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From Our Own Correspondent
Swimming in Iran
00:27:53
Foreign correspondents. Nick Thorpe on the Russian speakers in Ukraine who want the of...
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Thank you for downloading the latest edition of BBC Radio's from our own correspondent, the best in news and current affairs storytelling.
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It's introduced by Kate Ady.
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Hello. Today the sun shines on the golden domes of Kiev, a year after the start of a revolution that's not over yet. Out on patrol with the soldiers battling Boko Haram. Not in Nigeria, but in Cameroon. A health worker risking his life trying to wipe out polio in Pakistan and a fish out of water, an American going swimming in Iran. Thousands of Ukrainians took part in emotional celebrations in the capital, Kiev yesterday. They were marking the first anniversary of the start of the pro European protests which led to the overthrow of the pro Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych. Many people were draped in the national flag. Some laid flowers in memory of the protesters who died in the demonstrations. Nick Thorpe, who was in Independence Square, known to Ukrainians as the Maidan, says the mood of the crowds yesterday was mixed. There was joy that Mr. Yanukovych had gone, but also sorrow about Russia's annexation of Crimea and the ongoing bitter fighting in the east of the country.
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I arrived a little late for the revolution in Ukraine, a year late, to be exact. But I needn't have worried. It's still going on. The 62 bus from the Podil district laboriously climbs up Volodymirska hill into town. The bus is old and crowded, its passengers cheered up by a young woman bus conductor who takes your coins, stamps your ticket for you and has a kind word for everyone. A fine November drizzle works diligently on the windscreen. Our conductress even cleans the mist from the windows with her sleeve tipping to give travellers a view of the passing town. The center of Kiev is one big shrine, or rather lots of little shrines to the heavenly 100 who fell during the revolution, many of them torn apart by sniper's bullets. Each tree has a picture of someone who died trying to shelter. Behind it there are heaps of cobblestones, of gas masks and dried flowers held together by 12 months of candle wax. I came to Ukraine expecting people to be shocked by the price they've already paid. The loss of Crimea, the ongoing battle for Donetsk and Luhansk, with more than 4,000 dead, nearly 10,000 wounded. The Daily stress of being on the fault line of the new Cold War between the west and Russia. Instead, I found a people with their heads held high, full of optimism. It'll be a long haul, everyone admits. But many share the cheery approach of my bus conductress. This is not a struggle between Ukraine and Russia, says my friend Anastasia. Most Russian speakers in Ukraine support the changes. I check some of the data available and find, to my amazement, that she appears to be right. In Ukraine, among Russian speakers, 74% were supportive of the protests and only a quarter were opposed, writes Doug Ettling, author of a recent Harvard University report. The research also showed that an astonishing proportion of Russians in Russia were favourably inclined to the protests, at least at first. We are standing up for our principles more than for patriotism, says Anastasia, for human rights, tolerance and empowerment. The dispute cuts through families and across borders. Many Ukrainians in Russia, even her own relatives, are infected with Russian propaganda, she laments. But what of the unrestrained nationalism during the protests? What of Russian accusations of a neo fascist coup in Kiev? The right sector, a prominent nationalist group on the barricades, got under 2% of the vote in the October elections, she points out. And anyway, the revolution might not have succeeded without them. It needed their radicalism. Elsewhere in Europe, nationalists in Hungary and Bulgaria, France and Belgium admire Putin's Russia precisely for its own Russian brand of nationalism and for standing up to what they see as US or EU imperialism. Ukrainian patriots, it seems, see the US and EU as allies in their own battle for national sovereignty against the rebirth of Soviet imperialism. Yesterday was the anniversary of the first tentative protests in Kiev. The sun came out for the first time in a week, and I went for a morning run up Andrews Descent, a curving cobbled street which leads up to St Andrew's Cathedral. The golden dome at the top and those of St. Michael's Monastery further up the hill are dazzling against the blue skies. This hill is often compared to Montmartre in Paris, and with the leafless trees hardly blocking the view of the Dnieper river far below, the comparison is a fair one. But no tourists graced the skyline, just soldiers in camouflage jackets, a long line of National Guard, white buses and ladies walking their dogs, gingerly negotiating a safe route around the frozen puddles. The morning service in St. Michael's was in full swing. The heat of worshippers, of candles, of burning incense contrasts with the freezing streets outside. During the revolution, the monastery established a field hospital in its grounds and defended wounded protesters against the police pursuing them. In January, when the Russian Patriarch Kirill in Moscow called the protesters a threat to the spiritual unity of Ukrainians and Russians, Patriarch Filaret of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church the idea of a Russian world that Kirill defends is not unity but empire wrapped in a pretty package.
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Nick Thorpe There the Islamist extremists Boko Haram are reported to be extending their operations east of their bases in Nigeria into neighbouring Cameroon. They're said to have amassed a stockpile of weapons they've seized from Nigerian army bases. A regional peacekeeping force with soldiers from Chad, Cameroon and Niger as well as Nigeria is due to be deployed in the region later this month. But in the meantime, Boko Haram are reported to have been intensified attacks inside Cameroon. And as Thoma Fessi's been finding out, the army believes the violence is set to intensify.
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It wasn't about dream or a nightmare which had frightened the colonel in charge of our trip in the middle of the night, he gulped down his beer before he explained there'd been a loud noise. He immediately opened his eyes and reached for the pistol he'd hidden underneath the pillow. He loaded the gun, turned around and waited. He said he stayed like this for several minutes, his face dripping sweat despite the air conditioning which was turned up full. He thought that we, the white journalists, had already been taken away and was terrified that a fighter would now smash his way into the room and kill him. He decided to make his way to the door. On the way, he went to collect the rifle that he'd carefully leant up against the wall before going to sleep. But the weapon was now on the floor. That's when he realized what had woken him up. It was only the sound of the gun landing flat on the floor. He grabbed his beer and said, I swear I did not sleep well last night. Cameroon is one of those countries where most decisions are taken at the highest level, that is in the office of the president. So when I finally received the green lights to travel with the military to what's called the extreme north region, I knew the go ahead had effectively been given by the president himself. You may wonder why Cameroonian soldiers have been engaged in bitter fighting trying to repel Boko Haram attacks. They've already lost dozens of their men this year. This is a region where the militants have kidnapped an entire French family, European priests and nuns, as well as Chinese workers and Cameroonian officials. Most of them were eventually released. But this area, once popular with tourists, is now referred to as a red zone. That's red for danger. In the far north. Taking Western journalists to the front line only increases the pressure on the commanders. Even though we traveled with the country's elite battalion trained by American and Israeli forces, the officers were extremely tense, clearly anxious. But President Paul Biat, who's 81 years old and has been in power for 32 years, had said yes to this mission, he wants the west to know what his forces are facing here. He told his senior officers to take us to the front line, but they were also ordered to make sure that whatever happened, we would not be seized. Boko Haram is like a ghost, one said. That probably sums up the suspicion, fear and paranoia we encountered everywhere here. How do you fight a ghost? The Nigerian Islamist insurgents started a campaign of terror just across the Cameroonian border a few years ago. They quickly became known for carrying out raids and abductions. But now they are showing they're capable of professional, well planned military operations. They know where the Cameroonian army has fixed positions, and they've attacked them. The Cameroonians consider that on the other side of the border, the Nigerian army has given up the fight. So they try to stay one step ahead of Boko Haram. But who can predict where a ghost will show up next? The dry season is back in this impoverished region of the north. Riverbeds have become sandy passages, making the already porous border all the more dangerous. The Cameroonian army knows that the number of attacks will now increase and the enemy can come from anywhere. But the commanders are struggling to answer a critical question. What exactly does Boko Haram want? Are they trying to expend what they call their caliphate? The unknown fuels suspicion. The Cameroonian soldiers insist no one can be trusted, and that causes anxiety among the local population. A young man explained to me that he never goes out without an ID card anymore in case something happens. If you're caught without a document in the area where there's been an attack, they will keep you for one or two weeks as a suspect, he said. Another student told me she made sure she now gets home before sunset. She doesn't feel comfortable around people she doesn't know. Even the Nigerian refugees who fled the fighting, and there are more than 40,000 of them here, face suspicion. Our Boko Haram sympathizes, among them preparing attacks in Cameroon. The night before we flew back to Yaounde, the colonel again this is a mission approved by the president. We are doing it because we know you have to do your work. But then he I won't sleep well until the plane touches down in the capital tomorrow.
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And that was Tomafesi. In Cameroon, a major milestone has been reached in the battle to eliminate polio. At least that's the Message from the U.S. centers for Disease Control, which says that a second of the three forms of the polio virus has now been eliminated after mass vaccination campaigns. A significant moment it may be, but there are still three countries which have failed to eradicate Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The reason is the same in all three. Hardline Islamists believe that the vaccination campaigns are in fact an attempt to render children infertile. The number of children who've contracted the disease in Pakistan this year is higher than in any year since 1999. Shaima Khalil has been out with a team of medical workers.
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26 year old Abrar Khan makes his way into a poor neighbourhood of Karachi called Baldia. On his crutches, he carefully avoids potholes and dirty cesspools in the narrow alleyways lined on both sides with small houses. He's had polio since he was 3. Now he's part of a team trying to change the minds of families who refuse to have their children vaccinated. Many people here think the polio vaccination campaign is a Western conspiracy to sterilize their children. It's an idea that the Taliban have been putting about for 10 years now. In 2012, the militants ordered a complete ban on vaccinations in the tribal areas in western Pakistan as a response to US drone attacks. Since then, there's been no immunization in that area, and as a result, the children's charity UNICEF says nearly 300,000 children have not been vaccinated in the last two years. Most of the residents of Baldia came originally from Pakistan's tribal area and most are still reluctant to immunize their children. Yet this is considered a high risk area for polio, and I can see why there is no sanitation to speak of. As I walk through the narrow streets, I pass an open sewer running through a residential area. Even before you see this canal full of sewage and rotten rubbish, you can smell it. It's just the sort of environment in which Poyu thrives. Yet around us were about a dozen children who all looked under the age of five, playing in these squalid conditions. Abrar and the other health workers are being escorted by armed policemen. Many health workers and security personnel have been killed during immunization campaigns across the country. We stop at one of the houses and an elderly woman answers the door. Four curious little children pop out next to her. None of the neighbor's kids has had it. She says of the vaccine. Why are you after my grandchildren? I don't want this. I don't trust it, she adds angrily as she waves us away. Abrar moves on to the next house. A man stands in front of the entrance and starts shouting at him. My children don't need this. Leave them alone. He yells. Why are you after them? And why just Poyu? There are other diseases. Why are you focusing on this one? Abrar calmly replies, we're trying to eliminate poll you. We're trying to show that we can do this. Show who? The man shouts. America. I don't care about them. People start to gather around us as he shouts. I don't trust this. Team abroad tries again. This time he takes out a small brochure from a folder he has with him. It's a fatwa, a religious decree from a well known cleric which condones polio vaccination. What's this? The father says, now more agitated than ever. I can't read, he says. Why are you giving me this? Finally he tells Abrar to leave, goes back into the house and slams the door. As we walk away from the house, Abrar explains, I try to tell them in any way I can, but they aren't willing to listen. I say, look at me. I am a victim of Poyu. Your children could be like me, he says, pointing at his legs. I can hear the frustration in his voice. This man is doing his children a big injustice, he goes on. He's taking them down a path of lifelong disability. I think he's his children's worst enemy. This refusal to vaccinate is one of many reasons why Pakistan is failing to eradicate PolyU. But it's not just the influence of the Taliban. Experts now point the finger at government mismanagement as well. A recent report described Pakistan's PolyU program as a disaster. Campaigns take a long time to organize, and when they finally get underway, they're inefficient. The poly workers themselves are overworked and underpaid, and they risk their lives trying to do their job. Some tell me they have to wait for days to get the proper security personnel to escort them, and so there have been more than 200 cases this year. That's more than 200 families watching their loved ones suffer from something that could easily have been prevented. At the end of a long day, Abrar invites me back to his family house. He got married recently, and I meet his bride and about a half a dozen other women. They're his sisters and sisters in law. Altogether, there are seven families in the house, and between them around 26 children. How many children do you want? I ask him. Three, inshallah, God willing, he says. And I will vaccinate them, he adds with a hopeful smile.
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Shaima Khalil In Karachi, it's another big weekend of international rugby, and the main Story in France is can Les Bleus end a difficult year on high by beating Argentina this evening in Paris? Some in France say the game shouldn't be taking place in the capital at all, as most of the team either play for clubs in the south or are from the south themselves. Two of Les Bleus play for Montpellier, where people have been hearing another story about the connection between their local local rugby club and a billionaire immigrant from Syria. Chris Bachman says they need each other for different reasons.
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I'd never met a billionaire before. I had thought the self made ones in particular might be pugnacious, outspoken, domineering and blunt, reminding you that you are using up valuable minutes of their day. So I was a little surprised. Moet Altrad's press officer gave me the man's mobile phone number and and said I could call him anytime. I was even more stunned when he answered the phone himself and didn't seem in the slightest put out. Don't get me wrong, Mr. Altrad has all the trappings of a very wealthy man from his English style mansion, quaintly called Le Cottage, surrounded by huge walled gardens in the center of Montpellier with an amazing swimming pool and a Lamborghini parked in the front. His workplace nearby is a converted manor house, but there's nothing to indicate it's the corporate headquarters for a company with 8,000 employees in 100 countries. Mr. Altrad himself speaks very softly in precise French with a strong Middle Eastern accent. But he's a shy man. I bet he'd make a great poker player because it's hard to imagine him the tough guy negotiator in his hardball field, the construction industry. He was born in a Bedouin tent close to the city of Raqqa in Syria. He doesn't know when or how old he is. In a poke at the bureaucrats who wouldn't give him a French passport without him declaring his birth date. He tells me he gave them a different date for each of the three passports he's held. His mother died soon after his birth and he was passed around their desert tribe throughout his childhood. But there was a stroke of luck. Promising students across Syria were given a chance to study abroad. He seized his and came to France in 1970. Through hard work and willpower, he built up what's become the biggest scaffolding company in the world. The local rugby club, Montpellier, reckoned he could be their savior. The city already has a First Division football side, a highly successful handball club and the rugby team. The place just didn't seem big enough. For three high level sports. And the rugby club was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. So when cap in hand went to the billionaire with an emergency request for 3 million euros, you could say the club was being audacious. Especially as Altrad had never seen a rugby game in his life and certainly didn't know the rules. But the gamble paid off. He not only handed over the money, but became a diligent, hard working club president. He now knows the rules of the game. Game goes to all the home fixtures and scrutinizes the accounts. The club is now close to breaking even. But he wants his players to win titles and that means hiring new talent. He already has a former French rugby captain, Fabian Galtier as manager, and the former Australian captain Ben Moen has just joined. It was Moet Altrad who scouted him and asked him to move to France. But don't think Mr. Altrad is doing all this out of charity. He says it's down to one thing. When he arrived in Montpellier, he was given a second chance. And this is his way of saying thank you. In his words, he's sending the lift back down for others. But even though he's been awarded the Legion d', Honneur, the French equivalent of a knighthood, he says he still doesn't feel entirely accepted in French society. He told me whenever he's introduced to anyone in the French establishment, he's always the businessman from Syria and never a French citizen in his own right. He says that has always bothered him. He doesn't believe that will ever change. It's clear that by linking up with the cozy, traditional world of French rugby, he's trying to find another way of fitting in. He hasn't returned to Syria since 1972, and the area where he grew up is now a stronghold of the jihadis from the so called Islamic State. He admits he feels helpless in exile. One doesn't think of tycoons being sentimental. But Mohit Altrad is not a typical member of the billionaires club. He keeps a small jar of Syrian sand in his home and in his spare time writes novels which feature individuals living wretched lives in the desert before tortuous new beginnings in faraway exile. Lives, in other words, like his own
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Chris Bachman in Montpellier. Now. Does reason fly out of the window when we go shopping on holiday? Certainly wardrobes back home are stuffed with clothing we thought looked good while away, but somehow we've never worn since. A straw pole in the office revealed guilty secrets. Slippers, both Moroccan pointed and Indian bejewelled, absurdly Floaty dresses from the Caribbean, unsuitably garish silk suits and jackets. They look great in Hong Kong. Skimpy fisherman's trousers from Thailand. Not the mirror now reveals a flattering purchase. Amy Gutman, a keen swimmer, knew she had to buy local when she pitched up in the Iranian city of Yazd. Without her costume and aware of the strict Iranian dress code, she wondered if she'd have a problem.
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Everyone had looked a bit puzzled when I'd said I was going to the slightly sleepy city of Yazd, a place totally different to the congestion and sophistication of Tehran. I'd like to experience the everyday things, I told my guide, Bhadria. You don't want to see historical sites? She asked. Well, I'd already done some of that. I thought that Yazd would be a great place to get under the skin and under the water of the local culture. So I did what has always come naturally wherever I am. I sought out a swimming hole, a pool, a lake, a river, anywhere I could submerge myself and focus just on my hands scooping through the water, my shoulders gliding side to side. Bhadria, a tall brunette in her mid-30s, was surprised, amused and delighted. She'd never had a request like mine. Bhadria was still single, and I was struck by her openness as she talked about love and romance with me. She'd had no idea we would also soon share a changing room at a local swimming pool called the Moon. It's only open to women from 3 to 4:30 on Tuesday afternoons. We were lucky, for yes, it was a Tuesday afternoon, but I'd broken my own golden rule and left my swimming gear behind in Tehran. Soon the task of sourcing swim kit became even more interesting than the swim itself. We began at a local shopping mall. Lingerie shops in Iran all have a red or black fake leather flap hanging from the door frame. The short, round, friendly woman who greeted us sized me up almost instantly before opening a drawer. I was anticipating a burkini and praying for a speedo equivalent. Instead, she held up some small bits of bright yellow fabric connected by a few strings. Where on earth would a woman in Yazd or anywhere in Iran wear such a thing? No, no, no. I shook my head sideways. Nothing sexy. Something practical for proper swimming, I said, motioning the breaststroke with my arms. A knowing smile widened across her face as she opened my manto, the loose coat covering from neck to knee mandatory for women in public in Iran. She took another good look and pulled out a simple, streamlined one piece black suit. She held it up, stretched it across the width of my body, and decided this was the one. There was no discussion, no invitation to browse, no fitting room. I had no say. Take it or leave it, and swim with the consequences. The black suit was the only one she had which fit the bill. And my body, she told Baudria. Anyway, how bad could it be? An hour of swimming in a women's only pool? I could cope. She pulled out a black cap with a white racing stripe to match. I paid just £11 for the set. She'd given me a discount, knowing the suit might only get wet once. Goggles were easier. An American style sports shop carried a large selection, and the shop owner guided me towards a pair of Korean ones. Just as good as Speedo, he'd said, but cheaper. At the pool we inched closer to the swimsuits and the merchant's moment of truth. In the changing room, I pulled the suit up my thighs and stretched the straps over my shoulders. I nervously stepped in front of the mirror, thinking it actually felt pretty okay. And it was. In fact, I discovered a tag on the inside seam. Exactly my size. Well, of course, Bhadria told me. We can't try things on here, so you must trust the shopkeeper. It's her job to be an expert. She would be out of business if she couldn't tell your size. Bhadria couldn't believe that in season Western department stores like Selfridges could stock some 50 different swimsuits with multiples in every size. Impossible, she said, her eyes wide with disbelief. The pool was 33 meters long, with a separate crowded area for non swimmers. There was a rule dictating lengths could only be swum horizontally across those lines painted on the bottom of the pool. So widths really, not lengths. There was no logic and no arguing. I was the only person going back and forth for the rest. The exercise was purely social. After we got dressed, Bhadria said, I have a surprise for you. She led me upstairs to a small canteen and after showing our entry tickets, we were given little packs of biscuits. Unlucky some days it's ice cream, bhadria said. So that's what it's like swimming in Swim a little, chat a little, and finish with a sweet reward and a swimsuit. You couldn't have chosen better yourself.
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Amy Gutman in Iran. And that's it. Time for us to head off for our biscuits. I'm here next Saturday with more dispatchers from correspondence worldwide. I hope you'll join us then. Goodbye.