BBC Radio 4

From Our Own Correspondent

News EN ↓ 1218 episodes

Insight, wit and analysis from BBC correspondents, journalists and writers telling stories beyond the news headlines. Presented by Kate Adie.

Author

BBC Radio 4

Category

News

Podcast website

www.bbc.co.uk

Latest episode

Jul 4, 2026

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Episodes

Memories of Murder 26.03.2016

The lives behind the headlines. In this edition: forty years in prison for the former Bosnian Serb Leader Radovan Karadzic, found guilty of war crimes. Does it send a signal to those in positions of power that they will, ultimately, be held accountable? Brussels -- not just a city of Eurocrats, but one where people and families live and grow up and where's there's been a phlegmatic response to Tue...

Dancing in Damascus 19.03.2016

There's dancing in a nightclub in Damascus, though some remain seated during the songs played in honour of the leaders of Syria and Hezbollah. And not much dancing in the suburbs. How are locals coping after five years of war? He started out as a caring psychiatrist, and before his capture he lived as an alternative healer. Yes, it's the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic. who may be convicted o...

No way to Macedonia 17.03.2016

Refugees stuck in Greece keep trying to cross into Macedonia even though the border is now closed. One man has got through the fence, and then been taken back, fourteen times. In the meantime, new Syrian refugees keep arriving at the other end of Greece, on the island of Lesbos. We hear about hopes that a Basque pro-independence leader newly released from prison can bring about real peace in his r...

Stuck in Turkey. 12.03.2016

Turkey and the EU are hammering out a deal that would turn Turkey into the gatekeeper of Europe, to stop undocumented migrants from reaching the West. But will the refugees agree to stay in Turkey, or try to reach the EU by any means possible? They have lost limbs, parents, homes, and favourite dolls. But not their bravery and spirit. We meet the children who have been affected by the five years o...

China's corruption clampdown 10.03.2016

In China, customers are staying away from the pearl and jewellery shops, but lingerie sales are soaring. The strange effects that the clampdown on corruption is having on the country's economy. Fighting elephant poachers can a dangerous business in the Democratic Republic of Congo where part of who you're up against appears to be a neighbouring country's army. We travel on the ancient Via Egnatia...

Donald Trump 2.0 05.03.2016

They are coiffed, lacquered, expensively attired and perfumed - and that's just the men in a Donald Trump audience in Florida. And while our North America editor expects the unexpected from Donald Trump, he is surprised to find him in a conciliatory mood. Spending four months on a single page of A4 - the art of calligraphy and other skills are being revived in Kabul, and now exhibited in Washingto...

Trapped in a dead end 03.03.2016

Having reached Greece after often perilous journeys, many migrants now find that their hoped-for route north is blocked. Danny Savage meets some of those who have to live in tents in Athens, and on the Greek-Macedonian border with little hope of reaching their final destinations. Many refugees have come from Syria, where neighbourhoods in some cities have been reduced to rubble. Warda al-Jawahiry...

Opting to go lower caste 02.03.2016

The human stories behind the headlines. In this edition, we hear from India, where protests deprived ten million Delhi residents of their water. Members of the Jat caste want to force the government to reclassify them as lower-caste, so they can get quotas for government jobs and study places. Used Field Marshall for sale - the things you find on eBay in Egypt, when locals take the president at hi...

Turkey points the finger 25.02.2016

The stories behind the headlines. In this edition, we hear from Turkey, where the authorities are blaming a Syrian Kurd for a bombing that killed 29 people. Turkey is unhappy at US support for Kurdish fighters in Syria, who combat so-called Islamic State there. The complexities of the war in Syria are becoming mingled with those of the Turkish-Kurdish conflict. Sri Lanka suffered almost 30 years o...

A Man Dies Twice 20.02.2016

Meeting the people populating the world of news. In this edition: thousands were massacred in the Bosnian town of Visegrad during the war there in 1992 - today, as Fergal Keane has been finding out, the authorities there want it to become a tourist destination. Visegrad is also on Nick Thorpe's mind only he's talking about the town by the River Danube in Hungary, where the so-called Visegrad 4, a...

The Showdown Summit 18.02.2016

Colouring in the space between the headlines. In this edition: behind the scenes at the EU as a meeting nears which could determine Britain's future in Europe; why many in Venezuela, mired in economic crisis, have a fond word for their former hardline socialist president Hugo Chavez; mass migrations's one of the biggest stories of our time but in Portugal they're concerned not about new arrivals,...

Trapped in a Nightmare 13.02.2016

Human stories behind the headlines: Fergal Keane is on the frontline in Ukraine with a husband and wife who are determined to stay on in their home even as war consumes their town. Two boys talk to Quentin Sommerville about life, death and indoctrination in an ISIS-held town in Syria. Grace Livingstone is in the Venezuelan countryside finding that livelihoods are being hit hard by the financial cr...

Black Lives Matter 11.02.2016

The fuller story. In this edition, crime's a major talking point as campaigning intensifies in the US presidential election - activists under the banner 'Black Lives Matter' are drawing attention to the number of young African-American men who've been shot by the police; security forces are standing by as a presidential election looms in Uganda - some aren't happy that President Museveni is trying...

A Nightmare of Uncertainty 06.02.2016

The human stories behind the headlines. In this edition one correspondent flies through the Latin American night visiting three countries in search of the truth about the Zika crisis; another accompanies members of a private militia on patrol in Kenya. They're looking for rhino poachers and if they find them, they'll kill them; the kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been built on oil. But the oil price h...

Nervous Sweden 04.02.2016

In this edition: how Russian military activity above and below the surface of the Baltic Sea is causing increasing concern in Sweden; Ethiopia's suffering its worst drought in years - but with a buoyant economy why does it need international aid to help it cope? We find out why Finns appear to have fallen out of love with the migrants and why the migrants no longer seem fond of Finland; Belarus mi...

The Colonel's Camerman 30.01.2016

Correspondents around the world tell their stories. In this edition Gabriel Gatehouse is back in Tripoli as speculation grows about a new military intervention in Libya; Mark Lowen is in Diyarbakir where there's been intense fighting between Turkish security forces and Kurdish militants; Miles Warde is in a dusty town on the edge of Kenya where there are plans for pipelines, resort cities and Chin...

Inspecting the Troops 28.01.2016

Insight, storytelling, colour, detail. In this edition, the Russians in Syria show off their fighter jets and warships, a message from Moscow that Russia once again sees itself as a major player on the world stage. A million incomers to Germany in a year -- can they give the economy a useful bounce as well as defuse a demographic timebomb? The old men of the Vietnamese communist party leadership h...

Steel in Crisis 23.01.2016

China's economy falters and is blamed for nosediving stock markets and, partly, for the loss of hundreds of steel industry jobs in South Wales. In this edition, Steve Evans visits a steelworks in China, which has just closed down, and considers the lessons the Chinese leadership may consider. The misery of the war in Yemen continues and Nawal al-Maghafi, recently back from there, explains why no-o...

Lessons for Migrants 21.01.2016

Today our correspondents ... are in the classroom as migrants, newly arrived in Finland, are taught about Finnish values, culture and the place of women in western society; consider how much the self-styled Islamic State has been damaged by recent successes by Iraqi government forces supported by foreign air power; go to Norway, a country outside the EU but inside the single market. Is that an exa...

Poles Apart 16.01.2016

'Don't tell us how to run our country!' That was the word from Warsaw as the European Commission launched an investigation into some of the decisions taken by the new right-wing government in Poland; the authorities in India meet on Monday to evaluate the controversial traffic experiment in Delhi which was aimed at reducing pollution; the latest consumer spending figures in France offer little evi...

Chairman Mao or Colonel Sanders 09.01.2016

The best in news and current affairs storytelling. Today, after a troubled week for the Chinese economy, we wonder who's more popular in China today, the author of that Little Red Book, Chairman Mao, or the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, Colonel Sanders. Violence continues to rain down on Yemen - the Islamic State group has now become involved in the civil war and is believed to have been behi...

New Year Questions 02.01.2016

Your window on the wider world. The Iraqi forces claimed victory over IS fighters when they swept into the city of Ramadi - but the place has been devastated, it will be months before residents can return to their homes. Thomas Fessy, who's been there, explains why this is being viewed as a significant achievement by the Iraqi security forces. On the Greek island of Lesbos, bad weather has slowed...

Boxing Day Special 26.12.2015

Looking back at some historic FOOC despatches: Allan Little, Bridget Kendall, Emma Jane Kirby, Steve Evans and Gabriel Gatehouse read pieces by Fergal Keane, Caroline Wyatt, Charles Wheeler, John Crawley and Kevin Connolly

Damascus Rules 19.12.2015

Almost better than travelling yourself! Insight, wit and colour from around the globe. In this one: the tablecloth approach to ending war -- serious discussions about how to end the fighting in Syria; the end of another long conflict may be in sight as the government in Bogota signs an interim peace deal with Colombia's FARC rebels; arguments intensify over territorial claims in the South China Se...

Turning to Trump 12.12.2015

The programme with the bigger picture. Why the controversial comments and adverse publicity surrounding Donald Trump are not harming the billionaire businessman's bid for the US presidency. Seismic shifts in Spanish politics - we get a view of the upcoming general election there from the Valley of the Fallen, where the country's late dictator Francisco Franco is buried. The talk in Malaysia's of s...

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