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Pascale Harter introduces dispatches from reporters and writers in Ukraine, Nepal, Iraq and the Netherlands.

In the Donbas, eastern Ukraine, Andrew Harding has seen many signs of local people’s resilience – and their determination to hold on to their hopes, even amid the chaos and destruction. Among many others, one punk musician turned battlefield medic told him that his band plan to 'play our best gigs ever' after the war.

Nepal’s roads are terrifying, its mountains towering, and its air safety record appalling. But because of the huge distances and rough terrain, more and more Nepalis have been travelling by air in recent years. Rajini Vaidyanathan reports on the aftermath after Yeti Air flight 961 crashed near Pokhara.

The relationship between Iran and Iraq is tangled, heated, often tense - and in the past it’s often been bloodstained. Today, Tehran’s influence on Baghdad is palpable, in many fields. Iraqi shoppers are faced with a vast array of Iranian-made goods in the shops, for example. Yet Iraq also shelters members of some Iranian opposition groups – and they back the anti-government protest wave within Iran. Lizzie Porter explores some of the complexities of the two countries’ coexistence.

And in Amsterdam, Christa Larwood gets a sniff of the past – with a sense of what the former Dutch empire might have smelled like. It wasn’t all lace-trimmed gloves scented with ambergris and spices; the stink of the docks and the stench of sewage also hung heavy over the city.

Producer: Polly Hope
Production Co-Ordinator: Iona Hammond