From Our Own Correspondent - 02/10/2010

A broken-hearted picture house manager tells From Our Own Correspondent how the cinema is dying a slow death in Baghdad. Also, our reporter hears sad songs and talk of home as he joins Chinese workers on a night out in Angola. We're fast approaching one of the major dramas in the American political cycle. The mid-term Congressional elections are now just a month away. Hundreds of House and Senate seats are being fought for all across the country. And if Barack Obama's Democrats were to do badly, his job would become even tougher than it already is. Kevin Connolly has been watching the President as he begins to square up to this new electoral challenge. The people of Iraq haven't only been forced to endure years of dictatorship and war. They've also had to cope with economic collapse, rampant corruption and sectarian violence. Over time, almost every area of life has been degraded in some way. Popular culture has been no exception. And Gabriel Gatehouse says Iraq's troubles have been reflected in the demise of its cinemas... South Africa has no fewer than than eleven official languages. Along with English and Afrikaans the constitution recognises all the country's major, indigenous languages....like Zulu and Xhosa. Then on top of that official list, immigrants from across Africa and the world have brought their mother tongues.... And Hamilton Wende reflects now on the country's extraordinary linguistic riches. It's now more than two decades since Germany was re-united. For years the once formidable Berlin Wall has been no more than a tourist attraction. And the old East Germany has... officially...been consigned to history. But Steve Evans says that not far below the surface divisions linger on. And among some in the East, there's a certain nostalgia for the past.... China first reached out to Africa about six-hundred years ago. A Chinese admiral led a series of trading expeditions to the east coast. But this contact was quite brief. China soon turned its back on the world, and centuries of isolation followed.... Now though the Chinese are very much back in Africa. And Justin Rowlatt has been spending time with young entrepreneurs who see huge potential in Angola....