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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: Philippines, Syria and Turkey

Philippines, Syria and Turkey

BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, Philippines, Syria and Turkey

Pascale Harter with personal insights from BBC correspondents Kate McGeown and Peter Biles

Pascale Harter with personal stories from BBC correspondents worldwide. Kate McGeown tracks the Filipino domestic workers stranded in Syria; Peter Biles retraces his grandfather's steps in Gallipoli.

Insight, wit and analysis from BBC correspondents around the world, presented by Pascale Harter. In this edition:

(Very) Hostile working environment

There's been a lot of speculation about the involvement of foreigners in the fighting raging through Syria - talk of fighters from all around the region and the competing agendas of neighbouring states. But not every foreigner has got involved in the conflict by choice. As the battle for control of Aleppo and the capital Damascus intensifies, thousands of Filipino citizens are trying to flee the country.  

The vast majority of them are working  illegally as domestic staff for Syrian families. The Philippine government is trying to trace them and bring them home; but as Kate McGeown's been finding out in Manila, it has little information about exactly who - or where - they are.

A family diary 

Journalism, it's sometimes said - particularly by journalists - is the first draft of history. And it's often the more personal accounts which give us a real sense of the past, even when confronting hugely important events. 

Peter Biles set off recently for the World War I battlefields at Gallipoli, on Turkey's western coast. The conflict there saw allied forces - including thousands of soldiers from Australia and New Zealand - engaged in months of deadly trench warfare against Turkish troops. Peter went to the site armed with nothing more dangerous than some family memorabilia - the notes and letters of his grandfather, who died there 97 years ago, in 1915.

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