30/07/2016 Reporters

Now on BBC News it is Reporters.

Welcome to Reporters.

I'm Karin Giannone.

From here in the world's newsroom we send out correspondents to bring

you the best stories from across the globe.

In this week's programme: A deadly year at sea.

Orla Guerin reports from Libya where migrant numbers

are on the rise once again.

And finds it's still the traffickers who all the waves.

When you were arranging for these people to get on these overcrowded

boats and go to Europe, did you ever stop to think

that they could die on the way?

No.

No, because we always pray for them, you know?

Trump versus Clinton as the race for the White House comes

down to the final two.

Katty Kay assesses their rival campaigns and assesses who might be

first to the finish line.

It just doesn't seem possible that it's a coincidence that Republicans

and Democrats should experience political meltdown of the same time.

Russia's Olympic reprieve after Moscow escaps a blanket ban

from next week's games, Wyre Davies finds out if Brazil's

anti-doping lab can catch the dope cheats.

With doping such a big issue, it is vital that Rio 2016

is seen to get things right and that the Games are

as clean as possible.

Unlocking the secrets of the teenage brain.

Pallab Ghosh investigates new research which may help

explain adolescent behaviour.

And from Lagos to London's West End.

Will Gomperts reviews the Nigerian musical that's finding

new theatre audiences.

We are bringing a story of hope and I believe we are the future.

We the youth are the future and we want to change the way

Nigeria is portrayed in the media.

It's been a deadly year so far for migrants facing the perilous

journey across the Mediterranean in search of a better life in Europe.

The International Organisation for Migration says more than 3000

have now lost their lives.

That's over 1000 more than at this stage last year.

They said 2016 could become the worst year ever.

Most of those who perished came from Libya and died

in smugglers' vessels.

Orla Guerin has been with the Libyan coast guard as it struggles

to cope with the influx.

As the sun goes down, we set out with the Tripoli Coast Guard, facing

the perils of the Mediterranean which has claimed so many.

This inflatable battered by the waves is their only

sea worthy vessel.

From their fleet of four, three need repairs.

Later in pitch darkness they are on the lookout

for migrants in distress.

Not easy without night-vision goggles.

All they can do is listen for the vessels.

It is 1:30am in the morning and we are in the stretch

of water where smugglers' boats pass regularly,

usually between one and three.

The engine is off here, the lights are off.

The Coast Guard don't want to alert anyone to their presence,

but if a rescue is needed here tonight they have just this

one small vessel.

With daybreak, a clear horizon this time, but they say it's

the traffickers who rule the waves.

TRANSLATION: Smugglers have more boats and more weapons.

They have long-range guns.

They can escort the migrants to European waters and we can't do

anything to stop them.

The state does not support us.

We have not been paid since March.

And Coast Guard officials say there is another problem

further out to sea, just beyond Libyan territorial waters.

Operation Sofia.

They say the EU mission supposed to shut down smuggling routes

is ferrying migrants to Italy like a taxi.

There is agreement from a smuggler, now detained, who authorities

say is a big fish.

The operation saved lives and encouraged people

to travel more.

The rescue, they are very close to Libya.

So they think the ships will pick them up quickly?

Quickly.

When you were arranging for these people to get on these overcrowded

boats and go to Europe, did you ever stop

to think that they could die on the way?

No.

No, because we always pray for them, you know?

But here is how they send them to see.

The Coast Guard coming to rescue this overloaded vessel last month.

Pregnant women among those scrambling for places.

So many crammed on board, some of the crew had to sit on top

of the cabin.

And this is what awaits those saved by the Coast Guard.

Detention back in Libya.

Even for women and children, the youngest not spared.

This baby is just 21 days old.

Several of those here told us they would not

risk the crossing again, but the Coast Guard said they have

rescued some migrants are five or six times.

For the men and boys, even worse conditions.

The authorities say they are doing their best with scarce resources

amidst the chaos of Libya.

This 14-year-old from Gambia told us his brother was caught

and deported in 2010.

Still, he came here all alone, hoping to find work in Europe.

Many we met were economic migrants, trapped in what amounts

to a teeming prison.

We all share the same two toilets.

Two toilets we have here that we share.

For hundreds of people?

Yes, for hundreds of people, under the same roof here.

It's really un-normal here.

We have here three months and my other fellow Gambians have

four months here.

We are tired.

We want to go home.

We've been here six months now.

Some are on the move.

More than 160 men heading to the airport.

Instead of a new life they craved, being deported back to Gambia.

Others, like Betty from Nigeria, still look to the Mediterranean

for salvation.

She's waiting for a call from the traffickers.

She knows some who set out from here wash up on the beaches,

but she says her only chance of a better life is to risk

death at sea.

Orla Guerin, BBC News, Tripoli.

Pope Francis has said that the recent wave of jihadists

attacks in Europe is proof that the world is at war.

Churches across Europe were on alert this week after one of the worst

attacks saw the shocking murder of an 84-year-old priest

during Holy Mass in the tiny French town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray.

It's yet another act of barbarism so soon after the Nice massacre

and a spate of attacks in Germany, In Wuerzburg and Ansbach.

All brutal, but unsophisticated, designed to breed insecurity.

Secunder Kermani reports from Saint Etienne on the new

security environment France and much of Europe is now faced with.

For those in Rouen Cathedral attending a Mass in honour

of Father Jacques Hamel, there must've been

an awful sense of deja vu.

Yet another IS related attack in France.

If young people were targeted in Paris, families in Nice,

an 84-year-old priest represented yet another aspect of

society under attack.

The priest that normally works in the church that was attacked said

the murdered man was only there as he was away on holiday.

TRANSLATION: I've spoken to a few people, notably some of the sisters

who were taken hostage this morning.

They are all very shocked.

I don't know how we're going to get through the next few hours.

He was a simple man.

He was always at people's service.

He was 85.

He could've taken a quiet retirement, but he preferred

to stay active as long as he was good health.

He preferred to stay active and serve his parish.

The two attackers burst into this church, taking the priest

and a handful of nuns and parishioners prisoner.

They slit the throat of the priest and recorded it on camera.

One nun speaking to French media described what she saw.

Both attackers were killed quickly by police as they emerged

Both attackers were killed quickly by police as they emerged

from the church, but there will be questions for the security services.

At least one of the attackers who struck it was very much

on the authority's radar.

Having tried and failed to get to Syria, he was on a curfew

and even wearing an electronic tag.

At the cathedral some felt there was little that could ever be

done to protect such soft targets.

TRANSLATION: It was a small church.

Nobody thought it would ever be attacked, so yes,

you see the Army in the street every day in small groups, but you can't

keep an eye on everyone.

You can't check up on everyone.

It's just not possible.

But among some in France there is real anger at the continuing

attacks happening here.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls was booed as he attended a minute's

silence for the victims in Nive two weeks ago.

He had suggested that terrorism was becoming a modern reality France

would have to learn to live with.

As always after an attack there are prayers for the dead,

but there are also questions.

Could more have been done to prevent the bloodshed?

Were those responsible directed by IS, or just inspired by them?

But perhaps the biggest question in France right now is how on earth

does the country stop what appears to be an almost relentless

tide of these attacks?

TRANSLATION: We are very attached to liberty, but in situations

like this people who have nothing to hide have nothing to worry about.

Quite the opposite.

Their security is dependent on it, so you can't say their liberty

is at risk.

The state has to take all the measures possible to bring

back security and protect its citizens.

Following the attacks in Paris in November there were 3500 raids

as part of the state of emergency that was imposed.

They were criticised by some for being too harsh,

and there are calls for the authorities not to go

down that route again.

TRANSLATION: The response to violence is never violence.

Our response should be reasoned.

We need to think long-term.

We need to understand people's motivations.

Right now we're completely out of our depth.

This afternoon one person was arrested in

connection with the attack.

One of the victims is still in hospital, but the French

president has had to visit the scene of yet another outrage.

He said that IS have declared war on France.

Now the pressure on him to respond is growing.

What a couple of weeks it's been in American politics.

The convention season is now over and now we know the next president

of the United States will be either the first-ever woman

Hillary Clinton, or Donald Trump.

Katty Kay attended both the Democratic and Republican

conventions and has been assessing what we can expect in the coming

months before the poll in November.

The city of Philadelphia has a claim on American democracy.

It was in Independence Hall that the founding fathers adopted

the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution and two

and a half centuries later you have to wonder what those wise heads

would have made of today's political chaos.

Can I just say to be Bernie or bust people, you're being ridiculous.

Can I just say to the Bernie or bust people, you're being ridiculous.

Democrats took over Philadelphia, bringing with them more sound

and fury than peace and harmony.

This was the week Bernie Sanders discovered you could create

a political revolution, but you could not always control it.

Scenes of party friction were broadcast around the country.

As they were the week before at the Republican National Convention

where loud boos said the former candidate Ted Cruz from the stage.

where loud boos sent the former candidate Ted Cruz from the stage.

A lot of Republicans stayed away from the show in Cleveland,

reluctant even to be seen cavorting with Donald Trump.

For the past four decades American conventions have

been tightly scripted, honestly rather boring events

where no news ever happened.

Not this year, and it just doesn't seem possible that it's

a coincidence that Republicans and Democrats should experience

political meltdown at the same time.

There's a famous bell in the heart of Philadelphia that was brought

here in 1752.

The leaders of the two establishment parties would do well to re-read

the words engraved on it.

That's exactly what happened in Cleveland and in Philadelphia

this hot summer.

The recalcitrant political rabble on both the left and the right

demanding the freedom to be heard.

They wanted liberty from existing autocratic political structures.

Structures they see as corrupt and unresponsive.

How we got here to the fracturing of America's political

parties is the long tale of economic globalisation

and political dysfunction.

It's the tale of policymakers who fail to protect those left

behind by the forces of immigration and free trade.

As they race to the White House, both parties will try to paper over

the cracks and present a show of unity, but don't be fooled.

Unity is just a heat fuelled mirage, as we learned

in Cleveland and Philadelphia.

After the International Olympic Committee's decision not to impose

a blanket ban on Russia over its doping records, the onus

is now on the Brazilian authorities.

But can Rio's much troubled anti-doping lab make sure that drugs

cheats are caught during the games?

Wyre Davies has been given access to the laboratory which has

only just recovered its licence to operate.

Joyce Silva is a freestyle wrestler who has a real chance of winning

a medal at her home Olympics in Rio.

But her sport has been played in the past by doping,

with Russian athletes among the biggest culprits.

Earlier this year dozens of Russian wrestlers were exposed as drug

cheats and Joyce doesn't want them in Rio.

Doping is completely unfair, says the Rio-based athlete.

When you are fighting and losing to an opponent who is on drugs,

it is soul destroying and feels like you're being robbed.

The Russian athletics squad is already banned from Rio,

but the IOC has sidestepped the thorny issue of whether to

suspend the entire Russian delegation, despite allegations

of state-sponsored doping.

The governing bodies of individual sports will now decide

if Russians can compete.

It all means a critical role for Brazil's new anti-doping lab

which will test 450 samples daily during the games.

But it's only just recovered its licence to operate

after being accused of failing to meet International

scientific standards.

The laboratory will be the most technically efficient

laboratory during the Games with all the expertise the world has

in anti-doping analysis.

So this will be a message for those athletes that will maybe be

there to cheat for the Games, or before the Games,

that they will be caught.

The Olympic movement has really come under such scrutiny.

Its ideals questioned as much.

With doping such a big issue, it's vital that Rio 2016 is seen

to get things right, that thousands of fans aren't

short-changed and that the games are as clean as possible.

Pedro Solberg was denied a place at London 2012

because he was wrongly diagnosed as a drugs cheat.

He says that with huge pressure on doping inspectors there is a real

danger that honest athletes could be stigmatised.

People who didn't use drugs, who didn't do anything wrong,

they should not be out of the Olympics because of

other people's mistakes.

I know exactly how is this feeling.

The pressure on the IOC to show its serious about doping

is huge and so is the demand to let as many athletes as possible

come here and compete.

Wyre Davies, BBC News, Rio.

Now for something a little different.

It's a mystery that perplexes every parent.

Why is my teenager behaving like that?

Scientists at Cambridge University have gained some insight

into the huge personality and behavioural changes that happen

to us in our teenage years, and as Pallab Ghosh explains,

they are also gaining clues about why some developmental

illnesses in the late teens and early adulthood.

The human brain.

It changes so much as we grow, shaping how we think and feel.

Most profoundly during our teenage years.

Ruby Burbidge is 22 now, but like many of us,

felt powerful feelings during her adolescence.

When I was younger, I was just horrible.

Like, mean and shouting and as I developed into an adult

and come out of the adolescence stage, I've had more of a thought

process and I take time and think about my actions before I do it.

That was kind of lost during the time I was an adolescent.

It was very reactionary.

To understand these changes scientists scanned the brains

of 300 healthy volunteers between the ages of 14 and 24.

They were looking at the network of nerve centres that direct

messages from one part of the brain to another.

You can think of this like the global airline network

that is made up of small infrequently used airports

and huge hubs like Heathrow which has very high traffic.

The brain uses a similar setup to coordinate our

thoughts and actions.

It found that during adolescence of the bigger hubs used for complex

thought gets consolidated and strengthened, like how

Heathrow or JFK have expanded over the years.

These are the nodes in the brain network.

The real prize for the team at Cambridge is to understand how

mental illness develops.

Some, like schizophrenia, where patients have hallucinations,

it emerged during late adolescence.

The researchers have shown that the genes involved in rewiring

the brain during the teenage years are also involved in many

mental health disorders.

As we understand more about what puts people at risk

for schizophrenia, that gives us an opportunity to try and identify

individuals that are at risk of becoming schizophrenic

in the foreseeable future, over the next two or three years,

and perhaps offering some treatment then that could be helpful

in preventing the onset of clinical symptoms.

Alice has lived with a condition similar to schizophrenia

ever since she was 18.

She's a photographer and teaches art at university, but she still has

occasional delusional episodes.

To describe it, it is like being awake while you're in a nightmare.

I would ride a bus and it would seem as if everyone on the bus

was talking directly to me and saying nasty things about me

and actually, that was quite frightening to experience.

The research shows just how fragile the developing brain is,

at its most vulnerable during the crucial teenage years.

Pallab Ghosh, BBC News.

Finally, it was a hit in Lagos and now it's coming to London.

Wakaa The Musical follows the fate of a group of young graduates

as they begin to find their way in the world.

The show aims to give audiences a taste of modern-day Nigeria

and to portray more positive images of the country than it is

sometimes seen in the media.

Will Gompertz went along to see it.

Musical theatre, Nigerian style.

Soulful, colourful and dynamic.

It's not as slick as a West End blockbuster, or as expensive, but it

has a spirit and a sensibility that feels fresh and true.

The show tells the story of a group of young Nigerian graduates

with different hopes, dreams and aspirations.

# I can walk.

# I can strive.

# I can struggle through the night...

What were the themes that you wanted to explore and present?

There's a tendency for us to feel that everybody is corrupting

Nigeria, but we are not.

So what I was trying to do was juxtapose what people

perceive to be the case and what the majority of us want,

and that's why you have the character Tosa.

I have great ideas.

I'm talking about ideas that will help, you know,

put to an end the level of unemployment that

we have in the state.

The average Nigerian works hard, wants to do good, wants

to change his country.

Tosa, try and catch your breath first.

Also I was addressing the issue of migration.

A lot of people are leaving Nigeria, the brain drain, and also

thinking that the grass is greener on the other side.

It's not always the case, as is the case of Rex.

Superstar.

Dancer.

London's West End.

That was the plan, and then he arrived in London.

You look different in your pictures.

You are not white.

Oh, that's just some model I used as my profile picture.

Life then gets complicated, but not for the cast,

whose motivation is clear.

If you know all the stories from Nigeria are horrible.

You don't hear any good stories.

You'd think we are fantastically corrupt or Boko Haram

is bombing someone somewhere.

But, you know, we're bringing a story of hope and I believe

we are the future.

We the youth are the future and we want to change the way

Nigeria portrayed in the media and that is really why we are here.

This show is a little bit different and so was tonight's audience.

The big subsidised theatres here in the UK said they want

to attract a more diverse crowd, but struggle to do so.

Perhaps they should go along and see how it's done.

Will Gompertz, BBC News.

And that's all from Reporters for this week.

From me Karin Giannone, goodbye for now.