麻豆社

Kate Adie introduces 麻豆社 foreign correspondents with the stories behind the headlines.

There are fears that north and south Sudan could be sliding back towards conflict. A civil war between the country's two halves only ended five years ago. But now reports from the region are increasingly disturbing. More than two thousand people have died there this year in battles between various ethnic factions. And there are claims that the tensions in the largely Christian south are being stoked by the sending of arms shipments from the mainly-Muslim north. This comes against a backdrop of a referendum in the south, in a year's time, in which people will vote on whether to break away and declare independence. Will Ross has been to a town at the centre of this divided region.

For months, all across Eastern Europe people have been marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of communism. And now, last in line, it's Romania's turn. Days of violent revolution in 1989 ended with the execution of the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena. Gradually the country began to emerge from their shadow, and today it's a member of the European Union. But in some of Romania's darker corners little has changed, and Chris Rogers has been finding out that the nation continues to fail some of its most vulnerable citizens:

The South Pacific island nation of Tonga is the last Polynesian monarchy. At a coronation ceremony last year a crown was placed on the head of King Gorge Tupou the Fifth. And in his silk knee breeches and maroon cape, he rose from his golden throne as the country's absolute ruler. But there have been years of pressure for political reform, and some serious resentment of royal rule. The King now knows that his power may quite soon ebb away. With his blessing Tonga is on course to become a democracy, although the monarch will stay on as head of state. John Pickford first visited the country more than 30 years ago, and he's just been back to see how it is coping with the tensions between tradition and modernity.

Christmas is a big season for the port wine industry. The fortified wine is used to wash down mince pies and Stilton cheese. Visiting heads of state are offered it at royal banquets and cobwebbed bottles lie in the cellars of gentlemen's clubs in London. But how is this ancient drink standing up to these times of recession? Humphrey Hawksley has travelled to the banks of the Douro River in Portugal where port wine has been made for hundreds of years. He asks whether the traditions surrounding the tipple are still relevant today and visits a wine bar to see what today's young drinkers make of it.

And from Ireland there's a tale of mad sporting determination in the teeth of an Atlantic storm. As all of the world surely knows, Tiger Woods has been engulfed by scandal. He has decided to take a break from golf, and suddenly the sport has lost its guiding star. Woods was by far its most inspiring figure; at his best a study in concentration, power, precision and grace under pressure. At the other end of the world of golf, our correspondent Kieran Cooke also likes to swing a club. But he and his friends play a form of the game in the wilds of Ireland that Tiger Woods would barely recognise.