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From Our Own Correspondent

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Kate Adie introduces insight, wit and analysis from BBC correspondents and writers.

Kate Adie introduces insight, wit and analysis from BBC correspondents, journalists and writers telling stories from around the world.

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From Our Own Correspondent: 27/11/2010

27/11/2010

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent, 27/11/2010

Another look behind the big world stories with Kate Adie.

Kate Adie returns with correspondents' colourful accounts of life in Islamabad, New York, Chongqing, Aden and St Petersburg.

Why Pakistan's flood victims feel they've been let down by their rulers.

A victim of the China's Cultural Revolution who emerged from prison and made a fortune.

Russia's policemen fail to see the funny side of a campaign of ridicule.

And a ticklish problem brings acute embarrassment for the BBC in New York. 


For weeks this summer the world watched Pakistan drown beneath monsoon floods. Whole towns and villages were lost under a racing, muddy tide as the River Indus burst its banks. Fourteen million people were affected in the worst disaster of its kind in the country's history.... The waters receded some time ago. But as Jill McGivering has been finding out, for many of those who lost everything.....the homeless and the hungry....the misery is unending...

It was the humble bicycle that first set China in motion. It got the masses on the move. The bike was a cheap and efficient solution to the transport problems of a poor nation.... But China is no longer poor. Now more and more of it's people are able to get off their bike...and get behind the wheel of a car. And as Peter Day explains, this change of gear has set some businessmen off down the road to extraordinary wealth....

It's an age old question. Who will guard the guardians...? Who watches the watchman..? It troubled the ancient Greeks, and it troubles modern Russians. They often regard their policemen as brutal and corrupt. Almost every day there's a scandal. And even Prime Minister Putin has said that most Russians cross the street at the very sight of a man in uniform.... But Lucy Ash has been talking to a group that's found its own way of confronting the country's lawless lawmen..... 

On From Our Own Correspondent we've focused recently on Yemen's serious image problem. The West sees the country as a source of terrorism. Airline bomb plots have been traced back to Yemen, where Al Qaeda has taken root. And on this programme we've heard from young Yemenis who were aghast at the way the world now regards their nation. But just at the moment, Yemen has a chance to show itself in a very different light. Our correspondent Justin Marozzi has been watching it rise to the challenge of hosting a big regional soccer tournament.... 

The United Nations headquarters stands among the skyscrapers on New York's waterfront. As they gaze out across the East River, the UN's diplomats are used to contemplating trouble in far away places....epidemics, coups, invasions and so on.... But now they've got trouble very much closer to home... In fact their building itself has been invaded.... And Barbara Plett has found her own BBC office right on the front line....

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27/11/2010

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