Uganda and Colombia

Available for over a year

Owen Bennett Jones presents personal stories, wit and analysis from correspondents around the world. In today's edition: while Rob Young hears Ugandan complaints about the relentless rise in the cost of a staple food, Huw Cordey finds that Colombia is now a lot easier to travel than it used to be. Steamed green bananas Matooke - a mash of cooked green bananas of the East African Highland variety - is a staple food across a swath of Africa - from Uganda to Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi. And as with any staple food, when it gets too expensive for the ordinary pocket, the ordinary citizen feels not just hunger, but outrage. Rob Young recently visited the Ugandan capital Kampala - and found some unexpected echoes of anti-capitalist protests in London and New York. In the US and Europe, the people protesting tend to demand jobs and greater fairness. In Uganda, they say they just want to be able to afford basic foods and fuel. Where strangers no longer fear to tread Just ten years ago in Colombia, some places - even quite big towns - had no police presence of any kind. In fact in 2002, the government says, as many as 168 municipalities had no police at all and 400 city and town mayors were unable to work safely. For decades the country was a byword for drugs, terrorism and guerrilla and paramilitary violence. These modern-day plagues not only hollowed out the state - they also besmirched Colombia's image abroad and deterred all but the most hard-bitten visitor. But as Huw Cordey has been finding out, things are beginning to change.