Episode 6 BBC News: The Editors

Britain backed out, President Obama felt obliged to consult his

Congress, Russia staged a diplomatic comeback, and President Assad was

saved for now. Was September 2013 the month that changed the world?

Deep in Syria's shadow Lebanon knows all about shift in power. This has

been continuously inhabited since the Stone Age, the Egyptians

imported papyrus and the Greeks took the city 's name as their word for a

book. Our alphabet comes from the script invented right here. A local

scholar explains in its 8000 years of existence it has seen a long

parade of political masters. Egyptians, Acadians, Syrians,

Babylonians. Persians, Greeks. He might have added some names from

modern times, the British, French, the Americans, but now even American

power seems to many people to be fading, who does that leave, the

Russians? Their diplomatic flurry is surely just a clever bit of

opportunism. China? One of the interesting things about this crisis

is how quiet the Chinese have been, their new leaders want to improve

relations with the West, not strain and further. People used to think of

was ill and India as future superpowers, not any longer --

Brazil. Down in the port where the ancient Egyptians shipped out there

papyrus I talked to an architect and restaurant proprietor. Enough, we

are very tired of this war. He feels after 20 years when America has been

the world 's sole superpower Syrian crisis means it is having to shift

the little. Do you think America is finished? As a power? No, it is the

most powerful country in the world. What I am saying, they are not

alone, there is some power, this is the dream of Russia. I think it is a

good dream. We should not let one country play alone in this field, we

always have to make two players. But how has Syria shown up America's

weakness in the past month? Partly because of the 24-hour news effect.

When they see pictures like these, American and British politicians

have got used to asking themselves what should be done in these

situations. Both President Obama and David Cameron forgot how weary

voters have become with trying to sort out other people 's problems.

In the refugee camps here in places close to the Syrian border you would

have two have a heart of stone not to be moved by the utter

helplessness of people like these. This is a camp which doesn't even

have a name. People here have lost everything,

including maybe terrain features. -- their own futures. This woman has

already been here five months. What future does your family have here?

There is no future for any of the children, there is no future left.

There is nothing left. One man I talked to hear used to work with an

aid agency inside Syria, now he is a refugee as well. I feel the world

has abandoned us, he said. So if the West isn't in the intervention game

any longer and Syrian problem needs Russian diplomacy to sort

any longer and Syrian problem needs what has the past month taught us

about the world? This is the delightful campus of the American

about the world? This is the University of Beirut, a big part of

American soft power in the region. I have come to see a famous Middle

East academic and rider. -- rider. There is no doubt the United States

has lost that soup dream power that it lost fairly recently. Russia is

playing a big role, but I don't think the Americans have lost

power, they have lost conviction and self-assurance. They don't know what

to do. They have this compulsive, moral, exaggerated sense of

responsibility for the well-being of the world but they have got a normal

push in the Middle East, Europe, what they are doing is learning how

to deal with the world rather than the world being a bunch of targets.

So, we had things happened in September. Instead of a missile

strike, Syria is now desperately confessing the extent of its

chemical arsenal. September turned out to be the month when America's

license as the world 's only superpower expired. Now the Syrian

Civil War might just possibly be sorted out why negotiation. If so,

the refugees could go home. That would be a result. I will remember

September 2013 for quite some time. Whenever I work in places like

Beirut, I always keep my passport handy, just in case we get stopped

by some official jobsworth. It is British. But I suppose I think of

myself recently as being English. And to my shame, I don't think I

could even name many of the counties of Scotland or Wales. So is British

and is anything more than just a few words on a passport? Our home editor

looks into it all. Our island nation, and identity

sculpted by waves and tides, by welcoming harbours and resolute

defences. What it means to be British is for ever shifting like

the estuary sounds of Canvey Island. But as centralised power has eroded

is Britishness about to be washed away like the sediment from a

crumbling ancient empire? This is the most English place in the whole

of England. In the last sentence people were asked to decide their

national identity. And here on Canvey Island and the surrounding

area eight out of ten people chose English. The highest proportion

anywhere. It is home to an older, or dominantly white working-class

population. Why England and not Britain? Because I am English, and I

don't think Britain is Britain any more. It is three or four different

countries now. I have always been English, I was born English and

always will be. English, British, both. Both? Which matters more.

Living in Essex. This could be described as the

epicentre of the British state, Central lobby in the Palace of

Westminster and representing here at the heart of our democracy are the

four corners of the kingdom. The last sentence invited people to

choose one of these identities, English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern

Irish. Do you see yourself as British or something else, and

mixture, perhaps? We only have figures for England and Wales but

they tell a fascinating story. In England six out of ten people

describe themselves as English only, in Wales a similar proportion

said they are Welsh only. In both, just two out of ten say they are

British only. Does that mean Britishness is dying? I think the

figure actually tell a different story. Older people are much less

likely to say they are British than the young. Three quarters of

pensioners in England identified simply as English. If anybody said

what nationality are you I would say English? People who live in Wales

and Scotland call themselves Welsh and Scottish so I feel I am English.

If the British identity was really a museum piece, how come the young

Jews are more than their grandparents? -- the young Jews it

more. This is the most British place in Britain. I am in the London

Borough of Harrow where more than 40% of people describe them as

British, twice the national average. The reason? Diversity. Among those

whose ethnicity is white British only 14% would actually say their

identity is British, while almost half the black population would

identity is British, while almost describe themselves that way. The

most British of all? Britain's Asians. 56% picked British as their

sole identity. Culturally it is an accommodating label, attractive for

those born in Britain but with heritage beyond. Would you ever say

you are English? I have never said English, no, I still pass myself as

British Indian. -- class myself. English, you classify that as

white, ethnic, majority worried -- whereas British tends to be more

multicultural. You are the real new Brits. We are ex-Commissioner Mark

we are definitely the Brits. The British identity has always

offered a cultural pick and mix, a Scottish piper at an Indian wedding

in north-west London, that is British through and through. And

that brings me to me, on the edge of Glasgow is the house where I was

born. You might not have guessed but yes, I was born in Scotland, raised

in England, and there is almost certainly some ancient Welsh and

Irish blood in my veins as well. I am more of a blend and a single

malts, I suppose. I think that is true of more and more people in an

increasingly globalised world. The labels often tell only part of the

story. Keep pushing. In Alaska's Sir labels often tell only part of the

Chris-drove young cyclists look back to team GB at the ethics and

Scotland performing in its own right to team GB at the ethics and

at the Commonwealth games. -- at the Olympics. After that the referendum,

which is effectively asking just how Olympics. After that the referendum,

British the mums and dads of these youngsters feel. I feel very

Scottish, I have always felt passionately Scottish, I don't feel

British at all. I wouldn't say so. I used to put Scottish all the time,

but now I have changed my opinion slightly and put the Jewish. I don't

know why -- I put that issue. I just felt more British. The strength of

know why -- I put that issue. I just Britishness is that it is

broad-minded and tolerant of difference. As a result, far from

being an historical artefact, the British identity is right at home in

the 21st century. Beirut is a wonderful city. I have

lived here briefly, I know. But it is a bit shambolic, there are power

cuts for instance almost every day. Take a country right across the

world, Japan, nothing remotely shambolic about it, not even in the

way the Japanese have run their energy supplies. But after the

disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in 2011, Japan has now closed

down its last reactor. We asked Rupert Wingfield-Hayes to go to

Fukushima to find out. I was here in North East Japan the

day the first reactor at Fukushima exploded. One year later, I moved to

Japan with my family, and now I am on my fourth trip into the

contamination zone. Behind me, this is the edge of the

radioactive contamination zone, and no one is allowed further down this

road unless they have one of the special passes. I have come back

here to try and answer to questions. Firstly, is it possible to fully

recover from a disaster like Fukushima. Secondly, is it possible

to make sure it never happens again? Nothing about Fukushima is

straightforward. As many have pointed out, no-one died here. But

the human cost is still high. The pointed out, no-one died here. But

little town sits five miles from the plant. They call this Japan's

Chernobyl. Two days after the first reactor exploded, its 20,000

residents were told to get in their cars and leave.

This man was one of them. He takes me to see the house that is family

lived in for 150 years. He tells me his family is now scattered right

across Japan. Inside, he shows me the vats where he and his father

used to ferment soy sauce. The family escaped the earthquake and

tsunami unscathed. But on March the 11th 2011, their life year ended.

You can see the earthquake did a lot of damage, but then came the plant

explosion, and we were told to flee. Two and a half years later, we are

still refugees, our families divided, I have no work, we have no

idea whether our business. Again. So we have come a few kilometres of

the valley from his house to his friend's house, which is a peer, and

we have, via because the levels are much higher. The background reading

at Suzuki's house was about .05 micro sieverts per hour. Here you

can see it is 13.2. The really scary micro sieverts per hour. Here you

thing is this. If you put it on the ground, immediately the level goes

up to around 150, 154. So very high, and we don't want to stay here

any more time than we have to. We are going to go.

It is quite easy to get panicked by such readings. Radiation has no

smell and no taste. Standing here, looking at the plant, it is easy to

understand why many now do not want to come back here. Especially those

who, like me, have children. Although the radiation level here is

quite high, it is not high enough to be an immediate threat to my health.

It is more like smoking cigarettes. If I smoke one packet of cigarettes,

it is not going to increase my chances of getting cancer over my

whole lifetime, but if I smoked a pack of cigarettes everyday for the

next 30 years, certainly will. -- it certainly will. And so to bring the

radiation levels down, the land must be cleaned. It is a massive task

over a huge area. At this house, 20 miles from the bland, they are now

moving topsoil, trees, plants, anything that is radioactive, and

then covering it over with sound. -- with sand. The radiation level at

this particular spot was 3497 counts per minute, which is high and

dangerous. By digging up the soil and covering it with sound, they

dangerous. By digging up the soil have managed to bring it down to

around 400, which is obviously much lower and much safer.

In fact, only a tiny fraction of the contamination will ever be cleared.

Already it is creating another big headache, where to put it all. Deep

in the mountains, I was taken to see this temporary dump. It is

astonishing to me to think that all this will still be radioactive

astonishing to me to think that all after my great great great

grandchildren have come and gone. But will those future generations

ever see something like this again? The Japanese government's own

experts at missed this was not a natural disaster. There were

research papers suggesting that the tsunami could happen, but

unfortunately the paper was dismissed. My memory is that after

Chernobyl we were promised very clearly that a similar accident

could never happen. We need to be prepared for the worst case, we have

to tell the public, this is the worst case. If we did, the public

would say, do not build a reactor here. So that is the dilemma. If

would say, do not build a reactor want to continue with nuclear power

plants, you have to tell the public that the reactors will be safe. Now

that has been shown to be a myth. Now the myth is gone.

When the tsunami swept in here too and a half years ago, it revealed

the shocking complacency of Japan's nuclear industry. It had assumed a

tsunami on this scale would not happen within the lifetime of the

Fukushima plant, and so it happen within the lifetime of the

did not bother to prepare. If such complacency can happen here in

Japan, then it can almost certainly happen elsewhere, too.

shortage of cash year. Beirut, wealth, and there is plenty of it,

tends to get channelled into property and political power, but

there are a few countries where big money goes into something a bit more

edifying, the arts, for example. Brazil is a case in point, but why

and how? We asked Will Gompertz, our arts editor, to carry out his own

private investigation. I flew into Rio with a light

suitcase and a head heavy with questions. I wanted to find out what

lies the need the Carioca cliche, what goes on in the dark shadows

cast by that bright sun, and to the downtown dealers and Uptown swells

that make this place tick. I checked in and headed out. Into a city of

contradictions, where it is high summer in midwinter, and pristine

modernism rubs shoulders with grubby poverty. A city that put the caramel

into carnival and the Coke into poverty. A city that put the caramel

Copacabana, but has all the money and attention it has had recently

put out in its place? I went to find out.

I started with the artist Beatrice Milly ours is, who was Rio through

and through, and so are her paintings. The colour, the Brock

ornamentation, the scent of the jungle. They are expansive, they are

expensive. $2 million plus, no other living Brazilian artist fetches that

kind of money. I figured she would know if the art scene had changed. I

think, since my generation build up things that now I go artist, he

knows, yes, it is a profession, you can be a well and developed a body

of work, so there is some hope that we did not have on my generation. So

Rio has more confidence, it has quit sulking about not being the capital

anymore, but I wanted to know why. To find out who wore what is behind

this mood swing. If I was going to find the answer anywhere, it was

going to be here at ArtRio. The annual fair has only been going

going to be here at ArtRio. The three years, but it is already a

honeypot for the city's movers and shakers. I talked the talk and

walked the walk, and then I found what I was looking for, a blue-chip

gallery owner with an elegant finger on Rio's racing pulse. Going back,

master, to the change over the last decade or so, what propelled it? --

Marcie. The economics, you have one new millionaire in Brazil per day.

If you look at the Forbes list, you have all these billionaires that are

now located here, and all that money brings money, and once you have

money, you can get your helicopters, and at some point you

have to get culture as well. Money, it is always money, but that is only

half the story. In my game, if you want to be. We, you have to find out

where the money comes from. I kept it simple, I went to a bank. -- if

you want the full story. It was a smart move, the answer was right in

front of my eyes. The work is by Cia Go Chan, a cool artist, but it is

front of my eyes. The work is by Cia where he is from that matters to me

- China. I had a hunch that it was cash from the east that had fuelled

the Brazilian art boom, but I had to have some evidence. I took a plane

the Brazilian art boom, but I had to out of town to a place in the jungle

called Inhotim, where Bernardo Paz, a mining magnate with the spirit of

Willy Wonka, has created an art park. The price came from $10 to

$180, I had the money to construct this place. All my money I put here

because this is a dream. This is more than Disney World. This will be

a huge park for the future. This is going to be for 1000 years. Right

now, things are good for the Brazilian contemporary art market.

It grew by 22% last year, but enough about money. What about the

suppliers, the artists? I went back to Rio, to the rundown downtown. A

tip-off led me to this place, he had gallery run by artists. I think it

is a totally different moment, I can say that Rio is the place that has

the most important artists... I tracked one down, Marcio. I asked

for a sit down. What is more and more strong in Rio is where we are,

the city, the possibility to do art intervention in the landscape of the

city, like we can see, the project on the facade, this natural way of

mixing, the natural way of doing art in Rio.

He is right. Artists run galleries are popping up like and hills in the

Amazon. I followed a lead to this old candy factory, to people making

feasts for the eyes, not the stomach. The talk is of a Rio

Renaissance, the fancy new museums opening all over town, the quadruple

in of the culture budget, the arts project in favelas, but I sensed

anxiety, too, about corruption, the extremes between rich and poor, what

happens after the Olympics. It is possible that Rio will join New York

and London as an art world epicentre, who knows? What I can say

and London as an art world as I leave this exotic, erotic,

magical city is that it artists have something to say, and I think they

are worth listening to. Well, that is it from this edition

of the programme. From the Lebanese-Syrian border, a crafty

Lebanese official, a friend of mine, said the me that there was now a job

vacancy for policeman of the world. Suddenly, America, not to mention

Britain, it seems distinctly diminished as a result of what

Britain, it seems distinctly been happening here, and as the

British themselves well-known, once that perception has got around, it

is very hard to change. So until we meet again, goodbye.