Thank you for downloading this edition of From Our Own Correspondence, which was broadcast on

Radio 4 on Saturday the 19th of November 2016.

And we've got a pretty good geographical spread today with stories from Africa, Europe, the Middle East, South Asia and the Far East, all introduced by Kate Adi.

Hello, today a pile of rupees, a mountain of of notes so let's spend it but rather oddly many

Indians are finding they're a bit short of cash. A story of secrets and lies, our correspondent in Sierra Leone confronts the problem of primitive

behavior wrapped up in tradition. More money problems, this time for the Italians, where the collapse of banks also prevents

you from being with the one you love. And just how advanced and thrustingly modern are

the South Koreans. Technologically yes, but our correspondent asks what's this old-fashioned

sexism all about?

To Syria first where this week the Assad regime bombers resumed their attacks on Aleppo.

The Damascus government in its Russian allies had halted airstrikes,

supposedly to allow civilians and rebels to leave the besieged city. It's a city divided between rebel forces

in the east and government forces in the west, ruined in many districts, with hospitals

barely able to function in the rebel-held areas.

Dun Isaacs has been to see the destruction for himself.

Abu Alnaw, middle-aged, round and bespectacled, stands behind the counter of his shop in the ancient old city of Aleppo.

He sells cigarettes, eggs, faluffle and small cakes, but his only customers are the soldiers patrolling his neighborhood.

In front of his stall nothing stirs except a family of cats picking their way cautiously

through the rubble.

His is the very last shop still trading amid the ruins of this old marketplace of cobbled

streets, colonnades and winding alleyways, right on the front line of this brutal conflict. The only thing breaking the

silence in this once-bustling commercial centre is us, crunching broken glass and

...