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The Mother Choosing to Love her 'Enemy'

A gunman linked to al-Qaeda killed Latifa Ibn Ziaten's son in a series of killings in France. Not only did she forgive him, she went on to help save young men from radicalisation.

Latifa Ibn Ziaten, a Moroccan mother to five has been awarded the highest honour in France, the Legion of Honour, and has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Latifa's son, a French soldier, was murdered in Toulouse in 2012. Since then Latifa has worked closely with people at risk of radicalisation in prisons and schools and has convinced at least three young men not to go and fight in Syria.

Teresa Camacho Badani is a herpetologist, a biologist specialising in amphibians and reptiles. A decade ago, she had a really big find - a very rare frog called a sehuencas water frog. The frog was taken to Teresa's research centre where it stayed, alone. They named him Romeo and in a last ditch attempt to find him a Juliet, set up a dating profile for him, and started a campaign to raise funds and launch an expedition.

Dr Jim Fallon is a neurobiologist and has had a distinguished career at the University of California, studying Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia and psychopathy. Psychopaths are people who lack emotional empathy, who don't feel love like other people, and who lie and manipulate as a matter of course. In 2006 Jim studied his own brain and made a disturbing discovery.

Image: Latifa Ibn Ziaten
Credit: JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images

Available now

53 minutes

Last on

Wed 6 Feb 2019 04:06GMT

Broadcasts

  • Tue 5 Feb 2019 12:06GMT
  • Tue 5 Feb 2019 16:06GMT
  • Tue 5 Feb 2019 18:06GMT
  • Tue 5 Feb 2019 21:06GMT
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  • Wed 6 Feb 2019 04:06GMT

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Podcast: Lives Less Ordinary

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