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From Our Own Correspondent
Bangladesh's deadly measles outbreak
00:28:42
As vaccinations rates dropped, measles cases have soared leading to hundreds of deaths.
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- [00:00]
Kate Adie
Hello. Today, a show of unity at the Bastille Day celebrations in France. But deeper divisions are opening up ahead of next year's presidential election. In Albania, outrage over a Trump family tourist development spills over into national politics. Is the prime minister listening? We're in Ecuador, patiently waiting to spot some of the country's rarest birds, and we're duly rewarded. And finally, we remember the BBC's former Rome correspondent, David Willie, who died last weekend. But first to Bangladesh, which is experiencing a severe measles outbreak with more than 700 people dying of confirmed and suspected cases since March, most of them children. Before the current surge, the World Health Organization said Bangladesh had made substantial progress towards eliminating the disease. But that progress has quickly come undone, in part because of political decisions stretching healthcare facilities to the brink. The BBC South Asia correspondent Azadeh Mushiri reports from a hospital north of the capital.
- [01:11]
Azadeh Mushiri
I put on a mask, and still the smell of sweat seeps through. Air thick with heat and humidity presses in on me. Walking through this measles ward in Miman Singh feels like wading through liquid. It's enough to exhaust you in minutes. As I look at the faces around me, those of the dozens of parents lying on the floor, I know they're weighed down by so much more. Many of them are cradling infants in their arms, fanning them, trying to offer them some relief. Children writhe in the heat, their parents fear hanging in the air. As I look at the babies, I notice some bare telltale signs of their disease, a rash over their faces. The head of the division is accompanying our team and tells us the ward has twice as many patients as it can handle and that only the most severe cases are given beds. I haven't seen an outbreak like this in all my years of service, Dr. Gholam Mollar tells me. I follow him through to one room. At the end of the hall, there lies Arafat. He's four months old and nestled in between his parents, a large bandage covering his nose to keep an oxygen tube in place. He's wide awake and his eyes stare back, fixed on my face, but his arms and legs are in constant motion, like he's riding a bicycle. It's stiflingly hot and he's uncomfortable. He has pneumonia and heart failure, complications from measles, the doctor says. But he's getting better, he assures me. Arafat's father, Alam Mia, says They've traveled nearly 10 hours to reach this hospital, the second one they visited in two weeks. My baby isn't getting better, Alan Miya says, contradicting the doctor standing right next to us. He's grateful to the hospital, he says, but he's still terrified. Before the outbreak, Arafat had been too young for a measles jab. Had vaccination rates not dropped around him, he would have faced less danger. And yet measles hadn't been a big concern in Bangladesh for years. If anything, Bangladesh was an immunization success story. As far as the UN's children's agency, UNICEF, was concerned, vaccination rates were above 90% until recent years. Now hundreds of children have died of confirmed or suspected cases of measles in just months. What is happening is the result of a perfect storm. According to unicef, the COVID pandemic delayed routine jabs, and there have been no nationwide vaccination campaigns until this year. But UNICEF also claims that the former interim government, led by Muhammad Yunus, delayed vaccine orders, opting instead to consider new vendors and renegotiate prices. UNICEF claims the delay caused vaccine shortages despite its repeated warnings. When I reached out to a senior health official under the interim government, he denied any shortage and said while UNICEF had raised concerns, there was no specific warning about a potential measles outbreak. I traveled to Ashulia, a city three hours away from the capital, Dhaka, to meet one of several families we've spoken to who say they face this shortage firsthand. Neela Akhta and her husband share a one bedroom apartment with their four year old daughter, Muntaha Muskan. At 10 months old, their second child, Maliha, was already due for her first measles jab earlier this year. Neela Akhta says they were turned away at their local clinic. The doctor told them there were no vaccines left. Maliha was diagnosed with measles a month later and died in April after weeks in and out of multiple hospitals. Mohammed is in the corner listening to his wife. He's clutching a piece of orange fabric. What is that? I ask him. It was the last piece of clothing Maliha was wearing when she was put on life support, he says. I look at it and it's completely torn apart. In tears, he explains, the doctor was forced to cut it. Neela Akhtar takes the shirt and says even with all those tubes and machines, she would still reach for me, trying to crawl into my lap. These tragedies are proof of how quickly progress can unravel, with the most vulnerable most at risk. When I sat down with Bangladesh's health minister, he insisted the number of cases and deaths are declining, thanks to an emergency vaccination campaign yet still every day there are nearly a thousand new cases and children are dying. Days after our visit to the measles ward in Mimensing, we return home carrying the stories, shock and grief of those we met. That's when we receive news that lays bare the reality of the outbreak. The four month old baby we had met at the hospital, Arafat, had died. He was his parents only child, Azadeh Mushiri.
- [06:07]
Kate Adie
This week France celebrated Bastille Day, which marks the beginning of the French Revolution. This was the last parade under President Emmanuel Macron, who steps down from office next year. It was a show of French military power and a celebration of unity with its allies. But how guaranteed are France's future relationships? Ahead of the 2027 presidential election, candidates from the far right and left are positioning themselves as serious contenders, which could have a profound effect on the country's foreign policy. James Waterhouse reports from Paris.
- [06:44]
James Waterhouse
When it comes to the global stage, appearances matter. And France wasn't going to let its Bastille Day celebrations pass by without sending a message to its friends and enemies abroad. This year's parade along the cobbled Champs Elysees would be President Macron's last and coincidentally, my first. At its core, 14th July is a celebration of the values and culture that bind together the French Republic its people live in. Today, the pride among those involved or watching is palpable. Thousands of soldiers in their bright dress uniforms take pictures of each other before the procession begins. I'm here to see my boyfriend. It's quite an honour, explains one woman leaning against the barrier before she adds, it's a pleasure too, because they're handsome. I laugh with her before she gently changes tone to make a serious observation. This year there are Ukrainian soldiers taking part, so clearly it's more than a parade, she says. President Macron had been open about this too. Notably, his guest of honour was Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Bastille Day was about showing how France and Europe were united and strong, to use Mr. Macron's words. This was illustrated with 7,000 French military personnel with 100 or so troops from the so called Coalition of the Willing, a group of mostly European countries who've pledged to support an eventual ceasefire in Ukraine. To be precise, 315 armoured vehicles rumbled towards the Place de la Concorde as 98 planes, including French made Mirage fighter jets and 31 helicopters flew overhead. This was France telling its enemies that it will and can defend itself and its NATO neighbours. The country has already offered to protect the continent with its own nuclear deterrent. However, the French were also sending their American allies a message that they in Europe were committed to boosting its defence with less help from Washington. The whole spectacle was an undeniable flex. Watching on President Zelenskyy would have surely wished he had the same sophisticated weaponry at his disposal, even if Kyiv's drone technology is the envy of many European countries. At one point he gave an enthusiastic clap when a French made Caesar howitzer was driven past a cannon his troops have been using extensively on the battlefield. We notice one warm interaction between a mother and daughter, with the latter in her full dress uniform, complete with red trousers, a sword and oversized golden epaulettes. My daughter is in military school, she explains, so it's a special day. Her emotions are also laced with an acknowledgement that the dawn of her military career is coinciding with a continued ground war in Europe and a redefining of Western security values. Because of what's happened in other countries, I know my daughter will have to go too, she says. I ask her whether she's worried about how safe Europe is. Of course, is her reply. Emmanuel Macron has been trying to unite the continent against the threats it faces and in terms of defense and technology, make it less dependent on the us. The Bastille Day display was a muscular show of strength and unity, but with Donald Trump ever less invested in security across the Atlantic, few believe it's enough for them to stand up on their own. But if attempts at French stability can be hampered by the volatile geopolitics, domestic goings on are hardly shoring things up either. As the presidential election looms on the horizon in April next year, there is no shortage of speculation on which candidates will be throwing their hats in There is the very real possibility that the next French president could be sceptical of the European Union or NATO. Among them is the far right leader Marine Le Pen. Last week the Paris Appeal Court upheld her conviction for misusing EU funds, but a five year ban on holding public office was reduced and is now considered served. She can run for office as long as she wears an electronic tag. Despite losing twice to Emmanuel Macron in previous elections, she's now leading the opinion polls, and she stated that if she were to finally become president, she would take France out of NATO's military command structure, though wouldn't leave the alliance entirely. That's not the case. Over on the far left, where Jean Luc Melanchon has already announced he's running for president, he has said he would go a step further and pull France from NATO entirely, calling it a tool of US influence. The impending nine turbulent months of domestic political jousting was briefly masked by this year's Bastille Day parade. It is, after all, a celebration, and the thousands who attended had a shared identity and history they were proud of. So why not use the occasion to show off? Argued one man, an ex soldier who's wearing a customised T shirt reading Ma fille de fille, meaning his daughter was taking part. I think it's important we show some muscle today if we want to be respected, he argues. It's vital to send a message to the whole world, especially to our potential enemies, he said.
- [11:40]
Kate Adie
James Waterhouse In Albania, the pink flamingo has become an unlikely symbol of protest. Every night for more than a month, thousands, thousands of people have been gathering in the capital, Tirana. They stand outside Prime Minister Edi Rama's office and call for him to resign. Many of the protesters carry cutouts of flamingos, reflecting the environmental concerns over a proposed tourism development. But as Guy Delaunay discovered, the unhappiness runs deep.
- [12:11]
Guy Delaunay
As the sun sets in Albania's capital, Tirana, an enormous pink flamingo is passing above my head. This rapidly changing urban environment is not, of course, the protected bird's natural habitat. And in real life, flamingos are considerably smaller than the huge model winged figure making its way through the crowds. A group of young people are holding rods to guide the bird's flight from below. The atmosphere is festive, with parents leading small children by their hands. Street vendors are doing a roaring trade in caps and flags displaying the Albanian national symbol, the eagle. But the dominant bird is the flamingo. It would be wrong to paint this as just a piece of street theater. Behind the spectacle, there's genuine anger, and that's driven people to stage nightly protests outside Prime Minister Eddie Rana's office. They've been doing this since the end of May, and the flamingos were the initial trigger. Every year, the birds migrate to Naarta Lagoon at the top end of the Albanian Riviera, just where the Ionian Sea meets the Adriatic. The surrounding area is a protected nature reserve and the flamingos a protected species. On my trip there, I didn't see many people. The sandy beaches are virtually deserted, and there are none of the ugly concrete developments that have sprouted up further down the coast to serve Albania's recent dramatic tourism boom. The birds easily outnumber the human population, but local campaigners have long been concerned that tourism developments could put the special environment at risk. They're particularly alarmed by the government's granting of special investor status to a number of overseas developers, including Jared Kushner, the son in law of US President Donald Trump. He wants to develop a high end resort close to the lagoon along with another one on a nearby island. Special investor status would allow him to do that, even if it's in an environmentally protected area. Local people like Bakki Gorjai have been protesting against the plan for some time. He takes me down to part of the beach with a row of concrete patches stretching towards the water. That's where they put the fence, he tells me. Public beaches are protected by law and can't be privatized, but they fenced off 7km to make a private beach. The outrage might have remained localized, but then private security guards patrolling the fence beat up a local protester while Albanian police stood by and watched. Video of the incident spread rapidly on social media, and suddenly frustration that had been building up for years burst out onto the streets of the capital Tirana, now Albania's capital, is no stranger to mass protests. The opposition Democratic Party has been holding them for years, and they've not always been as peaceful as the recent Flamingo demonstrations. Thankfully, the tactics of lobbing petrol bombs at the prime minister's office hasn't been used this time round, and the opposition don't seem to be playing any part in the nightly rallies. Indeed, participants hold placards calling for Democratic Party leader Sali Berisher to be jailed for corruption while demanding the same treatment for Prime Minister Edi Rama. The Flamingos and the Trump factor might have grabbed the initial headlines, but it soon becomes apparent that the protesters discontent comes down to the most basic issue of they want a better life in one of Europe's poorest countries, not special treatment for billionaire investors and their equally wealthy cl. I'm here for my country, a young woman called Helena tells me. I'm here for our schools, I'm here for our hospitals. I'm here for our infrastructure, she continues. And then she adds a plaintive note that reflects the fact that tens of thousands of mostly young Albanians leave the country every year. I'm mostly here for myself, she says, because I want to stay in my country and I don't want to leave. The next day, I sit down with Eddie Rama in his office. It's decorated with his own artworks and scattered with colored pens so he can doodle whenever the mood takes him. But the renowned extrovert seems somewhat subdued. He reminds me that his party has won repeated elections with impressive majorities. Most recently, just last year, he applauds the people on the streets below for exercising their democratic rights. But he adds that power is transferred through the ballot box, not through protests. And he continues to insist that Jared Kushner's projects will bring billions of euros in benefits for Albania and its people. So are there any points he's willing to take from the protesters? I'm listening, he tells me. Sometimes even your worst enemy is saying something you need to think about.
- [16:49]
Kate Adie
Gai Delauni Ecuador is one of the best places to watch birds anywhere in the world, boasting some 1600 species, almost twice as many as the whole of Europe. Unsurprisingly, birding tourism is thriving with a proliferation of local guides and wildlife lodgers, and an increasing number of farmers are transitioning from cultivating the land to setting up bird reserves. Stephen Moss has been ticking off some
- [17:18]
Stephen Moss
rare spots on any trip to Ecuador. It's the avian superstars, the mighty condors, extrovert toucans and countless colourful hummingbirds that fire up most visitors imagination. But on my second visit to the country, I'm struck by a more obscure, elusive and frankly bizarre group of birds, those that spend their whole lives deep in the tangled undergrowth of the remaining patches of primary rainforest dotted along the eastern slopes of the Andes Mountains. My guide, Juan Carlos, has already warned me that the trail we'll be walking along can be very hit or miss. Rainforest birds are famously fickle. I have in the past spent many, many fruitless hours searching without seeing a single one. And even though they may occasionally call or utter a few brief notes, getting a proper view good enough to identify the species with any real certainty is a time consuming and often frustrating process. And today the clock is against us too. With just a couple of hours until sunset, we won't have time to walk along the whole trail. But sometimes you just get lucky. And today is that day. We've barely started down the trail when Juan Carlos gestures silently to a momentary movement on a mossy covered tree trunk just a few yards in front of us. Greater scythe bill, he whispers, his voice shaking with barely contained excitement. And there it is, sporting the long downcurve bill that gives the species its name, this member of the Neotropical woodcreeper family looks a bit like our familiar tree creeper, but on steroids. 30 centimeters, almost a foot long and a rich chestnut brown colour, the scythe bill clings to the side of trees, using its impossibly long bill to winkle out insects from their hiding places amongst the moss. With the species confined to a Narrow belt of high altitude Andean forests stretching from Colombia down to Peru and classified by Birdlife International as near threatened. This is a very memorable moment. And that's only the start. Moments later, a small and apparently unremarkable bird appears in the dense vegetation just below the path. Dull yellow below, olive green above, it reminds me of a super sized willow warbler. It may look fairly ordinary, but it has, in my view, the most bizarre name of any of the world's 11,000 species of bird. It's a living, breathing Oleaginus hemispingus, which literally means oily half finch. The Hemispingus is swiftly followed by the even briefer appearance of Spillman's tapakulo, a bird only discovered as recently as the late 1930s by the Austrian ornithologist, after whom it was named, Tapaculos. The name translates from Spanish as cover your arse because of the bird's wren like habit of cocking. Their tails are a near mythical family. They hardly ever show themselves, which explains why until today, I had never managed to see even one during my six decades as a birder. But astonishingly, this unusually extrovert tapiculo does emerge, shooting across the trail and posing to sing. I glimpse it for a mere fraction of a second, during which time seems to slow down, allowing me to register a small, plump, dark bird looking directly at me before it vanishes as swiftly as it first appeared. Later that evening, over a celebratory round of beers, Juan Carlos confesses that he has previously tried to see the greater scythe bill at least 30 times. It never succeeded until today. His joy at finally catching up with this elusive bird is infectious. But there's a serious side too. His job, along with many others in the Ecuadorian economy, depends on the wildlife tourism industry, which in turn depends on the continued survival of these birds and the places where they live, which are now under threat from the combined consequences of habitat loss and the climate crisis. Were we exceptionally lucky to encounter that trio of specialized and sought after species in such a short time? Yes, of course. But it felt like a fair reward for so many fruitless hours, days and weeks spent in these unique habitats when the birds so often failed to co operate. I'm reminded of the distinguished golfer Gary Player's famous comment. It's funny, but it does seem that the harder I practise, the luckier I get.
- [22:02]
Kate Adie
Stephen Moss and finally, veteran BBC correspondent David Willey died last weekend at the age of 93. I remember first meeting him in Eastern Europe in a scrum of reporters chasing A Soviet defector through an airport. Our target tried to evade us by sliding quickly through the airport gate. David, tall and lithe, leapt over it like an antelope clutching his tape recorder and interviewed a now smiling man as he boarded his plane to freedom. Years later in Libya, a bad tempered Colonel Gaddafi was rebuffing all attempts from a large press corps for an interview. David commented politely about the colonel's attire and 10 minutes later got his exclusive interview. My colleague Joanne Cayford worked as David's producer for many years.
- [22:55]
Joanne Cayford
When you work with a foreign correspondent, you form a peculiar and lasting bond. You share stories, ideas, travel arrangements, food, stress. You can be in each other's pockets for 18 hours a day or more. And when it works, you become friends long after the demands from the news desk stop coming in. I first met David Willie not in Rome, but in Astana, Kazakhstan. It was a freezing October evening in 2001 and Pope John Paul II was about to arrive. Setting up the satellite phone on the snowy hotel roof, I wondered if my correspondent, even then in his late 60s, might need a gentler pace than others. I was not prepared for the lively gentleman in ski gear who would tirelessly file copy all night and be up chasing the Popemobile. The next morning. David and I followed John Paul II all over the world. Mexico City, Warsaw, Toronto, Bratislava, Valencia, Pompeii. David would usually be on the papal plane, call a shepherd one, and I would travel in advance to get him on air the moment he landed and escaped the paper bubble. Often a close run thing. But I don't think I ever saw David lose his cool. I lost mine with him only a few times, perhaps once in Lourdes when shortly after he'd had a hip replacement, David tried to hurdle a fence, and once in Mexico City when he insisted on climbing one of the pyramids there and I had to run up after him. He was a man of great enthusiasms, with a passion for people and stories, and above all, for Italy. David had been based in Rome since the early 1970s and secured as the BBC bureau, an apartment in the Palazzo Doria Pamphili. Within minutes of the Pantheon, you reached the bureau via a huge, creaking double door and a tiny clattering elevator. It had high painted ceilings and a gallery next door with paintings by Caravaggio and Tintoretto. You could, David wrote, look down over the piazza where exactly 400 years ago, Galileo came to show off his new invention, the telescope. In the final year of John Paul II's papacy, I spent a lot of time Working with David in Rome and we had a routine. I'd arrive from London bringing as much of his favourite ear gray tea as I could carry. I would get up when most of Rome was still asleep and walk to the Pantheon, one of the rare times of the day when it was empty. I'd pick up the newspapers and say good morning to Bernini's elephant, the statue outside the beautiful church Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, and then to David's office where he would be putting the finishing touches to his morning bulletins. At about 8:30 local time, an archbishop or cardinal might pop in to do thought for the day for Radio 4, and then the highlight of the morning, a rich hot chocolate in the Palazzo bar next door, next down to the Vatican to do Television Lives and where David would join the papal press corps for his expert insight into the Catholic Church and the papacy. He would be swamped by request for interviews. David could expound in English or Italian on anything from the constitution of a conclave to where the Pope might get his distinctive red shoes. He seemed to know everyone at the Vatican, from the Swiss Guards to the guides at the Sistine Chapel. David wrote biographies of John Paul II and Pope Francis. When Leo XIV was elected in 2025, David joined an audience to meet him. He said afterwards, hadn't it come to something that even the popes were getting younger than him now? As he got older, David moved out to Trevignano Romano, a beautiful town north of Rome, steeped in Etruscan and Roman history. It sits on the edge of the magical Lake Bracciano, where even in his latest years he would try to swim whenever he could. I'm in hospital, my dear, David said in a message just before I was due to visit in May. I'm coming anyway, I said. I've got you some more tea. I stopped off in Rome, where it felt like no time had passed. It's the Eternal City, after all. But the bureau is no longer in a palazzo and the staff at the bar there looked at me curiously when I ordered a hot chocolate in the 30 degree heat. The pantheon is still there, of course, and I said hello again to Bernini's elephant. But nostalgia can only take you so far. Up in Trevignano, as Lake Bracciano glittered in the sun, I went to meet David and his beloved partner, Judy. Now 93, David was tired and very frail, more so than I'd ever seen him before. But I made him a cup of the tea I'd brought from London, as he asked after his many old friends from the BBC. We chatted until he tired and I left him so that he could rest. When I went to see him the next day, I somehow knew it would be the last time we'd meet. We both knew, but it was impossible to say goodbye, so we didn't. We just said we'd see each other again soon. And I went to sit by the lake to think how lucky I'd been to have known our Rome correspondent, Joanne
- [27:43]
Kate Adie
Cayford, remembering David Willie, a true professional and a lovely man. And that's all for this week From Our Own Correspondent was produced by Serena Tarling and Polly Hope. The editor was Richard Fenton Smith. I'm Kate Ady and you can hear more stories from around the world on From Our Own correspondent on BBC Sounds, including Lise Doucet's dispatch from Tehran reporting on the Ayatollah's funeral and Iran's future, and why Italian classes are all the rage in Argentina. We'll be back with a new episode next Saturday.
- [28:22]
Joanne Cayford
If you've got a scrolling problem, then this is the podcast for you.
- [28:25]
Stephen Moss
It's called Top Comment.
- [28:27]
Joanne Cayford
With me, Matt Shea and me, Marianna Spring. We both investigate media for a living,
- [28:31]
James Waterhouse
whether it's disinformation, conspiracy theories, Internet culture, memes.
- [28:35]
Azadeh Mushiri
We're going to be getting behind the
- [28:37]
Joanne Cayford
stuff that is popping up on your feed on this podcast that's Top Comment on BBC Sounds.