10/06/2012 Reporters

Prince Philip to miss the end of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations

earlier this week. Now it's time for Reporters. Decision time for

Greece as the election campaign enters its final phase. We asked

which way will the country go? Fast forward to the future, we climb

inside a climatic time-machine as scientists pump carbon dioxide into

the Australian forest. We look at why the Japanese are seeking tiny

solutions for an enormous housing problem. Welcome to Reporters. The

people of Greece have to decide what kind of future they have in

the European Union. In the final stages of a crucial election,

Syriza and the New Democracy Party are running neck and neck. The

choice has forced many to think about what life will be like

without the euro. Years of austerity and unemployment levels

have been the highest in the country. They land their catch at

4AM. These are hard times. As salaries for, the fish is getting

harder to sell. It is a buyer's market. This is fertile our

electoral territory for the left. They tell him that two years ago or

the fish would have been sold by this hour. He says his party will

cancel the cuts imposed by the EU. TRANSLATION: We know we are in debt,

we honour our debt. Europe must provide for growth, if we cannot

reduce we cannot meet our responsibilities. It is not just a

Greek problem, it is a European one. Individual Greeks do not feel they

have been living high on the hog. She lost her job when the family

moved to Bulgaria two years ago. The family live on �600 a month. It

is enough to get by, just. There are teenage boys were not get to go

to university now. She has always voted Conservative, this time she

is voting for Syriza. I have never borrowed money. I have lived within

my means like 80% of Greek people. If the politicians owe money, why

should we pay? We have all been asleep. I'm voting to change the

system. Are they ready to revolt, not just against austerity but the

European Union? A Syriza victory could mean being bounced out of the

euro. The rest of Europe is saying, you cannot do both. You have to

choose. You do not have the democratic right to go on spending

other people's money with no clear way of paying it back, even if you

vote for that at the ballot box. Greece business has been very real

prospect of returning to the drachma. -- has be. This is a rare

private sector success story. How will it fare? If Greece gets

bounced out of the eurozone, it will send a Greece back 30 years.

It will send the Greek people back to poverty. I hate to contemplate

this possibility. We are a business. As every business we must do

contingency planning. It is an acute and urgent dilemma. The

choice they make will have lasting consequences. There is no easy way

out. If Greece could rely on just one

thing in these hard things then surely it would be the tourism

industry. Yet, businesses are in sharp decline. Many fear that

prolonged instability could worsen the tourism industry's fortunes and

hotel owners say there is a lot of misinformation ruining their

business. We report from Zakynthos. In the clear waters around

Zakynthos Island, a hidden treasure. Loggerhead turtles gliding through

the largest nesting area in the Mediterranean. They draw the crowds,

but far fewer now. They are an endangered species, tourism is also

under threat. Numbers have plummeted, Brits down by 20%.

Zakynthos no longer the first choice for cash-strapped visitors

unwary of Greece. A lot of people have decided, they are not going to

make the money for October to pay the debts. It is scary for us. I am

scared for my children as well. might feel far from the protests of

Athens, but Greece's problems are rippling through the islands.

Worries over whether Greece will stay in the euro. If you get it

here, but tourists are scared off. We have had e-mails asking whether

there is going to be enough food for them. Will they be able to

leave the country or if the reports will have any problems. This is a

big misunderstanding. It needs to be stopped. The country still has

its loyal followers, but they are down. The place itself is fantastic.

It is like a postcard. They would not come to Greece? Away from the

seafront, businesses are suffering badly. Tourism and drying up. This

beautiful hotel feels eerily empty. Three of the 38 rooms are occupied.

This time last year 20 were taken. This is the cost of Greece's

political and financial crisis. The effect on those depending on

tourism is becoming dramatic. The bright lights are starting to fade,

forcing old ports to slip. Greece must juggle so many problems at

once, turning around the Thoresen decline might be the hardest of all.

In Australia's the biggest open-air experiment involving carbon dioxide

has just begun to see what a -- what affects rising levels of CO2

has on our planet. Scientists have erected six giant structures to

pump CO2 into the trees. The aim is to see what life could be like in

the year 2050. If you go up in this wood today, there will be a big

surprise. Several. These are fibreglass structures pumping

carbon dioxide into this Forest. It is a simple but unprecedented idea

for looking into the future. 20 tons of CO2 a day, racing carbon

dioxide over the next year to what scientists expect to be 40 years

from now. This is the biggest experiment of its kind anywhere in

the world. Six of these massive are raised pumping CO2 into this Forest.

-- arrays. In terms of carbon dioxide, this area will be 2050.

Carbon dioxide is delivered to these huge tanks in the Forest at

the age of Sydney. The ejaculated wind directions. The entire forest

will be filled with CO2 to levels 40% above what they are now.

Professor David Ellesworth is in charge. Leading a team that hopes

to find out what rising carbon emissions will do to the trees,

soil, water supplies and wildlife. This experiment is the future that

we seek to avoid. We're only are able to avoid it if we can study

what the consequences are now and know those. We are incorporating

that information in our planning. From high above the canopy the team

will monitor the forest for the next decade. Some doubt the affect

of CA 2 on climate change, she questioned that carbon emissions

are rising and will have an impact on our planet. The elevated trees

may change the leaf area. The water used efficiency could change for

the plants. Small things you probably cannot detect with your

eye. We have got tools better than your eye. The results could have

profound implications for all of us. This climatic time-machine is

speeding up our knowledge of the future to help us make the right

decisions now. Electric cars maybe the future but they are not selling

in huge numbers yet because battery technology has not advanced far

enough. Batteries need to be lighter and last longer and the

cars have to come at an affordable price. Minerals from an unlikely

source and brains from Silicon Valley might be changing all that.

What does this have to do with this? The answer is science's.

Batteries and the cars of the future. It begins here in the

valley on the San Andreas fault. Geothermal energy is getting a new

lease of life. It is cheap power. The hot brine from the Earth's

crust which runs electricity turbines has become a new source of

minerals to make batteries. There is going to be a huge demand for

battery material in the future. We take brine from deep underground

processed by a geothermal plant, we run it through a lithium extraction

process, we end up with something that is the key ingredient in the

batteries material. This is where the lithium and other minerals are

being put to good use. This Silicon Valley start-up has set a new

record for a battery's power and price. We have got a lot more

energy in a battery. Those batteries will go in cars, they

will make them cheaper, safer and increase the range. The dependency

on gas and foreign oil will go down. The race is on to develop the

material and the technology to develop a battery that is lighter,

cheaper and longer-lasting to fuel the car of the future. There are

some electric cars out there. Sexy enough and practical enough to sell.

Justin Bieber, Leonardo DiCaprio and Ashton Kutcher all have one of

these, but you need a film star's salary to afford one. Cheaper,

lighter batteries made from an unlikely source might make electric

Wherever you are in the world, exam time is stressful for students and

their families. In China, the pressure is even more intense. 9

million students competing for less than 7 million university places.

Some students will miss out on securing a place. That is why many

push themselves to the limit as they undertake the Gaokao exams.

With the road blocks in place, not even traffic noise is allowed to

disturb China's stressed-out students. These are the last-minute

arrivals. These are anxious parents waiting at the school gates. No one

does exam stress quite like this. What is it like for the students?

For the past year, we had been given access to Shanghai's Zhabei

Number 8 High School. Students are preparing for the entrance exam or

Gaokao. Ma Li is feeling the pressure. She is hoping to attend a

prestigious university and needs to do well. It is tough, there is

little time to relax, she tells me. Despite her family's low-income,

they have moved house, paying more went to live closer to the school

for her final year. -- more rent. Her family tried to support or with

private tutoring and anything else she needs. She studies for six

hours every night. Chana's policymakers admit the system puts

too much pressure on families and robs children of their social life.

-- China's. Why is this the case? We have two years of examination.

You cannot change it in one night. This year, one Chinese school was

shown to be given children intravenous energy boosting

injections. There has been some reform. In theory, schools must

provide one hour of physical activity every day. In some ways,

it is a nice problem to have. This system of intense study means that

Shanghai leads the world in reading, maths and science results,

including four students like these from poorer backgrounds. You cannot

help but be impressed. These are meant to be the struggling students.

The discipline and concentration on display would be the envy of many a

system elsewhere with more resources and more advantaged

children. China needs creative thinkers, not just hard-working

test takers. Without urgent reform, its economic prospects may grow

increasingly dim. The new president of Malawi, Joyce

Banda, is selling of the presidential jet and slate of 60

luxury cars controversially bought by her late predecessor. Hoare

austerity drive has been well received at home and abroad. -- her.

It has got the attention of the IMF. It has agreed to an aid package of

$158 million for Mullaly. Barack Obama wants to inject money into

countries like Mullaly. They want to help farmers in such countries.

-- Mullaly. -- Malawi. It is not a famine or even an emergency, just

the usual hunger in one of the poorest countries in the world. Is

she decides she should be? No, she is not. She is stunted. The Brenda

is stunted by malnutrition. The damage could last a lifetime. It is

a problem that affects around 50 % of children her age in this country.

We do not want children turning two years old and looking like this.

Some parts of Africa are booming. The struggle is finding a way to

rescue those that are left behind. The solution has to lie in fields

like these. For years, Malawi has struggled. Foreign aid is a big

part of the reason why there has been some improvement. The billions

promised by Western leaders do not always but you realise and often

end up on the wrong hands, but in this form, it has helped. Kosmos

Pieri was struggling to feed his family a few years ago. Thanks to a

donation of felt Eliza and seeds and good advice, his form has been

transformed. -- fertiliser. It is helping people by giving them small

loans. Age can work? Yes, aid can work. Britain alone gives �90

million a year to Malawi. The country's new president calls that

investment, not beads. She talks of a time that it will no longer be

needed. In a country like this, we will grab an opportunity like this.

It will help us move out of poverty. To help us move to a point where we

can create jobs. We can join the African them. That is some way off.

Hunger remains a daily threat here. Foreign aid is all too important.

Much of Japan is a mountainous, which means its population of 128

million people are crowded on to the few areas of flat land and the

country. Many Japanese workers spend hours commuting into Tokyo

every day because their homes are well outside the capital. People

are looking for an alternative. There is a growing trend for a tiny

detached dwellings in the centre of Tokyo. Our correspondent went to

see one such home. There is an old saying in Tokyo. If the ticket

10,000 Yen note and fold it up as small as you possibly can, this is

worth about $130 by the way, and put it on the ground, it won't be

enough money to buy the land underneath it. Space is incredibly

expensive and skiers here. The solution? Think small. -- and

scarce. This plot is tiny. It is barely two metres across. Inside,

lots of features to make it feel bigger than it is. The staircase is

very open. Come upstairs and you can see that all of the doors slide.

They do not open in and out. It is more efficient use of space. Every

square inch of possible storages used. Even under the tatami mat bed.

The house was built by the sight of family. They had their doubts when

the first saw the land. -- Saito family. Did you imagine there could

be a house built here? I would think only a car could fit in here.

But my family fits your mac. They might be quite cramped but the

architect who designed this says that more and more people think

that small is beautiful. TRANSLATION: More than 50 % of my

projects are houses like this. Some of them are refurbishments. There

is plenty of opportunity to do these in Tokyo. The room's maybe a

little small but if you want a house rather than a flat in the