11/02/2017 Reporters

Welcome to Reporters. I'm Karin Giaonone.

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

you the best stories from across the globe.

We report from Yemen as the United Nations launches

A reporter joins the Kurds desperately trying to make a living

Believe it or not, it is impossible to take a sip.

They say the black is for the majority people like me.

And yet, for some reason I don't feel that I am a part of it.

Paying the price for speaking your mind in Mugabe's Zimbabwe.

We profile the pastor facing up to 20 years in jail.

His supporters believe that his case which will be heard here,

will test the limits of freedom of expression in this country.

Plans for a helping hand at one online supermarket,

Rory Cellan Jones investigates the rise of the robot.

The question is, just how many people are going to see their jobs

taken by robots and what will happen to them?

As Paris' Pompidou Centre celebrates its 40th birthday,

It was only when it opened and people started to line

up and started to come in and the figures were

The UN has appealed for $2 billion to provide life-saving assistance

to millions in Yemen, who it says face the threat of famine.

Almost 3.3 million people are now suffering from acute malnutrition.

More than 2 million of them are children.

Aid workers say the situation is catastrophic

and rapidly deteriorating. Now there is a new complication.

Warplanes from the Saudi-led coalition battling the Houthi rebels

who control the capital have hit a vital port, which means aid supplies

Nawal Al-Maghafi is one of the few Western journalists to have

travelled to Yemen in recent months and sent this report.

Fatima is the face of hunger in Yemen.

In the six months since we met her, every day has been

Her mother says they are barely surviving.

There are over two million children like her.

90% of Yemen's food is imported and most of it arrives here,

But all the cranes needed to off-load the ships have been

The Saudis have imposed an aerial and naval blockade,

controlling all imports to the country.

They say they are stopping arms from getting to

But that means that very little food is getting through.

The World Food Programme has bought new cranes for Hodeda's port

but we have been told the Saudi coalition has refused to allow them

These delays in bringing foodstuffs onshore, either

commercially or humanitarian, means there's less

available and therefore, the prices will go up.

From what I've heard, the Saudi argument is that firstly,

the port is in control of the Houthis, so they are handing

over cranes to a port that is in control of the rebels.

They also say that these cranes could be used to off-load arms

for the rebels and therefore, fuel the fight.

Those cranes are brought in and funded for WFP,

who are the logistics cluster, to bring those food goods off

The port is controlled by the same people who have always

controlled the port, the same as the sea

offshore is controlled by the Saudi-led coalition.

So we just want these cranes in so we can do our work,

to make sure the humanitarian pipeline is a strong

The fighting for control of the port has been

going on for over six months, with neither side winning.

And it's the most vulnerable that are left suffering.

For centuries, smugglers have crossed the border

It's a treacherous route that the current conflict

in the region is making the practice more and more profitable and deadly.

Kurdish human rights groups say more than 100 smugglers were shot dead

But as one reporter found out, the smugglers say their work

provides a lifeline for their communities.

A four by four is the only way to reach the Iranian border

Every day, hundreds of pick-up trucks carry goods to this camp.

It is one of many dotted along the border.

These smugglers are from poor Kurdish towns and villages in Iran.

They are challenging me if I can carry this load,

Believe it or not, it is impossible to even take a sip.

Believe it or not, it is impossible to even take a step.

The smugglers sometimes manage to bribe the Iranian border guards.

But most of the time they have to take illegal

Kurdish human rights groups say more than 100 smugglers have been shot

dead by Iranian border guards just in the past year.

The Islamic Republic of Iran says these people

are hurting the economy, but for this man and thousands

like him, it is the only way to feed their families.

Asotthalom is a village in southern Hungary that you've probably

Its population is dwindling, but it's hoping to persuade

white Christian Europeans, who don't like the idea

of living in a multicultural society to move there.

The mayor has already banned Islamic dress and gay kissing in public.

Leslie Ashmall has been to the village where Muslims

Asotthalom, a village on the southern Hungary plains,

just minutes from the Serbian border where in 2015 10,000 migrants a day

The village population is declining and homesteads stand vacant.

The mayor here wants to attract foreign investors

TRANSLATION: We primarily welcome people from Western Europe.

People who would not like to live in a multicultural society.

We would not want to attract Muslim people.

TRANSLATION: Asotthalom has a by-law which bans homosexual propaganda.

Think about this, Europe is small, it cannot take in billions of people

from Africa and South Asia where there is a population boom.

This would soon lead to the disappearance of Europe.

I would like Europe to belong to Europeans.

Asia to Asians and Africa to Africans.

He is so serious he has introduced local legislation banning public

displays of affection by gay people, the wearing of Islamic dress

like the hijab, and he wants to ban the building of mosques.

And his views are being pushed by a British organisation called

The former British National Party leader Nick Griffin is a member

and the group is advertising smallholdings for sale

Hungary is already seen by more and more Western Europeans

as a place of refuge, a place to get away from the hell

that is about to break loose in Western Europe.

One of them agreed to speak to us but at the last minute pulled out.

They have spoken of their fears to Hungarian media in the past

but other villagers reject the laws are huge concern.

However, they are the talk of the village pub.

TRANSLATION: Important issues like this should be dealt

with by the National government, not local legislation.

If they take off the veil I'll accept them.

It does not even matter if they are black, they should

become Hungarian citizens even if they are

Are you trying to create a white kind of supremacist village?

I did not use this word white but because we are a white

European Christian population, we want to stay this...

The mayor of Asotthalom wants his village to be the vanguard

in what he calls the war against Muslim culture.

He has employed round-the-clock border patrols which he thinks

The refugee crisis has contributed to the anti-immigrant sentiments

in Europe, like the rise of the

French Front National and the Dutch Party for Freedom.

To Europe's forgotten war in eastern Ukraine now,

where government forces and Russian backed rebels are accusing each

Fighting intensified last week with the focus of some

of the heaviest clashes on the government held city

of Avdiivka, just ten miles from rebel held Donetsk.

Tom Burridge sent this report from the front line of the conflict.

A wait for food - part of their perpetual nightmare of war.

But for thousands, the city of Avdiivka is still their home.

It's now the epicentre of the worst fighting in eastern

She says she sits at home trembling when the night-time routine

Still in shock, her daughter was killed in the shelling last night.

She still hadn't told her nine-year-old grandson.

TRANSLATION: The child still doesn't know his mother is gone.

"Who was firing?", asks the dead woman's cousin.

"Who is responsible for eastern Ukraine being covered in blood?"

We found Elena's husband clearing up the family's apartment

The reality is, most of the civilians living in the city,

are just a short distance from the front line

They are stuck here, stuck in the madness

It's why a woman - an innocent woman - died last night.

There, in the same apartment block, was a British journalist.

Freelancer Christopher Nunn was badly injured to the head.

We met the Ukrainian army doctor who treated him.

He had an injured face and injured eye.

I think a fragment of rocket go into his eye.

They are treating the injured and receiving the dead at Avdiivka's

The Ukrainian army, which holds the city, is fighting

Ukraine and Russia both blame each other for the increase in violence.

Civilians have also been killed in the separatist-held city of Donetsk.

Russia claims the authorities here, which it supports,

But there is clear evidence the conflict, which has ruined

cities like Avdiivka, has been fuelled by Russia.

And countries like Britain accuse Moscow of violating

War here has a familiar feel, but things could now once again

Tom Burridge, BBC News in eastern Ukraine.

A pastor from Zimbabwe who led protests against Robert Mugabe's

government last year has been charged with trying

Evan Mawarire, who started a movement criticising

the government, using the Zimbabwean flag will stand trial

If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

It comes as President Mugabe prepares to celebrate his 93rd

birthday with a lavish party against a backdrop

As Shingai Nyoka reports from Harare.

This is the man who dared to demand that Zimbabwe's

He believes he is paying the price for speaking the truth.

He is accused of being behind some of the biggest protests

against President Mugabe in over a decade.

His online rants against corruption went viral.

They tell me that the black is for the majority of people like me.

And yet, for some reason, I dead feel like I am a part of it.

And soon, other Zimbabweans were venting their anger

He left the country fearing for his safety.

But in the last six months, the government

Evan Mawarire has not received the same level of public support

that he did when he stood on these same court grounds last year,

but his supporters believe that his case, which will be heard

here, will test the limits of freedom of expression

I think a lot of people are still a little bit upset,

disappointed and feel let down by the fact that he left

in the first place, and perhaps they fear that he might do it again.

But I think at its core, what must be remembered at all times

The problem is that got everybody to rise up the first time

Those problems include an over 80% unemployment rate.

In this supermarket, Zimbabweans are weighing up

the price increases, in a desperate measure

the government has introduced a 15% tax on some basic goods.

To is very, very unusual, it is very unprecedented.

Most countries don't impose sales tax or VAT on basic commodities.

It comes as they prepare to throw another lavish birthday party

for the long-time leader President Mugabe later this month.

He turns 93 and says he will stand again for elections in 2018.

The This Flag pastor has not ruled out running for office,

but his immediate fate lies in the hands

The rise of the robot and the impact of automation on human workers

is fast becoming one of the biggest challenges in the modern world.

One report in the UK this week warned that nearly a quarter

of a million public sector workers could be replaced by robots

Rory Cellan Jones gained exclusive access to one firm where robots

In a warehouse in Hatfield, a very complex operation is under way,

assembling Ocado customer orders from 50,000 potential items.

It still requires plenty of people but if the online supermarket

is to make money from something shoppers used to do themselves,

That's why there's a robotics lab in the corner of the warehouse.

This robot arm designed to pick up fruit without damaging it,

is one of their creations, though it is some years away

But in another warehouse in Andover, Ocado says

Swarms of robots move across a grid, collaborating to collect groceries

It's a huge investment but the firm says there's no alternative.

If the UK is to remain competitive on the world stage,

then there is no option but to invest in not only automation

but in this increasing move towards robotics

because that is the only way we will be competitive.

All kinds of businesses that want to prosper over the next decade

are going to have to use artificial intelligence and automation to make

The question is just how many people are going to see their jobs taken

by robots and what's going to happen to them.

At London Science Museum, a new exhibition traces the history

of robots and shows how they are now encroaching on tasks once

One academic has a startling forecast.

35% of current UK employment is at high risk of being replaced

by robots or similar technology by the year 2030.

Truck drivers, taxi drivers, processing of things like invoices.

But there's a more optimistic view, that our jobs are becoming more

creative and complex and we will be able to keep ahead of the robots.

Some of the best skills you can have are adaptability,

ability to switch between tasks, emotional intelligence

Those kind of things should protect our children

for the labour market of tomorrow, whichever direction the robots take.

The lesson of the past is that new technology usually creates more

jobs than it destroys, but along the way a lot of people

To its critics, it was a monstrosity resembling an oil refinery

But as Paris' Pompidou Centre celebrates its 40th birthday this

week, its reputation as an icon of modern architecture

It has been popular with more than 100 million visitors passing

Will Gompertz has been speaking to two of the original architects,

Richard Rodgers and Renzo Piano, about the Pompidou's

Ah, Paris, beautiful, romantic, and radical.

A city of revolutions, riots and avant-garde ideas.

Like the Pompidou Centre, which in 1977 was like an electric

A daring, inside out building with its guts on show and weird

caterpillar escalators crawling up its facade.

These two self-confessed bad boys were behind its creation.

Unknown iconoclasts back then, respected pillars of society today.

They hadn't expected their design to beat the 680 competing proposals.

And when it did, a steep learning curve awaited.

I mean, we were young kids out of school, without work.

But as very many naive people, we didn't realise how

Had we realised, I doubt we would've done the competition.

It was a miracle, we had court cases against us, everybody hated it,

It was only when it opened and people started to line up

and people started to come in and the figures were

This building was a shift, it was celebrating a shift, a change.

And when the change occurs in society, it's never

You cannot expect to build a change like this that was not due to us.

It was in the air of May '68, it was in the air of the time.

We were just simply building the change.

Where had you seen similar ideas executed?

It was a cross between New York's Times Square,

which was full of glitter and so on and sex and all the rest

of it, but it was lovely because people wanted to get there,

and the British Museum, a symbol of one of the greatest

museums of the world, where you could sit down and do

It can help to change the world, and become a unifying element.

I think beauty is tremendously underrated.

It is the glue which pulls us all togetther.

Their Pompidou was a utopian project where people can

A 40-year-old concept that they would argue is even

From me, Karin Gionnone, it is goodbye for now.

In an oblique sort of day up and down the UK. Not much