From penal colony to paradise

Coiba Island off Panama's Pacific coast is a pristine sanctuary for nature, home to a vast array of biodiversity from marine life and endangered animals. But the reason that this natural gem has been able to flourish is tied to a darker past. Between 1920 and 2004, Coiba operated as a notoriously brutal penal colony. Keeping the island isolated with little human impact inadvertently preserved roughly 80% of its virgin rainforest, turning it into a vital ecological site. One of the former inmates, Mali Mali, is now a park ranger. He assists researchers and scientists who study the environment in order to protect it for the future.
Ronald Ávila Claudio of BBC Mundo filmed a special report on this island.

In December 2025 a Russian archaeologist was arrested in Poland. Ukraine sought the extradition of Alexander Butyagin in connection with his work excavating the ancient Greek settlement of Myrmekion. The site is in Crimea which Russia annexed in 2014, and Ukrainian authorities considered his work as looting. Butyagin was eventualy returned to Russia in a prisoner swap. But now even more serious charges have been brought against him by Ukraine. Grigor Atanesian and his colleagues at BBC Russian Investigations have been following the story.

Most North Koreans, according to a 2025 UN report, live under systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations, with total state control, forced labour and chronic food shortages that leave an estimated 40% of the population undernourished. But the country's leader, Kim Jong Un, has long been known to live a lavish lifestyle. Soram Cheon of BBC Korean has been studying satellite images of a luxury vessel off North Korea's coast, which many assume belongs to Kim Jong Un.

The Fifth Floor is at the heart of global storytelling on the BBC World Service, bringing you the best stories from journalists in the BBC's 43 language services. We're here to help you make sense of the stories making headlines around the world; to excite your curiosity and to get to grips with the facts.

Recent episodes have investigated Russia’s youth armies and how they make soldiers of Ukrainian children; featured the BBC team who were the first journalists to the site of the Nigerian school kidnappings and reflected the effects of internet blackouts in Iran, Uganda and India.

If you want to know more about Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, and the legacy of Hugo Chavez; or how Vladimir Putin’s network of deep cover spies operates; or why Donald Trump signed an executive order granting white South Africans asylum in the US, we have all those stories and more.

Presented by Faranak Amidi.

Produced by Laura Thomas, Caroline Ferguson and Hannah Dean.

(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)