Radio choice Charlotte Runcie

The New Arts Race WORLD SERVICE, 11.30AM

The Gulf states currently have oil to attract visitors and economic boom to the region, but some of them are exploring other ways of attracting more people when the “black gold” runs out. Several countries are investing in works of art and important cultural artefacts, in the hopes that they will bring a steady tourist trade with them. Front Row presenter John Wilson investigates how the wealthy states of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates are competing against one another to acquire the best art in the world.

The Future of English WORLD SERVICE, 10.06PM

Is English the global language of the future, or will the future need it at all? There are 1.5billion English speakers and learners worldwide, but with the growth in the internet and AI technology, English itself is changing rapidly. Journalist Robin Lustig travels the world to discover how in a new series, starting off by visiting the speech AI labs of Silicon Valley, tech entrepreneurs in Shanghai, and researchers in neural machine translation, whose work in developing instant translation software could make human languagelearning obsolete.