26/11/2016 Reporters

Now on BBC News, it's time for Reporters.

Welcome to Reporters, I'm Philippa Thomas.

From here in the BBC newsroom we send out correspondents to bring

you the best stories from across the globe.

The street to street battle for Mosul:

Quentin Sommerville joins Iraq's counterterrorism forces,

as they face stiff resistance from so-called Islamic State militants.

Islamic State are 200 metres in that direction, and look over here,

you can see children running, children playing.

This war is happening on peoples doorsteps.

Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory.

The American far right's new awakening.

We meet members of the Alt Right, the white nationalist movement that

Myanmar's persecuted Muslim minority.

As the UN calls for an investigation, we hear a report

on alleged human rights abuses against ethnic Rohingyas.

TRANSLATION: They set our houses and mosque on fire.

Jonathan Head reports on how the battle against the illegal

wildlife trade in Asia is being lost to the traffickers.

And Katie Watson goes on patrol with Mexico's all women

all women traffic cops, but are women better at fighting

TRANSLATION: Some drivers are aggressive and feel

uncomfortable with a woman giving them a fine.

They're used to being the strong powerful one.

Iraqi forces say they are being slowed down in their advance

against so-called Islamic State in the city of Mosul.

They are facing stiff resistance from IS, who are fighting

back with sniper fire and suicide bombings.

The Iraqis are also worried about causing civilian casualties,

particularly in the east of Mosul, where street to street

Quentin Sommerville and cameraman Nick Millard have

have been travelling with Iraqi counterterrorism forces.

Their report does contain some distressing images.

In a battle for a city this big, progress isn't always easy to map.

After five weeks of fighting, much of Mosul has

Below in miniature, the war plays out.

In Mosul's streets, life or death is decided

Just metres away - the so-called Islamic State.

Iraqi special forces say he was IS fighter,

one of the dozens they have shot dead this week.

TRANSLATION: Yes, many civilians have been attacked

by Islamic State snipers, but they also use them

They sometimes come forward carrying babies, using them as cover.

The only safe way past this front line is through walls,

Islamic State are 200 metres in that direction,

and look over here, you can see children running, children playing.

People are living 20 metres away from here.

Yesterday there was a car bomb, no military were injured,

This war is happening on peoples doorsteps.

At house after house white flags are raised.

Where else could these children and their families go?

An exodus would cause a humanitarian disaster for Iraq.

Even the people who were influenced by their talk, by the Isis

talk, now they are not, because they endured two

They endured two years of deprivation, two years of killing.

So, despite the war, the government has

Five days of fighting means this man and his family

TRANSLATION: I lost a baby in these circumstances.

I lost the baby because the doctors were not available.

For this three-year-old it will be her first time leaving

The government wants people to remain here,

but it and its services are mostly absent.

It's an armoured Humvee that serves as an ambulance.

His son has just been shot in the chest.

An IS sniper's bullet, say his brothers.

They'd left their house only a few minutes ago to sell eggs.

And the appalling truth is his death is one of hundreds here every week.

This is the horror of this situation.

They can't even take the boy's body down the street because they're

worried that the sniper is still down there.

You can hear the gunfire all around, you can hear the heartbroken

A million people are still trapped in the city, and fighting

And this is the moment his brothers realise he's gone.

And while people remain here, much more will have to be endured.

The fight for Mosul has only just begun.

Quentin Sommerville, BBC News, Mosul.

Donald Trump's election has many people concerned about race

One group that has been associated with his campaign is a white

nationalist movement, known as the Alt Right,

and last weekend they met in Washington to talk

about what they see as their new awakening.

Hundreds gathered outside that meeting to protest against a group

This protest outside this building, very close to the White House

is because of an Alt Right conference that's going on inside.

We've already seen it get very heated indeed.

Particularly when one of the people attending the conference went

They started calling us Nazis, which is incorrect,

because I'm not a racist, I'm a very tolerant person.

Well, it includes white nationalists, white supremacists,

anti-Semites, Islamophobes and there are those

who feel that Alt Right is essentially code for neo-Nazi.

Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory.

Filmed by the Atlantic, this was what was going on

To be white is to be a survivor, a crusader, an explorer

We build, we produce, we go upward.

Earlier in the day we were allowed in, too.

But with outsiders watching, the tone was different.

I do think that we have, you could say, a psychic connection,

or a deeper connection with Donald Trump.

It was clear that while Donald Trump says he denounces racism,

far right leaders here feel their ideas helped shape him

as a candidate and will guide him as president.

He certainly wasn't elected on repeal Obamacare

This is why he was elected, because he was the

Many in the room told me of their excitement

This is the first time in a very long time I've been interested

Because someone was talking your language?

Someone was touching on something very real.

Can you understand why Muslim Americans, for example,

why African Americans might be concerned, might be worried?

Can they understand why we might be concerned?

That we are being replaced and being forced to become

I've spent a lifetime fighting for these causes,

I've always felt that a harmogenous state is a happy state.

Just imagine by accident of birth that you'd been born

If I were African-American I hope I'd feel the way I feel now,

that I would dedicate myself to improving my people and living

with my people and I would have no trouble with white people who wanted

And whether he likes it or not people with these views feel

America was, until this past generation, a white country,

designed for ourselves and our posterity.

It is our creation, it is our inheritance

To Myanmar, also known as Burma, where the United Nations has called

for an investigation into alleged human rights abuses by the Burmese

army against the minority ethnic Rohingya Muslims.

Hundreds have crossed into neighbouring Bangladesh,

which is already home to up to half a million Rohingya refugees

Our reporter has spoken to some of them.

A warning, there are some graphic images here.

Hated and hounded from Burmese soil, hundreds of Rohingya Muslims have

They are bringing with them horror stories of how an army down

on militants became a relentless assault on Rohingya communities.

TRANSLATION: The Burmese army have set many of our houses on fire.

Some men were shot dead and some were slaughtered.

They set our houses and mosque on fire.

These Rohingya won't be missed, though many families

have been in Myanmar, also known as Burma,

for generations, most people see them as illegal immigrants

The Burmese army doesn't want us to see what it is up to,

so it's keeping journalists and international aid workers out,

but that's not stopped grim accounts emerging almost every day

of abuses being committed against Rohingya civilians.

We took a close look at what had happened in and around

Speaking to Rohingya and using video they filmed.

These people are now living in the open, after they fled

soldiers who entered their village on November the 12th,

With a helicopter flying overhead the soldiers opened fire,

killing men and, we're told, women and children.

No one can tell us exactly how many died.

When people felt safe enough to return, they found

A day later these charred remains were discovered.

The official version of events here is that soldiers shot dead 25

Rohingya attackers who approached them waving sticks and knives.

Campaigners from Human Rights Watch have analysed satellite images

and say in the weeks that followed 265 houses were destroyed.

The government say the Rohingya are setting fire to their own homes.

It's all so different from a year ago, when hopes were high

and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi had just won

But Miss Suu Kyi's power comes not from principles

but partnership with the army, so much to the disappointment

of human rights campaigners, she's refused to investigate

My worry is the same as your worry and the rest of the world,

that we may be seeing something more horrendous than we anticipated,

but unless we have a credible investigation we will not know

Awful things are taking place, whether it's a crudely managed

counter insurgency or, as some say, ethnic cleansing,

the continued suffering of the Rohingya is beyond question.

It's been a bad week for Nicolas Sarkozy. The former French

President's hopes of returning to power were dashed after he was

knocked out in the first round of his Republican party's primaries.

But his pain was the worst well known President's game. He has

emerged as the party's front runner. He could now face the National front

leader Marine le Pen in next year's election. Lucy Williamson reports on

a surprising week for French politics. Once he was nicknamed Mr

nobody. No one calls him that now. He is now the favourite to be his

party's presidential candidate, a Catholic Anglophile with an English

wife -- Welsh wife and a fondness for Margaret Thatcher. His plans to

take on the unions by slashing half a million public jobs on pushing

through liberal reforms have won him a lot of right-wing support. As have

his calls for quotas on immigration and a ban on adoption by gay

couples. He appeared on France's main news bulletin.

TRANSLATION: I've always been convinced my project would win over

the voters. It's not surprised, and not trying to win anything, it's a

sign of my commitment to change. The moderate centrist once tipped as the

party favourite is now the outsider. His rival's success was, he said, a

surprise. How did Mr Francois Fillon do it? He had the character, the

personality, and French people wanted that, someone very serious,

very rigorous, and also he was appointing measures that were very

on the right, and that was what was expected by the electors. It's early

days but for some this primary contest is an unofficial first round

in France's presidential race. The current resident of the Elysee

Palace is so unpopular that few are counting on a Socialist candidate

even reaching the presidential run-off next May. In a head-to-head

race with the far right leader Marine le Pen, they could probably

count on left-wing votes. The question many are asking now is

whether Francois Fillon could do the same. He's more likely to win over

some of Marine le Pen's target voters, those who don't really agree

with her support for gay rights or her plans to pull out of the EU.

Marine le Pen on the other hand has been doing well in previously

left-wing areas, with promises of welfare spending and protection for

France's economy. Francois Fillon is the first prize in France's

residential race. He may not be the last. Lucy Williamson, BBC News,

Paris. Let's turn to the battle to save

Asia's Tigers. They're among the world's best-known animal species

facing extension because of trafficking. Over the last year more

than 20,000 elephants, 1000 rhinos have been killed by poachers for

their ivory and horns, which are then sold in Asia. India lost more

than 70 tigers to poachers and as Jonathan Head found out this illicit

trade in is being fuelled in Southeast Asia.

When the Thai authorities shut down the famous Tiger Temple earlier this

year they made some disturbing discoveries. Clear evidence of

illegal trading in tiger parts. At least three adult Tigers had also

gone missing. Loose regulations have allowed the captive tiger population

in Thailand to expand to around 1500, and some have been sold into

the lucrative wildlife trade. TRANSLATION: Tiger trading is hard

to verify. The trafficking rings are sophisticated and had to monitor.

There are influential people involved in the trade. Thailand has

done a lot more recently to intercept contraband wildlife

shipments but it hasn't shut down the criminal networks that run the

trade. Very few arrests have been made. This is the far north-eastern

corner of Thailand, and just over there, across the river is lay-offs,

a poor Communist run country where the wildlife trade runs almost

uncontrolled on routes through to Vietnam and China. Until the recent

past we know they used to drop the carcasses of tigers in the river

here to be picked up by smugglers over on the other side. We also know

there are still active wildlife trafficking rings operating here in

Thailand, and that over there it's a great deal worse. One of them is

believed to operate from this nondescript apartment block on the

Thai side of the Mekong River. Campaigning group Freeland has spent

years covertly monitoring them. Documenting big cash transactions

are noting their links with other known figures in the international

wildlife trade. Victor, not his real name, is an undercover agent helping

the Thai police to track the network. Even with all the evidence

they've amassed to date, bringing criminal charges against them is

proving difficult. A lot of the believer now I'm not aware of how

much money is generated by this particular trade. It's up there on

par with trafficking narcotics, billions of US dollars annually.

That kind of liquid buys a lot of power behind it, to pay people off.

Thai officials are now compiling a database of captive tiger so that

for the first time they can be properly traced.

This is that Thailand's biggest Tiger zoo with over 300 animals.

Conservation groups want these big Tiger facilities shut down

completely. With this large-scale exploitation of captive animals,

they believe there is always a risk of some being siphoned off into the

illegal trade. Jonathan Head, BBC News, north-eastern Thailand.

Corruption is a massive problem in Mexico. It costs the country

billions of dollars every year and the problem is most acute in Mexico

state. Their solution is a police force with fewer men. Katie Watson

reports on the all-female traffic cop team that's helping to combat

corruption. I'm out on patrol. Together with 400

other women, they are part of Mexico state's transit police. Five years

ago authorities got rid of all the men in the department and decided

only women should do the job because they are more trustworthy, but it's

not without its challenges. TRANSLATION: Some drivers are

aggressive and feel uncomfortable with a woman giving them a fine,

they are used to being the strong and powerful one in control, but

these are life experiences that taught us to change attitudes and be

emotionally strong. Women are more sensitive. First perpetrator

identified, it doesn't seem to be his day but he's not too grumpy.

TRANSLATION: Things have improved, because man-to-man it easier for

there to be corruption. The treatment you get from women is

different. Back at base it's an all girl team. For every 100 complaints

they use to get about corruption, they say now they get one or two.

TRANSLATION: Study shows woman is more responsible if she does it bad.

We have given women ethics training to prepare them, so they don't fall

in a trap that could cost them their job. Women's roles as carers others

have traditionally held many back from working in the public sphere

but it's these very traits being used as a reason why are better in

some jobs. The reason being they are socially more responsible. But not

everybody is convinced. There are experts question this idea women are

inherently less corrupt. I think it's not looking at the structural

causes causing people to be corrupt, like police officer. What causes a

police officer to be corrupt the incentives they have today, that

there are no sanctions, that there is a culture of corruption in

Mexico. In the long-term as women take spaces in a public space, if we

don't address the structural issues causing corruption I don't think

women in general, in the long term will be less corrupt than they are

now. Back on patrol a very different situation. One man injured in a hit

and run. There's no doubt that mother of two rows is using what she

calls her caring side, but whether that makes women inherently lest

corrupt is still debatable. That is all from us this week. From

me, Philippa Thomas, bye-bye. Double-figure temperatures make for

a very different feel to the weather across parts of Scotland this

afternoon. Soaking up the warmth, relative warmth, compared to recent

days was weather watcher in Aberdeen.