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From Our Own Correspondent: The Bare Necessities

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The Bare Necessities

12/05/2018 GMT

BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, The Bare Necessities

Toothpaste in Tehran, identity in Israel, power in Puerto Rico ... and Russian dolls ?!

What sanctions do to daily life in Iran; whether one young Ethiopian is "Jewish enough" to be Israeli; the Puerto Ricans still waiting to rebuild; how Russian dolls depict history

Pascale Harter introduces dispatches from journalists, writers and reporters around the world, exploring what happens behind and beyond the headlines. 

Rana Rahimpour works for the BBC Persian service - which is blocked and harassed within Iran - and is in a special position to analyse how international sanctions affect daily life for Iranians. It turns out that one product above all can serve as a household barometer for the state of Iran's global relations - and it may not be what you think. 

Simon Maybin meets a young man who's been at the centre of a national debate in Israel, over just how Jewish you have to be entitled to aliyah ( the right to return and live in the country) and citizenship. Can a studious Ethiopian youth with an encyclopaedic grasp of the Bible qualify?

Nearly eight months after Hurricane Maria tore through the Caribbean, there are still thousands of people in Puerto Rico living without mains power or water, and feeling more remote than ever from the decision-makers in Washington DC. Rossalyn Warren went up into the hills, in a rural area, to hear and see how their households are holding on. 

And Kevin Connolly clears out his dusty attic - only to descend with a heavy load of Russian history, as encapsulated in his collection of matrioshki - the nested, hollow dolls which have become a visual symbol of Russia. They're traditional - yet the figures they depict have changed revealingly over time. 

Photo: Iranians shop in the Grand Bazaar in southern Tehran's Molavi neighbourhood on May 11, 2017. (ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images)

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