25/02/2017 Reporters

Welcome to Reporters.

I'm Philippa Thomas.

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, on the frontline of

the battle for Mosul.

Quentin Somerville joins Iraqi forces, as they meet fierce

resistance to their assault on the last stronghold of

the so-called Islamic State in Iraq.

The town of Abu Saif is under attack.

It is all that lies between these men and Mosul city proper.

Famine in the world's newest nation.

Alistair Leithead reports from South Sudan, a country

devastated by years of civil war.

Cracking Albania's people trafficking rings.

Reeta Chakrabarti follows the brutal trade to the UK,

meeting the victims whose lives have been broken.

You were raped every day.

TRANSLATION: Yes, every day.

Many men?

Yes, many.

What we could do is say that...

And life behind the camera, but still in the spotlight.

Angelina Jolie talks to Yalda Hakim about directing her new film

on Cambodia, her family, and her split from Brad Pitt.

We are a family and we will always be a family.

And we will get through this time and hopefully be

a stronger family for it.

The battle to recapture the last stronghold of the so-called

Islamic State in Iraq has been long and hard.

Iraqi forces have besieged Mosul, Iraq's second city,

for the past four months.

Last month, they captured its eastern region.

Now the battle is on for the west, which has seen some of the most

ferocious fighting between the two sides this week.

Backed by British and American special forces, helicopter gunships

now control the skies, but the road to the west

is littered with bombs, and thousands of IS fighters remain

in the city.

Quentin Sommerville is the only international journalist

embedded with Iraqi forces.

His report contains some graphic images.

Iraq says its Mosul operation is the dawn of victories,

and on the second day of their offensive, its troops

again prepared to face the so-called Islamic State.

An armoured force, set on the city's west.

All along this route, there are suspected roadside bombs

laid by the Islamic State.

Slowed to a crawl at times, bomb disposal technicians

inched along the road.

But above, they have full command of the skies.

In their sights, a small IS-held town, Abu Saif.

GUNFIRE.

Emptied of people, every home there became a target.

The town of Abu Saif is under attack.

It's all that lies between these men and Mosul city proper.

They managed to get here in record time and now,

from the air, and from land, they're trying to take Abu Saif.

And here's why.

For the first time, these forces have sight of Mosul.

For Colonel Fallah Ali Wabdan, it is an important prize

and critical to the campaign.

TRANSLATION: Abu Saif is very important for us because it's

on high ground and that is very good in helping us win control

of the airport, which is below us.

Iraqi forces are using the latest warfare tools.

During the battle, watch as this gunship strikes.

American and British special forces are a mostly

unseen hand helping along.

The results are deadly.

This motorbike was cut in half by an air strike.

The corpses, believed to be two IS fighters, lie in the dirt.

By the afternoon, Abu Saif was back in government hands,

but it hadn't slipped fully from the militants' grip.

They struck back, killing at least two soldiers.

And the day ended as it began, with IS home-made bombs.

EXPLOSION.

So these tactics are designed to slow down the advance

of the federal troops.

IS are using them in greater concentration in bigger towns

and villages, so as these troops move forward, they will experience

better defences and more resistance, and that can mean more casualties.

And others were badly injured.

Still, this was another important Iraqi victory.

But winning against the Islamic State comes at a cost.

Quentin Sommerville, BBC News, on Mosul's southern front.

Famine has returned to South Sudan, the world's newest country.

Its government and the United Nations say around 100,000 people

are currently affected and just under 5 million people,

that's 40% of the population, are in urgent need of food.

It is the first time famine has been declared in any part

of the world since 2011.

Alastair Leithead has been to the South Sudanese capital, Juba,

and found that any hopes of prosperity for the new nation

have been shattered by years of civil war.

When famine hits, the smallest suffer.

There's acute malnutrition here in the children's

hospital in the capital, but it's far worse upcountry,

where the fighting goes on.

Paul is two.

His distended belly and painful skin condition are obvious

symptoms of hunger.

Malnutrition is really bad because it has increased.

I am here for some years, but this year, it has really increased.

The rate has increased.

Hadiya gets one or maybe two meals a day.

Her mother, Mary, can't afford to feed her amid the economic chaos

that civil war brings.

This is Unity State, a rebel stronghold where 100,000

people now feel the effects of famine, and a million

more are on the brink.

Some aid has been delivered but not enough.

Famine is not declared lightly, only when help doesn't reach,

and when large numbers of people are starving to death every day.

The real tragedy is that this is largely man-made,

and we do have famine and food and insecurity has worsened in many

parts of this country, largely because of this unfortunate

conflict.

Because of fighting, because of insecurity,

because of access challenges, also because of attacks

on humanitarian workers and sometimes the looting of assets.

We have not been able to provide assistance

as we would certainly have wished.

For more than three years, a civil war has been

fought across South Sudan, largely along ethnic lines.

We are calling on all the population...

The former vice president, Riek Machar, and President

Salva Kiir, in the hat, are from the two main tribes.

Their political spat tore the country in two.

Well over 3 million people have been forced

Well over three million people have been forced

from their homes by the fighting.

Hundreds of thousands of them are in camps set up

by the United Nations across the country

for their own protection.

1.5 million have fled to neighbouring countries,

creating one of the worst refugee crises in the world.

Towns have emptied here in the crop-growing south

of the country, adding to the food shortages.

In the last six months, 450,000 people have fled to Uganda.

Thousands still cross the border every day,

and describe atrocities, like rape and murder, by

soldiers from both sides.

The UN has warned of the potential for genocide and now a deepening

famine unless the war is stopped.

Alastair Leithead, BBC News, South Sudan.

To Albania now, one of Europe's poorest countries, which has been

a centre for the dark trade in human trafficking for the past 20 years.

Most of the victims are women forced into a life of prostitution

and terrifying abuse.

It is estimated there are now around 35,000 Albanian prostitutes walking

the streets of Europe, many of them trafficked as children.

The Albanian authorities have been criticised for failing to crack down

on the problem with just 18 convictions last year.

Reeta Chakrabarti has been talking to some of the victims

of the trade in trafficking.

Blessed with natural beauty, but the centre of a dark trade.

Albania has, over two decades, built up a brutal industry

with human beings the commodity.

TRANSLATION: I hate them and I want them to get

the punishment that they deserve.

Saya, now still a teenager, was just 14 when she was sold

into a trafficking ring by a man she thought was her boyfriend.

She was forced to sleep with several men a day and tells of a bewildering

and terrifying world of abuse in which she could trust no-one.

TRANSLATION: There were other girls there, too, but I did not talk

to them because you could not tell who was connected to whom.

We were terrified.

They would beat us up and not let us go out.

To be controlled by someone, to be used as I was,

is totally degrading.

She lives here, in a refuge for trafficked women

in the south of the country.

But these are schoolgirls, and some already have

children of their own.

All have escaped their traffickers.

Saya helped put some of hers behind bars.

Several convicted traffickers are held here in Korce

high security prison.

Last year, 18 people were sentenced.

Some here are serving 20 years or more.

The Albanian authorities let us talk to one of them.

This man was sentenced to 15 years for trafficking children to Greece

and forcing them to work as prostitutes or beggars.

What made him, a married man with his own children,

commit such a crime?

TRANSLATION: It was a time when everyone was doing

that kind of thing.

You used a child in order to earn some money.

Isn't what you did entirely wrong?

It's terrible.

What if that were my child and someone did that to them?

He faced justice, but Albania has been criticised for a lack

of prosecutions and there are concerns over police collusion.

Some senior figures question whether trafficking is a real

problem but the official line is that there are systems

to deal with it.

It's not a big concern.

It used to be many years ago.

We had a system in place, and it was not an increasing trend.

It is constant but it has to be tackled properly and to make

always all the structures are working together.

But it is away from the modern capital city that all too often

traffickers find their victims.

Albania remains a poor country and in many areas a woman's role

is still seen as being in the home.

Young women in small-town Albania can be easy prey for grooomers,

seduced by promises of a better life.

That better life is invariably outside Albania, but Anna

never dreamt of her fate.

TRANSLATION: He said he was looking for a girl just like me

and he wanted to start a family.

She is now in a safe house in the UK.

Duped into leaving home and then sold into prostitution,

she weeps throughout our interview but insists she wants

to tell her story.

TRANSLATION: I was somewhere underground.

I had no sense of the world around me.

They would not let me see.

I entered the building blindfolded.

And you were raped every day?

Yes.

Every day.

Many men?

Yes, many.

Anna is now supported in this safe house run by the Salvation Army.

She has a baby, which gives her a reason to carry on.

Her story should trigger alarm in authorities

here and across Europe.

A broken life caused by a brutal crime.

Reeta Chakrabarti, BBC News.

Next week, Northern Ireland returns to the polls, just nine months

after its last election.

The power-sharing government fell apart last month

after the Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness, resigned

amid a complete breakdown of relations between the Unionist

DUP and the nationalists of Sinn Fein.

Bitter words between the former coalition partners have fuelled

memories of divisive elections from Northern Ireland's troubled

past, as Chris Buckler reports.

Well, one place that the polls so far and our own computer can't

really help us is Northern Ireland.

How elections are reported has changed over the decades.

The real issue before the Ulster voters has not been

power-saving, but power-sharing.

But in Northern Ireland, it sometimes feels like the politics

haven't changed much.

Throughout the years, votes have often been presented

as a battle between Irish nationalism and British unionism

and it's clear those old divisions run deep in the bad blood

of this current campaign.

Well, the reality is in Northern Ireland,

we don't have enough respect for Orangemen to walk down

a road for ten minutes.

This heated election follows the collapse of Stormont's

power-sharing government and there is frustration among

voters following allegations of incompetence and even corruption.

It's time they all got their act together, learnt to work together

and put power-sharing and all it stood for into practice.

And do you know...?

Ian Paisley's hardline voice softened with age and he eventually

led his Democratic Unionist Party into government with Sinn Fein,

but ten years later, there's a new DUP leader

and Irish Republicans are once again being portrayed as the enemy.

If you feed a crocodile, they're going to keep coming back

and looking for more.

Arlene Foster was forced from the office of First Minister

when Sinn Fein walked out of government over a financial

scandal surrounding a botched green energy initiative.

She was the minister in charge when the scheme was designed

inexplicably without cost controls, but she's not asking

asking for forgiveness.

She's fighting back with what are, at times, harsh words.

That's not fair, Chris.

I mean, if you've listened to what I've said, I said I want

devolution back up and running again, so that we can have

stability for our people.

Do you regret any of your words over the last months?

Well, maybe that's a question you should ask other parties

because when you look at the brutality of what happened

to me, in December, in January, when you look at the rhetoric

that was directed towards me, I think we should all

look at our words.

Stormont's opposition parties are back out on the road,

campaigning again, including the nationalist SDLP.

But they all know that there's no guarantee

of a new power-sharing deal and that means there is a chance that

Westminster might have to take over government here,

at least for a period, through what's known as direct rule.

We could have exactly the same result or we could have

change in our politics.

The problem is, if we get the same result, we end up with direct rule

and once once we have direct rule, I'm not sure we'll get the Assembly

back up and running again.

With all the cosy appearances now gone at Stormont,

the cross-community Alliance Party believes people have been

given a taste of just how bitter things have become.

Every time we have an election, we get this sectarian rhetoric,

we get this divisive rhetoric, and it drags the community back

to a place that I don't really think we need to be.

It sometimes feels like all politics here is dominated by unionism

or nationalism, but there are real issues worrying people too,

including health, education, the economy and Brexit.

I think the public, by and large, have moved on and I think us

as politicians have a bit of catching up to do.

I don't get depressed too often, but when I listened to one

of the last debates and possibly the youngest DUP member's

contribution, it did get me down because he stood up looking

for sympathy because it had been a very difficult ten years

for the DUP and it had been difficult because they don't

want to share power.

Martin McGuinness, who made the journey from IRA leader

to Deputy First Minister, stepped down ahead of this election.

The new face of the Sinn Fein leadership in Northern Ireland

is Michelle O'Neill, and she doesn't have

the paramilitary past of her predecessor, but she's been

criticised for speaking at an IRA commemoration during this campaign.

I attended the commemoration of four young fellows

who I knew and grew up with.

Four young fellows that found themselves

in extraordinary circumstances.

But they were also four young men who were involved in an IRA attack

on a police station.

And we'll always have a different narrative on the past,

but that's where we need to get to in society, where

we actually understand that we have a different narrative.

It's undeniable that the peace process has changed Northern Ireland

for the better, but the pictures of political togetherness

seem somewhat dated now, and after this election,

it could take many months to get an agreement that would allow

power-sharing to return at Stormont.

Chris Buckler, BBC News, Belfast.

The Hollywood actor and director Angelina Jolie says she hopes her

new film about Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge will

help to educate the world about the brutality of the regime.

First They Killed My Father is based on a true story.

It is seen through the eyes of a child.

Angelina Jolie, who adopted a child from Cambodia,

has been speaking exclusively to the BBC's Yalda Hakim about her

film, and for the first time, about her separation from Brad Pitt.

The report contains flash photography from the start.

Hollywood royalty meets Cambodian royalty.

The backdrop?

An ancient temple.

It is the biggest movie premiere this country has ever seen.

The director, Angelina Jolie, says the film speaks

to this nation's people.

I'm not here because I'm a director who wanted to make a movie.

I'm here because 17 years ago, I came to this country and fell

in love with its people, and learned about its history,

and in doing so, I realised how little I actually knew,

in my early 20s, about the world, so for me,

this country was my awakening.

And my son changed my life, becoming a Cambodian

family change my life.

There was never a plan that we should make this movie.

I became a film-maker and one day, I thought, what story do I feel

is really important to tell?

And I felt that this war that happened 40 years ago,

and what happened to these people, was not properly understood.

And not just for the world but the people of the country.

I felt that I wanted them to be able to reflect on it in a way

that they could absorb, so it's through eyes of a child

and it is a lot about love.

The Khymer Rouge, a radical Communist movement, vowed to take

the country back to year zero.

Millions were forced out of the cities in an attempt

to create a rural utopia.

You could be killed for practising religion, showing emotions

or even wearing colour.

In four years, two million people died.

Speaking to people here, I get the sense that they don't

want to remember the past but they also can't forget it.

There are 20,000 mass graves across this country,

like these ones, a visual reminder of what this nation

nation has been through.

The haunting portraits of death.

Hundreds of images of those who were tortured at

the notorious S21 prison.

More than 12,000 people were killed here.

In the end, only a handful survived.

This 86-year-old is one of them.

They beat me for 12 days and 12 nights, he tells me.

I was so hungry that when I saw a cockroach,

lizard or mouse I would catch it and eat it.

If they caught me, they'd beat me up again.

Angelina Jolie is keen to tell this story and focus on this

country and its past.

But it has been difficult to keep the spotlight

off her own personal life.

We know that an incident occurred, which led to your separation.

We also know you have not said anything about this.

But would you like to say something?

Only that I don't want to say very much about that,

except to say it was a very difficult time and we are a family

and we will always be a family and we will get through this time

and hopefully be a stronger family for it.

Can I ask how you are coping?

I'm...

Many, many people find themselves in this situation.

My family, we have all been through a difficult time.

My focus is my children, our children, and my focus

is finding this way through.

And as I said, we are and forever will be a family.

My focus is my children, our children, and my focus

is finding this way through.

And as I said, we are and forever will be a family.

But this moment is about Cambodia and remembering the time

when this ancient culture was almost wiped out.

Yalda Hakim, BBC News.

And that is all from Reporters for this week.

From me, Philippa Thomas, goodbye for now.

Now, we can catch up with the latest weather ouitllok.