← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
25 Feb, 2012
00:28:05
Andrew Harding's in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia -- how impressed have they been...
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You're listening to a download from the BBC. This is from our own correspondent.
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You can hear the version of the programme broadcast on the World Service by
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following the link to the iplayer on the top of our website. To keep up with our latest reports and get a sneak preview of the stories, you can sign up to our
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Twitter feed as well.
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But now, with the addition Broadcast on Radio 4, here's Kate Ady.
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Today, winds of change blow in Somalia, but optimism remains in short supply. Japan considers a future free from nuclear power, but it could mean economic meltdown. We meet an Egyptian soldier who throws stones at the military on his day off. Visit a town in Pakistan they call Little Britain and hear how they're trying to solve a Hollywood murder mystery with help from beyond the grave. So the latest in a long string of attempts to try to bring order to Somalia has come and gone. As the delegates from some 40 countries were making their way home from London, more violence was being reported from Mogad. At least three foreign militants, said to be members of the Al Shabaab rebel movement, were killed in a missile strike launched by an unmanned drone aircraft. The delegates in Lancaster House said the country's problems poverty, piracy, famine and the legacy of two decades of civil war could be solved with international help. But as Andrew Harding was finding out in Somalia earlier this week, people there aren't so sure.
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For the past 20 years, the only law that's existed in Mogadishu has come from the barrel of a gun. Today, 45 year old Mohammed Haroom is trying his luck with a whistle. It's not easy, he concedes gently as a pickup loaded with armed men tears past him on a dusty bend in the road overlooking the ruins of the old port. Mohammed is a traffic policeman in a clean white shirt and beret. It's a job he resumed last year after a two decade break, while Somalia was busy collapsing. These days, he says, people don't know what a driver's license is. They've never seen one. No one has even heard of insurance. We're learning to be normal again. Normality has emerged as an option here in the past few months, since the militant Islamist group Al Shabaab was pushed out of Mogadishu and the raging front line that ran through the city centre shifted to the nearby countryside. The constant chorus of gunfire has been replaced by the hammering of building sites, the roar of commerce and the whistling of Mohammed and his colleagues. Instead of scurrying from one bombed out building to the next, Somalis have reclaimed their pavements Cafes and stalls have sprung up because so few people can read these days. After years without education. Those walls that are still standing are now daubed with colourful cartoon adverts, some just for cans of food or shampoo. But I've seen giant teeth being pulled out and. And an elaborate illustration of a gynecologist at work. A strong wind has been blowing in from the sea all week. It stirs up the dust and tugs at the patchwork tents that cluster in almost every open space. For all the recent changes in the city, this is still a pretty desperate place. All over Mogadishu, tens of thousands of Somalis live in these tiny shelters, some in the spectacular skeletal ruins of their own homes. Others have fled here over the years from famine or conflict. Elsewhere, the city has become a safe haven. Whether it stays that way is another matter. Technically, Mohammed the traffic policeman, now works for Somalia's Transitional Federal Government. Emphasis on the word transitional. Depending on your point of view, that government is either the latest flawed but brave attempt to forge a new state out of anarchy, or it's a Frankenstein's monster, a corrupt, illegitimate body created, paid for and protected by foreign governments. Packed with clan warlords and far removed from the lives and wishes of ordinary Somalis, Mohammed suggests the truth lies somewhere in between. He gets paid a hundred dollars a month. It's not enough, he says, but I think the government is getting better. People are beginning to listen to it, and to me, I still get plenty of threats at the roadblocks, but my whistle works well now. Mohammed's salary is paid indirectly by Western governments, and it's worth pointing out that although the Somali Transitional Government has now been up and running in one form or another for eight years, it's still not trusted to handle the cash. The United nations does that instead. Somali politicians seem to have a particular habit of pocketing most of their ministerial budgets. This week, in faraway London, some of those politicians have been gathering with foreign leaders to try to put the whole of Somalia back together again. The country has long disintegrated into a jumble of rival administrations, clans and warlords. Mogadishu is just one piece of that jigsaw. There is good reason to expect another failure. Trust is in short supply here, but in Mogadishu, there are at least hints of optimism. You can smell the city's fish market long before you reach the doorway. Inside, Bashir Yusuf Bari is shouting down his mobile phone, haggling over the price of shark meat. He's 44, a tall, boisterous man with a wispy, greying beard. He's just come in from a night's fishing on his small fiberglass boat. I ask him about pirates. They're scum, he says, But I haven't seen any around here recently. Bashir is vaguely aware that something happened in London this week. I'm no politician, he Sundays, but after 20 years, I think we've all had enough chaos. Our soldiers must defeat Al Shabaab. Now they've joined with Al Qaeda. There can be no negotiations. As for the transitional government, Bashir is not sure. I only trust bits of it, he says. You mean you trust the ministers who are from your own clan? I suggest. He laughs and nods. A man walks past us with a huge hammerhead shark balanced on his shoulder. He lets it drop with a thud on the floor. The flies move in and three scrawny kittens emerge from a corner and start to lick a pool of dark blood.
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Andrew Harding there's speculation that Japan might be about to abandon nuclear power altogether after the catastrophic accident at Fukushima, which followed the tsunami a year ago. Currently, hardly a handful of the country's 54 nuclear reactors are in use. It's far from clear whether the others, many now being safety checked, will ever be brought back online. In the meantime, the Japanese economy is tottering under a huge fuel import bill. But Jerry Northam says most people there would still prefer to do without nuclear power.
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At one level, Japan's self confidence has come through the tsunami intact. The physical clear up and reconstruction have followed the widely predicted and impressive path. A year ago, the waters dropped to reveal streets deep in the debris of collapsed buildings, boats stranded inland, battered cars, mud and 15,000 dead bodies. Today, in the historic fishing port of Ishinomaki on Japan's northeast coast, large areas lie stripped flat and ready for redevelopment. Near the waterfront by what was once a sprawling paper factory, a cordoned off compound holds piles of the wreckage, carefully sorted and ready for recycling. There's a 10 meter high mountain of vehicles stretching the length of two city blocks, then an equally long heap of broken concrete, then the metal, the electrical appliances, the mattresses. They do know about efficiency. As for the bodies, the crematoria, if they were left standing, were overwhelmed and incapable of meeting anything like the sudden demand for funerals. To the loud dismay of bereaved families, mass graves were dug and rapidly filled, each body covered and tagged with the promise that it would be disinterred within a year and given over for traditional cremation. Many families doubted this would happen, but it did, and Months ahead of schedule. What to many seemed the sacrilege of putting the dead into the cold ground has now been cleansed in the Buddhist rites of bells, chanting and fire. But Japan's belief in its future faces a much sterner test in the northern city of Fukushima, when the nuclear power plant was shaken by the biggest earthquake ever recorded to hit Japan, followed within an hour by the tsunami. It suffered cracks. Its cooling system failed, and it began leaking radiation amid hydrogen explosions. The area was evacuated. 170,000 people left their homes. Among them were the congregation of Fukushima's First Baptist Church, who fled with their minister to a Christian campsite in Tokyo, where they're still living as refugees. The Reverend Akira Sato relates how they've been allowed back to their houses only twice in the past year. On each occasion for just two hours. He says this was when it dawned on them that they may never return permanently. Last December, the Japanese government said it could take 40 years to decommission the plant fully and clean up the area. And it's this human made disaster which has proved most unnerving. Natural catastrophes like earthquakes happen so often in Japan that they're part of the culture explained and accepted as something like an ecological sneeze or coughing fit in the life of great nature. But it was people who built nuclear plants in a land marked by geological fault lines. And much of the response to the Fukushima disaster has been angry, even frightened. Last month, an anti nuclear group announced that it's collected 5 million signatures on a citizens petition calling for the shutdown of all Japan's nuclear plants. Some opinion polls suggest that a great majority of people agree. Following the tsunami, Tokyo's governor set off a political firework when he said that the natural catastrophe was divine punishment for the taint of egotism which had rusted onto the mentality of Japanese people. He was forced into an apology for for ignoring the feelings of victims. But parallel points made by leading academics and religious scholars about the lessons of Fukushima have not been met by public protest. Japan needs to become less dependent on electricity, they say. We've grown comfortable with the luxuries of life and we need to change direction. Others point to the altruism and heroism displayed in the aftermath of March 11th in the hope that they herald a decline of selfishness. But the more jaundiced recall that just such sentiments came and went after the terrible Kobe earthquake of 1995. The question for Japan's rulers, its power industry, and ultimately for the population itself is whether the added fear of nuclear meltdown means that this time life really will have to change.
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That's Jerry Northam. An Egyptian judge says he'll deliver a verdict in the trial of the deposed leader Hosni Mubarak on June 2. The former president is accused of complicity in the killing of protesters during the uprising that pushed him from power last February. There were more than 800 deaths during the disturbances. Many were demonstrators shot dead by security forces. Since then, clashes between the two sides have continued with protests in the capital on an almost daily basis. Sara Hashash in Cairo has been talking to some of those involved.
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At the end of a short passageway is the door to a small, smoky room with no windows, crammed full of wooden tables and chairs. Crushed glass and nutshells crunch beneath our feet on the sticky floor. It smells strongly of beer. We have arrived at a Balladi bar, a traditional Egyptian take on the drinking establishment. With red brick walls and simple furnishings, it is a rustic, no frills watering hole for locals. Despite an overwhelmingly devout Muslim population that largely shuns the drinking of alcohol, the Baladi bar has survived as an Egyptian institution and is one of the gems of Cairo nightlife. During the 1940s and 50s, the bars and nightclubs of downtown Cairo bustled with crowds of revellers. Many feature in the novels of Najib Mahfouz, the acclaimed Nobel Prize winning Egyptian author. Yet their numbers have since steadily declined following a growing wave of religious conservatism in the 1980s and a tightening of alcohol licensing laws. Faint music can be heard coming from upstairs, where, I'm told, a cabaret performance is underway. I picture an Arabian Moulin Rouge. The city's cabaret scene, once teeming with well known belly dancers, has also dwindled after being branded the seedy underbelly of Cairo nightlife. The bar's simplicity has a seductive charm. Red and gold tinsel hangs half heartedly from wooden beams on the ceiling. The regulars, middle aged men wearing flat caps, are seated at the bar. They sit transfixed by a television screen broadcasting news and sports bulletins. Occasionally they pick at the selection of nuts and steaming chickpeas on the plates before them, washing them down with gulps of Egyptian stellar beer. I'm with a group of young revolutionaries, artists, students and office workers who were out spraying anti military slogans across the city's walls earlier that evening. We are somewhat younger than the usual crowd but are given a warm welcome as we take our seats. A street vendor wanders in clutching a handful of peeled boiled eggs between his grubby fingers. They practically glow white. In the darkened room, he thrusts the eggs and Egyptian bread beneath our noses in an effort to tempt our appetites. In the corner, an artist from our group starts sketching the scene at our table. Clenching a yellow felt tip pen between his teeth, he concentrates on the strokes, his eyes moving up and down repeatedly. A young man and striking woman with thick black hair are having a heated debate in Arabic about the virtues of Pink Floyd versus the Beatles and swapping names of recommended music albums. The conversation beside me is not quite so frivolous. To my left sits Ali, a photographer and pro revolutionary demonstrator with frizzy hair. He's lost his voice and talks only in a rasping whisper. Exposure to tear gas in the recent riots, I assume. I soon find out that's not why. When he smiles, a circular scar forms in the middle of his right cheek. At a quick glance, it seems like a dimple. A closer look reveals it is a little too perfectly round. He stretches his neck to show me the scar from his operation. A clean line where the incision was made can be traced across the side of his throat. He was shot in the face. When a protest near the Egyptian State Television building at Maspero last November turned violent, the army opened fire and ran over demonstrators with tanks, killing more than 40. Ali spent two months in hospital. He has barely been out one month, but he was back down at the front line braving tear gas and birdshot during the latest clashes. Asked if he's not been discouraged after all he's suffered, he shrugs and says, I have to continue. I'm documenting the revolution. Across the table from him sits another young man named Ali in a bright multicolored yellow, green and red kufi hat. His trousers are tight and a little too short for him. He wears a white bag across his shoulders and retro style glasses with thick black frames. He has the air of an artist who has wandered out of Greenwich Village in New York. In fact, he is a newly recruited military conscript in the Egyptian army. He has just spent his week off throwing stones at soldiers guarding the interior ministry. He tells me military service is compulsory in Egypt. There are many others like me, he says. In a few hours he will go home and swap his ordinary clothes for military fatigues and report for duty. It seems ironic and incongruous that these two young men chatting idly at a downtown bar represent the two sides of a bitter struggle between military and civilian rule following the ousting of President Hosni Mubarak last year. Right, got to go, ali says. Draining the dregs of his beer. It is nearly 3am his shift begins at 5. You're going straight from the bar to the barracks? I ask. Adi, he says Arabic for it's the usual. To be honest, he adds, it makes it all more bearable.
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Sara Hashash in Cairo, British Pakistanis could soon vote in elections there as well as elections here. The Electoral Commission in Islamabad says its decision reflects the contribution made to the economy by Pakistani expatriates. It's a contribution which can be seen vividly in a town in the northeast corner of Pakistan called Mirpur. This has long been a place people have left in order to go to work in Europe. Close to half a million from this area now live in Britain, and as Alim Maqbool has been finding out, many send their money back to Mirpur.
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Mirpur's connection with Britain has made it a place quite unlike anywhere else in Pakistan. You can see it in the huge villas. Where could I get a place like this in the uk? Says Zahur from Ilford as we crane our necks to get a full view of his dazzling palatial creation, complete with terraces and towers. But even that is nothing compared to his most recent foray into development Mirpuri style. He's now finished building an entire British street. It's a home away from home for UK Pakistanis, he says proudly, showing me the little semi detached houses and their neat gardens that he hopes to sell on. They'll even have British style rubbish collections, I'm told. Not far away is evidence of another Brit who's invested heavily here. Raffae is rushing around his plush four story bakery and restaurant where he employs around a hundred staff. In the kitchens, he gives instructions on new cake designs. In the restaurant, he samples new dishes he's dreamt up. All my skills were learnt in Yorkshire, he says. Taught to me by my father. It's because of his hard work I'm where I am now. And the story of Rafe's father, Salim, is the story of Mirpur. In the 1960s, the original town where Saleem lived and scores of villages around it was submerged. With the help of an English firm, Pakistan had built a huge hydroelectric dam on the Jhelum river close by. It MEANT More than 100,000 people had to leave their homes. But the British government needed more workers at the time and decided to give many of the Mirpur evictees permits to go to the UK to work in factories in the Midlands and the north of England. Rafa proudly shows us a picture of his father working in a textile mill in Yorkshire. He worked hard, he says, and saved enough to open a small baker's shop in Bradford. Saleem's firm expanded so much it soon became one of the biggest manufacturers of Asian snacks across Europe, still based in Bradford. Eventually, he felt it was time to give back something to Mirpur and opened an outlet here. So Zahoor invested in real estate in Mirpur and Rafe's family in business. But many more expats over the decades have sent back money to their families here. The Pakistani government says its contributions like these, which have made it decide to allow overseas Pakistanis to vote in this country's elections, even if they're second or third generation. The Electoral Commission in Islamabad says even a quota for a number of seats in Parliament for British Pakistanis is under discussion. The news seemed to have gone down well with listeners of Mirpur's radio station, Rose fm, whose Phone in program is broadcast simultaneously in Mirpur and Bradford. It's like one community, just in two places, the presenter Ayesha, tells me. People from both here and there participate. They all have views about what's right and what's wrong in Pakistan, so why shouldn't they all get the chance to be involved in how the country's run? Not everyone's in agreement, though, including that property developer from Ilford, Zahur. How can we understand the issues unless we live here permanently? He asks. And politics in Pakistan is such a dirty, unpredictable business, it's better to stay out of it. He has a point. No government in Pakistan has ever seen out a full term in office, and. And the administration of Prime Minister Gilani is teetering as we speak. But then he raises, as he sees it, a bigger issue. I give it another generation or two, then these links will all be over anyway. Suhor says he feels a process of disengagement between Mirpuris in Britain and the place of their origin has suddenly started to accelerate, thanks to problems in both countries. In the uk, money's become tight, he says, and not so many people can afford to spare enough even to pay the expensive fares to fly here. So young people aren't getting to know the place. And in Mirpur, the authorities have managed things so poorly, says Zahor, it'll put people off investing. Rafe the baker has similar worries. Look at the energy problems in Pakistan, he says. Gas and electricity are unreliable, and it affects business. We're almost running our bakery here as a charity to. To help give people employment, but others won't be able to afford to do that. Fear about security in Pakistan is also likely to be playing its part. And it could all spell the beginning of the end, at least of Mirpur's reputation as Little Britain in Pakistan.
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And that's Alim Maqbool. 90 years ago, there was just one topic of conversation in Hollywood. Who killed the movie director, William Desmond Taylor. The Irishman had been found shot dead at his home, and despite a massive police investigation, the killer was never found. But now a new attempt is being made to unravel the secrets of this enduring Tinseltown whodunit. And as David Willis has learned, the investigators are hoping for a little help from beyond the grave.
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William Desmond Taylor would probably have rather liked the Prince Restaurant, a 15 minute drive from the home in which he died. The red leather booths and 19th century landscapes may well have conjured up memories of the island he left behind when he moved to America in his late teens. It was in the dimly lit basement bar of the Prince that the group came together on the 90th anniversary of his murder to compare notes and share their evidence. Members of the Ghost Hunters of urban Los Angeles, otherwise known as Gula. Or should that perhaps be Gu Hula, which is hoping to solve Movieland's first real life murder mystery with a little help from the supernatural. Four people turned up to Gula's first meeting back in 2008. Nowadays, it's not unknown for 150 to show their face. Skeptics are particularly welcome because, as the group's founder, Richard Carradine, pointed out, the ghosts love them and are more likely to come out and put on a show. But it's always been largely a social club, a gathering of those who like scary stories and are more given to consuming spirits than they are to tracking them down. Now, though, their ghostly remit is being expanded. The son of a retired British army officer, William Desmond Taylor became one of the most celebrated actors and film directors of Hollywood's golden age. Hence the uproar when he was found dead at his home one morning in February 1922, having been shot in the back. As with any good Hollywood whodunit, there was a long list of suspects, including a young starlet and her mother, both of whom were known to have had a crush on him. But despite this, no one was ever charged. Guler had invited its psychics to visit the murder scene, and Julie King stopped off there on her way to the Prince restaurant to a disappointment. There wasn't much to see. It turns out William Desmond Taylor's house was bulldozed several years ago to make way for a car park And a chance. Julie and her friend Ricky Niehaus spent nearly an hour in Julie's car trying to summon up the victim's spirit, but to no avail. Ricky told me later she had mixed feelings about these sort of expeditions. She was disappointed when the spirits failed to speak to her, but at the same time she always felt guilty for disturbing them. William Desmond Taylor's ghost has been spotted in the graveyard next to Paramount Pictures where he was buried, but is not the only famous spirit to be roaming Hollywood. Marilyn Monroe's image is said to appear on a full length mirror at the hotel where she was once a regular guest. The great lover Rudolph Valentino's ghost has been seen vamping it up virtually all over town. And the hotel room in which the actor Montgomery Clift stayed whilst filming From Here to Eternity is still said to echo to the sound of him rehearsing his lines. Richard Carradine believes Los Angeles has no rival when it comes to ghoulish goings on. Partly because of its turbulent history. The place is dotted with Native American burial grounds and reminders of both the old Wild west and latter day gang warfare. But also because there's a lot of what he calls weird energy here. Born out of LA's reputation as a place where the famous die young and the young die trying to be famous. It's those who never made it that provide the richest crop of other worldly residents. They crave an audience even in death, Richard told me. Not even in the afterlife, it seems, can these troubled spirits shed their desire to be seen and heard. One of the most active ghosts is said to be that of Peg Entwistle, a Welsh actress who had a successful career on Broadway only to move to Los Angeles and experience nothing but rejection. She ended up committing suicide by throwing herself off the famous Hollywood sign perched high in the hills above this town. And there have been numerous reported sightings of her in the area since then. So many, in fact, that staff at a local cafe are almost disappointed if a week goes by without Peg popping round to say hello. Most Gula members returned from the scene of William Desmond Taylor's murder without having managed to summon up the spirits of those involved. Although one reported seeing a woman holding a gun, but couldn't be certain who it was. Depending on how this investigation goes, the group might decide to sink its psychic teeth into another real life murder mystery in the hope that some of Tinseltown's most tormented souls might finally get the chance to rest in peace.
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David Willis, with ghoulish goings on in Hollywood, bringing this edition to a close. I'll be here again next week with more from our in correspondence on both Thursday and Saturday. Do join us. Goodbye.