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From Our Own Correspondent: Dreams of a Different Country

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Dreams of a Different Country

07/07/2018 GMT

BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, Dreams of a Different Country

Tales of fear, faith and ambition from Nigeria, Cameroon, Brazil, Germany and Kazakhstan

Cameroon's crisis over Anglophone separatism spills into Nigeria; a Candomble ritual in Brazil; catching up with a Syrian refugee in Bavaria and Kazakhstan's golden dreams

Pascale Harter introduces stories behind the headlines - from around the world. 

Not many people outside West Africa are paying much attention to Cameroon's Anglophone crisis, but there has been increasing unrest and violence among the country's English-speakers, who say they're being sidelined in its education and justice systems, and denied their fare share of political power. As Stephanie Hegarty found, villagers from this region are crossing the border into Nigeria - and have plenty to say about why they left their homes. 

In Brazil, African religions arrived with enslaved African people - and have historically been targeted, or even outlawed, by the authorities. Yet many Brazilians of all races follow these faiths, whether publicly and proudly, or more discreetly, and behind closed doors. Jonathan Fryer recently felt privileged to be invited to attend a Candomble ritual near his home in Fortaleza, northeastern Brazil.

Jenny Hill goes back to Bavaria to catch up with one Syrian refugee who seems extremely keen to fit in with German culture - going so far as to open up a bar serving beer and sausages, to make ends meet while he waits to qualify as a dentist. But while the number of new arrivals may be down, migration is still an intensely sensitive subject in German politics - and not all refugees in the country are finding it easy to remake their lives. 

And Stephen Sackur's in glittering Astana, capital of Kazakhstan, which is aiming to remake itself as a global trading hub and a new financial centre for Asia. The ambition are soaring - but can they come to fruition if the country's first and only post-Independence President, Nursultan Nazarbayev, leaves power?

IMAGE: A motorcyclist arrives in Nigeria from Cameroon at a checkpoint border between Cameroon and Nigeria, in Mfum, in Cross Rivers State, southeast Nigeria, on February 1, 2018. (PIUS UTOMI EKPEI/AFP/Getty Images)

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