

From Our Own Correspondent
BBC Radio 4
Insight, wit and analysis from BBC correspondents, journalists and writers telling stories beyond the news headlines. Presented by Kate Adie.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Sep 24, 2016 • 29min
Barriers and Borders
Kate Adie introduces dispatches from writers and correspondents around the world. This week, Lyse Doucet reports from her native Canada on the country’s sponsorship scheme for refugees; Joe Miller considers the major impact there has been on a Texas border town of many months of migration from Central America by women and unaccompanied children; Lucy Ash travels to the Loire Valley to visit France’s first centre for deradicalisation and discovers what local people think of it; Kamal Ahmed considers whether the Swiss, who have negotiated a bespoke deal with the European Union, offer a model for the United Kingdom to emulate in the Brexit negotiations; and Chris Terrill joins a British ex-soldier who is training wardens in one of South Africa’s private nature reserves to resist poachers.

Sep 22, 2016 • 28min
Higher Powers
Kate Adie presents the first in a new series of eight programmes. In this edition, John Murphy reports from Najaf on the mounting death toll among Iraqis from the conflict with so-called Islamic State; Olivia Crellin tells the remarkable story of a transgender couple in Ecuador who are challenging some local assumptions by seeking to become parents; as South Africa's athletes return from Rio, Lindsay Johns in Cape Town reflects on the extraordinary impact that Olympic success is having there on coloured South Africans more than twenty-five years after the end of apartheid; Caroline Davies in Cairo discovers how, despite the growing intolerance Copts face in Egypt, they are enjoying great success in the country's recycling business; and Hugh Schofield in Paris ponders the world of Anglo-French mathematics as he studies for his A level in the subject and his son works on his baccalauréat.

Sep 17, 2016 • 28min
It's Not What It Was
Kate Adie introduces dispatches from writers and correspondents around the world. This week: Kevin Connolly reports from Bratislava as EU leaders have a perfectly normal get-together - except someone's missing; Sebastian Usher chronicles the war of words between Saudi Arabia and Iran during the Hajj; Jenny Hill visits Hamburg to discover if Mrs Merkel is right to say Germany "can do it" as it tries to absorb its large influx of migrants; Stephanie Hegarty tells the story of shocked shop owners in Lagos and their dramatic tussle with the local authorities; and what Adam Shaw learnt when he met aspiring techies in St Louis.

Sep 10, 2016 • 28min
Rites of Passage
Kate Adie introduces dispatches from writers and correspondents around the world. This week: Yolande Knell reports on the boom in civil marriages on Cyprus - for couples from Lebanon and Israel; Roger Hearing reveals what happened when he fell foul of the Russian authorities at the border with North Korea; Jannat Jalil speaks to townspeople in Calais about the impact of the continuing crisis at the so-called Jungle migrant camp; Monica Whitlock considers how lasting Islam Karimov’s influence will be in Uzbekistan; and Nick Thorpe assesses what the Turkish and Hungarian celebrations of the 450th anniversary of the Battle of Szigetvar say about relations between the two countries.

Sep 3, 2016 • 28min
Follow the Leaders
Kate Adie introduces dispatches from writers and correspondents around the world. This week: As the latest summit of the Group of 20 leading nations takes place in China this weekend, Carrie Gracie profiles the historic city of Hangzhou which will host the meetings of the heads of government and central bank governors. Wyre Davies considers the vote of the Brazilian Senate to impeach Dilma Rousseff and whether the change at the top of the country's politics amounts to a coup. Katerina Vittozzi reports from the Central African Republic on her meeting with the victim of a brutal sexual assault. With Pyongyang holding its first international beer festival, Stephen Evans considers how the drink is a surprisingly unifying facet of life in North and South Korea. And David Willis in Los Angeles ponders whether errant American Olympian, Ryan Lochte, may yet be rehabilitated by dancing with the stars.

Aug 27, 2016 • 28min
Drug Wars
Kate Adie introduces dispatches from writers and correspondents around the world. This week: a special insight into the extraordinary number of recent deaths in the Philippines as Jonathan Head talks to one of the country's hired killers; Mark Tully discovers how the "war on drugs" - particularly heroin - in Punjab is going; in the United States, Linda Pressly goes on call with an Ohio coroner dealing with the explosion in the number of deaths resulting from overdoses of prescription drugs and heroin supplied on the street; Justin Rowlatt gets early warning of a possible coup in the Maldives and heads for the island paradise; and Caroline Juler discovers how to improve medical care in Romania as doctors and nurses are drawn to jobs in other countries.

Aug 20, 2016 • 28min
What's in a Name?
Kate Adie introduces dispatches from writers and correspondents around the world. This week: Mark Lowen gauges the mood in Turkey today - and detects a hardening of public opinion against anyone thought to be associated with the attempted coup in July as well as an anti-Western backlash. Seref Isler was part of the BBC team covering those events and recalls what it was like to witness "the night no-one slept". Stephen Sackur's been to Attawapiskat and Calgary to hear of the very modern challenges threatening the survival of Canada's historic First Nations people: can the new Canadian Prime Minister's promises to help these communities be kept? In a Dakar nightclub, Nicola Kelly meets some aspiring DJs and hears their ideas on how to keep Senegalese young people from risking their lives on risky emigrant routes. And Martin Buckley is on the beaches of Corsica to learn why this island - along with the rest of France - has been convulsed with concern over the burkini.

Aug 13, 2016 • 28min
Rebels with a Cause
India and Pakistan have often confronted each other - but each nation also has to deal with domestic security problems. In Indian-administered Kashmir, Justin Rowlatt hears from restive crowds who have been silenced by neither days of curfew nor a news blackout, and witnesses the police tactics used to try and tamp down their protests. Over the border in Pakistan, Shaimaa Khalil explains why the troubled province of Baluchistan is such a headache for central government - and why the violence which plagues it is now being turned against local lawyers. Lucy Ash hears how drama itself can play a role in reconciling Colombians with their past, as former left-wing rebels, ex-right-wing paramilitiaries, and the victims of their crimes meet on stage. Rayhan Demytrie recently saw a different kind of political theatre unfolding on the streets of Armenia's capital, Yerevan, as veterans of the war with Azerbaijan mounted an armed attack against their own state - and were applauded for it by many Armenians. And far from all the madding crowds, Justin Marozzi joins a scientific mission a thousand feet below the surface of the Sargasso Sea hoping to unlock some of the mysteries of the deep ocean.

Aug 6, 2016 • 28min
Democracy and discontent: South Africa and Germany
Kate Adie introduces reports on South Africa's elections, Germany and migration, Kosovo's Olympic debut, Gujarat's Dalits march against discrimination and old meets new in Samoa.

Jul 30, 2016 • 28min
A Tale of Two Men in a City
Two friends reunited in Baghdad, hot cuisine in Chengdu and slow traffic in Serbia.


