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This week supermodel Naomi Campbell is due to give evidence in the war crimes trial of the former Liberian president Charles Taylor in the Hague, an event which will no doubt attract plenty of media attention.

But the trial, which has so far lasted some three years, is already being widely reported in west Africa, thanks partly to a team of journalists specially trained by the World Service Trust.

British supermodel Naomi Campbell will give evidence at the warcrimes trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor about a 'blood diamond' he allegedly gave her. Picture: Getty Images

This week, Rajan talks to one of them, Joseph Cheeseman, and to his mentor, the former ´óÏó´«Ã½ Home Affairs correspondent Jon Silverman, who has many years of experience reporting court cases here in the UK as well as a number of high-profile war crimes trials.

Joseph tells Rajan about the anger that the trial has caused among supporters of Charles Taylor and its role in the reconciliation process, and he and Jon discuss the challenges and potential pitfalls of court reporting.

Shhh... it's a World Service podcast

One of our listeners, Sadek in Algeria, got in touch this week to enquire why World Service podcasts often seem very quiet.

He was insistent that the problem doesn't lie with his mp3 player, so we got in touch with Gareth Davis from the Digital Delivery department who make the podcasts available. He agrees that the podcasts are quiet, and he explains why, as you can hear in this week's programme.

Together in Olympic Dreams

Rajan also talks to Matthew Pinsent, the British rower who has won four Olympic gold medals.

He was at the Olympic Stadium here in east London this week, to mark the fact that the begin in exactly two years' time.Ìý

Rajan talks to him about the project, which will be following the progress of 26 Olympic hopefuls from around the world.Ìý

But the scheme will also mean that those of us who have no hope at all of qualifying for the Olympics can still get tips on how to improve on our own sporting performance through the interactive schemes that are part of the project - as you can hear on Over To You this week. .

Cathy Packe is the Producer, Over To You

Over To You is your chance to have your say about the ´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service and its programmes. It airs at 00:40, 03:40 and 12:40 every Sunday (GMT).

• Listen to previous episodes of Over To You
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• Send the team your feedback by email (overtoyou@bbc.co.uk), telephone (44 144 960 9000), SMS (447786 202006) or by leaving comments on this blog

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A sleeping giant

This weekend Over To You enlists two listeners with a particular interest in China to review a major new four-part series on that nation's incredible growth and its subsequent impact on the rest of the world. China: Shaking the World, presented by the irrepressible business expert Michael Robinson, certainly didn't leave our listeners short of things to discuss.
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Like EXTRAORDINARY FACT NO.1: five years ago China had no high-speed railways; today it has more than all of Europe, and by the end of next year it will have more than the rest of the world put together.ÌýÌý
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Or EXTRAORDNARY FACT NO.2 : 150 million Chinese people are believed to have moved to work in coastal factories - the biggest migration in human history.

Or EXTRAORDINARY FACT NO. 3: From a standing start last year, China will be making a third of all the world's laptops by next year.
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The list goes on but the series attempts to look beyond these great economic leaps forward to analyse how the Chinese leadership has achieved this, the effect on ordinary citizens of these dramatic changes and the reaction of global competitors like Japan and the United States to China's single-minded approach to growth.
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Listen to Over To You to see if our special reviewers think China: Shaking the World offers new insights into an already well-documented phenomenon.

Dangers in the dust

Also: investigative journalism is dead - long live investigative journalism!Ìý A ground-breaking partnership between the ´óÏó´«Ã½ and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists produced a major new series of reports on the sale and use of asbestos around the world - in spite of the ban on asbestos in many countries because of concerns about its carcinogenic properties.
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We talk to Anne Koch, Deputy Director of the World Service, and the Director of the ICIJ, David Kaplan about how this painstaking, expensive and legally hazardous investigation came about.Ìý And at a time of cost cutting in the media world, it is heartening to hear David being so optimistic about the future of this endangered journalistic genre.ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý
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Plus apologies from a top World Service executive to complaints from irate listeners in Dubai who recently had the FM broadcast of their beloved station abruptly removed ...all because of money apparently.

Maybe the ´óÏó´«Ã½ should ask the Chinese to build some new improved super-fast transmitters to replace the current leased equipment and wavelengths in the UAE... you can bet your bottom dollar (or yen) they would get it done, and in double quick time!
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Rajan Datar is the Presenter, Over To You

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For what seems like weeks now, the Over To You inbox has been full of World Cup-related comments.

The World Service has been broadcasting a number of programmes designed to bring Africa to the rest of the world - starting with the bus that took some of the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s journalists on a journey through west Africa - and other programmes that highlighted the role of football in society as a whole.

Well, all this was too much for some people.

Golden moment: Iniesta's winning goal was watched by millions - but did the World Service coverage cross the line? Picture: Getty Images

Even before the opening ceremony got underway at Soccer City stadium in Johannesburg, listeners were telling us they were sick of hearing the World Cup trails.

Then - inevitably, I suppose - there were those who said they don't like football and wouldn't be listening to the World Service until it was all over.

And then there were emails saying that the sheer volume of football-related coverage - including special documentaries, editions of World of Music and Heart and Soul and so on - was over the top.

Of course, there have been plenty of others who've praised the high quality of many of the programmes.

I always enjoy reading emails like this, as they often point me towards a programme I've missed. As a result of praise from several listeners, I was able to enjoy a recent edition of World Football, about the importance of football to the prisoners on Robben Island - fascinating stuff.

Anyway, now that it's all over - was there too much football coverage?

That's a question that Tazeen Ahmad, who's presenting Over To You this week, puts to Tony Phillips, the commissioning editor responsible, on this week's Over To You. Judging by the comments you've sent in to us, I don't think everyone is going to agree with what he says.Ìý

Tazeen also talks to Nic Davis, the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s reporter in the Caribbean.

It's six months this week since the devastating earthquake struck Haiti, and Nic has been in and out of the country several times since.

He tells Tazeen how the local people have reacted to an invasion of international journalists who then disappear just as suddenly - and he talks about the helplessness that a journalist can sometimes feel in a disaster situation.

And one of our listeners, Hilal Ahmad, talks to the head of news and current affairs at the World Service, Andrew Whitehead, about what he perceives as the lack of coverage of the recent violent clashes in the Kashmir valley.Ìý

Hilal is a Kashmiri Indian, although living in Saudi Arabia, and Andrew knows Kashmir well, having visited the region many times when he was a correspondent based in Delhi.

All of which makes for a fascinating discussion, as you can hear on this week's programme.

Cathy Packe is the Producer, Over To You

Over To You is your chance to have your say about the ´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service and its programmes. It airs at 00:40, 03:40 and 12:40 every Sunday (GMT).

• Listen to previous episodes of Over To You
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On this week's programme we take a look at two reports both connected, in their different ways, with the provision of foreign news.Ìý

A world view

Peter Horrocks, Director of the World Service, discusses the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s Annual Report with Rajan, who asks him how he accounts for the decline in listener numbers, particularly in certain parts of the world, and how he plans to respond if, as seems to be widely expected, the World Service is asked to make savings through cuts or efficiencies.

He also gives Rajan his view on another study, carried out by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, whose Director David Levy, is also interviewed on this week's programme.Ìý

The Reuters Institute study was carried out in eight countries - Cameroon, Senegal, Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, Algeria, India and Pakistan - and compares what the local broadcasters provide in these countries with what's on offer from international networks like the ´óÏó´«Ã½, Al-Jazeera, France 24 and others.Ìý

Proms season

And on a musical note, Rajan's been finding out what's in store at the Proms this year.Ìý

He talks to Louise Fryer, one of the presenters of the weekly concerts that will be broadcast on the World Service, starting next weekend and continuing until the middle of September. It certainly sounds as if there's plenty of variety - from Mahler to Stephen Sondheim to an Iraqi guitarist and composer Ilham Al Madfai. If you manage to catch any of the concerts, do let us know what you think!

Cathy Packe is the Producer, Over To You

Over To You is your chance to have your say about the ´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service and its programmes. It airs at 00:40, 03:40 and 12:40 every Sunday (GMT).

• Listen to previous episodes of Over To You
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Suppose you don't like sport and you are fed up to the back teeth with all the World Cup coverage on the ´óÏó´«Ã½. Then along comes another of the sporting "crown jewels", Wimbledon, which gets its own daily programme during the tournament on the World Service. You might not be too elated, I suspect.

And indeed that's the tone of some of the correspondence we've been getting in the last week on Over To You.

Double fault?

One listener, MJ Rosenberg from La Croix Valmer France, has a more pointed gripe. Why devote so much time to just one of the tennis majors, he asks, when there are arguably more important championships in the US, France and Australia for instance?

Well, the editor of sport on the World Service, Pam Poole, makes few apologies in this weekend's programme. Her view is that Wimbledon is a major news event, and people don't complain when other subjects like business or politics sometimes hog the agenda. Whether you agree or not let us know your view on this.

And we'd really like to know how you feel about the whole season of programmes devoted to Africa and coinciding with coverage of the World Cup.

Celebrity culture

Meanwhile on the anniversary of Michael Jackson's death, his brother Jermaine delivered a broadside against the media's targeting of his famous family on the Interview programme with Ed Butler. He complained about absurd and negative coverage aimed at creating attention, and this raised our interest in why the world is seemingly obsessed with the minutiae of celebrities' lives.

To that end we I talked to Lee Barron who teaches a university course in celebrity culture, and you can hear his analysis on the programme this weekend. I have always been amused by the way "broadsheet" newspapers and serious broadcasters can seemingly get away with covering the same stories without sullying their integrity or being criticised for being intrusive, on the pretext that they can't afford not to cover what everyone else is talking about - or because they are covering the fuss caused by the original targeting of a certain celebrity.

Now then...sport AND celebrity. For some of you, that must add up to the ultimate nightmare!

Rajan Datar is the Presenter, Over To You

Over To You is your chance to have your say about the ´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service and its programmes. It airs at 00:40, 03:40 and 12:40 every Sunday (GMT).

• Listen to previous episodes of Over To You
• Subscribe to the podcast
• Send the team your feedback by email (overtoyou@bbc.co.uk), telephone (44 144 960 9000), SMS (447786 202006) or by leaving comments on this blog

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