Thank you for downloading from our own correspondent.

This edition was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Saturday the 17th of September 2016.

It's introduced by Kate Aedie.

Hello. Today, politics and religion, a caustic mix in the Middle East, especially during the pilgrimage

to Mecca. Now with a hudge TV channel we hear adding to the divisive atmosphere.

Berliners vote in elections this weekend with immigration on their minds and

Mrs Merkel's future in the balance.

How Nigerians face another obstacle to successful business, the government's bulldozers, demolishing

their shops and stalls, and how future business in the United States is all about finding the best brains at a robot basketball game.

First to Bratislava, capital of Slovakia, which yesterday was crammed with EU politicians,

a summit to discuss the future without Britain's presence.

No, not at all, not a summit, they said, and no Brexit talk. Kevin Connolly was

intrigued. Just to be clear, Britain's imminent departure from the European Union, was not on the agenda here in Bratislava

this week. Indeed so, emphatically, unequivocally, absolutely, was it not on the agenda that it was really

quite difficult to think of anything else.

The full artillery of zoological comparison was deployed to meet the occasion, so they were

elephants and guerrillas in the room, but no British political leaders.

For the first time since the age of the Cod War in the three-day week and the bell-bottomed

trouser, Europe's political elite had to manage without the input of the UK.

Officially this was not a summit but an informal gathering,

which is to say the same army of advisors, diplomats, translators and politicians got together as usual,

but presumably set about their work in a slightly more devil-may-care fashion.

...