Mr Batchelor has gone to Azerbaijan three time I believe. these are at the request and sponsored by both Azerbaijan and his other sponsor for global business, Scala. I may be a little off on this but I think it is essentially correct.

In his travels to Azerbaijan Mr Batchelor has raised my education on this part of the world quite a bit (e.g. Azerbaijan had women’s suffrage before the US). Azerbaijan is in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. My understanding of this region is very limited. Perhaps my fault or the fault of an education and media system that focuses on Europe, North America and China/Japan.

In any case, Mr Batchelor has helped reveal a majority Muslim country (over 90% -lazy not looking that up) that has good relationships with Israel and is working to improve their standing in the West. Mr Batchelor’s travels have opened my eyes to this country and removed some of my prejudice w.r.t. Muslim countries. This reporting also shows the emergence of a Soviet Block country rising from under the Soviet grip after their fall. From his reporting it seems that Azerbaijan is trying to enter the world as a mostly capitalistic country with reasonable freedom for its citizens.

On this most recent trip Mr Batchelor travels to Azerbaijan at what looks to be the possibility of a longer term solution to the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. Here we see in-depth reporting from an area somewhat ignored by the main stream press (MSM/MSP) in the US. This country and region could, may or will play a major role in providing energy to Europe. This is but one story I do not see much coverage on by the MSM.

With all this said, i would like to see more coverage by Mr Batchelor or others (since his coverage of the US, Europe, Space, Tech, History …etc.) of places Like Latvia, Estonia and Indonesia, Maylaysia …etc.

I apologize if I took this far away from the original question – but I cannot say enough about John Batchelor’s reporting.
Try the pod cast and listen at your leisure.