Original subtitles

Hello and welcome to Global Eye

from the BBC World Service.

I'm Carine Torbey, the BBC's Beirut correspondent,

and this week I'll be bringing you up-to-date with

what has been a tumultuous year

in my home country, Lebanon.

In the next half hour, we will bring you some of the best of

our global investigative journalism and reportage.

Just over a year ago, Israel launched a sophisticated

and unprecedented attack on

the Iran-backed political and armed militant group Hezbollah,

detonating thousands of pagers

and walkie talkies booby-trapped with explosives across Lebanon.

It was the opening strike in an Israeli campaign

that would cripple Hezbollah

and leave much of the country devastated.

I'll be exploring how what happens here could shape

the future of the entire Middle East.

Later in the programme...

..we'll be in Hong Kong, where new crackdowns

have meant only people seen as loyal to Beijing can hold public office.

The Eye team goes behind closed doors to

what life is really like in the city now,

uncovering a growing culture of surveillance

and people informing on each other.

And... Hey, Klaus. Hey.

Is that the pass? Yeah, this is the pass.

..we'll bring you the story of a female scientist going

to extraordinary lengths and battling nature's extremes...

It's a lot of snow, huh? Yeah. Super dangerous.

..to collect data that could help save the planet and us.

I was born in Lebanon and I've been reporting from here

for the last decade.

It's a beautiful Mediterranean country

where opposites coexist and differences

are embraced and celebrated, with Shia and Sunni Muslims

and Christians living side-by-side.

But Lebanon's place in the world,

bordering Israel and Syria,

two of the region's most influential players,

means it's been in the middle of conflict for decades.

And over the last 12 months,

Lebanon has been through one of

the most turbulent chapters

in its modern history,

with a brutal conflict escalating between

the Islamist Shia group Hezbollah and Israel.

This is one of the sites where an unprecedented

event took place last year.

On September 17th and 18th,

thousands of pagers and walkie talkie radios

booby-trapped with explosives detonated across Lebanon.

The devices belonged to members of Hezbollah.

Dozens of people, including civilians,

were killed and thousands injured.

Israel later claimed responsibility.

EXPLOSION

Within weeks of the pagers attack,

Israel invaded southern Lebanon,

its sixth such incursion

in nearly 50 years.

It followed almost a year of cross-border hostilities.

The day after Hamas' attack on Israel in October 2023,

Hezbollah had begun attacking Israeli military positions,

firing rockets, missiles and drones into Israel

in support of Gaza.

Hezbollah, like Hamas, is backed by Iran,

and both have called for the destruction of Israel.

Hezbollah emerged out of Shia militias formed

to resist Israel after its invasion

of southern Lebanon during the country's 1975-1990 Civil War.

Its political wing has been an influential force

in Lebanese politics,

with seats in Cabinet and Parliament,

and in some parts of the country,

it has managed schools and hospitals.

For decades, the group was led by Hassan Nasrallah,

until he was killed in an Israeli air strike in September 2024.

His funeral, held at a packed sports stadium close to his shrine here,

was intended as a show of defiance.

But Hezbollah has been severely weakened over the past year.

It is believed that much of its infrastructure

has been destroyed in southern Lebanon,

its weapons arsenal has been depleted

and thousands of its fighters killed.

The conflict has had a massive impact on the population, too.

Over one million people have been displaced and thousands

are still unable to return to their homes in the border towns.

Last year, I spoke to terrified families who feared,

with good reason, that nowhere in Lebanon was safe for them.

A ceasefire was agreed in November.

But a year on from the invasion,

the destruction continues.

Israel is still carrying out air strikes

in what it says are operations

to target an ongoing Hezbollah threat,

including in this part of the city.

Israeli forces have moved back from the south but are still occupying

several areas on the border.

And there are political considerations at play here, too.

Lebanon's new US-backed government is pushing to disarm Hezbollah,

now led by cleric and politician Naim Qassem.

He has rejected that.

Hezbollah and its allies have been a major political force

representing the Shia community,

with the party's MPs having the largest number of votes

among the electorate in the country.

Fresh elections next year will be a major test of Hezbollah's power.

These developments unfold against

a backdrop of deep regional volatility.

Lebanon stands at the heart of

the Middle East's most explosive fault lines.

Instability here could cause

the unravelling of the wider Middle East.

Now we're going to take you to Hong Kong,

where the BBC Eye team has been investigating

the rise of "patriots-only rule" -

legislation brought in by China to ensure only people

it deems patriots can govern the city.

Critics warn Hong Kong is drifting towards

a climate reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution,

with the arrest of opposition figures,

the silencing of critical media and a growing culture

of surveillance and anonymous reporting.

KNOCKING

When Britain returned Hong Kong to China,

the territory's freedoms were guaranteed for 50 years.

But is that promise being kept?

China declared that only patriots can rule Hong Kong.

Now, words can be a crime

and safety is found in silence.

In the scramble to prove loyalty,

is Hong Kong risking its liberal identity?

Ronson Chan is an award-winning veteran reporter

and former chairman of the journalists' union.

He's an outspoken defender of press freedom.

THEY SHOUT

Ronson's popularity grew when he livestreamed

the 2019 pro-democracy protests

to millions of viewers.

In 2020, after a year of demonstrations, China acted.

Bypassing the city's parliament,

Beijing imposed the National Security Law.

The law granted sweeping new powers to the police,

including increased surveillance with severe penalties

for vaguely defined offences,

such as undermining the government

or colluding with foreign forces.

Beijing's move worked.

Hong Kong went from being one of the most liberal cities in Asia

to arresting journalists and academics.

Hundreds were arrested for speaking up.

Many of the city's independent news sites

were forced to close.

Ronson livestreamed his home being raided.

As the police gained more powers, a "patriots-only rule" emerged -

only those who swore loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party

could hold positions in government.

Businessman Innes Tang has long campaigned

for closer links with mainland China.

After the law came into force,

Tang and his team posted videos each time

they reported people to the police.

They monitored the media for possible cases.

Tang set up a hotline for the public

to report any national security offences.

Tang says he used his own money

to organise rallies in support of the police,

as they took on the pro-democracy protests.

As a culture of anonymous informing takes hold,

at least 32 political parties,

activist groups and media outlets have shut down.

Tonight, Book Punch is hosting a talk about the war in Ukraine.

The officer stayed for 15 minutes and then left.

The event was allowed to continue.

He came back two more times that evening

and told Pong he might be prosecuted

for hosting a public event without an entertainment licence.

Pong says Book Punch has been inspected

as many as 10 times in 15 days by different government departments.

Every school now has mandatory lessons

designed to build national identity in young people.

Chan Lui Ling-yee helps schools

promote a stronger sense of Chinese identity.

Liberal studies have been replaced

by a course on citizenship ideals, lawfulness and patriotism.

Books which contain so-called "bad ideologies"

are purged from public libraries.

Some new textbooks falsely state

that Hong Kong was never a British colony.

APPLAUSE

CHINESE NATIONAL ANTHEM PLAYS

Visits to mainland China

are now mandatory for all high-school students.

Ronson Chan says press freedom in Hong Kong has been decimated.

Whilst live-streaming,

Ronson was arrested and charged with obstruction.

Worried that the rise of the patriots has gone too far,

Tang has stopped reporting suspects.

An estimated 300,000 Hongkongers have left the city

since the National Security Law was imposed.

For many Hongkongers like Ronson,

it is the love for their city that makes them stay.

Now, here's some of the best content

the World Service has produced across the last few days.

For twice-weekly analysis of what's going on

inside the White House, catch Americast.

This week, the team go behind the scenes of the Gaza ceasefire deal.

And regular viewers may remember that, a few weeks ago,

Global Eye came to you from Alaska, presented by Anna Holligan.

While she was there, Anna met a local community

powering itself from a micro energy grid,

and the scientists turning mushrooms into insulation.

Hear more on People Fixing The World.

Listen to both of these on BBC Sounds

or wherever you get your podcasts.

Now, the extraordinary story of a female scientist

undertaking challenging expeditions, navigating glaciers and hurricanes.

Heidi Sevestre is a glaciologist battling nature's extremes

to collect scientific data that could help save the planet and us.

This is her story.

So that's all your stuff here?

Yeah, so this is... Well, it's not all of it,

but you know it's a luxury expedition

if you don't have to cut your toothbrush in half.

Yeah, you're right, actually. I haven't cut mine yet!

I'm Heidi, I'm a glaciologist,

and I love ice, I love ice and snow.

Oh, yeah, right, yeah. But...

Klaus is a journalist but also a scientist

who founded a charity called Project Pressure.

So Klaus called me a few months ago.

He told me, "Look, Heidi, I really want to go back to Uganda

"to see the glaciers of the Rwenzori Mountains."

Tiny, tiny glaciers located between Uganda and DRC.

As soon as I got this phone call, I told Klaus

I would totally clear up my schedule to join you on that expedition.

So the goal of the expedition is basically

to map the beautiful glaciers of the Rwenzoris.

I mean, this has never been done before,

so we are truly pioneers, travelling to

probably one of the most extreme

and one of the most remote environments on Earth.

We use two different tools.

We use drones to basically take a lot of pictures

of the surface of the glaciers.

Putting the pictures together

gives us a 3D model of the surface of the ice.

But then we also need another instrument

to measure what's happening beneath the surface of these glaciers,

and this is where I come in.

We need to totally lay this out,

so I don't know if you want to take one end.

Please, tell me what to do, you're the boss.

You see there's a little socket here.

Ready? Sure! OK. Let's go!

My job is to pull a ground-penetrating radar,

which is an instrument that basically

sends radio waves through the ice,

and we measure how long it takes for the radio waves

to travel through the entire ice thickness.

Oh, yeah, things are happening, for sure.

If they take a long time to travel,

it means that there is a lot of ice underneath our feet,

and if they don't take a lot of time, it means the ice is very thin.

Finally, we are in Uganda.

I very rarely start expeditions surrounded by forest.

Usually, where I work, there are no trees,

there's only ice and snow.

I feel way out of my comfort zone,

but I have the very best possible people around me.

I have Klaus, I have the local experts,

the local mountain guides, the porters.

They don't feel intimidated at all by what we're trying to do.

There are many risks associated with an expedition like this

in these really high mountains.

Many years ago, when I was a young student

studying glaciology,

I triggered my own avalanche that buried both me and a friend,

and luckily we both survived.

My goal is to be really aware of our surroundings

and to make sure we don't get into trouble,

because I know what it feels like to get in trouble.

Hiking through a very dense jungle is overwhelming,

but it's also incredibly beautiful.

As we continue going up the mountains,

the air is starting to get a little bit colder,

we feel the humidity even more.

There is fog dancing around those trees.

It feels like we're surrounded by kind of like very old landscapes

that has been totally left untouched by human civilisation.

Hey, Klaus! Hey. Is that the pass? Yeah, this is the pass.

We finally reached Scott-Elliot Pass,

and from the village, from the community,

it has taken us four days of walking to make it here.

But we're almost there,

just another couple of hours of more hiking to reach base camp.

You can put it over there. Thank you.

The Rwenzori Mountains are truly incredible,

because they are the highest

and most permanent source of the River Nile.

So all the water coming from these mountains

is being used by millions of peoples all the way to Egypt.

So understanding how much ice is left in these mountains is crucial,

because it gives us information

about how much longer will we be able to benefit

from the water coming down from these glaciers.

So base camp is where our research expedition actually truly begins.

Our plan is to hike a couple of hours

to reach the Stanley Plateau,

which is the largest ice mass in the Rwenzori Mountains.

As we walk up, I turn on my head lamp,

and I notice that everything around me

is covered with many, many inches of snow.

It's a lot of snow, huh? I think it's super tricky.

It's going to take us twice as long to get up there,

and it's super dangerous, yeah.

Ah, first steps on Stanley!

So I'm finally stepping on the glacier,

and there is not one second to waste.

Pulling a radar on a glacier at this altitude

is definitely very hard work.

And as soon as my guides

help me to put that heavy backpack on my shoulders,

I feel my back absolutely seizing.

I have to make a decision in a split second.

Am I going to be able to pull the radar or not?

And to be fair, I don't have

any other options than doing the science.

Every step I make, I can feel pins and needles in my lower back.

It's taking every gram of energy I have left in my body,

but still I keep going.

And I can see that the data we're collecting is amazing.

And so that gives me, you know,

fantastic motivation to just keep going.

Even though I'm in a lot of pain, I absolutely have to keep going.

Let's just go down, I guess, towards the weather station, no?

Our data that we're processing right now

will probably show how quickly these glaciers are melting

in response to climate change.

So we not only want the communities to use the data,

but the entire world to really understand

the value of these glaciers.

You know, if we lose these glaciers of the Rwenzoris,

not only we lose a big part

of the identity of the people from the Rwenzori Mountains,

but it's so much more than this.

We lose a part of our human culture, of our human identity.

We're transforming environments

that will never go back to where they used to be.

Thanks for joining me in Lebanon.

We want your feedback on Global Eye.

Please let us know on social media.

Global Eye will be back next week. Goodbye.