24/06/2012 Reporters

On patrol in the Democratic Republic of Congo, we look at why

renewed fighting threatens one of the world's largest and most

important nature reserves. We explore the fears of unrest in

Delhi as the Indian capital struggles to provide enough clean

water for its people. And we also go to Kenya's Rift Valley to

discover why it is proving a powerhouse of producing champion

runners. Welcome to Reporters. There is renewed fighting in the

east of the Democratic Republic of Congo in the middle of one of the

world's largest and most important nature reserves. Rwanda has been

accused of fuelling the conflict by providing recruits and weapons to

the rebels. It's a charge that the Rwandan government vigorously

denies. Congolese soldiers are also trying to capture a mutinous

General so he can be brought to trial at the International Criminal

Court in The Hague. We have been to the eastern Congo. Emmanuel has one

of the toughest jobs in Congo. As chief warning of the National Party

must police this area of pristine forest. It is home to half the

world's population of mountain gorillas, and it's also at the

centre of the latest rebellion. That's where they have been

fighting for the last two weeks and it has been extremely intensive.

For these Congolese army soldiers the hunt is on for one of their own,

a mutinous General and former warlord. He is wanted by the

International Criminal Court for, among other things, recruiting

child soldiers. This boy is 17 years old, we have changed his name

to protect his identity. He and four friends were on their way home

from school one day in April when they were captured by a group of

armed men. They taught us how to shoot and they gave us boxes of

ammunition to carry. They made us carry other things. He managed to

escape, but he doesn't know what happened to his friends. Human

Rights Watch and the United Nations say that the rebels are getting

support from Rwanda just across the border. The UN has sent in more

peacekeepers but their forces are stretched. Since the fighting

started in April around 100,000 people have sought shelter in

refugee camps. Loss of the people here say they saw the fighting with

their own eyes, and they ran away when the mutinous soldiers came

into their villages and the shooting started. But there are

plenty of others who say they simply saw people fleeing through

their villages and decided to get out before the fighting started.

People here are no stranger to conflict. At the National Park they

are no strangers to conflict either. These bloodhounds are trained to

deal with poachers. The Congolese army is distracted by the rebellion

in the hills and they are now faced with other dangers filling the

vacuum. A lot of new armed groups are forming, new alliances are

forming. Armed groups moving into areas where they weren't previously

present, and so on. It's a major concern. The volcano that looms

over the provincial capital could erupt at any moment. But the bigger

threat here is not nature but man. Less than a decade ago Congo was at

the centre of a regional conflict that left over 5 million dead. In

these volatile parts, old wars are Now to an area where art and

science are teaming up for a worthy cause. Thousands of American

veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have returned with

brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder. The use of art

therapy is going to help for victims cope with the psychological

effects, but it is not clear if such therapy can promote physical

healing. Well, thanks to a top military medical facility outside

of Washington, we may soon find out more about this. Jane O'Brien

reports. That's how things are these days. I'm in Afghanistan and

my brain is broken. Ron has served in five different wars. In

Afghanistan he was treated for post-traumatic stress disorder. In

Dar for he attempted suicide. Writing, he says, was the therapy

that eventually saved him. Either I can control the memory of the

memory is going to control me. So by telling the stories over again,

over over again, by writing them down, I can shake them, I can

manipulate them, and I can actually print them out and touch them. It's

no longer something that is festering in that of my mind.

he's an instructor for operation homecoming, a writing project that,

for the first time, is being clinically tested at a top military

medical centre that specialises in treating brain injuries. This

technology will allow us to look at the brain's response to specific

therapies. Dr James Kelly is director of the National intrepid

centre of excellence where painting, music and writing are an integrated

part of treatment. Art we have known for a long time has

therapeutic benefits. Our job here is to measure it, it is to learn

how and what parts of therapeutic engagements help people. And under

what circumstances. This is the only place in the country where a

range of tests can be carried out simultaneously in real time to

measure the physical changes taking place in the brain. This is a

colour-coded image of a brain. Each colour represents a different area

and function. So if a patient were to read their work, for instance,

scientists would be able to see immediately which part of the brain

is responding. The research has huge implications for future arts

funding. It is also part of an ambitious study by the National

Endowment for the arts are aimed at offering scientific evidence for

how the arts affect every stage of human development. Everybody is

very data orientated now and they want to know what are the results

of what you're doing, what are we going to get for their money, they

ask. Even without the scientific truth, these veterans are convinced

that writing about their trauma is a vital part of their road to

recovery. And through glassy eyes he found peace. 20 years after the

Rio Earth Summit to set targets for countries to move towards more

sustainable forms of development, this week world leaders were back

in the resilience city to assess what they had achieved -- Brazilian

city. One issue that remains is the problem of providing clean water to

everybody. One country suffering more than most is India. The

capital, Delhi, is reeling under a severe shortage, and the crisis is

already making people desperate. A government tanker outside one of

Delhi's slums. Its parts a desperate scramble. This is the

only source of clean water and no- one knows for sure when the next

tanker will appear. In the panic much gets wasted. This woman runs a

small charity. She says demand is so intense there's now a black

market in water. This leads to either Winehouse or a cluster of

houses. This water is supposed to the free -- either one house. A

local racketeer has taken control and sells it as drinking water.

switches it on for 15 minutes and switches it off and switches

somebody else's water on. It must give the people in charge a lot of

power over everybody else. If you ask people, he threatens them that

he will cut of the water supply. Even the Government's policy makers

had admitted the real problem is that management. It is not like

there is a problem with rainfall, we get adequate rain across most

parts of the country. The challenges of managing this water

in a way that actually reaches the people that need it. But at the

moment many who do need it are going thirsty. As they struggle to

get enough water to make their daily needs the rich, by contrast,

have plenty of it. On average they used ten times as much water were

person per day. It is that situation that is causing growing

social tension. It isn't just India's cities which are lacking

water. Rivers are contaminated with untreated s untreated s

country the water table is falling year by year. Until now the

government is focused on building massive dams to divert water to

cities. But many have been controversial, displacing millions

of local people. This man has worked with villagers in the arid

north-west for three decades. is not a new idea. These community

dance create pools in the rainy season replenishing groundwater. He

is warning that water conflicts Two decades since the Rio Earth

Summit took place, major companies claim to be going Green. One runs a

large iron ore mine at Carajas in the Amazon rainforest. Shuk, has

been given special sa'. The great canopy of the Amazon rainforest

towers, except where beneath the trees there's a special resource.

Gouged from deeper and deeper underground a rich deposit of iron

ore. This is the largest mine of its kind anywhere on the planet.

The giant machines toil around the clock. It's an ugly process in what

used to be jungle. But the world wants the iron. This is the raw

material that every modern economy is based on. The iron ore used to

make steel. To give you an idea of what is involved, this one massive

truck carries enough ore to make a couple of hundred cars. The demand

is rocketing, especially from China: the bigger the mine, the

greater the impact on the natural world. A NASA satellite picture of

the forest reveals how the ocean of green is scarred by the mine. The

company that carved out the giant chasms claims to be green, and says

it will fill them in when the iron is finished. Saplings of native

trees are ready to be planted. The aim - to restore the rainforest.

It's a long-term challenge, and, in fact, what we do we actually

research all the time to make sure that we have the right seeds and

the right species of plants that we can use afterwards to bridge back

nature. The mine is due to push into new areas. We join a survey of

what is most at risk. A lost world beneath the forest. We enter a cave

teeming with bats. Four different species of them. Luckily only one

is carnivorous. Caves like this, which are rich in iron ore have

been discovered in the last few years, and most have yet to be

properly explored. In this evidence was found that people lived here

9,000 years ago. The fear is that all this could be lost if the

diggers come. TRANSLATION: The survey is funded by the mining

company Varlay and Brazil's conservation agency agrees they are

trying to be greener. Varlay is trying to operate sustainably

is a long way to go. While another load of ore was hauled away, world

leaders met in Rio for a summit on how to balance industry and nature.

It's a constant struggle. Sydney's iconic harbour is renowned as one

of the most stunning in the world. Each year thousands flock to the

seafront to take in the Opera House and pristine waters. While the view

may be breathtaking above the water, it's different below as Duncan

Kennedy explains. There are few harbourside cities as impressive or

pristine as city. A gleaming city of culture, architecture and order.

Go below the surface... ..and it's not so squeaky clean. Beneath the

waves, within distance of the tourists lies this. A carpet of

discarded plastic stretching far into the distance. Bags, wrappers,

containers, endless and all but indestructible. All drains, all

streams lead to the harbour. Once the plastic is in there, unless

someone cleans it up, it could be there for years. It could be there

for hundreds of years and do damage the whole time. Same item,

different brands. In places it looks like a clothing store. It's

the gently rocking plastic that does the damage, taking decades to

break down, but constantly ingested by marine life, choking and

entangling or poisoning it. There's an operation to scoop it up - at

least some of it. Sydney's dustbin divers, who fill bags... ..and drag

what they can ashore. Anything plastic is in there. The contents

of these two bags taking 12 minutes to fill. The storms that have

delugeed Sydney in recent months brought more. Rubbish cascaded

through drains, tributaries and pipes. A lot of that rubbish

doesn't stay in Sydney Harbour. First of all you have the tidal

movements of the esurey taking it out into the Pacific, then the

current gets hold of it, sweeping it past Australia, New Zealand and

out into the wider ocean. Now when is your free time really your free

time. We all love to keep in touch with the latest gadgets. The

constant stream of phone calls, e- mails when you have left the office

can make jour oust hours time seem like -- make your out-of-hours time

seem like you are at work. The German Government is tackling this

issue. When is our time our own? When does it belong to the company?

Cell phones and laptops mean we are never out of reach. This worker

says that you are yaible24/7 these days, so it is -- you are available

24/7 these days. It is possible to say "No, I have free time", you can

switch the phone off. Shutting down a smartphone is not easy. That

means no calls from friends and you do feel cut off. This expert on

burnout at work says it's hard for people to switch off. Being

available 24 hours a day is very dangerous. Relief may be at hand.

The German Government has decreed that there must be clear rules so

employees can't be contacted outside normal working hours. On

one estimate nine out of 10 German workers are available to be

contacted by work outside their working hours. It's prompted the

carmaker Volkswagen to rule that work e-mails only get forwarded to

employers for 30 minutes after the end of the working day. But time

isn't so easily split up for all employees, or for those self-

employed or bosses. With companies like Volkswagen, where time is

demarkated with shift patterns, it's easier to make the scheme work.

Where there's flexible working, where you never quite know when you

are on call or not... Excuse me a minute. Hello. It's 6:00 in the

morning. I'm doing it. Believe me, I'm doing it. OK, thank you very

much, indeed. But in places with flexible working it's much harder

to lay down the rules and make the scheme work. The world of long

distance athletics has long been dominated by East African runners.

At this summer's Olympics in London you can be sure that the five and

10,000 metres, plus the marathon will be dominated by Kenyans. One

village in the Rift Valley proved a powerhouse, producing great runners

and in attracting the world's best runners to train there. The BBC's

James Coomarasmy went to Iten to find out more. High above Kenya's

Rift Valley they gather for their morning ritual. This is Iten, a

town where running is a way of life, from School days onwards and where

the early morning soundtrack is the pounding of feet. A quarter of the

population here are committed athletes. That dedication has

brought medals and riches for some, and inspired others to follow this

their footsteps as a way to escape poverty. What do you hope to do

with your running? I hope to improve my life, my living standard,

help my family, and help others. And Iten's inspiring athletes are

helped by the presence of medallists in their midst, taking

advantage of the thin air, the simple diet and the general hunger

for success. Here at Iten's basic running track you get a sense of

what makes this place so special. Elite Kenyan athletes,

international athletes, world champions and schoolkids are here,

united by their passion for the sport. Driving out of Iten we are

off to meet a young girl who hopes to leave her poor rural

surroundings and join the ranks of weaponia's champions. When 12-year-

old Nancy Jipjo returns home after her barefoot journey from school,

she changes into her running gear. Then it's time to warm up for her

second training session of the day. She'd run to the local well at

5:00am to fetch water for her grandmother. Her talent has brought

her victory in the National Primary Schools' Championships. The

expectant villages hope in the future it can bring an end to their

hardship. This village is not well developed. We don't have

electricity, we don't have good means of transportation. We are

looking forward so that she'll come back and help the community. She'll

be a role model and come and eradicate the poverty in this

village. For the moment that weight of responsibility doesn't seem to

be putting Nancy off her stride. She has a quiet confidence in her