← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
Ukraine's defiant stand in Pokrovsk
00:28:18
Ukraine's soldiers resist Russia's relentless advance in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region
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- [00:00]
BBC News Presenter
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BBC News Presenter
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- [00:37]
Martha Stewart
I'm Martha Stewart and I believe the best gifts are not only beautiful, but useful every single day. And Lennox has brought timeless beauty and lasting quality to our tables for generations, and their Lenox Spice Village is the perfect holiday gift for someone you love or for yourself. Spice Village transforms everyday spices into inspired memories filled with warmth and joy all year long. Give a gift that lasts beyond the holidays. Discover the collection@lenox.com SpiceVillage.
- [01:15]
BBC Correspondent
Hello. Today we're in Yellowstone country in the US state of Montana, where a battle over land is uniting some unlikely allies. And in Hong Kong, the verdict in the trial of media tycoon Jimmy Lai has underscored the reach of China's national security law. In Australia, we hear from members of Sydney's Jewish community following the mass shooting on Bondi Beach. And finally, we're in the northern uplands of Laos, where ancient beliefs are still entwined with everyday life. But first, the battle for Pokrovsk continues in eastern Ukraine's Donbas. The region's proving to be the major sticking point in ongoing talks to bring an end to the war. Russia already occupies much of the region and wants Ukraine to cede the remaining territory, a demand Kyiv has outright rejected. But pressure is mounting from Washington for Ukraine to agree to a deal with Moscow. Meanwhile, Russia's war machine grinds on as it tries to make further advances across the thousand kilometer front line. Jonathan Beale reports from a Ukrainian command center in eastern Ukraine.
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BBC News Presenter
These are difficult, dangerous times for Ukraine, perhaps its toughest weeks since Russia's full scale invasion began in 2022. Yet Ukraine is still showing extraordinary resistance and resilience against the odds. You can see it in the hardest of places. Despite the signs of exhaustion etched on the faces of the Ukrainian troops in the east, where the fighting's hardest, the prognosis for Ukraine holding on to the city of Pokrovsk has been bleak for months. At a command center well behind the front Line drone feeds show a city already in ruins in real time, the flashes of drones and shells tearing more of it apart. The troops in the command center also bear the wounds of war. A number of them have shrapnel scars and burns across their faces from previous engagements. The commander of the Scala regiment, Yuri, has recovered from several injuries too, but he and his men are still in the fight, clinging on to the northern part of the city. The commands across the radio come in rapid succession. One team watch a screen showing two Russian soldiers walking through the city's now deserted streets. They will hear little traffic, just the constant buzz of drones. The Ukrainian troops watch them disappear into a shattered building, hoping they found a base they can target. Later, another group of Ukrainian soldiers use a drone to search for their own men. They've recently lost radio contact and want to make sure they're ok. The situation isn't easy, but we're coping, Yuri tells me. President Putin recently claimed that Russia had taken the whole city. But to prove that Ukraine's still there, Yuri gets two of his men to wave a Ukrainian flag. A drone flying above them captures the moment. They briefly raise it before they swiftly scurry back into a building for safety. Russian drones are hunting for their next target, too. Yuri says the world needs to know Ukraine will not just give up its territory. We'll fight for each and every piece of Ukrainian land, he says defiantly. Sasha, who's one of his youngest commanders at the age of 25, laments the state of what he says was once a beautiful city. He says it's very hard to watch its destruction. If we can't hold on to a small city like this, then what kind of help will the international community provide? He asks one of his soldiers, Yaroslav, recently returned to their base after spending a month fighting in the city. He spells out what's at stake. The situation is scary, he says, but I have children, and you have to fight for them. The fight for survival is just as tangible. Far away from the front line, we're driven to a secret Ukrainian arms factory where they're making their own long range drones and missiles, the weapons that most Western nations have been reluctant to supply. We're told to wear blindfolds on the final part of the journey so as not to be able to identify the location. The Russians are trying to target them, too. They sometimes succeed. Firepoint is just one of the Ukrainian companies now mass producing drones. There's no such thing as a wonder weapon, Dennis Stillemann, the co founder, tells me. The only game changer in this war is Ukraine's will to win, he adds. At another location, they're making Ukraine's latest long range missile. It's called the Flamingo. Irina Terej, the company's chief technical officer, shows me one of the dozen or so near completion. The Flamingo looks like a World War II V1 Doodlebug. A jet engine built on top of the long metal tube, the length of a London bus. Not pink, but painted in black because, Irina says, they eat Russian oil. Ukraine, she says, may have fewer resources than Russia, but we're trying to beat them with brains. Before the war, Iryna was an architecture student. Now the young mother's doing her best to try to dismantle Russia's war machine. She, too, is a target. She shows us around the factory floor, accompanied by burly security guards. Firepoint didn't even exist before Russia's full scale invasion. Now it produces 60% of the long range drones fired deep into Russia. It's producing 200 of these small, pilotless aircraft a day. They shun parts from China and the United States. Ukraine, she says, has been on an emotional rollercoaster with President Trump. Making our own weapons, Irina says, is Ukraine's only real security guarantee. She dismisses the ongoing U. S. Led peace negotiations as capitulation talks. But like everyone here, she, she knows Ukraine cannot fight Russia on its own. We need political support, we need money, and we need a feeling that we're not alone, she tells me. But most of all, she says, we just need to survive.
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BBC Correspondent
Jonathan Beale. This week, the media tycoon Jimmy Lai was convicted in a Hong Kong court of colluding with foreign forces under the Beijing imposed National Security Law. The law criminalizes acts of secession, subversion and terrorism. Mr. Lai, a British citizen, had been accused of violating the law for his role in pro democracy protests. And through his newspaper, Appledaily, Mr. Lai's supporters say he was peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression. Danny Vincent has been following the case.
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Danny Vincent
In the early hours of the morning, members of the public waited in line to see Jimmy Lai's verdict handed down. Some waited through the night. One supporter delivered a box of red apples outside the court, a symbol of Jimmy Lai's now shuttered pro democracy paper, Apple Daily. The apples drew unwanted attention from the police. Amongst the supporters was a former Apple Daily journalist. We are living in a strange world of uncertainty, she said, but at least we will remember what we have accomplished and strived hard to live a better future. We all feel frustrated and powerless. Jimmy Lai has now been in prison for more than five years. At the start of his trial two years ago, a lone supporter, a veteran democracy activist known locally as Grandma Wong, protested outside the court with a flag. In the years since, she too has been arrested under the National Security Law and restricted from coming back inside the court. The judge began by demanding silence, explaining that anyone in the public gallery who made any remarks would be removed from court. The judge said that Jimmy Liar was the mastermind of a conspiracy to collude with foreign powers. She said he harboured hatred towards China and was a threat to national security. She read out WhatsApp messages where he arranged to meet with US officials in 2019 as evidence of the billionaire allegedly colluding with US officials. His trial has been seen by critics as a test of Hong Kong's judicial independence. The Hong Kong government said it followed due process, finding him guilty of violating national security laws. The 78 year old media mogul waved at supporters sitting in the court. But those closest to him fear for his health. Time is running out for my father. In the last year he's lost more than 10 kilos, muscle infections, heart issues, heart palpitations, his son Sebastian Lai told me wearingly from London. His physical health has deteriorated. I don't know what his mental health is like given the harsh conditions, he went on. It's cruel that it's been dragged out this long, especially for a verdict where every single person knew the outcome, he said. The verdict comes at a time when Hong Kong is still reeling from the deadliest fire the city has seen in decades. At least one hundred and sixty people died when a blaze raged through seven towers of a public housing estate. The authorities acted quickly to make arrests relating to the fire. The Chief Executive, John Lee, later launched an independent inquiry. He said that those responsible needed to be held to account. Initial tests found substandard building materials contributed to the spread of the fire. But there were also arrests by National Security Police of a student who publicly demanded an independent inquiry. And a former district councillor was detained and questioned when he tried to set up a press conference to discuss the case. Hundreds of people gathered as the fire burned through the day and night. They looked up in silence, mourning the dead. Outside Taipo Market Station, student volunteers began to group organising supplies for survivors of the fire. They brought boxes of water and food. Thousands joined groups on encrypted social media apps, organising deliveries on the streets. Some used loudspeakers to coordinate their efforts. At times, the scene of the fire started to resemble the early days of the 2019 protest movement, when people took to the streets to protest against greater control from Beijing. As volunteers gathered, plainclothes police looked on. Within days, those volunteers were replaced with police tents and red tape. Volunteers worked in secret to deliver supplies, I was told, fearful they could become targets of the police. Some friends got phone calls from police asking if they're joining any activities. They were angry and sad, one contact told me. Beijing has praised the Hong Kong government's handling of the fire and the handling of Jimmy Lai's trial. Meanwhile, Beijing has also criticized international governments and media for spreading what it sees as anti China sentiment in its reporting of these stories. A date has not been set for Jimmy Lai sentencing, but supporters fear he could now face the remainder of his life in prison.
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BBC Correspondent
Danny Vincent Last weekend, two gunmen opened fire on a Hanukkah celebration on Bondi beach in Sydney. Fifteen people were shot dead and dozens more were injured in the worst mass shooting in Australia in nearly three decades. The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, called it an act of evil antisemitism. The Jewish community, though, said while they were shocked, they weren't surprised and the government should have done much more to protect them. Our correspondent Katie Watson reports from Sydney.
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Katie Watson
I arrived to take up my Australia posting in April last year. 24 hours after I landed in Sydney, I got a call telling me there'd been a mass stabbing at a shopping centre in Bondi Junction. The whole city was in shock. Over the next few days of reporting on that story, stunned Australians repeatedly told me that this wasn't normal here. Violent crime was so rare, it seemed they needed to convince me or themselves that it was an aberration. Since then, I've got to know Sydney much better. You often see front doors left wide open, allowing sweltering residents to catch the breeze. In the hot summers, Sydneysiders walk around, mobile phones on display without fear of them being ripped from their hands. Small things, but they feel like a luxury. A big city with a small town vibe. Only last weekend we had a Christmas party in our street. There I was with my neighbor, marveling at how Sydney did it. A city of more than 5 million people with little of the crime that other places often struggle with. But later I got a call there'd been a shooting in Bondi, so I raced over to Sydney's most iconic beach with a dreaded sense of deja vu. It became clear that this was a very different tragedy to the one last year, but still the same words were muttered. This just doesn't happen here in Australia. Sunday's attack was swiftly called out as anti semitic A targeted shooting on a Hanukkah celebration by the beach. Donut stalls, a petting zoo, a climbing wall and face painting. A family event to mark the first night of the Jewish Festival of Lights. When the shootings started, Rebecca Di Varoli, who was there with her parents and friends, thought it was balloons popping. It wasn't until everyone started shouting and people started dropping that we realized what was happening, said Rebecca. We all just ran for our lives, grabbing the kids we could. I was talking to Rebecca on the bridge where the shooting started. Coming back here was important, but hard, she said. She described how she lay on top of her little boy, Louis, protecting him while she waited for the shooting to stop. Next to her, a man was hit in the chest. He didn't survive. As we were talking, Rebecca's little girl, Chloe, looked up and interrupted us. Will the bad guy start shooting us again? She asked. Rebecca and her husband Michael, were quick to reassure her. The bad guy's gone and that's why we have the beautiful menorah, he said, pointing to the Jewish candelabra her grandfather was painting on the wall of the bridge. Rebecca, like pretty much every Jewish person I've spoken to since the attack, feels it was inevitable. Shocked but not surprised is what people keep saying. The Jewish community here was convinced this was coming and the government did little to protect them. Australia's always been pretty welcoming to Jewish migrants. In proportional terms, Australia welcomed one of the largest contingents of Holocaust survivors, an estimated 31,000, according to Sydney's Jewish Museum. There are now some 100,000 Jewish people living in the country. But since the hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, when around 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 were taken hostage and Israel's subsequent bombardment of Gaza, the atmosphere has shifted, people say. While security at Jewish synagogues isn't new, it's been ramped up. Jewish schools, too, have armed guards. Now it's not in Australia many older Jewish people recognise. I've spoken to a few rabbis in the past few days who came over from the US several decades ago, convinced they'd landed in the best country in the world. Not so any longer. Earlier this week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced reforms to laws on hate speech to but it's too little, too late for people like Rebecca, who tells me that her children's school was recently painted with anti Jewish graffiti and nothing was done. It's taken us to be hunted down, to be killed for him to announce changes to the law, she says. At the nearby vigil at Bondi Pavilion, frustration and anger were recurrent sentiments. Danny Hart had come from the Blue Mountains with his wife to pay his respects to those who died. He stood there looking at the flowers, calling the attack a tragedy not just for Jewish people, but for Australia as a whole. Whole. I never thought it would happen in my lifetime, danny said. Growing up, I always remember my dad taking me to the Great Synagogue in the center of Sydney for Sabbath. He always reminded me of the Nazi days. He used to say he hoped that in our lifetime we wouldn't see something similar. He paused before adding, he'd be turning in his grave.
- [17:38]
BBC Correspondent
Katie Watson.
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- [17:53]
BBC News Presenter
7.
- [17:54]
MyFico Advertiser
Get your FICO score straight from the people that created it, plus free credit monitoring and a free credit report every month. No credit card required. FICO scores are used by 90% of lenders, so trust the MyFico app to keep you in the know. Visit myfico.com free or download the MyFico app today.
- [18:13]
Martha Stewart
I'm Martha Stewart and I believe the best gifts are not only beautiful, but useful every single day. And Lenox has brought timeless beauty and lasting quality to our tables for generations and their Lennox Spice Village is the perfect holiday gift for someone you love or for yourself. Spice Village transforms everyday spices into inspired memories filled with warmth and joy all year long. Give a gift that lasts beyond the holidays. Discover the collection at lennox. Com Spice Village.
- [18:52]
BBC Correspondent
Next. We're in the US State of Montana, where the prospect of a public land sell off has touched a nerve. Nearly a third of the state's land is owned by the federal government, but there's a push by a prominent Republican senator to use some of it to plug a housing shortage. In these politically polarized times, the issue has brought together cowboys and environmental activists, conserv and progressives who all fear their culture and traditions are at stake. Ellie House reports from Montana.
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Ellie House
The first thing we see driving into the town of Dillon is a saddlery selling spurs, chaps and custom horse saddles. Wagon wheels lean against the squat brown building. It's straight out of a Western. This is an old cow town, we're told. The few roads that make up the town centre are lined with saloon style buildings housing a few small businesses, a diner, a gun shop and a handful of bars. We meet Brian Musard in one, a 50 something man wearing a paisley red shirt and a cream cowboy hat. This is a ranching community. We have the most cows in the state, brian tells me, sipping a vodka soda. He owns a cattle ranch nearby himself. The more cows you have, the more open space you have, he says. I've never been anywhere with as much open, undeveloped land as Montana. This region is called Big sky country, and I can see why. The vistas, mountains, forests, pastures go on forever. Just under a third of Montana is owned by the federal government. This fact, a quirk of history of America's western expansion, including the often brutal capture of Native American lands, has caused conflict and controversy over the years, with some locals asking why government suits thousands of miles away in Washington, D.C. have so much control over their lands. It's an issue felt in neighbouring states, like Utah too. It's not fair, said Republican Senator Mike Lee, who took to social media with a video scored with rousing music. It's not serving the Americans who actually live here. This summer, when President Trump was putting together his big, beautiful spending bill, Senator Lee tried to include a proposal to sell off some of the federal government's land for house building. In a round of interviews with conservative media, including with the late Charlie Kirk, Senator Lee tried to rally people to his cause but was met by a wall of opposition. Less than 1% of public land would be eligible for sale, Senatorle explained. It wouldn't include national parks, but it would help put a dent in the nation's housing shortage, he said. In some Western states, he asserted, you could potentially double the supply of single family homes. His efforts failed. The backlash was so acute, including from people in his own party, that he was forced to drop the proposal before Trump's mega bill passed. But perhaps the most striking part of this story, at a time of acute political polarisation in America, was how conservatives and progressives here joined together to defend public land. Back in Montana, I'm in a cowboy bar, sitting across from rancher Brian Massad. With a greying goatee, beard and sideburns, he's a longtime conservative and Trump voter. He's softly spoken but full of zeal, seeing himself as a voice for ranchers during the second Trump presidency. I don't know how many ranches, if you took away, their public land here, would disappear, he tells me. Many ranchers lease federal land at low prices to graze their cattle in the summertime. This frees up their own land for haymaking so they can store up enough to feed the cows when winter comes. The importance of public land is huge, brian says. And on this issue, the committed conservative has found himself on the same side as people he'd otherwise be at odds with. It doesn't matter if you're on the left, extreme environmentalists, or supposedly far right conservatives, he says. We're all in lockstep together. About two hours east of Dillon is the city of Bozeman, a former cow town whose old watering holes have been replaced by craft breweries and artisanal cafes. At a coffee roasters inside a yoga studio, I meet Becky Edwards drinking a purple huckleberry lemonade. Becky is a Democrat, Montana House representative and the founder of conservation group Mountain Mummers. It was very heartening to see folks from all aspects of the political spectrum defending public lands, she tells me, smiling and relaxed in blue tracksuit bottoms and Birkenstocks. You know, liberals and conservatives alike really came together and said no, this is a hard stop for us. For Becky and the other mamas in her group, the priority is protecting these lands so that their children and the generations beyond can h or fish or hunt on them. In this neck of the woods, it's common to fill the fridge with meat you've hunted yourself. Critics like Becky fear that the wilderness once sold, will be forever lost. For many, this was seen as just one move in an ongoing chess game on federal land ownership in the West. This has been tried a number of times now, becky warns, her bright smile folding into a frown. I expect more and more and more attacks.
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BBC Correspondent
Ellie House and finally we're in Laos, one of the world's few openly communist states, where the majority of people live in rural communities. This connection to the land has long held a deep spiritual meaning to Laotians, and the country's relatively modern Buddhist beliefs often mix with much older folk religions, where spirits are believed to inhabit all elements of the natural world. On a recent trip, Sarah Wheeler saw how the Khmu people have held fast to their ancient beliefs in the face of a repressive government.
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Sarah Wheeler
Beyond the house on stilts, blue hills rippled to the horizon under a sky as glazed as Wedgwood. My Camus friend Pet pointed at a single figure bent double in a paddy field. That, he said, is my auntie. Laos is a landlocked country, slightly bigger than Great Britain, and its 2005 census recorded 49 ethnicities. While lowland Lao people are the majority here in the northern uplands, Khmu outnumber everyone else. Other ethnic minority groups tend to be spread across neighbouring countries, but most Camus live here in Laos. Pet and I were walking through a village he knew. Several dogs had joined us, along with a goat wearing a bell fashioned from a sardine tin. Camus practice animism, a belief in which all places, objects, and creatures possess a spiritual essence. Pet had just been telling me about his three year old son. The child had been suffering from a sore throat, and the local shaman had advised Pet and his wife to slaughter a chicken. When they did, the boy recovered. Sometimes it works, pet said. Sometimes it doesn't. Animism apparently coexists peacefully enough with the predominant belief system, Theravada Buddhism, practiced by most lowland Lao. All teaching in upland schools, however, is in the Lao language, Khmu children still learn their mother tongue from their mothers. We passed a shop displaying glass bottles of pink gasoline. Rolled umbrellas hung from a plastic line alongside packets of Y fronts and crates of the ubiquitous beer. Lao formed a low wall. Two doors down, an elderly couple hailed Pet and invited us into their small courtyard. The man was squashing on the baked red earth, stripping bamboo with a knife he was going to weave rattan. The woman, wearing an assortment of quilted garments and leg warmers, ducked into a concrete breeze block, leaned to and returned all smiles with a plate of mountain cucumber, cool, crisp, and green. I remember, Pet said, when all the roofs were thatched, we had to replace them every year after the rains, so we changed to metal. It's much better, he told me later, that the couple's three children work on a Chinese banana plantation elsewhere in Laos and send money home so their parents don't have to work their own. Paddy Laos today is effectively a client state of China. The border is less than 50 miles from the village where I ate the cucumber, though the satellite dishes sprouting from stilted Khmu homes pick up Thai tv. The long arc of these blue hills surges from the Andaman Sea to the Tonkin Gulf via Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, China, and Vietnam. The hills, of course, were there long before people who weren't camus invented concepts like countries and borders and nationalities. As we left the village, Pet and I passed a complicated wooden structure on the roadside, like a kind of Meccano model fashioned from teak a long time ago. That is a gate, said Pet, to allow good spirits in and keep bad spirits out. At that moment, four KHMU women emerged from the trees with baskets on their backs and machetes in their hands. They had been gathering firewood, their cooking fuel. Foreign corporations don't bother with the machetes. They have machinery for that job. As recently as 2000, Forest covered at least 75% of Laos. Since then, a quarter of the trees have gone, representing a loss of unprecedented speed, even in hidden corners like this one, where the world doesn't often care to look. A Communist government has ruled laos since the 1975 revolution. Official policy of the ruling Laos People's Revolutionary Party promotes unity among all ethnic groups, and the regime deploys the Camus as a symbol of cultural diversity. But many Camus told me that all groups are not treated equally in this utopia, just as they aren't in any other, and that the handsome LPRO slogan masks human rights violations. Laos currently sits at number 114 out of 180 in the transparency International Corruption Index. On the road south, we stopped at a market. A Camus woman was crocheting a net to catch river fish. Using plastic unravelled from an already recycled fertiliser sack. She was selling plugged bamboo tubes full of writhing grubs. Several had escaped, glistening and fat and oozing a viscous Christmas pudding coloured fluid. Now, those said pet pointing, are delicious.
- [29:45]
BBC Correspondent
Sarah Wheeler and that's all for today, but you can hear more dispatches from around the world on BBC Sounds. We'll be back again next Saturday morning. Do join us.
- [29:57]
Dr. Chris and Dr. Zand
This is Dr. Chris and Dr. Zand here and we are dropping in to let you know about our new BBC Radio 4 podcast in what's up docs. We are going to be diving into the messy, complicated world of health and well being. Because it can be confusing, can't it, Zant? That's right, Chris. The massive information out there can be contradictory, it can be overwhelming. And Chris and I get confused too. That's right. We get seduced by the marketing, the hype, the trends. So we want to be your guides through it. And I think it's fair to say Xand, we are going to be getting personal. We're absolutely going to be getting personal, Chris. What I want to do is bring in my own health dilemmas in the hope that we can help you with yours. Listen and subscribe to what's up docs on BBC Sounds.
- [30:46]
MyFico Advertiser
While holiday shopping is almost always fun, credit can be confusing. That's when you get Myfico. Download the Myfico app now and shop with confidence, knowing that you can stay on top of your credit 24.
- [30:58]
BBC News Presenter
7.
- [30:58]
MyFico Advertiser
Get your FICO score straight from the people that created it, plus free credit monitoring and a free credit report every month. No credit card required. FICO scores are used by 90% of lenders, so trust the MyFico app to keep you in the know. Visit myfico.com free or download the MyFico app today.
- [31:18]
Martha Stewart
I'm Martha Stewart and I believe the best gifts are not only beautiful, but useful every single day. And Lennox has brought timeless beauty and lasting quality to our tables for generations, and their Lenox Spice Village is the perfect holiday gift for someone you love or for yourself. Spice Village transforms everyday spices into inspired memories filled with warmth and joy all year long. Give a gift that lasts beyond the holidays. Discover the collection@lenox.com SpiceVillage.