From Our Own Correspondent

Correspondents' stories. Few British go to the Italian seaside town of Alassio these days but the library created for them there is still going - just. Coffee prices are rocketing in Brazil and the producers in this country which traditionally produces 'an awful lot of coffee' are concerned. There's a despatch from Baghdad, the Iraqi capital which is now a target of ISIS and other Sunni rebels. The problems pile up for the French president -- but he takes time off to praise an artist who only ever paints in black. And from the USA, we find out what happened to Little Germany, once a thriving part of New York City. Today, little more than a distant memory.

'Getting rid of Saddam was the easy bit.' The problems stack up for the United States as fighting continues in Iraq. Elves have had a place in Icelandic folklore for more than a thousand years. We find out why they're treated with such respect. Also, how countries around the world are drawing lines on the map of Antarctica, carving up the ice with their territorial claims. The climbing season on Mount Everest comes to a close; we hear it's been one of the worst on record and what happened when a British woman living in Bulgaria offered work to a gypsy boy.

Two conflicting visions of the future present themselves on a visit to the Middle East; the Americans send in the drones to attack the Pakistani Taliban again -- what chance now of a negotiated peace? The long strike in South Africa's platinum mines may be ending, but the bitterness which has divided mining families will be long lasting; the president of Burundi is a keen footballer, we hear, but is it a surprise that he scores so many goals? And fond memories of a school in New York celebrating its centenary -- but what is it exactly that makes this school such a well-loved place? Producer - Tony Grant

Correspondents with stories to tell: how is traditional Indian culture faring with the country engulfed in a tide of globalisation? World football's governing body FIFA is in crisis as the World Cup kicks off in Brazil. Germany and Britain are at odds over how Europe should be governed. What's in a name? It's of great importance when you're bidding to be the next president of Afghanistan. And how new technology can help those visiting the First World War battlefields of France and Belgium.

The news -- with added insight, colour and perspective. In this edition, the unsung French civilian heroes who gave up their lives in World War Two. The people in eastern Ukraine who fear the consequences of being caught up in a power struggle between east and west. Why Libyans are wary of the former general who's pledged to rid the country of Islamist militias. There's an historical battle re-enactment in Don Quixote territory in Spain. It's a bit like rugby, a bit like boxing. But why haven't the Russians been invited? And another question: why have the North Koreans opened a chain of restaurants across Asia? Our man tries to find out whether they're just proud of their cuisine, or if they have more sinister motives?

Looking behind the headlines: the new patriotic conservative mood in Russia -why it's making the country's beleaguered opposition feel under siege; the Thai military which has seized control of the country promises increased prosperity but warns protestors must keep quiet; the Nigerian authorities try to improve educational facilities in the north as the insurgency by Boko Haram gathers pace; education's under discussion in Mexico too - the president's decreed there must be improvements and the politicians in the United States who're not tightening up the firearms laws, they're GIVING guns away!

Global despatches: will the African elephant be extinct in two decades? And which of the stories preoccupying correspondents today will still be seen as important in the future? In this edition, reporters in Kenya, Egypt, Kashmir, Niger and China.

Insight, colour, analysis and description. In this edition the stories come from Odessa, Rio de Janeiro, Naples, San Francisco and Saintes-Maries-De-La-Mer.

Correspondents telling us more: how there's always been someone lying awake in Egypt waiting for the policeman's midnight knock; on mounting anger in Nigeria that the authorities aren't doing enough to counter the threat posed by the militants of Boko Haram; why the fishing communities of the far west of Ireland feel it's not just distance which separates them from the bureaucrats in Brussels and Strasbourg; why, in Brazil as the World Cup approaches, so many feel disillusioned, disrespected and discriminated against and our reporter's in Texas, flipping pancakes with the oldest Congressman in the House of Representatives. At 91, the veteran politician says, he's certainly not too old to continue serving the public. Tony Grant is the programme's producer.

Correspondents worldwide: Owen Bennett-Jones attends a Christian church service in Waziristan, Pakistan's Taliban country; Mark Tully considers whether India's secular tradition is under threat now the Hindu nationalist BJP has been voted in to power; Justin Rowlatt watches the Brazilian authorities trying to protect 'the most endangered tribe on the planet'; Thomas Fessy visits a ski shop on the edge of the Sahara Desert in Niger and on 'Good Neighbours Day' in France, Joanna Robertson finds suspicion, hostility, grievance and gossip alive and well in the apartment blocks of Paris. Programme produced by Tony Grant.

Stories from reporters around the world. In this edition: empty hotels and a deserted holiday coastline in Kenya as tourists head home after a Foreign Office terrorism warning; five years after the defeat of the Tamil Tiger rebels, the Sri Lankan government says the country's on the path to ethnic reconciliation - but is it? The coming European elections: will they reflect a growing wave of scepticism about the effectiveness of pan-continental government? A disaster in central America three hundred years ago which brought to an end the last independent kingdom of Scotland. It's a city even Parisians want to move to! how Nantes has been transformed from a grimy old port into a dynamic, artistic powerhouse. The producer - Tony Grant.

Beauty and brutality coexist after a battle in South Sudan: a bullet whistles over the head of our correspondent in eastern Ukraine: watching the maple syrup wars in Canada: out on the town in Colombia, despite the threat from FARC rebels: and a memento in Bosnia of Gavrilo Princip, the assassin who sparked World War I. Presented by Kate Adie.

Global viewpoints. In this edition: Kevin Connolly visits the Baghdad book market and salutes the bravery of those who carry on with their daily lives amid a constant threat of violence; Jeremy Bowen considers the impact on the Middle East of the apparent coming together of the two rival Palestinian factions; Chris Terrill's on a perilous day out with the fishermen of Mauritania in west Africa; Katy Watson is in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo where housing's a serious problem - this is a place with the world's largest slum population. And fish and rice they are used to, but Robin Lustig was in the Burma's Irrawaddy Delta when the locals, for the first time, were invited to sample German sausages and tomato ketchup.

Despatches: Syrians, exhausted by a seemingly unending conflict, face agonising decisions over their future, as Lyse Doucet has been finding out. Misha Glenny's in Rio as violent protests continue less than two months before the Brazilian city hosts the World Cup. The far-right Front Nationale could emerge from next month's European elections as the best-supported party in France -- Emma Jane Kirby encounters Euroscepticism, verging on Europhobia, in the south of the country. Matthew Teller's in Qatar: its economy's growing at nearly twenty per cent a year but its people are finding it hard to cope with a rapid pace of change. And Simon Worrall in the United States hears a love song as he witnesses the annual migration of Hispanic workers to Long Island.

Global insight and colour. In this programme: Russians or locals? Gabriel Gatehouse goes to meet some of those still occupying government buildings in the east of Ukraine. Lives and jobs start to disappear in South Africa as a bitter mining dispute continues amid a mood of deepening disenchantment, a despatch from Hamilton Wende; On one of Rome's holiest weekends of the year, Alan Johnston's been to a non-Roman Catholic corner of the eternal city which enchanted the poets Keats and Shelley; Carrie Gracie starts her new job as the BBC's China editor with a list of hard-to-answer questions while Owen Bennett-Jones is down on the banks of the River Ganges wondering how a journalist can sort facts from fiction. From Our Own Correspondent is produced by Tony Grant.