From Our Own Correspondent

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, has come face to face with some of the country's racial tensions and the Paris authorities have been refurbishing some of the city's historic bandstands - Joanna Robertson says they have once again become a focus for summer pleasure and relaxation.

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 Russia and the West become colder and our correspondent makes a discovery in war-ravaged Gaza City -- the very best ice cream he's ever tasted!

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 renewed wave of sectarian killings than about the advance of IS; Mark Stratton's in Micronesia. Some of the islands there, with their immaculate beaches and swaying palms, seem like paradise. Yet people are leaving. Why? Peter Day looks back at the frenzied casino which was the trading floor at the Chicago Board of Trade. With computers now having taken over much of the business, its doors will soon close for the final time. And Tom Holland's in a town in Canada which boasts a replica of Jerusalem in the time of Jesus and where there are plans to fill a ravine with dinosaurs.

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 the battlefield and head home; a controversy in Moscow about a plan to erect a huge statue of St Vladimir - Christianity is well and truly back as part of Russia's new identity; and a bronze Jacques Cousteau stares out to sea as our man dives into the water off Mexico to swim with a shark

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 home countries; as gloom deepens further at FIFA headquarters in Zurich, we hear Swiss fears the scandal is a further blow to the image the country once enjoyed as a place of chocolate and cheese, competence and quality; there's a visit to the world's biggest shipyard, which is in South Korea, but why does the place remind our correspondent of sepia photographs and old newsreels and it's 'transhumance' time: we're in the Pyrenees as thousands of cattle and sheep set off for their summer pastures on the slopes

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 investment any time soon and why the followers of the controversial Reverend Moon believe they might hold the formula which could ensure a peaceful future for north east Asia?

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 driven away from their villages by a bitter conflict between the state and Maoist guerillas; a leak from upstairs causes an unwanted shower but brings an insight into the interesting peculiarities of plumbing in Paris and how tourism has driven an economic recovery in Iceland and changed the way of life in this Scandinavian outpost.

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; sixty thousand churches in Ghana, but some ministers seem more interested in making money than saving souls; thousands turn out for a free festival in Morocco where the aim of the musicians was to show that music and Islam can live together in harmony; and our correspondent spends the night in one of the oldest houses in the Faroe Islands. It was, she tells us, quite literally a door into the islands' past.

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 about who, eventually, will replace the ageing Robert Mugabe as leader of Zimbabwe; Shaimaa Khalil's at a police academy outside the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, where the recruits keep on coming and young women are among the keenest! And Justin Marozzi visits a hospital in Qatar which specialises in treating injured falcons.

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 considering how best to tackle the advance of the fighters of Islamic State across the border in Iraq and Syria. Spaniards, after years of economic woe, are deserting their traditional political parties and we're in Barcelona, hearing why the radical left could soon seize control of the city hall. And 20-years after a spectacular volcanic eruption in the largest of the islands which make up Papua New Guinea we visit East New Britain and find people there upset that the tourists continue to give their homeland a wide berth.

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 of the war in Jordan against the fighters who call themselves Islamic State is being waged in cyberspace. There's the story of 'a hot Hungarian sex machine on top of a Russian cream cake' causing controversy in the centre of Budapest and one about how the cheap flights revolution has touched down on an archipelago in the mid-Atlantic. The prospect of hordes of sun-seeking northern Europeans arriving is causing some apprehension!

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 boatloads of them now arrive almost every day; the authorities in Saudi Arabia show our correspondent round a high security jail near Riyadh where, they say, they are succeeding in reforming extremists from ISIS and al-Qaeda; farmer suicides in India - many possible reasons are cited for their decisions to kill themselves but it's clear that distress among the agricultural community is part of a wider malaise afflicting the countryside. And on the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba there's increasing concern about the snake population's tendency to go hitch-hiking!

The best in news and current affairs story-telling. In this edition: a week after the quake in Nepal huge problems remain but some believe it could all have been much worse; El Salvador has some of the toughest abortion laws in the world - it's meant some women doing time for crimes they never committed; the double life of a far-right Hungarian politician who was both an anti-Semite and a Jew; forty years after the Vietnam War ended - the many families still grieving for someone who was lost in the conflict. And the correspondent who set off for Rome on an improbable mission -- to play the Vatican at cricket!

The human stories behind the news headlines: dodging bullets while trying to reach Yemen's port of Aden, where the hospital is overwhelmed with casualties. The Africans who moved to South Africa for a better life, and ended up having to seek refuge from violence. In Turkey's south-east, a hundred years after the Armenian minority was massacred, the Kurdish minority has hopes for a stronger presence in national politics. China and Russia are best buddies at the moment, but it hasn't always been thus, as one woman whose life mirrors the relationship between these two countries knows all too well. And what are the chances of getting pneumonia each time you stay in the same, foreign country? That's if you count Russia and the Soviet Union as the same country.

The people behind the news headlines: the migrants risking everything boarding flimsy boats to cross the Mediterranean; the inhabitants of a Russian provincial town and what they think of the country's leadership at a time of economic hardship; the families living in Delhi, alarmed by reports that the Indian capital has the worst air quality in the world; the Venezuelans having to queue at the shops for basic goods; and the Ethiopian volunteers who, by hard graft, are bringing change to a region once known for misery and famine

History rears its head, not for the first time, in this edition of From Our Own Correspondent. Attacks on colonial-era statues in South Africa mean people there are making a fresh assessment of their country's historical legacy; while in the Far East, what's written in the text books is the subject of a fierce row between South Korea and Japan. A farewell may be bid to decades of hostility between the US and Cuba - their leaders are in Panama and historic developments are anticipated. Why do HIV rates remain so high in Russia? We're out with health workers whose efforts seem stymied by ideology and a sense that if it works in the West, then it must be bad for Russia. And a correspondent in Thailand goes to a monastery and tries to bid a temporary farewell to the torrid world of journalism and hunt instead for inner peace. He wasn't entirely successful.

The stories behind the week's news: what's led to this outbreak of fighting in Yemen? Who stands to lose and who to win? Why some are not convinced about the deal reached in Lausanne on Iran's nuclear programme. The Nigerian election: a great moment for democracy but the new president faces a people with high expectations. The steady growth in the wealth of some Chinese - it means consumption is now more important than investment in driving the nation's economic growth. And the mighty money spinner that is coffee -- where on earth can you find the most delicious cup of all?

Insight. Analysis. Colour. In this edition, people in the German town of Montabaur try to come to terms with the fact that one of their neighbours, Andreas Lubitz, deliberately crashed an aircraft into the French Alps killing 149-people; two years of negotiations over Iran's nuclear programme reach a climax in Lausanne -- the implications, if there's agreement, could be far-reaching; the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship Argus is on its way home from Sierra Leone -- its airmen and sailors have spent months helping in the fight against the deadly Ebola virus; have you tried organic kosher shazamazam? We're in LA trying to penetrate a sub-culture with a language of its own and in Africa, he's the man presidents, rebels and villagers alike all want to meet. But they'll find it harder to do so in the future. West Africa correspondent Mark Doyle is leaving the BBC.

Colouring in the spaces between the headlines. In this edition: from elected government to Death Row, the change in fortunes of the Muslim Brotherhood is creating ripples throughout the Middle East; livelihoods devastated by a cyclone - Vanuatu is the kind of place that only makes the news when it's bad news; the Cubans and Americans are talking at last, historic announcements seem imminent, but on the ground in Havana, it's clear the process of change is already well underway; 'it's lean, fast and elegant,' not a racing car, but the Danube Salmon, a fish whose very future, we hear, is under threat. And the only grand piano in Gaza has been located. We tell the story of how it was found and how it's being lovingly restored.

Around the world in less than half an hour! In this edition: euphoria in the Nigerian army as successes are notched up in the battle against the jihadis of Boko Haram; a stunning election victory for Benjamin Netanyahou in Israel -- but it means frustration, anger and dismay for the country's Palestinian population; bombs explode in a Christian neighbourhood in Pakistan - we hear how Christians there are regularly targetted by extremists and feel abandoned by their government; how the argument between states and the White House over immigration to the US is raising profound questions about what kind of a country the United States is and a community in China exclusively for those who are short in stature - we're off to find out whether its residents feel exploited or happy with their lot.