Signs of the Times

Pascale Harter introduces stories of endurance and evolution, resurgence and decline from around the world.

BBC Africa Editor Mary Harper reveals that while refugees from civil wars in the Middle East are being turned back by many rich nations, they're still changing the face of one former warzone: Somaliland, where Syrian dentists and Yemeni restaurateurs are flourishing.

Peter Robertson returns to Tashkent, trying to make out what real changes might follow the election of Uzbekistan's only new leader since independence - its new President Shavkat Mirzoyoyev. In this secretive state, there's considerable uncertainty about the future.

Hugh Schofield hymns the glories of times past, with a lament for the fast-disappearing handpainted advertisements of small-town France, and the businesses which have vanished with them.

And Melissa van der Klugt gets a little taste of middle England in western India: at one famous bakery in Pune, which is run by Parsi emigrants from Iran, they're churning out Shrewsbury biscuits now famous across the nation.

Photo: Women sell bananas in the street of downtown Hargeisa, Somaliland, Credit: AFP/Getty Images