Mali and Algeria

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Personal stories, insight and wit from BBC correspondents and writers around the world. In this edition: Heritage of "the Oxford of Africa" under attack "Timbuktu" might - for some people - be shorthand for a remote, exotic and very isolated place. But in fact this Saharan city has been a centre of learning and the arts for centuries. Recent history though, has left it vulnerable to drastic forces sweeping through the desert; the overthrow of dictators, climate change and economic distortions are all playing a part. In recent weeks, reports from the city have contained grim accounts of the destruction of local monuments and intimidation of local people. Andrew Harding offers a lament for the place which was once a renowned treasure house of African antiquities, and is now being levelled and deserted. An anniversary to remember - or to forget? It is 50 years this week since the former French colony of Algeria, in North Africa, formally won its independence. The war to keep hold of a territory once so treasured is still a very divisive issue for France. Memories of torture and killing on both sides still cause deep discord – not just between France and Algeria, but within France itself. And particularly for the people they call the 'black feet', the pieds noirs, or French citizens once resident in Algeria. Philip Sweeney has been seeing how their history is coming back into the public eye.