Crossing Continents

In one of the most violent countries on earth, peace has broken out. In March, a truce was brokered between El Salvador's two most violent street gangs; they agreed to stop killing each other.

The Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 are criminal outfits that trace their origins to Los Angeles. In the 1990s, older members were deported from the US and forged local 'branches' on the streets of El Salvador. Since the truce - brokered in prisons with the gangs' leaders - the murder rate of this small Central American nation (with the highest homicide rate in the world after Honduras) has been cut by more than half.

In Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly visits the imprisoned leaders of both gangs to find out how the deal was done. And she finds many Salvadorans are relieved. Now they can go out at night, and their children can play again on the streets. But the truce has not been without its critics. Should the state sponsor a non-aggression treaty between criminal organisations? And is there more to the agreement than Salvadorans are being told?

Many are asking if this is a sustainable peace. Some question whether the murder rate is really falling, alleging that actually the gangs are continuing to kill and hiding the corpses. Claudia thinks this is what happened to her son - a teenager associated with the Barrio 18 who disappeared last month after a local shooting. She says she knows he's dead. All she wants is the return of his body.

But for all the uncertainty, the gains are dramatic. Not only has the murder rate plummeted, but the number of public hospital emergency admissions in San Salvador for people injured by guns or knives has fallen by nearly two-thirds. Can the truce last? El Salvador is holding its breath.

For decades, Turkey's Kurds have been struggling against a state that used to deny their very existence as a separate people. In the low level war between the Turkish military and the militant Kurdish group, the PKK, both side have been accused of atrocities. In the 29 years of fighting up to last year's ceasefire, at least 40,000 people died and hundreds of villages were destroyed. But now, just when Kurds in neighbouring Iraq are considering establishing an independent state, and many believe the chaos in Syria will change borders across the region, Kurds in Turkey are increasingly reconciled to remaining within existing frontiers. As Turkey pursues peace talks with the PKK, the militant movement's supporters talk of changing society, not borders. And already, they've initiated some radical experiments.

Pro-PKK towns and villages across eastern Turkey are now each governed by two co-mayors, male and female, and the new system has propelled many dynamic young women into power in regions that were once socially conservative. One is a survivor of domestic violence determined to use her position to encourage other women to speak up about what until now has been a taboo subject. She's not just the first woman mayor of her town, but also the first woman ever to get a divorce there. Tim Whewell travels to the region to meet her and other social reformers, and discover why so many of Turkey's Kurds say they have turned their back on nationalism, and want to express their identity in ways they say are more modern.

Producers: Charlotte Pritchard and Guney Yildiz.

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.

Bucharest, in Romania, is arguably Europe’s most dangerous capital city. It’s not the crime that’s the problem – it’s the buildings. Many of them don’t comply with basic laws and building regulations. Permits are regularly faked. And yet Bucharest is the most earthquake prone European capital. A serious quake would cause many of the buildings to collapse, with a potential loss of life into the thousands. Some years ago a red dot was put on a number of buildings in the city which were in danger of collapse. Nothing else has happened since. A microcosm of the problem is a type of building called ‘camine de nefamilisti’ or, ‘homes for those without families’. These were built during the Ceaucescu era to temporarily house workers brought in from the countryside and people who were still single after university. The single room flats, the size of a prison cell, with one communal shower and three Turkish style toilets per floor were never meant for families. But after the fall of Communism many of these ‘matchboxes’ ended up in private hands and conditions deteriorated with whole families moved into spaces designed for a single person. Simona Rata grew up in one of these buildings. For Crossing Continents she returns to the ‘camine de nefamilisti’ and finds little has changed since her childhood. The overcrowded blocks with poor sanitary conditions make tackling Covid difficult and the stability of the buildings remains a source of grave concern. Reporter and producer: Simona Rata. Editor, Bridget Harney

Tessa Dunlop travels to Romania to investigate why a proposed open-cast gold mine has caused the longest-lasting political storm in the country since the end of Communism.

The mine, in the rural community of Rosia Montana in the Transylvanian mountains in western Romania, would be Europe's largest. Its supporters, including most locals, say it would bring much-needed jobs to the area, which has suffered very high unemployment since the last mine closed there a few years ago, after two millennia of gold mining.

But opponents, ranging from local shopkeepers to NGOs in Bucharest and abroad, argue that the project would destroy what they see as the area's only chance for more sustainable development: turning the 2000-year old Roman mines located in those same mountains into tourist attractions, perhaps as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The mining company admits that many of the Roman galleries would be destroyed by the open-cast mine, but they are largely inaccessible anyway. As a quid pro quo, the company is already restoring those galleries that will be protected, to make them accessible and a tourism destination.

Is the destruction of the majority of the Roman mines a price worth paying for the restoration of a few? Or is the conflict about something else entirely?

Some campaigners admit that their real fight is not with the company, but with the government, because they suspect official corruption. Meanwhile politicians say it is easier to cut public salaries than to give the go-ahead to a big project like this, precisely because of the ensuing suspicion of sleaze.

The project is seen as a test case for prosperity, transparency and good governance for Romania.

Producer: Arlene Gregorius.