From Our Own Correspondent

Change is coming to South Africa, says Cyril Ramphosa, but we must be patient. As the President plots his next move, and investigations into allegations of corruption under his predecessor Jacob Zuma continue, Andrew Harding reflects on the very different fortunes of the two very different leaders. Kate Adie introduces this and other stories from correspondents around the world.Allis Moss is in Norway – one of the greenest countries in the world but also one of the richest in oil and gas. Jai Jethwa investigates why so many Indian men, including his own father, have moustaches. From Bollywood stars to upper-caste martial warriors, this particular type of facial hair has long been associated with masculinity and power.Jessica Bateman explores attempts to breathe new life into some of Greece’s increasingly empty villages.And Tim Mansel meets a woman who once slapped the German Chancellor; it was 1968 and Beate Klarsfeld wanted to draw attention to Kurt-Georg Kiesinger’s Nazi past.

Keep America Great’ has replaced ‘Make America Great’ as the favoured slogan among some Donald Trump supporters. Ahead of the US mid-term elections, James Cook meets those who think the President is winning and can’t wait to vote for him again.Kate Adie introduces this and other stories from around the world.In Mexico, Will Grant has been traveling with the caravan made up of the thousands of Central American migrants hoping to reach the US.From Damascus, Diana Darke reflects on what her own family’s experience after World War One reveals about what life might be like in Syria when the conflict there finally ends. John Murphy is in Tunisia, once held up as one of the Arab Springs greatest successes but where people now have little to celebrate.And Pip Stewart reveals why a flesh-eating parasite from Guyana has made a quiet mark on her.

Recruiting more female peacekeepers is seen as essential to defeating jihadists groups in the Sahel, but the UN's Mali mission is the deadliest active peacekeeping deployment in the world. Jennifer O’Mahony met some of the women trying to bring stability to the region - as well as fighting for equality within their own ranks.Kate Adie introduces this and other stories from correspondents around the world.Nichols Walton is in Genoa to find out how the Italian city is coping after a motorway bridge collapse killed more than forty people in August; “Genoa is wounded not stupid” one poster declares.Olivia Acland travels to the Democratic Republic of Congo to meet Dr Denis Mukwege – a winner of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize and a man known to many simply as Dr. Miracle. Mary Novakovich visits the recently reopened National Museum of Serbia, which was shut for 15 years, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade, which remained closed for 10 years. Was it worth the wait?And from a cemetery in Chennai, Southern India, Andrew Whitehead has an unexpected tale of life in the Indian empire.

Kate Adie introduces stories from around the world. Saudi Arabia's investment conference put on quite a show - and unlike many foreign investors scared off by the aftershocks of Jamal Khashoggi's death, Sebastian Usher was there to see it for himself. Lyse Doucet was in Afghanistan to cover its parliamentary elections, and found many changes to the streetscape in Kabul - as the city survives a rising tide of attacks. Airport security measures provided clues of their own to the way life is changing. Erbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan, was sometimes hyped as the "next Dubai" in the 2000s - but Samira Shackle found that many of its building sites, supposed to give rise to four-star opulence, are now abandoned shells occupied by internally displaced people who fled the advance of the so-called Islamic State. Tequila? No, mezcal - a smoother, smokier, and arguably more authentically Mexican product. Graeme Green takes a tipple or two in the state of Oaxaca, to hear how its aficionados and producers are torn between excitement and apprehension as their drink grows more famous abroad. And BANG goes the auctioneer's whalebone hammer at the Hotel Druot, a storied Paris auction house which sells everything from randomly-baled belongings from house clearances to great works of art. Hugh Schofield went along ... and picked up a thing or two.

Kate Adie introduces analysis, wit and experiences from correspondents around the world. The past weekend's elections in Afghanistan were held under threat, and only patchily - but they were held, despite fears to the contrary. Secunder Kermani talked to plenty of young voters in the Afghan capital, Kabul, and heard both impatience and hope for the country's future in their answers. Serbia has a domestic violence problem - as well as uncounted stockpiles of firearms in private hands. As the government brings in measures to try and discourage abuse in relationships, Nicola Kelly hears about the lethal risks of abusers with their own guns. Tim Smith tags along with a group of dissenters on a night-time raid: they're Catalans who are strongly against the idea of Catalonian independence, and claim they're "cleaning up" the streetscape in some small towns by tearing down or removing symbols of the Catalan nationalist cause. In the ritzier parts of Jakarta, you can almost smell the money these days, says Rebecca Henschke. As a rising class rides the commodities boom, children's parties in particular have become ever more ostentatious. And Joe Bond gets into the swim of things in the Czech town of Kolin. Once it was home to a thriving Jewish population, which was largely uprooted and dispersed after the Nazi occupation deported most of its members to labour and extermination camps during the Holocaust. One doughty survivor of that era, Hana Greenfield, made it her later life's mission to tell others about it - and she's now commemorated in the town with a race down the river where she would swim as a child.

In the latest programme of the monthly series, Mishal Husain introduces dispatches from journalists and writers around the United Kingdom. This month we hear Sima Kotecha's triumphant tale of finally managing to pay off her student loans - except debt can prove a stubborn companion. Lesley Curwen visits a part of Lancashire she has long known which finds itself once more at the centre of media attention. The Fylde coastal plain is where the energy company Cuadrilla has just resumed fracking activities amidst much controversy. But away from the site itself what, she wonders, do local people make of all that's happening? From what claims to be the site of the solution to the UK's future energy needs to one that used to argue the same: Sellafield. On his visit, Theo Leggett sees plenty of rust and weeds at the Cumbrian nuclear plant but also discovers that in this part of northern England which has long struggled for economic take-off there are burgeoning hopes for the future... maybe. With BBC Children in Need's annual fundraising extravaganza just around the corner, Alison Holt tells the story of one teenager in Wales who is coping with an especially demanding medical diagnosis - growing up as HIV-positive - and how one organisation supported by listeners' and viewers' donations seeks to help him and his family. And we travel to Kent with Christine Finn as she unearths a coals-to-Newcastle story about how a lavender farming boom there has - quelle horreur! - managed to succeed in cornering the lucrative French perfume market. But for how long?Producer: Simon Coates

Fuel shortages are nothing to worry about, says the government in Zimbabwe - just bumps in the road on the way to a better future. Andrew Harding reflects on whether President Mnangagwa and Zanu PF will be able to deliver on their promise of a new dawn for the country. Kate Adie introduces this and other stories from correspondents around the world. John Sweeney is in Malta a year on from the assassination of the journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia; “if you’re a trouble-making reporter, it’s time to be afraid,” he concludes. Jemima Kelly is in Kaliningrad to learn more about Bitcoin mining – a place she finds very much open for business, whatever that business is. Andrew Whitehead stumbles across the rapidly expanding Korean community of Chennai, which claims to be the biggest concentration of expats in the port city. And Jenny Hill enjoys an evening at the opera, but what can Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde tell us about the fate of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel.Producer: Joe Kent

The women who regard their days with the jihadist group as the first time they'd had any kind of female empowerment and the men who saw it as a chance to escape poverty and gain access to money and guns. Colin Freeman reports from Maiduguri in Nigeria. Kate Adie introduces this and other stories from correspondents around the world. Harriet Noble meets the ‘rental sisters’ trying to coax reclusive young Japanese men back into society. There are up to a million ‘hikikomori’ who go for years without speaking to those around them or even leaving their bedrooms. Jane Labous hears of the stigma of childlessness in Senegal – for both men and women. Bob Dickinson explains why plans to make South America’s biggest ski resort even bigger have provoked a backlash amongst some residents of Barciloche in Argentina. And in supposedly liberal Lebanon, Lizzie Porter meets a cleric who was forced from his job for posting videos of himself online playing the piano in his traditional robes.

The Azov Sea off Crimea has become increasingly militarised and seen tense exchanges between Russian and Ukrainian coastguards. Jonah Fisher joins the Ukrainian Navy in these troubled waters. Kate Adie introduces this and other stories from around the world. In Colombia, Simon Maybin meets a group of Venezuelan migrants who’ve turned to busking on the streets of Cucuta in the hope of raising enough money to feed their starving families back home. In Hungary, Nick Thorpe visits Mohacs where invading Ottoman forces defeated those of the Kingdom of Hungary in the 16th century. What can it tell us about relations between Turkey and Hungary today? In Spain, Lottie Gross finds herself mesmerised by competing towers of people at the 27th Concurs de Castells in Tarragona. And in Brussels, Adam Fleming takes a break from reporting the negotiations on Britain’s withdrawal from the EU to play ‘Brexit the board game.’

Thousands of people have been intercepted by the Libyan coastguard as they try to reach Europe and sent to detention centres in the capital Tripoli. Gaining access to them is difficult, but that doesn’t mean those inside them have given up on trying to get their stories out. Sally Hayden hears tales of abandonment, abuse, and slavery. Kate Adie introduces this and other stories from journalists and correspondents around the world. Jatinder Sidhu hears from the pro-pot campaigners who won’t be celebrating the legalisation of the drug in Canada but are instead mourning the loss of a counter-culture which they’ve nurtured over decades. James Clayton tries to make sense of why manual scavenging persists in India – the use of human waste removers to clear blocked drains and sewers with their bare hands. Joey D’urso visits some of the beautiful central Italian towns that were partly destroyed by earthquakes in 2016. Have they and their inhabitants recovered? And Phoebe Smith finds herself lost for words as she struggles to describe the stirring in her soul prompted by a howling pack of wolves in Sweden.Producer: Joe Kent