From Our Own Correspondent - 03/04/2010

For years Iraqis have endured shocking levels of violence: bomb attacks, kidnappings, killings. Often acute tensions between the Sunni and Shia Muslims have been behind the bloodshed. But they are by no means Iraq's only religious factions. There are other very much smaller and less well known spiritual communities. And as Ed Stourton has been finding out, they too have been ruthlessly targeted in the turmoil.. It has been called Africa's greatest catastrophe since slavery: the HIV-AIDS epidemic has been devastating. More than fourteen million children have been orphaned. Zambia is among the countries hardest hit. According to one estimate, one in every seven of its citizens is living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. And Jo Fidgen has been thinking about what it means for the women of Zambia who have to live in the presence of this constant menace... In Russia it is "raining heroin"..and the clouds that send the rain are the opium-producing, poppy fields of Afghanistan. Those are the words of a senior Russian official who's trying to counter the flood of drugs across his country's southern border. Afghan opium production has risen nearly fifty fold since America and its allies invaded the country nine years ago. And Rupert Wingfield Hayes has seen what impact the flow of the drug is having on life in the bleak cities of Siberia... For the people of the Falkland Islands, each year, the beginning of April brings back memories. This is when, back in 1982, they were invaded by Argentina. In the first days of the occupation, it seemed that Britain may have lost control of the islands forever. In the end however, it was the Argentines who were forced to retreat. It's often forgotten though that the crisis actually began not on the Falklands, but in tensions surrounding the tiny, lonely island of South Georgia. And Daniel Schweimler has been talking to a man who was at the centre of the drama there.. The playwright, George Bernard Shaw famously described Britain and America as two countries "divided by a common language". And perhaps that idea rather neatly captures the relatonship. The two societies share a great deal, but in many ways, they're also very different. Part of the fun of being in America is spotting the ways that we connect, and the ways that we don't. And a chance encounter in Arizona set Kevin Conolly thinking about Britain's imperial legacy in the New World... But did Kevin ever get the pint he asked for.I wonder...? Or did they just talk weights and measures all night.... Kevin Conolly there ending this edition of "From Our Own Correspondent. I'm Alan Johnston, and our producer was Hannah Barnes. Join us again soon, here on the BBC World Service.