19/02/2012 Reporters

who became involved in the dispute. Right now it is time for Reporters.

Marching to the drumbeat of a boom, Mexico's economy is growing fast

but can it lift the poor out of poverty?

Jonathan Head on the plight of thousands of illegal African

migrants in Libya after failing to reach Europe.

And now starring behind the camera, Angelina Jolie tells Alan Little

why she was so terrified while making a film on the Bosnian war.

Hello and welcome to Reporters with Zeinab Badawi. When you think of

Mexico it is hard to escape the image of a country blighted by a

long and bloody war from drugs. More than 50,000 people have been

killed since President Calderon launched his offensive against the

cartels five years ago. But still there are surprisingly positive

tales to tell, Mexico's economy is improving and it has been for the

last few years. There is more to the country than meets the eye.

In this village the school spends Saturdays rehearsing military tunes.

Mexicans are famously proud of their country. In this region the

drug wars and violence are a world away. The only insecurity is

economic. Nearly half the population lives in poverty. Today

much of Mexico looks like this. Stuck in agriculture from a

different age. But this isn't what the country wants for the next

generation. The challenge now for Mexico is can it pull itself up

from this and leave behind the relative poverty of a developing

country? It is on the verge. There's a surprising story of the

economic success here. But Mexico isn't quite what you might think.

This is an economy on the move. Last year Mexico grew faster than

Brazil. By 2050 it is expected to oust France as the fifth largest

economy in the world. It is very complex and very precise and we

produce all that stuff here in Mexico. Stephane manufactures jet

engines for the French aerospace giant Safran. It is as high tech as

any industry anywhere in the developed world. It was lured here

by cheap educated labour and proximity to America and has been

pleasantly surprised. It is more profitable, easier to work. We have

very few turnaround of people. It is far better than what we were

expecting. But Mexico's economic promise is hampered most obviously

by the government war against the drug cartels. Tourism has been

discouraged by the war, industry has been discouraged by the war,

other forms of involvement because they ask why they should be

involved if their families are going to be slaughtered or held up.

For the pupils of Cinco de Mayo primary school a brighter future

also demands a better education. Less than half of Mexican children

finish secondary school. But things are slowly improving and the

children here have big ambitions. What do they want to be when they

grow up? And if they reach those dreams Mexico will be better for it.

During Gaddafi the Libyan economy depended on migrant workers from

sub-Saharan Africa, but things have changed and one small Libyan town

is now pleading for help with the growing influx of illegal

immigrants coming across the border. The road runs south into the

vastness of Africa. Bringing trade to Libya but also growing numbers

of illegal migrants. This is the main checkpoint between the desert

and the capital, Tripoli, and they have just found a Nigerian couple

in this car with no visas. They question the man. He has come for

work, he says. But black Africans are viewed with suspicion now. Many

of them fought for Gaddafi. They have caught more. Authorities here

say they have found hundreds trying to get to Tripoli and then Europe

every day and they can barely cope. I want a little bit of money.

Isaac is 23 and he is from Ghana. It is his first time in Libya and

he and his friends have paid a lot to come this far all in the hope of

a better life. Most of the Africans we have seen detained here appear

to be no more than economic migrants desperate for work. But

the fighters guarding this post are understandably nervous that among

them could be Gaddafi loyalists coming in to cause trouble for the

anniversary of last year's uprising. They are running out of space to

keep them. More than 600 are being held in this isolated detention

centre with just a handful of volunteers to guard them and very

little funding. Most of them want to go to Europe, this is just a

transit place. They know there's no government in Libya and it is easy

here and that is why they come in big numbers. Each of these steel

sheds houses around 50 men. Inside they are subjected to a torrent of

complaints. There is no communication, nobody knows our

whereabouts. We must communicate to our family. We don't get enough to

eat and we're all sick, said this despairing man from Niger. The

guards running this camp say they are just as desperate to have these

migrants off their hands. But they can't simply release them. It is a

humanitarian challenge Libya's new rulers are ill-equipped to meet.

The Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie has chosen a very

controversial and gritty subject for her debut as a film director.

Her movie, 'In The Land Of Blood And Honey', is set against the

backdrop of the Bosnian war. It is the story of a romance between a

Bosnian Serb man and a Bosnian Muslim woman and what happens when

he becomes an army officer and she is held in a military prison camp.

Alan Little reported on the war for the BBC and he returned to Sarajevo

to see the film's premiere. For 40 months the streets were

besieged and bombarded. The memory is raw and ever present. 20 years

on Sarajevo still wants its story told. It has found an unlikely new

champion. The demand for tickets was enormous so they moved the

screening to a former Olympic sports stadium. The warmth of the

welcome was spontaneous, momentarily overpowering. But this

is not an easy film. It depicts in bleak and chilling detail the

brutal forced removals of non-Serbs, so-called ethnic cleansing. At its

heart there is a doomed love story across the ethnic divide. Many

people left feeling Bosnia's story has been told at last in unsparing

honesty. Everybody who was here said they knew what happened.

year during this war I feel this movie told what happened. Angelina

Jolie wrote the script herself. She had been nervous about how Bosnians

would react. Will they feel comfortable with this? Will they

embrace it, will they be upset? I don't know and I was terrified.

When they stood up I just wanted to cry. But the divisions remain. Go

to the Serbian half of the country and you enter a parallel universe.

Angelina Jolie is not welcome here. TRANSLATION: Serbs have never

denied that crimes were committed but by individuals, not by the

whole Serbian nation. She rejects the charge that the film is not

balanced. The war was not balanced, she says. People are saying it

should be 50/50, it should be equal, I don't understand that. The war

was not that way. They are looking for a balance that does not exist.

They don't want to see these atrocities, they don't want to be

reminded of these atrocities. Some people want to deny it even

happened. Outside the stadium there is a starkly poignant place. 20

years ago it was a playing field. In 1992 it became a cemetery. We

came to a lot of funerals here during the war, they happen every

day, but the cemetery itself was exposed to shell and sniper fire

from the hills around so families would come and bury their dead

quickly and say a prayer and then hurry off to find safety. By the

time the war ended this place was full and 2,500 Sarajevans were dead.

Bosnia's wounds have not healed. This film, for all its searing

honesty, exposes a country divided and unreconcilable to its past.

In Helmand Afghan forces have begun their own operations against the

Taliban. The BBC was allowed to go on one of the first big missions

are entirely planned and executed by the Afghan army in the province.

British troops were only supposed to be advising but as Quentin

Somerville discovered they did most of the heavy lifting for the Afghan

forces. Just before daybreak in northern

Helmand province hundreds of soldiers are on the move. This is

an Afghan army operation. British soldiers are in the rear. They

won't be doing any of the fighting. On the ground these British

advisers are trying to get the Afghan army to go it alone as they

search for the Taliban. The Afghan general in charge is brimming with

He tells me, our foreign friends are in the back giving us support,

but we know this area better. Only we can search the houses. Not

foreigners. It does not go too badly for the general. They are

helped by the fact that there are not many Taliban around. Most had

disappeared for the winter. This was supposed to be an Afghan

operation. These so-called British advisers are doing a lot more than

just advising. They are still performing a most essential task.

They go to recover a vehicle hit by a Taliban bomb. But they are

stopped in their tracks by another suspect device. Leaving the safety

of their armoured truck, they inch closer, reaching out to clear their

path. After a tense hour and a half, the bomb is revealed as a decoy.

Compare these flimsy Afghan army pick ups, easy for the Taliban to

target, to this British Jackal, it is far more deadly and more

difficult to destroy. Tactically, they are very good. When they come

to a fight, they are up to it. It is the bigger picture, ensuring

they have got the capability to service all their vehicles, to get

the logistics up and running, to keep what is actually a huge army

on the road and in the fight. is being asked of Afghan security

forces. This lot are the Afghan police. Britain wants to speed up

the handover, allowing its troops to draw back sooner, but if the

transfer comes too early, it runs the risk of Afghan forces being

North Korea has just marked the 70th birthday of its late leader,

Kim Jong Il. His cult of personality dominated this nuclear-

armed country for more than two decades. But since his sudden death

in December, North Korea has been headed by a much less familiar

figure, his son, Kim Jong Un. Our correspondent has been looking at

their very different personal Identities are Mr Kim's bread and

butter. In South Korea, business cards and rubber stamps are

essential daily items. Ironic, because when he is not validating

other people, he gets paid for being someone else - the former

North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il. It does not take too much to pull

off the former dictator, he says, the permed hair, the distinctive

jumpsuit, and maybe a bit of Having the former North Korean

leader as a guest on your television chat show or a prop for

your music video is surprisingly popular in the South, but now that

Kim Jong Il is dead, will impersonators such as Mr Kim switch

to mimicking his son? He does not know, there is not much similarity

between Kim Jong Il and his son. I need to get a different haircut. He

would probably need to do much more than that. Kim Jong Un has a very

different style to his father, more tactile, more hands-on. North

Korean state media has shown him testing soldiers' equipment,

tasting their food, sitting on their beds. Even the anchor who

carries news of his exploits has been replaced by a younger, softer

looking model. The new chummy style has generated a few column inches

in the South. This online newspaper for North Korean defectors in South

Korea is run by a man better prepared than most to make the

comparison. He met and dined with Kim Jong Il before leaving North

Korea. TRANSLATION: He had such status that the world did not dare

look him in the face, but Kim Jong Un has no choice but to push the

people and embrace them. He is begging them for their loyalty.

the South, officials say it is new policy they are watching for. On

that score, North Korea says that nothing will change. The style may

be new, but when it comes to substance, Kim Jong Un is Kim Jong

How does a city of 16 million prepare for a massive natural

disaster or terror attack? For the first time ever, disaster

management agencies in the Indian capital of Delhi have carried out a

huge drill to test the level of preparedness in the event of an

Rush hour at one of Delhi's busiest stations. And then this happens. A

siren, an announcement to the city, that it has been hit by a massive

earthquake. At first, there is a sense of disbelief, even amusement.

Then the reality sinks in. The police and emergency personnel kick

into action. The media are right behind them. They are herding

everyone out to the nearest exit as quickly as possible. Simultaneous

exercises are being carried out across the city. This the dummy is

meant to represent a casualty. They have cleared the station of all

people. As you can see, the emergency staff and services are

tending to people who are injured. Down here, you can see a member of

the disaster management team with all his equipment, and doctors and

emergency staff tending to people who are injured. Medical staff and

volunteers doing their best, making do. But not everything is up to

scratch. Still, the assessment is that it is a good start. From what

I have seen, as a reaction, they seem to be doing it quite well.

Doing it as a one-off is good, but like everything, you need to do it

often, to keep the awareness up. I think that has got to be the

message. South Asia has a history of devastating earthquakes. The

Indian capital lies along a major fault line, making it particularly

vulnerable. So the effort is to make sure the city is as prepared

More internet users in Indonesia are joining Twitter compared to any

other country in the world. The network has been important in

tackling corruption and campaigning for social justice. But why has so

many ordinary Indonesians adopted this brand of social networking? --

have. We went out to meet the Twitterati of Jakarta.

A tale that reflects Indonesia's love affair with Twitter. These

days, the people's voice is Twitter's voice. The film is a

modern Indonesian romantic comedy about two young people who find

each other through social media. This is one of the most Twitter and

Facebook friendly nations on earth. That is why popular computer game,

Angry Birds, held the global launch of its tie-up with Facebook in

Jakarta this week. The company behind the game says that Jakarta

was the top choice for the official launch, because Indonesia is the

social media capital of the world. Our people are very outgoing and

positive. They have the built-in story telling. You can find that

from a rich heritage in social culture. Social media has become

one of the most effective ways to reach out to Indonesians. This

television talk show host has more than 100,000 followers on Twitter.

She has released a book. Her tweets focus on life tips. She says this

to communicate. Because of the democratic environment that

Indonesia is now in, and it has been in for over a decade, it is

very critical of everything, of the government, of the society.

Everybody has an opinion on everything. That is what creates

this tremendous and exciting noise. That noise is beginning to have an

impact off-line as well. This protest was the result of the

organisers' efforts online. Most of the people who attended this

protest heard about it through Facebook or Twitter. Social media

is becoming an increasingly popular and powerful tool to effect change

in Indonesia. But as popular as this movement is online, not as

many people came to the protest as expected. It is still in its

infancy in Indonesia. This demonstration called for more

government action against violent hardline Muslim groups. It is

unlikely it will lead to any immediate results, but using social