Mike Brown spent a week at the MRA international conference centre in Caux, Switzerland, to find out whether 'honest conversation' is as useful as is claimed.

What has made Middelburg and its neighbouring city Witbank the fastest growing towns in South Africa?

For 45 years, a succession of mayors promised to develop Ramle's Palestinian neighbourhoods on the 'periphery of the periphery' of the town. 'Nobody did anything,' says Michail Fanous, a Palestinian educator, for years one of only two Arabs on the 19-member Council. Schools were so crowded that homes had to be used as classrooms. Roads were pot-holed.

For a century African slaves were landed on the James River in Richmond, Virginia, marched across a bridge in the dead of night, and sold at the slave auctions next day. In June last year hundreds walked the same route, at night, seeking to understand the roots of racial divisions still troubling their city.

At 18, Paul Gundersen was risking his life for his country, Finland; at 55 he was haggling with bureaucrats behind the Iron Curtain. It was in Caux that he made the choices which formed his business philosophy, he tells Mary Lean.

The Government of New Zealand has taken the unheard of step of apologizing to the Maori people--and beginning to redress their grievances. The architect of this process, Attorney General Sir Douglas Graham, spoke at the Agenda for Reconciliation conference in Caux in August. Mary Lean met him afterwards.

Veteran American journalist Charles Overby encountered more than he bargained for on a recent trip to West Africa. He met - and was challenged by - America's past.