You're listening to a download from the BBC, this is from our own correspondent.

You can hear the version of the program we make for the BBC World Service by visiting our site

at BBC online.

But here's the latest edition broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and introduced by Kate Adi.

Today the fight against Islamist rebels reaches a small country town in Mali.

The Georgian government frees thousands of prisoners. Georgians are far

from sure it's a good idea. Despite the scandals and the court action, the Bunga bunga king's

back, aiming for one more victory in Italian politics, and there's turbulence

at 35,000 feet, but diplomacy saves the day on a flight from Luton Airport.

Hundreds of African troops have been arriving in Mali to join the French-led assault on the Islamist

rebels in the north.

The US Air Force is also involved.

American transport aircraft have been flying into the capital Bamako carrying more French soldiers and equipment.

The French, with Malian military support, have already retaken a number of towns which had been held by the rebels, and French warplanes,

operating from bases in Chad, have been attacking rebel positions.

Andrew Harding's been seeing how the conflict's been playing out in a small country town in the middle of Mali.

There's something steady and purposeful about Segu.

Maybe the town takes its tempo from the Niger River, almost a mile wide here, silky, blue and miraculous,

as it heads northeast towards the Sahara, past Timbuktu, before having second thoughts and curling back south for the long trudge to the Atlantic.

Segu is a market town, surrounded by a network of canals that feed the rice and

cornfields of Central Mali. The traffic lights work here. Car drivers give way politely to

motorbikes and an army of donkeys chase each other's tails through the dusty side

...