Malika Shawa is an old girl of Cheltenham Ladies College. She's also a Palestinian aristocrat, who owns the only hotel in the Gaza Strip. In the refugee camp next door, the Palestinian intifada - an uprising against Israeli occupation - began three years ago this week. Today, Malika's guests are a strange collection of journalists, diplomats and foreigners on fact-finding tours. For them, her hotel is 'an oasis from the filth, smells and violence that surrounds it'.

The BBC 40 Mins documentary team follow Trevor Smith, owner of Trevor Smith's Animal World, a company that supplies animals for film and television.

'I was born and brought up in Britain. I was 8 years old when I was circumcised. I really thought I was going to die, because of the pain, having no anaesthetic. You have a lady holding your mouth so you cannot scream, you have two ladies on your chest and the other two holding the legs.'. Seven years ago, 40 Minutes' first film on female circumcision led to the law which banned it in this country. Today's film reveals that the practice of genital mutilation of young girls is still flourishing in Britain today.

Five young Russian survivors of the Soviet Union's worst rail disaster arrive in Manchester for medical treatment. Badly burned in the explosion in 1989, they hope plastic surgeon Stewart Watson can help. Bewildered, without a word of English, they face major surgery and the unfamiliar west. Immediately they're the centre of attraction, with a press conference on their first day in hospital and an invitation to Downing Street before they leave.