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OnSpec/Pandemic • Surviving as a Woman

With  families in lockdown, and social services unavailable, experts say  domestic violence is increasing, and being ignored during the  coronavirus outbreak. Menel Raach talks to a woman in Iraq who is trying  to find a safe place to live amid the lockdowns there, and to lawyers  and experts about what is being called a “shadow…

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OnSpec/Pandemic • Rediscovering Our Kitchens

You probably know someone who has discovered their inner chef in the last few months.  In New York, photographer Jackson Krule discovered he was a baker.  Unable to go out and photograph the Orthodox Jewish community he has been documenting, he started baking challah bread at home and posting photos online.  Now it’s turned into…

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OnSpec/Pandemic • Mental Health in Isolation

How is being on lock down effecting our mental health, and how are mental health professionals trying to continue to provide help when they cannot meet someone in person? On Spec intern and journalist Kasper Dilmaghani talks to therapists and one woman who opens up about her depression.  Here is the story on how the…

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OnSpec/Pandemic • Prisons and COVID19

What if you don’t have control over your own self-isolation? More than two million people are in prisons in the US, which has the highest incarceration rate in the world.  Oscar Durand speaks with Efrén Paredes, Jr about the prison where he is incarcerated serving a life sentence for a robbery and murder committed when…

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OnSpec/Pandemic • Alone but not Lonely

Whether you live across the street, or across the Atlantic, for many of us social distancing now means you cannot meet in person. Your family, your friends, that person you wanted to date…everything is on hold.  But across the world we are finding new ways of bridging the distances.  Margaux Benn and Menel Raach bring…

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OnSpec/Pandemic • Face to Face with the Virus

What’s it like to have COVID19 in Turkey?  Hilaneh Mahmoudi, a freelance photographer in Istanbul, spent weeks trying to not catch it, but one day the tell tale symptoms began.  This is her audio diary, told to host Fariba Nawa, of what it’s like to have the virus, and the struggle to keep those living…

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OnSpec/Pandemic • Faith Interrupted

You might think you’re further away from the world, but in many ways the pandemic is bringing us together. We begin with the religious, those who turn to faith and collective prayer in times of hardship. But they are not supposed to gather anymore in mosques, churches or synagogues. The entire concept of communal support…

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OnSpec/07 – Treasure Hunters

Journalist Margaux Benn ventures to the remote province of Nimroz, Afghanistan and follows the tracks of ancient artefacts, from the desert straddling Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, to a shop in the capital Kabul. Some could be antiquities ending up on a shelf among fakes, then illegally taken to Dubai and sold at a high price.

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OnSpec/06 – Rupi’s Journey

Oscar Durand brings you the story of a Bolivian street musician in Istanbul, who like the rest of us, wonders where the years have gone and what he will do with his life.  Oscar, a Peruvian and former engineer, found a common bond with Rupi on speaking Spanish and the meaning of life.  (Rupi’s name…

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OnSpec/05 – The ISIS Conundrum

As the world grapples with how to serve justice to thousands of foreign ISIS affiliates captured in Syria and Iraq, Australian journalist Tessa Fox travels to northeast Syria to meet the Australians accused of being  affiliated with the group. 

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