03/02/2013 Reporters

Welcome to Reporters. We have been sending out correspondence to bring

you the best stories. This week, efforts to get the Taliban to lay

down their weapons go on in Afghanistan. We assess the progress

being made towards nation-building. We meet the Pakistani brides

abandoned in Pakistan by their British husbands. They have no

chance of seeing their children in the UK.

And still suffering after Hurricane Sandy. We report on the attempts to

rebuild lives on the devastated to seashore on America's east coast.

We start with a special report from Afghanistan, where a nationwide

campaign is under way to try to get Taliban fighters to lay down their

weapons and rejoin mainstream society. But there is also

concerned there may be an escalation in suicide attacks as

the withdrawal of foreign combat troops get closer. Our security

correspondent has been travelling around Afghanistan to try to

explore what progress has been made by international forces towards

nation-building. The Afghan capital Kabul is today a

busy bustling city. Few of NATO's hundred thousand troops are anyway

to be seen. They are starting to leave now. In a drive around the

city, the deputy commander says Afghanistan is a different place

from when they arrived. It is remarkable how things have

progressed in the broader civil is very different to what it was.

Education has moved on hugely, with 20 million mobile telephone users

now. In terms of progress towards the sort of things we would

understand, there has been a momentum which is not irreversible

but it has progressed extraordinary. But the Taliban have not gone away.

Soon, Afghan security forces like these will have to fight them on

their own. The man who laid the intelligence war against the

insurgents for most of the last ten years since the attacks are said to

get worse. As NATO with tools, and which uses its presence in

Afghanistan, the Taliban are going to change their tactics. --

withdraws. They will modify their strategy and are going to do more

and more spectacular attacks. this one on the first morning we

were in Kabul. The triple suicide bombing. Officials told us there

are on average for Max factor tax every week. -- four such attacks.

Handing over security to Afghan forces has been going on for years

but now it has accelerated. There is recognition that national army

soldiers are often fearless and determined but lacks skills in

maintenance and planning to become a modern army. We are coming back

by invitation -- invitation, not by right. Each time we visit, I am

impressed in -- by the way they are doing things for themselves, by

themselves and developing a special Afghan national army activity.

is the first of seven new mobile strike in it's the Afghan army is

developing. This is a big step up for them because most Afghan

soldiers have only ever fought on foot. But with NATO forces leaving

next year, this is the kind of warfare they will have to fight on

their own against a determined enemy if there is no peace deal. It

brings with it some major challenges. Later, we learned this

unit has not been on operations because of shortcomings in vehicle

maintenance. But of course the ministry response to the insurgency

is only one part of the equation. From Kabul, we flew in an NATO

helicopter to see what security is like in one of the provinces. It

took some effort for me to get there with my wheelchair. Ghazni

Province has a reputation for being troubled. I am facing forward?

Further backwards? It's a bit of the logistic challenge, getting

into one of these armoured vehicles. It is like a mine clearer. Here,

and in other provincial offices, the government is offering former

insurgents money to give up their guns and we integrate themselves

into village communities. It is having mixed results. The men

behind me who do not want to show their faces we are told are all

former Taliban insurgents. We do not know if they really were a

former Taliban fighters. Even if they are, the numbers so far are

very small. Just 6,000 we integrated in more than six years.

The details are registered. They are taking the risk doing this and

there have been reprisals. But the local governor says Ghazni

Province's security is key to the country's future. Our present

always says if these problems is safe, Afghanistan is safe. --

President. But Ghazni Province is not safe. While we were there, a

motorbike bomber killed in a bizarre, killing three. NATO has

fought this insurgency to a stalemate but has not repeated it.

Now it is leaving, Afghan authorities must decide who to

trust and how to stop the country again becoming a haven for

Two neighbouring Pakistan, where thousands of women dream of being

chosen as a bride for an man in the UK because they can begin a chance

to begin a family in a country they believe offers opportunity and

prosperity. But for many, that dream has turned sour. Officials

and charities say a growing number of women claim they have been

abandoned in Pakistan's by their British husbands. As we report,

many of these women have no chance of seeing their children in the UK.

Nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas lies a place where many

British Pakistani men come to find a traditional wife. This woman

tells me she was excited about her new life in the UK but one year

after having her daughter, she says she was tricked into taking a

flight back to Pakistan. TRANSLATION: I was so disturbed I

just wanted to die. I asked the man who sat next to me to stop the

plane but it was too late. I cried all the way. We have had to hide

her activity for legal reasons. When we contacted her husband, he

would not talk to us. Nearby, we need another woman who says she had

three sons in the UK but they were taken from her during a family trip

to Pakistan. TRANSLATION: They would say, we have got the children

now, we do not need you. You are only here to do work. A wife's

place is under her husband's feet. She is divorced and her ex husband

denies abandoning her and taking her children to the UK but says she

was not a good wife. More than one million Pakistanis live in the UK

and many have their roots here. But returning to rural areas like this

for marriage can result in a miserable clash of cultures. There

can be enormous family pressure on British Pakistani men to come here

to find a local pride. This man from Bradford says he was forced to

marry but abandoned his wife in Pakistan for five years. I was

forced into it and I retaliated. But then maybe the in a good of me

took over and I said I would give it a try. Not many young people

would do that. This is a patriarchal and conservative

community. Here, it is often the abandoned wife who is condemned for

not keeping her husband happy. While a few women to speak out,

lawyers and charities say hundreds more stay silent far away from

Do you remember our current -- our coverage of Hurricane Sandy a few

months ago, the super storm that brought a large part of the eastern

United States to a standstill? At least 130 people were killed and

the Atlantic coast of New York was devastated. Some of the worst

affected areas were in New Jersey. My colleague covered the story. He

has now returned to see what has happened since the cameras left.

This is Ortley beach and Connie Duffy accompanied by two friends

has finally plucked up courage to come back and see what happened to

her home of 50 years. It is not a pretty sight.

For this is the house. Come here. It is terrible. Yes. The front

porch is gone. That is why the roof fell down, because the whole port

went. A lot of people had insurance but I did not keep it. -- port. You

stay here this long and you never think you will have a problem.

do not have insurance? Not for a flood. It is hard to find the words

to describe the scale of destruction. This house behind me

is at an angle of almost 30 degrees up towards the sky. It almost looks

comic. This one has completely collapsed. If we just come around a

bit, you will see that when the house collapsed, somehow, just here,

there is an old army vehicle and it has flipped over on its back and

has come to rest underneath the house. Ortley beach has 7,400 homes.

7,000 of them were either damaged or destroyed. Three months on, this

town is still closed to residents. I met the police chief who took me

on a tour. You and I go to bed at night but these people have not

been here for three months. Can we go down here? This was a road?

This is a private beach community. Essentially, every house here will

come down. New Jersey will not be the same until families can return

to these famous but buckled and broken right. Can you put a cost on

this? They are still assessing that. Obviously it will be in tens of

millions. But there are no concrete cost. Tens of millions just here?

Yes. Just around this property. It is very important for us to rebuild

and have something going for the summer. As far as jobs and the

economy and the life blood for the town for the summer season. The aim

is that this place should reopen for tourism at the end of May but

looking at what needs to be done, you would probably get the sea

gulls will still have this beach to South America is struggling to

contain a coffee eating fungus. The coffee growers Association is also

warning of social unrest as thousands of jobs are at risk in a

region that depends very heavily on the coffee industry.

This woman's family has grown coffee on this land for more than

100 years. Never before has there been crop devastation like this. A

fungus called leaf rust has swept through her plantation, half the

how first is Rowland. The rest is damaged. The beginning of the

disease is these orange dust that we can see. It is the first stepped.

It is a crisis for us. And the people are depend on us, it is a

double crisis. There were not have worked. That is a problem for the

nation. As we move through the coffee belt, we saw how plantation

after plantation had been hit. It is blames on climate change. The

two degree rise in temperature, and higher rainfall and humidity. This

plant is even if farrowing three months early. This is not a rich

country. And hundreds of thousands of lives depend on the coffee

industry. Now those jobs are being put at rest. This woman employs 50

workers for her high office. They're all dread news about it.

Nearly everyone here works with coffee. People lived only for the

coffee. If they do not have coffee and dinner have any other income,

would they will have... The fungus is shattering the whole of Central

America. Poverty is widespread, and coffee is an economic life blood.

Are you worried for yourselves and your families? TRANSLATION: Yes.

And all the others who might suffer. About one-third of this year's crop

has survived. But next year, it is The big freeze has been setting in

with sub-zero temperatures across Europe. In Greece, which is of

course suffering from a deep financial crisis, there has been a

cost to the environment. An increasing number of Greeks are now

burning wood at Harrow. The problem is especially acute in the north

where temperatures and salaries are lower. There has been a huge rise

in illegal logging. Combing the Forest of Mount Olympus,

hunting does to destroy it. Illegal logging has soared by 300 %. Many

an able to afford heating well, now choosing would. Precious trees

ripped away. Pensioners and racketeers have been caught, all

paid the price. Here I feel bad for those people. It is awful, going

into the forest and cutting the trees. We need to protect it for

the next generation. Dotted across this landscape, we find these bare

patches. 100 trees cut here are known. It is estimated well over

20,000 had been failed in the Forest of man an peers as the

natural environment is hit by the length

length of what people are prepared to do. We found an elderly would

cuddle. I note it is illegal, he says, but I have grandchildren who

will get sick from the cold. Would markets have more than tripled here.

A read business thriving. Sales have climbed by 30%. It ends up at

families. Their entire salary would have been spent on a roll since a

new tax pushed up the price. They only use wood, a throwback to the

past they found hard to accept. were shocked and disappointed. We

had to go 30 years back. It is economic war out there. In the

nearby city, a Mates has thickened. New tests on the air show the

result of the burning, a mad worrying increase in pollution.

have measured small particles. They contain toxic substances. It will

affect human health. It has increased because of the wood-

burning? Yes. The ancient gods were said to have lived on ATM and

Pearce. But the story picks now offer very little protection. --

have lived on Mount Olympus. It has been 70 years since the

commander of the German forces in Stalingrad surrendered to the

Soviet army. The battle is still seen as one of the turning points

of the Second World War. As many as one million soldiers are believed

to have died. Our Moscow correspondent has been talking to

some of the survivors. 70 years since the end to one of the world's

bloodiest battles, the Stalingrad Memorial remains one of the most

symbolic sites in Russia. Close to one million soldiers died in just

six months of Rich List combat. In A breathtaking German advance into

Russia had been blocked at Stalingrad. Hundreds of thousands

of men died in brutal urban warfare, as the Red Army refused to yield.

Once the Russian winter set in, fresh Soviet forces surrounded

Hitler's entire six army, killing or capturing every man. A German

commander was forced into a humiliating surrender.

Konstantin Duvanov witnessed the surrender. But the images most

etched in his merry are the images of that. And a burning rover. --

river. TRANSLATION: Everything was on fire. They were the remains of

people who had been eradicated, when they were bombed. The scale of

the loss of life at this battle is almost beyond imagination. It all

happened in just a few months. All these gravestones have the same

dates of debt. Added the end of 1942 or the very beginning of 1943.

For this week's anniversary, 17,000 new names have been carved on the

monument, including the father of Valentina Savelyeva. Just five

years old, she survived the battle by eating clay were living in a mud

bank. She searched for her father's body for 65 years. Three years ago,

she discovered it was just two Mas away from her home. TRANSLATION:

They only started putting up these plaques now, 70 years after the

battle. The Stalingrad Memorial is built on a hill that saw some of

the bloodiest fighting. Tens of thousands of bodies like the light