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Kate Adie introduces insight, wit and analysis from BBC correspondents and writers.

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From Our Own Correspondent: Voting Early in the US Elections

29/10/2020

Voting Early in the US Elections

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent, Voting Early in the US Elections

Stories on the US elections, Lebanon, Chile, and from Seychelles and on travelling.

Stories on voting early in the US elections, the challenges for Lebanon, Chile's referendum, a political earthquake in Seychelles and on travelling in Covid times. With Kate Adie.

Five days before the American election, record numbers have cast their ballots already, making use of the expansion in early voting due to the pandemic. Naturalised US citizens make up one in ten eligible voters this year. Among them Laura Trevelyan, who voted in the presidential race as a US citizen for the first time, joining the queues in New York City. 
For Lebanon, 2020 has been a veritable annus horribilis: the pandemic, an unprecedented economic crisis, and the huge blast that destroyed parts of Beirut, and led to the resignation of the cabinet.  Now a former Prime Minister, Saad Hariri, has been asked to form a government. If he succeeds, it’ll be his third time in the job. Plus ca change, or last chance for Lebanon, asks Martin Patience. 
Chile held a referendum on Sunday about replacing the current constitution, which dates from General Pinochet’s military dictatorship. The Yes vote won overwhelmingly. But the poll had been a heated topic of conversation for months, reflecting the deep divisions in society, as Jane Chambers has found.
Seychelles in the Indian Ocean looks like a tropical paradise. But there’s a tougher reality in the island state ruled by the same party for over 40 years. And now there’s been a political earthquake: an opposition candidate, a priest, won the presidency for the first time.   He'll have more than tourists and tuna to deal with, says Patrick Muirhead. 
For those still travelling, much has changed with the pandemic - quarantines, wearing masks, producing negative Covid-19 tests before departure. And then there are the other passengers. It all makes for novel experiences, says travel writer Mark Stratton - including good ones, like seeing the Mona Lisa without the crowds. 

Presenter: Kate Adie 
Producer: Arlene Gregorius

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