24/12/2016 Reporters

Welcome to Reporters. I'm Phillipa Thomas here at the BBC headquarters

in London. In this special edition of the programme, we're looking at

some of the best reports of this year from our network of

correspondents from around the world. Coming up:

Stand-off in the skies above the South China Sea is. Rupert

Wingfield-Hayes flies over one of the most contested areas in the

world, incurring the wrath of the Chinese. Our captain is saying that

we're a civilian aircraft, not a military aircraft, it didn't make

any difference whatsoever, they just repeated the threat to leave the

area over and over again. Tiny victims of Yemen's forgotten war. We

find starving children in desperate need of aid. He just had fever and

diarrhoea and because there was no medicine he passed away. We've just

arrived in what is called the prong zone. Under fire on Ukraine's

frontline. Tom Burridge and his team meet one of the conflict's most

volatile hotspots where the fragile ceasefire has collapsed. You can't

make no mistakes, it cost you your life, literally. Ian Pannell reports

from Barack Obama's former hometown and finds gun crime is out of

control. And battle of the sexes. We meet the Moroccan warrior women

taking on and beating the men of North Africa at their own game.

The BBC went to extraordinary lengths this year to get a rare

glimpse of China's determined expansion in the South China Sea.

One of the most contested areas anywhere in the world. Beijing is

building huge artificial islands on the Spratly Islands chain, which the

Americans and others insist are illegal. The area is difficult to

get to, but Rupert Wingfield-Hayes flew in a small civilian aircraft

into China's self-declared security zone 200 kilometres off the coast of

the Philippines. This is what he found.

It's just before dawn on the Philippine island. Even at this hour

it is hot, but there's no sign here of the trouble brewing a few hundred

miles out to sea. I'm about to take off on a trip the Chinese government

has tried to stop. As we roll down the runway, we're all tense. No one

has tried what we're about to do. We're now heading south-west to

wards and number of Chinese controlled atolls. These are places

where the Chinese have being doing massive land reclamation over the

last year and a half. We really want to go for two reasons, one, to see

exactly what the Chinese are doing, and two, to test to see if the

Chinese would try to stop us because the whole of this area is, according

to most countries, international airspace.

Just 140 nautical miles from the Philippine coast we spot new land.

This place is called Mischief Reached. Until a year ago there was

nothing here, just a submerged at all. Now look at it. -- Reef.

Millions of tons of material have been dredged up to build this huge

new island. Then as we close to 12 nautical miles, this.

Down below we can see a pair of Chinese navy ships. Our pilots are

nervous. They want to turn away. We're a civilian aircraft flying

over international waters and yet we're being repeatedly threatened.

So what we're getting is the Chinese sending out that message, foreign

military aircraft, and identified military aircraft, leave the area

immediately, in Chinese and English, our captain replied saying we are a

civilian aircraft, not a military aircraft, but it didn't make any

difference, they repeated the threat to leave the area over and over

again. As we fly on the full extent of the

construction is revealed. The lagoon is teeming with ships. A cement

plant is visible on the new land. Then for the first time a clear view

of the new runway China is building here. A Chinese fighter taking off

from here could reach the Philippine coast in nine minutes. In the last

year, China has built at least seven new islands and three new runways in

the South China Sea. One here at Mischief Reef, another at Subi Reef

and the biggest of all at fiery cross. The aim is to reinforce

China's claim to the whole of the South China Sea. America and its

allies are now responding. And over the radio we now hear one of them.

What we're hearing is an Australian military aircraft asserting freedom

of passage. More than 40% of the world's trade

passes through the waters below us. China is determined to assert its

control. America and its allies say they

won't let that happen. And as we have found out, it may already be

too late. Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, BBC News, in the South China Sea.

From the conflict in Syria to what's seen as the forgotten war in Yemen.

The fighting there has pushed one of the poorest countries in the Middle

East to the brink of famine, threatening the lives of millions of

people. More than 7000 have been killed in the conflict between the

country's who the rebels, who overthrew the government last year,

and a Saudi led coalition backed by Britain and the US. -- to the

rebels. This has left around 7 million people on the brink of

famine, many of them children. And again a warm warning, this report

contains some distressing images from the start. In the villages of

the Yemen, it's the children who suffer most. Wherever you go you can

see the human cost of this war. Seven-month-old Fatima is weak and

severely malnourished. She's one of hundreds in this area alone. Her

mother, Sara, tells me she won't stop crying. TRANSLATION: It breaks

my heart. The only thing Sarah can offer her child is water. She is so

malnourished herself she can barely best to macro speed. This doctor

took me from village to village and each time we saw the same thing.

Yemen has always been desperately poor but the war has made things

worse. It's not just the villages that are struggling. This war has

forced the 600 hospitals to close down and lack of supplies has pushed

this central hospital to the brink. Children are the most affected by

malnutrition. Here hunger has left 1.5 million children starving. This

is four-year-old Chaim. His grandfather brought him here with

fever and diarrhoea. Malnutrition has meant his immune system isn't

able to fight a simple infection and severe shortage of medicine means

that antibacterial needs aren't a available either. TRANSLATION: The

antibiotics we have will not treat the type of bacteria he is suffering

from. All we can do is provide healthcare with the supplies that we

have. The hospital is overwhelmed with children, but in some cases

malnutrition has turned into outright starvation. Selina is eight

years old. Once able to play and talk with his brothers and sisters,

his mother says although he's alive it's as if he's not here.

TRANSLATION: I never imagined I would ever see a child like this in

Yemen. This boy is starving. It scares me that it may be the

beginning of a famine. Four-year-old Chaib's grandfather tells me the

condition has taken a turn for the worst.

He just had fever and diarrhoea and because he didn't have his medicine

he passed away. Back in the village, Ashwaq has some good news. After six

days point calls and negotiations, Ashwaq managed to import his

life-saving milk. TRANSLATION: And you've made me so happy and build

our home with happiness. I hope I can do the same for you. Poverty has

always affected Yemen but now there's the risk of losing an entire

generation. From Yemen's forgotten war to what's

become known as Europe's forgotten conflict in Ukraine. Tensions

escalated there this year as Europe struggled over whether to maintain

sanctions on Russia following its military intervention in the region.

At the height of the crisis, Tom Burridge and his team travelled with

the Ukrainian military to one of the most volatile parts of the front

line, on the edge of a town. He sent us this report and.

Venture into this industrial area known as the prong zone on the edge

of a small Ukrainian city and this is the reality almost every night.

It's really close. Go to the wall. Go to the wall. We've literally just

arrived in what's called the prong zone and you can tell why they call

it hot, because it's really... This perpetual war zone has been largely

forgotten. After two and a bit years and countless diplomatic meetings,

Russia and the West have failed to deliver peace.

Lethal warfare here sometimes feels mundane and monotonous. So five,

maybe ten minutes after we arrived here in the so-called prong zone and

sniper fire, the Krakow machine-guns, that the soldiers say

are probably RPG is, rocket propelled grenades, essentially is

welcome to the prong zone. So we're changing positions now. Our walk

through the industrial zone feels like it will never end. He chooses

to walk but I would prefer to run now, right here in the open. We made

it! That was intense! We reach a building where we will spend the

night. Fighting these Ukrainian troops is a militia which controls

two tiny unrecognised Russian backed republics. 21-year-old Dima says he

will dive for land which he says is part of Ukraine.

The next day, on a hillside nearby, we are shown the Ukrainian military

defences. This impressive network of trenches shows how Ukraine has been

digging in for months. They have not lost territory to the rebels in well

over a year. And for that, they can claim some success. But any success

has come at a cost. The front line town held by Ukraine. We meet

victor. His wife was killed and his grandson disabled, both by shelling.

-- Viktor. Eastern Ukraine is a deprived region. You can see bitter

divisions. The conflict has become one of attrition which world powers

have been unable or unwilling to. Eastern Ukraine. Now to evidence of

a startling rise in gun violence the US, including in Chicago, home to

Barack Obama. Killings in the city have reached a 20 year high. A

deadly summer of violence brought this year's death toll to 500. Most

of the victims and their killers are young men. We spent a week in

Chicago and found a world where guns rule. In my neighbourhood, they

start young, men. That is the edge frame that they are dying from guns.

Very young. We have to teach children how to defend themselves.

It is like, what do you do? You would rather be caught with

protection than without it. I have never seen so many guns. Like, we

had so many guns. But I have never seen as many as now. This is a

wrapper from the west side. Now, the most violent part of Chicago. He is

a member of the Vice Lords Gang. He has been imprisoned. And even he is

by what has happened. It is like somebody dropped off crazy amounts

of guns in the neighbourhood. I think that many guys need to die to

make it better. Some of these BLEEP need to be killed and knocked off to

make it a better place. We have been standing here for five minutes and I

have seen two police cars and one ambulance. It is not safe here at

all. Suddenly we were told to leave the area as he and his gang sped

off. PHONE CALL: what happened? Why did we have to leave?

More people have been killed here since 2001 than US deaths in Iraq

and Afghanistan combined. And yet, there is almost no outcry. Do you

worry about your children? I do. Like, to be honest, I doubt they

sign of seven and a daughter of four, and I have not taught them how

to ride a bike because the environment they live in is just not

safe. I love you. I love you, Dada. I am trying to change the cycle. It

is hard when you don't really have help, you know what I'm sayin'? We

have been put in a weird position, do you know what I am saying,

because... Hold on. Cut. This stuff don't end. With so many guns and so

little control, the murders will rise. Rarely solved, and barely

noticed. This may sound like the stuff of science fiction movies, but

American researches broke new ground this year by trying to grow human

organs inside pigs. The research uses a pioneering technique cold

gene engineering, which allows genes to be changed quickly. Some say this

may end the organ crisis. But it also may raise ethical issues. You

are watching two species being mixed. Humans themselves are being

injected into a one-day-old pig embryo. You can see them travelling

down the tube. This biologist in California is trying to grow a human

pancreas inside a pig. Our hope is that this will develop normally. But

the pancreas will be made up almost exclusively out of human cells so

that then that pancreas will be compatible with the patient for

transplantation. The technique is known as gene editing. It uses

molecular scissors to delete the DNA instructions in the pig embryo to

create a pancreas. The ambition is the human cells will fuel the void

and grow a human pancreas instead -- fill. The same technique might

enable other organs to be grown for transplant. The BBC's panorama

matter was allowed to film the sows filled with human embryos known as

chimera is. If you men stem cells are taken from a patient, they could

be tissue match, reducing the risk of rejection. -- human. This

research raises profound ethical concerns. Crucially, just how human

and the piglets developing inside this sow? It is such a sensitive

area that the chimeric embryos will not be permitted to go to term, but

be removed for tissue analysis after 28 days because gestation when they

are about a centimetre long. -- days'. They will crucially check

whether the brain develops humanlike qualities. Another pioneer in this

field told me this question has yet to be resolved. Whatever we tried to

make, whether it is a kidney, liver, a lung, we will look at what is

happening in the mind. And if we find it is to humanlike, it will be

ended. Organisations campaigning for an end to factory farming are

dismayed by the image of organ farming. I am nervous about opening

up a new avenue of animal suffering. We could consider it, but the basis

has to be that there is no overall increase of pigs being used for

human services. 7000 people are on the transplant waiting list in the

UK and hundreds die each year before a donor can be found. But patient

trials involving gene edited pig organs are still a long way off.

Bogus wars, BBC News. Finally, for centuries, the men have proven their

worth in Fantasia, firing their rifles in unison. For the first

time, female riders have been taking them on. We have been to meet the

Moroccan women warriors beating the man at their own game. Fantasia, a

centuries old Moroccan tradition, a way for men to show off their

warfare and masculinity. But in recent years, more women riders are

taking the reins. This is the leader of an all-female troop. And today,

the only woman competing in this Fantasia. How different do you feel

the image is to what people think a normal Arab or Moroccan girl should

be? Did you not think maybe you cannot

do it because no other girl has done it before? When you first started

Fantasia how did men think of you? Now they respect us. Did they not

respect you before? That sounds horrible. Did that ever put you off?

How did you find the girls for your group?

For good luck? Yeah, of course, for good luck. I am nervous and my heart

is beating. The aim is for the teams to charge and shoot simultaneously.

The winners are announced and the girls won! BBC News, Morocco. And

that is all from this special edition of Reporters looking back at

of the best reports from this year. -- at some of the. From me, Phillipa

Thomas, goodbye for