Children for sale: Afghanistan's desperate and impoverished - a podcast by BBC Radio 4

There have been reports from Afghanistan of people so desperate for food they have been selling their own children to raise the money they need. Our correspondent Yogita Lemaye was initially sceptical mood as she investigated whether locals really were trading their sons and daughters for cash - and what would then happen to them.

For many years, Andrew Roy has been dispatching BBC correspondents around the world, most recently in his role as head of foreign newsgathering. He is about to leave the BBC, and warns that he is doing so at a time when there is more effort than ever being made to stop journalists doing their jobs. This might be military dictators wielding the threat of imprisonment, or democratically-elected governments using more subtle means of obstruction.

World leaders are gathering for a two week summit in Glasgow, with an aim no less ambitious than saving the planet from the harmful effects of climate change. One problem which climate change is predicted to cause is an increase in flooding; warmer air can hold more water, which will eventually fall as heavier rain. That is exactly what has just happened in the South Indian state of Kerala. Raijini Vaidyanathan has seen the destruction there.Should we still be burning witches? There are also plenty of light-hearted celebrations where effigies of witches are burned, or simply paraded as figures of fun. Some feel this trivialises a horrific part of Europe’s history. Germany was at one point the European witch-finder capital. And it is there that Sally Howard has regularly travelled at Halloween, to watch celebrations which have become highly contentious.

On Broadway in New York, theatres have been closed for more than a year, and although they are starting to open again, they are doing so with strict, covid-related regulations in place. The writer John O’Farrell could have had no idea that all this was coming, when he was asked several years ago, to script a stage musical version of the film Mrs Doubtfire. Now the production has finally had its opening night, but it was a long road to get there.

Further episodes of From Our Own Correspondent Podcast

Further podcasts by BBC Radio 4

Website of BBC Radio 4