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From Our Own Correspondent
Gaza’s future
00:28:40
Arab leaders convened in the historic city of Cairo to draw up a post-war plan for Gaza
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- [00:00]
Ray Winstone
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.
- [00:07]
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- [00:37]
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- [01:09]
Helena Bonham Carter
BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts hello.
- [01:14]
BBC Correspondent / Narrator
Today we're in Poland, where fatigue and fear over the war in Ukraine is shaping the forthcoming presidential election in the U.S. we hear how the state of Oregon tried and failed to decriminalize drugs. We meet the Erin Brockovich of Malaysia, who's been uncovering uncomfortable truths about the country's recycling plants. And we're on the shores of the Mekong river, where three countries meet and where China's influence is on the rise. But first, Arab leaders met for an emergency summit in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, this week to devise a plan to rebuild Gaza and to counter President Trump's controversial proposal to relocate more than 2 million Palestinian people in order to develop what he calls a Riviera of the Middle East. Egypt is playing an increasingly important role in trying to forge a new regional peace and revive the long standing aspiration for a Palestinian state. Our chief international correspondent Lise Doucet traveled to Cairo to report on this new Arab resolve to to move forward. But she found herself also being pulled back into a tumultuous history gone by.
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Lise Doucet
There's something about Cairo that pulls you back in such a wonderful way. In the storied heart of this teeming city, history lives in the crumbling mansions layered with dust, the balconies edged with ironed lace, the graceful arches, the windows screened by carved wooden latticeworks. The Mashrabiya grand homes and elegant apartment blocks of times gone by evoke stories of old families, old eras, the Cairene houses architects describe as the soul of the city. And now, in these early days of spring, when you can still feel the last bite of winter, Cairo's urban jumble is festooned with the bright lanterns of Ramadan in the Islamic holy month of fasting, canopies of shimmering tinsel crowning the streets, yet more reminders of the cherished, unchanging rituals. I hadn't been to Cairo for so many years, and delight was sparked anew to feel this city's special spirit. Memories came rushing back, and not just the history so visibly written into its architecture, but the history now hidden in memory. Most of all those heady months of 2011, when Egypt was plunged into what was known then as the Arab Spring, the unprecedented peaceful uprising which toppled a president for life, Hosni Mubarak. When I wandered down some streets, I remembered how they were thronged by young activists marching fearlessly towards riot police, brandishing batons and tear gas canisters. When I walked past the refined apartment blocks, I could still visualize the residents who stood at the gate with brooms and sticks, whatever was at hand to watch over their homes after the police just melted away. And unexpectedly, so many journalists I met on this visit shared a memory of those days gone by. Remember when we were in the crowds who massed in the epicentre of the uprising in Tahrir Square? Someone recalled our interview in 2015 with the Barrister Amal Clooney who defended press freedom when journalists from the Al Jazeera TV network were sent to prison. Someone else reminded me of the day we went to the palace to interview Egypt's president Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, who came to power via a post revolution military takeover. He's still in charge, still ruling with more power than even President Mubarak, more than any Egyptian leader of modern times. But the past is not yet past, even if it's almost never mentioned in public discourse. This week, one Egyptian MP bravely called for the release of the country's most prominent political prisoner, Allah Abdelfattah, the blogger and software developer active in the so called Arab Spring who's been languishing in prison even after he finished serving his sentence. That Tahrir Square Liberation Square, once the beating heart of Egypt's revolution, has been erased from physical space. Now it's just another busy roundabout, a destination for tourists seeking to explore a far older and more enduring history. In the imposing Egyptian Museum rising over the square housing an impressive collection of ancient artifacts, more than A decade on, many young Egyptians still remember the more recent glory, but now they worry about their future in a region broken by all too many wars and their own painful economic woes. In October 2023, Tahir's identity was suddenly and momentarily revived when thousands packed this square again, this time in protest against Israel's war on Egypt's border in Gaza. Egypt, like the rest of this region, is now living through another unprecedented moment. This week, Arab leaders gathered for an emergency summit in Cairo, not in the old crowded city I've been describing, but in New Cairo, the shiny new megacity which has risen from the desert. They met to respond to an urgent challenge to develop a plan to rebuild war ravaged Gaza once this war ends, which could push away the controversial proposal of President Trump, who speaks about Gaza in the language of a property developer. He calls it a demolition site, a ruin to rebuild into a shimmering beach run property. But more than 2 million Palestinians would have to move out. Some in Israel have called his plan visionary. But Arab leaders, indeed many in this region and far beyond, see Gaza in the history of the land of the rights of Palestinians to remain in their neighborhoods that generations of their families have called home. So many of their houses, their streets, their trees have been leveled in this war, triggered by Hamas's assault in 2023 on communities in southern Israel. But something precious survives in Gaza. Each family's personal history, a people's history, their culture and traditions, even breaking their Ramadan fast in the midst of towering mounds of rubble. This is a region where the past still lives in the present, still sticks to physical space and to people's sense of self and place.
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BBC Correspondent / Narrator
Lise Doucet Increased uncertainty about the future of Ukraine is fueling a sense of unease in neighboring Poland, where some feel Vladimir Putin still ambitions to rebuild the Russian empire. When Russia launched its full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Polish people welcomed millions of Ukrainian refugees into their country. Three years on, attitudes are changing, the mood perhaps less welcoming. But the question of how safe Poland is remains and is a topic of ongoing discussion in the current campaign to elect a new president. Adam Easton is in Warsaw.
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Adam Easton
A friend of mine has decided to invest in a start up building low cost underground bomb shelters, he says. There's a lot of interest, explains Midosaw Koznovsky, the 38 year old green Party deputy mayor of Milanuvik, an affluent small town just outside Warsaw. He's gone full on interested in survival stuff. In the last three years he's done courses on how to live in the wild he went on as we shared a cup of tea. Miroslaw, along with many Poles, is anxious about the impact of President Trump's move to suspend military aid to Ukraine last week. The crisis is on everybody's mind, he says, and we're all feeling nervous and apprehensive about the future. The fresh faced, energetic deputy mayor says he tries not to spiral into doomy thoughts. In fact, he's hopeful that centuries of cultural and business ties between Poland and the US will endure longer than than the present administration in Washington. But like almost everyone here, he doesn't trust Vladimir Putin to keep his word. If a ceasefire with Ukraine is agreed, Europe must enforce any deal with peacekeeping troops on the ground, says Miroslav Pol suffered under Russian occupation during the 19th century and endured a Moscow installed communist regime for much of the second half of the 20th. So when Russia launched its full scale invasion of Ukraine, most Poles empathized with their plight, with many taking traumatized refugees into their homes. Among them, Mr. Krasnovsky hosted Victorian Slavik in his home in Grozis Mazaveci. Today, the office worker and farmer, both in their 40s, have moved back to their home near Dnipro. Mr. Kasnovsky has told them they are welcome to return anytime. Three years on, he admits there is what he calls creeping fatigue among Poles towards Ukrainian refugees and migrants. There's now 2 million of them living here, making Ukrainians by far the biggest group of foreigners in the country. And Like President Trump, 52 year old Dr. Sebastian Nyonsky thinks some Ukrainians have not shown enough gratitude for the help they have received. I've seen a lot of thanks from Ukrainians, but also a lot of people who say, well, you give it and we take it. At his private practice in a gated community in the small town of Brevinuf, just down the road from Milanuvik, the doctor, whose grey hair is tied back in a ponytail, tells me it's because Poles have a different mentality to their Eastern neighbours. Catholic Poles share what we have, he says, reminding me of the saying Poles have that the guest in your house is the God in your house. He tells me a story about two Ukrainian workers he paid to renovate his kitchen. They disappeared after two days when they found a better offer, he said. I thought it was my bad luck. But then I heard lots of stories like that. Anti Ukrainian sentiment is being fanned by a small hard right political group, confederation, that complains about Ukrainians receiving generous benefits and taking Polish jobs. Such issues are much talked about now because Poland is in the midst of an election campaign to choose its next president. The vote will take place in May, and Confederation's candidate is gaining traction, polling in third place at this stage. Dr. Johnsky says he's against giving benefits to any Ukrainian tourists, taking advantage of Poland's open border policy. But he says Ukrainians who have chosen to settle here should have access to free healthcare because migrants are helping to build the country. Dr. Johnsky believes President Trump is a straight man who has praised Poland for spending more on defence than any other NATO member. But he concedes Mr. Trump is a businessman at heart. We can be sold. After the Second World War, half of our country was taken away and given to Russia, he goes on. That's what's happening to Ukraine now. He describes President Putin as a ruthless criminal. I ask if he is worried he might invade Poland. I think we are safe for three to five years, he replies. After some thought, a pair of teddy bears on the shelves of the clinic prompt me to ask if he has children. Yes, four sons aged 12, 14, 17 and 24, he says. My wife and I would joke when the boys were being born. There's war ahead, he says. Now it's not a joke because I'm sure the boys would fight to defend their homeland. When I saw Trump's row with President Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, I told my wife, we need to renew our passports, he said, only half smiling. Dr. Johnski believes Western Europeans would not fight for Poland. Only a strongly armed Poland can stand up to Putin, he says. Even so, he's weighing all his options, including the fact that one day it might be him who has to pack his bags and leave. I think New Zealand is a fine country, he deadpanned.
- [13:23]
BBC Correspondent / Narrator
Adam Easton. The US government imposed new tariffs on China this week, a country President Trump has blamed for exacerbating America's fentanyl crisis. In response, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said the root cause of the fentanyl issue lies in the US itself. There have been efforts to reduce drug deaths in America in recent years, with some states focusing less on prosecution and more on treatment. The first state to decriminalise the possession of small amounts of hard drugs was Oregon, back in 2020, a decision it came to reverse at the end of last year, in part because of the unprecedented harm caused by fentanyl. Martin Venard has been to the famously progressive state to look at what's been happening.
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Martin Venard
It just grasps you and it doesn't want to let go. Bill tells us he's Talking about fentanyl, which caused a huge rise in overdose deaths in the US in recent years. Bill is a small man in his early 60s with a shock of grey hair. His weathered features are an indication that he's been an addict for most of his life. He says he first tried fentanyl in Alaska when it was the new drug on the block and was soon hooked. Two years ago, he drove south in his pickup from Alaska to Oregon's biggest city, Portland, to live with a friend. A couple of years prior, people in Portland and across the state had voted for something called Measure 110, which decriminalised the possession of small amounts of hard drugs. It sought to replace criminal punishments for addicts with treatment and to boost the required health care services widely seen to be severely lacking in the state at the time. Fentanyl is dangerously addictive and far more potent than heroin. In 2023 alone, some 1400 people died from an opioid overdose in Oregon, a five fold increase on 2019. While deaths are now falling sharply, fentanyl remains the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18 to 45. Bill overdosed once himself, but says his main fear at the height of his addiction was not death, but not having any fentanyl to smoke and getting sick from withdrawal. Portland has a reputation as being a liberal city in a staunchly Democrat state where assisted dying and the sale of marijuana are legal. And measure 110 changed the role of the police, who, rather than arrest users, would hand them $100 fines, which would be waived if they sought treatment via a hotline number. Critics say the policy failed in part because the necessary rehab services were never fully put in place, all while addiction rates rose. On a downtown street, you pass three people sitting on a wall openly smoking drugs. Across the road, dozens of tents are pitched on a highway embankment, which is home to many more users. On the corner of an abandoned lot, we meet Max Williams, a smartly dressed former Republican state congressman. He campaigned successfully for recriminalization by the state legislature. He says that decriminalisation led to what he describes as a dystopian feel to downtown Portland, with big increases in drug use, overdose deaths and retail crime. We meet only a few weeks after recriminalisation, but Max says there are already fewer users on the streets, with the police again able to arrest them. In a coffee shop in nearby Salem, we meet Sergeant Aaron Schmautz. He's wearing a jacket emblazoned with the letters ppa, the Portland Police association, the union he now heads. He insists that Measure 110 was doomed to fail, he says. It saw the police as the problem and made it more difficult for them to deal with the issues associated with drug use and tackle the dealers. Sergeant Smautz says that while he agrees with a health based approach to addiction, some treatment providers distrusted the police and that led to a lack of cooperation with officers. Fentanyl addict Bill did sign up for treatment early last year before recriminalisation to Recovery Works Northwest. He was referred by a friend who was concerned by his downward spiral. Recovery Works was one of the beneficiaries of Measure 110, which also directed tax dollars from the legal sale of marijuana to treatment providers. Bill says he spent a nightmarish but ultimately successful week in its detox centre, finally coming off fentanyl with the on site medical staff prescribing medication to help his withdrawal. I don't want to have to go through that again, he says with determination. The centre's director of engagement, Joe Bazegi, takes us on a tour of the modern treatment facility and tells us that it's specifically fentanyl and not decriminalisation which was responsible for the soaring overdose deaths. Now, if addicts are arrested, they could go to jail unless they complete a treatment program which will continue to be funded from marijuana taxes. After detox, Bill continued his treatment for six months and in supervised accommodation and is still clean. It may be too early to tell if recriminalization is working in Oregon, but Bill is certain of one thing that his treatment saved his life.
- [19:06]
BBC Correspondent / Narrator
Martin Venard.
- [19:11]
Grainger Advertiser 1
If you're an H Vac technician and a call comes in, Grainger knows that you need a partner that helps you find the right product fast and hassle free. And you know that when the first problem of the day is a clanking blower motor, there's no need to break a sweat. With Grainger's easy to use website and product details, you're confident you'll soon have everything humming right along. Call 1-800-GRAINGER clickgrainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
- [19:41]
Grainger Advertiser 2
If you're the purchasing manager at a manufacturing plant, you know having a trusted partner makes all the difference. That's why hands down, you count on Grainger for auto reordering. With on time restocks, your team will have the cut resistant gloves they need at the start of their shift and you can end your day knowing they've got safety well in hand. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
- [20:14]
BBC Correspondent / Narrator
Next, we're in Malaysia, which has become a global hub for recycling. An estimated 5 million tonnes of plastic waste is exposed to exported to Malaysia each year, the majority of which comes from the world's richest countries. But does it really make a difference? Liana Hosea went to find out what happens to the plastic packaging, electronics and old refrigerators which arrive there.
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Helena Bonham Carter
Diving down into the Sulawesi Sea off the island of Sipadan and neighbouring Marble, are some of the most beautiful coral reefs I've ever been lucky enough to experience. The marine life is incomparable. I saw a green turtle that was as big as me and probably about 70 years old. A large school of Chevron barracuda swam around me, creating a whirlpool of silver. But in some places, I also saw plastic bottles and even nappies hanging off the coral and bouncing along the ocean floor, wading onto the shore of Marble. The plastic got wrapped around my legs and I felt as if I'd been swimming in a rubbish dump. The owners of the dive school I was attending organize an ocean clean every week, but it's a Sisyphean task, as within hours, the sea is full of plastic again. I was in Malaysia to follow the trail of plastic waste exported here from the UK and other nations for recycling. Because despite Malaysia's inability to deal with its own waste, it's also the world's number one destination for foreign plastic waste. To get access to plastic recycling sites, I met Emily Tan, an estate agent who has spent the last decade helping to open plants like these across Klang, an industrial area west of Kuala Lumpur. But it's something she now regrets. I stopped my job because air pollution and water pollution is getting worse, she told me. Emily now uses her business connections to enter factories to look for violations, and she let me tag along to see how the world's plastic is recycled. The factories are huge warehouses with yards full of bags of different types of plastics, from car parts, white goods and TV sets to food labels and electrical cables. I started rifling through the piles and soon found plastic from the uk, Europe and all over the world. By sending it abroad, rich nations can claim the whole amount was recycled and burnished their green credentials. But the factories I visit were anything but environmentally friendly. Walking inside these places, the noise of the machines would drown out your senses. And if it weren't for the overpowering smell of chemicals. As plastics are melted, the thousands of compounds they contain get released, some of which are toxic to human health. The workers usually only wear T shirts and flip flops and have no protective gear on at all. I saw one guy feeding plastic into a vat with clouds of vapor rising straight into his face. Many of the workers are migrants from Bangladesh, Myanmar and Nepal who have historically faced discrimination and have limited rights in Malaysia. Some of those I saw are living in abandoned buildings next to the factory or within the factory complex itself. But the problems aren't just in the factories. Only 9% of the world's plastic is recycled at all because it's not profitable, not possible, or too hazardous. So it ends up in landfill or just dumped and burned near rural communities like the village where Pua Leipeng lives. She's a chemical engineer who became an activist when plastic recycling factories and dumps sprung up around her home. She's been nicknamed the Erin Brockovich of Malaysia, and she doesn't mince her words. You think you have a good waste management system? It's a lie. Exclaims Puar. This is waste colonialism, she tells me angrily. How would you feel if Malaysia sent their waste to England? She's telling me this while standing on piles of old chocolate bar wrappers and milk cartons, some of them brands I buy myself. I left Malaysia feeling recycling is not the solution to plastic pollution that we have been led to believe. It worries me even more. Given that plastic production is set to double in two decades, and some estimates predict the ocean could contain more plastic than fish by 2050, it's sad to imagine that the next generation of divers could more likely see spirals of plastic bottles than shoals of silver fish swirling around them, as I did in Sipadan.
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BBC Correspondent / Narrator
Liana Hosea Next, we're heading to the banks of the Mekong River. The Mekong is a crucial waterway for transporting goods through Southeast Asia, and in the past the region was the focus of rivalry between European colonial powers. Today it's the US and China vying for influence as well as organized crime, gangs operating unregulated casinos, online scamming operations and drug trafficking. Matthew Gwyther travelled through the region and reflects on how its past and present is being shaped by dominant powers.
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Ray Winstone
When things heat up a bit, which happens quite frequently in northern Thailand, the resident elephants swept through the cuticles of their toenails. This and a myriad other elephant facts are happily shared by Dr. Nissa Mutu Thanon, the chief vet of the elephant camp and resort where I'm staying, next to the Mekong river, where the borders of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos meet. Dr. Muthu Tanon felt her calling after watching the BBC series All Creatures Great and Small. As a child in Bangkok, the slightly cloying 1970s tales of Yorkshire vet James Herriot caught her imagination and she's wound up caring for, if not the greatest, then certainly the largest land based species on the planet. Anantara is home to 20 elephants rescued from the logging or entertainment industries. The 19 females wander around by the banks of the river, each with her handler or mahout, who dishes out leafy snacks and sits in the shade as his charge rubs against tree trunks to relieve her itches. There's only one bull and he's currently tethered by his foot to a post as he's a bit frisky. They are psychologically and socially complex creatures, Nissa explains, being moody and having tiffs with each other, just like the average 7 year old human with whom they share a similar level of intelligence. It was 89 years ago now that George Orwell set his masterful essay Shooting an Elephant over the Border in then Burma when he was an Empire era policeman. The story is regarded as a metaphor for colonialism as a whole and for Orwell's view that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. And the legacies of British imperialism are all around here for next door to Anantara is the bizarre but compelling hall of Opium Museum, which tells the story of the history of the poppy via waxworks of Chinese and Thai addicts and various historical drug paraphernalia, a number of which are actually made from elephant ivory. But the British Empire is long gone now and the new imperial power around here is China. Less than a mile from Anantara sits the King's Romans Casino complex which is situated in a Special Economic Development zone of Laos. It's the elephant in the room of this neighbourhood and is owned by Xiaowei, a Chinese national from Macau who's been sanctioned by the US government since 2018 for organized crime and involvement in what is described as an array of horrendous illicit activities including human trafficking and child prostitution. My visit ended on a happier note when I travelled around 250 miles east to the sleepy Laotian town of Luang Prabang, now one of the stops on a $6 billion Chinese built high speed railway. Love is in the air as I arrive for a Hmong tribe new Year celebration event, the highlight of which is the one handed ball throwing ritual. It's like a sort of sporty catch me if you can version of speed dating. Men and women, including older widows, line up in two rows facing each other If a woman sees a man she likes the look of, she tosses the ball to him and hopes he returns it. But if he's not interested, he just drops it and vice versa. Laos is a country that has suffered considerably during the last 60 years. As part of US operations during the Vietnam War, American pilots flew around 580,000 attack sorties over Laos, an average of one plane load of bombs every eight minutes. Most Hmong people fought with the US against the communist Pathat Lao and their North Vietnamese allies, so many fled after the Communists took power and they remain in charge today. Passing time in the airport on the way home and surrounded by a multitude of Chinese tourists, I fell down an ebay rabbit hole looking at vintage US Air Force bombing maps of the area from the 1960s and 70s. Barack Obama came here in 2016, and although he stopped short of offering a formal apology, he called the campaign and its aftermath reminders that whatever the cause, whatever our intentions, war inflicts a terrible toll. Amen to that, Matthew Gwyther.
- [29:58]
BBC Correspondent / Narrator
And that's all for today. But you can hear more stories on the from our own correspondent podcast on BBC Sounds, including the story of how six yellow radish prompted BBC Russia editor Steve Rosenberg to reflect on the few certainties that remain amid the new global order. We'll be back again next Saturday morning. Do join us.
- [30:22]
Helena Bonham Carter
I'm Helena Bonham Carter and for BBC Radio 4, I'm back with a brand new series of History's Secret heroes. And he tells her that she will be sent to France as a secret agent. She will work undercover and if she.
- [30:38]
Lise Doucet
Is caught, she's going to be shot.
- [30:41]
Helena Bonham Carter
Join me for more stories of unsung heroes, acts of resistance, deception and courage from World War II. Subscribe to History's Secret Heroes on BBC Sounds.
- [30:55]
Ray Winstone
Hello, it's Ray Winstone. I'm here to tell you about my podcast on BBC Radio 4 histories, Toughest Heroes. I got stories about the pioneers, the rebels, the outcasts who define tough.
- [31:10]
Grainger Advertiser 2
And that was the first time that anybody ever ran a car up that fast with no tires on. It almost feels like your eyeballs are going to come out of your head.
- [31:18]
Ray Winstone
Tough enough for you? Subscribe to History's Toughest Heroes.
- [31:23]
Grainger Advertiser 2
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