From Our Own Correspondent Folgen

For Hindus, Sikhs and Jains it's Diwali - the festival of lights. But this year there's the pandemic. What impact is that having in India, asks Rajini Vaidyanathan in Delhi. In Azerbaijan, the decades-long intermittent war with Armenia over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh flared up again in September. Earlier this week, Russia brokered a deal to end the conflict. Olga Ivshina has just returned from the Azeri side of the frontline, where reporters' safety was not just threatened by shelling. The French Caribbean island of Martinique has a difficult relationship with its past. For about two hundred years the colony relied on enslaved Africans to work in its sugar cane plantations. Some think that period might have been shorter if it hadn't been for Josephine, the wife of Napoleon. And as Tim Whewell found, that's not the only sensitive subject of conversation on the island. Bicycles have been recommended as a safe form of transport in the pandemic, and cities around Europe have been improving their cycling infrastructure as a result. Anna Holligan lives in the Netherlands, where cycling is second nature to many, and says that even there, more people are now switching to two wheels. On Mosher Island off the coast of Canada’s Nova Scotia province, self-isolation takes on a different meaning. No need to worry about social distancing, there is no one to keep a distance from. The island only has two residents, a former lighthouse keeper and his wife. Greg Mercer paid them a visit.Presenter: Kate Adie Producer: Arlene Gregorius

In the US, lots of eyes are still on the outcome of the election in Georgia. Joe Biden appears to have to have narrowly won the state, but the margin is so narrow that local law requires a recount. Suzanne Kianpour hails from Atlanta, Georgia, and found herself back there as the votes were being counted. Parts of South East Asia’s largest remaining rainforests, in Indonesia’s Papua province, are being cleared to make way for oil palm plantations. Rebecca Henschke has been investigating allegations a Korean palm oil company was involved in unfair land deals with local tribes, and she hears from clan elders about what’s been lost. Venice is built on a lagoon, with canals for streets, and floods a common occurrence. There was a particularly devastating surge a year ago today. A flood barrier, delayed for decades, finally had its first full test last month. Called Mose, like Italian for Moses, will it be able to stop rising Venetian seas? Julia Buckley has been testing the waters. Iran has often been accused of repression at home – and assassination abroad. The regime targets its critics and enemies anywhere in the world and has been implicated in attacks from Argentina to the Netherlands. Jiyar Gol has been investigating the killings of two Dutch-Iranians . Have you come across the Greek dish kleftiko? It's slow-cooked lamb. The name is related to the words kleptocracy and kleptomania, the “klept” part of it being from the Greek for thief. In the case of the lamb recipe, the theft refers to sheep rustling. A tradition that goes back a long way in Crete, says Heidi Fuller-Love, but has recently become more serious.Presenter: Kate Adie Producer: Arlene Gregorius

A brutal assault on Kabul University, the biggest and oldest in the country, left at least 35 dead and 50 wounded. The attack was claimed by the Islamic State group, but the Afghan government and the Taliban are blaming each other for it, when the two sides are meant to be focusing on peace talks. Lyse Doucet speaks to one University lecturer about the students he lost. There was an attack in Austria too, in Vienna, which killed four people and injured more than 20 others, in a neighbourhood that houses Vienna's main synagogue, but is known as the Bermuda Triangle, a key nightlife area full of bars and restaurants. The shooting was the deadliest attack in Vienna for decades. Bethany Bell reports on an evening that shook a city. Eighteen Sicilian fishermen are being detained in prison in the Libyan city of Benghazi, accused of fishing in Libyan waters. This part of the Mediterranean is rich in the lucrative red prawn, and so these arrests are not uncommon. Usually the men are released after negotiations. But this time that's proving difficult, says Linda Pressly. In Kyrgyzstan, traditional turbans for women called elecheks are made with many metres of the finest white cotton. Nowadays women mostly wear headscarves, and the elecheks are kept as heirlooms. But during these pandemic times one textile collector has cut an elechek up to make masks for local hospitals, as Caroline Eden reports. Swallows that spend the summer in Britain have left for their winter destination of South Africa. The flight takes them several weeks, through France, Spain and Morocco, then across the Sahara, and the tropical rainforests. They eat flying insects. Stephen Moss went to look for them in a reed-bed on a lake near Durban.Presenter: Kate Adie Producer: Arlene Gregorius