The Mafia and Italian politics

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. This week, we hear from a perfumer who in 1990 helped create the world’s first perfume archive in Versailles France. Our guest is Dr William Tullett, a Senior Lecturer in Histor ...  Show more

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. On the 40th anniversary of the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, we hear from one man involved in the clean-up operation. Our guest is Jordan Dunbar, presenter of the BBC documenta ...  Show more

Prosecutor Gian Carlo Caselli explains how leading Italian politician Giulio Andreotti was put on trial in Sicily in September 1995, accused of collusion with the Mafia. Andreotti had been prime minister seven times and journalists dubbed it the trial of the century. Bob Howard h ...  Show more

The charismatic Egyptian president dominated Arab politics for almost two decades up until his death on September 28th 1970. His funeral was attended by millions of grief-stricken Egyptians. In 2010 Mike Gallagher spoke to an ordinary Egyptian who remembered his death, and its af ...  Show more

Palermo businessman Libero Grassi published an open letter in Sicily’s main newspaper denouncing the Mafia for constantly demanding extortion payments. Grassi was hailed as a hero, but his public refusal to pay was intolerable to the Mafia and a few months later, in the summer of ...  Show more

Exactly a century after the 1922 March on Rome which brought fascist dictator Benito Mussolini to power, the far-right party Brothers of Italy have been voted into government.Fratelli d'Italia (FDL), which has its roots in Italy’s post-war Neo-fascist social movement, is lead by ...  Show more