From Our Own Correspondent

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 eli…

In South Africa, racial tensions have been heightened in some rural areas, particularly after the murder of Brendin Horner, a young white farm manager. Cases like his have led to claims of ethnic cle…

Thailand has been rocked by months of student street protests that have intensified in recent days. They're unprecedented in that they don't just criticise the government, but also the monarchy - a t…

Journalists in Africa like to play a game where they take language often used in Western reports on African stories ("armed militias", "strongmen", "rigged elections") and apply it to the US. This ha…

Last month a fire burned down the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, which had been hugely overcrowded. The cause was arson, but what was the real reason, and who stoked the fire once …

Fighting has continued in Nagorno-Karabakh, the territory inhabited and run by ethnic Armenians, but officially still part of Azerbaijan. The armed clashes have included Azerbaijani shelling of resid…

In Mozambique, the northernmost province of Cabo Delgado may have become the latest outpost of the so-called Islamic State insurgency, with reports of massacres and beheadings. The area is rich in pr…

Lebanon has suffered not just a catastrophic blast that cost around two hundred lives, but also a devastating economic crisis. The value of the currency has plunged and the pandemic lockdown forced n…

The first formal face-to-face Afghanistan peace talks are underway in Doha, the capital of the Gulf State of Qatar. These historic negotiations between the Afghan Taliban and a delegation of the Afgh…

Greece and Turkey have agreed to hold talks to help defuse their stand-off over disputed gas reserves near their shores. Ankara had deployed a research vessel accompanied by warships near a Greek isl…

The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed agreements to normalise relations with Israel, this week, motivated by a desire to build a united front against Iran. Palestinians have condemned the move …

India now has the second highest number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the world, having overtaken Brazil. This is placing huge demands on hospitals and ambulances. The medical services, particula…

This week’s dispatches, introduced by Kate Adie, are:

Steve Rosenberg in Belarus reflects on the history he shares with President Lukashenko, recently re-elected in a poll widely regarded as fradulent…

This week, as the leading opposition figure in Russia, Alexei Navalny, lies comatose in Berlin’s Charité hospital, Sarah Rainsford in Moscow considers the Kremlin’s peculiar hate and fear of its crit…

Mishal Husain presents a range of perspectives on Britain today.

Edinburgh is usually thronged with crowds and alive with performers from around the world at Festival time. But the Scottish capital is…

In Lebanon, shock is turning to anger at the authorities and political class at large, after the catastrophic blast in the capital Beirut. It was caused by explosive chemicals stored improperly at th…

In the latest programme of the monthly series, Mishal Husain introduces dispatches from journalists and writers around the United Kingdom reflecting contemporary life.

When lockdown dramatically curta…