From Our Own Correspondent

Correspondents' stories: behind the scenes at the UN General Assembly in New York - Nick Bryant says it's been about so much more than the keynote speeches in the assembly hall. Andrew Harding was covering the seige in Nairobi in which more than 60-people were killed. Many of the city's residents, he says, feel personally scarred by the horrors of what happened at the Westgate Centre. Havana Marki...

Global despatches. Today: it was Gabriel Gatehouse's local shopping mall but now the Westgate Centre in Nairobi has become known as a place of fear, suffering and death; did Angela Merkel do TOO well in the German election? Chris Morris on why forming a new government there could be a protracted business. As the Egyptian authorities move to ban the Muslim Brotherhood, Quentin Sommerville talks of...

Correspondents' despatches: Jeremy Bowen in Damascus reflects on the lessons a reporter learns after more than twenty years covering conflicts around the world; Steve Evans meets a lady down on her luck in a Baltic port city as Germany prepares for new elections; Diana Darke looks at Turkey's huge 'GAP' water project and wonders if it will work for or against the country's Kurdish population; near...

Kate Adie introduces reports from correspondents around the world. Following the death sentences handed down to four men in India for the rape and killing of a young woman, Rupa Jha reflects on her own personal experience of some disturbing events from her childhood. Linda Pressly is with the gold miners of Kalimantan in Indonesia and sees the high price they have to pay as they try to earn a livi...

Kate Adie presents correspondents' stories from Syria, the US, Australia, South Africa and Italy. Lyse Doucet hears how Syria's mosaic of cultures is being shattered; Humphrey Hawksley visits the big brains of America's Ivy League who have been thinking about how to put a country back together again; James Fletcher rides the Australian economic engine, and listens to the roar of Harley Davidsons;...

Correspondents tell their stories: Mark Mardell in Washington on difficult decisions for President Obama: Charles Haviland, off for dinner with the departing president of Pakistan, ponders over the milk pudding on the legacy Asif Ali Zardari leaves behind; a different perspective on the state of Chinese justice comes from John Sudworth, who was covering the trial in Jinan of ousted politician Bo X...

Correspondents' despatches: the wealthy principality of Liechtenstein is forced to face up to the idea of belt-tightening, Alex Marshall; Alastair Newton Brown strolls through the streets of the Iranian capital, Tehran where he finds people keen to engage with the West; Rajini Vaidyanathan in Washington considers the implications of the jail sentence handed down to secrets leaker Bradley Manning;...

Correspondents' stories. Today: Hugh Sykes is in Cairo where the mood, at the end of a troubled week, is bleak and the outlook, apparently bleaker. Syrians caught in the cross hairs - Hannah Lucinda Smith on the real story of Aleppo's war: one of people trying to carry on with their lives amidst a conflict they never chose; Petroc Trelawny is on a bridge in Hanoi. The Vietnamese city, once the cap...

Will the Egyptian army move in to break up the camp in Cairo set up by supporters of the ousted president, Mohamed Morsi? Caroline Wyatt has been meeting residents of a city which is bitterly divided. Christians are leaving Syria in their thousands. Diana Darke's been learning that they're being greeted with enthusiasm in neighbouring Turkey. Jonathan Head says there's been a conciliatory mood in...

Indians living in the shadow of the Himalayas are being told they could face further life-threatening weather events -- Jane Dyson tells the story of a man and a mule who were unable to contend with the power of nature. Jake Wallis Simons drinks beer with an Israeli settler who tells him that whatever the outcome of the current John Kerry peace initiative, he and others like him still believe in t...

Albania, not so long ago a redoubt of hardline Communism, is now hoping for EU membership. Julia Langdon's been assessing its chances during a visit to the seaside there. Emma Jane Kirby's visiting a company which makes men's pants in France. She's looking into claims that it's harder than ever for French businesses to prosper. Wyre Davies is reporting on the papal visit to Brazil - gauging the im...

"He knew nothing about politics." A father talks to Humphrey Hawksley about his only son, killed in a street protest in the Egyptian city of Alexandria. Will Grant in Mexico on the Central American migrants who face abuse at every turn as they try to make their way to the United States. A fishing community in Alaska is engaged in a bitter battle with the mining industry - Stephen Sackur says it's...

The Bulgarian establishment under threat from a million smartphones - Nick Thorpe on the protestors demanding their government steps down. Ahead of election day in Cambodia, Annie Caulfield goes to the circus and finds happy children and painful memories. Peter Day is in Zambia where diarrhoea is a major killer of children - medication works, but getting it to remote villages presents a huge chall...

Quentin Sommerville talks to protestors on Cairo's streets; Andrew Harding returns to Burma and this time he doesn't need a disguise! Linda Pressly visits a unique community of sex offenders in Florida, Leo Johnson is blasting for gold in Ecuador and David Chazan learns how to be a cyber-hacker in Lille.

The recent feuding within Nelson Mandela's family has reminded us that within the anti-apartheid hero's myth is a man and a family with very human frailties, as Gabriel Gatehouse ponders when he visits a play in Johannesburg. Yolande Knell pays a visit to the deported cleric Abu Qatada's new home - Jordan's al-Muwaqar Prison. Jo Fidgen joins the crew of a Norwegian whale hunting boat. Ed Stocker f...

Portuguese people are leaving the country in their thousands, travelling to the country's former colonies in search of work - Emma Jane Kirby's in Porto and Lisbon learning how recession's driving many away from their family and loved ones. The exodus from conflict-ridden Syria continues too - Kieran Cooke meets a family from Damascus now selling shoes in the Armenian capital, Yerevan. Kevin Conno...

What's happened to her house in the Old City in Damascus? Diana Darke hears how it's fared during the ongoing conflict in Syria. David Shukman is in Prescott, Arizona, a community devastated after 19 firefighters lost their lives battling a forest fire. Kinshasa in DR Congo is Africa's fastest-growing city - Jonny Hogg's been finding out how law and order's fast collapsing there too. Natasha Breed...

A thousand horses. Three thousand sheep. And people, thousands of them too, clustered like locusts around the Old Port in Marseille. What on earth were they all doing there? Anna Magnusson was finding out. European leaders have announced they'll try to tackle unemployment; Emma Jane Kirby's in southern Spain where the under-25s are finding it hardest to get jobs. Qatar has a new ruler, or emir; Fr...

It's the great reconciliation story which never happened -- Andrew Hosken in Libya on a homecoming which didn't take place. Nigel Wilson tells us of the dangers involved in trying to provide a taste of home to Syrians stuck in Jordan. Marie Keyworth on the Portuguese struggling to get by as the long recession continues. In Croatia, Mick Webb finds many enthusiastic about joining the EU - the count...

Air travel may be not quite the glamorous, magical experience it once was but our frequent flier Peter Day, sitting bolt upright in economy class, says there can still be something magnificent about it. For Shaiima Khalil, it's a long hot overnight train journey to Upper Egypt to find out how the revolution's playing out far from the big cities of the north. Chris Morris, covering the anti-governm...

'Everything is worse after the revolution' - tourism workers along the River Nile in Egypt tell Matthew Teller about the turmoil in their industry. Tessa Dunlop returns to Romania to see if the lot of orphans there has improved in the last twenty years. How some refugees from the fighting in Syria are finding a warm welcome in Hizbollah communities in northern Lebanon - Sakhr Al-Makhadhi explains....

A passion for protest: street demonstrations, rarely permitted in the days of President Mubarak, have become common in Cairo and Egypt's other cities; Aleem Maqbool sets out to see if he can find a demo a day. Phil Goodwin on how war has changed Syria from a hospitable, friendly place into one that's brutal, paranoid and vicious. A meeting critical to the future of Detroit - Jonny Dymond on a grea...

Hungarians fight the floods! This collection of despatches from radio correspondents includes Nick Thorpe in Budapest on how people buried their differences and worked together to save their capital from an overflowing River Danube. Bethany Bell says they're picking cherries in the Golan Heights as the Syrian war rages on in the valley below. Croatia is about to join the EU - but Andy Hosken finds...

Correspondents' despatches from around the globe. Who'll emerge victorious from the struggle in Taksim Square? Paul Mason gives his view after spending the week in Istanbul. Lyse Doucet believes the new prime minister of Pakistan faces a daunting set of problems -- but she finds there's little chance of him going hungry! The Nigerian military say they're making progress in their campaign against t...

Is the Turkish prime minister Mr Erdogan listening to the demonstrators? James Reynolds has been following the protests in Istanbul and other cities. Chris Morris is in historic Mostar learning how difficult it is for Bosnians to forget about the past. People in the Golan Heights have been telling Wyre Davies they are concerned the fighting over the border in Syria is about to spill over into thei...