Crossing Continents Folgen

Writer and broadcaster Maria Margaronis follows the route taken by migrants fleeing war or poverty who are risking their lives to reach the Europe Union. It is estimated that around 75 thousand people are attempting to make the perilous journey each year in the hands of unscrupulous traffickers. They are fleeing from war-torn countries like Afghanistan and Somalia or simply in search of a better life where their economic prospects aren't so bleak. Some of them never make it, suffocating in the back of a crowded lorry or drowning in the fast flowing river that marks the border between Turkey and Greece. The programme meets up with migrants in Istanbul, on the narrow Bosphorus Strait, which has served as the crossroads of the world for thousands of years. There are children making the journey on their own and one man who has lost his fingers and toes to frostbite on a perilous journey over the mountains from Iran. Two of his companions died. The Turkish authorities confess to being overwhelmed by the numbers which are estimated to be up to 250 people a day. Illegal migrants are detained but seldom, it seems, sent back to the countries they came from. There has been an attempt to clamp down on the people traffickers but there are huge profits to be made. The most dangerous part of the trip is along Turkey's border with Greece. The Greeks are supposed to be building an eight mile fence but that still leaves a river which is 125 miles long. Traffickers put their charges into cheap inflatable boats and push them across, regardless of whether they are able to handle a boat or to swim. Many of them can't. For those that do make it, there is no Promised Land but an economic crisis and yet more troubles ahead.

In this week's Crossing Continents, Mukul Devichand tells the stories of Shanghai's rapidly ageing population. China's natural ageing process has been accelerated by the One Child Policy. Mukul tells the stories of an ageing city and asks whether China's rapid economic growth could be undermined.Shanghai's image is youthful and contemporary, of a globalised metropolis buying into a new lifestyle at chains like Ikea. But the Ikea Shanghai store is home to a different category -- and age -- of customer. The store canteen has become a meeting point for elderly singles, looking for love and friendship. It's a story repeated across Shanghai: in places you may expect to millions of young people, you'll see the elderly. Like the rest of urban China, Shanghai is growing old. A quarter of the city's resident population is now retired, putting it in the same demographic league as countries like the UK or Germany. But ageing in China is different. Its fertility rates have dropped at a speed unprecedented in modern history because its "One Child" policy. 30 years after the policy started, the speed of ageing is faster in China than anywhere else. The burden of ageing is not only coming faster, it's also much also harsher here, because China is still a developing country -- with hundreds of millions of poor people to support, as well as hundreds of millions of additional elderly. That has led to a deep seated anxiety in China: will the country grow too old to get rich?Nestled amid skyscrapers, Mukul tells the stories of the old Shanghai of inner city districts, a place of tumbledown old blocks where the elderly are concentrated. He meets the couples and families struggling with new complaints, such as dementia and alzheimers, under the burden of low incomes and limited welfare. This story of poverty amid plenty symbolises the deeper worry: of the expense of an ageing China in a country where elderly care has traditionally been managed by the family.In the same city districts, public and private nursing homes are now opening their doors. These cater to a growing demand from families who can't manage the traditional custom of "many generations under one roof" and represent a big cultural change in China. But who will pay for this kind of care nationally? Mukul tells the stories of the rural migrants, caught between the gaps of China's welfare system -- the millions for whom such care is simply not an option.What can be done? One solution is to encourage more babies in each family. But that is antithetical to China's historically draconian "One Child" family planning, which is now deeply entrenched in the culture. Mukul visits a family planning centre, which now encourages some couples to have more than one -- and finds the couples aren't always listening. He speaks to Shanghai's leading family planning officials to ask if they are changing the "One Child" policy, and how fast.At its root, the real problem is not just too many elderly. Rather it's a shortage of young workers, threatening China's economic model itself. A lack of willing youth is a huge issue for a country whose entire business model is based on millions of cheap workers. In the industrial zones south of Shanghai, Mukul tells the stories of a crisis in labour. Will China's factory of the world collapse under the burden of ageing?

Lucy Ash visits Russia's new energy frontier in the Arctic Yamal region and explores the impact oil and gas extraction is having on the indigenous people there. Gradually but inexorably, reindeer give way to railroads and gas rigs. She goes to stay with a family of herders near the base of the Yamal Peninsula, whose name in the local Nenets language means "the end of the earth." Yamal is home to the largest single area of reindeer husbandry in the world and unlike many indigenous people of the north in Canada, the USA and other parts of Russia, the Nenets herders have proved remarkably resilient. They survived both collectivisation in Soviet times and the chaos of the transition to a market economy in the 1990s. But now there is a new threat as Vladimir Putin has vowed to "turn Yamal into the new oil and gas province of Russia." Lucy's host in the tundra, Nikolai Khudi, is philosophical about the changing world around him and wary of criticising the state monopoly Gazprom. The flow of oil and gas revenue to the region has brought social benefits such as decent schools and hospitals. Many nomads have willingly given up their traditional lives, and even those who've remained on the tundra now enjoy snow mobiles, satellite dishes and mobile phones. But Nikolai's brother Yevgeny worries their way of life is endangered and that fish may soon disappear from lakes and rivers because of the drilling.But Moscow is determined to exploit the treasures under the permafrost. The president elect is heavily dependent on hydrocarbons and is counting on them to fulfil recent campaign promises. At the current levels of price and consumption, the natural gas reserves in Russia's Arctic region, would generate enough fuel to feed Europe for around 75 years, with a total value of almost $17 trillion. The fate of this frozen territory thousands of miles from the Kremlin speaks volumes about the Russian state both past and present.