:00:00. > :00:30.Hello and welcome to Reporters, I'm Tim Willcox here at the
:00:31. > :00:31.BBC's headquarters in central London.
:00:32. > :00:34.In this special edition of the programme, we are looking
:00:35. > :00:36.back at some of the best reports from the last year.
:00:37. > :00:40.Jeremy Bowen reported from the front line in Damascus,
:00:41. > :00:47.as the conflict ranged and hopes for any prospect of peace faded.
:00:48. > :00:49.It is one thing for people, politicians who are a very long
:00:50. > :00:53.way from here, to talk about some kind of a deal to end the war,
:00:54. > :00:54.but viewed from the battlefield, that
:00:55. > :01:05.At the height of the ebola outbreak, our correspondent joined
:01:06. > :01:09.a West African Red Cross team in their grim and relentless fight
:01:10. > :01:19.Inside the black box, as a former CIA chief told the BBC
:01:20. > :01:22.the organisation did torture people after 9-11 and our correspondent
:01:23. > :01:24.tried out some of the controversial interrogation
:01:25. > :01:35.30 years after the first Back To The Future film,
:01:36. > :01:38.our correspondent asks what predictions they got wrong
:01:39. > :02:00.It is fuelling the world's refugee crisis and fuelling Islamic State's
:02:01. > :02:05.brittle insurgency. The conflict in Syria than to its fifth year that is
:02:06. > :02:10.as intense as ever. More than 250,000 people have been killed and
:02:11. > :02:13.many have fled the country. 7 million are displaced in Syria. As
:02:14. > :02:18.the world debates whether it's like to make a difference, diplomacy is
:02:19. > :02:23.drowned out by the intensity of the battle on the ground. Jeremy Bowen
:02:24. > :02:27.went to the front line in Damascus, where government and rebel positions
:02:28. > :02:35.were just 100 metres apart. His report contains distressing images.
:02:36. > :02:39.This man has a short drive to work. He commands a sector of the front
:02:40. > :02:47.line that runs along a busy and Bentley 's cop-mac densely populated
:02:48. > :02:55.area. A couple of minutes away is another man, one of the capital's
:02:56. > :02:59.key battle grounds. These men are from the elite Republican guard.
:03:00. > :03:04.Hundreds of yards of military positions have been carved out of
:03:05. > :03:11.the wreckage of homes. The people who lived here escaped with their
:03:12. > :03:18.memories and not much else. The colonel and his men said they are
:03:19. > :03:23.patriots fighting terrorists. He rejects that they target civilians.
:03:24. > :03:31.The claim is that more civilians are killed by the Syrian army than any
:03:32. > :03:38.other force. This is propaganda. It is lies. We were brought up not to
:03:39. > :03:43.harm peaceful civilians and we only kill people BBC holding a weapon
:03:44. > :03:50.with our own eyes. -- who are holding a weapon. Close by are rebel
:03:51. > :04:00.positions. The colonel also said that any civilians near armed rebels
:04:01. > :04:05.must be supporting them. The army has attacked repeatedly. Its
:04:06. > :04:13.soldiers have not been able to force the rebels further from the city
:04:14. > :04:19.centre. The Army has the heavier weapons, they pound the suburbs held
:04:20. > :04:23.by director 's -- held by the rebels were many civilian still live. This
:04:24. > :04:34.is what it is light from the rebels said on the receiving end. Until the
:04:35. > :04:39.war ends, Syria will go on exporting violence and refugees. It's shock
:04:40. > :04:54.waves have rocked Syria's neighbours and now they are reaching Europe.
:04:55. > :05:00.This is why half of Syria's population has fled and why millions
:05:01. > :05:14.of parents want to get their children out of the country. Rebel
:05:15. > :05:22.fighters launch new attacks. The war depth and flows but no side has a
:05:23. > :05:25.decisive edge. To get one, the rebels have dug tunnels under army
:05:26. > :05:37.positions and the Army has been blowing them up.
:05:38. > :05:44.The war has gone underground, the Syrian army dug into this 800 metre
:05:45. > :05:48.tunnel which it says was part of a rebel plan to attack the city
:05:49. > :05:53.centre. If armed rebels broke through here, they could be in the
:05:54. > :05:57.heart of the massacres in minutes. They put the sand bags there because
:05:58. > :06:01.on the other side there are mines to stop their opponents moving up the
:06:02. > :06:07.tunnel and what they want is for the blast to be channelled back towards
:06:08. > :06:11.the people coming towards them. This area Republican guard officers said
:06:12. > :06:19.it help them fight jihadists instead of funding rebel groups. What should
:06:20. > :06:27.Britain do? Britain should stop supporting the terrorists. They are
:06:28. > :06:35.giving the terrorists a cover to protect them. Now we are becoming
:06:36. > :06:38.like Afghanistan. It is one thing for people, politicians are long way
:06:39. > :06:42.from here, to talk about some kind of deal to end the war, but viewed
:06:43. > :06:48.from the battlefield that looks further away than ever. A dynamic of
:06:49. > :06:58.war has taken over in Syria, not politics or diplomacy. Across
:06:59. > :07:02.Damascus, you can hear the war. Syria is that the epicentre of
:07:03. > :07:10.Middle Eastern turmoil. Power cuts mean that the nights are dark and so
:07:11. > :07:14.is the future. From the war in Syria to the bowler
:07:15. > :07:17.outbreak in West Africa. Sierra Leone suffered the most where the
:07:18. > :07:24.epidemic lasted for 18 months and killed nearly 4000 people. -- ebola
:07:25. > :07:28.outbreak. The country was declared free of the disease in November, but
:07:29. > :07:32.it has left a lasting legacy of fear and loss. At the height of the
:07:33. > :07:37.outbreak, our correspondent spent some time with a team from the Red
:07:38. > :07:42.Cross. You may find her report distressing.
:07:43. > :07:46.The body collectors of Freetown getting ready for another harrowing
:07:47. > :07:54.day at work. They have been doing this for months now. Beneath the
:07:55. > :07:57.suits are teachers, students, ordinary people who are volunteering
:07:58. > :08:08.to take on those aren't relentless fight against ebola. This is just as
:08:09. > :08:13.important. Talking to the community so they understand why removing
:08:14. > :08:18.bodies this way is so important. We have to tell them the dangers of
:08:19. > :08:22.this epidemic, because people are still denying. Have to tell them
:08:23. > :08:36.that it is real and they have to follow the principles. The team
:08:37. > :08:38.braced themselves and head in. This man died this morning. The team had
:08:39. > :08:43.been inside to get samples to confirm whether this was ebola, but
:08:44. > :08:47.almost every death has to be treated as if it is ebola. If it is
:08:48. > :08:55.confirmed, the rest of the Trinity remains at risk. -- the rest of the
:08:56. > :08:57.community. In the next village there is a heartbreaking scene, a
:08:58. > :09:04.three-week-old baby died late last night. Health workers say it is
:09:05. > :09:10.unlikely to be ebola, but they cannot take any risks. It is
:09:11. > :09:18.difficult work? It is very difficult but we have to do it. How many
:09:19. > :09:24.bodies have you collected? Hundreds of bodies. When you go home to you
:09:25. > :09:32.think about your day and had dreams about what you have seen? Sometimes.
:09:33. > :09:36.Sometimes I pray before I go to bed, sometimes I think about things that
:09:37. > :09:44.I go with my day. Another home and another body and another distraught
:09:45. > :09:51.daughter. This man died after showing classic symptoms of Ebola.
:09:52. > :09:56.This is the fourth body that the burial team have come to collect in
:09:57. > :10:02.as many hours. It is the body of-year-old man. He complained of
:10:03. > :10:09.feeling unwell over the weekend then bit last night he was dead. This is
:10:10. > :10:16.how the PAN is at the main cemetery. -- this is how the day ends. The
:10:17. > :10:23.baby is laid to rest with his father offering a quiet prayer.
:10:24. > :10:28.The former executive director of the CIA told the BBC that the CIA did
:10:29. > :10:36.torture people in detention programme set up after 9-11. It is
:10:37. > :10:41.the first admission of its kind. The CIA has always said the
:10:42. > :10:45.interrogation methods did not amount to torture because they had been
:10:46. > :10:47.legally approved by the White House. Our correspondent has been
:10:48. > :10:56.investigating the CIA interrogation techniques.
:10:57. > :11:01.This man was snatched out of Pakistan in 2003 and taken to a
:11:02. > :11:07.secret jail in Afghanistan. He drew us an outline of the prison. He was
:11:08. > :11:12.heard Scott back held in the first cell and the ninth cell was the
:11:13. > :11:17.torture room. Inside it were two boxes. The man was put into the
:11:18. > :11:25.smallpox. You cannot imagine how small and tight the box was to put a
:11:26. > :11:31.human being into. There were some holes on both sides and a report
:11:32. > :11:36.things through them such as sticks. -- they would put things through
:11:37. > :11:42.them. For the first time in public, a military trainer recreated the CIA
:11:43. > :11:46.interrogation techniques. They adopted the techniques from a
:11:47. > :11:53.military programme that he worked from that hot soldiers how to resist
:11:54. > :11:58.torture. Get in the box. I agreed to be subjected to some of the
:11:59. > :12:05.techniques to see how bad they were. This is going to be mined over
:12:06. > :12:11.matter. After two minutes in the box it was hot and claustrophobic. I
:12:12. > :12:19.have all my body weight on my hands because my feet hurt. Then came a
:12:20. > :12:32.disturbing noise. Two minutes later and it was all I could take. Stop,
:12:33. > :12:35.let me out. I lasted 12 minutes. One of the detainees was held in a box
:12:36. > :12:41.like this for 29 hours over three weeks. The CIA detention and
:12:42. > :12:45.interrogation programme under President Bush set up 11 secret
:12:46. > :12:49.prisons around the world. In a series of controversial legal memos
:12:50. > :12:52.at the time, White House lawyers approved the techniques saying that
:12:53. > :12:59.they did not meet the definition of torture. This CIA former executive
:13:00. > :13:03.director was asked by the BBC if you thought that water boarding and
:13:04. > :13:12.stress positions were torture. Do you acknowledge this is torture? It
:13:13. > :13:19.is supposed to make him as uncomfortable as possible. I am
:13:20. > :13:24.comfortable with saying that. We were told by legal authorities that
:13:25. > :13:33.we can torture people. This CIA water boarding procedure means that
:13:34. > :13:40.the put people into a state of controlled drowning. They also did
:13:41. > :13:45.this. It is called Walling. It is designed to shock and overpower the
:13:46. > :13:50.inmate. A Senate committee condemned the CIA programme is an effective
:13:51. > :13:54.but it says that harsh interrogations got intelligence that
:13:55. > :13:58.stop terror plots. As America comes to terms with its past, there are
:13:59. > :14:05.many still support what is openly called torture.
:14:06. > :14:08.Urbanisation is changing the face of modern-day China. The government's
:14:09. > :14:13.rebuilding programme has seen new city spin up across the country on
:14:14. > :14:16.an epic scale and the master plan is to turn hundreds of millions of
:14:17. > :14:20.farmers and to city workers and consumers to drive the next stage of
:14:21. > :14:26.economic growth. For the past ten years, our correspondent has
:14:27. > :14:33.reported on white horse Village as it transforms from a tiny farming
:14:34. > :14:52.humidity into a huge city. -- a tiny farming community.
:14:53. > :15:04.The transformation of White Horse Village. Part of the biggest
:15:05. > :15:11.urbanisation in human history. It is the story of modern China. Turning
:15:12. > :15:31.farmers into city people. A government driven plan for progress.
:15:32. > :15:40.When we first started filming here, China was a two speed country,
:15:41. > :15:49.wealthy coastal cities and this, subsistence farmers. Joining the
:15:50. > :15:55.story of modern China has been a hard journey for the people of White
:15:56. > :15:57.Horse Village. Every tower block was built on what was someone's home or
:15:58. > :16:15.their fields. The villagers were not allowed to
:16:16. > :16:20.stand in the way of progress. White Horse Village is now just a memory,
:16:21. > :16:33.like thousands of other rural communities across China. A new
:16:34. > :16:39.school for an ardent generation. Consumers that the government hopes
:16:40. > :16:42.will fuel China's economic growth. But not everyone is a winner in the
:16:43. > :16:50.new city. These citizens feel they have no voice. Their destinies are
:16:51. > :17:00.dictated to them by a government that does not listen. This man has
:17:01. > :17:05.learned to adapt to change and he has moved the family to twice to
:17:06. > :17:24.make way for the city. He likes what he sees.
:17:25. > :17:35.He would like to be buried up here with his ancestors. Soon a Rio --
:17:36. > :17:40.soon a real way will be built here and the family will have to move
:17:41. > :17:51.again. Even the dead are not immune from China's story of unstoppable
:17:52. > :17:56.change. Finally, does the 21st of October 2015 sound familiar? That is
:17:57. > :18:07.probably because you watch the film Back To The Future two. Hover boards
:18:08. > :18:09.and flatscreen TVs were just some of the things that the producers and
:18:10. > :18:15.imagined as part of their future world. Now as there sci-fi vision
:18:16. > :18:24.arrives in our lifetime, our correspondent looked at what the
:18:25. > :18:39.film writing wrong. -- what the film got right and what it go wrong.
:18:40. > :18:45.About time. This is a 1981 Back To The Future DeLorean. Up comes the
:18:46. > :18:50.wing and there is my white jackets. I will put this on so I can drive
:18:51. > :18:57.the car. Here is the most important piece of kit on the car, the nuclear
:18:58. > :19:03.reactor. That is powered by fuel that is vegetables and rubbish.
:19:04. > :19:12.Inside is another vital thing which is the flux capacitor. This is
:19:13. > :19:18.powered by the nuclear energy and it pushes the car through the sound
:19:19. > :19:31.barrier. That is flashing away. Here we go.
:19:32. > :19:45.It is Peter Snow. Why can he not use a bicycle like everyone else. It is
:19:46. > :19:50.hard to steer this thing. This is the anniversary of Back To The
:19:51. > :19:57.Future, but if the film was right we should've flying cars, hover boards
:19:58. > :20:01.and engines powered by rubbish. It has not worked out like this.
:20:02. > :20:09.Forecasting technology is very difficult. It is somewhat easier
:20:10. > :20:16.than forecasting society. For example, we have forecasts from
:20:17. > :20:23.Arthur C Clarke in which he forecast the Internet. He says that we will
:20:24. > :20:29.have computers in our rooms and they will be connected all around the
:20:30. > :20:36.world, which is an amazing forecast. That was exciting. Professor, click,
:20:37. > :21:00.jumping, we have company. -- quick. I think we are being chased. We are
:21:01. > :21:11.being chased by a green van. There may be a terrorist involved. It is
:21:12. > :21:17.extremely exciting because we now have opened doors to working with
:21:18. > :21:25.nano materials. Nano material is just very thin? I trust materials
:21:26. > :21:29.that you cannot see with your eye. To have a car like this you need to
:21:30. > :21:35.have the very fast release of energy and super capacitors are one of
:21:36. > :21:40.those applications. There is a lot of hope in nano materials because
:21:41. > :21:44.super capacitors require high surface area and the fast release of
:21:45. > :21:52.energy and this is what these materials could potentially deliver.
:21:53. > :22:01.BBC health and safety have fixed it so that this car will only go
:22:02. > :22:12.through the town barrier at 33 mph. -- go through the time barrier.
:22:13. > :22:19.How did they think we are at predicting the future? I think
:22:20. > :22:24.people are terrible and forecasting the future on the whole and experts
:22:25. > :22:27.are worse than Lehmann. If you have normal people want economic growth
:22:28. > :22:33.is going to be like in the next five years they get it better than the
:22:34. > :22:39.experts. They think things are going to get battered? The World Bank
:22:40. > :22:43.announced last week that extreme poverty in the world is down to 10%
:22:44. > :22:48.and up to 60% when I was born. We're seeing the most magnificent
:22:49. > :22:53.improvements in human living standards and that is because of
:22:54. > :22:56.innovation. It is because of technology and ways that we live.
:22:57. > :23:09.There is every reason to think that preserves will continue. -- that
:23:10. > :23:15.that process will continue. How am I meant to play that? I trust this
:23:16. > :23:27.place will still be here when I get back.
:23:28. > :23:33.That is all from the special addition of Reporters looking back
:23:34. > :23:37.at the best reports of the year. For me and the team in London, goodbye.
:23:38. > :23:56.-- from me. Sadly the weather has been quite
:23:57. > :23:57.brittle this Boxing Day are crossed certain parts of the United Kingdom.
:23:58. > :23:59.Heavy