← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
Iran War: Pakistan the Peace Broker
00:28:14
Pakistan is on standby to host more peace talks, but why was it chosen in the first place?
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- [00:00]
Shari Val
Hello.
- [00:01]
Narrator/Presenter
Today we go in search of a pioneering DJ who played for the displaced workers of the Chernobyl disaster 40 years ago. On the Iranian border, we catch a glimpse of how attitudes are shifting towards the war as uncertainty grows over prospects for peace in Kenya, we hear how farmers are dealing with months of drought while not yet recovered from the last one. And we find ourselves among the armadillos, capybaras and palo boracho trees of Paraguay's. But first to Pakistan, which has embraced its role as mediator in talks between Iran and the us. The nuclear power is perhaps not the most likely candidate to have stepped into this role, with its fragile economy, on and off conflicts with its own neighbours and history of sectarian tensions. But as other governments have faltered, it seized the opportunity. Having secured the trust of both the US and Iran, Caroline Davis has watched the events unfold in Islamabad.
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Caroline Davis
It was the tearing echo of the fighter jets that was the concrete sign there were arrivals. For weeks, Islamabad had been waiting. Whispers that Pakistan was involved in running a backchannel escalated to a crescendo of anticipation that the US and Iran could meet in the capital. Behind the scenes, at spring garden parties, as the jacaranda trees blossomed, diplomats, journalists, analysts, former military officers and other onlookers would swing wildly from complete conviction to. To dismissive skepticism, asking one another, but what do we know? The answer was, for a while, very little. Hints, suggestions, reassurances that this was not just city gossip. Islamabad has rarely been at the heart of international diplomacy on this scale, nor with such high stakes. Pakistan shares a border with Iran. The two countries call each other brotherly nations. There are historic, cultural and, importantly, religious ties. Pakistan has the second highest population of Shia Muslims after Iran, by many estimates. And many look next door for religious guidance. But the relationship isn't straightforward. In January 2024, Iran sent a missile into Pakistan's territory, targeting militant groups. It said Pakistan reciprocated. But then both sides decided to reconcile. Pakistan is not home to any US military bases, meaning that unlike many Gulf countries, it has not been targeted by Iran this time round. But it's the relationship between Pakistan and the United States that's been the focus of increased fascination here. President Trump and Pakistan's military chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, met in June last year in the aftermath of the brief war between Pakistan and India. The relationship got off to a good start. Pakistan gave Mr. Trump two early wins, nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize and handing over the man accused of planning the Kabul airport bombing to during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Since then, Pakistan has joined the President's Board of Peace and has remained close to those in his inner circle, signing a memorandum of understanding with World Liberty Financial, the Trump family's crypto venture for potential cross border business. The announcement that Pakistan would play host to talks came on social media in the final hours before President Trump said a whole civilization will die tonight. Pakistan suggested a ceasefire and announced talks in Islamabad. A flurry of national pride bristled through the country. One front page proclaimed pakistan Saves a whole civilization. On the news that Vice President J.D. vance would be visiting, AI generated memes began flooding social media. Vance eating a popular local dish, cheese paratha. Vance drinking chai. Vance riding on a motorbike, the wind blowing through his hair as the Pakistan flag billows in the background. There was still uncertainty the talks would happen, even as the streets were closed with rolls of barbed wire and filled with posters proclaiming Islamabad talks. The roar of those Pakistan fighter jets accompanying the Iranian delegation. Then the Americans signalled to the capital this was happening. With no access to the venue, the closest we were allowed was a conference centre across the road. Our specially provided shuttle bus through Islamabad's shuttered streets was given an armed convoy. Pakistan knew the world was watching, but for all the talk's tantalizing proximity, there was little information about them. As the hours slipped by, journalists ran rumours past one another, filling up on endless cups of coffee or the buffet dinner. The announcement of no deal left the room deflated. And even before the last journalists had left the centre, the billboards were being taken down. You wouldn't buy a house on the first viewing, one optimist said to me. When? Why would either side sign on a first meeting? And in the days that followed, the mood began to shift as talks of further talks began to gather momentum. The noises from Washington were positive. President Trump even suggested he might visit should things go well. Suddenly, Gardiners reappeared, tending the flower beds and repainting the road along the main route from the airport to the diplomatic district in the hotel that hosted the talks. A new chandelier, new artwork, new carpets. Then word came. Prepare. Islamabad descended into partial shutdown again. And waited. And waited. By day six, Islamabad's residents began to point out the problems with their city being closed. A ban on heavy goods vehicles has meant a shortage of deliveries of fresh fruit and vegetables, milk and fuel. Just as many were questioning how long the city could remain in limbo, the whispers began again. Pakistan's government sources started to say that the Iranian foreign minister was expected in Islamabad. Pakistan is trying to navigate choppy diplomatic waters, trying to stop the peace process from drifting.
- [05:47]
Narrator/Presenter
Caroline Davis Next the uncertainty surrounding the ceasefire continues to have a destabilising effect within Iran. Donald Trump this week said there was no timeline for ending the war and no time pressure to hold new talks. The crisis continues to push up the price of food, but Tehran's leadership is seemingly unwilling to f. For their part, they blame Donald Trump's repeated threats and the US blockade for preventing any ceasefire. And Iran has this week seized cargo ships trying to cross the Strait of Hormuz while demanding toll payments from those allowed to pass through. BBC Persian's Omid Montezeri has been on the Turkey Iran border for several weeks where he's found attitudes towards the war are shifting.
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Omid Montezeri
I was happy, to be honest, happy that day the Americans and Israelis attack our enemy. But I was also upset that our country has come to this. 35 year old arash was returning to London after visiting his family in Tehran and we meet at Kapikoy, the border crossing between Iran and Turkey. He told me he had been visiting his family when the war broke out. It took him 10 days to find the way out. For nearly a month I remained in the border regions. For BBC Persian, which has no direct access inside the country, this was the closest possible proximity to Iranian soil and to those still living within it, this war unfolded differently. Unlike the 12 Day War last year, when Benjamin Netanyahu called on Iranians to rise up after Israel's assault, the present conflict was preceded by a nationwide uprising. That uprising had been violently suppressed, leaving thousands dead, yet its presence lingered. In the words of those I met crossing the border unexpectedly, many of those we spoke to chose to show their faces on camera. Yalda, 30, stood before our camera without hesitation, reflecting on her experience. They bumped. I was scared, but I went to the window. I saw my neighbor across the street shouting, strike again. Hit again. People are afraid, but they still say strike. She paused, then continued. No one is normal anymore. Around me, people crying every day just to return to some kind of balance, she said, tears welling up in her eyes. It's as if we are already dead. We do not believe we are alive and we want to see the dead of those responsible for this. Arash put it differently. My message to the leaders of Islamic Republic is if you cannot govern, lay down your weapons, stop. The country is being destroyed For a few kilos of uranium, what use is it? How long do you want to continue? Our skies have become highways for American and Israeli jets they bomb us and meanwhile you and your supporters are in the streets chanting slogans. In the early days of war, such voices were not uncommon. But during the weeks I spent at the border, I noticed a shift. Despite sustained US and Israeli strikes, Iran's missile attacks continued. It was in this atmosphere that I met Sohaila, a 45 year old photographer. She had taken a final picture of her home in central Tehran before leaving, uncertain whether it would still be standing. When she returned, she spoke at length. She was worried about her best friend who had cancer. I left her behind, she said. I think after those days when so many were killed in the protests, people were consumed by anger and despair. They can no longer think rationally, she told me. We do not know what will happen. This optimism has no foundation, she went on. In the midst of this war, Iranian society has fractured. Let me speak about those around me, she continued. People I once considered thoughtful. Now they say let everything be bombed, let everything be destroyed, so long as these rulers are gone. I think of it as something like the self destruction of whales when they swim onto beaches. That is what it feels like in Iran. This is the dominant atmosphere. Our relationship with those who support the government is completely severed. There is no dialogue at all, she said desperately. Even among my friends, because I oppose the war, some no longer wanted to see me. Society has broken into pieces.
- [11:00]
Narrator/Presenter
Omid Montessori this weekend marks the 40th anniversary of the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl in the then Soviet controlled Ukraine. In 1986, one of the power plant's reactors suffered an explosion sending a radioactive plume across Europe. The event affected more than three and a half million people and contaminated nearly 50,000 square kilometers of land. It remains the world's worst nuclear accident. Jordan Dunbar has visited the city of Slavutych in northern Ukraine which was purpose built for workers evacuated from the power plant and recounts his search for a pioneering DJ who worked at a nightclub there.
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Jordan Dunbar
Looking up at the well built soldier and even larger policeman in front of me, I thought of two things. I wish I'd learned more Ukrainian and I really wish I could find my ID card. I waved my microphone at them and try the old Mymak to convey my hopefully temporary lack of documents. Luckily, I hear the voice of my Ukrainian colleague Helena ring out through the concrete tar blocks. She arrives and begins rapid fire dialogue that quickly results in smiles and firm handshakes. What happened there? I ask as relief floods my body. They thought you'd dodged the draft and were going to bring you back to the army, I told them, you wouldn't be much use. We trudged off in the knee high snow, trying to ignore the effects of the temperature being -13. I was on a quest to find a now legendary DJ who once transformed the city of Pripyat, the former home for workers at the Chernobyl nuclear plant. Here we were in the grid like streets of Slavutych, completed by the Soviets in 1988 to house those same workers after they escaped the Chernobyl disaster. Eventually we find the Slavutych media house, the modern version of a palace of culture. Outside hangs a painted sign saying Disco. We're at the right place. Inside we meet the legend himself, Alexander Demidoff. He exudes an easy charm even in the freezing temperatures and frequent blackouts. We chat in the center's TV studio where today he presents a music show surrounded by a mountain of vinyl and tapes and handmade disco style shirts, which Alex says fans would make for him back in the 80s. So what made his club nights so famous?
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Samille En Romy
I ask.
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Jordan Dunbar
This was the youngest city in Ukraine, he tells me with a wide grin. With thousands of young workers arriving in Pripyat, they needed entertainment. So a football team was formed, swimming pools were built and parks emerged along the nearby river. But it needed nightlife too. And Club Edison 2 was born. There was nowhere else like it, Alex says, sweeping his arms over photos of 80s clubbers with big hair and even bigger smiles. The disco lights and projectors were handmade, putting the local engineers skills to good use. They'd hold theme nights and hundreds of workers would attend in fancy dress. But it wasn't entirely free spirited. Before each disco we had to fill out a playlist and it was checked by the Soviet culture department, Alex explains. Just 20% could be so called progressive music. Terrible tracks, he says, imported from Hungary, Poland and so on. The rest were were to be Soviet songs. Alex, however, always had a stash of Western records smuggled in by traveling diplomats and sailors. The nights became fabled in 80s Ukraine. The police would be very confused when they saw breakdancing. Alex laughs. Alex had planned a party for Sunday 27th of April 1986, the night after reactor 4 exploded. The playlist never got played, but it remains in memory, in memory of the disco that would never take place. Once the evacuation was announced, Alex and the regulars from the original Club Edison would never be able to live in Pripyat again. I was about to ask what happened next when the lights suddenly go out. Another blackout. The local electricity plant, hit by a Russian stike the week before was still being fixed, the generator cranks on, but it's now too loud for us to hear each other. So we decamp to the Slavudic museum. Fitting that as I ask about life after the meltdown, Alex and I are sitting in a replica Pripyat apartment next to the museum's Chernobyl gallery. There was an exclusion zone for 30km all around the plant. Men and women were living in tent cities. To help with the cleanup, he recalls, we decided to hold discos for them, this time outdoors in village squares. He takes out a piece of thick paper, covered in Russian text, an award from the old Soviet Ministry of Culture. Alex's discos in the surreal wasteland around the exclusion zone had kept up morale to the point he was honoured for his efforts. They didn't check the playlists anymore. We had freedom for the first time. He beams. Once the initial cleanup of Chernobyl was finished, Alex hosted parties for the builders tasked with constructing a new city from scratch, the city which would become his home. Slavodic Alex becomes reflective when I ask what he thinks of this Soviet model city. In the 40th year since the evacuation of the city at Rome replaced, Pripyat will always be the city of my youth. Slavuric is a great place too, and also very vibrant, but it's not the
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Narrator/Presenter
same Jordan Dunbaugh and you can hear more on this story on the last dance floor in chernobyl Tonight at 8 on BBC Radio 4 and on BBC Sounds next. We're in Kenya's north, where farmers and their families are suffering the effects of consecutive seasons of low rainfall. A new report estimates around 400,000 people are experiencing acute levels of hunger, with Turkana one of the worst affected areas. This current crisis follows Shortly after a two year drought which began in 2021, one of the most devastating in recent memory. Since then, many households have not had the time to rebuild their herds, replenish savings or restore degraded land.
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Samille En Romy
SAMILLE EN ROMY I still remember quite vividly the drive across our bare land. The rain had started just a night or two before I arrived. The kind of rain that should bring relief. And in some places you could see it. Small patches of green beginning to push through the dust. But it didn't take long to realize this rain had come far too late. Because everywhere I looked, the signs of what had come before were still there. The impact of two failed rainy seasons isn't something a single downed poor can erase. The land still felt drained of life, and so did the people. The first home I visited Was quiet, too quiet inside. An elderly woman, Kerio Elikor, lying down, she couldn't sit up. Without help, she couldn't speak. Her grandson, who welcomed us gently, explained that Kerio hadn't eaten for three days. He told me the last meal they had eaten came from neighbors. Just a small portion of boiled maize meal, barely enough for lunch. Nothing left for later. Suddenly, nothing for the next day. As we spoke, more people from nearby houses began to gather. One of them was another elderly woman named Helen. She walked towards us slowly, holding onto a goat, her last one. She told me its stomach was visibly swollen, but without any grass to eat, it was bloated from drinking too much water. And the moment I raised my microphone, she cried out, help. Help us now that you've come to visit us. A strong sense of urgency in her voice. We don't have food. We're very hungry. In the neighboring village, I met Lotkoyebe, who told me she's left with just five thin goats where she once had 50. She has watched the rest of her animals die as pasture disappeared during the prolonged drought in Turkana. The loss of a heart is not just economic, it is deeply personal, and recovery can take years. For Ibe, who is in her early 50s, eating twice a day has become a luxury. More often, she survives on a single meal. Sometimes, she tells me, she goes up to five days without a proper meal. In a weak, scratchy voice, she told me that when that happens, there is only one option to walk into the scrubland in search of wild food. In the past, humanitarian organizations would occasionally bring food supplies to families like ours. Those distributions once helped families get through the dry seasons. But recently, she says, they have received little help, either from the government or aid agencies. Though the local official in charge of the Institute for drought management told us the the government had already secured some food stock and was finalizing plans to start distributing it to the communities in need. But hunger is affecting everyone in Abe's household. Her mother had last managed to eat a small lunch the previous day. Since then, nothing. Not far away, under the shade of a tree, I found three women sitting together. They were crushing wild fruits from a tree they call mkuamo, known in English as the gingerbread tree. Perhaps because of its fruit's faint sweetness, the fruits are brown, with a hard, rough, and almost lumpy shell. In better times, they told me, this is something young boys might snack on while herding animals. Now it's become estabble. This is no longer just about the absence of food. It is about the absence of options. The ongoing harsh conditions follow the 2021-2023 drought, which some have as the worst in recent memory. Across northern Kenya, two more consecutive rainy seasons have failed. Seasonal rivers have dried up, waterholes have shrunk or disappeared entirely, and pasture has failed to regenerate across large stretches of land. So livestock have weakened and died in significant numbers, forcing communities to travel longer distances in search of water and grazing, often with little success. And with that, entire livelihoods have disappeared. The reins have now returned, at least in part. But they are uneven and insufficient. Organizations like the Red Cross, World Vision Kenya and the UN's World Food Program say they are providing some support to vulnerable households. But for many families here, that help cannot come soon enough. And as I left, the question that stayed with me was not whether the rains would come again, they eventually always do, but whether by the time they do, there will still be enough left here to recover.
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Narrator/Presenter
Samia Wami and finally the semi arid lowlands of the Gran Chaco span an area of around 280,000 miles across South America. More than half of that is in Argentina, a third in Paraguay and the remainder in in Bolivia. It's the region's second largest forest ecosystem after the Amazon. And it's also home to a wide range of animal, bird and plant species. As Sarah Wheeler discovered.
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Shari Val
The armadillo fully extended when it scuttled from the quebracho trees, snapped into a grapefruit sized ball, or almost a ball. It left an armour plated gap in case a hungry puma came by. A snap would slice off the predator's nose. Moonlight glinted off the armadillo's banded scales. The motionless night grew hotter beyond me and the armadillo ranked. Silhouettes of low wooden crosses stretched into the black, regimented in rows like soldiers. The actual soldiers were dead, lying in the loneliest war cemetery in the remotest wilderness in the least known country of South America. The Grand Chaco is a heterogeneous furnace like mosaic of savannah, brackish prairie, wetland and low thorn forest. It takes up 60% of Paraguay, a landlocked country more than one and a half times the size of the United Kingdom. The region is so hostile that just 4% of Paraguayans live in it. Fortan is Le Pouy. Where the armadillo lived had been a Paraguayan control centre in the Chaco War, a conflict fought from 1932 to 1935 between Bolivia and Paraguay. Both sought control of the northern Chaco. The whiff of petroleum was in the air. Royal Dutch Shell Bancor Paraguay While US Standard Oil bet on Bolivia. Oil was never found, but the war cost the lives of about 2% of Bolivians and 3% of the much smaller Paraguayan population, many perishing from thirst. That afternoon I had visited a small memorial at Fortin is Le Poyn. Cobwebs flowed from the back of a handsome painted bust of Commander in Chief Jose Felix Esti Garibia like a bridal veil. From the wall of a brick shelter, a photo gallery of white faced officers and dark skinned soldiers stared out in the cemetery. A canvas sign headed with a Paraguayan flag bore the noble words of an unknown soldier. Commandante Estigaribia told us the future will thank you for this. We sacrificed ourselves. But the future wasn't thanking them very graciously as the poster was lying in the red dirt. Unlike its giant neighbors, Argentina and Brazil, Paraguay has two official languages, Spanish and the indigenous Guarani. But things are not as they seem. The other 30 plus indigenous languages in the country have no status. Many people who live on the sacred soil of their Chaco ancestors cannot speak Guarani. The World Top 20 Projects Global Education Database ranks Paraguay at number 180. This dire statistic is a legacy of the stronato, the 35 year despotic reign of Alfredo Strozner which ended in 1989. No dictator wants to educate people. The 15 ethnic groups of the Chaco have almost no access to secondary school. Most end up as low paid day labourers on farms belonging to large landowners. Augusto Roabastos, Paraguay's most famous writer, served in the Chaco War as a medical auxiliary while still a teenager. He spent much of his adult life in forced exile during the dictatorship. Roabastos called his country an island surrounded by land, conjuring not just the lack of coast, but also its cultural isolation and continental separateness. A swollen bottle tree swayed close to the cemetery. Of course, the palo boracho, or white floss silk tree, only appears to sway like balsa. The trunk expands when it takes in water, but doesn't contract when the water dries up, producing uneven shapes which seen together have been described as a drunken forest. Numerous thorn shaped spikes jutted from the trunk of the fortan Isla Poii tree, protection against predators long extinct in the Chaco. But the tree wasn't taking any chances. That predator might return before oil flows. But by that time, all the borracho trees will have been cut down and they too will not be remembered. In the meantime, besides the usual cast of loggers and dam builders, soy barons are poised to invade the Chaco. They have already planted out swathes of east Paraguay, and the crop is by far the country's greatest legal export. Some parts of the western Chaco could yield two crops a year. The armadillo, confident no puma was prowling, had unrolled and scuttled back where it came from. As I returned to my own camp, my torch picked up a pair of glossy capybara lounging on the edge of a patch of grassland. When the beam hit them, they slipped down and away. The green land was actually a spawny pool.
- [27:30]
Narrator/Presenter
Sarah Wheeler. And that's all for today. We'll be back again next Saturday morning. Do join us.
- [27:37]
Caroline Davis
I told my dad, stop immediately. This is a scam.
- [27:40]
Shari Val
Scam Secrets with me, Shari Val.
- [27:42]
Caroline Davis
He had actually paid £209,000 to the scammers.
- [27:47]
Shari Val
Each week we expose a different scam in detail to help you spot the red flags.
- [27:52]
Caroline Davis
I'll say things like, I carried on
- [27:54]
Shari Val
with it and I. I got great returns with special insights from experts, including criminologists and a former scammer who now works to help prevent fraud.
- [28:04]
Samille En Romy
When it's successful, it completely wipes people out.
- [28:08]
Shari Val
Scam Secrets from BBC Radio 4. Listen now on BBC Sounds.