Guest Host Nadene Ghouri takes us with her as she visits the Ukrainian woman who was the surrogate mother for her child. Nadene explains what the experience has taught her about the bond between mother and child, and what it means for women to control their own bodies.

Host Nadene Ghouri talks with Oscar Durand, the producer of On Spec's latest episode, "A Nation’s Two Sides." Durand talks about what it was like growing up in Peru, and the kind of class divisions highlighted in the episode, which was reported by Finnish journalist Kukka Maria Ahokas.

Peru has long struggled with political, cultural, racial, and economic divides, a source of tension that propelled the leftist former schoolteacher Pedro Castillo to the Presidency last year. In the city of Lima, the complex social jigsaw puzzle manifests itself physically: the “Wall of Shame” is three meters high and ten kilometeres long, separating the affluent in La Molina from others in neighboring Villa Maria del Triunfo. Finnish journalist Kukka Maria Ahokas has little trouble crossing this and other barriers, and she introduces us to activist Carlos Hinostroza, who is trying to tear down the wall for all.

Host Nadene Ghouri talks with French-Armenian journalist Astrig Agopian, about her recent reporting for On Spec's episode "When a Frozen Conflict Wakes Up."  The episode brought listeners to the Armenia-Azerbaijan frontier, and introduces us to people dealing with a decades-old conflict that turned into another real war in 2020.

Host Nadene Ghouri talks with Angel Bwalya Kasabo and Lewis Yuyi about On Spec's latest episode, which introduces us to families in Zambia trying to move past the stereotypes surrounding their tribal identities in the country.

Tribal identities continue to play a role in social and political rifts in many parts of the world, even erupting into outright conflict. In the southern African nation of Zambia, a younger generation now attempts to bridge the gap between different tribes. But long-held stereotypes make it difficult for Zambians to discard their tribal identity entirely. Zambian journalist and radio host Angel Bwalya Kasabo introduces us to two Zambian families who come from different tribes–the Tonga and Bemba–that have intermarried. These Zambian families have crossed not only tribal borders, but their own borders of prejudice. Their experiences can bring understanding about how to break through tension and misunderstanding between families in a polarized society.

For several decades now, the region of Nagorno-Karabakh has been a source of tension between Armenia and Azerbaijan, occasionally resulting in a real war, like in 2020. But along the shores of lake Joghaz, there are villagers old enough to recall what it was like to live together when both countries were Soviet republics. Today the border is sealed, but villagers can sometimes still hear conversations from across the lake. French-Armenian journalist Astrig Agopian introduces us to villagers who, despite the conflict, still remember that today’s enemy is yesterday’s neighbor, and to people from both backgrounds across the globe who are trying to bridge a geopolitical divide before the next war.

Guest Host Nadene Ghouri tells the story of how her search for a surrogate mother for her child brought her to Ukraine, and how she found herself repaying the ultimate kindness by helping one woman flee the war there.

The French town of Calais is at the heart of a massive security infrastructure program meant to keep refugees and migrants from crossing the English Channel into the United Kingdom. Over the past 20 years, French and British authorities have spent hundreds of millions of pounds on walls, fences, different types of cameras, more police and security agents to keep people away from the shores. In order to do so, private firms have benefited from multi-year contracts to build, maintain or operate in the city and specifically around the port and railway tunnel areas.
Rights organizations and other NGOs say that the infrastructure only forces migrants and refugees to seek out more perilous routes to the UK. Journalists Margaux Benn and Judith Chetrit report from the ground and shed light on this corner of Fortress Europe.