From Our Own Correspondent - 20/11/2010

Ireland prepares to say goodbye to the best and brightest of its youth. The new uncertainty at the heart of Nato. How the rising tide of scandal may finally engulf Italy's embattled leader. And deep in the Amazon our correspondent is offered a lunchtime snack he'll never forget .... Capitalism can be the cruellest game....and nobody knows that better than the Irish. Until just recently, they thought they'd finally escaped centuries of poverty. At last, the country was wealthy. But too much of the great boom was based on casino-style banking. And now old Ireland is so badly bust that it may be many years before it fully recovers... On the streets of Dublin, Gavin Hewitt has been finding out what that'll mean for countless Irish lives... Back in the depths of the Cold War, the mission of the West's military alliance, Nato was very clear. It's job was to confront the Soviets....to make sure Russian tanks never came rumbling across the north German plain. But the Cold War is history now, and these days there's much less certainty about the role and value of Nato... As its leaders talk at their summit in Lisbon, Mark Urban reflects on the mood in the alliance.... Silvio Berlusconi used to seem an unstoppable force in Italian politics. Flamboyant and larger than life, he swaggered unscathed through controversies of all kinds. But lately, life's got tougher for Italy's Prime Minister. He's struggled to fend off increasingly lurid allegations about his sex life. Political allies have abandoned him, and his popularity has slumped... Our Rome correspondent, David Willey sees Mr Berlusconi's troubles as a reflection of a much wider, Italian political malaise... The rolling hills of the Democratic Republic of Congo are lush and green. And beneath the rich soil there are minerals. But this place of promise and potential continues to be mired in conflict. It's endlessly fought over by warlords and militia groups that terrorise the civilians. Sexual violence in the east of the country is so appalling that the United Nations has called the area the "rape capital of the world". It's the job of the UN's peace-keeping troops to attempt to bring some degree of order...and Paul Moss has been watching them at work.. In Brazil, the march of the men with the chainsaws is relentless. One-by-one they bring the trees of the Amazon crashing down. All the time, the forest is being eaten away -- given over to farmers and miners. And as it retreats, the jungle home of the indigenous tribes is shrinking.. Justin Rowlatt has been spending time with one of these groups, as the alien, outside world inches towards them....