Warning: Readers may find some of the details within this report upsetting “Higher,” the little girl demands, her eyes bright with excitement. “Higher, higher.” Zeina’s being pushed on a swing in a small playground in the suburbs of the northern Italian city of Padua. A normal scene anywhere in the world. But Zeina, two, can’t…

For Daniel Guerra, an aspiring Brazilian sailor keen to travel the world, the job ad was a dream come true. A British yacht owner was seeking two deck-hands to help sail his boat from Brazil across the Atlantic, one of the great ocean journeys. There would be no salary, but all expenses paid – and,…

“It almost looked like she was walking on clouds that day,” says Maren Sheldon, twin sister of the late breast cancer campaigner, Kris Hallenga. Maren is remembering the “living FUNeral” her sister had organised last year in Truro Cathedral in Cornwall. For the occasion, Kris wore a sequinned top with “YODO” on the back –…

Signs that modern slavery victims were being forced to work at a McDonald’s branch and a factory supplying bread products to major supermarkets were missed for years, the BBC has found. A gang forced 16 victims to work at either the fast-food restaurant or the factory – which supplied Asda, Co-op, M&S, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and…

BBC Diego Garcia, a remote island in the Indian Ocean, is a paradise of lush vegetation and white-sand beaches, surrounded by crystal blue waters. But this is no tourist destination. It is strictly out of bounds to most civilians – the site of a highly secretive UK-US military base shrouded for decades in rumour and…