This edition with Tales of War and Love was first broadcast on Radio 4 on Thursday the 9th of February 2017 and it's introduced once again by Kate Aide.

Hello today the dust rises on a Jewish settlement in Israel as the bulldozers move in.

Meanwhile, other settlements get the green light.

In Russia, our correspondent dusts down his copies of Tolstoy and Dosteevsky to understand rural life today.

In Sierra Leone, we're investigating drink, and in America there's a town turning pink. The Turkish military has said that Syrian rebels backed by

Turkish troops have intensified their offensive against Islamic State's

last stronghold in the border region. In northwest Syria

Idlib has been bombarded causing several casualties

and it's unclear whether Syrians, Russians or a US-led coalition

were responsible.

Amid this complex conflict with Idlib full of people fleeing other Syrian cities,

one man has given Mike Thompson a unique tale of wartime life.

I certainly wasn't expecting any laughs when I prepared to contact 44 year old

Rad Farris, a pro-democracy activist in northwest Syria, not only because of the terrible conflict going on and on in his country,

but also because I knew he was under mounting pressure from a powerful jihadist group who don't like the lively

radio station he runs in rebel-held Idlib province.

In fact, I had suspected, after getting no answer to numerous texts and calls that he might be too frightened to talk to me.

But finally, a relaxed and jovial voice comes on the line.

I ask Rad who runs... Jovial voice comes on the line.

I ask Rad who runs Radio Fresh F.M. in the town of Catherine Bell.

If it's true that an extremist group called JFS, formerly the Al-Qaeda linked Al-Nusra front, has ordered his

radio station to stop playing music on the grounds that it's un-Islamic. He chuckles. Oh yes he replies they've been demanding that

...