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From Our Own Correspondent
A Giant Snake Comes to Town
00:28:10
Colour and analysis from around the world: Kevin Connolly says as much as a quarter of...
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Hello from the.
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From our own correspondence studios at Broadcasting House in London, you've downloaded the latest edition of the programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It's introduced by Kate Ady.
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Thank you. And hello. Today, a change of address for the kebab shop which once dished up opposite the Presidential palace in Damascus. The Seychelles used to be known as the Land of none. So how come it's now the land of plenty? We hear about the day a giant snake terrorized residents of a small town in Brazil. And how Parisians are getting through a difficult time of year, thanks to some rather special cakes and chocolates. But first, Greece has been back in the headlines. Not for anti austerity protests this time, but for a police operation against the far right Golden Dawn Party. Its leader and two of his senior colleagues are now behind bars awaiting trial, charged with running a criminal organisation. A spokesman for the party described the crackdown as a witch hunt and the greatest political crime in recent Greek history. But Mark Loen in Athens says many Greeks now support the authorities move against Golden Dawn.
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It is that moment that makes you stop and understand exactly what is happening. An image in the midst of covering a story that sticks in your mind above all else. And while I stood outside police headquarters in Athens the other day, that extraordinary moment came. Elected MPs and the leader of golden dawn dragged out in handcuffs, flanked by men with balaclavas and rifles. Politicians whose swagger and hubris were infamous, who appeared untouchable, who had made a name far beyond Greece for leading arguably Europe's most extreme party, suddenly crushed by anti terror police. That historic scene will stick in my mind for years to come. Not since the fall of Greece's military dictatorship in 1974 has there been a mass arrest of politicians like this. But now, after a party supporter was linked to the murder of a left wing musician, the government swooped. I remember my first brush with golden dawn before last year's Greek election. Suddenly, they looked likely to enter parliament for the first time. I traveled with them as they handed provisions to elderly, sick people who were grateful for help and voted accordingly. We believe in our race, one young female party worker told me. The immigrants are dirty and spread diseases. We Greeks brought civilization. We brought everything to the world. As we drove on, I asked how she'd learned fluent English. Had she spent time abroad? She frowned and then burst into laughter. Why would I leave Greece? She asked incredulously. I worship my country. Since then, Golden Dawn's support has soared. After winning 18 seats in parliament with 7% of the vote, it was suddenly polling 15% as the third most popular party. Stories abounded of black shirted members attacking immigrants, gay people and political opponents. Its Greek only food handouts were wildly popular. It had begun indoctrination classes for young children. Its rise seemed without limit. But since the police clampdown, more lurid details of this secretive organisation have emerged. An ex supporter told me of a price list of services offered to her by the party. Breaking an arm and leg, setting a car alight or putting someone in hospital for a month. Each had its own cost. Others talked of members being trained in the use of assault weapons. That text messages from party leaders would end with the words to destroy this message. Golden dawn has grown as the Greek state has begun to collapse. While confidence in official authority, be it the government, police or the judiciary, has crumbled. With the financial crisis, the far right party has stepped in. A friend told me of a woman who had left her house for several months and came back to find Pakistani squatters living there. She contacted the police who said it would take time for an official eviction to be organized and instead recommended she call Golden Dawn. They sent their heavies to take photos of the migrants. We won't do anything to you now, they warned. But unless you repaint and clean the house and then get out within a week we'll be back. A sort of parallel regime of fear in the country that invented democracy. That is what golden dawn had become. Its rise is perhaps the darkest manifestation of Greece's economic slump. That a country occupied by the Nazis which suffered a military dictatorship just four decades ago. The suddenly saw a section lurch to the far right. There is such revulsion here with the corruption and mismanagement of the mainstream parties, such despair after crippling austerity, that golden dawn appeared for some to be the answer. But perhaps it will now change. The party's ratings have already dropped. The conviction of its MPs would bar them from office. Many who had hit out by voting for golden dawn now think it's no better than a criminal group. The traditional Greek spirit has seen a revival in the tens of thousands who have taken to the streets to rally against Golden Dawn. At one of the huge anti fascist protests of the past fortnight, I met an elderly professor who was struggling to hold back his tears. I'm here because I want to show what Greece is, he told me. Golden dawn is not Greece. We are hospitable and warm, not neo Nazi criminals. This is indeed a deeply welcoming country, proud of its reputation. But as the social fabric has torn. A corner of that image has been tarnished, and for so many here, that is the saddest part of what has happened to Greece.
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Mark Loewen in Athens. These are tense times in Lebanon as the conflict rages on north of the border in Syria, the Lebanese have divided loyalties. The Shiites there tend to support the regime of President Assad, while the Sunnis back the rebel. The fighting's brought in huge numbers of Syrian refugees, and they're competing for jobs and resources at a time of severe economic crisis in Lebanon. One government minister in Beirut this week accused the international community of not doing enough to help the country with its refugee problem. Kevin Connolly says not all of those who fled Syria are poor and in need of support.
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The twin columns of meat release glistening streams of grease under the fierce heat of the grill, performing a slow, perfectly synchronised pirouette like two fat, sweating dancers. It's early lunchtime, and a little group of smokers among the customers has formed a kind of guard of honour around the doorway. The humid late summer air is warm and still and traps the greyish haze a few metres from the ground. Beirut is one of those cities where it's possible to passively smoke outdoors. Business at the Delicious Kebab store is steady rather than spectacular. It's not as though it was hard to get a kebab in Beirut before it opened, and that, of course, is a problem for the owners, but nothing compared to the problems they faced in their old location that was opposite the entrance to the presidential palace in Damascus. Delicious Kebab is owned by Syrian refugees. They're not the type of people who show up in UN statistics, living in tented camps and desperate for the aid and support which the outside world is quicker to promise than to give. Syrians don't need a visa to come to Lebanon. The policy is a legacy of the deep historical relationship between two old French colonies, so no one can be sure how many are inside the borders of Lebanon at any given moment. But lots of Lebanese think that as many as one in four or five of all the people inside the country at the moment might be Syrian. That's an extraordinary thought. Measuring the population of Lebanon is more of an art than a science at the best of times. There has been no official census since the 1930s because the country's constitution allots different powers to various ethnic and religious groupings according to a rough estimate of their relative demographic strength. Carrying out a proper head count might point to the need for a change in that delicate balance, and everyone understands the dangers of that sort of upheaval in a country whose fragile political relationships are still scarred by its own civil war. The stories of the Syrian refugees vary enormously. A few, very few, arrive with the money and the know how to start their own businesses. But I've met families living in an abandoned abattoir hanging the children's clothes up to dry. On the rusty old hooks were the carcasses of slaughtered animals used to be suspended above the gutters of blood. And everywhere you find signs of the Syrian presence, whether it's in the accents of newly arrived taxi drivers in Beirut who don't know where anything is, or in the stories of families paying extortionate rents to live in lock up garages. And Syrians are not the only refugees in Lebanon. There are still some Iraqis who fled the fighting in their country in the 1990s and who remain living marginalized and undocumented lives. And there are the Palestinians, hundreds of thousands of them, who fled the fighting in Israel in 1948 or who are descended from those who did. They remain in camps, waiting for history to turn in their favor. It is a grim wait too. They have been treated without generosity by the Arab state which hosts them. Saddest of all, perhaps, of the Palestinians who were long term exiles in Syria and who've now been forced to flee the fighting there to seek refuge in Lebanon. They are double refugees, and it's hard to see when life might even begin to improve for them. The fear for the Lebanese authorities is that the presence of so many refugees, with the threat that more might arrive if things get worse in Syria is. Is destabilizing. This is a small, poor country with a complex demographic patchwork. Both Sunni and Shia fighters are already traveling from Lebanon into Syria to fight on rival sides in the civil war there. There is always the danger that the war could follow them home, cross the border. Long running refugee problems create dangerous political pressures too. Most Lebanese believe that the arrival of armed Palestinian factions after their expulsion from Jordan in the early 1970s and was an important moment in the descent into civil war. Here, a delicious kebab. They are preparing for the long haul. They have got the product right. They fry the paper thin bread for the shawarma sarge until it is crispy and the sheaves of meat are furled as tight as a banker's brolly. I had two, one after the other. But Lebanon is not an easy place to do business with its high prices and patchy electricity supply. The owner assures me that they won't be here forever. But he says it might be five or even 10 years before they're back in business in Damascus. I ask if they plan to reopen at the gates of the presidential palace, and there is a pause and the flicker of a smile. Maybe a new location, he says.
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Kevin Connolly in Beirut. Brazil has achieved stupendous growth over the past decade, helping millions of people escape from poverty. But creating jobs and earning vast profits from mining and agriculture seem to have been of greater importance than protecting the country's spectacular environment and wildlife. One hears more about the Amazon, but it is in fact the Atlantic rainforest further south along the coast that is most at risk. Biologists estimate it's home to 60% of the planet's terrestrial biodiversity, including some very poisonous but endangered snakes. Kirsty Lang has been talking to a conservationist there who's created his own serpent sanctuary.
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Carnival was in full swing in the small Brazilian coastal town of Itacare when a giant snake measuring 6 metres long slithered down the streets, sending hundreds of revellers screaming into the roadside bars. Until recently, the snake would have been killed. The police were standing by with shotguns, but instead the local doctor was summoned. Dr. Rodrigo Sousa moved to the north eastern state of Bahia 12 years ago and developed a fascination with the rainforest and its wildlife. Now, whenever a strange creature ventures into a built up area, the doctor is called. He was even asked to rescue a group of confused penguins that had been swept up from the Falkland Islands by the mighty South Atlantic Current. Rodrigo identifies the Carnival incident as a turning point in his battle to save endangered species in this dwindling patch of Atlantic rainforest in which he's made his home. When he first moved to north eastern Brazil, it was common to see people illegally selling birds, snakes and monkeys on the side of the road. That rarely happens. Now the authorities have clamped down and the local people have become more aware of the importance of saving their unique ecosystem. On the day I drove to visit Rodrigo, somebody had stopped the traffic in the middle of the road to allow a snake to cross. But Rodrigo's real passion is the Atlantic bushmaster, one of the most poisonous snakes in the western hemisphere. Thick bodied and measuring up to three metres long, these majestic creatures have distinctive orange and black markings and heat seeking sensors under the eyes that allow them to lock on to warm blooded mammals. A human can die within an hour of being bitten unless they receive the right antivenom injection. There are 35 Bushmasters living in Rodrigo's private snake sanctuary, which has a no entry sign on the door with a Large skull and crossbones, he's been compared by the Brazilian media to Grizzly man, the American environmentalist who lived amongst the grizzly bears of Alaska until one of them killed him. Grizzly Man's life and death was the subject of an excellent documentary by the German filmmaker Werner Herzogen. But Rodrigo resents the comparisons. I'm under no illusions about my snakes, he says. They have no idea who I am and I know they would not hesitate to kill me. I admit to feeling absolutely terrified when he invites me into the sanctuary to watch him casually lift up a two metre snake with an instrument resembling a giant metal tuning fork. Before handling them, he zips into an insulated body suit that stops him from giving off too much heat. Meanwhile, I'm standing a safe distance away, trembling with fear, in shorts and a T shirt. The bushmaster has an almost mythological status amongst the indigenous people of the rainforest because of its attraction to heat. They call it the fire extinguisher and they've warned Rodrigo never to sit near an open fire in bushmaster territory because the snakes can leap a distance of several metres towards a heat source and at very high speed. He was once called for a road traffic accident where a bushmaster snake had attacked the headlamp of a passing motorbike. Dr. Rodrigo Souza is the first and probably only person ever to successfully breed the Atlantic Bushmaster. In captivity. He milks his snakes for venom, which he then uses to make an antidote for snakebite victims. The venom also contains unique medical properties of interest to cancer researchers. However, this majestic serpent is now under threat of extinction as its habitat disappears. Along with lion tamarins, cougars and woolly spider monkeys, Bushmaster snakes are one of the many endangered species unique to Brazil's Atlantic rainforest. Not to be confused with the mighty Amazon. The Atlantic rainforest once covered the entire coastal region from the northeast to to the Argentine border in the south. But now only 6% of it remains. A few tiny islands of green, most in the state of Bahia. And even these are under threat. There are now plans to build a railway right through one of the few remaining areas of virgin Atlantic forest. It would of course bring jobs, but for Rodrigo, who's been battling for years to preserve this unique ecosystem, it it's a slap in the face. For him, the railway would be an ecological disaster for the rainforest and his
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beloved snakes, Kjersti Lang in Brazil. Another place boasting enviable economic growth is the Indian Ocean, Republic of Seychelles. It wasn't always so. Only recently, its people endured a long period of tight state control that saw the economy stagnate and when shortages of basic goods were a daily fact of life. So how's the dramatic change come about? Tim Ecot's a frequent visitor to the Seychelles. He's been talking to the President about this economic revolution.
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The Runway at Mahe airport is built on reclaimed land that juts out into the sparkling shallows of the Indian Ocean. Flat terrain has always been in short supply on the steep granite slopes covered in lush tropical forest. Every time I fly in, I notice more roads and more houses clinging perilously to the mountainous spine of the island. The east coast between the airport and the tiny capital Victoria now features a large government housing estate, a wind farm with seven giant turbines and an artificial island where apartments, shops and restaurants cluster around artificial beaches and a marina filled with sailing boats and sleek motor yachts owned by an array of foreign investors. We're short of land, the President explained to me, and we've no choice but to create it ourselves for our increasing population and to ensure economic growth. Economic growth is a relatively new concept in Seychelles. Until a deal was made with the IMF and the World bank in 2008, the national coffers were empty and basic goods were all too often in short supply. Seychelles Central bank could count its current account reserves in days, not weeks. Biting the bullet and introducing significant structural reform fell to the President, James Michel. He's only the third president of Seychelles and took up the reins in 2004 after the retirement of the autocratic France Albert Rene. He'd originally seized power in a coup d'. Etat. Some wondered if Michel, who'd been Rene's vice president, was up to the job. But he's proved himself. A coterie of former special presidential advisors were sacked and a younger, professionally educated class of civil servants installed take control of key areas, including the economy. Tourism earnings have doubled, inflation is down from almost 25% to just about zero in four years. And the state sector wage bill has halved as a percentage of GDP in the same period. Seychellois used to joke that they lived in the land of Napa, the Creole phrase for there is none. Now the supermarkets are filled with French wine, South African vegetables and prime Australian beef. Gone are the days when the Parastatal Seychelles Marketing Board had a stranglehold on imports. But as President Michel explained in the newly restored colonial style mansion of State House, I want Seychellois to benefit from the growing economy, not just the foreign investors and tourists. Some senior members of the ruling party, Le Pep resent President Michel's enthusiasm for the free market. They preferred the old days when working in a government post was a job for life. I asked the once staunchly socialist president if, in the end, capitalism had won. I suppose it has, he said with a smile. The revolution was necessary at the time, but we now live in a different world. Away from the bustle of Victoria, albeit a city with only one set of traffic lights, the outer islands seem frozen in time. On Dennis, one of the most northerly coral islands, a small luxury hotel welcomes honeymooners, big game fishermen and scuba divers. The island is only a mile long and about a mile wide, and with just 25 guest villas, there's always a stretch of empty beach to call your own if just for a few hours. A Seychellois family runs the island, protecting the natural environment and rare endemic birds like the magpie robin, the blue pigeon and the black paradise flycatcher. There are no televisions in the villas and no telephone reception except in the central dining area. It feels like a true desert island until you wander away from the native forest, shaded by casuarina trees, sturdy Indian almonds and mangoes. In a clearing at one end of the island, there is a farm. Cattle, pigs, quails, guinea fowl, rabbits, ducks and chickens are being reared for the table. Mickey Mason, who runs the island with his wife Kathy, was pleased to tell me of his latest innovation. I'm feeding the cattle shredded coconut palm leaves, and they've doubled their milk yield overnight. The honeymooners on Dennis island marvel at the turtles in the lagoon and the giant tortoises with their prehistoric faces. They take for granted the succulent beef fillets, the feta and cheddar cheeses on the buffet and the duck breast in the stir fry. But for Cathy Mason, who was imprisoned during the one party era for allegedly plotting against President Rene, sending a few gallons of pasteurised milk and some boxes of eggs back to the main island of Mahe is decidedly more revolutionary, and it's part of the spirit of free enterprise that President Michel believes more Seychellois now need to embrace.
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And that was Tim Ecot. Now, this can be a trying time of year for the French. There's La Rentrae to contend with. That's the return to school and to work after the long summer break. It's also when the dreaded tax bills drop through the letterbox. But take a look at the papers and you'll see there's also room for more appetising fare. Article after article about Le Goutte. Broadly what we might call afternoon tea in France. It isn't just a national pastime. Among some, it's an obsession. Alongside these column inches, there are blogs and websites where Parisians are sharing treasured tea time experiences. Joanna Robertson in Paris says goutet has become part of the French soul.
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My favorite goutet mmm, jean Baptiste smiles. My mother made it a golden pan olet split in half and filled with a bar of hazelnut chocolate. The roll was this long, he measures carefully with his hands, and the bar of chocolate fitted exactly. If the bread was just a little too short, the chocolate would jut out at each end and I'd nibble all that bit off first before biting into the soft, sweet roll and the firm, creamy chocolate inside. And that crunch of toasted hazelnuts, he swoons a little over the counter of the small tea room where he works. Its pain e raisins Raisin pastries have just been judged the best in Paris, but Jean Baptiste is in another world, transported back to the taste of childhood. Coming up to half past four on a weekday afternoon at kindergarten and primary schools across France, crowds of mothers, fathers and babysitters gather at the gates, chatting, wheeling prams, pulling dogs on leads, and all carrying goute. Perhaps a paper bag from the bakery filled with chouquette small pastries studded with sugar or pain au chocolat or little almond cakes. Maybe baguette with butter and jam, or chocolate caramel spread and all kinds of biscuits. Everyone goutets, says Josien. And she should know. She's worked at one of the most famous Paris Bakeries for over 20 years. It's a real tradition. I always goute. It gives me that little oomph to see me through till dinner time on weekdays. It's delicious but sensible, she explains. A chausson aux pommes apple puff or a warm brioche and some squares of very dark chocolate. But on Sundays it's a grand affair. Fresh cream, meringues, chocolate eclairs, that kind of thing. On a bitter winter's afternoon more than a hundred years ago, a Monsieur Marcel Proust writer was taking his gut, a crumbling a morsel of plump petite madeleine cake, into a spoonful of hot tea. Lifting it to his lips, he experienced a sensation so intense, so unexpected, it inspired a novel of seven volumes, his masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time. Whether Proust Madeleine was the chicken or the egg, so to speak, who knows? But legute has a profound emotional significance for the French. It reson in their soul as much as their palate. All inspiration begins with emotion, declares MasterChef Michel Bras. He, like Proust, experienced an intense emotion whilst eating goute and for the next two years worked hard in his kitchen to capture that exact moment in a cake. A sublime cake. Le biscuit de Chocolat Coulomb served warm, running with chocolate. Whether it's that captured moment or simply the chocolate, it's been thrilling French taste buds ever since. Championed by top pastry chefs and gastronome journalists, Goutet for adults is fashionably sophisticated. Vive le concept. Elegant tea rooms and chic boulangerie sell haute cuisine versions of childhood favorites and grand cru blends of hot chocolate. Master pastry chef Philippe Contesini is a huge Goutet fan. He's revolutionized French patisserie, using his petit madeleine concept after Proust, to arouse emotional pleasure and deep memory through taste. His chic Paris left bank, la Patisserie de Revre, the cake shop of dreams, is scrawled with artistic graffiti. C' est la rentree Viv Lagoute. It's back to school. Hooray for tea time. Inside his delicious cakes, reinventions of French classics stand elegantly beneath glass domes, surrounded by stacks of pink goutette boxes with Miam Yum written on the side. I decided to test le concept goutette at Grassroots. Popping a Contesini Paris breast feather light choux pastry filled with succulent praline and cream, dusted with powdered sugar into a Yum goute box, I headed off for the school gate. Mmm, s good, said Miranda, age 7, licking her fingers. But I'd still like a Viennoise aux Chocolat from the corner bakery. So off we go to join the queue. The little boulangerie rolo bakes and sells a centene. A hundred of these sweet soft breads a day, as long as half a baguette, lavishly filled with dark chocolate chips, immensely popular for goutet and demolished by the average French primary school child. In. In a little under five minutes. Now, that, says Miranda, is what I call a goute.
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And that's it. Joanna Robertson in Paris, making a lot of people rather hungry bringing this edition to a close. There'll be more from our own correspondence on Thursday and Saturday of next week. Do join us. Goodbye.