Original version

BBC World Service Online

From Our Own Correspondent

News

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: Somalia and Nepal

Somalia and Nepal

BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, Somalia and Nepal

Alan Johnston presents dispatches from BBC correspondents Peter Greste and Joanna Jolly

Alan Johnston with the stories behind the headlines from correspondents around the world. Today, Peter Greste in the devastated city of Mogadishu and Joanna Jolly on an unusual mountaineering expert.

Alan Johnson introduces the inside stories  from BBC correspondents around the world. In this edition, Peter Greste finds out why omalis are still flooding into their country's devastated capital, Mogadishu, while Joanna Jolly meets an American woman who's become Nepal's foremost expert on the annals of mountaineering. 

Mogadishu's music: relentless small-arms fire

The world pays little attention to Somalia these days, unless there's a story about pirates to be reported. Meanwhile the other realities of daily life in the country remain bleak. Islamist militants battling to control the country - and threatening vengeance on the West; countless dead; two million people homeless; drought and starvation; refugees flooding into the capital. 

After 20 years of near-anarchy, Somalia's been branded a 'failed state' - and it's crying out for the world's attention. And yet, as Peter Greste explains, many in the international community choose to look the other way.  

The woman keeping mountaineers firmly moored to the truth

There is nothing quite like the summit of Mount Everest. Many climbers have become obsessed with the idea of reaching it - braving the storms and crevasses, pushing on through what they call "the death zone", and eventually standing on the highest point on earth. Their rivalry is intense.

Joanna Jolly recently met a rather unsual figure in Kathmandu who subjects all claims of success in the Himalayas to very rigorous scrutiny.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

From Our Own Correspondent

Somalia and Nepal

Genres

Brand

BBC World Service Online

About BBC World Service