

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

Jul 21, 2015 • 28min
Shaping a New World Order
Reporters' stories. About Iran, Togo, Mexico, Ethiopia and the United States

Jul 16, 2015 • 28min
Without Stability We Have Nothing
Context and colour behind the headlines. In this edition: mounting discontent in Algeria as the authorities try to restore order to a desert town where more than twenty people were killed last week. 'Mass incarceration,' according to President Obama, 'makes our country worse off.' We meet some of the prisoners, originally handed long sentences, who've now been granted clemency. What lessons can African leaders, and western democracies, learn from the rise and rise of Ethiopia? We're on a dance floor in Addis Ababa trying to work them out. With pilgrimages apparently proving more popular than ever, our man sets out on one a particularly demanding one, in southeastern Brazil. And four year long years of drought have hit the fruit farms of California hard. How can they maintain their levels of production while under strict orders to consume less water?

Jul 13, 2015 • 28min
A Sunny Place for Shady People
Long Eccentric expats once came to Tangier in search of sun, sea, gay sex and drugs. Today only their ghosts remain as the Moroccan authorities try to find for their country a successful balance between Islam and the West. Peace and prosperity never quite arrived when South Sudan won its independence from Sudan four years ago. But, despite tensions, people on both sides of the border still often depend on each other -- these are long-standing, if complicated, bonds. We travel to Dubai to examine a claim that this Islamic nation is a place where people of other faiths can practise their religion without fear of harassment or rebuke. The Parsis used to enjoy leading roles in Indian society. Today, their numbers are declining sharply and we're in Mumbai looking at a glorious past and wondering if the Indian government will have any success in its attempt to prevent a truly distinctive community from fading away altogether. And family life in Gaza: how the rituals of life -- working, eating and courtship -- continue amid the ruins of last year's war.

Jul 9, 2015 • 28min
Fear and Fun in Baghdad
Reporters. In this edition: a sign reads: 'Welcome to Baghdad'. But residents in the Iraqi capital fear their city, and the country, are doomed. What will Greeks say, fifty years from now, about what happened in their country during the turbulence of summer 2015? As the talks in Vienna over Iran's nuclear programme inch, perhaps, towards a deal, our correspondent sees evidence of Iran's continuing suspicion of the United States on the streets of the capital, Tehran. We're overwhelmed by music as we trace the route of the first missionaries along the River Congo in Africa and find out how a million dollars, raised in the United States, is helping to train dogs to save lives.

Jul 4, 2015 • 28min
Greek Tragedies
Kate Adie introduces correspondents' stories. Today: Theopi Skarlatos traces the growing divide in Athens; Nick Thorpe says it's not just Italy and Greece that thousands of migrants are heading for - Hungary is now putting up the barbed wire to stem the tide; Mark Urban is in Bosnia where 20 years ago the flow of mujaheddin fighters was into the former Yugoslavia but now the government there is worried about the consequences of that; Kirsty Land learns why a two and a half thousand year old play from ancient Greece still resonates in a refugee camp in Beirut; and Alastair Leithead checks out of Hotel California - but can he ever really leave?

Jul 2, 2015 • 28min
Escape from Boko Haram
Kate Adie introduces correspondents' stories. Today Tulip Mazumdar hears the story of a 17 year old girl, now escaped from Boko Haram; Tom Burridge meets an old Ukrainian woman, who is proud of her country's Soviet past but wants Putin to leave Ukraine alone; Fanny Durville takes her family on an outing in Tunisia, the day after the shootings, and struggles with the contrast between the friendliness and the tension; Gary O'Donoghue examines how Obama has gone from lame duck to soaring eagle in a week; and Bethany Bell discovers some Hapsburg nostalgia on the train to Trieste.

Jun 27, 2015 • 28min
Mali's Magical Onions
Kate Adie introduces correspondents' stories from across the globe. Today, Jeremy Bowen on the layers of war in Yemen; Carrie Gracie follows China's extraordinary transformation of farmers into workers AND shoppers, and villages into cities; Stephen Sackur on how President Putin is turning his attentions to Russia's far east, with the help of roulette wheels; in northern Norway, with Simon Parker, it's lashings of homebrew and strange dancing to greet midsummer; and, despite Alex Duval Smith's best efforts to find out, the secret of Mali's shallots remains...well....secret. But what about the genie?

Jun 25, 2015 • 28min
Malta's Birds: Loved and Hunted
Kate Adie introduces correspondents' stories from around the world. Today Rajini Vaidyanathan returns to the scene of the shooting in Charleston, South Carolina; Julia Langdon hears from the local people of Corfu on their five years - and counting - of economic misery; Lawrence Grissell speaks to widows in Nepal who are trying to find out what happened to their relatives who died while working overseas; David Shukman travels to one of Madagascar's most remote corners where tortoises are being protected with the help of a two-headed bull; and Mario Cacciottolo is in Malta, talking to hunters, who balance a passion for nature with an urge to shoot wild birds.

Jun 20, 2015 • 28min
The Billion-Dollar Heist
Reporters around the world. In this edition: what's happened to Moldova's missing billions? Tim Whewell has been investigating. Rupert Wingfield Hayes tells us about Beijing's controversial island-building in the South China Sea. How much cross-border cooperation is there between European intelligence services? Nick Thorpe's been making inquiries in Bulgaria. Tim Butcher, travelling in Myanmar, has come face to face with some of the country's racial tensions and the Paris authorities have been refurbishing some of the city's historic bandstands - Joanna Robertson says they have once again become a focus for summer pleasure and relaxation.

Jun 18, 2015 • 28min
On the Brink
Insight, context and colour. Today, the barbs fly as Greece seems to be stumbling towards default; ambitious plans for a new trans-continental railway in South America -- but who stands to benefit and who will lose out? The migrants living on boulders on Italy's shoreline just along the coast from the glittering French Riviera; dissatisfaction among Estonia's Russian minority as relations between Russia and the West become colder and our correspondent makes a discovery in war-ravaged Gaza City -- the very best ice cream he's ever tasted!


