From Our Own Correspondent

'When change happens, it can happen very, very fast,' Steve Rosenberg in Ukraine. Revolutions: no-one can be quite sure how they'll turn out, Kevin Connolly in Egypt. Bush fires in Australia: Jim Carey on what can be learned from the Aborigines, who spent tens of thousands of years controlling the land. The modern world is closing in on the Amish communities of the US, but Beth McLeod says they're not dying out. They are, in fact, thriving. And a conflict zone is not a place where the mentally ill thrive, as Mary Harper's been learning at a hospital in the Somali capital, Mogadishu.

Correspondents with tales to tell. In this edition: Gabriel Gatehouse watching the unfolding revolution in Ukraine; Abigail Fielding-Smith in the Lebanese capital Beirut as the war in Syria creeps ever closer; Will Grant on the latest chapter in the extraordinary story of drugs baron Joaquin 'Shorty' Guzman; Rachel McCormack gets a taste of the heated argument in Spain over the possibility of Catalan independence and 12 hours across the Karakum desert: Jonathan Fryer has time on the train to consider the ripples of revolution and who, if anyone, might be here for eternity.

London may be infested by urban foxes and Delhi beseiged by urban monkeys but Addis Ababa, as Martin Fletcher's been seeing for himself, is plagued by urban hyenas -- and they're ugly-looking creatures! David Stern's been living in Kiev, Ukraine, for five years -- and has had to get used to living with a revolution on his doorstep. A quarter of a million people, some estimate, have been detained in Syria by either the authorities or the rebels; Lyse Doucet's been talking to two men who know a lot about detainees. The long-serving leader of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, is ninety years old and Kim Chakanetsa has been finding out what people there think of their president, who's been in power nearly 34-years. And Neal Razzell's been making a programme with two reporters, one from China, the other from Japan. The programme's about the strained relationship between those two countries. But how did the reporting team get on?

Stories from foreign correspondents. In this edition: Prashant Rao meets an Iraqi called Saddam Hussein and hears how difficult it is being named after the brutal and hated dictator; Lynne O'Donnell visits the famous 'laneways' of Melbourne in Australia and wonders whether this precious example of architectural heritage is being properly looked after by the local council; Jane Beresford finds her preconceptions shattered when she visits the Beirut suburb associated with the Hezbollah movement; Tamasin Ford journeys to a remote corner of Madagascar where an illegal trade in a rare wood is worth billions and Alan Johnston in Rome considers the man most likely to be Italy's next prime minister and suggests his strength may actually lie in his inexperience.

'No wonder everyone is looting now. The elites here have been doing it for years,' our correspondent Andrew Harding is told in the troubled Central African Republic.' As Brazil awaits further demonstrations against a proposed ten per cent hike in public transport costs, Wyre Davies takes a cameraman to hospital who was fatally injured in clashes between protestors and police. Gabriel Gatehouse in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa talks about atheism and jazz with a man who warns him that an army of Allah will rise up out of the desert. Mariko Oi, herself a reporter from Japan, talks about the difficulties of making a programme about the often troubled relations between her country and China. And Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa, may be best known these days for its American military base, but Frank Gardner gets away from that and learns a little more about life, and the baboons, in the country's tranquil Rift Valley.

Why is Bosnia seeing its most serious unrest since the country was at war in the 1990s? How difficult is it getting America back to work? Is there public support in Nigeria for the authorities' new law against homosexuals? What evidence is there of the links between Soviet East Germany and the exotic spice island of Zanzibar? And why might our man visiting the Gaza Strip be considering going back there, with his family, for a holiday? They are all questions addressed in this latest edition of From Our Own Correspondent.

Robots are doing the cleaning up in an old people's home in Denmark. Are they popular? Jake Wallis Simons has been finding out. A journalist in Sri Lanka is stabbed to death in her home. Charles Haviland says colleagues are now talking of a society brutalised by years of violence, where the value of life has been eroded. What do Judaism and Confucianism have in common? Quite a lot apparently, as Michael Goldfarb's been discovering in the Chinese city of Jinan. American schoolchildren are now being taught what to do should a gunman start shooting in their school. Laura Trevelyan in New York's been talking to children and to parents about it. And as a corruption scandal swirls around the Spanish royal family, Tom Burridge goes to two royal palaces to try to learn how the Spanish royals can win back their popularity.

Spain crawls painfully out of recession but Pascale Harter, in Barcelona, says so much damage has already been done to Spanish families; in America, six million manufacturing jobs have gone but there are still some things Made in the USA, as Mike Wendling's been discovering in New York State; one territory full of natural resources is Inner Mongolia, which is part of China. But, as Martin Patience has been learning, there are concerns that development's coming at a heavy cost to tradition and heritage; Edward Lewis climbs aboard the train to Luxor to ask passengers what they make of Egypt's military leader Abdul Fattah al-Sisi and Simon Atkinson, in the deserts of Abu Dhabi, learns what exactly it is that makes a camel beautiful.

Reporters worldwide. In this edition: Britain and France are to co-operate on a new unmanned combat aircraft but all involved agree - let's not call it a drone! The first round of the Syrian peace talks have come to an end in Geneva. You might think little's been achieved, but that's not necessarily the case. We go to meet the former warlord with links to Osama bin Laden who wants to be the next president of Afghanistan and to Work Street in Athens where, despite some upbeat government forecasts, the workers reckon there are more hard times ahead. And in Delhi, arguably the world's noisiest city, we visit the car horn bazaar to find the loudest hooter of them all.

A love affair going nowhere in Damascus -- it's what happens when a rebel footsoldier falls in love with the daughter of one of the Syrian regime's security chiefs; one correspondent comes face to face with what she describes as 'the most exquisite banquet in Chinese history' while another is with the protestors in the Ukrainian capital Kiev saying the city 'looks and feels like some surreal parallel universe where an idealised, heroic past has collided with a menacing dystopian future.' We hear that Kazakhstan is suffering an identity crisis: while some now chase post-perestroika wealth, others are looking to the past and seeking guidance from the cults of their ancestors. And their songs have been labelled 'vulgar and slanderous' but we find out that the Calypsonians of Guyana claim their government's trying to silence them.