From Our Own Correspondent

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 Sea -- we meet Vietnamese fishermen who now find themselves in the front line; the Turks and the Hungarians redouble their search for the missing heart of Suleiman the Magnificent, but why are they bothering? And they've got problems in Rome: alleged corruption in high places, organised crime, traditional shops and businesses being chased away. But the Romans are putting all this to one side, at least for a few days. After all, it's Christmas! And there are menus to be planned!

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 scandal stalking the prime minister and of fears for the future of a country loved by many for its relaxed, inclusive and multicultural nature. The Inca citadel of Machu Picchu is one of the wonders of the world, so no wonder visitors have been trekking up there in huge numbers. Now the Peruvian government wants to make it easier for them to get there. But its plans have met spirited opposition. And from Germany we hear about the 12-people who're being paid to do everything lying down. That includes exercising -- and going to the loo

Colouring in the spaces between the headlines. In this edition: the Front National is expected to do well in the French regional elections - our correspondent goes for a drive along the Cote d'Azur and asks why the party's apparently finding favour with voters. 'We cannot allow our revolution to be stolen!' The Venezuelan president has been imploring the electorate there to give his socialists another term in office, but most observers feel the left's grip on this nation will be severely weakened in this weekend's election. Three and a half million and counting! We find out why so many young Nepalis have decided to leave their country. And is it the truth or is it just paranoia? We hear that the influence of the long-dead dictator Enver Hoxha continues even today in Albania.

Correspondents' stories. In the wake of the attacks in Paris, nearby Belgium has been portrayed as a dysfunctional place with failing state structures, a country where terrorists can go about their business unchallenged. Tim Whewell's been to Brussels to talk to some who feel alienated and abandoned by the Belgian state. Eight months of war in Yemen -- and Iona Craig has been finding out how people living in the country’s third city are now relying on smugglers to bring in vital supplies. Fifty-one thousand refugees are now living in Berlin -- Chris Haslam's been hearing that for some, their problems are only just beginning. Preparations are underway for the big climate conference starting in Paris next week. Some say global warming is a problem that's just too difficult to solve. But David Shukman believes there's reason for some guarded optimism. And Juliet Rix has been to Malta, the scene of the Commonwealth heads of government meeting. The Mediterranean island long ago ceased to be a British colony but sh

Foreign correspondents' stories. In this programme, Kevin Connolly talks of the dogged durability that got Parisians out to work again in the days after the terrorist attacks, 'the foot soldiers' ability to soldier on through the darkness'. Joanna Robertson, also in the French capital, says despite the huge numbers of police deployed in various parts of the city, many in the suburbs are complaining they've been left unprotected. She is asked: 'What's being done to protect our way of life?' Emma Jane Kirby meets up again with an Italian man who can't forget the day he went out boating and came across scores of migrants scattered across the sea, only some of whom he managed to rescue. A way of life comes to an end with the closing of a well-known narrow gauge railway in central India. Mark Tully's among the last to travel on the Satpura Lines in the centre of the country. A station master asks him: 'Why do they have to close such a busy railway?' Steve Evans tells us that in Seoul, a whole building is full of c

Analysis, observation, writing, storytelling. In this edition, the smells of a city's chequered history are resurrected in a shop in Serbia's capital, Belgrade. From inside Syria, the tactics a new force is employing to take the fight to the militants of IS. Aung San Suu Kyi's new government in Myanmar should soon be sworn in after its historic election victory -- but there are tough challenges ahead. All change in Poland too -- but why's the electorate there turned its back on an administration which provided new roads, airport terminals and jobs? And we're inside a beauty salon in Kabul turning down advice on a new coiffure and learning instead what sort of future Afghans think lies in store for their nation.

Fifty nations are contributing 14-thousand people to peace-keeping in northern Mali - and their abilities are being severely tested. The tourists have turned their backs on the Greek holiday island of Lesbos but the volunteers, who've flooded in to help the migrants arriving on its shores, are generating new business opportunities. A visit to two military cemeteries, back to back in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, where the dead lie after Italy's African empire was brought to a abrupt end. The extraordinary tenacity and stoicism of the fishermen of Greenland as they prepare for the long cold winter ahead. And Eccles, the Wirral and the frozen borderlands between Norway and Russia are all involved in a story about a giant crab and its march on western civilisation

Insight, wit and story-telling from reporters worldwide. In this edition, Gulf governments get paranoid as tensions pile up on their doorsteps and western reporters ask tricky questions; so many Syrians are seeking refuge in Jordan that aid agencies are struggling to help them find food and shelter; on the election campaign trail with Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar - she may win the most votes, but she won't be the country's next president; the debt we owe the Namibian Beetle - just one of the potentially life-saving lessons scientists are learning from close observation of plants and animals. And the honey-making that's going on high above the sales floors of some of the most elegant shops in Paris

What has happened to Turkey? Not so long ago it was held up as a model of Middle Eastern harmony, a successful mix of Islam and democracy. Mark Lowen explains how the optimism of those days has turned to disenchantment and anxiety ahead of the general election there this weekend. There's an encounter with the religious police in Saudi Arabia as Lyse Doucet in Riyadh observes how the country's trying to hang on to ancient traditions while moving forward with the wider world. Ed Butler’s been in Puerto Rico – finding out what lies behind President Obama’s warning that the island’s economic problems could lead to a humanitarian crisis. Opportunity doesn’t often knock for women in Nepal yet a female president has just been appointed there and Chris Haslam has been talking to a young woman sports star who ran away from home and is set to become the most famous Nepali since the hero of Everest, Sherpa Tensing

Guatemalans, united by anger against violence and a political system riddled with corruption, have chosen a comedian to be their next president. Jimmy Morales is riding on a wave of excitement - but his people want change. And they want it fast. There's another election this coming weekend -- it's in Turkey and the voting takes place amidst fears that the country could find itself sucked into the vortex of the seemingly endless war in neighbouring Syria. Russia's involvement in the conflict in Syria has its opponents outside the country but within Russia, few oppose President Putin's foreign policy. In this programme we meet a Russian war veteran who's defying public abuse and saying: those who launched this military operation don't know how dangerous it is, or how it will end. We travel to Patagonia in the south of Argentina to see how a Welsh community there is faring in the shadow of the snow-capped Andes. And the tastebuds are tingling in the American state of Oregon where a rather special kind of beer, o

Reporters' stories. In this edition: Kevin Connolly goes for an evening stroll in Jerusalem observing that the triumphs and disasters of the past are as real as the tensions of the present if you know where to look. Nick Thorpe's with the migrants on the border between Croatia and Slovenia where everyone seems to have lost someone and the refugee crisis can seem like a football match. Jon Donnison tells us that life doesn't get much tougher than for a Filipino fishermen in typhoon season. Mark Stratton gets to know the extravagant role the dead play in the lives of people on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. And Mary Harper tells us they've got a camera now, but no costumes. And when they want guns, they have to borrow them from the police. This is the world of action film-making -- in Somaliland

Reporter despatches from far and wide. In this edition: Alastair Leithead on the wave of violence in the African state of Burundi connected to the president's third term in office. David Shukman's in the Philippines where thousands of people have been driven from their homes by a typhoon in which it rained, and then went on raining for days on end. Lucy Ash is in Beziers in southern France, a city accused of being a laboratory for the far right. Trudeaumania's back in Canada - Rajini Vaidyanathan talks of how he was swept to power on a tide of votes, many from the country's young, but the question is, can he now deliver? And it's a capital city determined to become the Dubai of Africa - James Jeffrey is in Djibouti where some locals wonder what might be lost in their republic's drive for modernity.

How the world really works. These despatches come from: Egypt, where a former military intelligence officer is now firmly in control of the presidency and awaits the election of the kind of parliament from which seldom is heard a discouraging word; China - its president is about to pay a state visit to Britain. At home, his press relations staff are working hard to ensure foreign journalists toe the party line; South Sudan - can a city vanish? Yes it can, according to our correspondent who's just been to Malakal, once the country's lively second city; Australia – it can be fifty degrees centigrade in the Simpson Desert, a landscape virtually untouched by human hand. So why would anyone choose to go there, accompanied by a camel? And Afghanistan – a story about the sound of music, and of hope, amid the din of Kabul.

In Israel's parks and shopping districts more people are now visibly carrying guns amid the worst surge of violence in months. Also in this programme: Myanmar prepares for an historic election in November -- but one candidate, try as he might, just can't get to his constituency to campaign! We're up in the Alps in south west France where specialist wolf hunters have just been deployed after an angry campaign by shepherds and sheep farmers; talking to a man on the coast of Senegal in west Africa who's doing his best to keep hope, fish and his community alive - by tending to some remarkable trees. And there's drama on a family holiday in China which did not go entirely according to plan!

The programme which takes you places. In this one, to Wolfsburg in Germany, forever associated with Volkswagen and today speculating about the long-term consequences of the emissions scandal that has so damaged the car-maker's reputation. Is it the end for the 'Rainbow Nation? A new generation of black South Africans is coming of age and is angry that so much of the country's wealth remains in the hands of the white population. There may be oxcarts in the villages outside the North Korean capital, but no shortage of flash cars in Pyongyang itself, a city where some people are taking power into their own hands. Seven families have set up home in a former bank in troubled South Sudan - there's safety in numbers, they hope. And as summer burns out to autumn, it's time to go foraging in the hills of Austria and time later for a dinner to remember!

Insight, writing, storytelling. In this edition Nick Thorpe reflects on the many tales he's heard in months covering the migrant crisis at the gateways of Europe; Gabriel Gatehouse is in Germany where the influx of refugees has caused a surge in the popularity of right-wing anti-immigration parties; Stephanie Hegarty talks of her visit to the Central African Republic where UN-troops are trying to restore peace after violent clashes between Christian and Muslim militias; Jonathan Fryer goes to Astana in Kazahstan, a capital city with awe-inspiring architecture and a president determined that nothing will stand in the way of his vision for the country's future and Kieran Cooke goes to Ireland's holy mountain, Croagh Patrick in County Mayo, to investigate a claim that 'nature's greatest cathedral in the west is being severely damaged'

Storytelling, writing and looking beyond the news spotlight. Today: warm orangeade, a tot of rum and some chain-smoking - all part of daily life for the fishermen and women of Madagascar who've harnessed new conservation techniques to long-standing traditions. Also, a despatch from south-eastern Turkey, where renewed hostilities between government forces and Kurdish PKK militants have left efforts to establish a long-term peace in shreds; there's an examination of the reasons why Russia has chosen to step up its military activity in the Middle East; the Spanish bullfighting season's coming to an end and many now wonder if the same will soon be said of bullfighting itself. And why tonight's big rugby match at Twickenham might set off some wild, if lonely, rejoicing in a small hotel room in Japan.

Includes Fergal Keane's 1996 Letter to Daniel and Allan Little in Kinshasa as President Mobutu fell in 1997

Insight, storytelling, colour. Today, there's endless bread but not much comfort as Nigerian children find shelter in a bakery from the extremists of Boko Haram. India's accused of involvement in disturbances just over the border in Nepal - people have died in clashes with the security forces and cross-border commerce has been hard hit. The amount of violence in eastern Ukraine has gone down, but there are other problems for the government in Kiev: the economy's in deep trouble and frustrated ultra-nationalists are making their presence felt. Voodoo's coming under attack on the island of Haiti in the Caribbean - one senior Roman Catholic churchman's called it 'magic'. And there's a visit to the 'alternative' American city of Portland, Oregon. It's certainly a place of beards and tattoos but is it falling victim to creeping provincialism?

Filling in the gaps between the headlines: shock, horror, remorse, guilt -- how a piece of gold triggered an emotional tsunami on a beach near Cape Town. Why the Pope's been so in demand on his visit to Washington, a city where it's usually money that's talking the loudest; robbed of everything she had, even her blanket: it's one of the stories of those fleeing the violence in South Sudan, the world's newest nation; electioneering gathers pace in Myanmar, formerly Burma, and there's at least one point the human rights lawyer and the man who's been called the Buddhist Bin Laden can agree on and Germany might seem the promised land to many of the migrants making the long trek up through Europe but, it seems, not all of them are happy with what they find