Human activity is sending animals and plants extinct. But there is a fightback going on. Scientists all over the world are coming up with radical solutions to save them - from transplanting polar bears, to “de-extincting” a very strange frog. And experts say each one of us can make a difference.

So is it too late to save the planet, or can we stop a mass extinction?

Contributors include:

Dr Simon Clulow – Macquarie University, Australia Dr Karen Poiani – CEO, Island Conservation Professor Jane Hill – University of York, UK Professor Thomas Elmqvist – Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University

Presenter: Feranak Amidi Producer: Beth Sagar-Fenton

(image: Romeo, the Sehuencas water frog / Courtesy of Global Wildlife Conservation, Austin Tx USA)

This week we’re looking at nothing less than the state of life on earth. The planet has seen mass extinctions before, periods of widespread and dramatic species loss. Some now fear human activity is driving another one: land cleared for farms, homes and roads; waters filled with pollution and emptied of fish; skies choked with gasses causing climate change. But does it add up to a mass extinction? In the first of a two-part series, we examine the evidence of species loss and compare it with the geological record. Presenter: Neal Razzell Producers: Josephine Casserly and Siobhan O’Connell

(Image: Dinosaur skeleton, Credit: Getty images)

Millions of us take a vitamin tablet every day - how did they become so popular? We follow the rise and rise of vitamins from their discovery just a century ago, to the multi-billion dollar market of today. The story of how the vitamin supplement entered our daily lives takes us from the targeted guilt-tripping of concerned mothers, to the use of vitamins as a weapon against the Nazis, via a plan for vitamin doughnuts.

Experts question whether most of us need to take them at all – so how did we get hooked on vitamins?

Contributors include:

Dr Lisa Rogers – World Health Organization Catherine Price – Author of Vitamania: How Vitamins Revolutionized the Way We Think About Food Dr Salim Al-Gailani - Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge Matthew Oster – Head of Consumer Health, Euromonitor International

Presenter: Kavita Puri Producer: Beth Sagar-Fenton

(Photo: a woman shopping at 'Mr Vitamins', a chain of supplement outlets in Sydney, Australia. Credit: Saeed Khan/Getty Images)

#MeToo became viral following allegations of sexual harassment and violence at the hands of Harvey Weinstein. Now women and men in their millions around the world have been mobilised by the hashtag to share their stories of abuse. But its founder Tarana Burke fears the movement has moved away from its original remit to give a voice to victims of sexual violence. She worries it is being talked about as a vindictive plot against men. So what is the reality on the ground around the globe? We hear about the impact of the #MeToo in India and Iran. What did it really achieve? Presenter: Kavita Puri Producer: Jim Frank

(South Korean demonstrators at a rally for the country's #MeToo movement in Seoul, 2018. Photo credit: Jung Yeon-Je/Getty Images)

Journalists have been subject to more killings, and increasing levels of violence and intimidation in 2018, according to monitoring groups.

This year alone more than 30 have been murdered, including Mexican veteran journalist Carlos Domínguez Rodríguez who was stabbed to death in January, 5 journalists shot dead at their office in Annapolis in the US in June, and the story that has dominated the news, the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at his consulate in Istanbul in October. The suspects range from organised criminals to state-sponsored assassins.

And it’s not just about murder – imprisonments and intimidation are also on the rise.

Why should the public care? What’s behind the surge? And how can the press and the public fight back? We talk to those journalists and activists from across the world to find out: is this the most dangerous time to be a journalist?

Contributors include:

Pavla Holcova - Czech Centre for Investigative Journalism Sothearin Yeang – former journalist, Radio Free Asia Omar Faruk Osman - Secretary General of the National Union of Somali Journalists Jan-Albert Hootsen – Mexico representative, Committee to Protect Journalists

Presenter: Victoria Uwonkunda Producer: Beth Sagar-Fenton

UPDATE: Since we recorded this programme in November three more journalists have been murdered, including a radio presenter and reporter shot dead in Syria.

(Image: Protesters hold placards during a rally against corruption and to pay tribute to murdered journalist Jan Kuciak in Bratislava, Slovakia. Photo Credit:Joe Klamar/Getty Images)

The UK voted to leave the European Union in June 2016. More than two years on, it’s still not clear how that will happen, or what will come after.

Consensus within Westminster seems impossible, and if the deal currently on offer from Brussels is voted down on December 11, the UK could crash out of the EU with no deal at all. What makes it so hard to come up with a solution?

The BBC has followed all of the twists and turns of the Brexit negotiations in minute detail. In this special programme, four correspondents from across the organisation give their take on what makes Brexit such a fraught process.

Katya Adler, Europe Editor Chris Morris, Reality Check Correspondent Alex Forsyth, Political Correspondent John Campbell, Northern Ireland Business and Economics Correspondent

Presenter: Edward Stourton Producer: Lucy Proctor

(Brexit Map - Getty Creative)

There’s talk of a new Cold War between Russia and the West. What responsibility does the West carry for the dismal state of relations?

Russian leaders say Nato has expanded far beyond the borders that were agreed when the Soviet Union collapsed and a new European order was thrashed out. They see troops and hardware stationed close to their towns and cities as highly provocative. America and the EU are seen as meddling in the internal affairs of Russia and the states surrounding it by funding pro-democracy movements and helping to topple regimes. And a new arms race is underway. Russian military leaders perceive an active threat from the West – are they right?

The previous edition was: Is Russia At War With The West?

Presenter: Kavita Puri Producer: Lucy Proctor

There are currently a number of serious allegations made in the West against Russia. They include the attempted murder of the former spy Sergei Skripal on British soil; interference in the 2016 US election; the hacking of the American electricity grid. To some, it feels like the West is under attack. But do any of these actions amount to war?

Olga Khovostunova, a Russian media analyst, describes the effect of the collapse of the Soviet Union on the psyche of President Putin and his close knit circle of security chiefs. For them, the threat from the West is real.

Norwegian foreign correspondent Oystein Borgen says Russia is engaged in a hybrid war with the West, in which Norway has become a little-known front line.

Lawyer Michael Schmitt, from the US Naval College, sets out how Russian security chiefs, almost certainly surrounded by a team of international law experts, operate in the grey zone of international law.

Political scientist Kimberley Marten explains how private military contractors operating in Ukraine, Libya, the Central African Republic and Syria give the Russian state plausible deniability in conflict zones.

Presenter: Kavita Puri Producer: Lucy Proctor

(Photo: Cyber warfare. Credit: Getty images)

There are different routes to pariah status. North Korea, with its gross human rights abuses and illicit nuclear weapons programme tops the list and represents the classic pariah - completely ostracized from the international system. Another sure-fire way to become a pariah is to sponsor international terrorism, like Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya in the 20th century. But as his example shows, international rehabilitation can happen almost overnight. Then there are less clear cut pariahs like Zimbabwe, condemned by the West but very much part of the regional African system. Four expert witnesses examine these cases and explore whether the notion of a pariah state is meaningful in the 21st century multi-polar world. Presenter: Kavita Puri Producer: Lucy Proctor

(Photo: Ostracized /Getty Images)

Warnings about the approaching post-antibiotics apocalypse have been sounding for years. There are now strains of deadly bacteria that are resistant to all antibiotics. This means that doctors are faced with patients who have completely untreatable infections. Hundreds of thousands of people worldwide are dying due to antibiotic resistance - and this number is set to rise rapidly. If we carry on like this, scientists predict we will return to a pre-antibiotic era, where organ transplants, chemotherapy and C-sections are impossible.

We have come a long way since 1928, when the famous chance discovery of penicillin led to a golden age in which antibiotics were seen as wonder drugs, heralding in an age of huge medical advances and increased human life spans. But by the 1990s we were running out of new antibiotics and infections were again a killer. How did this happen?

Our expert witnesses are medic and historian, Dr Eric Sidebottom, Dr Scott Podolsky of Harvard Medical School, journalist Maryn McKenna and infectious disease specialist Brad Spellberg.

(Photo: A depiction EHEC bacteria. Credit: HZI/Getty Images)

The burgeoning relationship between China and Africa has been one of the great economic stories of the 21st century. Billions of dollars of investment and loans from China have created radical change in many African countries. But not everyone is happy, with some even claiming this is a new form of colonialism. As signs of discontent grow in countries like Zambia, and investment numbers start to slip down, we ask: is the China-Africa love affair over?

Contributors include:

Dr Lauren Johnston – Research Fellow, University of Melbourne Professor Lina Benabdallah – Assistant Professor of Politics & International Affairs, Wake Forest University Laura Miti – Executive Director, Alliance for Community Action Professor Stephen Chan – Professor of World Politics, School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London)

Presenter: Linda Yueh Producer: Beth Sagar-Fenton

(A Chinese railway worker drills holes on the newly put railway tracks in Dondo, outside Luanda, Angola. Photo credit: Per-Anders Pettersson/Getty Images )

Thousands died when an earthquake and tsunami struck Palu, Indonesia – but could more lives have been saved? Accusations have been made of a host of failings: alert systems that were out of action, sirens that didn’t sound, a government slow to give emergency help - even people who were too busy filming the disaster to run away. How much truth is there to this? Was everything done to warn people beforehand, and rescue people in the aftermath? We speak to experts on the ground and around the world to find out. Contributors include: Lian Gogali – Founder, Institute Mosintuwu Harald Spahn – Consultant geologist 2006-2013, German-Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System project Harkunti Pertiwi Rahayu – Chair, Indonesian Association of Disaster Experts & Assistant Professor, Bandung Institute of Technology Mark Astarita – Former Director of Fundraising, British Red Cross Presenter: Kavita Puri Producer: Beth Sagar-Fenton

(A man looks for his belongings amid the debris of his destroyed house in Palu, Central Sulawesi, Sept 29 2018. Photo credit: Bay Ismoyo/Getty Images)