← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
Viktor Orban's anti-Ukraine election gambit
00:28:35
The Hungarian PM is seeking reelection with tough rhetoric about Ukraine and the EU
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Johnny Diamond
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Narrator / Main Reporter
Hello. Today we venture deep into mountain tunnels on the Iraq Iran border, where Kurdish fighters are poised for action. In the Philippines, the fuel crisis caused by the Iran war has left Manila's taxi drivers queuing for hours. Nigerian farmers tell us how their livelihoods are under threat from a resurgence in attacks by Boko Haram militants. And finally, we're in Jerusalem, where the city's holy sites, usually bustling with tourists at this time of year, are unseasonally quiet. But first, Hungary goes to the polls next weekend. In a closely watched election, often caught between the competing interests of the EU and Russia, the long standing prime minister, Victor Orr Orban, is seen as one of President Putin's closest allies in Europe. Mr. Orban has consistently angered his NATO and EU allies, but in 16 years of almost unchallenged rule, he's created a populist nationalist brand which has provided the blueprint for many other leaders to follow, but now faces a serious challenger. Says Nick Thorpe in Budapest, this has
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Nick Thorpe
been the craziest, most stressful election I've reported on in 40 years. As a correspondent in close to 20 countries, Hungary's governing Fides party has put all its eggs, as it were, in the Ukraine basket. While other European leaders queue up to shake Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's hand, Viktor Orban, the incumbent, shuns it. Don't let Zelensky have the last laugh, proclaim giant billboards plastered across the country. Another shows the Ukrainian leader holding out his hand for Hungarian taxpayers money. A third calls both President Zelensky and Peter Modyar, Hungary's opposition leader and Prime Minister Orban's main challenger. The risk a kocasat or the danger, While Orban is the safe choice. There's even a new word in the Hungarian language, ukranozny, which means to ukrainize everything. That message is more sophisticated than it sounds, zoltan Kiseli, a political analyst from the government Sazodvig think tank, told me. Hidden in each reference to Ukraine is a sub message to every Hungarian voter. The Ukrainians threaten your income, your pension, your safety, your agriculture, your children and your grandchildren. This doesn't just touch a Hungarian nerve, it presses hard on it. It fuels a historical narrative of foreign interference or domination which goes back 500 years, the memory of occupation by the Ottomans, the Austrians, the Russians and now the European Union, and the alleged threat from the Ukrainians, what the government calls the Brussels, Kyiv, Berlin axis. At the start of March, things got even more dramatic. Two armored vans of the Ukrainian Savings bank were intercepted on the Budapest ring road by Hungari antiterror commandos, the drivers and security staff pinned to the tarmac and handcuffed, and $82 million worth of cash and gold confiscated. The Ukrainians said this was a legal, routine transfer across Hungary from Austria to Ukraine. The Hungarian government said it was an illegal shipment to the Ukrainian mafia and hinted that at least some of the money was likely to be offloaded to help fund Peter Modyar and his opposition TISA Party's election. Betha Modya dismisses this as ridiculous. The investigation, overseen by the government, continues. But even the gold convoy, as pro government media dubbed it, has been eclipsed by the drama of the past days. A senior police officer from the Cybercrime Division spilled the beans on an operation in which his unit was pushed aside by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The secret service under direct government control, the arrest of two IT experts working for the opposition, and the seizure of all their hard drives and other equipment and content found on the drives was described by the government media as proof that the Tissa Party had been infiltrated by the Ukrainians. In fact, the sidelined police captain Ben Serbo, said in a widely viewed TV interview, it was a plot by the secret services to smear the opposition. The government hit back on Sunday. They broadcast on YouTube edited segments of the intelligence service's questioning of a 19 year old IT specialist who used the pseudonym Gandalf, who appeared to admit the possibility that he might have been recruited by Ukraine, but added all kinds of other unverified details. Like that he'd been trained at the NATO Cyber Protection center in Estonia when he was just 16. Prime Minister Viktor Orban seized on the interrogation to claim that Gandalf had confessed to working for Ukraine. Then on Monday, Gandalf came forward to reveal himself as Daniel Hrabotsky, a bespectacled Harry Potter like figure. He told one news site that he had in fact disinformed or scammed his interrogators by making up a load of nonsense, fully expecting the government to release the alleged top secret material to discredit him personally and the TISA party. In other words, he turned his own interrogation into a kind of video game in which he came out on top and made the secret services look incompetent and gullible. Foreign Minister Peter Siharto responded the same evening. It all just proves that Ukraine tried to recruit him and our intelligence service is just doing its job to defend Hungarian sovereignty, he said in a seven minute doorstep interview. He used the word Ukraine no fewer than 22 times. Little wonder that the Hungarian vocabulary is now one word richer.
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Narrator / Main Reporter
Nick Thorp since the US and Israel began strikes against Iran late in February, hundreds of Kurds from inside Iran and from Western countries have traveled to join Kurdish forces based around the Iraq Iran border. There were reports early in the war that President Trump was in talks with Kurdish leaders about them joining the war. Tehran has accused several Iranian Kurdish opposition groups of fueling separatism and has labeled them terrorists, which has led to surveillance, arrests and cross border strikes against Kurdish bases in northern Iraq. Gr Ghol recently visited the fighters in their mountain base.
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Gr Ghol
I arrived at the hotel in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, after passing through layers of security guards and barriers. Relieved after many hours of traveling, I relaxed in the hotel restaurant, waiting for my dinner. Then it came a sudden loud blast shuddering through the building, rattling glass and silencing the room in an instant. Smoke billowed into the dining hall. We'd been hit by a drone attack fired by Iranian backed Shi' A militias. There were no casualties this time, but we quickly moved on. We drove four hours toward the Iranian border, deeper into the highlands where one of the Iranian Kurdish opposition movements, Pizhak, are based. The air grew colder and thinner as we made our ascent beneath the melting snow. Streaks of green broke through the earth and birds were singing brightly as if the world didn't exist. Then the track dissolved into the thick mud. Our 4x4 struggled through every meter. The wheels spun and the engine growled. From the mountain's edge we could see the Iranian border outpost. US and Israeli fighter jets tore through the sky with a deafening roar. Many inside Iran told me the attacks were dismantling Iranian security apparatus to allow Kurdish Fighters waiting in these very mountains to eventually move in. Beneath the jagged peaks and hidden valleys, Pejak fighters carved a sacred wall into the rock. Tunnels twisting deep into the mountains connected like veins across the rugged terrain. Deep inside, life persists in shadow. A library, a kitchen and a communications center linked to the outside world via Starlink satellite. Many of the fighters were bottle hardened, their eyes shaped by years of fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria. I met avin Ararat, a 25 year old puja fighter with a quiet intensity in her gaze. Her body was slight, her black hair and deep eyes framing a face that seemed too young for the weight it carried. We're ready to move into Iran if the commander orders it, she says. We already have many fighters inside the country, but if needed, I am ready to go. In the tunnel, I also met Rewar Abdanan, a member of Pujak's leadership council. In his makeshift office carved out of rock, a tall man with a mustache and pale skin, he told me his group were in contact with foreign governments and were willing to explore the their options. He leaned back and said, the way the U S led coalition treated their allies, the Kurds in Syria left a mark we cannot forget. His voice was steady but heavy with frustration. More than 10,000 Kurdish women and men gave their lives to defeat the Islamic State in Syria. And yet Trump abandoned the Kurds When Turkey and new Syrian government militias attacked the Kurds, he went on a couple of hours drive From Puzhak's base along the border, I meet another group of Kurdish fighters from the Iranian Kurdish opposition group Komala of Toilers of Kurdistan Party. Ashkan Moraveti is impossible to miss. Mid 20s and a former boxer, tall, well built, tattooed with an air of defiance. Widely regarded a hero of the Iranian protests in 2023, he escaped execution. As we talk, a long barrel sniper rifle rests in his grip like a decision already made. He left his current home in Manchester, England three months ago, walked away from comfort into conflict to join the Kurdish fighters. His voice is calm, unwavering. After the mass killings of protesters by the Iranian regime in January, I realized peaceful protest cannot bring change in Iran. It is the responsibility of the entire world to topple this brutal regime, he insists. Beside him, Shahrzad Raza nods, then cuts in. The Islamic Republic only understands force. She is a former political prisoner and mother of two who recently fled Iran. She is carrying an AK47 slung across her shoulder, ammunition belted tight around her waist. Reza Kabi, a man in his late 60s, is the leader of this faction, he takes a more pragmatic line. If the US provides a no fly zone and guarantees Kurdish rights, we can play a significant role in toppling the regime, he says. They have waited decades for this moment. Now, with war overhead and history closing in, they believe the end of Iran's Islamic regime is no longer distance but within reach.
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Narrator / Main Reporter
Next, we're in northeast Nigeria, where a series of suspected suicide bombings in the city of Maiduguri last month left 23 people dead and over a hundred more injured. The attacks came after a period of relative stability in the region, and Nigerian officials said militants from Boko Haram were responsible. The Islamist group has fought a long running insurgency in Borno State, which has left thousands dead and over a million people displaced. Ijima Ndukwe met farmers hit hard by the pervasive threat of violence it's early
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Ijima Ndukwe
in the morning, yet I'm already feeling the heat as I look out across vast swathes of farmland. A group of women dressed in brightly printed cloth are hunched over, hose in hand, vigorously weeding. I have witnessed similar scenes while reporting in other parts of Nigeria. Small scale tomato farms in the northwestern city of Kano, where families work together to plant their rainy season crops. Women wading knee high in rice paddies near the Benue river, which flows through the country's central region. Here, near the town of Dalwa in the northeast, there's a stark difference. A handful of uniformed men stand guard along the perimeter of the farms with huge rifles slung over their shoulders. They're agrorangers, a special security unit set up by the Nigerian government to defend farmers from jihadist groups. Fighters affiliated to Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa sometimes lurk in the bushes across Borno State and can strike at any time due to frequent ambushes. Traveling by road in Borno is not advised unless traveling in a convoy with a military escort, a privilege that most farmers here cannot afford. We travel beyond the checkpoints, leaving the garrison city of Maiduguri behind. We pass dozens of bicycles propped by the side of the road on the outskirts of the city by a pickup spot. It's where farmers take the old dust covered government buses to their farms with armed escorts. For many, the presence of the rangers is the reassurance they need. On a Nearby plot is 50 year old Ayesha Isa. 11 years ago she had to flee her hometown, Kundaga, following attacks by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram. She's still waiting for the government to announce that it's safe to return home. Until then, this plot of Land provides the only way for her to feed her family of six. Despite her fear, hunger fuels her. She says she would come with or without guards. A spokesperson from the Civil Defense Corps says the agrorangers have not encountered Boko Haram fighters in the bush here recently. Chief Superintendent James Boulos admits, however, that there are limited resources to guard a population of millions in a state where the majority rely on farming. We're not spirits, we cannot be everywhere, he tells me. This means the insecurity is keenly felt by too many farmers. On another day, I travel to the home of Adam Goni. He's the chair of the Borno branch of the National Sorghum Farmers association, which represents thousands of people. He lays down a mat and we sit in the shade of a leafy tree in his courtyard. He tells me that he has land ready to be harvested only five miles away, but he is terrified to gather his crops. The owner of the neighbouring farm was gunned down by Boko Haram only weeks ago. He tells me he's now so used to attacks by insurgents that he can distinguish between the sound of their guns and the agrorangers by ear. In any case, whether it's a stream of fire unleashed by the insurgents or the steady pop of the Rangers weapons, whenever the farmers hear guns, they run, he says. Others gathered at his home exchanged stories of their own encounters with Boko Haram. Everyone here has had their lives irrevocably changed by violence. Alongside the house is a river where children splash around playing while one man tells me about the weeks he spent as a hostage of the group held for ransom. He's not the only one gathered at this house who's been kidnapped by militants. But they are the fortunate ones. I meet Baba Modu, whose 30 year old nephew was shot dead on his farm by Boko Haram fighters last year. He sinks into his chair from time to time, sighing deeply as he recalls the day. He's also too afraid to go to his farm. The fears that plague him during the day haunt him at night. He now struggles to eat and sleep. Baba Modu is among the many survivors of a conflict forced to make the impossible choice between their livelihoods and their lives. In a place where farming has become an act of defiance, the battle scars are not always visible, but often run deep.
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Narrator / Main Reporter
Ijuma Ndukwe
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Tristan Redman
I'm Tristan Redman, one of the hosts of the Global Story podcast from the BBC. How would the US invade Iran? Different options are on the table, but the Pentagon has war gamed this for years, and our guest today was in the room for many of them. What are Donald Trump's remaining military options? Listen to the Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Narrator / Main Reporter
Next to the Philippines, which became the first country to declare an energy emergency after fuel prices there more than doubled since the Iran war broke out. The country's under particular strain as nearly all of its oil comes from the Gulf. To help counter the shortage, the Filipino government has offered subsidies to transport drivers, reduced ferry services and implemented a four day week for civil servants to save fuel. But many transport workers say the emergency declaration was too slow in coming. Suranjarna Tewari has been in Manila.
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Suranjana Tiwari
Manila is hot, dusty and constantly moving, a city powered by engines. Jeepney's colorful open minibuses rattle through the streets, often packed beyond safe capacity. Weaving between buses, motorbikes and scooters, traffic presses in from every direction. Spend a few minutes here and it's clear this is a motor city in a country that still runs mostly on fossil fuel. But that dependence is now being tested. Since the war in Iran began, diesel and petrol prices in the Philippines have more than doubled. The country imports around 98% of its oil, much of it passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Within weeks of the conflict breaking out, the Philippines government declared a national energy emergency warning. Supplies were tightening. At one stage, officials said reserves could last just over 50 days for petrol and even less for diesel. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Said the emergency powers would give the government more flexibility to respond. But on the ground, many say little has changed. At a jeepney terminal in central Manila, one driver, Ricky, tells me his income has been cut in half. The fuel price hikes have really hit me hard, he says and tells me how he's now borrowing money from relatives to cover his daily costs. Outside the capital, the situation is worse. More than 400 petrol stations have closed due to shortages. In some areas, transport has been disrupted, leaving children unable to get to school. Back in Manila last week, hundreds of drivers staged a two day strike demanding the scrapping of fuel taxes and introducing state controls to counter the spiraling prices. They're also pushing for fare increases and higher wages. Groups of protesters gathered in different pockets across the capital, holding up signs and chanting loudly for stronger government action. Some motorized tricycle and jeepney drivers in the capital have received government subsidies, a one time payment of around US$83. But many say these payments are insufficient. 62 year old Guillermo Chipotle told me he queued for hours only to find his name was not on the list of those entitled to the subsidies. No cash aid, no earnings, no food for the family. He said he has five children in school and his family is now on the verge of being evicted from their home. Another driver, 28 year old Anjo Leiluk, said he hasn't received any aid either. He brought his daughter Hannah to the protest because there was no one to look after her. Any financial help, Anu said, would go towards food, rent and milk for the baby. The driver's strike caused disruption, forcing the government to deploy special buses to transport thousands of stranded residents. Truck drivers passing the protests blasted their horns in support, but its overall impact was less than organizers had hoped for. Some drivers are considering returning to their hometowns in the provinces to look for work. And the economic pressure extends beyond transport. Restaurant owner Armelita Rao says the price of rice has risen sharply, cooking and delivery costs have increased, and her customers are cutting back. People used to eat three times a day, she says. Now, maybe twice since the war began, President Marcos has acknowledged the broader risks, saying the Philippines is a victim of a war that is not of our choosing. But criticism of the government's response is growing. Unions have described the emergency declaration as an admission that the crisis was not addressed early enough. The Philippines depends heavily on overseas workers, particularly those in the Middle East. Around 2 million Filipinos work in the region, and remittances account for close to 10% of the economy. Some of those workers are now unable to travel or have lost their jobs, reducing the money being sent home. There are signs some people in Manila are looking at electric vehicles, but for most, they're still out of reach. They're expensive, and charging isn't easy in a city where many people don't have parking at home. The effects on daily life are gradual and cumulative. A driver working longer hours for less pay. A parent stretching a meal. A student waiting by the roadside for a jeepney. A major newspaper recently carried the headline Nation on Brink. This oil crisis may destroy everything we build. There are no explosions here, but the steady, tightening pressure of a crisis unfolding thousands of miles away is being felt here in every journey, every purchase, every plate of food.
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Narrator / Main Reporter
Suranjana Tiwari and finally, we're in Israel, where the closure of holy sites due to the heightened security threat caused by the war with Iran has led to consternation and disappointment among faith leaders and business owners. In recent weeks, communities have gathered to mark the religious festivals of Eid, Passover and Easter. But the droves of tourists who typically visit at this time of year have decided to stay away. Find Sebastian Usher in Jerusalem by New
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Sebastian Usher
Gate, which leads into the Armenian quarter of the Old City. My coffee sits on a traffic bollard because the usually buzzing cafes here have no business and makes it worth the trouble of putting out tables and chairs inside, their card machines are disconnected. It's cash only. Again, not worth the bother, nor the cost, when every day is now a struggle to keep their heads above water. One cafe owner, Sami, says it's as bad as during COVID the virus of war now ensuring that the usual flocks of tourists and pilgrims during Holy Week are staying away. In the Muslim quarter leading down to Damascus Gate, there are still butchers selling entire lambs, coffee stalls with the scent of cardamom, green pyramids of a local zaata at the front of spice shops. But in the Christian Quarter, gray, black and golden cats patrol undisturbed down long empty alleyways of metal shutters pulled down on stalled businesses, their shop fronts full of souvenirs and religious memorabilia that are locked away for now. Above the Old City, on Palm Sunday, a small church on the Mount of Olives held a mass for the local community. Long slender palms and olive branches sprinkled with holy water were handed out by priests at the Church of Bethpage. But there was to be no joyous procession setting off from there, in which thousands of worshippers from near and far usually take part. Beneath a lowering sky, I could make out the route climbing up to the summit of a Mount of Olives and then winding its way down the steep road to enter the Old City by Lion's Gate. But all gatherings of more than 50 people have been prohibited because of the security situation. In Bethlehem and other Palestinian towns, similar small scale services were held in equally ancient churches, but as with Eid for Muslims just a few days earlier, it was all very muted. The reason for such caution is uncontested by local religious leaders, the sirens regularly splitting the sky and making the crows caw with apprehension. The Dal booms that then follow are a constant reminder. It's for simple fear of a mass casualty event were the usual throngs of worshippers to be gathered in the Old City just as an Iranian missile or cluster munition broke through Israel's astonishing air defenses. A week before, I had watched as police and firemen and bulldozers attended the impact crater of shrapnel from an Iranian missile that had fallen just inside the Old City, only a few hundred meters away from a western wall, Al Aqsa and the Church of a Holy Sepulcher. Because of those sacred sites to Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Residents inside the Old City and in the area around it have felt an extra sense of protection that few others in Israel share. Surely Iran would not risk hitting those holy places is the thinking. But this war has shaken almost all the remaining certainties that people have been holding onto. And one of the most symbolic continuities that it held for so many centuries was shaken on Palm Sunday. The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzabala, was stopped by Israeli police as he was about to enter the Church of a Holy Sepulcher, where the Palm Sunday procession starting the Church of Bethpage would usually have ended if it hadn't been cancelled. His intention was to officiate over Mass inside for the 10 friars who lived there. The incident quickly escalated into an international controversy, with the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgio Meloni, and the French President, Emmanuel Macron leading the denunciations. Cardinal Pizzabella himself described how a tradition and ritual going back centuries had been broken in the Patriarchate. Two days later, Cardinal Pizzabala played down the incident and said an agreement had been made with the Israeli authorities for him to hold a limited Mass at the Church of a Holy Sepulcher on Easter Sunday, just as he'd been planning to do on Palm Sunday. He told me how entering the Church of a Holy Sepulcher felt simply like entering his own home. And he lamented, too, how Jerusalem without pilgrims feels incomplete. And he's right. Making the steep ascent of the Via Dolorosa without people kissing the stones, weeping at one of the stations of the Cross, or singing hymns in a multiplicity of languages, renders betrayal layered with so much weight of faith and yearning, almost mundane. Even one of Jerusalem's most striking characters, a Canadian who has for years walked the alleys of the Old City with flowing hair, a rough tunic, bare feet and a wooden staff like a disciple in an old Hollywood biblical epic, is nowhere to be seen. But another character, Isa, who owns a Christmas speciality shop and is the city's resident Santa Claus, is trying to stay buoyant. Back at Sammy's Cafe, he tells me a host of stories, including how his family helped build the Church of a Holy Sepulchre. And then he simply says, you know, whatever happens, it's still Jerusalem. You can feel the heart.
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Narrator / Main Reporter
Sebastian Usher and that's all for today. We we'll be back again next Saturday morning. Do join us.
- [29:40]
Johnny Diamond
Hello, I'm Johnny diamond and I'm the presenter of the Radio 4 series how did We Get Israel and the Palestinians? We explore the complicated backstory of that Middle east conflict as the region endures another, wider war. Through conversations with experts with a variety of perspectives, we travel back through the centuries to examine the history of of the land that's now so contested between Arabs and Israelis. And we try and understand the past that's brought us to such a present. How did we get here? Israel and the Palestinians? Listen on BBC Sounds.
- [30:19]
Tristan Redman
I'm Tristan Redman, one of the hosts of the Global Story podcast from the BBC. How would the US Invade Iran? Different options are on the table, but the Pentagon has war gamed this for years, and our guest today was in the room for many of them. What are Donald Trump's remaining military options? Listen to the Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.