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

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From Our Own Correspondent: Afghanistan and the Vatican City

Pope Benedict XVI Celebrates Easter Mass

Afghanistan and the Vatican City

BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, Afghanistan and the Vatican City

Quentin Sommerville on a fraying alliance; David Willey on law & order in the Holy See

Pascale Harter with insights from BBC correspondents Quentin Sommerville (on 'green on blue' attacks undermining  ISAF morale in Afghanistan) and David Willey (on law and order in the Holy See).

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


"All we want is a country we can forget"

Afghanistan is high on the agenda for NATO defence ministers meeting in Brussels this week. There's speculation that foreign troops might now pull out of the country sooner than planned, because of the number of insider attacks on coalition soldiers –  so-called ‘green on blue’ incidents. At least 52 members of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force have been killed this year in attacks carried out by gunmen wearing Afghan police or army uniform. 

Quentin Somerville, in Kabul, finds that there's a new depth to the disillusionment he hears expressed by some foreign diplomats and military staff in Afghanistan. And he wonders what that might mean for future plans - for the fighting, for any possible troop withdrawals, and for the country as a whole...


What the (Pope's) butler saw

On Saturday, the personal butler to Pope Benedict was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment for stealing private documents. And just as it has its own way of conducting diplomacy, the Vatican also has its own very particular system of justice. Pope Benedict himself has the power to issue full pardons - even where Vatican courts have already convicted the accused. 

With two police forces, a parallel legal universe and a tradition of discretion, this is a world unto itself – and one that David Willey knows intimately. He invites us behind the scenes to some usually private functions, to meet the men who police the world's smallest country.

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