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 election season approaches in Zimbabwe and with it mounting fears of violence and a return to instability. A meeting with the

foreign fighters helping the Syrian rebels in their attempts to overthrow

President Assad. There's embarrassment for the authorities in Mexico as the body of the country's most notorious

drug lord goes missing.

And why our man in Jerusalem reckons the cats in his neighborhood are tougher than the dogs in yours.

The authorities in Zimbabwe have painted a rosy picture of the country's economic prospects.

Growth of nearly 9% they forecast,

so long as the government lives within its spending targets,

and so long as the political environment remains stable.

After 10 years of sharp decline and hyper-inflation, the Zimbabwean

economy started to pick up when President Mugabe formed a unity government in

2009 with his political rival Morgan Changurai.

But Andrew Harding, who's been in Zimbabwe this week, says concerns mounting that forthcoming

elections will once again prove violent and the country's

fragile economic gains will be lost. The Jacaranda trees are in bloom here,

bright purple smudges looming over the broad hot drowsy streets of Harare.

It's four years now since this country was rescued from a failed election, violence and economic ruin

by a power sharing deal that has somehow survived.

...