The National Centre for Performing Arts or The Egg.

China may soon be the next superpower with its economic weight and as a tourist in China, you might feel that people are free, being able to own things and work as they want. But I tend to judge a country's level of freedom by the way they treat the press. China is still afraid of journalists. We came to do a simple cultural programme, featuring a famous piano player Youndi Yi. But we weren't able to bring in our own equipment because the Chinese put a high temporary import tax on cameras. So we had to rent gear in China. You also have to work with a local production company or have someone from the government accompany you everywhere you go. So, not exactly a press-friendly place.

Despite the lack of freedom, China is a wonderful place. Beijing is a big modern city with clean streets and dazzling lights. The people are friendly and the whole thing makes you want to go out and learn Chinese!


Maybe one fact leading to China's economic success was its one-child rule to reduce its population. Established in 1979 by Deng Xiaoping, the law was meant to be temporary, but is still in place a quarter of a century later. The law has maybe had its economic effect but does have secondary social effects. The Chinese prefer to have a boy and there have been many cases of ending a pregnancy if it is a girl. Now there are many young men left without hope of finding a bride and many young women enjoying a good education, social mobility and a large choice of future mates.

Everyone gets along in Azerbaijan

I'm here to film a report for Euronews on the Intercultural Dialogue Forum. Azerbaijan is really at the crossroads of many cultures. To illustrate the story, we filmed four different religious ceremonies, Jewish, Russian Orthodox, Catholic and Muslim. Having been to four different religious prayers in one day, I should have all bases covered for the afterlife.


It would be nice if religions were always that open. As one delegate said, the problem isn't religion... it is those who try to use religion for their own political purposes. The church, synagogue and mosque invited us in and were very hospitable. At the synagogue, mosque and orthodox church I was allowed to film anywhere and I did try to get a lot of different angles. Only the catholic church said I could only film from the back of the church.


The last time I was in Baku, I was in the Soviet Union. Today, this vibrant city of four and a half million is unrecognisable from that not so distant past. With new oil wealth, the city is being completely revamped. New construction seems to follow a building code to respect the architectural heritage of the city. The old soviet style buildings are all being torn down. Parks and façades are beautifully lit at night as the cool evening air off the Caspian sea rolls in.

The talk at the forum is of cultural diversity, acceptance of each other and tolerance. Azerbaijan was one of the first nations to give women the vote. But the crossroads of culture is sadly also a battlefield of politics. The explosive Caucus region is to the north, with Tchetchnya and Ossetia. Iran is to the south. Azerbaijan is still at war, albeit a cease-fire, with Armenia. Tolerance and acceptance have a lot to do with being able to eat well, work and discuss freely. 
You can see the report here:
http://www.euronews.net/2011/04/08/azerbaijan-a-forum-for-intercultural-dialogue/

A Gaddafi in a ski suit and refugees with no where to go.

After a week of filming refugees, I feel a mental tiredness from seeing and hearing the same horrible stories over and over. It's not that I have reached a point of not caring, not at all. As a journalist, we have to keep a certain distance from the story or we couldn't do our job. But we are humans too and you can't help feeling very sad for these poor people who have lost everything, yet smile. So we smile and don't let things get to you... and that is mentally fatiguing.

Where are is the ski lift?

Yesterday. Gaddafi's son, Hanibal Gaddafi arrived at the border here. Sadly we missed him by 10 minutes. There was no camera present, but a Swiss photographer, Guillaume Briquet, took pictures and gave us some, which we sent to Euronews. He didn't say anything to the press, but looked like he just got back from a ski trip in Switzerland, dressed in a white ski suit and dark glasses.

This morning, it's back to the Choucha camp. The report is that the Tunisian's are handling things fine. The international organisations present are just crisis planning if things really get bad in Libya and another wave of refugees arrives. 

Sanitation is a big problem now in Choucha camp.

Filming in the camp, I met Daniel (his christian name, he tells me). Daniel's situation is maybe worse than other refugees because he was a clandestine worker in Libya from Burkina Faso. "In November, police came to our apartment and took us to prison," relates Daniel. "They said they would let us go if we paid 300 Dinar (around 200 euros). Some paid, but they didn't let us go. We stayed there two months and then they took us to another prison where we stayed one month. Finally they let us go and we arrived here last night."

A Bangladechi refugee takes a shower.

They are eight Burkinabes in the Choucha camp Daniel tells me. The Egyptians and Vietnamese left or are leaving. The Bangladeshis, some 13,000 out of a total of 16,000 refugees in the camp, are hoping to leave soon. The eight Burkinabes, clandestine workers, will probably have to go back the way they came... across the Sahara. "It was a very tough trip here," remembers Daniel. "Many died."

Ras Jedir border with Libya

After spending most of the night filming and editing a story on refugees finally taking a plane home, we headed to the border this morning to see who is left. As we drove to the border, a tide of humans walked along the dusty road toward the Choucha refugee camp. They were all Bengladeshis. These poor people have had to watch while others, Egyptians, Vietnamese and others, take buses to the airport and a plane ride back home. There is no bus for the Bangladeshis, the Ghanians, Malgach and others, whose countries are too poor or can`t be bothered to come and get them. "I`m just following the others," says one young refugee, who looks like he should be in school. "Everyone else is leaving. No one is helping the Bangladeshis."

In the evening we went back to the border to see what was going on. It was mostly empty. A family of Bangladeshi was crossing the border with two little girls dressed with beads in their hair. I wondered what they may have been through as Gaddafi`s troops have sealed the border now and there are some 12,000 people wanting to flee into Tunisia. The Libyan side looked abandonned. Even the green flags were gone. The Tunisian side is strewn with debris, blankets and a few broken suitcases.

A Bangladeshi refugee succombs to exhaustion.

It is a bit frustrating as a journalist here because we all want to get into Libya, but it is at the least very dangerous and probably impossible as Gaddafi tries to hold on to power. I think about those risking their lives to take pictures from their phones as hundreds of professionals are sitting here waiting for a chance to get in. The dream is to be there when the Libyan people finally take power and as their neighbors in Egypt and Tunisia, make their voices heard. But they are up against a madman. Can they do it on their own?

Ras Jedir on the Libyan border

They wait in apparent good humour given all they've been through. Over 70,000 have passed this border crossing and thousands are still waiting. At left is a picture of those still waiting to pass into Tunisia escaping fighting, robbery and agression from Gaddafi's troops. Many have spent days to get here. Most are Egyptian as well as many Bangladeshi and Vietnamese.

As they trickle through, the Tunisian put up an heroic effort to distribute food, water and blankets. It is very cold at night here in the desert. We stay in a hotel without heat and I sleep with blankets and a coat feeling very priviledged when I think of all those still waiting to cross the border. International help is just beginning to arrive as this potential human catastrophy mounts.

Camps are spreading out as thousands carry all their belongings across into a field and set up tents from the United Nations Refugee Agency. The Tunisian army and nacient government are trying their best to organise this human tide. Along the road, we have seen private cars filled with bread and mattresses for the refugees. I think the Tunisians are very proud that the Arab revolution started in their country and they are being very generous to help their neighbors. The Tunisian flag is even carried by some refugees as a sign of freedom.

Beautiful Moscow

Sergei Rozhkov, Galya Voronzova and me.

I haven't been back to Moscow in years. So i prepared myself psychologically for the normal problems at the airport; complicated customs agents, dark dirty airport, long lines and menacing passport control. I arrived in the new improved Moscow! A brand new Sheremetovo airport even smells new. Bright open spaces greet newcomers. My first big surprise was when the lady in uniform checking my passport smiled! Incredible! Now there is even a train which takes you directly from the airport to Bielorusskie train station in the center of Moscow.

I used to live near that train station so I first went on a nostalgic walk to see my old apartment. It was much the same, maybe cleaner, but there were many more cars parked in every available and non available space. Traffic is Moscow is horrible, but the metro is one of the best in the world. Trains run every three minutes.The stations are clean and could almost be an historical museum. In fact, one train IS a museum. At right, you can see the wagons painted and inside hang real artworks. And it is also used for transport. Culture is an integral part of Russian life. They all seem to know the classical painters and composers and now they even take their culture with them on the metro!

Things have changed so much here in 15 years that parts of Moscow are hard to even recognize. Life is still hard here for most, but has greatly improved for many. On Manezhny Ploshad, where I once filmed huge demonstrations, there is a huge underground mall with gardens and fountains topping it off. At left, a coffee house four floors underground where you can have a cappucino on a terrace in front of a roman fountain as the snow blows overhead in the beautiful minus 20 degree Russian winter.

Sick kids and renovated castles in Romania

Imola and Viorika are two little girls who have tuberculosis. Their hair is cut short to avoid lice. Tuberculosis affects many countries in Europe, but especially Romania. In this small center for TB in the Transylvanian Alps, 18 children are being treated. Most of them are gypsies. I am still confused about gypsies. There are many who have integrated into the societies where they live, but others seem to live precariously in temporary, dirty shelters with very little family structure. Tuberculosis of course loves such conditions and these poor kids suffer. Many times all the children (we were concentrating on children, but adults are also badly affected) in a family are sick. The staff at the center really dedicate themselves to the children, trying to find the resources to take care of them.

Kids are great and can get through many hardships without even complaining. They sing and smile and take hundreds of pills over a six month period to kill the disease. Kristina, at right, is 13. All her siblings are sick and her older sister died last year from TB. I gave her my little camera to take some pictures and she is a natural photographer. She took the picture above and framed it very well. I asked her and Imola and Viorika what they wanted to be when they grew up. I think the arrival of a TV camera crew influenced their decision... they all want to be photographers!

Romania is a beautiful country. We didn't have much time to see it on this trip, but on the way back to Bucharest, we briefly saw Peles Castle. Built by King Carol I of Romania, the castle combines many different European styles. Some call it the most beautiful castle in Europe... maybe because everyone can see a style from their own country as French, German, Czech, Turkish, Romanian, Polish, Hungarian workers, architects and craftsmen all joined forces in its construction. Ceausescu, the communist dictator, of course didn't like it very much and the castle degraded durning the communist period. It has since been renovated and is open to tourists from all over.