BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.

Good morning. Today, the grim Russian view of domestic violence,

where the law for the protection of women has been weakened and we hear of attempts to change

traditional attitudes.

We're in Ethiopia where scientists have turned a drought-ridden area into a mini garden of Eden, but there's a sting in the

tail.

Heat and flames in Australia, but even with ferocious bushfires out of control, the government is still downplaying the idea of man-made climate

change. And lesser concerns may be in Paris where being sheik is important. It's apparently hard to get a good haircut these days.

First, Hong Kong has been racked by five months of anti-government protest,

although many first took to the streets over a now

abolished plan to allow extradition to mainland China, there's now a wider campaign

for greater democracy and an end to police brutality.

Recently things have become more violent.

Schools and kindergartens have been closed for the first time,

and Paul Adams has felt that the atmosphere is turning ugly.

In Hong Kong, the old and the new are constantly jostling.

On the steep streets just west of the main financial district

with its gleaming towers of steel and glass,

stores sell traditional medicine, monkeys, visceral organs, fossil teeth, and a desiccated

gecko crucified on sticks.

Up on the balcony of a hotel dwarfed by colossal tower blocks,

a man in a white Panama hat sits drinking tea under a slowly rotating fan.

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