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From Our Own Correspondent
You Can't Hug on Facebook
00:28:03
Portuguese people are leaving the country in their thousands, travelling to the former...
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Narrator
Hello.
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Programme Host
This is a download of from our own correspondent. We make one edition of the programme
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Correspondent
for the BBC World Service, but this
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Programme Host
is the one broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Here to introduce it, Kate Ady.
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Reporter
Hello. In this programme, turmoil in Egypt after the ousting by the military of the Islamist president Mohamed Morsi. Families fracture in Portugal as thousands leave the country in search of a job. Syrians on the move too. We talk to a family of Assad supporters selling shoes in Armenia. And on Christmas island, far away in the Pacific, a concrete reminder of the day the British triggered their first H bomb. 30 people were killed overnight in street battles in Egypt between supporters and opponents of the deposed president. More demonstrations are expected today. Kevin Connolly, who's in the capital, Cairo, says that the army's promising fresh elections, but no date's been set and it's far from clear the results would be accepted.
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Narrator
A little over two years ago, the long reign of the brilliant teen autocrat Hosni Mubarak ended when tidal waves of protest in Cairo swept him from power. Tahrir Square was suddenly as famous as Times Square or Trafalgar or Tiananmen. You knew the game was up for Mr. Mubarak when the uniformed security forces of the state melted away. The city streets were left to vigilantes armed with everything from hockey sticks to handguns. It was a time of paradox here. A police state without any policemen clearly isn't going to last very long. A few hours after Mr. Mubarak's democratically elected successor, Mohamed Morsi, was dumped from office this week and arrested by Egypt's generals, I couldn't help noticing that this time there were plenty of men in uniform out and about. As we drove past a foreign embassy in one leafy suburb, a couple of the policemen outside it were dancing in the streets. Not something you want to see in men carrying Kalashnikovs. Egypt once again found itself in a paradoxical state. This time it was a presidential democracy without a president. The policemen were delighted. Mohamed Morsi came from the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist movement that was born in Egypt 85 years ago and which members of the security forces were trained to view as a subversive organization. Those dancing policemen were celebrating what they presumably regarded as a kind of restoration of normal service. Instead of taking orders from members of the Brotherhood, they were taking them into custody again. There were rumours eventually confirmed that Mr. Morsi himself and some of his top men had been arrested. It was said his mobile phone was confiscated and that his wife was unable to get in touch with him, a sudden and startling humiliation for Egypt's first couple. Mr. Morsi had become unpopular. He has whatever the opposite of charisma is, for a start. And he never got to grips with the grinding problems of poverty and unemployment which bedevil Egypt. The coming of democracy raised expectations that no president could have satisfied. And nothing in Mr. Morsi's life as a backroom Brotherhood activist equipped him for the task. And yet there are plenty of Egyptians who, while they won't mourn Mr. Morsi's passing, are nonetheless uncomfortable with the manner of it. Supporters of the generals see them as custodians of the national spirit, with a kind of overarching extra constitutional right to intervene at moments of national crisis. They would say they are executing the will of the people, as expressed by the vast public rallies against Mr. Morsi in recent days. They alone took the decision that those protests somehow trump the will of the people as expressed through the ballot box last year. The most interesting and the most dangerous question in Egyptian politics now is this. What if fresh elections are held and and a candidate from the Muslim Brotherhood wins again? It's a far from impossible outcome. The brothers have been damaged by Mr. Morsi's lackluster period in office, but they remain the best organized force in the country. And the way they've been treated will add anger and zest to their future campaigning. Would a second Islamist president go the way of the first, with the generals insisting that he too was unfit to Govern? Supporters of Mr. Morsi are furious at the way he has been treated. They see this as a straightforward military coup, albeit a relatively softly spoken one. And they believe that the leaders of the west, even if they are a bit squeamish about the means, are happy enough to see the removal from office of a man with whom they never felt instinctively comfortable. In Washington, London and Paris, they might be hoping for a future leader who is easier to deal with on pressing issues like Syria. The message from Mr. Morsi's supporters is a military coup is a bad thing, even if it's directed against someone you don't particularly like. Much will depend now on how quickly Egypt moves towards new elections and how free and fair they will be, and on whether the army respects the results. Egypt's military has huge economic interest of its own to protect. And exercising power is proving to be a hard habit to break. The mood on the streets here can be volatile. It is true that huge crowds celebrated the army's decision to remove Mr. Morsi from office. But then, the last time the generals were in control. Cairo was filled with protesters demanding that they hand power to a civilian. No one ever thought that this vast country could move from authoritarianism to democracy without a hitch. But this lurching Pushmi Pullyu transition is. Is worse than it needed to be. And all the time, Egypt's desperate problems of poverty are getting worse. These are turbulent times here when politics is transacted partly in private meetings between generals and partly in public gatherings. You can be pretty sure that one side or the other will be dancing in the streets again before too long. I wonder if it will still be those young policemen this time next year.
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Reporter
And that's Kevin Connolly. The two parties in Portugal's governing coalition are meeting today to finalise a deal to avert its collapse. Both the Prime Minister and his Centre right coalition partner, who attempted to resign earlier this week, say they've reached an agreement which will allow the country to fulfil the terms of its international bailout. Portugal received a 70 million pounds handout in 2011 on condition it introduced tough austerity measures. They've become increasingly unpopular in recent months. The nation has been in recession for two years now. Emma Jane Kirby's been finding out how soaring unemployment there has led many Portuguese to seek work overseas.
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Emma Jane Kirby
Somewhere on the line between Porto and Lisbon, my train slowed again and pulled into another station. I glanced up briefly from my laptop, yawned and rubbed my eyes, and when I focused again, I saw them standing on the platform, clinging to one another. The smaller man must have been pushing 70, white haired, wearing a faded candy striped short sleeved shirt, and his face, half buried on the taller man's shoulder, was screwed up in grief. From the way the taller man's back pulsed with irregular, jagged shudders, I could tell he was also crying. They were hugging so fiercely that, watching them, I found myself gasping for breath. On the ground beside the taller man, there was a battered giant suit case and a dented metallic trunk. As they pulled apart, I saw the same high forehead and finely chiselled nose on each face, and it became clear they were father and son and that this, perhaps, was their final goodbye. Now, I don't know these people or the circumstances of their parting, but given the background to what's happening in Portugal at the moment, I bet I know their story. How the tall son, weary of rejection letters, panicked about the rent arrears, had gone to his father and said, dad, there's nothing else for it. I don't want to leave you, but I'm moving to Angola to find a job. It might have been Mozambique of course it might have been Brazil, but Portuguese professionals are leaving their country in their thousands to beg their former colonies for work. Demand went up by 60% last year, Marcio at the Porto Visa agency told me, and in the first five months of this year I've processed 45% more visas. On top of that, engineers, architects, teachers, they're all leaving. He sighed and twisted his pencil around his fingers. I see so many tears in this office, he said. You know, when the visa comes through and they have it in their hand, that's when it hits them. The fact that they're leaving everyone behind. In a nearby suburb, 33 year old Flor, an architect, talked toward me around her dad's pristine civil engineering offices with their polished wooden desks and efficiently empty in trays. I noticed how quiet it was and asked her if everyone was at lunch. Lunch? She asked incredulously. Everyone's been laid off. We stood under a pencil sketch of her mum and dad on their wedding day, her father serious and suited, her mother confidently beautiful, her hair piled into a 60s style beehive. Flor has been unemployed for nearly two years and her eyes were bruised purple with lack of sleep. In the last 12 months she was offered six jobs, five without any salary at all, and the sixth with a token wage of €150amonth. Brazil, with its construction boom, seemed her only chance of finding work, but her mum, desperate not to be torn from her only daughter, begged and pleaded with her not to go. My mum died three weeks ago, she whispered, so I know now it's time. Floor will not only be looking for a job for herself but also for her elder brother, Pedro, her widowed father will not be coming with them. Im so angry, she says bitterly. I don't want to leave my dad. I don't want to work in a third world country. Brazil actually frightens me with its level of violence and I'll be completely alone, but what can I do? She looked up tearfully at the portrait of her mum, and I understood at once that she was talking to her, not me. This reluctant exodus to the former colonies has caused a massive social fracture across Portugal, leaving fissures and cracks in so many tightly knit family units and fragmenting, perhaps forever, the relationship between parents and children, brothers and sisters like 30 year old Claudia, an unemployed civil engineer, and her older sister Paola, who spent much of the time I interviewed them with their eyes locked on one another's faces, silent and motionless as if they'd been frozen in a photograph. Claudia, in the footsteps of another sibling, had just applied for her visa to Brazil. She'll apply for Mozambique if Brazil doesn't work out. With her green framed glasses and long dark hair, she looked intelligent and capable. But I could see that from where Paolo was sitting. She was just her kid sister. I want everyone to get used to the idea that I'm going, claudia smiled bravely. So last week, I told my little nephew. He looked up from the tv, and with his eyes full of tears, he said, you too. Soon it'll only be me left in Portugal. At least we can Facebook, she reassured her sister. Paula smiled back, but her chin was trembling. You can't hug on Facebook, she replied.
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Reporter
And that's Emma Jane Kirby the Syrian economy is also in tatters as the struggle for control of the country drags on. Talk of a conference to try to end the fighting continues, but a possible date for it keeps getting pushed back. One of the most brutal of the battles between government forces and those seeking to overthrow the Assad regime is over the northern city of Aleppo. Parts of what used to be Syria's commercial hub now lie in ruins. The city was home to a large community of Armenians. Many of these people, known for their skills as traders, left as the fighting intensified. Some have returned to their old homeland in the South Caucasus. Kieran Cook's been catching up with one family running a shoe shop in Armenia's capital.
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Correspondent
You don't mind if we talk in the shop? Asks Hovig Bagdasiran. It's just that there are many customers and I have to attend to them. I sit on a low red leather chair. Shoe boxes are littered all around. Customers browse the shelves behind us. So when did you arrive in Armenia from Aleppo? I ask. An attractive girl with dyed blonde hair and jet black eyes wants a pair of sandals. Hovig jumps up. This could be a long interview. At one time there were about 100,000 Armenians in Syria, most of them living in and around Aleppo. And most, says Hovik, have been supporters of the Assad regime. Feeling secure, many have built up businesses and become prosperous. Hovig, his parents, wife and two young daughters came from aleppo to Yerevan, Armenia's small, slow moving capital, in 11 months ago. He quickly set up his shoe shop on one of Yerevan's main thoroughfares. Another sale is completed. The girl, also Syrian Armenian, is happy with her sandals. Does she want a return? I ask. She laughs, perfect teeth twinkling jewels in her ears. Tomorrow I would go back tomorrow, she says. How did Hovik raise the money to open his shop? I ask. Did he bring his Cash out of Syria. He puts his arms out, mimics carrying suitcases. He made several trips out and back via Beirut, Damascus and elsewhere. Hovik manufactured shoes in Aleppo. Despite the intensity of the fighting in parts of the city, some of those shoes are still being exported from Syria, carried by couriers all the way to Armenia. We lived well in Syria, he says. We had Armenian schools, football clubs, we could drink, swim. Now, he says, the community's churches have had to close. An old people's home has been shut down, along with an Armenian orphanage, and some of the Armenians most sacred memorials have been destroyed by what he calls the terrorists. Many hundreds of people have been forced to find sanctuary in his old neighbourhood in Aleppo, which is still controlled by government forces. Poorer refugees from Syria arriving in Armenia have been given passports, accommodation and free health care by the government. Armenia is a relatively poor, landlocked country with only a little over 3 million people. The Armenian diaspora, numbering more than 10 million, contributes vital funds to the homeland. Wealthy Armenians like Hovik, the shoe merchant, are valued as investors. Life just became too difficult in Aleppo, he says. In my shops, 90% of customers were middle class Muslims. Half of my staff would be Christian girls, the other half Muslim boys. There was no problem. Then one day, says Hovik, men with big beards came and urged people to leave. They told the customers they should give their business to Muslim shopkeepers. It was then, he said, his father and he decided to move elsewhere. Another customer. Yes, of course, the shoes can be tried on for size. Another style, perhaps. Maybe these would suit you better. You see how we make business. Sezhovik Armenians here are very nice. They've been very welcoming to us, but they don't smile enough. They don't know how to please people. They have the old Soviet attitude. They are not skilled in the ways of business. The family had at first thought of going to Paris, where there is a sizable Armenian community. But Paris is too dangerous, too much crime, says Hovik. Here it is peaceful. People are good. Hovik's mother, Antoinette, like Marie Antoinette, she says with a laugh, is also serving in the shop. Size seven, maybe a seven and a half. In between dealing with customers, she's giving her opinions on what's going on back in Syria. She refers to Assad as my president. He's a very good man, she says. A customer, a young woman in a headscarf, a tourist visiting Armenia from neighboring Iran, is oblivious to the conversation going on around her. She's intent, it seems, on trying on every shoe in the shop. Why do France and Britain and America give support to the rebels? Asks Antoinette. Why do they not care about us Christians? The Iranian woman has finally decided on a purchase. You see, we put Italian style on the bottom of our shoes, says Hovik. People like that. It gives a sense of sophistication. Even if the shoes are made in Aleppo, it's just another little business trick.
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Reporter
Kieran Cook there. But while economies reel in countries from Syria to Portugal, the Vietnamese model's doing rather well. This may be one of the world's few remaining communist states, but like China, it's experienced rapid growth in recent years. Exports have risen sharply since the introduction of market reforms. Tourism is booming, and female entrepreneurs entrepreneurs, it seems, are at the forefront of this success. They now run something like a quarter of all Vietnam's private companies. Beth MacLeod says reasons for this can be found in the nation's turbulent recent history. She's been to meet one of its wealthiest businesswomen.
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Beth MacLeod
Happyland aspires to be Southeast Asia's answer to Disney World. When it opens next year, it hopes to attract 14 million visitors annually and, according to the brochure, aims to satisfy the recreational demands of the citizens of our fast growing nation. My government minder, the Communist Party issues all foreign journalists with one had arranged for me to meet the team behind this ambitious project. The office I was ushered into had a portrait of Ho Chi Minh, the father of modern Vietnam, hanging on the wall. A group of six young men in suits huddled round a large leather bound desk, taking orders from the woman sat behind it. This, one of her assistants said reverently, is our leader, Madame Tao. She was a round woman resplendent in a snug trouser suit made from purple velvet and covered in jewels and gold embroidery. I held out my hand, but instead found myself enveloped in a warm bear hug. Madame Tao pinched my cheek, laughing. She thinks you have a cute smile, her assistant told me. Thank you, I replied, taken aback by this greeting. Please tell Madame Tao that I like her trouser suit. After some consultation, the assistant turned to me. Madame Tao will have a matching one made for you. With her velvet clad arm firmly round my waist, Madame Tao led me to a plan of the Happyland site. She pointed out the water park, the themed rides, the five star hotel, and the Vietnamese cultural Center. She seemed particularly excited about the numerous karaoke venues. I've always dreamt of doing something for children who have nothing, she said. Like me when I was growing up, she's now very wealthy and is funding a large chunk of the Happyland project with the money Earned during her varied career, hers is a classic capitalist rags to riches tale in one of the few remaining communist countries. She grew up in the countryside near Saigon during the war against America and and when she was 11, her family lost their property in a bombing raid. From then, she worked to support her seven younger brothers and sisters by selling sweet potatoes door to door. When she was a little older, she went into the city so she could send money back for her siblings to go to school. After sleeping on park benches for a week, she found work washing dishes in a Chinese restaurant and made extra money cleaning the clothes of the other workers there. The day I got that job, I hadn't eaten for a long time and I ate the rice they gave me like a hungry beggar quivering, she said. Using the money she made at the restaurant, she started buying and selling scrap iron. She bought a motorbike and started supplying all sorts of building materials to the many construction sites springing up around the city. This was soon after the government introduced market reforms and the economy was booming. The business expanded fast, driven, according to her assistant, by Madame Tao's hard work and quick wits. She now owns three companies and has joined the ranks of Vietnam's super rich who are chauffeur driven in Bentleys between the glitzy malls and chic restaurants of Ho Chi Minh City, as Saigon is now called. But to quote Madame Tao's biography, she is not one to oversleep on the pinnacle of glory. I get up at 3am and work overtime until late at night, she said. Since I first established the Happyland project five years ago, I work 16 hours a day. She was not the only woman I met in Vietnam with this strong work ethic. 25% of private businesses are run by women. Why did she think this figure was so high compared with other countries in the region? I asked her. Madame Tao paused for a sip of jasmine tea. I've met many female entrepreneurs in the course of doing business from the north to the South. They are the ones who really run this country, she said. I think women in Vietnam are strong because we've had so many wars. The men go away, many of them were killed, and we must do it all ourselves to make money and bring up the family. We carry that strength into business. With that, Madame Tao gave me another bear hug goodbye and swept out from meeting with a group of South Korean businessmen who were investing in Happy. But it wasn't the last I heard of her. The very next day, her assistant came to my hotel with a tape measure with orders to fit Me out for my very own bejewelled purple velvet trouser suit.
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Reporter
Beth MacLeod in Vietnam. And she'll have more from there in the Tuesday edition of the World Tonight. That's here on Radio 4 at 10 o' clock now. It's more than half a century since the British tested some of their early nuclear devices on Christmas Island. This is one of the most isolated places on Earth, right on the equator in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, about 1400 miles south of Hawaii. Today, this coral atoll is known more for its fishing, bird watching and surfing opportunities. But John Pickford has been finding out that there are still reminders on Christmas island of those weapons tests back in the late 1950s.
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Programme Host
Main camp. The name is all that's left of the British military headquarters of 50 years ago. Christmas Island's only hotel, the Captain Cook, stands there now. The searing east wind still blows and the ocean swell booms ceaselessly on the reef like a distant train in a tunnel. There's a ruined church of coral rock close by. An inscription etched in cement invites church notices. Who pinned up the last one and what did it say? Christmas island has gone through a lot of change since then. It's now part of the oceanic state of Kiribati, with a capital in distant Tarawa, a day's flight away via Fiji. And it has a new name, Kiritimati. The people of Kiribati, formerly the Gilbert Islands, have difficulty pronouncing the letter S. So Christmas becomes Kritmat Kiritmati. A new name is born. Most significant is the increase in the human population, now approaching 10,000. There are more vehicles today than there were people in 1958. Concerns have been raised about the island's ability to cope due to its unreliable water supply. But the Kiribati government has continued to encourage resettlement from overcrowded Tarawa. Some fear this poses a 21st century threat to Christmas Island's environment. There are new schools, a bank and even a small hospital. I spoke to a tired looking doctor, the island's obstetrician. How many babies in a week? Oh, not many, she said. About 10. Well, that's 500 in a year. But for others connected with this island, time has stood still. Trevor Butler, now 75, went out aged 20 as a supper with the Royal Engineers. After his return, he developed a cataract in his right eye. And for much of his life, he's been trying and failing to get compensation from the Ministry of Defence for what he alleges was harmful exposure to radiation. During his Military service. I met him in a bleak shopping centre in York just before I left for Christmas Island. Trevor's a vigorous, determined man and still fascinated by the island, and he asked me if I'd see if there was anything remaining of the structures and he'd helped build during his time there. A few weeks later, I'm on Kiritamati in a truck heading south. To my left is the deep blue of the ocean and to my right, saltbush scrub to the horizon, a rich green after recent rain. The road is remarkably good, considering it's 50 years old then. I remember Trevor telling me they added cement to the tarmac to help it set. I'm with William from the wildlife department and we're driving to the remote southeast tip of the island, once ominously called the Forward zone. It was high in the atmosphere over this area, or just offshore, that the bombs were detonated, and for decades it was sealed off. William traps feral cats out here. They're a threat to the seabird colonies and he says he's seen something I might find interesting. We've driven fast for two hours. This is the biggest coral atoll on Earth. But now, slow to a walking pace. It's the birds. Sooty terns, tens of thousands of them, in the air and on the ground, a glorious, teeming, deafening cacophony. Did they really explode an atom bomb over this? Well, they did, and there must have been a moment after the flash when there was silence. William stops the truck and we begin walking into the scrub. It's taller than we are, so it's like entering a maze. What we're looking for has something to do with the giant tethers that were constructed for a couple of the atom bombs, which were suspended from balloons and detonated rather than dropped as air bursts from planes. The sun's setting and I'm a bit worried we're lost when William calls out.
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Reporter
Here.
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Programme Host
It's a massive slab of concrete, about 50 metres square, with huge rusted steel rings set into it. I suddenly think of Trevor with his shovel, stripped to the waist in his army shorts, like in the photos he showed me. There was a major clean up of remaining military debris in 2006, but this looks unmovable. The thing is so extraordinary and in some respects so bizarre in that wild, bleak place that you can't help but be impressed. You wonder what a visitor from space might make of it, or an archaeologist in 500 years with no knowledge of our civilization. You'd have to explain so much that there was something called a cold war going on and a once great imperial power was struggling to keep up.
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Reporter
John Pickford on Christmas island out there in the Pacific Ocean, brings this edition to a close. There'll be more from correspondence far and wide on Thursday and Saturday of next week. Do join us. Good bye.