11/03/2017 Reporters

From here in the world's news room, we send our correspondents to bring

you the best stories from across the globe.

Owen Bennett-Jones finds the Pakistan army back in control

of the tribal area on the Afghan border, after a huge military

operation to clear out Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Around one million people from north Waziristan fled

when the conflict was at its height, and the question now

Naomi Grimley meets the young Yazidis who escaped the so-called

Islamic State to find refuge in Germany.

Alastair Leithead reports from South Sudan on claims

of new atrocities by government forces and local militia.

Carrie Gracie investigates Beijing's new measures

The Chinese economy is still fuelled by coal.

Naomi Grimley meets the young Yazidis who escaped the so-called

The Chinese economy is still fuelled by coal.

And in the one party state there is little the public can do,

to force the politicians here to deliver air fit to breathe.

Fergus Walsh meets the researchers unlocking the science of thought.

The tribal areas on the Afghan-Pakistan border have

long been associated with militancy and lawlessness.

The ancient tribal customs, with their emphasis on both

revenge and hospitality, have been challenged in recent

years by violent Jihadis, imposing Sharia, not tribal law.

North Waziristan became home to Al-Qaeda, the Taliban,

and Jihadists from all over the world, but as Owen Bennett-Jones

reports, after a long and bloody military campaign,

the Pakistani army is now firmly in control.

For years now, these remote areas on the Afghan-Pakistan border have

In 2014, the Pakistan army launched a campaign

to win back this land, and today virtually all

The militants left behind this roadside bomb factory.

Capturing facilities like this has made a difference.

There used to be thousands of bomb attacks in Pakistan each year,

The army reckons its operations here are the most successful

anti-Jihadist campaign the world has yet seen.

So somewhere it was the IED that was a threat to you,

somewhere it was small ambush or different, so different incidents

happening in different areas when we were trying to get them.

Just like Aleppo and Mosul, the army caused massive destruction

When the battle was raging, the entire population left.

The effort is now on to get them back.

Around a million people from north Waziristan fled when the conflict

was at its height and the question now is will they come back?

So the army has built facilities like this school,

that can take 1,000 children - not open yet - but it is hoped this

will attract people to come back thinking there are ways they can

live here, and get their children educated.

There are few public schools in Pakistan

Local markets are also starting up again.

But everyone knows the future holds great uncertainties.

A few hours' drive away in the city of Peshawar,

traders say the number of bombs has gone down, but they

For example, with militants extorting money from them.

This gentleman by himself has received extortion letter.

If you want to see it I can show it to you.

From this shopkeeper, can he afford that?

This is the APS school, where 130 children were murdered

by the Pakistan Taliban just over two years ago.

The survivors say they are determined to resist the militants,

If you don't get over it, you don't get to live,

because you see, if people become stuck in that psychological

depression and that kind of thing, you cope with your study,

depression and that kind of thing, you cope with your studies,

you can't cope with the world, you can't see the beauty of life,

so you have to cope up, and all we did, we all did

bravely and we all did, we coped very brilliantly and now

There is a growing nationalism in Pakistan.

Some militant groups remain strong and haven't been

challenged by the state, but there is also a rejection

of those Jihadis who attack targets on Pakistani soil.

Owen Bennett Joan, BBC News, north Waziristan.

As fighters from the self-styled Islamic State are gradually being

driven out of their stronghold in Iraq, the scale of the atrocities is

being revealed against one ethnic group in particular. The Yazidi

people are ethnic Kurds, and the UN says they are the victims of a

genocidal campaign, thousands have been killed, thousands more women

and children are being held captive, many traded as sex slaves. Some have

imagined to escape and seek sanctuary in Germany. Naomi Grimley

has been to one refuge deep in a a forest from the south-west of the

country. A secret location in south-west Germany. It is a place of

exile. 80 Yazidi women and children now live here. They were violently %

cuted by so-called Islamic State and chased out of northern Iraq.

These two boys were captured by the extremists and sent to a military

training camp aged just 14 and 16. This is their story.

TRANSLATION: The training was about weapons, we learned how to load and

fire a weapon. We were training to be soldiers. We would do exercise,

crawling under barbed wire, things like that.

To learn how the fire a gun on human beings they took us to graves where

they had the dead bodies of Muslim traitors or those who took drug,

they said we had to fire on them to get used to it.

If we didn't do what we were told or broke the rules they would beat us

with a stick. Everything had to be like they wanted.

I had to pretend to be a Muslim to survive.

Their books were like magic, they change your mind and made you into

one of them. I bet not just me, even a man's mind would have changed.

After a year, a smuggler helped them escape the camp. It was dangerous.

But there was nothing left to be afraid of. We had seen death with

our own eye, we saw how they killed. When you lose everything, you have

nothing left. We had nothing to lose. This is mainly a community of

women and children. Most of the men are missing, presumed dead. The

women were originally brought to Germany for trauma counselling after

the mass rapes under Islamic State. South-west Germany has welcomed more

than 1,000 Yazidis in two years, and the man who runs the project says

several towns volunteered to give them shelter.

Of course it is hard, of course they have bad dreams, of course they are

struggling but they can start like, you know, just start a new future,

get into school, get an education, dream about falling in love and all

the things that are normal. All that may take time, but at least for now,

this refuge is far away from those religious zealots who are trying to

wipe them out. To South Sudan which according to

the UN is edging closer toe genocide. It accuses Government

forces and militia of carrying out ethnically motivated attacks on

civilian, while using the current Civil War as a smoke screen, but the

Government denies that the country is experiencing ethnic cleansing.

Alastair Leithead reports. The grief of a mother. The death of

a son. She travelled through the night, when she heard what happened.

Isaac's body was found dumped in the river, his ankles tied. A metal wire

tight round his neck. TRANSLATION: My son was fishing and

saw the body. I don't know who did it or why they did it. Does this

happen a lot? TRANSLATION: It happens.

Government forces are in charge of the town. The Civil War recently

spread to this part of the country where different ethnic groups

peacefully lived side by side. We are a short drive from the centre of

the town, but this is pretty much the limit of where the army forces

are prepared to go on foot. Because the rebels control areas just up the

road. Houses and buildings in this deserted neighbourhood have been

burned. The soldiers blame wild fires or accidents.

It is our mandate to make sure civilians are safe. It might be the

rule but it is not the reality, or at least not the reality we heard

from those who would talk. We are protecting their identities. This

man's sister was assaulted by three soldiers. Who raped her? The

soldier. Government soldier, yes. She is sure they are Government

soldiers? Yes. Is this happening a lot here? It is a lot. Another

witness described ten young men being dragged out of their family

homes, chained together, and then shot, one by one. This woman was

attacked in her house by soldiers in uniform. They started to beat me. He

beat me here. It was painful. It was going to beat me on my head. I put

my hands like that. Even though both sides in this war have been

implicated in atrocities, these allegations were all against

Government forces. There is no killing or raping said the senior

commander, anybody who does is arrested.

The only people we fight are the rebels he said. This is when the

killing occurs. The survivors claim civilians were killed by the army

but we continue kill our own in our own country. So there are no

renegade troops, no troops, not a single case? No.

But still people are leaving, in eight months 500,000 people have

fled the country, rather than live here under the army. Everywhere you

go in this area it is the same. Villages that have been abandoned.

People have closed up and taken what they can with them. Hundreds of

thousands of people from crossed into Uganda, overs in the bush

because of the fighting, everywhere, village after village.

And there is a deeply disturbing Ed nickelment underlying the deaths,

that people are being killed because of their ethnicity. That is why the

UN has warned this could end in genocide.

Alastair Leithead, BBC News, South Sudan.

The Netherlands is often described as the most liberal country in

Europe. But many are wondering if that reputation is changing. The

polls suggest in the general election on Wednesday many people

will vote for geert Willeder, who wants to pull the country out to EU

and ban immigration from Muslim countries may even win the largest

number of seats. So what happened to the supposedly tolerant easy going

Dutch? Gabriel great house has gone back. The Netherlands is having an

identity crisis. What does it mean to be Dutch? I don't remember people

agonising over this question in the past. They are now.

What are Dutch values? We are all equal. We are all the same. We are

very tolerant, and we drink and eat and play and dance together. So that

is the good thing about carnival. What about the rest of the time?

Well, it's a bit different. We're not so tolerant any more. Why not?

Some people are not so the same as other people. I think the whole

Islam thing makes it we are more aware of our values.

Geert Wilders, the Netherlands's answer to Donald Trump wants to ban

the Koran, close the mosques and the borders.

In defence of their tolerant way of life, many Dutch people are

apparently willing to vote for some pretty intolerant policies. --

policies. Growing up we were taught that tolerance was as much a part of

Dutch culture as eating mayonnaise with your chips. I used to live over

there, Number Ten, just the other side of the canal. Before I lived

there, some other people did, whose names are commemorated here in these

plaques, seven of them who were murdered by the Nazis during the

Second World War because they were Jewish. There are similar plaques

along the canal side. During the war one tenth of the population of this

city were deported to concentration camps.

The German occupation had a huge impact on how the Dutch see

themselves. December criminating against people

because of their religion, their culture or ethnic background, that

was something that other people did. Not the Dutch. I grew up in a time

when all of us in this country were still very much under the impression

that we live in the most liberal progressive country in the world. I

used to say this to people. I am from Amsterdam. I live in the best

country in the world, best city in the world. Anything goes and you are

free to be whoever you are. However when I look back I think there was a

lot going on under the surface that just wasn't discussed.

Beneath the surface, many people felt uncomfortable, with the effect

of immigration. To speak of that was once taboo. Not any more. Fuelled by

geefrt geert, the debate has focussed on Islam. -- Geert Wilders.

Sylvan that has set up a political party, trying to highlight what she

says is a hidden current of racism in Dutch society.

The reaction has not been good. Death threats is what I have

received for similarly voicing my opinion on this topic. That doesn't

sound like the most tolerant, the most progressive country on earth.

We used to take pride in saying we are so tolerant, that is our biggest

problem. We have been tolerating and tolerating means accepting something

that you really don't actually a I degree with, but you are just, you

know accepting. Perhaps the idea of the Netherlands

as free space was never anything more than an illusion. Now, in an

age of identity politics, the Dutch are asking themselves some

fundamental questions. What does liberalism mean? What are

the limits of tolerance? And does the Netherlands still want to be a

place that is open and inclusive? Gabriel gate house, BBC News.

To China where the Government has declared its aim of making the skies

blue again by tackling the country's air pollution crisis, the

authorities want to reduce reliance on coal, and invest billions in

renewable energy and they are targeting emissions from cars which

add to the smog hanging over major city, by encouraging the use of

greener vehicles. Carrie Gracie has taken to the streets of Beijing to

find out more. Everything in China is on a massive

scale. The problems and the solutions. Cars are to blame for

about a third of China's air pollution. So it is scrapping the

worst offenders. But this rich intellectual in the

wrecker's yard is a losing battle against 30 million new cars taking

to the roads this year. If these people want clean air, then

from transport to heating and lifestyle, they have to change their

behaviour. China has to kick its addiction to fossil fuels.

For this Beijing couple the morning commute is a his and hers divide. He

is part of the problem. And she is part of the solution.

Meet little blue. Harmful emission, zero. To beat the Petrolheads China

subsidises electric vehicles and makes them much easier to license.

On smogy days little blue doesn't face restrictions like other cars

and Kim is proud to her her bit for clean air.

TRANSLATION: We all have to live in the city and the pollution is ten

for health and Beijing's image, driving little blue I don't have to

feel guilty even on smogy days, I tell my friends they should get one

too. Gathering winter fuel. To beat the

smog, all the villages surround Beijing have banned the burning of

coal. And 70-year-old farmer is forced back to the old ways.

The fire heats their brick bed. The Government did give them an

electric heater, but on their pensions they can't afford to switch

it on much. Winters are sub-zero here. But he tells me he is more

worried about his electricity bill, than about the cold or the smog. He

is wearing thick layers of long johns.

Beijing can clean the air when it wants to, like now for the annual

session of its rubber-stamp Parliament but it can't do it for

long because despite the push for cleaner vehicles and heating, the

Chinese economy is still fuelled by coal. And in the one party state

there is little the public can do to force the politicians here to

deliver air fit to breathe. Carrie Gracie, BBC News, Beijing.

It is one of the most prestigious awards in the world of science, a

prize of almost one million, for cutting-edge research aimed at

understanding the brain. This year it has been bon by three British

based neuroscientists for their work on how the brain uses a system of

chemical rewards to help us make choice, they have been speaking to

Fergus Walsh. How do we motivate ourselves in life? Whether it is the

choices we make about the food we eat, cream cake, or fruit. To the

friends we make. Thanks Fergus. The pleasure of a hug or the goals

we set ourselves at work, to succeed or by a better car. What underpins

our decision making is a chemical in the brain called dopamine which is

released when there is a reward. This sense of reward which can

sometimes be equated with happiness, pleasure, or simply a desire to do

something has been crucial in human evolution. The three Nero scientists

who shared the prize given by a foundation in Denmark have spent 30

years studying the dopamine reward path Wray and say it underpins all

our choices. You look at a menu, so you have an interesting thing,

should you explore a new type of cuisine so you make a prediction of

what it might be like, you say maybe I will try it. If it is better that

than you expect you get a positive signal. Next time you have a higher

chance of choosing that food. If it is worse you won't choose it. There

is a dark side to the dopamine reward pathway. It can reinforce

poor decision making such as with drug addiction and lead to

compulsive behaviour. Parkinson's disease leads to the loss of

dopamine producing never cells. Drugs that boost the levels can

sometimes trigger addict shin behaviour. It can negative effects

leading to excess gambling, numerous pay enwhens when treated with drugs

have resorted to gambling, often secretive this is the result in the

tragedy of them losing their life savings. The three prize winners are

based in the UK, which has a track record of world leading brain

research. Their work will help in the development of treatments, for

patients with psychiatric illnesses like schizophrenia where the brain

reward system goes wrong. Fergus Walsh BBC News. That is all from

Reporter for this week, from me, Philippa Thomas. Goodbye.

Hello. Some of us managed to get some sunshine so far today. It has

been up to round 18 degrees across the south-east of the country but

overall a bit of cloud round across the