09/12/2012 Reporters

warming. Those are the main stories. Jonathan Head reports from a

protest against a copper mine in Burma that has turned into a test

of the country's fledgling democracy. How a South Africa

neighbourhood managed to get 10 rival drug dealers to sit in the

same room, Andrew Harding has the story from Cape Town. And suffering

for their art, we find the Greek financial crisis is fuelling a

creative explosion. Hello and welcome to Reporters. Burma's

President has asked the opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, to head

an inquiry into the violent police crackdown on protesters in a mine

in pagoda in November. Some suffered burns and plenty were

injured when police took control. For several months farmers have

been protesting saying the part Chinese-owned mind would force them

to give up their land. -- mine. We visited the demonstrators just

before the police operation. Some things haven't changed in

Burma. A night-time ride through the cornfields was the only way we

could reach a sit in by local farmers on the edge of a giant

copper mine. It has now been designated a restricted area.

Foreigners are not allowed. Before last month's police operation, this

lonely pagoda, all that remains of a demolished monastery, was the

front line in a protest that has grown to symbolise a new spirit of

public defiance. We had to keep out of sight inside the pagoda. Leonid

Razvozzhayev, who owns 13 acres, says she was forced to find over to

the mining company --. One of the village leaders said he did not

like the deal, then they arrested him, so then we were afraid and

they forced us to sign a contract but we did not understand it.

Nearby fields are also destined to be swallowed up with the mine as it

expands. The Chinese company says the arrangement with farmers was a

voluntary one, but it has offered enough compensation. But that deal

was done in the dark era before Burma's Democratic awakening. Now

Burma's people have found their voice. When I was there, the mine

company's front gate was a venue for daily protests. Activists were

coming in from all over the country to show their support for the

farmers. This it in had become a test of how old injustices would be

dealt with -- this sit in. How much cents descend would be tolerated.

Try to think how extraordinary this scene is, unthinkable two years ago,

a peaceful march on a public road against a mining company backed by

the military and a Chinese multinational. The challenge for

the government is that there are protests like this breaking out all

over the country. At one point a group of nuns approached the mind,

determined to enter. -- mine. The police braced themselves in an

unusual tactic. Non-violent crowd control is still something of a

novelty. Are unsure what he should do, the police commander eventually

allowed them in. -- unsure. Add that point it was possible to

believe Burma had changed -- at that point. At another protest camp,

we were surrounded by farmers who are still unused to speaking freely

to outsiders. They had been here day and night, determined to shut

the mine down. All have stories of been bullied or threatened. A new

era, they believed, had given them the chance to speak out for the

first time. TRANSLATION: Years of enforced silence were broken in a

stream of tears. Not just for the loss of her land and livelihood,

said this woman, but for the destruction of the monastery and

the hills she had grown up with. Huge trucks still move across the

beach slopes that tower over a wasted landscape. Below them,

people eke out a living from the mine, flushing out the remaining

traces of copper in toxic Poms. The mine may one day bring benefits for

all of Burma, but it is not hard to see why local communities want it

closed down. Persuading some of South Africa's

toughest gangsters to make peace sounds like a big ask, but it is to

starting to pay off in one region where even children have been

killed in the drug-related crossfire. But police aren't

abandoning more traditional methods to crack down on drugs. Andrew

Harding went to the Cape Flats outside Cape Town to meet the gangs,

the victims, and the police. Another day on the front line.

South African police raiding a suspected drug den. This time no

resistance. The dog quickly finds the stash. But the drug business is

booming here. These raids barely seemed to make a dent. Prison

tattoos spell out the gangsters' connections. This is one of the

most vile and neighbourhoods. The drug-fuelled warfare between rival

gangs unrelenting. -- violence. Two weeks ago to young the Eels were

killed when they were caught in the crossfire. -- two young girls.

Outside we hear three more gang members were killed overnight.

is serious. The people are giving up hope. They don't know what you

do. They are scared to walk. what to do. Could this be a way

forward? Just down the road in a place called Lavender Hill, 10

rival gang leaders have come together under pressure from

community leaders. It is a tense and extraordinary gathering of drug

lords and murderers. These are, for all intents and purposes, the

community leaders. This is where the power is and where the money is.

You have got to find a way to channel that energy, but at the

moment that energy is channelled in the criminal economy. It is the

only economy that works here. We have to find a way to sort that.

the gangsters don't want to be identified, but they insist they

are serious about change. We want to play a positive role. It might

not look like that now but we do have the community health. Of the

reconciliation talks seem to be helping. On the streets of Lavender

Hill a gang truce is now in force. No gang related killings what's the

weather in the past few months. That's unprecedented? Especially in

this area, absolutely. ceasefire here may not last and it

only applies to one small neighbourhood in a very large, very

violent area. But it has at least showing people here that peace is

possible. For local families the calm is welcome, but there's a

nagging feeling that criminals are being treated to gently. It doesn't

matter where you stay, you can't bring up your kids properly. It all

depends on what the parents are going to do about their kids.

for many here it's too late. His tattoos mark him out as a gang hit

man. They cheat foot soldier in South Africa's enduring drug wars.

-- cheap. 25 years ago thousands of people died in the Kurdish town of

Halabja or when Saddam Hussein organised and attacked with

chemical gas. To this day parts of the town remain contaminated by

lethal toxic gases used in the attack, which the Kurdish opera TVs

are trying to establish was an act of genocide. John Simpson reported

from Halabja at the time of the attack, a quarter of a century

later he returned. -- authorities. I wouldn't have recognised the

place. Halabja is nowadays busy and expanding fast. But however

bustling it may be, no one here forgets the gas attacks of March

1988. For 45 minutes, Saddam Hussein's planes bombarded Halabja

with some of the most toxic agents known to science. Nerve gases, and

old-fashioned mustard gas. When I arrived there were still dead

people everywhere. I went round counting. There were about 5000.

The bodies which litter this town are those of people who ran out of

their houses to try to escape the gas and were killed out in the open.

Since that moment, she was only a teenager then, she lost 17

relatives, including her mother, her two brothers, her sister --

Nasrin Abdul Qadir was alone in the world. She keeps their pictures

with her all the time. TRANSLATION: Everyone wants to live, but what

kind of life? For us in Halabja or every day is the day of the attack

for asked. The pain is still in our hearts, deep down -- for us. No one

has ever cleaned out the cellar where her family was gassed. Even

25 years later the stench of mustard gas is still strong, strong

enough to kill small creatures. It makes our eyes weep and our heads

ache. No doubt about it, things that come down here like the cat,

the rats and so on, seemed to die as a result. It may be a good idea

not to spend too much time down here. A top British expert on

chemical warfare is looking into the lingering danger from gas. He's

found low levels of mustard gas in another cellar near by. We have a

problem around here when their building new buildings, when they

do the foundations, they come upon pockets of mustard gas, and people

have died recently when it evaporates. The Halabja victory

still lie buried in a few mass graves. -- victims. But the British

teams say they could identify the bodies through DNA so they could be

re- buried in the individual graves that now are like them, each

clearly named. The Kurdistan government wants to demonstrate

finally this was a genocide. It was an attempt in part or in whole to

eradicate the people, and ethnicity or a CRU, that is the definition of

genocide. -- or a group. That is what happened not Justin Hatcher

but in the whole of Kurdistan. this day it is part of everybody's

life here. -- just in Halabja. Pupils and their teacher. It is not

just history. Like Saddam Hussein, Syria has chemical weapons now, and

it's not that far away for people here. Gas warfare seems a very real

It is one year since parliamentary elections in Russia that triggered

a wave of mass protests, when tens of thousands of opponents to

Vladimir Putin took to the streets. Some opposition organisers found

themselves in prison and later claimed they were subjected to

inhumane treatment. This has been an unprecedented year of protest in

Moscow, as the opposition condemned unfair elections and Vladimir

Putin's return to the presidency. Leonid Razvozzhayev was a young

organiser from the left of the movement and his fate is a striking

example of the subsequent government clamped down. After the

violence of the 6th May protests at with the net closing in on him, he

fled to Russia for Ukraine. There, he was discussing political asylum

with this UN office in Kiev when he was abducted from the street and

disappeared for two days. By the time he reappeared on video link to

a Moscow courtroom, he had signed a 10 page confession, which he claims

was extracted under torture. He said he was blindfolded and tied to

a chair while investigators threatened the lives of his

children. He said they had smuggled him back across the border into

Russia illegally. His partner, the mother of his two children, says

she has still not been allowed to see him. TRANSLATION: I thought

things like this only happened in films. It turns out that they can

happen in real life. I believe his 10 page confession was dictated to

him. If my family had been threatened, I would have written a

20 page confession. Since he was brought to Moscow, Leonid

Razvozzhayev has been brought to this prison -- held in this prison,

the same notorious jail where, in the communist era, the KGB kept its

political prisoners. Leonid Razvozzhayev remains behind bars,

charged with organising mass riots, something he denies. The

government's treatment of him has alarmed human rights groups.

believe that this is a sign of a new kind of political repression.

Because they never dared to act like this before. 11 people remain

in prison awaiting trial following the demonstrations in May. One year

on since the protest movement began, no-one is quite sure when the

government crackdown it triggered will end.

The hustle and bustle of busy city living can be overbearing. Some

people move out. What about moving up? The skyscraper continues to

appeal to urban planners and it is places like Singapore. There,

residents rise of the stress of the streets below. This is Singapore's

central business district. Tall buildings and skyscrapers that

define the skyline of almost every developed, wealthy nation. Here, in

Singapore, these tall buildings are almost imperative. A tiny island

with no hinterland, Singapore is one of the most densely populated -

- populated cities per capita in the world. Over 5 million

inhabitants live in this city, most of them in tall apartment buildings.

This is an extreme example of one of those public housing projects.

Called the pinnacle, it houses over 18 and apartments in seven towering

blocks. -- 1,800 apartments. How to make a building liveable was a

struggle for the architects. The answer was to devise Skye bridges

linking the towers to provide recreational space. One of the

things we like about this project is that when we first designed it,

we thought that there would be people everywhere. After looking at

it again, two years later, there is an amazing sense of tranquillity.

With an 800 metre of jogging track high up on the 26th floor,

residents like the idea of being able to live as well as play here.

This is one of those residents. A 73-year-old retiree, he says even

his health has improved since moving here. For a retired person

like me, every day I do yoga here. The idea of parks in the sky has

also been put to commercial use. Here at the casino and hotel

complex, one of the world's best known architects has created a sky

park the size of three football fields. As we build densities, much

more concentrated, multiple high rises as a single complex, the only

way to preserve quality of life is to recreate the ground at many

levels. As the global population grows beyond 7 billion, and

increasingly higher premium will be put on space on the ground and that

is when parks and streets in the sky will start becoming a common

feature in other cities as well. Greece is set to enter its 6th

consecutive year of recession. Every sector has been hit by

spending cuts and the Ministry of Culture has received a 30% cut in

funding. The financial crisis has also provided artists with new

ideas. It was the birthplace of Western civilisation from the

theatre of Sophocles to the philosophy of Plato and the ethical

poetry of Homer. Greece's court for a legacy is unrivalled. Today's

crisis has hit arts funding. But it has also resulted in new ideas as

Greece's cultural scene strikes back. Aston's streets - where

protest and political graffiti makes. Street art has flourished

with the crisis. One mysterious artist inspired by the troubles of

Greece. We are lucky to be in this difficult era, even though it is

difficult for me as well. We can create images and analyse it. If it

was not for this crisis, my art would have been like a voice in the

desert. Nobody would listen. Traditional art forms are

influenced as well. This new play features riots and Germany's Pro

austerity Chancellor. No, no, No. Crops have had to be cut. Simple

humour fills the place. The crisis pushed me to do something. I want

to say something. I want to say that this is a bad situation but we

will stay, survive, continue working in solving and dancing.

This is the sound of the crisis. The Rex hit out against the

government and the media for spreading fear. He popped inspiring

a generation of protesters. -- hip- hop music. TRANSLATION: With the

crisis, my music has become angrier, helping my fans express themselves.

Before, least it was entertainment. Now, it has a political message,