Massive Lead Poisoning in Nigeria

A gold mining boom driven by high global prices is contaminating local villages with toxic lead dust, leading to a crisis that Human Rights Watch says is the worst lead poisoning epidemic in modern history.

Mayra Andrade: A New Musical Star for Cape Verde

Mayra Andrade is often compared to the late, great singer Cesária Évora. She’s certainly one of Cape Verde’s brightest musical stars with a voice that sounds like steel swaddled in soft cotton.

Swazi Soul From Singer Bholoja

Bholoja is perhaps the biggest music star in the tiny southern African nation of Swaziland. The World’s Alex Gallafent spoke with him about his most recent album ‘Swazi Soul’.

Who is the Nigerian Islamist Group “Boko Haram”?

Continental Airlines opens up a new route today: a direct daily flight from Houston to, Nigeria. But the State Department warns there’s high risk of terrorist attack in Nigeria. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with John Campbell, former US ambassador to Nigeria, about the threat posed by the Islamic extremist movement, “Boko Haram”.

Oh My Lady Gaga, and Other Linguistic Exchanges

Hengeilivable! Nonsensical English words and phrases are all the rage among young Chinese.

Are Chinese Kids Losing Their Language?

In this week’s World in Words podcast, Beijing urges mandatory calligraphy classes for school kids.

An Inuit Dialect, a Grammar for Cities, and Zappa’s Lyrics

Podcast: Almost no place on earth is remote any more, as a linguist discovers when he spends a year in an Inuit village.

Podcast: Memorizing the Koran and a New ‘Speak English’ Test

A Spelling Bee for Muslim World, a language proficiency test for immigrants to Britain, and Alaskans learn an African language.

The Words that Armed Anders Breivik

How much we should blame extreme political rhetoric for the actions of Anders Breivik? Did words help pull the trigger?

Punjabi immersion, Nigerian pidgin radio, and Annoying “Americanisms”

Top five language stories this month including: The first Punjabi public school in the US, a and a British journalist rails against the invasion of what he calls Americanisms into British English.

No Metaphors – China Miéville’s Imagined Language

In the latest World in Words podcast, a science fiction writer conceives of a language in which is impossible to lie.

Finally, Proof that Fiction is Good for You

In this week’s World in Words podcast, researchers test the supposed link between reading fiction and empathy.

The Legacy of the Bible in Translation

How the translated Bible has profoundly affected the English spoken by Jamaicans and how it may affect Jamaican Creole and Kalenjin.

Global Hedge Funds Buying Land in Africa

Hedge funds gobble up land in Africa and universities like Harvard are not far behind.

Civil War, 1896 Tsunami, Mau Mau, Yuri Gagarin, Bay of Pigs

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In the last week alone we’ve had at least three big anniversaries: 150th anniversary of the start of the (American) Civil War; 50th anniversary of the first human being into space; 50th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs. So we’ll look back at each of those moments. Plus Lisa Mullins interviews an archivist at National Geographic about an American writer and photographer, Eliza Scidmore, who documented the aftermath of a tsunami in northeast Japan more than a century ago. And we have two segments on the history behind the trial unfolding in London right now over alleged British atrocities in Kenya during the counterinsurgency campaign against Mau Mau rebels in the 1950′s. Download MP3