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Today, what happens when you get involved in your country's most successful business?

The young Afghans facing execution for smuggling heroin.

Cleared out your wardrobe recently, secondhand clothes from countries like Britain

shred the textile trade in Tanzania, where the cotton industry is trying to fight back. A lesson for

those mired in diplomatic difficulties, replace coarseness with hoarseness according to the French.

And the rituals marking the end of life, our correspondent joins in on the island of Martinique.

General election time in Italy in March and technique. and an end to the TV license fee.

Not only unaffordable but dangerous

grumbled one economist this week.

The polls suggest that an outright majority

for any one party is unlikely,

so the country's 65th government since the Second World War

may well be yet another coalition.

Uncertain times may be, but some familiar faces are still around says James Reynolds.

Several times a year I get a very courteous message from a BBC colleague

which I then proceed to ignore amid rising guilt.

My colleague, an obituary's editor, informs me that a well-known public figure in Italy is getting

older and that it would be wise for me to prepare an account of their life. The requests stack up, unattended, in my inbox,

a semi-deathly waiting room. A year and a half ago, my colleague asked me to start preparing an orbit of the country's former

Prime Minister, Sylvia Bedel Laskoni. At the time, the ex-leader was 79 and about to undergo heart surgery.

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