ten-year-old brother Julius. Ken and Julius' family have sunk into extreme poverty. Their mother abandoned them and a year ago they began sleeping rough. They both want to move off the streets and into the Restart shelter, but in order to take them in, Dan needs the government's permission. He's trying to reach the government Children's Officer who needs to sign the paperwork for Ken and Julius - but her office is chronically underfunded and the process painfully slow. Dan's work is urgent because, during Unreported World's time in Kenya, the country is about to hold general elections, and if there's violence, he fears the children could be even more at risk. Unreported World also films the Restart Centre's children's choir which campaigns for the elections to be peaceful. Many of those Hartley meets, such as Pilot, the youngest member of the choir, saw their families collapse in the violence following the previous election.

In war-torn Gaza, 'Location, Location, Location' means finding an apartment in one of the highly sought-after areas that are usually not shelled or hit by missiles. Reporter Seyi Rhodes and producer Daniel Bogado examine what must be one of the world's most unlikely property booms. They meet Essam Mortja, an estate agent and property developer who says his property business is booming. He shows them some of the glitzy properties he's helped sell at prices of up to US $3 million. Property prices for luxury villas and apartments in elite areas like El Remal are on par with London and New York. The area is right by the sea and has stunning views, but there's one other reason why the prices are so high. It's where the UN building is located, which means Israeli planes are less likely to bomb the area. Israel did bomb the UN HQ in 2009 but it caused an outcry - and property prices show that Gazans think it is unlikely to happen again. Essam explains how the conflict with Israel has been a driving force behind this incredible real estate boom. Israel's blockade against Hamas means that movement of people and goods are restricted. Two million Palestinians are trapped in this 25-mile strip of land, making it one of the world's most crowded places. Prices go up in any place with low supply and high demand. But also, every time there's conflict, Israel destroys some homes, which worsens the housing shortage and drives prices up even further. Gaza's property boom has made many real estate agents and property speculators like Essam extremely wealthy. Rising property prices have sparked a building frenzy in Gaza. The Israeli blockade restricts building materials as Israel says Hamas uses them to build military bunkers. But Gaza's entrepreneurs are smuggling building materials through tunnels from Egypt. According to some estimates, 90% of all buildings being built in Gaza are constructed with materials brought through tunnels. The Unreported T

Unreported World meets the NHS doctor who is risking his life by providing front-line medical care to the victims of the conflict in Syria. Dr Rami Habib is a paediatrician who was previously based in Leicester. He's living in the northern Syrian town of Salma, which is bombed and shelled by government forces almost every day. But he's determined to stay and keep the hospital going. Salma used to be a holiday destination. Dr Habib had bought his parents a flat in the town and was visiting when war erupted. He took the difficult decision not to return to his wife in the UK and instead to stay in Syria to ensure that Salma had a doctor. The town is just 20 miles from the ancestral home of President Al-Assad, but is in the control of the anti-government rebels. It's a strategically important target and the front line is just over a mile away. As a result of the daily bombardment, the town's population of 70,000 has shrunk to 5000. Those who remain are mostly rebel fighters and a few civilians determined to stay despite the terrible danger. Reporter Evan Williams and director James Brabazon travel with Dr Habib as he crosses the border from Turkey, bringing life-saving medical supplies for the hospital. Travelling by road is extremely dangerous as vehicles are targeted by government troops; and the last 500 yards into Salma are the most dangerous. To avoid detection, they switch off their headlights and drive in the dark. Dr Habib's first hospital was hit by a barrel bomb - a massive improvised bomb made out of a cylinder packed with explosives and shrapnel - dropped from a government helicopter while he was inside. The building was badly damaged and his new field hospital is now in the basement of an apartment block. Facilities are basic and the town's water supply has been cut off for months. Dr Habib's staff have been forced to find an alternative source of water, which is now pumped in from a spring two miles away through a one-inch pipe.

As Education Secretary Michael Gove expresses his admiration for education systems in the Far East, Unreported World travels to Hong Kong to meet the students aiming for success in one of the most competitive exam environments in the world. Reporter Marcel Theroux and producer Lottie Gammon meet the millionaire Lamborghini-driving 'super tutor' who has made his fortune from parents desperate to get their kids into university. Richard Eng has made his fortune coaching school students to get through the final year Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE). The team films him in action at Beacon College - whose 40,000 students come from schools all over Hong Kong - where they've signed up for long evening classes on top of a full day at school. There's no coursework in Hong Kong; everyone's fate is decided by the exam. Three quarters of Hong Kong's students have extra tuition to prepare them for these final year exams. Richard's success is built on his perceived ability to give his students a competitive edge. One of Richard's students is 17-year-old JJ. Theroux visits his small apartment, on the 19th floor of a public housing estate. JJ's dream is to be a PE teacher and he needs to pass his exams to get into university and teacher training. Neither of his parents had been to university and they've scraped together the money to send him to Beacon College as his school had a low success rate in getting students into university. But JJ is competing with students at elite schools, with pushier parents, and who have been tutored since kindergarten. The pressure is getting to him. He's running a temperature but says he can't afford to skip class. JJ tells Theroux: 'I was talking to my English teacher about exam pressure. Tears welled up and I started crying.' The great promise of education in Hong Kong is that a public exam sat by all allows children from any background to excel. But in a city as unequal as this one, with large disparities

Bangladesh is one of the most dangerous places in the world to drive a car. Reporter Clemency Burton-Hill and director Elizabeth C Jones take to the roads of Dhaka with a group of young women who are learning to be professional drivers against extraordinary odds: on top of dreadful drivers, teeming traffic and huge potholes, these learners are battling entrenched social taboos as they try to enter a profession almost entirely dominated by men. Inside the residential driving school, the young women - many of whom have come from difficult circumstances - live, sleep, eat and study together, swapping life stories and forging friendships. Their driving tuition, both in the classrooms and on the roads, is intense: 8am to 6pm every day except Fridays. Dhaka has appalling traffic and more than 20,000 people die on Bangladesh's roads every year. Before the women get anywhere near the wheel, however, one of the first issues they are taught about is 'gender sensitivity'. As female drivers, prejudice, discrimination and abuse are as likely to await them as potholes, traffic jams and exhaust fumes. Twenty-year-old Mafuza was forced to leave school when she was 14 and marry a man she'd never met. Having divorced her husband after he allegedly mistreated her, she has retreated back to her village with her two-year-old daughter. Nobody else in her village drives a car, but she dreams of becoming a professional driver to provide her parents with much more income. She also hopes to be an inspiration to other women in the village by proving that women - even young, divorced women - can be equal to men, and can forge an independent livelihood despite the prevailing social taboos. Twenty-one-year-old Konika claims she was so badly beaten by her husband that she lost her baby during the ninth month of her pregnancy. Now divorced, Konika is making good progress, but worries that she can't stop her legs from shaking whenever she drives. Competition for jobs at the end of

Reporter Krishnan Guru-Murthy and director Daniel Bogado travel to Yemen to reveal the scores of young men locked up in prisons and awaiting execution for crimes they are accused of committing while they were children. And they meet the lawyer who, in a miscarriage of justice, was sentenced to death himself at the age of 16 and who is now on a mission to save others who should never have been given the death penalty. The Unreported World team accompanies Hafedh Ibrahim as he enters Taiz prison to meet a new young client. It's the same prison where Hafedh was once held on death row and where he was marched, handcuffed, from the cells to the execution spot and told to lie down on the sand ready to be executed. Hafedh tells Guru-Murthy how, according to Yemeni law, as a juvenile he should never have faced the death penalty. His campaigning from inside prison paid off. He describes hearing the phone call coming in to cancel his execution three minutes before he was due to be shot. Yemen has one of the world's highest rates of gun ownership. In this tribal society boys are given guns and expected to become men. The prisons are full of young prisoners convicted of murder. According to Yemeni law, offenders under 18 cannot be sentenced to death. But most people here don't have documents proving their age so juveniles are often mistaken as adults. That problem is intensified by the fact Yemeni culture has tended to treat boys as adults at the age of 15. Hafedh is in the prison to meet Abdul Rahman, a boy accused of murder. Abdul hasn't been tried, but has already been in prison for nearly two years. His sister claims that he killed her husband. Abdul says that he's being framed and in any case, he was 16 when the death took place. Hafedh has Abdul's birth certificate, which he says should prove that he's telling the truth. However, he tells Guru-Murthy that many judges don't accept ID documents as proof of age and believe that any murder

Unreported World reports on the huge growth in cosmetic plastic surgery in Brazil. In Brazil, plastic surgery for cosmetic reasons is not frowned on like it can be in the UK, and having a surgically enhanced body is sometimes seen as a status symbol. Plastic surgery procedures have gone up by 40% in two years and there are now 10 times more plastic surgeons in Brazil than in the UK. Brazil is second only to the USA in the number of plastic surgery operations carried out each year.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy and director Wael Dabbous travel to Afghanistan, gaining rare access to the secret houses that shelter women hiding from violent husbands or from families who have tried to kill them for refusing to take part in arranged marriages. Improving women's rights was supposed to be one of the great legacies of Britain's involvement in Afghanistan, but Unreported World reveals that, as international forces start to pull out, powerful religious hardliners are trying to roll back new laws that protect women.

Reporter Kiki King and director James Brabazon travel to Caracas, the kidnap capital of the world. With exclusive access to the Venezuelan police force's elite Anti-Kidnap Squad, the Unreported World team follow officers as they fight back against the kidnap gangs with a mixture of brute force and technical ingenuity. More than five people are kidnapped in Venezuela every day. The country is awash with illegal firearms, with a politicised and barely-functioning judicial system and prisons effectively run by the gangster inmates.

Reporter Marcel Theroux and director Frankie Fathers join some of China's many millions of male lonely hearts on their search for a wife, and meet some of the 'Love Hunters' working to find them an ideal bride.

Reporter Ade Adepitan, director Daniel Bogado and a group of Mexican former hospital patients gain access to Mexico's psychiatric institutions to secretly film the horrific and inhumane conditions endured by the thousands of men and women known as 'The Abandoned Ones.'

Reporter Mary-Ann Ochota and director Suzie Samant travel to Delhi to meet the remarkable children who run the only newspaper in India campaigning on the problems that street children face.

Unreported World investigates the shocking effects Egypt's political unrest is having on the country's tourism industry and the unique archaeological heritage. Reporter Aidan Hartley and director Alex Nott find ancient archaeological sites being plundered by armed looters; people who previously worked as guides trying to survive without money or food and the corpses of horses and camels that used to carry tourists lying in piles in the desert next to the pyramids. Egypt's economy has always relied on tourism, but since the army toppled the Muslim Brotherhood in a bloody coup, tourism has collapsed. The Giza Plateau is home to one of the Seven Wonders of the World and it used to have 10,000 tourists visiting every day. Now it's eerily quiet, with the average number of tourists more like 10 a day. Emad Abu Zuba and Hima Abdurahman are tourist guides who offer camel rides at Giza. Before the crisis they did a brisk business but they can't remember when they last had a tourist client. Hima hasn't made any money for 14 days in a row and Emad says that people can't afford to feed their animals any more. He takes the team into the desert near the pyramids to show them the results. They find several piles of up to 50 dead horses lying in the sand. Emad says: 'Today if you saw 1000 horses, maybe next month you'll see 2000 of them. The third month you will see 3000 of them. One horse can feed one family. If you are going to count how many horses that are dead, it means the whole of that family has no money to live now.' The collapse of law and order, together with the collapse in tourism, is having a devastating effect on the country's archaeological treasures. The army and police have imposed a midnight curfew in Cairo, leaving the sites out in the desert unguarded. At the most famous tourist site in the world, archaeologist Monica Hanna reveals how armed looters are now plundering the network of ancient and unexplored tombs and temples for treasure. Eve

Reporter Seyi Rhodes and director Wael Dabbous travel with a local midwife into the jungles of the Central African Republic where, after heavy fighting, rebels have overthrown the government and medical teams can reach areas that have been inaccessible for years. The murderous Lord's Resistance Army has used the recent chaos to relocate from neighbouring countries and is killing people and kidnapping children. Olga Yetikoua is employed by the International Medical Corps and faces a daily struggle to save the lives of mothers and babies in a country that's one of the most dangerous places in the world to give birth.

Reporter Evan Williams and director Laura Warner travel to Nepal to investigate the growth of 'voluntourism', where Westerners donate time and money to help vulnerable children in Kathmandu's orphanages. Filming undercover in orphanages, they discover that many children are not orphans, but have been taken from impoverished parents. The team discover evidence that such children are mistreated and used by orphanage owners to attract money from donors. The orphan industry is now so lucrative that children are a valuable commodity.