From Our Own Correspondent

In Brittany there’s been some concern about how the UK’s long goodbye to the European Union will affect it’s fishing fleets. Last weekend France reminded Britain that the UK exports most of its fish production to EU countries. Post-Brexit negotiations about fishing rights, security arrangements and a host of other issues promise to be far from straight forward. But Julia Langdon finds many people in the historic port of St Malo are not that bothered about what’s just happened on the other side of the channel. They have – as it were - other fish to fry. Two guards who worked at a prison in Yaroslavl, north east of Moscow, were jailed last month for abusing an inmate. Despite official claims that Russian penitentiaries are cleaning up their act, prisoners, their relatives and human rights activists tell a very different story. Oleg Boldyrev investigated another recent case.The Naga, a Tibeto-Burman people made up of dozens of different tribes, inhabit the mountainous borderlands of India and Myanmar. Administer

Much thought this week on borders, on nationality and how we get on with our neighbours even at the commemorations to mark the liberation of Auschwitz. The Nazis murdered 1.1 million people at the death camp - ninety per cent of them Jews, but also Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, and people from the Roma and Sinti minorities. Two hundred survivors and world leaders from 60 countries. United in remembering but, 75 years on says Adam Easton, the anniversary was overshadowed by disagreements between Russia and Poland about their respective roles in World War II. The bushfires , fuelled in a large part by the relentless drought, have brought the climate change debate to the fore in Australia. But the prime minister – a big supporter of the fossil fuel industry – has refused to make any changes to the government’s climate policy. This week the state of New South Wales said it would open an independent inquiry into the on-going fires to examine both the causes and how the state responded to them. Shaimaa Khalil m

Stephen McDonnell describes the atmosphere in China while he is quarantined at home

Hundreds of foreign nationals are being evacuated from Wuhan, the centre of China's coronavirus outbreak, as more deaths and cases are confirmed. British citizens being flown back to the UK from the city will be put in quarantine for two weeks. Stephen McDonnell was recently in Hubei province where the disease was first identified and is now back in Beijing. He too has been told to stay at home for a fortnight and he reflects on how even the Chinese capital feels eerily deserted. This month, Colombia’s war crimes tribunal, the court which was created as part of the 2016 peace deal between the government and the left wing guerrillas known as the FARC or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, began hearing testimony about the illegal recruitment of children and teenagers. The FARC denies that it ever forced underage soldiers to fight. But the Prosecutor General’s office says the guerrillas recruited more than 5,000 minors during the decades long conflict. Matthew Charles visited one of the worst affected commu

The anti-nationalist protesters in Italy and the man they are trying to stop - Mark Lowen meets members of the Sardines as well the hard-line politician Matteo Salvini who is hoping to become Prime Minister.Kate Adie introduces this and other stories:In Cape Verde, Colin Freeman finds out why Europe’s drug problem is also a problem for the Atlantic islands.In Greece, Tulip Mazumdar visits the Lesbos migrant camp built for 2,000 people and now home to more than 18,000.In China, Yvonne Murray gets to know her new neighbours - rats. According to the Chinese zodiac, they are thought to be ambitious and clever, hard-working and imaginative but she finds them a little less appealing.And Fergal Keane reflects on heroism, compassion and the remarkable story of a woman who sheltered a man who plotted to kill Adolf Hitler.

Isabel dos Santos is the billionaire daughter of the former president of Angola and Africa’s richest woman. She claims to be a self-made businesswoman. But more than 700,000 documents, recently leaked from her business empire, suggest otherwise. The emails, charts, contracts, audits, and accounts in the so-called Luanda Leaks have put her under intense scrutiny by her bank and the Angolan government. But in an interview with Andrew Harding she batted aside allegations of corruption and nepotism. Escalating violence in Libya has encouraged a growing number of its citizens to flee and risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean Sea. Sally Hayden has been on board a rescue boat off the Libyan coast. The 18 year Afghan conflict has killed tens of thousands of Afghans, more than 2,400 American troops and cost the US around $900 billion. President Donald Trump has often said he wants to remove the estimated 13,000 U.S. troops remaining in Afghanistan. That would leave more of the fight against the Taliban to the Af

In the latest programme of the monthly series, Mishal Husain introduces dispatches from:Vincent Ni on a Chinese man who, like him, has come to Britain and is in his mid-thirties - but there the similarities abruptly end. What does living here undocumented mean in practical terms and why does he do it?With the approach of Holocaust Memorial Day, which this year marks the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Adam Shaw reflects on the striking contemporary relevance of his own father's refugee status and escape from Nazi persecution in places as varied as a country estate in Northumberland and a "Lord of the Flies"-like "school" in Scotland. In a letter addressed to his father's grandchildren, he reveals how this child refugee managed to survive largely alone and ponders whether this story is as remote from our experience as we might first imagine.Emilie Filou visits Pembrokeshire to meet the bug champions of St Davids and how an entomologist's start-up, created with her chef hu

When Carlos Ghosn skipped bail in Tokyo last month the world was flabbergasted. Despite being under intense surveillance while out on bail, with undercover agents tailing him whenever he left his house, the ex-Nissan boss somehow hot-footed it onto a private jet and made it to Lebanon. Now that the dust has settled, the spotlight has been turned onto what some call, Japan’s "hostage justice" system. The country has an enviably low crime rate which is often attributed to a small income gap and full employment, but Rupert Wingfield Hayes says many people are just terrified of being arrested.Lebanon, Carlos Ghosn’s temporary bolt hole, is a country often caught up in all manner of international rows and intrigues. It is also one of the many countries in the Middle East where Iran determinedly exerts its influence. The Iranian general Qassem Soleimani helped to spread that influence through the Shia Islamist political party and militant group , Hezbollah. So in the wake of Soleimani’s killing in a US drone strike

The Iranian government held an official funeral on Tuesday for General Qassem Soleimani killed by a US airstrike in Baghdad. There were emotional speeches in the general’s home town of Kerman in southeast Iran and so many mourners turned out that at least 50 were killed in the crush. On Twitter the Iranian Foreign Minister had a message for President Donald Trump: "Have you seen such a sea of humanity in your life?... Do you still think you can break the will of a great nation and its people?" But were the huge crowds really a sign of national unity? Lois Pryce who wrote a book about crossing Iran on a motorbike and who has friends both inside the country and across the 2 million strong Iranian diaspora finds public opinion far from unanimous. Ever since independence from the USSR almost three decades ago, there’s never been an Uzbek election which outsiders were willing to call free or fair. But this time was meant to be different. On the 22nd of December, Uzbekistan ran its first elections to the parliament

The assassination in a US air strike of the senior Iranian general Qasem Soleimani raises the prospect of a response from Teheran that few can predict. Jim Muir reports on the significance of the US target and what might happen next.Thirty years ago the United States acted to remove another foreign threat, this time closer to home. Following the US invasion of Panama shortly before Christmas, the country's military leader General Manuel Noriega surrendered to US troops on January the 3rd, 1990. David Adams was there.In Ireland it used to be common for unmarried mothers to be confined in state-funded institutions. Often their babies, once born, were taken without their consent and given up for adoption. Deirdre Finnerty has met one of the thousands of women who were sent to these mother and baby homes.Air travel in the Democratic Republic of Congo matters because there are few reliable roads. But there are serious concerns about the safety of flying and many people can't afford it anyway. Most Congolese who ne

Until recently, a small, independent and politically neutral Syrian radio station was broadcasting in exile from Istanbul. But Radio Alwan was forced to close when the Trump administration made the decision last year to pull $200m of funding for Syria’s stabilisation projects, knocking the station off air. Some of the station’s staff are scattered across Europe and those who have remained in Turkey say they now feel vulnerable following the Turkish offensive in NE Syria and what they see as a hardening of the country’s position on refugees. So where do you belong if your adopted country no longer welcomes you and the door to your own country is closed? Emma Jane Kirby met ex Radio Alwan broadcasters in Istanbul to try understand why the word “home” no longer has any meaning for them. Across Latin America millions have left their homes to better their families' lives. These have been years of huge outward migration from Venezuela, Central America and Cuba. Will Grant has now spent more than a decade living in

Recent events in Hong Kong have made many people in Taiwan jumpy. Duncan Hewitt talks to a Taiwanese hacker and activist turned government minister who is full of ideas about how to improve life on the island. He finds an increasingly pluralistic and confident society, now more inclined to stand up to China.Our main focus this week is on the natural world and we begin at the South Pole where Justin Rowlatt is holed up in a research station eating chips and patiently waiting for a change in the weather. At the opposite pole, we trek around Greenland. Some are calling this Artic country the Saudi Arabia of the Green future because it is so rich in rare earth metals. Horatio Clare reflects on exploitation in the wilderness. There are fears of plunder too in the Cayman Islands where the tourism industry is threatening to rip up great swathes of coral for the convenience of cruise ship passengers.

India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, announced a zero tolerance policy towards violence against women when he took office. But Rajini Vaidyanathan says that for many victims his promises ring hollow. According to the latest figures from India's National Crime Records Bureau there were 33,658 female rape victims in 2017 which means one woman was raped every 15 minutes - and those are just the official figures. Myanmar's civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been defending her government from accusations of genocide at the United Nation's top court in the Hague this week but Anna Holligan finds the former Nobel Peace Prize winner tight lipped when it comes to two words - rape and Rohingya. Viktor Orban's government has stopped funding for gender studies, calling them 'an ideology not a science'. The move has sent a chill down the spines of Hungarian academics says Angela Saini. In Haiti Thomas Rees tunes into the intimate and intense relationship between music, politics and protest And from the archive a memor

When Russian forces took over parts of Ukraine in spring 2014, much of the world held its breath. Would Western countries side with Ukraine, and could the fighting spread further into Eastern Europe? While that kind of escalation did not happen, life in Eastern Ukraine, where Russian-backed rebel forces and Ukraine’s army are still facing off, still looks something like wartime. As Jonah Fisher recently found, in this terrain, politicians, as well as soldiers, have to tread carefully.This week Democratic members of Congress accelerated their push to impeach Donald Trump. Anthony Zurcher has been watching the hearings. He has had a front-row seat as history is written, but sometimes he wonders what history might make of it. Since the early Nineties, the United Nations has held an annual conference to bring the world together to tackle the threat of climate change. This year's event in Madrid is meant to persuade the biggest polluters to rein in their emissions. But, as David Shukman reports, progress is as slo

Throughout Sri Lanka's decades long conflict, attention has focused on the confrontation between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils. The country’s Muslims, who are just 10 per cent of the population and see themselves as a separate ethnic group, have often been ignored. But that changed after this year's Easter Sunday attacks, carried out by a small cell of Sri Lankan Islamists, which claimed 250 lives. Since then many Muslims feel they have been demonised and ostracised. Our South Asia editor Jill McGivering has been in the main city, Colombo, to investigate. Over the past few weeks there has been a fierce crackdown by the Iranian authorities on protests across the country. The number of fatalities keeps being revised upwards, but getting precise details is tricky when the Iranian government seems determined to keep outsiders and its own citizens in the dark. As Jiyar Gol explains, even under normal conditions, BBC Persian’s journalists, who broadcast to 20 million around the world and 10 million

It’s now two years since Robert Mugabe was pushed out of office by the military and replaced by Emerson Mnangagwa. For many Zimbabweans economic conditions- already dire - have actually got worse. Now to add to their misery, there are water shortages and alarming evidence of the negative effect of climate change. But corruption and mismanagement have contributed to the power crisis and evening blackouts - it is no good just blaming the drought says Stephen Sackur. When the Buddha stipulated the rules for monks, he said each should only have a few possessions; an alms bowl, a water bottle, robes, a needle and thread and a razor. But now in Cambodia, within the folds of these saffron robes, there’s often a smartphone too says Sophia Smith Galer. Saudi Arabia is experiencing genuine social change - with woman ripping off their scarves at football matches, but there are still big questions over the man leading the process, Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman says Sebastian Usher. Nearly half a century after a univ

In the latest programme of the monthly series, Mishal Husain introduces dispatches from journalists and writers reflecting the range of contemporary life in the United Kingdom. Dan Johnson reports direct from the flooded River Don in South Yorkshire where feelings are running high among locals about the response to the latest inundation. As the rain returns after an all-too-brief respite, he reflects on the area's carbon-generating past and the effects of climate change. In Hartlepool, the BBC's Social Affairs Correspondent, Michael Buchanan, hears from a mother and father about their twenty year-long struggle with the corrosive effects on their domestic life and their position in the local community of their sons' misuse of drugs. We visit Walthamstow in north-east London in the company of Emma Levine. She talks to customers and staff of a long-standing local daytime eatery which at night converts into a cocktail bar that attracts an entirely different clientele. Will the two businesses thrive together? BBC

They believe they are fighting for their way of life, for Hong Kong’s very existence, but the protesters know they can’t really win says Paul Adams. Kate Adie introduces this and other stories from around the world:There is a saying in Russia “If he beats you - he loves you” hears Lucy Ash as she visits a refuge for the survivors of domestic violence in Moscow. “Twisted logic, yes, but it is still part of our mentality.” In Ethiopia, Justin Rowlatt gets stung by killer bees as he examines successful attempts to re-green the region and restore long lost woodlands. In Australia, bushfires burn. While scientists and firefighters agree that climate change is making things worse many leading politicians refuse to listen. Phil Mercer has seen the damage for himself. And Joanne Robertson struggles to get a decent haircut in Paris and asks who is to blame?

From coca farmer to president, to political exile - Katy Watson shares the story of Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first elected indigenous leader. Kate Adie introduces this and other stories from correspondents around the world:In Austria, Bethany Bell reveals why the hare with amber eyes has returned to Vienna.Finbarr Anderson is in Lebanon’s second city Tripoli, which is being called the ‘bride of the revolution’ because of its role in protests that have swept the country. Chris Bockman visits a former factory in Southwest France now home to Yazidi families who fled violence in Iraq. And Julia Buckley confesses to a crime in Tinsel Town and has an unsettling experience with the LAPD. Producers: Joe Kent and Lucy Ash

What the murder of a Mormon family in Mexico reveals about the country; Will Grant has long chronicled the violence of the ongoing drug war. Kate Adie introduces this and other stories:Rajini Vaidyanathan reflects on the perils of living in Delhi having developed 'pollution anxiety' and become a smoker by proxy. John Kampfner was in Berlin when the Wall fell. Thirty years on he's been back to see how the city has changed.And how does a glass of radioactive water sound? It was once sold in Portugal with the promise of bringing health, strength and vigour. Margaret Bradley visits the, now abandoned, hotel that used it for baths, cooking and even colonic irrigation.And a troubled nation writes itself another rousing chapter as South Africa wins the Rugby World Cup and the squad returns as heroes. It may only be a game, but stories matter, says Andrew Harding.