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

Andy Warhol's Trousers 22.08.2015

The full story - correspondents with despatches from around the world. Today: from Bangkok, scene of a devastating bomb attack earlier in the week, it's the smallest detail which makes the deepest impression; there's a visit to the coastline of Somalia where a thriving piracy industry has been closed down but myriad problems still remain; we're in the Panamanian highlands talking about cocoa beans...

Politics and Witchcraft 15.08.2015

The stories behind the news. In this edition: the government in Tanzania warns of the dangers of black magic as the country prepares to go to the polls in October; how the presence of militants in Egypt's Sinai peninsula, who are allied to the so-called Islamic State, marks an ominous turn for the authorities in Cairo; in the Czech Republic there's a plan to extend overcast mining in what was once...

We Are All Emigrants Now 08.08.2015

Insight and colour from around the globe. In this edition: Syrian tears for the waste and suffering of a lost generation; the migrants crossing into Europe via the border between Serbia and Hungary -- they say it'll take more than the steel fence, currently being constructed, to stop them. It's Happy Birthday Singapore! The island state's fifty years old and big business hasn't been slow to join t...

The Busy Executioner 01.08.2015

Story-telling from reporters around the world. In this edition, as the UN, EU and others voice criticism of the number of executions now being carried out in Pakistan, our correspondent meets a hangman who talks frankly about his job; a colleague visits a far-right militia group's training camp in Ukraine and hears why it's against not only the pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country bu...

A Walk in the West Wing 25.07.2015

Stories from reporters around the world. In this edition: summoned to the White House to talk to the president of the United States of America - but what was it like meeting one of the most powerful and important men in the world? After that interview, Mr Obama flew on to Kenya and we learn how the need for ever-greater security is just one of the factors which bind Kenya and the US together. Whil...

Shaping a New World Order 21.07.2015

Reporters' stories. About Iran, Togo, Mexico, Ethiopia and the United States

Without Stability We Have Nothing 16.07.2015

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 Af...

A Sunny Place for Shady People 13.07.2015

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 d...

Fear and Fun in Baghdad 09.07.2015

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...

Greek Tragedies 04.07.2015

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 wo...

Escape from Boko Haram 02.07.2015

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 friendline...

Mali's Magical Onions 27.06.2015

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,...

Malta's Birds: Loved and Hunted 25.06.2015

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 ove...

The Billion-Dollar Heist 20.06.2015

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, ha...

On the Brink 18.06.2015

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...

Between Life and Death 13.06.2015

Storytelling and writing. In this edition Gabriel Gatehouse is in Sicily which suffered waves of emigration in the 20th century. Today it's having to get used to being a centre of immigration with the arrival of thousands of mainly African migrants; Orla Guerin's in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. The jihadists of Islamic State are only 70-miles away now, but residents seem more concerned about the re...

The Battle for Aden 11.06.2015

Insight, colour, context, detail. In this edition, war rips the heart out of old Aden as the warring parties in Yemen prepare for peace talks; a day of reckoning in Canada as extensive, painful details are released about the way the country's aboriginal children were treated over more than a century; a British man, fighting against Islamic State in Syria, tells us why it's time for him to leave th...

A Turkish Mosaic 06.06.2015

Windows on the world. Today: diverse and contradictory views about the Turkish election and the country's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan from three very different parts of the country; there's now a record number of migrants in the French port of Calais - they're concerned not only about the hostility they face but also about the widespread ignorance in Europe about what's really going on in their...

The Last Election? 04.06.2015

Context and colour. In today's edition: Turkey at the crossroads ahead of Sunday's election; the Spanish city where there's only one Christian family left in a neighbourhood of 12-thousand people; the farmers of Namibia are being urged to go easy on the big cats they feel threaten their livestock. Why the picturesque but cash-strapped Darjeeling Himalayan Railway won't be receiving private investm...

Should I Stay or Should I Go? 30.05.2015

News and current affairs storytelling, context and colour: the Russians contemplating leaving the country because of what they see as an increasingly harsh and intolerant political climate; Cuba and the US may be close to announcing a date for the re-opening of their respective embassies, but many in Havana still wait for the thaw to bring more products onto the shelves of shops; the Indians drive...

The American Dream in Trouble 28.05.2015

Talking points from around the globe. In this edition, the gulf between rich and poor in New York just goes on growing -- working hard doesn't seem enough any more, the next rung on the ladder increasingly appears to be out of reach; more shootings in the Somali capital Mogadishu - rebuilding may be proceeding there after two decades of civil war, but the security situation remains precarious; six...

The War That Made Itself At Home 23.05.2015

Storytelling from the world of news and current affairs. In this edition: Fergal Keane on why there's little international drive to bring the fighting in eastern Ukraine to an end; Frank Gardner on how there's increasing nervousness in Jordan as Islamic State continues to gain ground in neighbouring Iraq and Syria; Stephen Sackur on signs of upheaval inside the Zanu-PF party as speculation grows a...

A Coup Crumbles 21.05.2015

The programme that takes you places. In this edition to two countries, Burundi and Macedonia, where people have taken to the streets demanding change. In both, the outcome remains uncertain, the mood volatile, the conditions dangerous. Another correspondent looks on as thousands of troops from the US and its allies take part in a military exercise in Jordan - the top brass, meanwhile, are consider...

Stranded at Sea 16.05.2015

Around the world. Today - the increasingly desperate plight of men, women and children who have fled Burma but are being denied permission to go ashore in Thailand, Malaysia or Indonesia. Five months after British and American forces left Afghanistan, instability is growing and the nation's political elite stands accused of failing to give the armed forces the support they need. We learn how part...

Reversing the Ageing Process 09.05.2015

Now where have I put the car keys? A Japanese neuro-scientist believes a regular brain 'workout' can improve the lives, and the memories, of older people who might otherwise fall victim to dementia; Italy's planning to tell the UN Security Council next week that the country's in urgent need of more help in dealing with the tide of migrants washing up on its shores - we're in a port in Sicily where...

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