From Our Own Correspondent - 24/06/2010

The political paralysis that is worsening Iraq's troubles. The battle against Al Qaida in the mountains of Yemen. Modern medicine taps into the secrets of traditional healers in Bolivia. And we make a long, hard journey that reveals some of the best...and the worst....of Japan. The bombers in Iraq promised that they would strike on election day....and they did. Blasts shook Baghdad and other cities, and nearly forty people died. It took courage to go out and vote. But some who took the risk might wonder now if it was worth it. More than three months on from polling day, a new government is yet to emerge. Endless political wrangling has failed to produce a coalition....And Jim Muir is watching the nation drift at what may be a particularly dangerous time.... Most of the countries of the Arabian peninsula....like Saudi, Qatar and the Emirates ....have been blessed with fabulous oil wealth. But to the south, Yemen is quite a different story. It's very much the region's poor relation. Along with its poverty has come chronic instability, and lawlessness. And as Frank Gardner explains, the jihadis of Al Qaeda are now posing a serious challenge in the mountainous countryside. Seldom has there been a more disastrous World Cup campaign. The once mighty France wasn't just dire on the pitch. The team produced a French farce, with a revolution thrown in. There was a players' strike and nearly a brawl on television. There was almost an air of relief back home when the side was finally knocked out. "The tragi-comedy is over," read one headline. Hugh Schofield in Paris has been watching France's anguish... Even before the days of the Inca civilisation, medicine men were at work in the Andes. And the tradition survives. Wandering healers are still a common sight on mountain paths in Bolivia. Many people there are suspicious of modern medicine, or can't afford it. And most turn to natural remedies, rather than go to a doctor. Now, as Treeva Fenwick has been finding out, the government's trying to develop and regulate the use of indigenous medicine.... Think of travel in Japan, and you might well think "trains". The country's high-speed rail network is world famous. And the "Bullet Trains" do whip you along at extraordinary speed.... But of course that doesn't give you much chance to take in the countryside. And our Tokyo correspondent, Roland Buerk has just made a very much slower journey from coast-to-coast that revealed a little more of the real Japan.