麻豆社

Pascale Harter introduces stories of valour and danger from journalists and writers around the world.

The NATO mission titled "Resolute Support" keeps over 13,000 troops in Afghanistan and is supposed to strengthen the country's institutions - but in Kabul recently, Justin Rowlatt found a city still living in fear and pockmarked with blast walls, steel gates, security checkpoints and escape routes.

Andrew Harding has a lifelong fascination with transience and with people who don't feel at home. On a return visit to Mogadishu, he describes how Somali emigres are weighing up their chances of remaking lives in their home country now - despite violent politics and clan vendettas.

Travelling around in Albania, Emma Levine was told several times that "nobody travels by train any more" - and her encounters with station staff weren't much more encouraging. But she did get from Shkodra to Durres by rail, and the journey revealed much about Albanians' fears ad hopes.

And in Nepal, where extended families could once be relied on to care for their older members, many of the young and able-bodied are leaving to work abroad these days. So who's taking care of the elderly? Melissa van der Klugt visits a pioneering home for veteran Gurkhas and their widows.

Photo: US Army General John Nicholson Campbell, commander of Resolute Support forces and US forces in Afghanistan, at headquarters in Kabul on March 2, 2016. (RAHMAT GUL/AFP/Getty Images)