BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.

Today, Saudi Arabia is it on your tourist bucket list?

Service with a smile is promised, but economic reforms might have to contend with

possible conflict. 70 years old, the People's Republic of China, and for the

anniversary a birthday parade in Beijing, but don't even think about turning up unless

you've been invited and we all know that cricket has a tea break but what about a

cricket for tea a chirruping delight served up in Madagascar. Voting in Afghanistan's presidential election

is underway. The campaign's been marked by several bomb attacks and

there have been more today. The Taliban had threatened disruption and warned people to stay away

from polling stations. Lee's Dousette has been reflecting on a country where most people are desperate to find peace.

I kept studying the room, its lofty ceiling dotted with bright lights walls

paneled in gleaming honey brown wood. At the front there was an elevated platform

flanked by shiny flat screens with photographs of a handsome young man with a resolute stare

in a smartly pressed uniform. Yet another casualty of war, this time a Taliban suicide bombing.

My inspection was interrupted when a procession of government officials

skipped down a sweeping staircase.

Young men and a few women who'd come of age

in the nearly two decades since the Taliban was

toppled from power. University educated, fluent in English, finely suited, a

symbol like this newly renovated room of a new country so different from the old.

One after another they took to the stage to pay tribute to 36-year-old Syed, their colleague,

their friend. I've lost so many friends, one lamented.

...