05/03/2016 Reporters

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From here in the world's newsroom, we send

our correspondents to bring you the best stories from across the globe.

In this week's programme: A shaky ceasefire.

We join Russian forces in northern Syria as they come under fire.

As we've seen, the halt in fighting is only partial.

On the frontline of America's war against the Zika virus, we report

from Puerto Rico, where the US fears hundreds of thousands of new cases.

These tiny creatures have been here in Puerto Rico spreading dengue

After that, this year, Zika came along.

Inside Zimbabwe, we report on the country's worst

drought in decades, as President Mugabe celebrates his birthday.

And we go on a geological journey into a new epoch.

You're touching the boundary between two geological periods of time.

It may be largely holding, for now, but the temporary truce in Syria,

brokered by Russia and the United States, is plagued with

The so-called Islamic State is excluded from it,

as is the Al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra front, and the role

of Nato's most senior commander in Europe has accused Russia of helping

the Syrian government to create the refugee crisis as a weapon of war.

Steve Rosenberg has been embedded with Russian troops

The Russian army is taking us into the hills of western Syria.

The Russians say they're using a pause in the fighting to

Judging by the armoured vehicle we're in, progress is slow.

First stop, five years of civil war left this village empty.

Now we're told people are starting to return home.

Do you believe there will be peace in Syria, in your country?

It was Russian air power that helped the Syrian army retake

But today, the Russian military has brought aid, not air strikes.

Moscow accused Turkey of allowing weapons to be smuggled into Syria

for rebel fighters and of a provocative military build-up that

What happens next fits the Kremlin's narrative.

A Russian general radios for an armoured personnel carrier.

It's supposed to provide us cover as we

"Now run for it," shouts the general.

After five years of civil war, you can understand why many people

here are sceptical about the chances of peace.

As we've seen, the halt in fighting is only partial.

Later, the general claims the blasts were

artillery shells fired by terrorists from close to the Turkish border.

But we cannot confirm what those explosions were or

Syria's president accused rebels of violating

We refrain ourselves in order to give the chance

Syrians are tired of war, but real peace still seems a long way off.

The Center for Disease Control is warning that hundreds of thousands

of people in the territory of Puerto Rico could become infected with the

It means the possible spread of the virus within America itself

has become a very real threat for the US authorities.

We've been given rare access to the CDC's situation room in Atlanta,

and to its scientists battling Zika in Puerto Rico.

It might not look like it, but this tropical island is

Welcome to the frontline of the US's fight against Zika.

Millions of American tourists come here every year.

A major concern, though, is what they're taking back with them.

These are the Zika-transmitting mosquitoes.

On the menu, pig's blood, served at skin temperature.

They're being bred in this lab for research into insecticides.

These tiny creatures have been here in Puerto Rico spreading

Then they started spreading a new virus.

After that, at the start of this year, Zika came along with the link

Worryingly, the insecticides to kill these mosquitoes aren't working

These mosquitoes are resistant to one of the most

This has been used in Puerto Rico and the rest of the Americas

Scientists are now racing to find other chemicals

The insects can breed and thrive in just a few drops of water.

Permethrin might not be 100% effective, but fumigators are

Here we're talking about if you're pregnant what to do about the Zika

Zika isn't considered particularly harmful to most people.

Authorities are focusing on protecting pregnant women

because of that link to babies being born with underdeveloped brains.

I'm very worried about this, because no woman wants a baby with this

1500 miles away, at the Center for Disease Control

headquarters in Atlanta, the man advising the president

on this global health emergency is preparing for the worst.

In Puerto Rico, we expected there will likely be hundreds of thousands

of infections and potentially hundreds or thousands of women who

What's new and different and frightening is this rate

Back at the lab, scientists continue the fight against

They need answers fast to stop the spread of this potentially

To Zimbabwe now, where the ruling party has been criticised

for hosting lavish birthday celebrations for President Mugabe

They're having the worst drought since the 1990s.

Tens of thousands still turned out for the president's 92nd birthday

party, held in one of the areas worst hit by drought.

The worst drought to hit Zimbabwe in three decades, a quarter

of the country's population is facing food shortages.

President Robert Mugabe declared a state of disaster,

paving the way for international donors to help out.

If the situation doesn't change, we will also die.

I'll be forced to sell all my cattle to feed my family.

There have been downpours in recent days, bringing relief.

The sparse rainfall patterns may do very little to alleviate

By declaring an emergency, Mr Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe

since independence from Britain in 1980, is absolving himself and

his government from taking on the responsibility to feed his people.

Yes, we need funding, more funding, more money.

With the help that we are able to get, we shall certainly manage to go

These bad patches do come from time to time.

In the midst of this agricultural disaster, a lavish birthday party

for the 92-year-old leader was held in one of the areas hardest hit

Aid, mainly from the United States and EU, is being distributed

We are at the tip of the iceberg, and come three,

four months from now, we would have a serious humanitarian

UN resources are under increasing pressure, so it remains to be seen

just how much the international community will be willing to help

It's not easy being gay in Indonesia.

The community has come under fire from some of the country's

They've called on the government to make gay sex

and the promotion of gay, lesbian and transgender activities illegal.

Last week, a former government minister called

on his one million Twitter followers to kill any gay people they find.

We have met some in the gay community who feel they

Indonesia does have a very visible and dynamic transgender community.

They have set up a salon in this community.

They are very much part of the community.

TRANSLATION: These are all my friends.

It's not something that spreads, right?

TRANSLATION: People that don't accept them say to me, why are you

I say, they have the spirit of women.

The transgender community is shut out from most professions, and

As night falls, these railway tracks turn into a red light district.

In recent years, areas like this have been raided

TRANSLATION: They don't treat me like a human.

TRANSLATION: They were saying Islamic prayers as they hit us.

I'm off to meet someone who grew up in a small village in

Sumatra, in a religious family, went to an Islamic boarding school.

He has set up a shelter here, becoming an activist, once he had an

TRANSLATION: I was stripped naked by the police.

I was urinated on because my boyfriend came over to my house.

When there is a homophobic statement,

They are saying I don't respect my country or my religion.

I could leave this country and run away.

Rebecca Hench QI, BBC News, Jakarta. -- Henschke.

When Hugo Chavez came to power in Venezuela,

Here was a Democrat with revenues from the world's largest proven

oil resources to spend on his radical plans for social reform.

Now, the Chavez revolution is in trouble.

It has one of the world's highest rates of inflation,

and the economy is in meltdown because of collapsing oil prices.

And the successor to Chavez lacks the charisma of El Comandante.

The eyes of Hugo Chavez looking over Caracus - now he's dead.

The poor living in the barios, historically his political base,

have turned against the movement he created.

In the country with the world's biggest oil reserves,

they're queueing for the essentials of everyday life.

Filming in Venezuela is tricky, and that includes the supermarkets.

The government has fixed the price of rice, flour, even loo roll.

So the way round the fixed pricing system is you don't get toilet roll,

You can get toilet paper, but at a price, on the black market.

This is illegal, but no-one dares stop it.

Without the black market, the country would crunch to a halt.

How about this for some Venezuelan sorcery?

Hey presto, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

If you change the $100 at the official rate,

So not surprisingly, people change at the black market.

That means the government has lost control of the economy.

But that's not how the ruling party sees it.

Chavismo works when it had its Messiah and high oil prices.

Under Chavez's successor, it doesn't have either.

In the barrios, traditionally solid bases for Chavez,

For now, petrol is the cheapest in the world.

The government has defined $10 billion for debt repayments later

this year, but seems afraid to lift petrol prices for fear

These riots in 1989 saw hundreds dead, financial

It might not come to it, but some people fear this could lead

And the worst case scenario, a military coup.

Caracus is tense already because of violent crime.

By some estimates, there were nearly 4,000 murders here

last year, making it one of the world's most dangerous cities.

Within minutes we counted two hearses carrying gunshot victims.

After dark, middle-class neighbourhoods are deserted.

For now, life goes on, and, for some, it's full of fun.

But soon Venezuela's revolutionary ride is set to come to a dead stop.

We don't often talk much about geology, but there's

a geological debate going on at the moment that could be as important

as the meaning of life - it concerns the precise epoch that we're in.

For more than 11,000 years, we've been languishing in a period of

Her reporter will explain what it is being seen as a turning point in

history. To define where one bit

of the earth's history ends Traditionally this has

been done with hindsight. Now scientists are itching to

declare we're in a new epoch. That's what they've done for

the entire history of the earth. -- 4.54 billion years later,

that's divided into units of time called eons, then into eras,

then into periods and finally, These

chapters of time mark turning One of these can be found in

the southern Uplands of Scotland. In fact, your hand is sitting

on the boundary. The boundary between two

geological periods of time. The rocks here record

a colossal change in the Earth's atmosphere and oceans

that triggered a transition between Fast forward and scientists think

there's reason to agree we're What we're seeing at present is that

the degree of change to the Earth's system, that's being conducted

by humans, is as significant as the major changes to the Earth's

system in the geological record. The imprints we're leaving

on the planet is big and bold. From clearing

the land to make way for buildings like this, from creating

the materials, concrete, plastic, that goes into them, we're shaping

every aspect of our environment. If we define the Anthropicine,

saying humanity is a geological superpower, on the same league

as meteorite impact, it means that the environmental and evolutionary

destiny of the planet is down to us. Now a debate is brewing over

the anthopicine start date. It needs a moment in history that

leaves a long lasting signal Some say the first nuclear tests

offer just that with their legacy Others say the dawn of the

anthropicine should go further back. Ultimately, the real birth

of this new epoch will be marked It's due to go to

a vote later this year. That's all from Reporters

for this week. From me, Philippa Thomas,

goodbye for now. Milder weather

on the way later this week. We are not there yet, with many

of us starting Tuesday with a frost