A tour of Angela Merkel’s childhood, swapping books with Kurdish fighters and reading the landscape of Gabon. Kate Adie introduces correspondents’ stories.

Jenny Hill visits the town where Angela Merkel grew up as she tries to learn more about the notoriously private politician.

Richard Hall’s repeated trips to the Qandil mountains of Iraq allow him to assess the evolution of the PKK. But is a copy of Hemingway’s ‘For Whom The Bell Tolls’ an appropriate gift for a battle-hardened Kurdish commander fighting IS?

Nick Thorpe meets the migrants trying to cross the Hungary-Serbia border and Robin Banerji visits the Indian city where biryani was invented, or so some locals claim.

And Andy Jones learns how the Baka hunter-gatherers of Gabon are turning their mastery of the country's tropical forests against the poachers who prowl the region.