From Our Own Correspondent

A world that's not just full of doom and gloom: Anna Borzello on the remarkable changes that have happened in northern Uganda since the area was abandoned by the brutal rebels of the Lords Resistance Army; Richard Porter tells us how the cruelties of Saddam Hussein have become a distant memory in the marshlands of southern Iraq -- people have returned to their homes, the wildlife is back too; BBC...

Hungry crocodiles are invading homes in northern Australia looking for the family pet, Phil Mercer has that story; the dangers of a drive through increasingly violent Iraq, Paul Martin; what makes an Indian cinema crowd scream at the screen, Mark Tully; the former gangsters trying to reduce gun crime on the streets of LA, Frank Gardner and the controversy surrounding a new TV show in Denmark which...

Reporters around the world with the news behind the headlines: Aleem Maqbool talks of the 14-hundred-year old conflict which lies behind today's breakdown in law and order in Iraq; the bicentenary of the controversial composer Wagner causes Steve Evans to question preconceptions about Germans and their society; Ed Butler meets a billionaire in Azerbaijan and chuckles over his plans for a huge buil...

Correspondents around the world: Jeremy Bowen on the increasing difficulties of reporting the war in Syria; Paul Lewis explores how corruption is reaching into the heart of everyday life in India; the diaspora returns - Andrew Harding talks of Somalia at the crossroads; Louisa Loveluck's at the morgue in Cairo - some say it's been covering up cases of police brutality and in Rome, Alan Johnston ha...

Correspondents' stories from around the world: a field day for conspiracy theorists as the White House stumbles in a fog of political scandal; Libya's second city Benghazi's unstable, violent and there's uncertainty there over the presence and degree of influence of radical Islamists; as France slips back into recession, there's a trip to Lot-et-Garonne in the south west where they have their own...

Correspondents around the world with the detail behind the headlines: Beth McLeod on the struggling Syrian refugees resorting to selling their daughters into marriage. The costs and consequences of standing in a Pakistani election are explored by Owen Bennett Jones. Another food scandal in China: Martin Patience on how, this time, it's rat which is leaving a nasty taste in the mouth. How can a pil...

Reporters' stories from around the world: why Rupert Wingfield Hayes believes North Korea's recent sabre-rattling speaks not of a regime that is strong and confident but one that is weak and scared, of the outside world and increasingly of its own people too. Emilie Filou accompanies the fly-catchers of Burkina Faso as they test an old legend - 'if you live too close to the river, it will eat your...

Reporters from around the world tell their stories. Steve Rosenberg visits Dagestan on the trail of the alleged Boston bombers, and finds that violence is part of everyday life there. Nick Thorpe watches an attempt to educate Hungarian police cadets away from prejudice against the Roma minority. It's a tough sell. The military's continuing grip on Egyptian society is explained by Shaimaa Khalil, w...

Correspondents' stories: why President Assad may now believe he's winning the argument; the garage man in Jordan recruiting young Islamists to go fight in Syria; why shackles are still being used to restrain some of the mentally ill in Indonesia -- even though officially they are banned; a truffle recipe's handed over at an army camp in Syria and exciting days in the northernmost reaches of Scandi...

Colour and insight from reporters around the world: the man who'll find you a violin tree in the Jura Mountains; what's going to happen to the man who tends the roses in the Afghan town of Lashkar Gah? Culture clash in Bamako -- how some of the refugees from Mali's north are overstaying their welcome. Why the Mexican president's warning about vigilantes may not be heeded in the mountainous south-w...

How the direction of the wind saved Tokyo from possible radioactive contamination -- Rupert Wingfield Hayes examines the debate over re-starting Japan's nuclear power plants. Andrew Harding considers how Nelson Mandela's hospitalisation has caused South Africans to look again at their country's development in the years since apartheid. The police are said to deal drugs, the playgrounds are littere...

Correspondents' despatches from around the world. In this edition: Thomas Fessy marches through Mali with the French Foreign Legion looking for insurgents; Jonathan Fryer's in the Angolan capital, Luanda, where people have much to look at but, in most cases, little money to spend. What's the point of the Swiss army? Imogen Foulkes says some there believe there's no further need for compulsory mili...

Insight, colour and analysis from reporters around the world. Mark Lowen's in Cyprus where the banks remain closed and the people have been getting angrier. Shahzeb Jillani makes the decision to work as a correspondent in the troubled Pakistani city of Karachi - his family questions his judgement! Charlotte Pritchard takes a drive through the smuggler borderlands between Colombia and Venezuela. As...

How did Herb Jeffries become a black cowboy film star when he wasn't even black? Sarfraz Manzoor travels to Kansas in search of the answer. Mike Wooldridge is in Pakistan - an election date's been announced but will the new team of rulers tackle what some call an alarming rise in religious intolerance? Western Sahara is not much reported upon: Celeste Hicks goes there and tells a tale of secret po...

Millions of Zimbabweans vote on a new constitution - Andrew Harding, in Harare, quotes one government minister saying the document is the 'midwife' to a brand new future for the country. Jonathan Head talks of Burma's most famous resident, the Nobel prizewinner Aung San Suu Kyi. Once revered as an icon, now she's having to get used to being heckled as she goes about her work as a politician. Louis...

What price can you put on memory? Neil Trevithick is with the Aborigines whose territory in Western Australia's being coveted for its mineral wealth. Once hundreds of hermits lived in the mountains of northern Lebanon. Today John Laurenson's meeting one of just three who remain. Joanna Jolly's in Nepal where, six years after the end of civil war, no-one's been brought to court to face charges of w...

Allan Little says there are deep disagreements among the cardinals as they prepare to elect a new pope. They are voting too in the Falklands. Caroline Wyatt says the result is in little doubt. But what will they make of it in Argentina? Stephen Sackur has been in Tunisia, a land which has been in deep political crisis since the shooting last month of a prominent critic of the government. How shoul...

Correspondents' stories. Today: Steve Rosenberg's in Moscow as Russians debate the legacy of Josef Stalin sixty years after his death. There's speculation that Turkey could be poised to sign a peace deal to end the long conflict with Turkish rebels - James Reynolds has been investigating. Steve Vickers tells us why the Swedish authorities want to move their northernmost city to a new location two...

Reporters worldwide tell their stories. Steve Evans in Berlin on how, perhaps surprisingly given their history, Germans feel a real affinity for Britain. She used to be called 'the most powerful woman in Mexico.' Will Grant on the arrest, on embezzlement charges, of one of the country's top union leaders. Paul Henley tries to keep his cool listening to a stream of homophobic vitriol in Russia. You...

Reporters worldwide: Rahul Tandon is in Calcutta as its people struggle to cope with an unaccustomed spell of cold weather. 'Together Bulgarians are Strong' - Nick Thorpe tells us that's the cry of protestors whose disenchantment's brought down the government. The Kenyan election's on Monday and Gabriel Gatehouse has been finding out that land remains an issue of vital importance to many. A diffic...

When Madeleine Morris returned to her native Australia after twelve years in the UK she knew she'd find things different there, but she didn't realise her wallet would take such a battering! Ian Pannell, in northern Syria, finds a group of little boys sheltering in a Roman-era tomb and asking where their mother's got to. Craig Jeffrey's at the Indian college where once students demonstrated for th...

Despatches from around the world: Jonathan Head on a little-reported but long-running conflict in southern Thailand; a rare protest on the streets of Singapore - Karishma Vaswani tells of mounting anger in Asia's richest nation; a new government in Italy, after this weekend's election, seems unlikely to tinker much with the employment laws - Ed Butler believes nepotism in the labour market is set...

Reporters' despatches from far and wide: a vegetarian of 37 years' standing, Nick Thorpe, is despatched to ask questions about horse meat and to investigate a slaughter house in Romania. Can Japan spend its way out of recession and into prosperity? Economists are thrilled at the idea. But Rupert Wingfield Hayes in Tokyo has his doubts. What's the US military doing in a remote corner of the Philipp...

Reporters worldwide - today: Ruth Sherlock on how the Free Syrian Army's losing support as people turn to the Islamists for help in getting by during difficult times. Wyre Davies on a plot still unfolding: he's in a bookshop in Tunis looking out on an unfinished revolution. Mark Mardell on how experience in the US military is helping to shape the new team around President Obama. Tom Esslemont on m...

Stories from around the world. Today: Will Grant in Mexico on the night horror descended on a beach holiday on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. Why were 21-thousand knives handed out on the streets of Mumbai? Alex Preston was there and has the answer. Chris Morris finds out what the building with the biggest carpet in Europe can tell us about attitudes to the EU. Richard Hamilton senses a swagger...