Supported projects

CATANZARO - The Calabrian mafia ‘Ndrangheta's primary source of money is cocaine. How do they traffic the drug from South America to Europe and Africa leaving virtually no trace?

TRIPOLI - The dream of the Arab Spring has splattered. Since the outbreak of popular uprisings in 2011, things have gone from bad to worse in the region. Is the Arab world simply not ready for democracy, or is there more to it?

BRUSSELS - "You have cancer" is a diagnosis with a tremendous psychological impact. But not only for you, but also for your life partner.

BRUSSELS - After crossing seas and walls, some asylum seeker arriving in Europe have to cross one more wired fence: one made of words.

DAKAR - Mafia in Africa 2 exposes the fraudulent business empire of Italian criminal Curio Pintus, who was sentenced to three years in jail in 2001 for laundering drug money for the 'ndrangheta, but remains active as CEO of US “merchant bank”, the Pintus Group.

KALININGRAD - The case of the Russian province Kaliningrad has been causing a war of nerves between East and West. Reports about re-militarisation and information warfare are reminiscent of a Cold War 2.0. Is Europe turning back to a bipolar logic?

RUBAVU / GOMA - Every day over 25,000 Rwandese cross the border to Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the majority looking to sell Rwandese milk. The trip is not without danger, but for many the juice is worth the squeeze.

FRAY BENTOS - In the last few years money has been made with raw materials. Lots of money. Everyone was after it to win and sell them or to process them in industry. The result: prices skyrocketed. Those who traded in raw materials became rich while sleeping. That credo applied to companies, and ...

How did one of Africa's biggest investment companies spend the money they collected from international developments banks for the refurbishment of the Rift Valley Railway?

ANKARA - DITIB is a cultural and religious organisation for Turkish people living in Europe. Or so it claims. In reality, however, it is a political body whose strings are pulled directly by Ankara. DITIB promotes the Turkish ruling party, the AKP, in Europe and pushes Turk-Europeans to toe the line ...

ISTANBUL - Whoever wants to understand the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan should look at his great idol: the Islamofascist poet and ideologist Necip Fazil Kisakürek.

PORTO-NOVO - Yovo Bonsoir breaks the clichés about Africa. The white volunteer travelling in the West African country of Benin is the guide. With the help of local colleagues, three young Flemish journalists investigate the true nature of "voluntourism", a popular holiday trend that combines tourism ...

KAKUMA - How do you build a home in a place called nowhere? Filmmaker Lieven Corthouts decided to stay in one of the harshest places on earth and make this camp his home.

RIGA - There are important disparities in the price of cancer medicines within the 28 EU member States. New cancer drugs are incredibly expensive for patients in some Eastern member states or simply not available because of shortages.

ADDIS ABEBA - Tens of thousands of Chinese have moved to Addis Abeba over the past years, creating jobs, roads, telecom networks and vegetable gardens with water spinach. Who are the different actors in China's recent involvement in Ethiopia?

DRESDEN - During the Second World War just about every Nazi-leader had its own art collection. The hunger for art was enormous. Which paintings were brought from Belgium to Nazi Germany?

GENEVA - The 20th century has been marked by the granting of a wide range of rights to different segments of society. But for some of these rights, we haven't yet found the ideal democratic ways of organising them. Three cases.

KAKUMA - In a remote corner of the sparsely populated northwest of Kenya, the Kakuma Refugee Camp was founded in 1991. The persistent instability in the region caused a society with increasingly urban characteristics to arise.

HARDIN - Sitting Bull personifies the mystery of the Indians. One of the few whites who enjoyed Sitting Bull's confidence was Father Pieter-Jan De Smet, a Jesuit from Dendermonde (Belgium) who came to rescue the Indians. The savage story of these two men is overwhelming. Karl van den Broeck goes in ...

WINDHOEK - The internal financial structures of the dominant political parties in several African countries, which function as corporatised multinationals within monopolised state power structures: Angola's MPLA, Zimbabwe's ZANU and Namibia's SWAPO.

KIEV - The Belgian Koen Carlier has a mission: he wants to bring all Jews in the world to Israel. With the support of Christians for Israel, he travels through Ukraine to help Jews return to Israel. Because only then will the Messiah come, says Koen ...

KYIV - Imagine a little town in rural Ukraine, with potholed roads, decayed public buildings, ill-looking gas pipes. And its broadband Internet. A few years ago, broadband Internet brought a second life to families in villages like that.

PALERMO - An investigation into the contemporary Italian mafia in Europe. Or how the mafia made its way to the Low Countries.

BRUSSELS - A completely new view on the Fortis-case and especially on the very closed deliberation procedure in the magistracy. Wim Van den Eyndes book Fortisgate raises serious questions about the functioning of the judiciary in Belgium.

MAASTRICHT - What are all those E numbers doing in the kitchens of our restaurants? An investigation into molecular gastronomy and the food additives industry in our modernist cuisine.

CONSTANTA - Smugglers, some of them organised in networks, are profiting from migrants' despair by selling them their services. The trade is making them a fortune – and fuelling their criminal enterprise with cash.

COTONOU - The most controversial candidate in the upcoming presidential elections in Wes-African microstate Benin is Lionel Zinsou, who has roots in Benin but was born and raised in France. Will the next president in West-Africa be a white man?

MAPUTO - How much of the $850 million budget allocated to Mozambique's public-private company Ematum to buy a fishing fleet was actually spent on military hardware?

CAPE TOWN - The world behind a glass of South-African wine. Emma Lesuis went back to the winery where she made the documentary "Vir 'n glasie wyn" (For a glass of wine) and saw that little had changed. That's why she went looking for solutions and discovered the world of Fairtrade. 

KABUL - Each year, 115 tonnes of heroin from Afghan poppy fields is exported to Europe. Who wins? Who loses? And what is the impact of lucrative drug smuggling on people who live along this Balkan route?