16/09/2012 Reporters

in an internal inquiry afterwards. A zeroes -- those are the latest

Tories. Now it is time for The human face of the victims of

severe's civil war. We made a family scarred for life after their

home was shelled. Two old enemies battling a common thread. Cuba and

the unit he states joined forces to tackle the drug traffickers. -- the

United States. And why big is beautiful on the African coast. We

made the African artist famous for painting larger ladies. -- we meet.

Welcome to Reporters. The United Nations says more than 230,000

people have now fled the fighting in Syria, including 100,000 in the

last month. Most of the refugees have crossed into Jordan. That is

where our correspondent met one family who suffered horrific

injuries when their house was shelled. These are the faces behind

the statistics of untold suffering that emerge from Syria every day. A

close-knit family from Homs, the Khaddors are now confined to a

cramped hotel room. They fled here after losing everything they have,

everything but their lives. They were fast asleep when a shell hit

their home. It started a fire which engulfed the children. Translation

mac they were burning. I could hear them crying. I tried to take their

clothes off. I tried to put the fire out. I did not feel the pain.

I did not feel the fire on my hands. Thank God we managed to save them.

This six-year-old escape the flames but his three-year-old sister could

not. This four-year-old has third- degree burns all over her body.

TRANSLATION: She looked at herself in the mirror and said "Mum, I have

been burnt. I used to be beautiful. Why did I become this way?" I told

her that she was still beautiful. Today, she will have an operation

on her left hand. It is a traumatic experience for a small child. The

kier is infinitely better than anything available to civilians in

Syria who are bearing the brunt of the concert. Thousands of people

injured across the Middle East are being operated on here. -- the

conflict. Increasing numbers of them are Assyrians. It is those who

cannot get here who doctors are worrying about the most. -- are

Syrians. These people are just a normal family. They do not have

support. This is war. You can't predict what happens. Every case

here is complicated. The girl will have to wait a couple of years to

have surgery on her face. No one is counting the injured in Syria. This

is the story of the damage done to just one family from just one shell

in an escalating war. The British Defence Minister was

recently in Afghanistan, assessing the situation. Philip Hammond said

he was reassured that political leaders there by taking steps to

stop attacks by Afghan troops on foreign soldiers. These are known

as green or blue attacks. There is increasing concern over the calibre

of political leadership in Afghanistan, just two years before

NATO troops pull out. This is one of Afghanistan's few success

stories. A confident, well-equipped army trained by British and other

Western forces. There have been occasional attacks by rogue

soldiers. The Government has announced new measures to prevent

them. The instructors are not worried. We have instructed the

soldiers. By knowing each other, that is one of the keys to

countering the threat. Ordinary life is not a success story here at

all. It is a fierce struggle against the odds. Things are

improving, at least in the cities, but it is painfully slow. Everybody

knows that corruption is rampant. Three years ago, Ramazan Bashardos

campaigned against the election. He unexpectedly came third. It is not

a problem with MPs or ministers are judges are prosecutors, it is a

problem of the whole state. Is the Afghan stayed too ramshackle to

survive? That is a big here among Western governments now. Britain's

defence secretary, Philip Hammond, was here to talk about the attacks

on Western soldiers but he also needed to check on the health of

the government. He found that Hamid Karzai has real problems. Two of

his top ministers have been sacked. He himself cannot stand again and

the 2014 presidential election and no one knows who will come after

him. He remains grimly optimistic. We will have an election. It will

be a fair election. If that happens, people will vote for their

president and parliament and the country will be in good hands.

is a pretty big if. I think it is clear that the political structures

are more fragile than the military infrastructure which has been built

up. The Afghan forces are becoming effective and combatants and some

of the political structures are lacking. Despite the anxieties

about a growing political vacuum, the real problem is that the Afghan

army, even though it is much better trained and equipped nowadays,

simply won't be able to get rid of the Taliban altogether without

American and British help. That means that the civil war could

simply drag on and on and on. For more than 40 years, America has

been fighting a war on drugs. One thing that it has learned is that

it pays to have good allies in this battle. Cuba is not an obvious

candidate but the island does have as zero-tolerance policy on drugs.

They are helping American officials try to stop the flow of narcotics

from South America. This report is from a van. Patrolling the coast of

Cuba. -- Havana. It looks tranquil but this island is key territory in

the fight against international drug trafficking. It was a busy

route in the 1990s but Cuba has upped its guard. This video shows

what happens now been smugglers try to pass. Most boats are heading for

the US, stuffed with up to one ton of narcotics. This crew is under

opposite and it tries to dump the evidence in this film. Securing the

drugs is the key concern for Cuba. I was given rare access to see how

the border guards operate. They once struggled for resources. This

boat had been confiscated from traffickers. This was a training

drill. The troops are under orders to keep genuine drugs of the shores

smugglers themselves, they chase them out of these waters. Q But

then passes on real-time data to the US Coast Guard to pick the

people up. It is rare team work for old enemies. The simulated drugs

have been found unsecured. The priority for the coastguard is

making sure that real drugs don't make it onto the domestic market. Q

But is so close to America that it is a major obstacle for traffickers

trying to reach the world's biggest drugs market. As Cuba. It is a

heavily police society. It is no surprise -- it is a surprise it is

not a big drug market. 1 joint of money while it can cost one week's

wage. Some people still see potential. We have noticed that the

high price of drugs has stimulated attempts to bring narcotics into

Cuba for the retail market. There has been an increase in operations.

The amount of drugs is not huge but it is a concern. This man tried

that route. I met him in prison in Havana where he is serving a 23

year sentence. He was travertine Duman meals from Ecuador with

stomachs full of cocaine. -- travelling human mules. More

smugglers have joined them behind bars. You will get caught. That is

what I suppose. The authorities are very efficient. Cuba's security

bosses are a leads to the new threat. For now, they say most

drugs that the seas were on route to the US. They end up in this

factory. Last year, just over nine tons of illicit narcotics went up

The island of Madagascar is renowned across the world for his

production of many a liar, but it also produces volumes of highly

valuable cocoa that is exploited -- exported to chocolate makers.

Farmers and the north-west of the island had come under threat as we

report. The fertile north-western region of

Madagascar. Here, the tropical climate and rich soil gives farmers

an abundance of some of the finest cocoa in the world. Plucked from

the trees, these pots produce highly valuable beans, sought after

by leading chocolatiers around the world. Taking a hefty price, cocoa

provides a much-needed income for entire communities on this island.

But the beans have also become the target of roofless cocoa bandits.

At the 62-year-old a person surveys the broken village store. The

harbours that they had collected over several weeks had been stolen.

He said armed men snuck into a forest and took the whole stock.

They have threatened other villages and even taken pot straight from

the trees. He is now considering buying a gun in order to protect

the villagers' livelihoods. Some farmers are now so fearful they

have resorted to hide in the beans in their homes. Madagascar produces

about five-600 tons, and it is estimated 10% of it gets stolen. A

batch of like a town is worth $6,000. That is a hefty crop. -- a

batch of a town. Madagascar does provide greater protection for its

largest and most valuable export, of the near laugh. Two-thirds of

the world's pots come from the island. The movement is strictly

regulated. The penalties for stealing it are harsh. The only

international chocolate company that makes its bars on the island

says it is vital that cocoa is better protected, otherwise the

industry suffers and farmers will struggle to meet demand. It is up

to the government to prevent the theft of cocoa. It is a huge loss.

Madagascar is not an industrialised nation. Its people rely heavily on

what the island's farmers produce. The celebratory cocoa bean could

become as valuable as gold if it is better protected.

In Poland ministers are considering changes to the law on drunk cycling.

Nearly two dozen people have been given prison sentences for cycling

under the influence of alcohol. Many consider it to be draconian

and as we report, a debate on the floor is under way.

It is a weekday morning outside Warsaw. The traffic police are on

patrol. Speeding and drink-driving are partly the reason why Polish

roads up the most dangerous in Europe. But it is not only drunk

drivers they are looking for, it is also drummed cyclists. If this man

had been drinking alcohol, he could have been fined, banned from

cycling or driving, or even given one year in prison. More than 4,000

people were sent to prisons like this one for a drink cycling. He

was caught after drinking a few beers with a friend that he had not

seen since school. He did not want to be identified, because he says

he does not feel like a criminal. TRANSLATION: My wife does not work

at the moment. We have a nine-year- old boy who is alone at home. It is

hard for her when I am not around. I hope the time passes quickly.

Some prison experts say the punishment is draconian and

inadequate. It is very costly for society. It pays a big cost for

sending them to prison. In the end, we have overcrowded prisons. Most

European countries punish drunken cyclists with a fine. Poland is

unique in sending so many to jail. This debate comes just as Warsaw

has begun to promote cycling as a healthy, green and convenient way

to get around. Like other European companies, it has started a bike

rental scheme. The City authorities had decided to double the size of

it because it has become so popular. The government has considering --

has considered changing the law. There is a growing feeling that

sending so many people to prison may not be the best way to overcome

the problem. Back to Afghanistan, one of the

world's most dangerous countries is not an ideal place for a round of

golf. The Kabul Golf Club was the scene of fighting in the 1990s, and

rocket launchers and tends had to be removed to make it workable. We

have played around on Afghanistan's only golf course. It may not look

like much, but on the upstarts -- outskirts of Kabul, is the city's

golf course. It is popular with Western diplomats. Today on the

first, is the EU ambassador. To play this course requires some

fairly heavy ions. Of all the courses that you have played, this

must be the most unusual. It is the most challenging golf course. First

of all, it is hard to find the whole because it is under... and

there are some greens which are sand. You have got a road running

through the middle of the course. The power lines, those are the main

hazards. There is some water and some minds. -- land mines. You feel

comfortable? I feel comfortable that they have all gone. This is

about as extreme as golf can get. We have found your ball. Just watch

yourself. Step back. I think any golfer who wants to be called a

true golfer should come to Kabul to play. Golf courses have many houses,

but few have a hazard like this. There is a road running down the

middle of the course. But we think we know where the ambassador's ball

is. But we need to find a whole to putt it into. A great deal of

determination is required. Thorn bushes and a lack of flags at holes

meant thinking a shot was a little difficult. -- sinking.

Beauty they say is in the eye of the be Horder, but is there such a

thing as a particular African idea of female beauty? One man who

believes so is a Augustin Kassi, probably Ivory Coast's best-known

artist. He recently put on a new exhibition of paintings in the main

city. Big, bald and beautiful. Augustin

Kassi's latest giant canvases continue his life work of paying

homage to the women that he sees around him in the Ivory Coast. The

idea for what has become his life's theme came when he saw a large

woman been told to pay for two tickets for a place on one of the

local buses. He says it seemed a far cry from his roots back in his

village, where larger women were seen as the happiest, healthiest,

and the most beautiful. TRANSLATION: When things started

getting modern, with more influences from the rest of the

world, Africans learned there were other ideas of beauty from the

media. They were tempted to change their thinking. But you cannot move

away from me who you really are. His work has become instantly

recognisable in Ivory Coast. It has inspired these women to form an

association to promote the values of larger body sizes. TRANSLATION:

When women see these paintings, they see themselves in them, and

say, OK, we are beautiful. I have got big arms, I like my arms. God

created me and I will try to keep my shape. His work has attracted

interest around the world, but in Ivory Coast, he is working the

hardest to make sure the next generation sees the importance of

African values and also the importance of art. Through his

Foundation, he introduces around 500 children a year to art at

workshops like this over the course of the summer holidays. Many of

them are from the poorest parts of the city. His parents were totally