How has stability in Northern Ireland helped businesses? We look at the impact of the peace deal from the perspective of people within Northern Ireland, and outside, and find out how it has helped the development of manufacturing, foreign investment, tourism, and farming.

We also hear from the former Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, one of the architects of The Good Friday Agreement.

Presented and produced by Russell Padmore.

(Image: Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair (left) and then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern (right). Credit: PA)

How do you make a game with a conservative image more marketable, and more profitable?

Chess has been played for centuries, two people facing off over chessboard, but now it’s big business online too.

Business Daily’s Dougal Shaw meets the head of World Chess, Ilya Merenzon, to talk about expanding the sport, the opportunities of the digital format, and the challenge of the recent cheating scandals.

Produced and presented by Dougal Shaw.

(Image: Magnus Carlsen at the Tata Steel Chess Tournament in January 2021. Credit: Getty Images)

The Liberica bean is a species of coffee that growers are hoping will make their crops sustainable in the future as the climate changes.

We speak to farmers struggling to grow the most popular coffee plants and taste test a Liberica brew.

Presenter / producer: Laura Heighton-Ginns

(Image: Martin Kinyua; Credit: Martin Kinyua)

The Khoi and San people, who discovered rooibos tea, have only recently started receiving a share of the industry's multimillion-pound profits.

They tell us about their fight to get the money they're owed and we hear from the rooibos farmers who are now having to pay out. We also find out what this deal could mean for other indigenous groups in a similar situation.

Presenter: Mohammed Allie Producer: Jo Critcher Image: Princess Chantal Revell from the National Khoi and San Council, drinking rooibos tea; Credit: Princess Chantal Revell

The barcode has become an essential part of the modern world. There are 10 billion barcode scans every day and they are used on products in every country.

It started as a few lines drawn in the Florida sand and today it turns 50. It changed the way we shop and trade, without them global supply chains could not function.

Presenter / producer: Sam Fenwick Image: Barcode; Credit: Getty Images

As India is poised to overtake China as the world's most populous country, we put questions from World Service listeners to the author of 8 Billion and Counting. Dr Jennifer Sciubba explains how the number of humans is growing in some countries, declining in others, how people are moving around the world and why that matters when it comes to money and work. She also discusses the issue of fertility and birth-rate, and it's close links to factors such as government support and childcare.

Presenter: Devina Gupta Producers: Helen Thomas and Carmel O'Grady

(Image: A mother and child. Credit: Getty Images)

Japan is the world’s fastest ageing country, nearly 30% of Japan’s population is already over 65. Devina Gupta looks into what the ever decreasing workforce means for businesses in Japan.

Many companies are pouring resources into developing advanced robots and artificial intelligence to do human work. Mikio Okumura- president of one of Japan’s largest insurance companies - Sompo Holdings, tells us his company has recently started using AI to analyse complex data to predict the health risks of individuals.

Many small and medium businesses owners nearing retirement age are also struggling to find successors. Japan’s trade ministry has warned that by 2025 over half a million profitable businesses could close, costing the economy $165 billion. Tsuneo Watanabe, a director of Nihon M&A Center, a company that specializes in finding buyers for such enterprises tells us how they're trying to solve the problem.

Producer / presenter: Devina Gupta Image: Senior citizens advertising in Tokyo; Credit: Getty Images

Bisi Adebayo investigates why so many young, highly skilled people leave Nigeria, known in the country as Japa.

Bisi hears from journalist Victoria Idowu who re-located to Canada with her family and a teacher in Lagos who is about to pack her bags and move to the UK.

We also hear from an expert in employment data Babajide Ogunsanwo who tells us how much this costs Nigeria and Wale Smart an employer who explains how tricky it is to find and retain staff.

Presenter / producer: Bisi Adebayo Image: Graduating students of the American University of Nigeria; Credit: Getty Images

Italy’s population has decreased by approximately one million residents in the space of one year and forecasts predict that this is likely to worsen.

Hannah Mullane speaks to a mother in Rome about what it’s like to start a family in Italy and a business that’s implementing its own policies to support staff who choose to have children.

We take a look at what the government is planning to do to encourage more people to have children and head to the north of Italy to the Bolzano region, the only part of the country where births are increasing to see what they’re doing differently.

Presenter/producer: Hannah Mullane Image: Melissa and Cosmo; Credit: Melissa Panarello

Devina Gupta reports on India's growing population and what that means for people living, working and running businesses there.

66 year old Radha Gupta and her daughter Aashima Gupta live in India’s capital city, Delhi. They tell us how population dynamics have changed their lifestyle over the years, and business woman Vineeta Singh tells us how she has capitalised on a growing number of consumers in India and how this is attracting global finance.

Presenter / producer: Devina Gupta Image: Kolkata market: Credit: Getty Images

David Reid delves into the debate around the repatriation of problematic art and treasures. He visits one museum in the north-west of England attempting to decolonise its collection by returning thousands of items to the countries and communities they were taken from.

In this episode we meet curators like Dr Njabulo Chipangura, from Manchester Museum, who says the best way to guarantee the future of collections is to give parts of them away. Also, Professor Kim A. Wagner from the University of London tells us the story of the skull of Alum Bheg, which he would dearly like to return to India.

Is this ultimately the right way to treat problematic artefacts and treasures? Or could this movement end up destroying hard to acquire expertise and render Museums meaningless and economically unviable?

Producer/presenter: David Reid

(Photo: The skull of Alum Bheg: Credit: Kim Wagner)

Ten years ago this month, in March 2013, Venezuela’s charismatic socialist leader Hugo Chavez died and current president Nicolas Maduro took over.

In the decade since, the South American nation suffered an extraordinary economic collapse – the economy shrunk by two thirds, inflation hit six digits, the government chopped 11 zeros off the bank notes, oil production slumped and millions of people fled abroad to escape economic hardship.

We talk to Venezuelans who lived through that collapse, from a shopkeeper who went bankrupt to a university professor whose salary in the local currency, bolivars, is worth just 25 US dollars a month.

We also ask if the worst is over and what the future holds for this once wealthy nation – a founding member of Opec that sits on some of the world’s largest oil reserves.

Producer and presented by Gideon Long Additional reporting: Vanessa Silva in Caracas

(Image: A Venezuelan man holding a Chavez/Maduro balloon. Credit: Getty Images)