The State We’re In, 12 December 2009: The right to be left alone: we speak with a woman from County Mayo, Ireland, who was willing to die in order to prevent Shell from building a natural gas plant near where she lives. We also speak to a woman whose ex-partner has been stalking her for the last fifteen years and ask how she manages to live day-to-day.

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Shell games
Retired school principal, Maura Harrington should be taking it easy in idyllic County Mayo, Ireland. But she went on a hunger strike last year to stop oil company Shell from laying a high-pressure gas pipe. She tells host Jonathan Groubert why she was willing to put her life on the line to do so.

 
Shell responds
Shell spokesman John Egan – who’s from County Mayo - admits that the company communicated poorly to locals and that gaining their trust will be hard. But he also says that Maura and others who share her views are wrong and he explains to Jonathan why.
 

  
In his sights
Kate Brennan (not her real name) will never forget the day she met the man in the blue silk shirt and linen pants. He was charming, interesting and stood apart from other men out there. Their relationship lasted three years. Now, fifteen years later he’s still making her pay for her decision to leave him. ‘Stalked’ is the name of her book, and it’s about exactly that: what it’s like to be stalked no matter what you do or where you move.  
 

  
Sexy statistics
Jonathan interviews Swedish researcher, Dr Hans Rosling, the head of gapminder.org. Rosling shows movers and shakers around the globe his “fact-based” view of the world and challenges them to “make their mindset match his dataset”. One of his surprising findings: that linking human rights to economic development is a dead end. He tells Jonathan why.