:00:15. > :00:18.I'm Philippa Thomas here at the BBC's headquarters
:00:19. > :00:21.In this special edition of the programme, we're
:00:22. > :00:24.looking back at some of the best reports from this year from our
:00:25. > :00:27.network of correspondents around the world.
:00:28. > :00:34.Stand-off in the skies above the South China Seas.
:00:35. > :00:38.Rupert Wingfield-Hayes flies over one of the most
:00:39. > :00:40.contested areas in the world, incurring the wrath
:00:41. > :00:51.Ian Panell reports from Barack Obama's former hometown and finds
:00:52. > :01:02.Fergus Walsh investigates how scientists
:01:03. > :01:07.are using animals to grow human organs.
:01:08. > :01:09.The BBC went to extraordinary lengths this
:01:10. > :01:11.year to get a rare glimpse of China's determined
:01:12. > :01:15.expansion in the South China Sea, one of the most contested areas
:01:16. > :01:21.Beijing is building huge artificial islands on
:01:22. > :01:24.the Spratly Island chain, which the Americans and others
:01:25. > :01:32.But Rupert Wingfield-Hayes flew in a small, civilian aircraft into
:01:33. > :01:36.China's self-declared security zone 200 kilometres off
:01:37. > :01:48.It's just before dawn on the Philippine island of Palawan.
:01:49. > :01:52.Even at this hour, it's hot, but there's
:01:53. > :02:02.no sign here of the trouble brewing a few hundred miles out to sea.
:02:03. > :02:04.I'm about to take off on a trip the Chinese government
:02:05. > :02:10.Just 140 nautical miles from the Philippine
:02:11. > :02:21.Until a year ago, there was nothing here, just a submerged atoll.
:02:22. > :02:27.Millions of tonnes of material have been dredged up to build this huge
:02:28. > :02:50.As we close to 12 nautical miles, this.
:02:51. > :02:53.Down below, we can see a pair of Chinese Navy ships.
:02:54. > :03:01.We are a civilian aircraft flying over international
:03:02. > :03:12.waters and yet we are being repeatedly threatened.
:03:13. > :03:15.What we get is the Chinese sending out that message.
:03:16. > :03:17.Foreign military aircraft, unidentified aircraft, leave this
:03:18. > :03:23.Our captain responded saying we are a civilian aircraft,
:03:24. > :03:27.It didn't make any difference whatsoever.
:03:28. > :03:30.They just repeated that threat, we must
:03:31. > :03:39.As we fly on, the full extent of the construction is revealed.
:03:40. > :03:45.A cement plant is visible on the new land.
:03:46. > :03:48.And then, for the first time, a clear view of the new
:03:49. > :03:53.A Chinese fighter taking off from here
:03:54. > :03:58.could reach the Philippine coast in nine minutes.
:03:59. > :04:01.In the last year, China has built at least seven new
:04:02. > :04:04.islands and three new runways in the South China Sea.
:04:05. > :04:08.One here at Mischief Reef, another at Subi Reef,
:04:09. > :04:11.and the biggest of all at Fiery Cross.
:04:12. > :04:14.The aim is to reinforce China's claim to the whole of the
:04:15. > :04:24.More than 40% of the world's trade passes through the waters below us.
:04:25. > :04:29.China is determined to assert its control.
:04:30. > :04:33.America and its allies say they won't let that happen.
:04:34. > :04:38.As we have found out, it may already be too late.
:04:39. > :04:42.Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, BBC News, in the South China Sea.
:04:43. > :04:44.Now to evidence of a startling rise in
:04:45. > :04:47.levels of gun violence in parts of the United States, including
:04:48. > :04:50.President Obama's political home, Chicago.
:04:51. > :04:54.Killings in the city have reached a 20-year high.
:04:55. > :04:58.A deadly summer of violence brought this year's death toll to 500.
:04:59. > :05:02.Most of the victims and their killers are young black men.
:05:03. > :05:05.Ian Pannell and cameraman Darren Conway spent a week in
:05:06. > :05:12.Chicago and found a world where gangs and guns rule.
:05:13. > :05:14.Here, in my neighbourhood, they start young, man.
:05:15. > :05:18.When you read the news headlines, that's the age frame they are dying
:05:19. > :05:24.We've got to teach the kids how to defend themselves.
:05:25. > :05:27.It is senseless violence at the end of the day but it is like,
:05:28. > :05:30.what do you do when you're caught in that moment?
:05:31. > :05:35.You'd rather be caught with protection than without protection.
:05:36. > :05:46.But, I've never seen so many guns like now.
:05:47. > :05:50.Bodiel is a rapper from the west side, now the most violent part of
:05:51. > :05:53.He is a member of the Vice Lords Gang.
:05:54. > :05:56.He's been in prison and even he's shocked by what's happening.
:05:57. > :06:05.It's like somebody dropped off crates of guns in everybody's hood.
:06:06. > :06:10.I think a lot of guys need to die in order to
:06:11. > :06:14.I think some of these BEEP need to get killed and get
:06:15. > :06:17.knocked off and get them out of the way to make it a better place.
:06:18. > :06:19.More people have been killed here since
:06:20. > :06:26.2001 than US deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.
:06:27. > :06:35.To be honest, I've got a son that's seven and
:06:36. > :06:40.I haven't taught neither one of them how to ride
:06:41. > :06:48.The environment they live in is not safe.
:06:49. > :06:50.I miss you. I miss you too.
:06:51. > :06:52.I love you. I love you, Dadda.
:06:53. > :06:59.It's hard when you don't really have help, you know what I'm saying?
:07:00. > :07:03.It's like, we're put in a weird position,
:07:04. > :07:39.With so many guns and so little control,
:07:40. > :07:49.This may sound like the stuff of science fiction movies
:07:50. > :07:52.but American researchers broke new ground this year by trying
:07:53. > :07:59.The research uses a pioneering technique known as gene editing,
:08:00. > :08:03.which enables DNA to be altered simply and quickly.
:08:04. > :08:06.Some believe it could provide the answer to the
:08:07. > :08:14.As Fergus Walsh explains, it also raises many ethical issues.
:08:15. > :08:18.You are watching two species being mixed.
:08:19. > :08:21.Human stem cells are being injected into a
:08:22. > :08:26.You can see them travelling down the tube.
:08:27. > :08:30.This biologist in California is trying to grow a human pancreas
:08:31. > :08:36.Our hope is that this pig embryo will develop normally but
:08:37. > :08:42.the pancreas will be made almost exclusively out of human cells.
:08:43. > :08:46.So then that pancreas could be compatible with a patient
:08:47. > :08:52.The technique is known as gene editing.
:08:53. > :08:56.It uses molecular scissors to delete the DNA instructions
:08:57. > :09:00.in the pig embryo to create a pancreas.
:09:01. > :09:03.The ambition is the human cells will fill the void
:09:04. > :09:11.The same technique might enable other organs to be grown
:09:12. > :09:17.The BBC's Panorama was allowed to film the sows which
:09:18. > :09:21.were pregnant with human pig embryos, known as chimeras.
:09:22. > :09:24.If human stem cells were taken from a patient,
:09:25. > :09:28.the transplant organs could be tissue matched,
:09:29. > :09:35.This research raises profound ethical concerns,
:09:36. > :09:39.crucially just how human are the piglets developing inside
:09:40. > :09:44.It's such a sensitive area that the chimeric embryos will
:09:45. > :09:49.not be permitted to go to term but be removed for tissue analysis
:09:50. > :09:53.after 28 days gestation, when they're about
:09:54. > :09:58.Crucially, they'll check whether the pig's
:09:59. > :10:01.developing brain gains human-like qualities.
:10:02. > :10:04.Another pioneer in this field told me this question has yet
:10:05. > :10:10.With every organ we try to make, be it kidney, liver or lung,
:10:11. > :10:14.we will look at what's happening in the brain.
:10:15. > :10:17.If we find that it's too humanlike, we won't
:10:18. > :10:25.7,000 people in the UK are on the transplant waiting list.
:10:26. > :10:30.Hundreds die each year before a donor can be found.
:10:31. > :10:34.Patient trials, involving gene-edited pig organs, are
:10:35. > :10:46.And that's all from this special edition of Reporters, looking back
:10:47. > :11:05.at some of the best reports from this year.
:11:06. > :11:06.The best of today's Sunshine was in Scotland, Northern