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From Our Own Correspondent
The Athens Experiment
00:27:40
The human lives behind the headlines: a view from the pistachio field after a tense 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. It's introduced by Kate Ady.
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Hello. Today, a climb down or the dawn of a new era. We're in a pistachio field as a hard won deal is reached in the Greek debt crisis. The mystery Japanese man who's paid women in Thailand to have 16 babies for him. The government in Bangkok's taking action. We fly into Suriname with a young adventurer hoping he'll make his fortune panning gold. But he looks frightened. And in Italy, one of the few companies in the world where drinking at work is positively encouraged. The talks in Brussels yesterday about the Greek debt bailout were apparently tense. They ended with Greece being offered a four month breathing space on condition that it can provide a list of proposed economic reforms acceptable to the EU and to Athens. The Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said the deal marked a new era. It certainly cheered up international markets. There was a surge in prices on Wall street, but the Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras will be keen that his people don't see it as a climb down. His party came to power last month promising to tear up the hated austerity program and as Mark Loewen tells us thus far, they're still behind him.
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Pistachios are strange trees, says Eleni Kipreu, examining the buds on her latest crop. Sometimes the sun is just right, you give them the correct amount of water, but the harvest is disappointing. And the next year you think it's all gone wrong. But you get the most wonderful result. About as predictable as Greece, I thought as I followed this characterful lady through her freshly ploughed pistachio field on the island of Aegina. Just as the debt stricken country appeared to have turned a corner last year, no longer spooking every market from New York to Hong Kong, the crisis has shot back, pushing Greece and the Eurozone to the edge. Eleni takes me indoors where she grinds the pistachios into a rich green oil which will eventually end up on someone's salad. I've been around long enough to see what Greek politicians are like, she continues, her lined face deep in concentration. They're all crooks. But now, finally, we have a government which loves the people and keeps its promises. It's incredible, she says. I still can't believe it's happened. Within weeks, it seems, the mood in Greece has changed radically. Violent anti government demonstrations that filled Athens with tear gas and placards have been replaced by Regular pro government rallies. Ministers stroll through the city waving to passersby rather than rushing from building to bulletproof car dodging petrol bombs. The finance minister, in his untucked shirt and leather trench coat, has a fan page on Facebook. His predecessors had death threats. That so many here are now smitten is a sign perhaps of how depressed they'd become. In Greece, national pride is a national sport. Greeks are well aware of their place in history, the theatre, philosophy and democracy. They bequeathed to civilization the beauty of their country, the and how far they've fallen with the financial crisis. We just want our dignity back, 20 year old Nefeni told me at a rally outside parliament this week. The humiliation of two bailouts stung. The sight of their leaders going cap in hand to Brussels and Berlin was hard to accept. The austerity that slashed salaries and left one in four without work caused pain that will take a long time to heal. But now they say they have a government that allows them to stand tall, that vows not to submit to what it calls the Eurozone's blackmail. But the problem is that a scooter is up against a 10 ton truck, Greece depends on its international loan, and the Eurozone is united in demanding Athens fall in line. It's not just Germany, the architect of austerity, that's been standing firm, but the other indebted countries too, like Spain. The government there is facing its own electoral challenge this year from leftists inspired by the new Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras. Madrid is keen to put anti austerity upstarts in their place and to tell Spaniards there is no way of avoiding the cuts they are having to endure in the face of that united opposition. Greece's chief negotiator isn't exactly making friends. Yanis Varoufakis wasn't a politician until he got the keys to the Finance Ministry. An economist and expert in game theory. That is in part his strength. Untainted by political corruption and accustomed to straight talking. Many here like his no nonsense approach and ability to dream up colorful metaphors. Austerity is like trying to extract more milk from a sick cow by whipping. It is just one of his gems. But in Europe's corridors of power, it's clear he's ruffled feathers. He's publicly blamed the German and Dutch finance ministers for sabotaging possible deals. His entourage has leaked draft documents it says show Greece has been treated unfairly. He picks fights on Twitter. Good for him, say his fans. That's not how things work, say his critics. And at a time when Greece craves allies and needs delicate diplomacy to get concessions. Mr. Varoufakis is taking risks. That's why not all Greeks are smitten. There are plenty who worry deeply about the road on which this government has embarked, those who feel the austerity, for all its agony, was cutting the country down to size, prompting necessary reforms and sparking creativity, too. Young Greeks, who would simply have drifted into the public sector thanks to family connections, have been forced to be entrepreneurial, instead starting businesses if they have any money left. Before I leave Aegina island and head back to Athens, Eleni insists I try her pistachio pasta. The nuts are crushed by a machine she bought on the Internet. The seller told me he didn't know if it would work, that I'd be taking a risk, she says. But I thought, why not try something new? Her country is doing that, too. The Athens experiment could bear fruit, or it could shake the euro to its very core.
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And that's Mark Lohan. The government in Thailand has just introduced a law that aims to stop foreign couples from paying women to become surrogate mothers. The restriction has been introduced following the discovery last year that dozens of Thai women were carrying babies for foreign clients. Jonathan Head in Bangkok says there are fears the new law may just drive the business underground, placing women at risk of exploitation as well as inadequate health care.
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Somewhere in a remote village in northern Thailand last month, a baby was born to a poor family whose fate might have been very different. I met his or her mother, or at least the woman carrying the child in her womb, late last year at a women's shelter outside Bangkok. She was clad in a clumpy beige anorak donated by the shelter, and her face was concealed behind a thick black woolen balaclava. Only her eyes were visible, and they were red with tears. Her husband was with her. Identically dressed, he'd only just discovered that the baby wasn't his. A group of police officers had come to his door and threatened him with arrest if he didn't get his wife to surrender to the agent who'd contracted her to get pregnant for a Chinese client. The agent wanted her to travel overseas for the birth, but she'd had a change of heart. Trembling a little, she said she hoped that if the agency stopped chasing her, she could keep the baby and that she would cherish it as if it were her own. The cause of the agency's anxiety was a sudden flurry of raids on fertility clinics by the Thai authorities after a couple of alarming discoveries. First, a baby boy suffering from down Syndrome had apparently been abandoned by the Australian couple who'd commissioned a Thai surrogate to give birth to him. They'd returned to Australia with his twin sister. Then 12 babies were found with their nannies in a Bangkok apartment. They were all the progeny of a wealthy young Japanese man who appeared to be a serial user of Thai surrogates, but whose motives for wanting so many babies remains a mystery. After that, dozens of childless Australian couples had a nail biting weight in Thailand to see whether they would be allowed to take their own surrogate babies home. Thailand found itself being called the womb of Asia, and the government vowed to stop the practice. With the new law it's just passed, perhaps it will. If it does, though, the business will most likely move to less regulated parts of the world. But I suspect commercial surrogacy will survive in Thailand for the simple reason that the forces of demand and supply are just too strong. Of all the industries transformed by the era of globalization, the health industry is among the most conspicuous. Patients can literally scan the globe to find out where they can get the cheapest or perhaps the best treatment. Thailand has marketed itself heavily as a medical destination, but the surrogacy business here has an added an abundant supply of poor women desperate to find better sources of income. Three hours out of Bangkok, I met Deng. A single mother in her 30s, she works in a small factory making cages and earns about four pounds a day. Last year, she gave birth to twins for the Japanese mystery man. And while she admitted to some emotional pangs as she handed the babies over, she said she had no regrets. I would do it all again, she said. Anyone would. Because of the money, she was paid the equivalent of 10 years of her salary. The 12 other babies found in the apartment have now been taken into state care, while the Thai authorities try to decide what to do with them. The women who gave birth to them want to hand them over to their Japanese father, presumably to fulfil their contracts and receive full payment. He's refused repeated requests to come back to Thailand to claim them himself, although his lawyer has now succeeded in getting a court to award custody of three of them to his client. Babies in Thailand have become a commodity obtained with ease and with minimal red tape. Even with the new law, says the president of the medical council, he doubts the business will stop. We have no real law enforcement here, he told me. That is Thailand's weak point. A good example of this is his own organisation, which for years has failed to discipline doctors accused of serious malpractice. The pregnant woman in the Balaclava stayed in the women's shelter with her husband for a couple of weeks. Then they left and disappeared. No one seems to know where they went, but the best guess is her home village far from Bangkok, where she might hope to be safe from the surrogate agency. Her baby, who had been destined for a wealthy Chinese home, will now be brought up as a rural Thai child and will perhaps be no less happy for that.
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Jonathan Head there. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Buenos Aires this week to demand an investigation into the death of a state Prosecutor, Alberto Nisman. Mr. Nisman's body was found in his apartment hours before he was due to testify in Congress against President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and her foreign minister. Mr. Nisman had accused the president of a cover up over a bomb attack against a Jewish centre in the capital more than 20 years ago. WIR Davis says many people are wondering if she's losing control of a country beset by political and economic problems.
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In hindsight, it's difficult to see how the government could have handled things any worse. To mark a month since the date when Alberto Nisman was found in his Buenos Aires flat with a single gunshot wound to the head, some 400,000 concerned Argentines marched across the capital in appalling weather this week, finishing their protest outside the Casa Rosada, or government Pink Palace. They demanded an end to impunity and to political interference in the judiciary. They were also overwhelmingly silent, as the organizers had demanded, and peaceful. Yet hours before, Argentina's enigmatic but sometimes unpredictable president had had dismissed the protesters as inconsequential, even labeling their leaders as provocateurs, fanning the flames for a soft coup d'. Etat. Many here believe that was a mistake which has undermined both her support and her credibility. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner sometimes seems loved and loathed in almost equal measure. She's adored by her own working class supporters, people whose welfare she has championed and wages she has protected in return for their unswerving loyalty and votes. But as admired as Cristina may be in the less salubrious areas on the edge of the capital, she's reviled in the middle class suburbs and centre, where she's blamed for many of Argentina's woes and not least a precariously unstable economy, this is a country that feels increasingly polarized. And the death of Mr. Nisman in still unexplained circumstances has merely served to exacerbate that feeling. Why? Mrs. Fernandez de Kirchner might have felt some anger towards Mr. Nisman is perhaps understandable. He had, after all, accused her of trying to hatch a plot aimed at absolving Iran from blame over the bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires. But in the days after the discovery of the prosecutor's body, the president appeared to present herself as the victim in a nationwide television address, dressed head to toe in white and sitting quite obviously in a wheelchair. Rather than show empathy with his family, she continued to insist it was all part of a plot to destabilize her government. This is Cristina's last year in office, and even after seven years as president, few people can claim to really know her. She's a Peronist, a political tag so broad in Argentina that it's almost meaningless. Along with her late husband, Nestor, she made her name and her fortune in the deep south of the country at a time when being as far away as possible from the military junta in Buenos Aires was no bad idea. But today, the President's critics say she's more and more detached. She's known not to hold meetings with her fellow ministers, choosing instead to run the country largely alone, with input from just a few old and loyal advisers. She completely distrusts the media and has few close friends outside politics. Nelson Castro is almost certainly among those political commentators the President dislikes, although as both a journalist and a trained psychiatrist, he has plenty of opinions about her behavior in recent weeks. There's a problem of personality with Cristina. She says that everybody that doesn't agree with her wants to oust her from power. The problem is she keeps on talking to the people who support her, forgetting those who don't, Castro tells me in the small studio at Radio Continental in the heart of the capital, where he's just finished presenting his morning talk show. Many observers believe that Cristina is increasingly obsessed with her image as the mother of the nation. A new Evita Peron at the Eva Peron Museum in Buenos Aires. I talked to the historian Santiago Regello about this and he said, to be connected to Evita is to be connected to a very important part of our society. They are both very important leaders of our country. Nearly every time the President speaks in public now, there's a very obvious image of Eva Peron in the background. References to the three time President of Argentina, Juan Domingo Peron, and to Evita are frequent. One government minister told me that while he did not believe the tens of thousands of marchers who protested in Buenos Aires this week had sinister motives, there were business leaders and media interests out there whose aim was to bring down the government. It's a serious charge to make. And as bad as things are here politically and economically, Argentine democracy doesn't appear to be under serious threat. But as one commentator put it, as this eventful week drew to a close, it sometimes takes an event as dramatic as the violent death of a public prosecutor to realize just how broken things in this country really are.
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Wira Davis in Buenos Aires the tiny South American state of Suriname has largely dropped off the international radar since a series of coups and counter coups in the early 1980s. Today, its ethnically diverse population enjoys a relatively high standard of living, but the country still faces serious political and economic challenges. They're trying to encourage tourism. There are rainforests, lots of wildlife, striking Dutch colonial architecture. But as Jonathan Fryer has been finding out, there are other visitors. Visitors too, hoping that lady luck might smile on them.
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The young Brazilian sitting next to me on the short flight from Cayenne in French Guiana to Parimaribo in Surinam was shivering uncontrollably. He was wearing just a T shirt, a pair of checked Bermuda shorts and flip flops, and the air conditioning was on full blast. As he looked out of the window down on the rainforest below, I could sense fear in his eyes. Brazilian tourists don't need visas to visit Suriname. But as he confessed nervously to me when I lent him a pen to fill in his landing card, he was embarking on an entirely different adventure to try to make his fortune panning gold. He was hazily aware of the risks involved in an area plagued with malaria and dengue fever. The mercury used in hydraulic gold mining can kill a man if rival gold miners don't finish him off for first. Yet dozens of young men like him had taken this Suriname Airways flight from Belen in northern Brazil to Paramaribo via Cayenne, and there was quite a throng of their compatriots at the airport to greet them. Probably some were genuine tourists, or else visiting family, but others, like my companion on the 40 minute flight, could be whisked away and sent to join other garimperos, or illegal miners up the Surinam river and deep into the forest. Despite its modest size, Suriname is used to waves of exotic migrants. The British and the Dutch pass the territory back and forth to each other like a parcel. In the 17th and 18th centuries, while importing slaves from Africa to work on plantations and later indentured labour from India and Java, Sephardic Jews in significant numbers found sanctuary in Suriname. And there's still a fine synagogue in downtown Paramaribo built in the style of a neoclassical Dutch mansion. A far larger mosque that wouldn't be out of place in Jakarta stands right next door. We're one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world, a female black security guard at the door of Paramaribo's magnificent wooden Catholic cathedral told me proudly. She spoke Dutch, like many of her compatriots, but inside the building we worshippers were praying aloud in Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Creole. The indigenous Amerindians up country also have their own languages, and of course, some modern visitors speak English. But I was struck that the only physical manifestation of intermittent British rule seems to be that the traffic drives on the left. Otherwise, most of this city of just 250,000 souls looks like how I think a 19th century Dutch school child might have imagined the tropical tropics, long rows of beautiful whitewashed wooden buildings with balconies and steep roofs along streets shaded by huge trees. Admittedly, some of these buildings are falling to pieces, their owners perhaps having decamped to more modern comforts in the suburbs. And in among these gracious white structures, rather like gold crowns in a mouth of otherwise snowy teeth, stand garish modern casinos. 40 of them, to be precise. Some are little grander than British bingo halls, but others are magnificent Chinese palaces with gilded stone lions flanking their entrances amid a flurry of crimson banners emblazoned with Chinese characters intended to court. Good luck. Both the management and the clientele of many casinos are Chinese, so Mandarin is a language of Paramaribo's streets, too. The other evening I walked to the waterfront to catch the breeze off the Suriname River. This stretch, known as De Waterkrant, boasts some of Paramaribo's most beautifully preserved dwellings. But the river side of the street is lined with outdoor bars where locals gather for a refreshing beer. Along the river wall, fishermen were reeling in their supper from the fast flowing brown water. The loud hoot of a steamer announced its imminent departure. As I watched it pull slowly away from the dock, I thought about the young Brazilian who'd come to Suriname to make his fortune upriver in the mud of the illegal goldfields, and I wondered if he'd make it back alive.
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Jonathan Fryer in Paramaribo Now Italian wines need little introduction. Those Chiantis, multipulcianos and Pinot Grigios are enjoyed throughout the drinking world. The country's spirits, though, do not have the same reputation. The most popular is grappa, a clear spirit distilled from those bits of grape left over after the wine's been Made traditionally, it's a drink for workers rather than aristocrats, and most of it's made in the regions north of Venice. Although sales are holding up and exports actually increasing, it's not a fashionable tipple. Young people don't go for it much. You do sometimes see the older generation enjoying a glass with their breakfast. And it does have medicinal qualities, at least that's what Danny Mitzman's been hearing.
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In north eastern Italy, there's a popular postprandial ritual called resentin. You drink your espresso, then add a shot of grappa to rinse out the last of the coffee grounds and sugar. Showing me how to do this is Antonio Guarda Nardini, a seventh generation grappa producer in the town of Bassano del Grappa, near Venice, home to several of Italy's finest grappa distilleries. You'd be forgiven for thinking the town was named after the national spirit it famously produces, but Bassano de Grappa actually gets its name from the mountain that rises up behind it, Monte Grappa. Antonio and I are discussing this coincidence at the bar in his family's graperia, located on the banks of the River Brenta. Pioneers of the modern method of steam distillation, the Nardini set up business here way back in 1779. Today it's listed as one of Italy's historical sites. Thanks, Antonio quips to his ancestors, being too mean to renovate. The antique wooden bar has an he who cares about his own life should drink the right amount and quality of alcohol. Bassano, he tells me, has the highest pro capita consumption of alcohol in Italy. And we're very proud of that, he adds cheekily, exuding the warm spirit of the product he sells. He shows me a framed article. Nardini was the only spirit available at the crowning ceremony of Queen Elizabeth of England, he tells me before extracting a huge visitors book. And the Queen Mother used to come here. Here she is, May 27, 1987. Ernest Hemingway was another frequent famous visitor, stationed in Bassano during the First World War. Tucked discreetly in the corner is a gated, padlocked area housing a museum like collection of bottles salvaged after the river flooded in 1966. It looks like a set for a Vincent Price movie, complete with cobwebs. There's a deliciously rich, heady aroma hanging in the air, and Antonio beams when I comment on it. He tells me he used to play here as a little boy back then. I didn't realize it, but clearly There were all these alcohol fumes around. HE GUFFAWS it was very pleasant. And now I understand why. Antonio Guarda Nardini strikes me as someone who's found, or perhaps inherited, the key to mixing business with pleasure. As he shows me round the new premises where they distill, blend, age, analyze and bottle, I feel I'm in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for adults. There are 800 giant barrels made of Slavonian oak, a futuristic lab which looks like two glass UFOs on stilts, where each batch gets tested eight times, and a huge cake mixer full of a special flour that removes all the oil from grapeseed. Residual oil in grappa is what gives you the headache and stomach burn, says Willy Wonka, adding triumphantly, you can drink a bottle of Nardini and you might end up in hospital in an alcoholic coma, but you won't have a headache. Then he shows me a little trick. Just pour some grappa on the back of your hand, rub it, let a few seconds go by and then smell it. If there's a very clean smell, reminiscent of grapes, that means it's a good grappa. If you have an oily or musty smell, stay away from it. I learn many more fascinating facts about grappa, including its medicinal and therapeutic properties. Antonio believes warm milk, honey and grappa have the same effect as an aspirin. Of course, that's why it's called Aquavite, which means water of life. What's most extraordinary about this alcoholic Disneyland is that it's not only fun for visitors, we have a very low turnover of personnel here. We're on the seventh generation, but some employees are on the fifth generation. This is a company where non drinkers are frowned upon because it's part of the culture. I'm told you have to appreciate the product and if you don't drink at all, people look at you kind of funny. I joke that instead of a coffee machine, they probably have a grappa machine. No smiles, Antonio. But we do have three bottles next to the coffee machine, a traditional 50%, a 50% Riserva and a liqueur made by infusing grappa, almonds and cherries. It's excellent in the coffee, he says temptingly. I tell him to expect my CV in the morning.
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Danny Mitzman in northern Italy with a man who might just hold the key to mixing business with pleasure. And that's it. More from correspondents around the world on Thursday and Saturday of next week. Until then, goodbye.