Into the Long Grass

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Stories of survival from South Sudan, Germany, Madagascar and Austria, introduced by Pascale Harter. Tristan McConnell returns to the town of Bentiu: he was there before during the last war for independence, but wonders if the civil war now afflicting it is "slower, nastier and more lethal" - as the old town fades into the undergrowth and hundreds of thousands of displaced people seek shelter around a nearby UN base. Jenny Hill's in Wolfsburg, the headquarters of Volkswagen, a company town where the company's globally-publicised problems with emissions-test cheating could have serious consequences. Hannah McNeish visits a remote fishing community on Madagascar's southwest coast, many hours' travel from the nearest road, where ancient beliefs in an ancestral mermaid figure are now helping to protect threatened sea life. And Julian May's on the hunt for hidden gold in an Austrian forest, but the hidden treasure is vegetable, not mineral: a seam of delicious chanterelle mushrooms to be mined for a delicious autumn feast. Photo: South Sudanese SPLA soldiers in patrol in Pageri, Eastern Equatoria state, August 20, 2015. (SAMIR BOL/AFP/Getty Images)