An encore edition of Dispatches in the summer.

Prisoners of piracy

Piracy and kidnapping on the Indian Ocean is a growing cost of doing business for the world's major shipping companies.

But it doesn't spare the little guys. Sailors from coastal India who crew even the smallest boats have also been targets.

The only break they get is in the late spring -- when the monsoons blow in over the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, as they've been doing this past month.

That's when these sailors stay home in their villages, get rested, even married, as we hear from Anna Cunningham.

Anna's dispatch....

Interpreting trust

In Afghanistan, helping Canada can get you killed.

Local interpreters and others working with Canadian soldiers and federal agencies are viewed as traitors by the Taliban.

And despite the disguises and dissembling they do to stay safe, some have been assassinated for it.

That's why Ottawa says it's going to make it easier for a few hundred of them to emigrate to Canada; a promise welcomed by some of the interpreters -- the "terps" -- as they're known.

But the CBC's James Murray in Kandahar found some are sceptical, as you might expect in a country where trust is hard to come by.

James' documentary...

In Sicily, there's been a campaign to weed out the island's legendary organized crime families, and seize their assets.

But just when it seems to be working, something mysteriously catches fire.

It makes for a somewhat, contradictory atmosphere, as Dispatches contributor Nancy Greenleese discovered on a visit to Sicily's mountainous north.

Nancy's essay....

Polar obsession

We go out of our way to bring in dispatches from out of your way, but we don't often get to bring you one from the least explored, least understood place on earth; the ocean.

In this case, the waters of Antarctica.

Biologist Paul Nicklen is no stranger to sea ice. He grew up with the Inuit of Baffin Island and in Yellowknife, observing the wildlife of the frozen north, eventually becoming a photojournalist.

His latest book is called Polar Obsession, a collection of remarkable pictures of tusked narwhals, penguins and polar bears captured in their own environment for National Geographic.

But what makes it all the more remarkable is how attached he became to one of the most ferocious creatures in the northern seascape...and she to him apparently.

Paul's conversation with Rick, from our studio in Whitehorse....

Paul Nicklen's encounter with a leopard seal: 

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China doubles up

China is under pressure to relax its controversial one-child policy. A plan once intended to boost the economy now threatens to slow it down.

The restriction was imposed in the 1970s, so development wouldn't be overwhelmed by a population explosion.

Thirty years on though, China's population is aging, and there may not be enough young people in the workforce to pay for it.

So in Shanghai, China's most liberal city, officials are encouraging some Chinese couples to double up, and have two children.

The state may be changing its mind. But it may also have a job to persuade the children of its policy to change theirs, as we hear from the CBC's China correspondent Anthony Germain, a witness to a happy day.

Anthony's documentary...

The surprise guest of honour

Rick's been intrigued by this idea ever since he first heard it from his colleague, the former CBC correspondent Frank Koller.

When you think about it, he says, there really are just two kinds of stories.

A man goes on a long voyage. Or, a stranger comes to town.

Well, freelance journalist Will Everett has a story from India, that manages to be both.

Will's essay...

Will Everett is a freelance reporter and producer based in Texas.

This program is the work of producers Dawna Dingwall, Alison Masemann and Steve McNally with technical producer Victor Johnston, senior producer Alan Guettel, and Rick Macinnes-Rae.