While the United Nations on Wednesday announced that Colombia remains the world’s largest cocaine producer, our reporters visited the northeastern region of Catatumbo - one of the country’s main producers of the illegal coca plant. In Catatumbo, they met with local coca growers, who live in the crossfire of different guerillas fighting for control of the territory.

As Nigeria’s army continues its offensive against Boko Haram extremists, our reporters Catherine Norris-Trent and Jonathan Walsh travelled to the northeast of the country, still plagued by violence. For this special 26-minute documentary, they bring us rare eyewitness accounts from victims of the jihadist group, but also those who persecuted them. Security forces and ordinary citizens also speak out about the fight against Boko Haram and their hopes for reconciliation.

As North Korea celebrates its 70th anniversary, FRANCE 24 brings you a unique report from inside the world’s most secretive nation. In an extremely rare move, the authorities in Pyongyang allowed a TV crew to spend a week in the three-generation dictatorship. Officials want to show the world that the country is changing and developing, in spite of international sanctions. Innovation has become the watchword, while scientists have replaced peasants and workers as icons of the regime.

Since 2006, when the Mexican military began to intervene in the country's war on drug trafficking, tens of thousands of people have gone missing. Have they been killed, sold to drug traffickers or forced into prostitution? Their loved ones are still waiting for answers. Meanwhile, some suspect that police have been complicit in many of these forced disappearances.

Today, if the small West African state of Guinea Bissau is famous—or, perhaps more correctly, infamous—for anything, it’s for frequent coups d’état. But that hasn’t always been the case. After gaining autonomy from Portugal in 1974, the country was perhaps best known for its music, and Super Mama Djombo was its most celebrated band, touring from Cuba to Mozambique. Our reporters Nicolas Germain and Sarah Sakho travelled to Bissau to meet four of its members.

After three decades of silence, people in Zimbabwe are finally speaking out about the brutal civil war that followed independence. It’s no longer taboo to mention the ethnic massacres of the 1980s - even though President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who ousted Robert Mugabe last year, was head of the security services at the time. As survivors tell their horrific stories, young people discover their parents' suffering. Reconciliation may depend on how Zimbabwe comes to terms with its painful past.

Maracaibo is the second-largest city in Venezuela. Its residents face soaring inflation, widespread poverty and shortages. Under Hugo Chavez, Venezuela based its economy on oil exports. But the fall in oil prices led to a crippling economic crisis. Most people can no longer afford to buy food and the fishermen of Lake Maracaibo resort to smuggling to sell their meagre catch in neighbouring Colombia. Our reporters Matthieu Delmas and Chris Huby went to meet Maracaibo’s struggling residents.

In the war-torn Central African Republic, former rebels who mounted a coup in 2013 are now dreaming of independence. FRANCE 24’s reporters James André and Anthony Fouchard went to meet one of the most powerful armed groups in the country, in the capital of their parallel state in the north.

In the small east African nation of Djibouti, almost half of all men use khat as a stimulant. Chewing khat leaves produces similar effects to amphetamine use. Some 40% of the average household budget is spent on khat, a huge financial drain in a country where almost half the population is unemployed. Khat also creates severe health problems.

More than 200 people have been killed in the unprecedented wave of unrest sweeping Nicaragua in recent months. In mid-April, plans for social security reform sparked protests and the discontent soon degenerated into street battles. The protesters want the resignation of President Daniel Ortega, a former guerrilla fighter at the helm since 2007, after a previous stint in power from 1979 to 1990. The western city of Masaya has become the stronghold of the rebellion. Our reporters have been there.