The Cupboard is Bare

From Our Own Correspondent

Reporters with the news behind the news. In this edition: it used to be Cuba, but today Venezuela is the more troubled of the two socialist allies and the country the US president prefers to visit; there's a portrait of the city of Venice, of the quarters where the tourists don't visit, where houses are boarded up as more and more residents move away; exotic Kashgar used to be one of the key stop-overs on the ancient Silk Route. Today the modern and the ancient are coming into conflict there as China tries to bring the restive region under control; countries in southern Africa face a damaging drought after another year of insufficient rainfall - we're in landlocked Lesotho, where food supplies are now at risk; and why do we develop loyalties to one particular part of a city? In Paris, there's acute rivalry between neighbourhoods on the north and south of the River Seine. Our man in the great city climbs on his bike to sample life on the other side ...