A short review of both theoretical and experimental aspects of the radiative
return method is presented. It is emphasised that the method gives not only
possibility of the independent from the scan method measurement of the hadronic
cross section, but also can provide information concerning details of the
hadronic interactions. New developments in the PHOKHARA event generator are
also reviewed. The 3 pion and kaon pair production is implemented within the
version 5.0 of the program, together with contributions of the radiative phi
decays to the 2 pion final states.
Missing NLO radiative corrections to the e+e- -> mu+ mu- gamma process will
be implemented in the forthcoming version of the generator