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Sounds, music radio podcasts.
1:25
Hello. Today, as Ukraine's Prime
1:27
Minister warns of Russian victory
1:30
could herald a third world
1:32
war, we hear how
1:34
the country has struggled amid waning
1:36
Western support. Immigration
1:38
is a hot-button issue in
1:40
general elections around the world this year.
1:43
We hear how it's playing out in
1:45
South Africa. In Portugal,
1:47
it's 50 years since the
1:50
Carnation Revolution. We
1:52
meet the former resistance fighters
1:54
who stood against the country's
1:56
former dictator, Antonio Salazar. And
1:59
for the first time in the world, from the
2:01
dense rainforests of Eastern Indonesia to
2:03
the soaring skyscrapers of Hong
2:05
Kong. We hear how
2:07
the yellow-crestered cockatoos have adapted to
2:10
life in the big city. But
2:13
first, across the Middle East and
2:15
beyond, people have been watching developments
2:18
between Iran and Israel. After
2:21
an attack on Iran's consulate in
2:23
Damascus, widely understood to have been
2:25
launched by Israel, last
2:27
weekend Iran launched its
2:29
first-ever direct attack on Israel.
2:33
Then came US reports of an attack
2:35
on the Iranian city of Isfahan. Both
2:38
Western and regional diplomats have
2:40
called for de-escalation. Liz
2:43
Dusette reflects on the rise to
2:45
power of the man who will
2:47
ultimately decide what Tehran might
2:49
do next. We
2:52
had to arrive by noon on June 6, 1989.
2:56
That was the deadline, to enter Iran
2:58
without a visa, to report
3:01
on the funeral of Iran's
3:03
revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini. We
3:06
made it, with minutes to spare, to
3:08
the southern port city of Bandar Abbas.
3:10
And there we watched on state television,
3:13
the striking images from the
3:15
streets of the capital Tehran. A human
3:18
tide so frenzied, the
3:20
cleric's body fell out of his wooden
3:22
coffin, carried away momentarily
3:24
by the swell of the crowds.
3:27
It was feared his burial would be delayed
3:29
by days. What couldn't
3:32
wait was the choice of a new
3:34
leader to send a sign of a
3:36
smooth transition. Two days earlier,
3:38
that announcement had been made. And
3:41
it was only many years later that
3:43
a video emerged of what happened behind
3:45
the scenes. A 50-year-old
3:47
Shia cleric, not yet an
3:50
Ayatollah, but a middle-ranking Hozha'at-ul-Islam,
3:52
was seen protesting. I
3:54
truly don't deserve this position. But
3:58
Ali Khamenei was overruled. He would
4:00
accept for now a one-year
4:02
caretaker role as Iran's supreme
4:04
leader. On that
4:06
fateful day in 1989, Western
4:09
media reported how the once
4:11
hardline mullah seemed to have
4:14
become less radical, wanting to revive
4:16
Iran's ties with the West, wanting
4:19
to rebuild after the
4:21
painful eight-year-long war with Iraq which
4:23
ended the year before he was
4:25
pushed to the pinnacle of power.
4:28
That conflagration still casts a long
4:30
dark shadow in Iran and it's
4:32
said to still weigh on the
4:35
mind of the now ayatollah Khamenei.
4:38
He's still in power, said to be in
4:40
poor health, now seething with
4:42
venom against the West, most
4:44
of all the United States, and
4:46
lashing out against Israel, a state
4:49
he derides as the
4:51
usurper Zionist regime. His
4:53
supporters revere him. Among
4:56
his opponents, he's rebiled, including
4:58
a young generation bristling
5:00
against the strict limits on
5:02
their personal and political freedoms.
5:06
In 2009, the ayatollah's image
5:08
of a leader above the
5:10
political fray was shattered when
5:12
he took sides in disputed
5:14
presidential elections. We
5:16
saw firsthand how a sacred taboo
5:18
was broken. And
5:20
young protesters filled streets in
5:23
Tehran, shouting, death to the
5:25
dictator, even death to Khamenei.
5:28
Nearly two years ago, that red line
5:30
was crossed again. When
5:32
young schoolgirls smashed his photograph
5:34
framed in glass, his unprecedented
5:37
protests swept Iran, sparked
5:39
by the death in custody
5:42
of 22-year-old Massa Amini. That
5:44
unrest shook the Islamic order but
5:47
didn't break it. Red liners
5:49
buttressed their grip on power. So
5:52
too did the Islamic Revolutionary
5:54
Guard Corps, the IRGC, established
5:57
in 1979 to protect revolution
6:01
Ayatollah Khamenei is
6:03
their commander-in-chief. Over
6:05
the decades, the Corps' external wing,
6:07
the Quds Force, helped build a
6:09
network of armed allies across the
6:12
region, from Lebanon's Hezbollah
6:14
to militias in Iraq and Syria,
6:17
the Houthis of Yemen, and
6:19
in recent years Hamas in
6:21
the Gaza Strip. When the Israel-Gaza
6:23
war erupted six months ago, triggered
6:26
by Hamas's murderous rampage
6:28
in southern Israel, this
6:30
network was emboldened, empowered,
6:33
a so-called axis of resistance,
6:35
striking Israeli and American targets.
6:39
And Israel hit back, not just
6:41
targeting Iranian assets in the region,
6:43
but assassinating Iranian and
6:45
Hezbollah commanders. Iran held
6:48
back. April
6:50
1st changed that calculus. With
6:53
the attack on its diplomatic
6:55
compound in Damascus, Israel must
6:57
and should be punished, declared
6:59
the Ayatollah immediately. But
7:02
Iran watchers observed, avoiding
7:04
all-out war has been his legacy. It
7:06
was a choice of all choices, how
7:09
to placate the anger of his
7:11
radical revolutionary guards, how
7:13
to preserve Iran's perceived
7:15
prestige, how to do it in
7:17
such a way that Israel did not
7:19
strike back hard. On
7:22
April 14th, Iran made its move.
7:24
What it saw is a calibrated
7:26
strike it telegraphed 72 hours
7:29
before. By the time it was over, almost
7:32
all of the hundreds of drones,
7:34
crews, and ballistic missiles were
7:37
intercepted by Israel and its
7:39
allies. But Israel didn't
7:41
see it as a win. Its
7:44
first response came quickly but quietly
7:46
on Friday morning, a
7:48
handful of drone strikes which caused
7:50
little damage but sent a strong
7:53
signal. Israel didn't even say
7:55
officially this was its work,
7:58
an unintended gift. the
8:00
Ayatollah, who marked his 85th
8:02
birthday that day. He
8:04
could cast it as a slap so weak
8:06
it wasn't even clear who did it. He
8:09
could keep for now his calculus of
8:12
avoiding a catastrophic war in a
8:14
region where hostility still
8:16
seethes dangerously. Least
8:19
we're set. A missile attack
8:22
in the northern Ukrainian city of
8:24
Chenehiv earlier this week laid
8:26
bare the weakness of the country's air
8:28
defences. 18 people
8:31
were killed in the attack which
8:33
hit an eight-storey building in a
8:35
densely populated area. Depleted ammunition
8:38
supplies as well as a worsening
8:40
situation on the front line have
8:42
heightened fears that the tide
8:44
is continuing to turn against Ukraine
8:46
in its war with Russia. But
8:49
Ukrainian leaders have warned Western
8:51
governments that global security is
8:53
also at stake should Ukraine
8:55
be defeated. Sarah Rainsford
8:58
has been in Ukraine. Driving
9:01
towards the red and white chimneys of
9:03
Kharkiv power station number five I noticed
9:05
the women first with their brooms and
9:08
biscuits and paint brushes. Then
9:10
I saw the wreckage. The
9:13
power plant was hit by five Russian
9:15
missiles last month at the start of
9:17
a massive attack on Ukraine's energy system
9:19
that hasn't stopped. But
9:21
in front of the giant bomb site the
9:23
little group of women were sweeping the path
9:25
and painting the curbs. One
9:28
was even pulling up dandelions. They
9:31
told me they still like to keep
9:33
things neat and tidy. They thought it's
9:35
important to keep up morale. There
9:38
is now barely a power plant in Ukraine
9:40
that hasn't been badly damaged
9:42
or completely destroyed including
9:44
all three that supplied Kharkiv. Inside
9:47
what's left of plant number five an
9:49
engineer led me carefully to the edge
9:51
of a crater where one of
9:54
the missiles had smashed through the roof
9:56
mangling and burning everything in its path.
9:59
The repair teams had only And he'd just got
10:01
a section of the plant running after
10:03
a previous missile strike, when the Russians
10:05
hit it again, even harder. One
10:08
of the workers told me they could
10:10
fix it, perform miracles, as he put
10:12
it. But what's the point, he wondered,
10:15
if it's not protected? Ukraine's
10:18
air defences are being overwhelmed by the
10:20
sheer intensity of the Russian attacks. There
10:23
aren't enough units to protect everything, and
10:25
the military has to decide on its
10:27
priorities. A few days ago,
10:30
President Zelensky spelled out the problem.
10:33
Earlier this month, he said, Russia hurled
10:35
11 missiles at a power
10:37
station outside Kiev. Ukraine
10:39
shot down seven of them, and
10:42
then it ran out of missiles. The
10:44
plant was wiped out. Months
10:47
of pleading with Ukraine's allies to
10:49
help protect its skies have gone
10:52
largely unanswered, and recently the
10:54
frustration Ukrainians feel at that turned
10:56
to bewilderment and even anger. Because
10:59
when Iran attacked Israel last weekend,
11:02
the US and UK intervened directly
11:04
to help shoot down the missiles
11:06
and drones. Vladimir Zelensky
11:09
made speeches then highlighting the
11:11
common threat and the starkly
11:13
different response by Ukraine's allies.
11:16
His calls for more air defences,
11:18
more protection grew louder. If
11:21
you spend any time in Ukraine, you can see
11:23
where he's coming from. Whenever
11:25
the air raid sirens wail, people across
11:27
the country start scrolling through their
11:29
phones. There are apps that track the
11:32
drones and missiles as they come in. Ballistic
11:34
missile threat for Kiev, drones
11:36
over Harkis, cruise missile
11:39
threat to southern Ukraine. Based
11:42
on those details, you decide whether to
11:44
head to a shelter or perhaps crouch
11:46
in the bathroom, banking on the
11:48
protection of an extra wall. Sometimes
11:51
you just sleep on because living with
11:53
the missile threat can be
11:55
exhausting. The other
11:57
weekend Kiev, a cruise missile hit an arts college.
12:00
seconds after the phones went off, and
12:03
in Kharkiv, close to the Russian border, there
12:05
can be little or no time to react.
12:08
This week there was another reminder
12:10
of the terrible results. Eighteen
12:13
people were killed when Russian missiles
12:15
hit the centre of Chidnichyv. Seeing
12:18
the news slashes on my phone, my mind
12:20
raced back to my own visit there in
12:22
March. On the main boulevard
12:24
then, I'd met Sasha and her toddler Sonia,
12:27
who was giggling as she threw chestnuts for
12:29
their dog to chase. Sasha
12:31
explained that they had fled Chidnichyv for the
12:33
start of the war when it was under
12:36
siege and deadly dangerous, but
12:38
when the invading Russian forces were pushed
12:40
back, the young family came home. Sasha
12:43
worried all the way back that she'd made
12:45
the wrong decision. Then
12:48
you realise the missiles can strike anywhere, even
12:50
western Ukraine, she told me. She
12:53
was constantly nervous. I
12:56
keep wondering whether I'm a normal parent
12:58
to bring my child into this. Maybe
13:01
the chances of getting killed are quite
13:03
low, she reasoned, but there is
13:05
still a chance. And
13:07
now Chidnichyv has been hit, just
13:10
down the road from where I'd seen little
13:12
Sonia and her dog. When
13:14
I left Ukraine this week, I took
13:16
the train west to Warsaw. The
13:19
slow journey gives you time to release the
13:21
tension that you don't realise you feel until
13:23
it goes. As we
13:25
chugged through the Polish countryside, my phone
13:28
suddenly vibrated urgently on the table in front
13:30
of me. Then came
13:32
the siren. A girl opposite
13:34
jumped and I stumbled to switch it off.
13:37
Within seconds the same sound was howling from
13:39
phones all around me. The
13:41
carriage was full of Ukrainians. I
13:44
checked the app, air-raiding Kiev,
13:47
missile heading for the city. That's
13:50
life now, across Ukraine. Not
13:53
normal at all. Sarah
13:55
Rainsford. South Africa
13:57
is preparing to go to the polls in
13:59
May. where, for the first time
14:01
since the end of white minority rule, the
14:04
governing ANC party is predicted to get less
14:06
than 50% of the vote. Support
14:10
for President Cyril Raboposa and his
14:12
party has waned, as
14:15
high unemployment, crime, corruption and
14:17
persistent power cuts have left
14:20
South African voters disillusioned. crime
14:23
is also high on the list
14:26
of many voters' concerns and
14:28
could prove pivotal as they cast
14:30
their ballot. Jenny Hill
14:32
reports from the border with Zimbabwe.
14:36
It was the scar on her arm that
14:38
really shocked me. The men
14:40
who attacked Portia had used glass
14:42
bottles, she told me, gently
14:44
touching its jagged lumpy contours.
14:47
They'd raped her too, she said wearily. They
14:50
hadn't seemed to care that she was visibly
14:52
pregnant. I met Portia
14:54
as she recovered, her pregnancy now almost
14:56
full term, in the town of Musina
14:59
near South Africa's border with Zimbabwe. Above
15:02
us, a huge baobab tree spread
15:04
a soothing shade. Musina
15:06
is famous for these strange
15:08
and stately giants. The
15:11
town is also well known as a
15:13
place of refuge for migrants who, like
15:15
Portia, slip unnoticed across the border.
15:19
Portia is a place where people are driven here
15:21
from neighbouring countries by poverty and desperation, but
15:23
it's a notoriously dangerous journey.
15:26
The bush around Musina is
15:28
lawless territory, frequented by traffickers,
15:31
smugglers and thieves. Portia
15:33
gazed up at the leaves of the
15:35
baobab and told me she still can't
15:38
sleep, that she still suffers flashbacks. She
15:40
was targeted by what people here refer to,
15:43
fearfully, as the magoma goma,
15:46
criminals armed with guns who prey
15:48
on migrants. I'd heard
15:50
other stories too, robberies, beatings,
15:53
even killings. The
15:55
bush is very, very dangerous, as Zimbabwean
15:57
man called George told me. me, his
16:00
eyes wide at the memory of his
16:02
own journey. George said he'd
16:04
walked past bodies, human skeletons.
16:07
The Magoma Goma, he said, shaking
16:09
his head, will steal everything and
16:12
rape your wife. But the
16:14
migrants still come. It's a chance
16:16
at least, George told me, to get some
16:18
casual work, earn a little cash to send
16:20
back to his family at home. I thought
16:23
of those Beobabs. People
16:25
here call them upside-down trees
16:28
because their branches resemble roots.
16:31
Legend has it that God was angry with
16:33
the Beobab and threw it out of his
16:35
garden. Having landed upside-down in
16:37
the wilderness, the Beobab went
16:39
on to flourish. Upped, perhaps,
16:42
that it should grow so abundantly around
16:44
a border town where everyone has
16:46
a story of survival. We'd
16:49
come to Musina to see South
16:51
Africa's porous border for ourselves. There's
16:54
rising anger in this country about
16:56
illegal immigration and growing concern about
16:58
its vast land border, which is
17:00
nearly 5,000 kilometres long and shared
17:03
with six countries. A short
17:06
drive from the town, we bumped along a
17:08
rough track towards the bank of
17:10
the Limpopo River, which separates South
17:12
Africa from Zimbabwe. The Limpopo was
17:14
all but dried up, and as we
17:16
watched under a sweltering sun, a
17:19
woman, packages balanced high on her
17:21
head, hurried past. This was
17:23
supposed to be the border. We
17:25
weren't far from an official crossing point, but
17:28
here there were no guards, no barriers,
17:31
no checks, nothing to
17:33
stop people simply walking into
17:35
the country. The South African
17:37
authorities acknowledge they have a problem.
17:40
The governing party, the African National
17:42
Congress, or ANC, claims
17:44
it's securing the border. There's a
17:46
newly formed border force. It's sending
17:49
more officers to the area, but
17:51
senior managers openly admit it'll take
17:53
years to bring it under full control. And
17:56
the ANC may not have the luxury
17:58
of time. uninterrupted
18:00
years in power, it presides over
18:03
a chaotic country. Power cuts are
18:05
common, the water supply is failing,
18:07
and unemployment and violent crime are
18:10
at record levels. As
18:12
South Africa lurches towards the general election at
18:14
the end of May, many
18:16
blame foreigners for the country's woes.
18:19
The tone is increasingly xenophobic.
18:21
No one knows how many undocumented migrants
18:23
are coming into the country, how many
18:26
are here, and how many intend to
18:28
stay. But in Mussina, a
18:30
spokeswoman for one opposition party,
18:32
Action SA, warned that
18:34
their presence was overwhelming the area's
18:36
health and social systems. As
18:39
we drove home, away from the border, I
18:42
looked at the baobabs, tall against the
18:44
darkening sky. South Africa itself
18:46
feels like a bit of a wilderness
18:48
right now. Most of the South
18:50
Africans I speak to feel that while
18:52
this election will likely bruise the governing
18:55
party, it won't bring about
18:57
the kind of change many feel is needed
18:59
to transform the country's fortunes. And
19:02
I thought of Portia, George, the
19:04
other migrants I'd met in Mussina. For
19:06
them, South Africa represented a
19:08
salvation of sorts, but
19:11
in reality, for them, it's a
19:13
hostile country. Those baobab
19:15
trees live extraordinarily long
19:17
lives, sometimes thousands of
19:19
years, and they're
19:21
famed for their ability to
19:23
regenerate and thrive, symbolising perhaps
19:25
a hope this country needs.
19:29
Jenny Hill. Next
19:31
week, Portugal marks the 50th
19:33
anniversary of its transition to
19:35
democracy. While politics in
19:37
today's Portugal are defined by free
19:40
and fair elections, for decades it
19:42
was a very different place, an
19:45
isolationist, ultra- traditionalist
19:47
Catholic nation, strictly
19:49
controlled by dictator
19:51
Antonio Salazar. He
19:53
was finally overthrown in 1974 when
19:56
officers in the Portuguese army led a
19:58
coup against his regime. regime, Simon
20:01
Bush met some of the men
20:03
who joined the resistance against Salazar
20:05
to find out what they think
20:07
about politics in Portugal today. We
20:10
always choose a corner table, says Sal
20:12
Fernando Snunes, as we take a seat
20:15
at a restaurant in one of the
20:17
few quarters of Lisbon, seemingly not yet
20:19
colonised by digital nomads in Air BnBs.
20:22
Because of the spies, it makes it harder
20:24
for them to listen. Jocular
20:26
and bristle-mustached, at
20:28
90, Saul could be an advertisement for Youthful
20:30
Rebellion being good for your health. Saul's
20:33
choice of table location harks back
20:35
to his days of youthful militancy
20:37
against the right-wing nationalist regime of
20:40
Antonio Salazar. It was
20:42
Europe's longest dictatorship, which
20:44
alongside mass censorship, torture and
20:46
imprisonment of opponents, also
20:49
used a thousand-strong network of informants.
20:51
Joining us at the restaurant was
20:54
one of Saul's comrades from his
20:56
insurrectionary days, José Luis Faronia, gearing
20:58
up for the celebration a few days
21:00
since of the 50th anniversary of the
21:02
downfall of the Salazar regime. People
21:05
called it the Carnation Revolution, for the
21:07
flowers they stuck in soldiers' rifles. Given
21:10
the half-century milestone, the annual celebratory
21:13
marches with their shouts of, Fascist
21:15
mon un camáis, fascism
21:17
never again, promised to be especially
21:19
triumphant this year. Despite its longevity,
21:22
the 48-year dictatorship led for most
21:24
of its duration by Salazar, a
21:26
squeaky-voiced economist, never quite managed to
21:29
seal the lid on a largely
21:31
leftist insurgent soup simmering beneath it.
21:34
Resting on pillars of nationalism,
21:36
Catholicism and corporatism, Salazar's rule
21:38
seems to have been motivated
21:40
in part by nostalgia for
21:42
an imagined Portuguese rural ittle
21:45
and a hatred of modernity. Under
21:47
his one-party administration, Coca-Cola was banned.
21:49
Women required their husbands' permission to
21:51
open a bank account, and you
21:54
even needed a license for one
21:56
of those subversively newfangled things, a
21:58
cigarette lighter. Meanwhile, Salazar's
22:00
political police, the Pide, were kept
22:03
busy by the clandestine opposition groups
22:05
proliferating towards the end of Salazar's
22:07
rule. So busy that, as one
22:09
accounted the era relates, the Brazilian
22:12
ambassador's wife complained of the cries
22:14
of torture victims coming from the
22:16
Pide headquarters opposite, only to be
22:18
told that, no, they were the
22:21
screaming tram wheels. Back
22:23
at the restaurant, Saul unfolds before me a
22:25
family tree of the twenty or more underground
22:27
groupings spawned in Portugal from the 1960s on.
22:31
Saul and Jose Luis belonged to one
22:33
of them, called the Popular Action Front,
22:35
and were picked up by the Pide
22:37
for such heinous crimes as leafletting and
22:39
graffiti. Prison, they tell me,
22:42
was like a concentrated miniature of
22:44
Salazarian society. News was
22:46
scant, communication largely forbidden, and
22:48
the regime specialized in a
22:50
kind of bruiseless, ill treatment,
22:52
sleep deprivation. When
22:54
the prisoners went on hunger strike to demand
22:56
better conditions, they were force-fed. I never
22:59
eat between meals, Sal had quipped to
23:01
the guards, sealing his lips, no matter.
23:04
They forced a hose attached to a funnel down one
23:06
of his nostrils. Yet, compared
23:08
with its authoritarian counterparts in
23:10
Chile, Brazil, or Argentina, Salazar's
23:12
repression, Sal Muses, was rather
23:15
smooth. Fear, as
23:17
he puts it, was efficiently generalized.
23:20
The dictatorship was also singularly pragmatic,
23:22
cozying up to and then dropping
23:24
its fascist allies like Mussolini. This
23:27
pragmatism is what helped the regime
23:29
to last so long, says another
23:31
ex-subversive, Fernando Pereira Marques. Banged
23:33
up by the regime in 1968 after
23:36
an attempted town occupation, Professor Marques
23:38
later became an academic and socialist
23:40
party MP. A von
23:42
Kjelenau in his 70s, this militant turned
23:44
teacher, has a theory too about the
23:46
recent rebirth of the far right in
23:48
Portugal. A new party called Chega did
23:50
well in national elections last month when
23:53
it became the third largest force in
23:55
Portuguese politics. Its success is
23:57
born of a kind of mistrust of
23:59
the political centre. in Lisbon, Professor Marques
24:01
says, and of politicians in general. Perhaps
24:04
Professor Marques, along with Saul,
24:06
Jose Luiz and others soon
24:08
to celebrate the 50th anniversary
24:10
defeat of Europe's longest-running dictatorship,
24:13
will feel the need to shout, ìVashis mon
24:15
unkamais!î a little louder this time. Simon
24:19
Bush. And finally,
24:21
exotic birds have adapted to live
24:23
alongside humans in some of the
24:25
world's major cities. In
24:27
Hong Kong, itís yellow-crested cockatoos
24:29
that you might see swooping
24:32
through the skyline. Originating
24:35
from the jungles of Southeast
24:37
Asia, Hong Kongís cockatoos have
24:39
not always been welcomed, and
24:41
were once considered a pest. Today,
24:44
there are protected species. Stephen
24:47
Moss tells the story of why theyíre
24:49
now thriving in Hong Kong. A
24:52
busy city park surrounded by a
24:54
sea of steel, glass and concrete
24:57
is not where Iíd expect to find
24:59
one of the worldís rarest and most
25:01
endangered birds. But this location,
25:04
in the heart of Hong Kongís
25:06
central business district, is no ordinary
25:08
urban oasis. Itís
25:10
home to 200 or so
25:13
yellow-crested cockatoos. That doesnít sound
25:15
a lot, but itís roughly 10% of the entire
25:18
world population. And
25:20
early on a Sunday morning, as I
25:22
dodge hordes of joggers and weave my
25:24
way around the Tai Chi enthusiasts, Iím
25:26
hoping to see them. At
25:29
first all I can hear is
25:31
the chirping of tree sparrows and
25:33
the more tuneful calls of Hong
25:35
Kongís most ubiquitous bird, the red-whiskered
25:37
bauble. But then I
25:40
notice a distant screech, which has been
25:42
described as sounding like a cross between
25:44
a car alarm and a braying donkey.
25:47
And there, right above my head, I
25:50
see a score of these large white
25:52
birds heading towards a fruiting tree to
25:54
feed. As they land, I
25:57
catch a glimpse of the bright, sulphur-yellow
25:59
quid. that gives the species its
26:01
name. Yellow-crested cockatoos
26:04
are not native to Hong Kong. Their
26:06
original home is in the dense
26:09
rainforests of eastern Indonesia and neighbouring
26:11
Timor-Leste. There, they could
26:13
once be found in vast numbers. But
26:16
during the 1980s, nearly 100,000 of these handsome
26:20
birds were legally exported to be
26:22
sold as pets in the caged
26:24
bird trade, with countless more trapped
26:27
illegally. Today, fewer than
26:29
2,000 mature individuals remain in
26:31
the wild. That's
26:34
why the Global Conservation Organisation,
26:36
BirdLife International, has
26:38
classified the yellow-crested cockatoo
26:40
as critically endangered, just
26:43
one level above extinct in the
26:45
wild. So, what
26:47
are these exotic birds doing here, in
26:49
one of the world's busiest urban jungles? The
26:52
story takes us all the way
26:54
back to December 1941, when, following
26:57
the bombing of Pearl Harbour, Hong
26:59
Kong was about to fall to
27:01
the invading Japanese army. Faced
27:04
with inevitable defeat, the
27:06
British colonial governor decided to release
27:08
his entire bird collection, to save
27:11
them falling into enemy hands. It's
27:14
a convincing story, and while I heard
27:16
several times during my visit here, unfortunately
27:19
it also appears to be an
27:21
urban myth, with absolutely
27:23
no basis in the historical record.
27:26
These noisy flocks weren't actually seen here
27:28
until the late 1950s, long
27:31
after the end of the Second World War. But
27:35
however the cockatoos arrived, the
27:37
fact remains that, with their
27:39
Indonesian population plummeting towards oblivion,
27:41
Hong Kong, where numbers have quadrupled
27:43
since the 1970s, is a Noah's
27:45
Ark for this species. Dr
27:48
Astrid Anderson, a Swedish scientist based in
27:51
Hong Kong, who has studied them closely
27:53
in the urban parks, agrees.
27:56
These birds have found a safe haven here,
27:58
she tells me. It just shows
28:00
that humans and wildlife really can coexist
28:02
even in the middle of a city.
28:05
However, Dr Anderson, who has been dubbed
28:07
the Queen of the Cockatoos, believes that
28:10
they may still not be safe. Hong
28:13
Kong is a thoroughfare for the
28:15
legal wildlife trade, she explains, and
28:18
that provides a cover for the illegal
28:20
wildlife trade to operate in parallel. To
28:23
try to pinpoint their origin, Dr
28:26
Anderson has developed a test which,
28:28
by analysing the chemical composition of
28:30
the cockatoos' feathers, can reveal what
28:32
they've recently been eating. This
28:35
then enables her to discover if
28:37
an individual bird has been legally
28:39
bred in captivity, or was taken
28:41
illegally from the wild. As
28:44
with many endangered members of the Parrot
28:46
tribe, there's a paradox at the heart
28:48
of the yellow-crested cockatoos' plight. They
28:51
were initially driven to the edge of
28:53
extinction to meet the insatiable
28:55
demands of the caged bird trade. Yet,
28:58
ironically, the ultimate salvation of
29:00
the species lies in these
29:02
birds, whose ancestors were brought
29:04
here in cages, but
29:07
now fly free above my head
29:09
in this busy city park. Stephen
29:12
Moss. And that's all
29:14
for today. We'll be back again next
29:16
Saturday morning. Do join us. I'm
29:21
Kavita Puri, and in three million
29:23
from BBC Radio 4, I
29:26
hear extraordinary eyewitness accounts that tell
29:28
the story for the first time
29:30
of the Bengal famine which
29:32
happened in British India in the middle of
29:34
the Second World War. At
29:37
least three million people died. It's
29:40
one of the largest losses of civilian life
29:42
from the Allied side, and there isn't a
29:44
museum, a memorial, or
29:46
even a plaque to those who died. How
29:49
can the memory of three million people
29:51
just disappear? Eighty
29:56
years on, I tracked down
29:58
first-hand accounts. and make
30:01
new discoveries and hear
30:03
remarkable stories and explore why
30:05
remembrance is so complicated in
30:07
Britain, India and Bangladesh. Listen
30:10
to 3 million on BBC
30:12
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30:19
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