From Our Own Correspondent - 21/10/2010

The great monsoon floods in Pakistan have receded, but the suffering of their victims goes on. The United Nations says more than seven-million people are still without shelter. And the aftermath of the disaster is just one of a number of major problems being endured by Pakistanis.... among them the long-running, Taleban insurgency. But in Islamabad, our correspondent Aleem Maqbool says he sees no real determination to tackle the many grave issues that face the nation. The West African state of Liberia was destroyed by years of civil war. A quarter-of-a-million people died while warlords and their gunmen fought over the ruins of the nation.... But the country is now under very different management. The Harvard educated, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became Africa's first elected woman president five years ago. And Chris Simpson has been watching the gradual emergence of a new Liberia.... The many islands that make up Japan are stretched over more than two-thousand kilometres. The most northerly ones lie close to Russia. They endure freezing winters...with ice-floes bumping against their shores. But in the far south, the island of Okinawa is very different. It lies in warm tropical waters - where coral reefs flourish... And its not just the climate that marks Okinawa out from much of the rest of Japan. As Philippa Fogarty explains, there are deep historical and cultural differences too.... In their hunt for stories our correspondents are very often out on the road. They're making journeys of all kinds. And some.... in the more troubled places.... can be dangerous: there are threats from roadside bombs, insurgents, bandits and so on.... Jonah Fisher didn't face those types of problems, but he still ran into serious difficulties on a journey into the Kalahari desert....