From Our Own Correspondent

Former US Vice-president Joe Biden accepted the Democratic party’s nomination for the presidency via video-link from his home in Wilmington, Delaware. The party convention was going to be a big celebratory event in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with balloons and standing ovations. But not during the pandemic. Laura Trevelyan reports from this unconventional convention. South Africa banned alcohol to help...

It's the 75th anniversary of VJ Day today, Victory over Japan, when Japan surrendered to the US, Britain and China. That ended the Second World War. Japan was given a new, pacifist constitution by the Americans, and seems to have left its former, more aggressive and militaristic, path behind. But, as Rupert Wingfield-Hayes has been finding in Tokyo, there's more that connects the current political...

In Lebanon, shock is turning to anger at the authorities and political class at large, after the catastrophic blast in the capital Beirut. It was caused by explosive chemicals stored improperly at the city’s port, and caused much loss of life, thousands of injuries, and damaged large swathes of the city. Lizzie Porter asks what impact this will have on the residents. In South Africa coronavirus in...

In the latest programme of the monthly series, Mishal Husain introduces dispatches from journalists and writers around the United Kingdom reflecting contemporary life. When lockdown dramatically curtailed orders, those businesses providing perishable products suffered particularly badly. Artisan cheese-makers had been growing in rural Wales creating much needed jobs there in recent years. But what...

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya had nothing to do with politics until recently, and has now become the main opposition candidate for the presidential election in Belarus on the 9th of August. She became a candidate when her husband, a leading opposition leader, was suddenly jailed. Jean Mackenzie was able to meet her, and the other women taking on President Lukashenko who has ruled for 26 years. In Austral...

Tens of thousands of people in Russia's Far-Eastern city of Khabarovsk have been demonstrating against the removal of the popular local governor Sergei Furgal. He was arrested on old murder charges dating back 15 years, and taken to Moscow. He had beaten the Kremlin-appointed candidate in the elections. Steve Rosenberg reports on the mood in a city closer to Tokyo than Moscow. A five-year old blac...

This week, Bosnia is marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Srebrenica Massacre – Europe’s worst atrocity since the Second World War. Those who ordered the executions were convicted of genocide. Today Bosnia is deeply divided, impoverished, and governed by politicians who stir up the remaining ethnic enmity. Now young Bosnians are leaving in droves, says Guy De Launey. Turkmenistan is a secre...

In Poland, the socially conservative President Andrzej Duda was very narrowly re-elected, defeating the more progressive mayor of Warsaw, Rafal Trzaskowski. Mr Duda is a close ally of the nationalist and Catholic Law and Justice government. Mr Trzaskowski favours a more proactive role in the EU and supports minorities’ rights. Adam Easton speaks with young activists. Los Angeles has become a coron...

Australia had widely been seen as having successfully contained the coronavirus – an example to countries like the UK and the US where numbers of cases and deaths have been so much worse. In Australia they locked down early, closed the country’s borders and have had fewer than ten thousand cases. But this week has seen a resurgence in Melbourne and the city’s five million residents are now barred...

It was a seminal moment when the UK foreign secretary, Dominic Raab first raised the prospect just over a month ago that 2.9 million Hong Kongers could be eligible for UK citizenship. The move was in response to proposed legislation which made it a criminal act in the territory to undermine Beijing’s authority; legislation which has now been passed. China reacted swiftly to undermine the UK’s offe...

In the latest programme, Mishal Husain introduces pieces from writers around the United Kingdom which reflect life as it is being led during Covid-19. Paul Moss, who reports for Radio 4's "The World Tonight" and the BBC World Service, spills the beans on how daily reporting has changed during lockdown. His story includes weirdly unprofessional backdrops, some decidedly awkward manoeuvring of equip...

In Afghanistan, there’s growing concern over a wave of attacks against human rights activists, moderate clerics, aid workers and others. For a young educated generation of Afghans, one death in particular has sparked anguish and anxiety over where their country is heading, despite imminent peace talks, as Lyse Doucet reports. In Russia, a controversial national vote on constitutional reform this w...

Japan has some very densely populated cities and the world’s highest proportion of elderly citizens. A disaster waiting to happen in the coronavirus pandemic? But the country has had a low death rate, despite only imposing a mild lockdown. What's the secret, or was it just luck, asks Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Tokyo. The George Floyd anti-racism protests have been supported in Asia too, but the con...

Italy's northern region of Lombardy became the epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic in February. Death rates soared. In Bergamo, six thousand people died in March. Mark Lowen returns to Lombardy to meet some of the bereaved and finds that politicians are passing the buck as to why cities locked down too late. Colombia had a thriving economy before the pandemic, and has been host to almost two mil...

Germany had eased its lockdown, but after a spike in cases at a meat-packing factory the authorities have re-imposed lockdown restrictions in two districts, affecting over half a million people. Is this the start of a second wave or just something to be expected asks Damien McGuinness? The Islamist militant group Boko Haram has operated in north-east Nigeria for years, despite the Nigerian army's...

In Australia, the killing of George Floyd in the US has resonated strongly with indigenous Australians, who often face prejudicial policing, and make up a disproportionate number of Australia's prison population. Shaimaa Khalil met members of the Aboriginal community in Sydney. Turkey has so far had relatively few deaths from coronavirus, for the size of its population. That's according to the off...

In the Philippines two journalists, Maria Ressa, the head of an investigative news website called Rappler, and one of their former writers, Reynaldo Santos Jr, have been sentenced to prison for libel, in a case that many see as an attack on freedom of the press, and on critics of the government, as Howard Johnson reports. In Spain, healthcare workers, from doctors and nurses to hospital porters, w...

In the latest programme of the monthly series, Mishal Husain introduces dispatches from journalists and writers which reflect the range of contemporary life in the UK. Emir Nader of BBC Arabic tells the story of the family of Dr Adil El Tayar, who was originally from Sudan and himself an early casualty of Covid-19. With two doctors among his children, how do they all come to terms with the enormit...

India's commercial capital, Mumbai, is now the city worst-hit by the coronavirus. Hospitals are struggling to cope with the number of patients in need. Even money can't buy you treatment. As a result, many are dying before they can receive medical care, as Yogita Limaye has found. It's a time of re-examining slavery and colonial history. Andrew Harding's grandfather was a young entomologist who mo...

In the US, authorities all over the country are working on police reform. Jo Erickson is a black journalist working in Minneapolis, and has been stopped by armed police herself. She recounts her experience. Yemen has the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, following years of civil war. And now, on top of malnourishment and a decimated healthcare system, comes Covid-19. Iona Craig was in the wo...

When President Emmerson Mnangagwa came to power in Zimbabwe after the end of Robert Mugabe’s decades-long rule, there was hope that the country could turn a corner. It was supposed to be a fresh start, with better economic management, and fairer politics. But that is not at all how it is turning out, says Andrew Harding who is in neighbouring South Africa. New York City has been particularly hard-...

The killing of African American George Floyd by a white policeman in Minnesota led to both peaceful demonstrations and violence across the United States. Emma Sapong is an African American journalist from Minnesota and reports on the yawning gap between the lives of white Minnesotans and their black counterparts. It's exactly one hundred years since Greater Hungary lost two-thirds of its territory...

The streets of Hong Kong have erupted into protests after mainland China proposed new security legislation, to outlaw the undermining of Beijing's authority in the territory. This comes after last year's demonstrations and pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong. Danny Vincent reports. The Lake Turkana area in Kenya's Rift valley is considered the cradle of mankind. On the surface, life in this semi-a...

In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had his day in court at the start of his corruption trial this week. He denies charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. The trial could last months or even years. Israelis are wondering what it means for their future, as Tom Bateman reports from Jerusalem. In Zimbabwe, and in many other African countries, the numbers of confirmed Covid-19 cases ar...

In the latest programme, Mishal Husain introduces dispatches from journalists and writers reflecting the range of life across the UK. She begins and ends in Edinburgh. First, the BBC's Social Affairs Correspondent, Michael Buchanan, reveals how a renowned city centre doctor is using one public health emergency - Covid-19 - to tackle another - drug-related deaths among the homeless. Could a notorio...