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Stories from Nigeria, Australia, Singapore and Cyprus

There was a time when the mass kidnapping of Nigeria school children made headlines around the world. These days it has become almost the norm. So too have horrific attacks by the Islamist group which calls itself, Boko Haram. Meanwhile the Biafran secessionist movement has once again become a source of conflict in the country’s south east: the army stands accused of killing civilians there, while the government insists they are putting down an armed insurgency. Mayeni Jones describes what it’s like to live and work amidst such widespread violence.

Australians pride themselves on being a freedom-loving people, not taking kindly to rules and regulations. This goes back to modern Australia’s early years as a penal colony, they will tell you, when cocking a snook at authority was a matter of pride. So how are they taking to some of the toughest Covid lockdown measures in the world, and the idea of troops enforcing a curfew in Sydney? Phil Mercer has been watching what happens when two opposing instincts meet.

The songs sung on Singapore’s National Day of August 9th are not exactly subtle. Urging citizens to stand together, they offer a vision of the nation as one of ethnic harmony: ‘We'll be united, hand in hand, We'll show the world just where we stand, Every creed and every race, Has its role and has its place.’ And yet a video has gone viral in Singapore, which some argue shows the reality behind this myth. It depicts the kind of racism which Sharanjit Leyl says has dogged her throughout her life.

When Charlotte Ashton set off to research the culinary potential of the carob plant, she brought along two very important assistants: her young children. That’s because carob is being touted as a substitute for chocolate, and an economically important one in Cyprus where it is widely grown. You can make it into a sweet syrup; you can serve up meat in a carob sauce. But does it really have the potential to knock chocolate off its perch?