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Insight, wit and analysis from BBC correspondents, journalists and writers.

Insight, wit and analysis from BBC correspondents, journalists and writers from around the world.

From Our Own Correspondent: Hong Kong and the Mediterranean

Hong Kong and the Mediterranean

BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, Hong Kong and the Mediterranean

Alan Johnston with stories behind the headlines from BBC correspondents around the world

Alan Johnston with stories from correspondents worldwide, Claudia Hammond on a Hong Kong resort fighting a reputation as a suicide spot and Sarah Rainsford on a rare submarine link-up on the seabed.

Alan Johnston introduces insight, wit and analysis from BBC correspondents around the world. In this edition, Claudia Hammond visits a Hong Kong beach resort trying to fight a reputation as a suicide hotspot and Sarah Rainsford takes a trip to the sea floor to witness an unusual link-up of NATO and Russian submarines.

Cheung Chau island: a small place with a big responsibility

Hong Kong isn't only one of the most densely populated places on earth. It's also brassy, materialistic and famously hard-working - and it can be pretty exhausting. If you want to escape the clamour of the city, though, you can always catch a ferry to the much more sleepy "outer islands", that lie scattered in the South China Sea. 

But as Claudia Hammond heard on a recent visit, the people of one of these islands have had to fight to overcome its rather dark and unsettling reputation.

A once-unthinkable link-up on the seabed

A major military exercise has just ended off the coast of southern Spain. Crews from more than a dozen navies carried out submarine rescue drills, and practiced docking their craft with subs from other countries. And for the first time since these Nato-led exercises began, this year Russia took part too. 

Our former Moscow correspondent, Sarah Rainsford couldn't resist dropping in on the Russian crew far beneath the waves.

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