From Our Own Correspondent

Jacob Zuma, the former South African president, has been in the spotlight all week – live on television responding to questions at a judicial inquiry investigating corruption at the highest level. Andrew Harding reflects on truth in the age of brandished kippers.

Algerians have been celebrating the fact that their football team has made it to the final of the African Cup of Nations. But in Algeria, football is more than a sport. It was in the country’s stadiums that the desire for political change emerged. The nation’s autocratic leader Abdelaziz Bouteflika was ousted earlier this year and since then people have been getting to grips with new levels of freedom of expresssion, as Neil Kisserli has found.

The President of El Salvador is calling on young men to leave the country’s criminal gangs, or perish with them. He said the gangs have terrorised the country for decades, and would be dismantled. Orla Guerin has been to the capital, San Salvador, to see how the gangs menace the city.

There was an international outcry following the murder of journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last year. Saudi officials blamed rogue agents sent to persuade him to return to the kingdom. Frank Gardner reflects on his encounters with Jamal Khashoggi and the questions that still need answering.

A visit to an IS women and children's camp in northern Syria where the residents face an uncertain future. Anna Foster visits the Al Hawl camp to talk to those who are trying to salvage some form of life beyond the caliphate

European leaders have finally decided who should fill the top jobs in EU organisations. They have nominated German defence minister, Ursula von der Leyen, as the new President of the European Commission. She must now be approved by MEPs in Strasbourg, which has meant some serious train travel for Adam Fleming. The shocking picture of a father and his daughter lying dead in the Rio Grande recently highlighted the risks for migrants trying to cross illegally into the United States. As Chris Buckler found, others stranded on the border have a long wait. In Sub-Saharan Africa, women often have to queue for hours for water. But a new high-tech scheme in one village in Tanzania is transforming access to clean water. Chloe Farand went to see the project. Tarkhan Batirashvili grew up in Georgia’s Caucasus mountains. He became one of the most notorious terrorists in the world, ruling northern Syria for Islamic State until his death in 2016. Tarkhan’s cousin Temuri wants to combat the radicalisation that set Tarkhan on his course to Syria. But this is no easy task, as William Dunbar discovers. As the Women’s World Cup nears its final stage, the organisers hope the contest will help to raise the profile of female football players across the globe. But that may be easier to achieve in some places than in others. In Argentina, for instance, the game is everything. But for decades women have had little part to play, and almost no chance of becoming professionals. This is something that Macarena Sánchez wants to change, as she fights to be accepted as a professional football player. Aude Villiers-Moriamé met her.

After his party lost the Istanbul mayoral election where does Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, go from here? Mark Lowen considers whether this could be the start of his political decline. Katie Arnold reports from Kyrgyzstan where hot dry summers in the former Soviet republic are leading to drought and cross- border tension over water supplies. Alastair Leithead, the BBC's Africa correspondent, is leaving the continent 17 years after he filed his first piece for From Our Own Correspondent. How much has his role changed since then? In the United States where fourteen parents have pleaded guilty to fraudulently getting their children into top universities, Laura Trevelyan considers the lengths some parents will go to help their offspring get into their preferred college. And as much of Europe swelters under a heat wave James Reynolds takes the temperature in Rome and finds out what hot weather means to its citizens.

After an aborted missile strike, Washington insiders are scratching their heads over the President's modus operandi on Iran. Barbara Plett Usher looks at the new normal of the Trump administration.

In the latest programme of the monthly series, Mishal Husain introduces dispatches from journalists and writers around the United Kingdom that reflect the range of contemporary life in the country.

Alison Holt considers with a Somerset family why adult social care is the policy reform no UK government does anything about. In the week of BBC Cardiff Singer of the World, Martin Smith asks how far the Welsh heritage in singing is endangered and whether it might yet be part of Wales' economic future. With the time-worn quips over an Essex town ringing in her ears, Jo Glanville discovers that established notions of Southend as a seaside resort with its best days behind it are out-of-date. Andrew Green looks at the idea of the bird celebrated in the most popular piece of classical music in Britain and the reality of its existence today on the Chilterns. And Dan Johnson contemplates the personal and social links between a stately pile near Barnsley and those who live in the communities close to it.

Producer: Simon Coates

The death of Mohammed Morsi throws into sharp relief the challenges facing modern day Egypt, and the bigger struggle to embrace democracy. Kevin Connolly reflects back on the defining moments of his presidency.

Colin Freeman visits a town in the heart of Boko Haram territory in Nigeria's north-east, and learns about a new faction which has formally declared allegiance to so-called Islamic State - and adopted a new strategy.

20 years after Nato peacekeepers entered Kosovo, James Coomarasamy meets the war widows who are challenging local norms by working for a successful pickling company.

Germany is grappling with the possibility a man with far-right extremist links was responsible for the shooting of one of Angela's Merkel's pro-refugee allies. Reha Kansara meets a woman who spends hours each day tackling online hate speech in the country.

The warm-blooded manatee makes its way each winter to the USA's Sunshine State, but its steadily rising population was recently blighted by one of the worst cases of Red Tide - a form of toxic algae. Phoebe Smith took to the waters to encounter Florida's most loved wildlife attraction.