From Our Own Correspondent - 19/06/2010

Many factors stand in the path of peace in the Middle East. Among them is the fate of the hills above the Sea of Galilee....the Golan Heights. They were captured by Israel in 1967. From the high ground, Israeli soldiers look down on the plains of southern Syria...and the Syrians glower back. Nothing is settled. And with fresh tensions surrounding Gaza radiating across the region, peace is as remote as ever. Jeremy Bowen says the Syrian leader is in deeply pessimistic mood... An "immense crisis"... That's the Red Cross's description of the aftermath of the violence in the Central Asian state of Kyrghyzstan. The bloodshed around the city of Osh involved the Kyrghyz and Uzbek communities. There are reports of hundreds of deaths. And about four-hundred-thousand more were forced from their homes. But how did the killing begin...? Who's to blame...? Rupert Wingfield-Hayes has been looking for answers on the burnt-out streets of Osh.... Down through history, invading armies have learnt painful lessons in Afghanistan. They've found that capturing ground can seem quite easy.... It's holding it that's much harder. The Western troops there now certainly know this. And as they fight through another dangerous summer, the Taleban are not their only concern. As Mark Urban explains, the Generals also worry that back home, patience is running out.... Almost exactly seventy years ago, in one of France's darkest hours, there came a glimmer of hope. Just a day after the government's capitulation to Nazi Germany, General Charles De Gaulle sat down at a microphone here at the BBC in London. He told his people that, in his words, the "Flame of French resistance must not be extinguished".... Alan Little has been reflecting on the impact of that famous speech then, and now...seven decades on. For weeks the great European waterway, the Danube, tormented those who live on its banks. Heavy rain caused much flooding. More than twenty people died. Millions of dollars worth of damage was caused to homes, farms and businesses. But as Nick Thorpe in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, explains , it wasn't just legitimate, legal business that was disrupted. The Danube's smugglers were also unhappy...