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From Our Own Correspondent: Tea with the Taliban next door

Magazines & Reviews

13/11/2021 GMT

Tea with the Taliban next door

BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, Tea with the Taliban next door

Stories from Afghanistan, Ethiopian battlefronts, Nicaragua's election and German forests

New neighbours in Kabul sit down for talks; the Oromo factor in Ethiopia's conflict; access denied to reporters on the Nicaraguan election; the bark beetles ruining German forests

Pascale Harter introduces dispatches from BBC Correspondents around the world. 

The war in Afghanistan might be over, but there's a looming humanitarian crisis. The aid which used to keep the country's central government afloat is not flowing freely any more - as donor nations have misgivings over dealing direct with the new Taliban government. Andrew North has reported from Afghanistan over many points since the 2001 intervention and recently returned to Kabul to see how things had changed. In his old home there, he found some intimidating-looking new neighbours  who were still keen to sit down and talk. 

The conflict in Ethiopia, between the central government of Abiy Ahmed in Addis Ababa and the country's former rulers among the TPLF (Tigray People's Liberation Front), is complex and it's escalating. Recently, the TPLF signed an accord with other major rebel groupings which are keen to break down - or reform - the Ethiopian state and which argue its ethnic and political mosaic needs to be rearranged. Catherine Byaruhanga explains why the presence of the Oromo Liberation Army, which claims to fight for the rights of groups in the southern regions of Ethiopia, among the signatories to that accord matters.

President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua is now all set to remain President for another term - at least. In the most recent election he appeared to win a strong popular mandate - but given that most of his challengers had already been jailed or exiled, and that his government controlled the release of information, there have been serious questions about the poll numbers. Will Grant was just one of the reporters denied entry to the country even to report on the vote. 

And Jenny Hill delves into the forest floor - and beneath the bark of the spruce trees - in Germany's Harz mountains, meeting a woodsman who sees the effects of climate change around him every day. There's a newly-vigorous pest - the bark beetle - now chewing its way through the landscape, but somehow this forester still sees reasons for optimism. 

Producer: Polly Hope


(Image: Man selling Taliban flags in Kabul, September 2021. Credit: Hoshang Hashimi/AFP via Getty Images)

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