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From Our Own Correspondent
A Kafkaesque Nightmare
00:27:40
Insight. Analysis. Colour. In this edition, people in the German town of Montabaur try...
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You have downloaded from our own correspondent. This edition is the latest one broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and here to introduce it is Kate Ady.
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Hello. Today, discussions at critical point at the Iran nuclear talks in Lausanne. A deal would send shock waves throughout the Middle east and beyond. British personnel head home from West Africa after taking part in the battle against Ebola. At least one of them is thinking about tomatoes. We get acquainted with the latest trend in California. You might think it nerdy, but in the Sunshine State they say its future is huge. And the BBC name on the lips of African presidents. It lifted roadblocks and opened doors from Abidjan to Mogadishu, Bamako to Kano. Nearly two years of negotiations over Iran's nuclear program are currently reaching a climax in the Swiss city of Lausanne. The end of the month, next Tuesday has been set as the deadline for the Iranians to reach a framework agreement with the United States and the other major international powers, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany. At stake is a deal to regulate the country's nuclear program. In return, there's a promise of an easing of the international sanctions imposed on Iran. Jim Muir, who lived in Tehran for nearly five years when he was the BBC's correspondent there, says the high pressure talks are being watched closely by other players the region. The implications if agreement is announced could be far reaching.
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It was nearing the end of October 2003, the deadline set for Iran to come clean on its nuclear activities or face referral to the UN Security Council and probable international sanctions. In a dramatic 11th hour mission, the then British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw flew into Tehran for the fifth time with his French and German counterparts to try to add one crucial extra piece to the jigsaw puzzle. If Tehran agreed to sign the so called additional protocol that would bring its nuclear activities under close inspection, the Europeans would guarantee technology and supplies to help Iran produce peaceful nuclear energy. After intensive talks with the top Iranian negotiator Hassan Rouhani, agreement was announced. Iran would sign. It was a breakthrough. We filmed. Jack Straw told us he was pleased and we ran to tell the world. That's when our Kafkaesque nightmare began. We spilled out into an empty echoing corridor in the normally deserted, strangely circular palace where the talks had been held. We ran from end to end to find locked doors, nobody around, wrong floor, back into the lift, up to the next floor, same thing, down two more floors. That's where we were before, back to the first floor, just in case. Still wrong. This went on for about 15 minutes, during which we veered between hysteria and and incredulity as we went up and down and round and round without issue. The place seemed to be an architectural prank. A building with an entrance but no exit. A cunning trap. I imagined the news desks back in London, where the as Muir got to their trusty correspondent couldn't even find his way out of the building. Well, we did, of course, eventually get out. But the deal that had been agreed ended up being about as elusive as that palace exit. Iran did sign the protocol and for a while suspended its nuclear enrichment activities. But it wasn't long before it all unravelled in a welter of hostility, mutual suspicion and mistrust. Hardliners hostile to the west won the Iranian parliament a few months later, and in 2005, the tough and mercurial Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president. The following year, the UN imposed sanctions on Tehran for cheating on the deal, and the Americans and Europeans tightened them, punishing Iran's oil industry and other vital sectors. Painfully, the whole issue went into the deep freeze. The election of Barack Obama in 2008 brought an excited welcome from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but there was no meeting of minds, despite Mr. Obama's evident openness to mending fences with Iran. The two countries had been estranged since the revolution of 1979 and the hostage taking at the US embassy in Tehran. And despite numerous attempts, they never managed to tango at the same time. But then two years ago, a surprise election victory for Hassan Rouhani, that same pragmatist who negotiated the deal with Jack Straw and Others back in 2003, the genial new president quietly reached out westwards. The groundwork was laid for the current talks aimed at making Iran's nuclear operations transparent and blocking potential routes to weaponization in exchange for a gradual easing of sanctions that would not only begin Iran's international rehabilitation, it would also mark a big thaw in relations between the Great Satan America and that axis of Evil member, Iran. But there are hardliners on both sides who don't want it to happen. In Tehran, they're just waiting to trip President Rouhani up. And even with the support of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, there may be a limit to how far he can go. In Washington, hostile Republican senators took the extraordinary step of writing to the Iranian leadership to save President Obama would not be able to implement any deal reached. The US Congress even received the electioneering Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who gave a tub thumping speech denouncing any such deal, bringing his relations with Mr. Obama to an all time low. The Israelis are not alone in their suspicions of Iran's intentions. The Saudis and other Gulf Arabs, Sunni rivals of Shia Iran, fully share them. They know that a breakthrough between America and Iran could change the region's geopolitics radically, and they don't like it. Given the track record, a nuclear deal would be something of a miracle. But then, in the Middle east, miracles do sometimes happen. And just as in that strangely circular palace in Tehran, there might just be a way out.
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And that was Jim Muir. Next to the German town of Montauban, where there's a deep sense of shock this morning, its people are trying to come to terms with the fact that one of their own, the pilot Andreas Lubitz, deliberately crashed his Germanwings plane into a mountain in the Alps, killing all the passengers and crew. Police have searched the family home there and have been talking to Lubitz's friends and relatives as they try to piece together why he acted as he did before the ghastly events of this week. This town in the southwest of the country, not far from the city of Koblenz, wasn't widely known even in Germany during these last few days, though news teams have been there in force. Among them Jenny Hill.
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Montebauer is famous for its yellow castle. It's the first thing I see as we drive towards the town. On either side of the road there are pretty gentle slopes covered in pine trees. But then suddenly, up on the hill, there it is. Tall, custard walls tipped with fairy tale turrets. There's something faintly comic about it, or there would be if circumstances were different. Right now, this splash of baroque sunshine above an otherwise nondescript grey town seems utterly inappropriate, because not long afterwards, I find myself standing outside a very different property. A little rain falls on the tiled roof, streaks the beige walls. The curtains are closed. There's no car on the drive. This is where Andreas Lubitz lived with his parents. It's a well to do area, neat lawns, tidy drives. I imagine him walking through this quiet housing estate on a hill above the town. He's described here as polite, quiet, friendly, unremarkable. Around the corner, I get chatting to one of the neighbors. Melanie's face is sad. She puts down her little boy, gives her arms a rest as we talk. It's horrible, she says. I'm so sorry for his family, because the families of the victims will be looking for someone to blame. But what can you say? He took 149 people to their deaths. An older couple walk past us up the hill. Her Arms tucked into his. There's a look on their faces that I've seen a lot in the last few days. Utter bewilderment. I see it again later that day when I visit the town's gliding club. It's a few minutes drive from the Lubitz family home and it's bleak. There are no aircraft out. A cold wind flattens the grass, the shutters on the hangar tightly closed. This is where Andreas Lubitz first learned to fly. Suddenly, there's engine noise. A burgundy car drives up and a man gets out, his jumper stretched over his stomach. Dieter's just popping in to the club, he says. His wife opens her passenger door, looks us over as we chat. Yes, he says. He'd known Andreas Lubitz for a good few years. He'd obtained his glider's license here as a teenager and came back recently to renew it, he says. He opens the door to the flying club. It's dingy inside, aircraft crammed in next to one another. He points past a brightly polished wing to a glider at the back of the shed. That's the one he flew. Everyone here has heard by now that investigators found sick notes in the 27 year old's flat in Dusseldorf. Andreas Lubitz split his time between the city and his parents house here. They've both been searched. Prosecutors say they discovered the sick notes, including one for the day of the crash, torn up in the apartment. Evidence, they say, which supports their theory that he was hiding an illness from his employers and colleagues here. People are also keenly aware of reports circulating in the German press which suggest his mental health was fragile. Dieter looks away for a moment, clears his throat, and I see that bewildered look on his face. I had no idea, he says. I'm just in shock. It's impossible to understand. There's a shout. It's Dieter's wife, impatient to get going. He manages a rueful smile. And then they're gone. The airfield is quiet again. I wander into the town centre, past a whitewashed church with two tall spires. On the main street there are a few shops, a few restaurants, but few people smile. And there it is again, that look of incomprehension. And I was reminded of something the Lubitzes neighbour Melanie had said earlier. She was sad, she'd said about the town's future, how now it would always be associated with the plane crash. The airline Germanwings issued a statement yesterday saying they'd had no idea Andreas Lubitz had any kind of health problem. In time, no doubt, there'll be investigations into how the pilot managed to keep his secret. Montebau is a small town, just 12,000 people. I imagine many of them are wondering the same thing. There are still police outside his parents house, still camera crews in the town, and that castle's still there. No one can tell me why it's such a violent shade of yellow. Right now. I'm not sure anyone cares.
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Jenny Hill in western Germany High spirits on the Atlantic Ocean this weekend, I should think, as the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship Argus heads home from Sierra Leone, she's been part of the British contribution to the fight against the deadly Ebola virus. The outbreak, which has taken more than 10,000 lives in three West African countries, will apparently be over by August. That's according to the head of the UN Ebola mission, who admits mistakes in handling the crisis were made early on. The charity Medecin Sans Frontieres agrees its report this week was severely critical of the international community's slow response. 700 British military personnel have been deployed in the region. Hannah King was aboard Argus as she prepared to weigh anchor.
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I bet she'll have some in her handbag for me, says Dave, eyes twinkling as he pushes the remnants of some macaroni cheese around his dinner plate. The little ones that explode in your mouth. He's talking about tomatoes because he hasn't tasted one since October last year. Dave is the chief engineer aboard RFA Argus, which set sail from Cornwall five months ago and since then has been providing support for those working to eliminate the disease. And their work isn't over yet. Despite the forecast from the head of the UN Ebola mission, there's been a fresh surge in cases in Sierra Leone and another one in Liberia just weeks before it was due to be declared free of the virus. Argus contribution to the fight has been huge. Whilst anchored off the coast of Sierra Leone, she's been a launch pad and home to a marine assault squadron and their landing craft, as well as a flight deck for 820 Naval Air Squadron and their three helicopters. Below deck there's a hospital, complete with CT scanner labs and an entire operating theatre. As I peer through the glass doors to the critical care unit, the wards are silent. Not a patient in sight. This is a good thing. The ship's hospital was there only to treat troops unlucky enough to fall sick whilst on deployment. Sick with conditions other than Ebola, that is. In the blissful absence of catastrophe on board, the medics have been busying themselves with innovative schemes. Warrant Officer 1 Jim Robinson, a bashful Scottish medic, quietly tells me about a project he started which enables them, for the very first time, to take blood from sailors and perform apheresis at sea. Apheresis is the process of separating blood platelets from red blood cells. The platelets can then be sent to a hospital onshore, where they are used to help Ebola patients. The airmen and sailors are clearly proud of their involvement in this unique deployment. They've been delivering supplies and aid to some of the remot noticed parts of Sierra Leone. Operation Herring, for example, effectively saved a small island off the coast from starvation. They didn't have any cases of Ebola there and as such had effectively been quarantined, cut off from the mainland and the virus, but also from their source of food. As I wander around the ship, I notice Hessian sacks of intriguingly shaped blocks of wood. Small cork shaped ones, larger conical chunks. Do you know what they are? Asks Lt. Scott Harding, my media minder. I stare blankly back at him. It's in case we get a hole in the ship. You use chunks of wood to mend holes in a ship?
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Yep.
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There are a handy variety of shapes and sizes, depending on whether you've been hit by a bullet or a torpedo. You ram that into the hole, then you take one of these. He reaches for what looks like a washing up bowl, pop that over the top and then wedge it in place with a beam.
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Or beam.
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Something similar, I guess. Sometimes the simplest solutions just work the best. In the engine room, chief engineer Dave's team show me the guts of the ship, its thundering engines with their giant exhaust pipes, the waste processing unit containing millions of microscopic bacteria which digest the poo created on Argus. And behind a flashing, alarmed, 6 inch thick metal door, the osmosis plant which turns the tons of salty liquid that surround them into drinking water. Filters fit for a king. In the engine control room, young apprentice Shane cracks open a fresh can of iron brew, that sweet, bright orange liquid that instils pride in every Scotsman. Matt's eyes ignite. Got any more? Maybe, says Shane coyly. Ten pounds. I'll give you ten for it. The deal is done. More than you'd be robbed of in even the swankiest Edinburgh establishment. But to Matt, it will taste like the finest of wines. They were so chuffed that you came and filmed them, says Dave, sitting next to me, the macaroni cheese now all but gone. We need more young engineers like them. He's still fantasizing about food. A chicken Caesar salad and a nice crisp glass of icy Sauvignon Blanc, he muses. Then his thoughts turn to family. Since we left, I've missed my daughter's 21st, her engagement party, my mother's 80th, my birthday, Christmas. I haven't been at home for Christma for four years. This is all I ever wanted to do. But maybe it's time for a career change. He's half joking, half serious. The months on end spent away from family must take their toll. A job on land. Now that would mean tomatoes whenever he wants.
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And that was Hannah King. The American state of California is generally reckoned to be a trendsetter. It's not necessarily that things are invented by people in the Sunshine State, but they're often early adopters, even the earliest of all adop. And once a craze gets going there, others often pick up on it. Think raves, sourdough bread, skateboards, hippies, a whole smggers, board of drugs, sushi and all manner of other things. They all started life out there on the west coast. Owen Bennett Jones has been to Los Angeles in search of the next big thing and he's come across a subculture which has its own language, which outsiders are quite unable to penetrate.
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There's a cloud chasing meet and I want to win and no, not the clouds in the sky. So here's the setup. I want a sub ohm rechargeable authentic mech mod so that I can crank up the power. And a metal rebuildable atomizer drip tip of course. And then a wire coil with a dual silica wick. I know it's old fashioned but you know what? I've never liked the eco wool and steel mesh. I haven't seen one of those for months now. That's for the cavemen. Nic level 3mg and tell you what, let's go for organic kosher shazamazam. It's a bit like the grape candy you can get in Korea if you've ever had that. Any idea that is vape talk. The new vocabulary that surrounds e cigarettes. There's a whole new subculture. There are hundreds of vape shops in California. Over a thousand some say. And they come in all shapes and sizes. There are chic ones which look a bit like bars. There are loungy ones where there are sofas for customers to sip a coffee as they vape. And there are arty ones with rap music, grey concrete floors and pictures for sale on exposed brick walls. Inside the shops there are vaping magazines, some showing lingerie clad women puffing away at their e cigarettes. And there's already a Whole industry in accessories, clothing, carry bags and wooden cases for the juice or e juice. That's the liquid that you vaporize. The scientists say there's not yet enough evidence to be sure what harm smoking e cigarettes or vaping will do. There are a number of question marks. First of all, what about the nicotine? A lot of the damage done by cigarettes comes not from the nicotine, but from the process of burning tobacco and inhaling the smoke. The latest U.S. surgeon General's report took a look at what harm nicotine itself can do and concluded, it's bad for fetuses, it's bad for adolescents, brain development. But there's not enough evidence to say whether or not it causes cancer. Some scientists advise using the precautionary principle and suggest either banning e cigarettes or maybe changing the tobacco tax into a nicotine tax. And after all, if large enough numbers, get addicted to vaping, and then it's discovered there's a medical problem down the line, what then? Would controls at that point become politically difficult? There are other issues. Are the flavorings and other ingredients safe? US Officials have warned that some of the flavorings being used are safe to eat but dangerous to inhale. Also, if the e cigarettes get too hot, do metal particles get into your lungs? And if set up wrong, can they blow up? That has apparently happened, causing serious injury and in at least one case, death. Others argue that without strong evidence of harm, there's no case for controls on vaping. But still, in some parts of California, restrictions on vaping indoors and in public spaces are coming in. The state, it seems, is leading the way not only in vaping, but also in the control of vaping. And having spent a few hours in some Los Angeles vape shops, I can say there does seem to be a passive vaping effect. I left the shops with a dry mouth and the feeling anyway that some of the nicotine floating around in the air had ended up in my system. But vaping enthusiasts have few doubts. Their evidence is mostly anecdotal, but there are a lot of people saying that vaping has helped them quit smoking. Take Colin Ring. Tall, fair haired and clever. He lives in Los Angeles and hopes to study dentistry. A year ago, he had a serious medical problem and after surgery on his stomach, had to quit smoking. So he took to vaping. It's all about harm reduction, he says. He now works in a vape shop and says he's steadily reducing the amount of nicotine he inhales and has the final objective of getting to zero. At which point, he says he would stop vaping altogether. There is a bit of social vaping, he says, but most see it as a way of transitioning to becoming nicotine free. In fact, the emerging vaping subculture is quite hostile to the big tobacco companies, and there's a fear that the cigarette manufacturers see vaping as a threat and will get in on it by making E cigarettes themselves. In fact, that's already happening. Or that they will use their lobbying power to regulate vaping out of existence. But for all that Colin sees, a big Future for vaping. 2015 is going to be huge, he says. Vaping's here to stay. You might think it's nerdy, and there are some vaping snobs who look down on people who've just started, but you always get that for me, he says. It's got a new age feel that technology is changing every month. Hey, it's just in its infancy.
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Owen Bennett Jones in Los Angeles Now a few drinks were taken at Broadcasting House in London last night. Some memories shared, some anecdotes told. One of the big name was leaving, and this time there was no frakker, no fists to report. It was Mark Doyle, a frequent contributor to this program, usually from West Africa, saying goodbye for his colleagues. Last night it felt a bit like the end of an era. Andrew Harding, himself a long time Africa correspondent, explains why roadblocks can be tricky
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things, not least for journalists. Grenades brandished at car windows on narrow roads. Bored kids with big guns looking to make a point. Sometimes a piece of official paper will get you through, or cigarettes, or lots of smiles. But often, and without wanting to sound too melodramatic, the difference between safe passage and something much nastier can boil down to a word, a name. Saying BBC has helped me plenty of times, certainly more times than it's hindered. I've shouted it out in Chechnya, Afghanistan, Somalia. In 2011, we were waved down by sullen armed men on a country road in Ivory Coastal. I could see four, maybe five people tied up in the bushes nearby, staring at us in silent desperation. Are you French? The commander asked menacingly. We don't like the French. A few days later, further south, I had to beg for the life of our local fixer. He was a Muslim. The soldiers made him kneel by a ditch, a barrel jabbing the back of his neck. But saying BBC is only a small fraction of the story. If the name carries any magic on empty roads in troubled countries, it is only because of the journalists associated with it. A few months ago I was in Sierra Leone covering the Ebola outbreak and driving around with a man called Umaru Fafana. In Britain, you may have heard some of his reports on the BBC, but in Sierra Leone, his is an altogether different level of fame. There is, I'm sure, no equivalent in Britain of Umaru. At any spot nationwide, he is instantly recognized. Soldiers grin, demand a photo with him, then wave us past. Over decades during Sierra Leone's civil war, when he was shot and jailed, Umaru has earned the respect that visiting journalists like me now shelter beneath. And there are plenty of umarus across Africa reporting for the BBC World Service. But there is also another name, a British one. It greeted me at the airport in Liberia just last month as it's greeted me over the years in Abidjan, Kano, Mogadishu, Bamako. Mark Doyle. Are you Mark Doyle? The taxi driver asked Hopefully. BBC. Ah, Mr. Doyle. Where is Mr. Mark? Do you know him? Send him our greetings. It happens every time. Mark has been reporting on and in Africa for the past 26 years. Not just parachuting in for the big stories, but living here, seized by an impulse to question, to understand, to get to the bottom of things. Now, this week he's leaving the BBC. He's a tall, forceful but self effacing character who will probably find all this rather embarrassing. Too bad for his is the sort of foreign reporting that matters, that endures. Mark covered the genocide In Rwanda in 1994, a deployment like no other. He stayed longer than any of us, his colleague Fergal Keene remembers. Those who were in that awful place at that awful time will know what Mark Doyle gave for the cause of truth and for the BBC. Canadian General Romeo Dallaire was in charge of the United nations peacekeeping force trying to stop the genocide. He remembers a friendship forged under the constant threat of snipers, mortar, artillery, courage, determination, street smarts, astute and ethical beyond reproach. That was Mark Doyle, the general told me. Sir David Richards has his own stories. He was in charge of British forces struggling to stop Sierra Leone Civil War in 2000. He describes how Mark and Alan Little's reporting helped convince his bosses of the need for a more robust military intervention. Hence, he said, the saving of thousands of Sierra Leonean lives that would otherwise have been at huge risk. Another of Mark's BBC colleagues at the time, Paul Danaher, describes how they made an experimental journey across the country to test the strength of the new ceasefire. Child soldiers waved them down at a rebel checkpoint outside Freetown. Guns were pointed. And then Mark said good morning. And the mood changed. They recognized the voice. In a country where children were being forced to murder each other, the man in the car represented a quality that had almost entirely vanished. Trust. No wonder Mark himself tells of being ushered unexpectedly to meet African presidents who, having heard him so often on the radio, felt like they knew him as a friend. I could go on, but you get the point. And lurking behind the nostalgia of this farewell speech there is a broader point. Africa is changing fast, booming in some places. Twitter, mobile phones, a glut of information in more and more hands. But this is still a monstrously unequal continent and there is no substitute for the journalist who knows that you don't find real news online behind a desk. You find it down unnamed paths beyond unpredictable roadblocks.
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Andrew Harding, currently in Lagos on Mark Doyle. We'll miss him. That's it. More correspondence stories next Saturday. Do please join us. Goodbye.