From Our Own Correspondent

Humphrey Hawksley's dispatches from the famous BBC program From Our Own Correspondent.

The patriot act

30th June 2004

BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA June 2004

As America prepares for its November presidential election, civil rights are turning their attention to the raft of new laws brought in to fight terror after the September 11th acts. Central to these are the politically named USA Patriot Act which gives intelligence agencies new powers to keep watch on American citizens. It has been condemned as dragging America back into it dark modern history – when the FBI was used to itimidate suspected communists and anti-war protesters. […]

An economist in Patagonia

27th April 2004

SANTA CRUZ, ARGENTINA April 2004

Earlier this week, the International Monetary owned up to making mistakes in dealing with Argentina’s 2001 economic crisis which pushed half the population into poverty. The IMF said it had missed warning signs that Argentina’s growth at the end of the 1990s and economic reforms were not as successful as they seemed. Why, though, had it taken so long for the IMF to be humbled. […]

Someone else in her house

28th February 2004

ZAGREB, CROATIA February 2004

Croatia is pursuing membership on the European Union with vigor, but to achieve this it would mean handing over their war criminals to the Hague and re-settling the tens of thousands of Serbian refugees driven out by ethnic cleansing. […]

Big threats, no health care

30th December 2003

KERBALA, IRAQ, December 2003

Six months from now, America wants to hand over the government of Iraq. But what sort of people might form the new government. […]

Inside India’s nuclear program

30th November 2003

BABHA ATOMIC RESEARCH CENTRE, TROMBAY November 2003

Over the past year India and Pakistan have had a million troops facing each other down on the border with a stream of world leaders coming to their capitals appealing for peace. It’s almost five years since both countries declared their nuclear weapons – creating a specter of the world’s first nuclear war between neighboring hostile states. […]

Suicide slum

30th September 2003

CASABLANCA. MOROCCO, September 2003

Morocco is holding local elections tomorrow – nearly four months after they were postponed because of a series of coordinated car bombs in car bombs. More than forty people died, a hundred were injured and seven hundred have been rounded up as part of a security sweep to stop any more attacks. The elections may show how the attacks impacted on the popularity of the Islamic political movement. Most of the suicide bombers came from one specific area of Casablanca. […]

The politics of SARS

30th April 2003

HONG KONG April 2003

As the world-wide battle against the SARS virus continues, the Chinese – controlled administration in Hong Kong is showing its worst approval ratings ever in opinion polls with 61 per cent saying they are unhappy with the government. SARS has been traced to neighboring Guongdong province, but China has been accused of covering up the disease for months and Hong Kong has suffered more deaths per head of population than any other community in China. […]

The Christian mission

27th February 2003

ALMATY, KAZAKHSTAN, February 2003

Within the frantic diplomacy over Iraq and the campaign on the War on Terror, one question is being repeatedly asked – to what extent is President George W Bush’s view of the Islamic world driven by his Christian beliefs. The attempt to spread Christianity and Western culture through developing countries has long been an issue of debate. […]

Blood cocoa

30th May 2002

SIKASSO, MALI May 2002

A major charity working to end child slavery in the chocolate industry says the problem could be solved within a month if the will was there to act. Just over a year ago – after repeated allegations – the chocolate companies admitted that child slaves could be used in the growing of cocoa – the raw product for chocolate. They went on to sign a protocol saying that all chocolate would be free of the taint of slavery by 2005. […]

The war crime pen-pushers

30th January 2002

TALLIN, ESTONIA January 2002

In the Baltic state of Estonia, a trial resumes this week of a former KGB officer accused of crimes against humanity – one of a series of war crimes trials being pursued there since gaining its independence from the Soviet Union in the early nineties. During the Second World War, Estonia was occupied both by German and Soviet troops – but unlike in most of Europe, many of those who sided with Hitler against Stalin were seen as heroes. Now, with its imminent membership of both the European Union and NATO, Estonia is tracking down those who carried out Stalin’s dirty work. […]