麻豆约拍

JESSICA JORDAN BURTON

Twenty six year old Jessica Jordan Burton has had rather an unusual career path. A former Miss Universe contestant, she is now a powerful political figure in Bolivia. She has been appointed by Bolivian President Evo Morales as his special envoy in the border province of Beni - an area notorious as a base for money launderers and cocaine dealers. She tells Jo Fidgen what made her decide to trade beauty pageants for politics.

MORAKOT TYPHOON

In August last year, Taiwan experienced its worst typhoon in half a century - Typhoon Morakot. It triggered ferocious mudslides down rain-soaked mountains and nearly seven hundred people were killed. Most of them came from one village which was almost completely buried. Cindy Sui has been back to the area to see what life is like there one year on.

LOUIS PALMER

As a schoolboy in the 1980s, Louis Palmer was so distressed about climate change that he decided to build his own petrol-free car. Now he and three teams from Australia, Germany and Switzerland are racing to circumnavigate the globe in eighty days in what's being billed as the first carbon-neutral car race of its kind.