:00:29. > :00:33.Welcome to Reporters. We have been sending out correspondence to bring
:00:33. > :00:42.you the best stories. This week, efforts to get the Taliban to lay
:00:42. > :00:46.down their weapons go on in Afghanistan. We assess the progress
:00:46. > :00:50.being made towards nation-building. We meet the Pakistani brides
:00:50. > :00:54.abandoned in Pakistan by their British husbands. They have no
:00:54. > :00:58.chance of seeing their children in the UK.
:00:58. > :01:08.And still suffering after Hurricane Sandy. We report on the attempts to
:01:08. > :01:09.
:01:09. > :01:14.rebuild lives on the devastated to seashore on America's east coast.
:01:14. > :01:19.We start with a special report from Afghanistan, where a nationwide
:01:19. > :01:23.campaign is under way to try to get Taliban fighters to lay down their
:01:23. > :01:26.weapons and rejoin mainstream society. But there is also
:01:26. > :01:32.concerned there may be an escalation in suicide attacks as
:01:32. > :01:34.the withdrawal of foreign combat troops get closer. Our security
:01:34. > :01:42.correspondent has been travelling around Afghanistan to try to
:01:42. > :01:44.explore what progress has been made by international forces towards
:01:44. > :01:52.nation-building. The Afghan capital Kabul is today a
:01:52. > :01:56.busy bustling city. Few of NATO's hundred thousand troops are anyway
:01:56. > :01:59.to be seen. They are starting to leave now. In a drive around the
:02:00. > :02:04.city, the deputy commander says Afghanistan is a different place
:02:04. > :02:11.from when they arrived. It is remarkable how things have
:02:11. > :02:17.progressed in the broader civil is very different to what it was.
:02:17. > :02:20.Education has moved on hugely, with 20 million mobile telephone users
:02:20. > :02:23.now. In terms of progress towards the sort of things we would
:02:23. > :02:31.understand, there has been a momentum which is not irreversible
:02:31. > :02:34.but it has progressed extraordinary. But the Taliban have not gone away.
:02:34. > :02:39.Soon, Afghan security forces like these will have to fight them on
:02:39. > :02:43.their own. The man who laid the intelligence war against the
:02:43. > :02:50.insurgents for most of the last ten years since the attacks are said to
:02:50. > :02:55.get worse. As NATO with tools, and which uses its presence in
:02:55. > :03:02.Afghanistan, the Taliban are going to change their tactics. --
:03:02. > :03:12.withdraws. They will modify their strategy and are going to do more
:03:12. > :03:12.
:03:12. > :03:17.and more spectacular attacks. this one on the first morning we
:03:17. > :03:24.were in Kabul. The triple suicide bombing. Officials told us there
:03:24. > :03:28.are on average for Max factor tax every week. -- four such attacks.
:03:28. > :03:33.Handing over security to Afghan forces has been going on for years
:03:33. > :03:37.but now it has accelerated. There is recognition that national army
:03:37. > :03:43.soldiers are often fearless and determined but lacks skills in
:03:43. > :03:48.maintenance and planning to become a modern army. We are coming back
:03:48. > :03:56.by invitation -- invitation, not by right. Each time we visit, I am
:03:57. > :04:02.impressed in -- by the way they are doing things for themselves, by
:04:02. > :04:06.themselves and developing a special Afghan national army activity.
:04:06. > :04:09.is the first of seven new mobile strike in it's the Afghan army is
:04:09. > :04:14.developing. This is a big step up for them because most Afghan
:04:14. > :04:18.soldiers have only ever fought on foot. But with NATO forces leaving
:04:18. > :04:23.next year, this is the kind of warfare they will have to fight on
:04:23. > :04:28.their own against a determined enemy if there is no peace deal. It
:04:28. > :04:34.brings with it some major challenges. Later, we learned this
:04:34. > :04:38.unit has not been on operations because of shortcomings in vehicle
:04:38. > :04:48.maintenance. But of course the ministry response to the insurgency
:04:48. > :04:51.
:04:51. > :04:57.is only one part of the equation. From Kabul, we flew in an NATO
:04:57. > :05:03.helicopter to see what security is like in one of the provinces. It
:05:03. > :05:13.took some effort for me to get there with my wheelchair. Ghazni
:05:13. > :05:14.
:05:14. > :05:18.Province has a reputation for being troubled. I am facing forward?
:05:18. > :05:27.Further backwards? It's a bit of the logistic challenge, getting
:05:27. > :05:31.into one of these armoured vehicles. It is like a mine clearer. Here,
:05:31. > :05:35.and in other provincial offices, the government is offering former
:05:35. > :05:39.insurgents money to give up their guns and we integrate themselves
:05:39. > :05:43.into village communities. It is having mixed results. The men
:05:43. > :05:48.behind me who do not want to show their faces we are told are all
:05:48. > :05:53.former Taliban insurgents. We do not know if they really were a
:05:53. > :05:59.former Taliban fighters. Even if they are, the numbers so far are
:05:59. > :06:03.very small. Just 6,000 we integrated in more than six years.
:06:03. > :06:07.The details are registered. They are taking the risk doing this and
:06:07. > :06:13.there have been reprisals. But the local governor says Ghazni
:06:13. > :06:18.Province's security is key to the country's future. Our present
:06:18. > :06:23.always says if these problems is safe, Afghanistan is safe. --
:06:23. > :06:27.President. But Ghazni Province is not safe. While we were there, a
:06:27. > :06:30.motorbike bomber killed in a bizarre, killing three. NATO has
:06:31. > :06:35.fought this insurgency to a stalemate but has not repeated it.
:06:35. > :06:39.Now it is leaving, Afghan authorities must decide who to
:06:39. > :06:49.trust and how to stop the country again becoming a haven for
:06:49. > :06:51.
:06:51. > :06:55.Two neighbouring Pakistan, where thousands of women dream of being
:06:55. > :06:58.chosen as a bride for an man in the UK because they can begin a chance
:06:58. > :07:03.to begin a family in a country they believe offers opportunity and
:07:03. > :07:08.prosperity. But for many, that dream has turned sour. Officials
:07:08. > :07:11.and charities say a growing number of women claim they have been
:07:11. > :07:17.abandoned in Pakistan's by their British husbands. As we report,
:07:17. > :07:24.many of these women have no chance of seeing their children in the UK.
:07:24. > :07:29.Nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas lies a place where many
:07:29. > :07:34.British Pakistani men come to find a traditional wife. This woman
:07:34. > :07:38.tells me she was excited about her new life in the UK but one year
:07:38. > :07:43.after having her daughter, she says she was tricked into taking a
:07:43. > :07:47.flight back to Pakistan. TRANSLATION: I was so disturbed I
:07:47. > :07:57.just wanted to die. I asked the man who sat next to me to stop the
:07:57. > :08:01.plane but it was too late. I cried all the way. We have had to hide
:08:01. > :08:07.her activity for legal reasons. When we contacted her husband, he
:08:07. > :08:11.would not talk to us. Nearby, we need another woman who says she had
:08:11. > :08:16.three sons in the UK but they were taken from her during a family trip
:08:16. > :08:21.to Pakistan. TRANSLATION: They would say, we have got the children
:08:21. > :08:26.now, we do not need you. You are only here to do work. A wife's
:08:26. > :08:33.place is under her husband's feet. She is divorced and her ex husband
:08:33. > :08:37.denies abandoning her and taking her children to the UK but says she
:08:37. > :08:41.was not a good wife. More than one million Pakistanis live in the UK
:08:41. > :08:47.and many have their roots here. But returning to rural areas like this
:08:47. > :08:51.for marriage can result in a miserable clash of cultures. There
:08:51. > :08:57.can be enormous family pressure on British Pakistani men to come here
:08:57. > :09:02.to find a local pride. This man from Bradford says he was forced to
:09:02. > :09:12.marry but abandoned his wife in Pakistan for five years. I was
:09:12. > :09:13.
:09:13. > :09:16.forced into it and I retaliated. But then maybe the in a good of me
:09:16. > :09:21.took over and I said I would give it a try. Not many young people
:09:21. > :09:25.would do that. This is a patriarchal and conservative
:09:25. > :09:31.community. Here, it is often the abandoned wife who is condemned for
:09:31. > :09:35.not keeping her husband happy. While a few women to speak out,
:09:35. > :09:45.lawyers and charities say hundreds more stay silent far away from
:09:45. > :09:47.
:09:47. > :09:52.Do you remember our current -- our coverage of Hurricane Sandy a few
:09:52. > :09:56.months ago, the super storm that brought a large part of the eastern
:09:56. > :10:00.United States to a standstill? At least 130 people were killed and
:10:00. > :10:05.the Atlantic coast of New York was devastated. Some of the worst
:10:05. > :10:11.affected areas were in New Jersey. My colleague covered the story. He
:10:11. > :10:15.has now returned to see what has happened since the cameras left.
:10:15. > :10:20.This is Ortley beach and Connie Duffy accompanied by two friends
:10:20. > :10:23.has finally plucked up courage to come back and see what happened to
:10:23. > :10:29.her home of 50 years. It is not a pretty sight.
:10:29. > :10:34.For this is the house. Come here. It is terrible. Yes. The front
:10:34. > :10:40.porch is gone. That is why the roof fell down, because the whole port
:10:40. > :10:43.went. A lot of people had insurance but I did not keep it. -- port. You
:10:43. > :10:48.stay here this long and you never think you will have a problem.
:10:48. > :10:52.do not have insurance? Not for a flood. It is hard to find the words
:10:52. > :10:58.to describe the scale of destruction. This house behind me
:10:58. > :11:02.is at an angle of almost 30 degrees up towards the sky. It almost looks
:11:03. > :11:08.comic. This one has completely collapsed. If we just come around a
:11:08. > :11:12.bit, you will see that when the house collapsed, somehow, just here,
:11:12. > :11:19.there is an old army vehicle and it has flipped over on its back and
:11:19. > :11:24.has come to rest underneath the house. Ortley beach has 7,400 homes.
:11:24. > :11:29.7,000 of them were either damaged or destroyed. Three months on, this
:11:29. > :11:34.town is still closed to residents. I met the police chief who took me
:11:34. > :11:41.on a tour. You and I go to bed at night but these people have not
:11:42. > :11:46.been here for three months. Can we go down here? This was a road?
:11:46. > :11:51.This is a private beach community. Essentially, every house here will
:11:52. > :11:57.come down. New Jersey will not be the same until families can return
:11:58. > :12:04.to these famous but buckled and broken right. Can you put a cost on
:12:04. > :12:09.this? They are still assessing that. Obviously it will be in tens of
:12:09. > :12:14.millions. But there are no concrete cost. Tens of millions just here?
:12:14. > :12:19.Yes. Just around this property. It is very important for us to rebuild
:12:19. > :12:23.and have something going for the summer. As far as jobs and the
:12:23. > :12:26.economy and the life blood for the town for the summer season. The aim
:12:26. > :12:30.is that this place should reopen for tourism at the end of May but
:12:30. > :12:40.looking at what needs to be done, you would probably get the sea
:12:40. > :12:50.
:12:50. > :12:55.gulls will still have this beach to South America is struggling to
:12:55. > :12:59.contain a coffee eating fungus. The coffee growers Association is also
:12:59. > :13:09.warning of social unrest as thousands of jobs are at risk in a
:13:09. > :13:10.
:13:10. > :13:15.region that depends very heavily on the coffee industry.
:13:15. > :13:23.This woman's family has grown coffee on this land for more than
:13:23. > :13:27.100 years. Never before has there been crop devastation like this. A
:13:27. > :13:33.fungus called leaf rust has swept through her plantation, half the
:13:33. > :13:39.how first is Rowland. The rest is damaged. The beginning of the
:13:40. > :13:47.disease is these orange dust that we can see. It is the first stepped.
:13:47. > :13:51.It is a crisis for us. And the people are depend on us, it is a
:13:51. > :13:56.double crisis. There were not have worked. That is a problem for the
:13:56. > :14:01.nation. As we move through the coffee belt, we saw how plantation
:14:01. > :14:08.after plantation had been hit. It is blames on climate change. The
:14:08. > :14:13.two degree rise in temperature, and higher rainfall and humidity. This
:14:13. > :14:18.plant is even if farrowing three months early. This is not a rich
:14:18. > :14:23.country. And hundreds of thousands of lives depend on the coffee
:14:23. > :14:31.industry. Now those jobs are being put at rest. This woman employs 50
:14:31. > :14:36.workers for her high office. They're all dread news about it.
:14:36. > :14:44.Nearly everyone here works with coffee. People lived only for the
:14:44. > :14:53.coffee. If they do not have coffee and dinner have any other income,
:14:53. > :14:59.would they will have... The fungus is shattering the whole of Central
:14:59. > :15:08.America. Poverty is widespread, and coffee is an economic life blood.
:15:08. > :15:15.Are you worried for yourselves and your families? TRANSLATION: Yes.
:15:15. > :15:25.And all the others who might suffer. About one-third of this year's crop
:15:25. > :15:31.
:15:31. > :15:36.has survived. But next year, it is The big freeze has been setting in
:15:36. > :15:40.with sub-zero temperatures across Europe. In Greece, which is of
:15:40. > :15:44.course suffering from a deep financial crisis, there has been a
:15:44. > :15:50.cost to the environment. An increasing number of Greeks are now
:15:50. > :15:55.burning wood at Harrow. The problem is especially acute in the north
:15:55. > :16:01.where temperatures and salaries are lower. There has been a huge rise
:16:01. > :16:07.in illegal logging. Combing the Forest of Mount Olympus,
:16:07. > :16:12.hunting does to destroy it. Illegal logging has soared by 300 %. Many
:16:13. > :16:17.an able to afford heating well, now choosing would. Precious trees
:16:17. > :16:27.ripped away. Pensioners and racketeers have been caught, all
:16:27. > :16:28.
:16:29. > :16:38.paid the price. Here I feel bad for those people. It is awful, going
:16:38. > :16:44.into the forest and cutting the trees. We need to protect it for
:16:44. > :16:50.the next generation. Dotted across this landscape, we find these bare
:16:50. > :16:54.patches. 100 trees cut here are known. It is estimated well over
:16:54. > :16:58.20,000 had been failed in the Forest of man an peers as the
:16:58. > :17:08.natural environment is hit by the length
:17:08. > :17:09.
:17:09. > :17:14.length of what people are prepared to do. We found an elderly would
:17:15. > :17:20.cuddle. I note it is illegal, he says, but I have grandchildren who
:17:20. > :17:29.will get sick from the cold. Would markets have more than tripled here.
:17:29. > :17:34.A read business thriving. Sales have climbed by 30%. It ends up at
:17:34. > :17:38.families. Their entire salary would have been spent on a roll since a
:17:38. > :17:48.new tax pushed up the price. They only use wood, a throwback to the
:17:48. > :17:57.past they found hard to accept. were shocked and disappointed. We
:17:57. > :18:03.had to go 30 years back. It is economic war out there. In the
:18:03. > :18:08.nearby city, a Mates has thickened. New tests on the air show the
:18:08. > :18:18.result of the burning, a mad worrying increase in pollution.
:18:18. > :18:21.
:18:21. > :18:25.have measured small particles. They contain toxic substances. It will
:18:25. > :18:31.affect human health. It has increased because of the wood-
:18:31. > :18:36.burning? Yes. The ancient gods were said to have lived on ATM and
:18:36. > :18:42.Pearce. But the story picks now offer very little protection. --
:18:42. > :18:46.have lived on Mount Olympus. It has been 70 years since the
:18:46. > :18:51.commander of the German forces in Stalingrad surrendered to the
:18:51. > :18:55.Soviet army. The battle is still seen as one of the turning points
:18:55. > :19:01.of the Second World War. As many as one million soldiers are believed
:19:01. > :19:10.to have died. Our Moscow correspondent has been talking to
:19:10. > :19:16.some of the survivors. 70 years since the end to one of the world's
:19:16. > :19:22.bloodiest battles, the Stalingrad Memorial remains one of the most
:19:22. > :19:32.symbolic sites in Russia. Close to one million soldiers died in just
:19:32. > :19:33.
:19:33. > :19:37.six months of Rich List combat. In A breathtaking German advance into
:19:37. > :19:45.Russia had been blocked at Stalingrad. Hundreds of thousands
:19:45. > :19:50.of men died in brutal urban warfare, as the Red Army refused to yield.
:19:50. > :19:58.Once the Russian winter set in, fresh Soviet forces surrounded
:19:58. > :20:05.Hitler's entire six army, killing or capturing every man. A German
:20:05. > :20:09.commander was forced into a humiliating surrender.
:20:09. > :20:17.Konstantin Duvanov witnessed the surrender. But the images most
:20:17. > :20:27.etched in his merry are the images of that. And a burning rover. --
:20:27. > :20:30.
:20:30. > :20:37.river. TRANSLATION: Everything was on fire. They were the remains of
:20:37. > :20:42.people who had been eradicated, when they were bombed. The scale of
:20:42. > :20:47.the loss of life at this battle is almost beyond imagination. It all
:20:47. > :20:56.happened in just a few months. All these gravestones have the same
:20:56. > :21:02.dates of debt. Added the end of 1942 or the very beginning of 1943.
:21:02. > :21:07.For this week's anniversary, 17,000 new names have been carved on the
:21:07. > :21:11.monument, including the father of Valentina Savelyeva. Just five
:21:11. > :21:17.years old, she survived the battle by eating clay were living in a mud
:21:17. > :21:22.bank. She searched for her father's body for 65 years. Three years ago,
:21:22. > :21:26.she discovered it was just two Mas away from her home. TRANSLATION:
:21:27. > :21:35.They only started putting up these plaques now, 70 years after the
:21:35. > :21:40.battle. The Stalingrad Memorial is built on a hill that saw some of
:21:40. > :21:44.the bloodiest fighting. Tens of thousands of bodies like the light