From Our Own Correspondent Folgen

India’s missing children, selling drugs in Colombia & searching for paradise in Costa Rica. Kate Adie introduces stories from correspondents around the world:Activists say that as many as 500,000 children went missing in India last year – Sonia Faleiro meets the father of one of them who says he’s been forced to marry off his other daughters in order to protect them. Mathew Charles spends an evening with a Colombian drug dealer and learns how criminal gangs are searching for new ways to make money. Jenny Hill visits a fairy-tale mansion in Hamburg whose 71 elderly female residents are celebrating their role in bringing about a ban on diesel cars. Roger Hill goes to a market on the shore of the Panj River which separates Tajikistan and Afghanistan and looks for signs that life is getting better there. And in Costa Rica, Benjamin Zand discovers that while the lure of paradise may be strong, it’s always so difficult to find.

How the father of one of his presidential rivals helped Vladimir Putin to power. Kate Adie introduces this and other stories from correspondents around the world: Ahead of elections in March, Gabriel Gatehouse looks back at the rise of President Putin and speaks to one of his challengers - Ksenia Sobchak. Vladimir Hernandez returns to Venezuela to find a coffee now costs the same amount as he paid for his first flat, his relatives have lost weight and children are starving. It may be thousands of years since the ancient Phoenicians traversed the seas but in modern day Lebanon claims on Phoenicians identity are still controversial, discovers Fleur MacDonald. Gavin Fischer explores the recently released archive of recordings from the Rivonia trial in South Africa. His uncle defended Nelson Mandela and some of his co-accused. And Phoebe Smith enjoys the solitude of Greenland’s Arctic Circle Trail – but for how much longer will others be able to experience its unspoilt landscape she wonders.

A Gambian spymaster, a Czechoslovak secret agent and a South African ghost called Sam. Correspondents share wit, analysis, and tales of strange encounters. Introduced by Kate Adie.Gambia’s intelligence agency has a new name and its boss is busy rebranding it – but beyond repainting the torture chamber, what does that mean, wonders Colin Freeman. Rob Cameron scours the archives of the StB – Czechoslovakia’s communist-era secret police– on the trail of ‘agent COB’. He meets the man who says he tried to recruit Jeremy Corbyn as an asset. Helen Nianais has coffee with a former jihadi who faces three years in jail after spending nine days in Syria. Now he’s trying to counter extremist propaganda online and help others reintegrate back into normal life in Kosovo. Shabnam Mahmood returns to Pakistan and finds that Uber and other cab-hailing apps are driving rickshaw drivers out of business, but there are still some parts of Lahore where older methods of transport dominate. And Harriet Constable visits Kaapsehoop – a village whose fortunes may have faded since South Africa's 19th century gold rush, but which remains rich in history, folklore, and ghosts.