wearisome. when you're sadly scattered across the globe. with the insisted you do or see if you go. to the ritz camera minutely. into system. only starts in january. w. hello and a warm welcome to focus on europe i'm simply so much gonda today we're taking a look back at some of our favorite stories of twenty eighteen and that the people who moved us people who are working to improve their lives and the lives of the people around them here in europe they're fighting in their own way against the

spread of aids and the prejudices that come along with the disease for the right to their homes for justice and equality for women. for the environment and to live in harmony with nature from. now we start in southwestern france where the battle of wills their dog gornja valley was long recognized for its well preserved nature and the exceptional cultural heritage but a massive infrastructure project would go right through the heart of the valley so these two men here are fighting to preserve and protect what's one of france's most treasured sites and that has led them to forge a rather unusual alliance. don't massacre the door don't you valley that's what this huge sign says it was put up by chateau owner claiborne to protest

a new highway now under construction right underneath his window in this beautiful part of france. something called the harsh i'm angry because the road will ruin this landscape also this entire region where i grew up and that is so did to me. the landscape has remained untouched since the middle ages nicholson's them to lead the. debris this year. it looks to be an uphill battle but in his fight against the highway cliff is joined by someone whose path you'd otherwise probably never cross a bricklayer and radical environmentalist cost he too grew up in this region and he's vowed to protect this valley no matter what. i thought. this is a massacre. a crime it's up about causes my like on the line we will fight this

and the others will join our fight or whatever the body the construction work and bring everything to a stop. the activists face a formidable adversary the door don't your local council which has so far dismissed their objections. and although the valley is a designated unesco by a sphere reserve authorities insist on building the road which will be the political editor for that we called simply have traffic jams that pollute the am that trucks travelling through the area are a safety hazard the public with them so we need to do something. yet there are many shops and restaurants along the main thoroughfare in bay knock so we really need to buy gas thank you soledad them as a party to do with. but building the bypass won't be so simple for several months

now their cost and other like minded activists have camped out in this stable here they're plotting the resistance they want to establish a defense zone an area they intend to occupy to block the construction project more and more initiatives like this are popping up across france some targeting factories others budget hotels the protest initiatives to bring together activists from all walks of life. the most famous blockade was set up near non for many years environmentalist's occupied a site earmarked for a new airport ultimately the french government caved in and shelved the project. the society is slowly realizing just how important the environment is. and how important our cultural heritage is. of year the doctor who

authorities in depart a moment or donya stress they've conducted thorough environmental research ahead of the project the plan is to line the road with thousands of newly planted trees the lead engineer ants that the two new bridges across the door don't your river crucial for reducing traffic in the town of a knock will go down in architectural history this is the new was that with it with it will be like a piece of art like the eiffel tower or the glass pyramid at the louvre building something modern can have its appeal that it could feel people will travel here to admire out to wonderful new bridges report on the long been they can focus on haiti . but claim well go see on and they have caused have valid to prevent this at all costs by joining forces the two over time have even grown to appreciate each other. well you've got to give the class struggle a rest once in

a while. some of my friends don't want to hear that. but after all a chateau not takes care of his assets. is not ideological arguments like. he's very pragmatic and that's what i like about him you know. here in the. united in this fight i've never experienced anything like this. the two won't go so far as to call each other friends but that's secondary what matters to them now is their joint struggle to preserve their beloved daughter don't you valley. now in russia one million people live with aids and that number is growing health officials say it has reached epidemic proportions in certain areas yet there is little social awareness about the disease that is something vera and vitali are trying to change

they suffer from aids themselves and they're reaching out to the public however they can but it is a lonely battle. i'm a new moron and i don't like being called an aids infector or contaminate are long gone i get cursed really horribly on the back streets before we spoke up on lupus on its own body. to tell me mccoskey has been a hiv positive for eleven years he is one of over one million russians living with a deadly virus. you're choosing to home i want to tell everyone that hiv is not a death sentence as were the people to. people who feel stigmatized by russian society varick overland co is among them. yes only i'm a chevy positive but if i'd been properly informed years ago about the virus and how to protect myself i wouldn't have gotten infected. vera and vitale live in you've got to remember. the city has one of the highest rates of infection in the

country. almost two percent of the population here have a chevy. experts have called it an epidemic. here to sing a chevy across all age groups it affects the entire population of russia and what isn't as interesting in itself. but the virus and the disease it leads to aids are often hushed up say vitale inventor. they want to change that by breaking down prejudices and ending the isolation of the infected. monette richard bobo the only thing distinguishing me from healthy people is pills four times a day to stop me from dying. pills that vitali will have to take for the rest of his life. events in medical treatment mean that h.p.v. no longer has to be a death sentence provided you get that treatment in time but many russians do not even know that they are infected. prejudices of let's insufficient education to

know where nys. well i waited eight years before telling my mother the first thing she said was and we had such high hopes in you in other words not any more about the king and her world being hiv positive means you're no longer a person reach out here ted. vera set up an association to help get people informed she also offers practical things such as free a chevy blood tests and condoms and also drives out to those hardest hit the so-called high risk groups sex workers and drug addicts. her sosia sion is one of just a handful of private initiatives and you katherine berg vera and her fellow campaigners meet those affected in hidden places. what is your test today is

negative no antibodies. but because the unsafe sex you had was only a month ago you need to come by again and i will take care of yourself it's worse. i'm scared to go anywhere else was get of being outed. or or most places the infection means shame. even if it's not your fault and i would say the condom tore during sex or if a customer just removes it. and then you start to panic you know the horrifying icky i had one such case and favors group really helped me. outside city hall and you catherine berg tell his companion in a rather different way. he's holding a banner telling people about his illness and inviting strangers to give him a hug if they're not afraid. he wants to bring down the invisible wall that he says has arisen between him and society since his infection. and the thirty year old

knows he's taking a risk. aren't you afraid i know i'm a doctor. vera has now provided counseling to over twenty women. women who come to me start thinking about how hiv is now part of their lives the one thing that counselling is my contribution in the fight against the hiv epidemic wattles to love the one that would love. if only if you're not scared. scared of what thinks. it's simply if i get any more

people hugging me i'll start crying it's so overwhelming and empowering. vitali and vera have never met but they share a common fate. both are fighting in their own way to stop the spread of aids and for the rights of hiv positive people in russia. now you've probably never heard of the small village of boy in the far north east of turkey but what happened here is a pretty remarkable place for many reasons for one women are in charge which is relatively unusual in rural turkey and they have a mensa pated themselves thanks in large part to zoom in here now she helped build the villages most important business producing a local specialty cheese it's been a huge hit it's so popular that it's now on menus in some of the best restaurants in istanbul symon is very proud of what she and the women of the village have achieved. what to cook is

a tiny village more than two thousand meters above sea level not far from turkey's border with armenia. things are a little different here than elsewhere in turkey here the women have the say whether out in the fields or in the barns. the reason for this is a long story it began with swiss cheese zoom run in their chairperson of water pose agricultural cooperative tells visitors to the village museum about a certain german named alexander kaiser. he came here over one hundred years ago and realized that the lush meadows on this plateau provided the ideal conditions for making m. and all cheese well. i like some surprise it this village owes a great deal to alexander kaiser and to his daughter she diligently carried on her father's legacy they left us a lot of cheese recipes that i had to take the time to learn. how to do it.

and the other women in the cooperative don't just make any one of the milk cheese they specialize in turkish car scrub year with a little imagination rob year sounds like greece where a variety of swiss cheese. this culture great grandson of the german pioneer knows how this came to be today he's one of the few men with any real say. but i do know that. my great grandfather came here with us was friend on their way back from the caucasus central europe peoples of russia's october revolution. they had a cheese dairy build here along the swiss model was being no prize or even designed the building himself. but you know and they were the first to make cars grab your cheese here.

but later the cheese dairy fell into disuse and the legacy was forgotten many of the village men left during the one nine hundred sixty s. and seventy's looking for work. but the women stayed and revived cheese production in the tradition of its pioneers. zoom run in or help to rebuild the old cheese dairy her husband has never hesitated to give her whatever support he can get. the. darling he said if you think you are up to this task and you believe in yourself then i believe in you to back you up. today forty six year old inner is something like the village is cheese ambassador her husband helps out he admits that it's an unusual situation you know that. our society has a very patriarchal structure. the men make the decisions it has been

a boss can be took more than they take out there but in my opinion the women here the chief of the place they deserve. the women of wanted pay are selling their grubby year hand over fist they barely even felt the effects of turkey's economic crisis visitors crowd into the village store but this isn't the only place to buy their cheese it's sold all across turkey and even exported as far as hong kong good times and want to keep it we had twelve thousand visitors last year we're glad to have them because it promotes the development of our village to include and it helps the women get a head start. to this should set an example for rural areas in turkey the hinterland always gets left behind but as we can see women with creative ideas can change that. soon run sees off another bus load of visitors then she has to drive the cows out to pasture. the women have bought to pay may have most of the say but it looks as if they've also got most of the work.

when a catastrophic earthquake hit central italy two years ago politicians are quick to make lofty promises of aid and reconstruction and places like camerino the quake and aftershocks destroyed the town's homes and businesses dozens of once thriving locations were suddenly empty two years later not much has changed and that is a bitter reality for former residents like me the ninety one year old here is pushing the government to make good on its promise and rebuild comedy no but her hopes of returning are dwindling instead she can only look on her as her former home town falls ever deeper into disrepair. you know what we used to cool camerino the candy books we didn't even realize how beautiful the place was and now that it's gone. and stands in front of the place she called home for more than fifty years until the earthquake two years ago made her entire city

uninhabitable now it's too dangerous to go beyond this point. we were at the center of everything there was so much life in the evening so many students it was difficult to fall asleep because the streets was so busy now it's difficult to sleep because i don't hear anything everything has changed before there was too much noise now there's too much silence. once full of life come airiness historic santa has turned into a ghost town elder lost her home and what used to be her pride and joy her family's clothing store. most of the buildings are not completely in ruins but uninhabitable and in danger of collapse despite the promises made by italy's politicians the reconstruction of camerino has been on hold for the past two years

like most former residents elder and her husband bruno were moved into provisional housing a few kilometers outside come arena this is a kitchen. the couple has tried to turn the valley forty square meter flat into something resembling a home but life he is still feels unsettled in a color in it some want to stay it's not a new home and we can't get anything better than that unfortunately. to keep some of the spirit of camerino alive the community has build a new makeshift city center. the european union supported the country with a total of one point two billion euros for emergency relief and the reconstructions of shops like this one but the citizens of camerino say they have barely seen any

of that money because it's a vocal. one if the man responsible is look at it he surely brother with the historic center will go to the church as often as possible everyone here has lost their home they all hope their city will be rebuilt in the coming years but elder fears it might be too late for ha. my strength is starting to come to an end. to the budget aldred traits that hurt children and grandchildren will be able to return to their home. to spain now or we need marcos for greatest fun for a man who disappeared into the woodlands of the southern serum right a mountains when he was just seven years old and he didn't return to civilization until twelve years later saying he'd been adopted by a wolf pack marcos for vegas is now in the seventy's and lives in spain's northwest

has become a passionate activist for protecting nature. then on this isn't normal marcus rodriguez says over and over there's garbage everywhere he looks rotting here in galicia. gardner is toxic to the environment for marcus this is home he's furious the people treat it so badly you know by the governor about look there's a partridge and wants water you're going to the armory we're going to put it on i'm going to record it's going to die on my brother i mean a man is beastly. but i grew up in nature it hurts me to see all this filth why don't people care and. marcus the story is well known in spain at the age of seven he found himself alone in a remote valley in seattle he befriended wolf cubs and spent years living among them in spain's wilderness.

where i'm a gather me the girl kicked out of my went into the cub stand and fell asleep you're going to really and that's when the parents came back. i think they weren't sure whether to adopt me or even me or where i'm going on you know where they were in my mind i guess they left me because i was playing with the cubs and they were your mil i won but i smelled like them lost myself in mud dried myself with leaves and i think it was the smell that made me one of them. my log a bit ago about. that mark is a story was made into a movie his stepmother used to beat him his father couldn't look after him he was abandoned and left with a shepherd who soon died marcos stayed in the wild and hunted with wolves he didn't have contact with humans until police found him when he was nineteen and forced him to leave the woods.

today he had to work hard to learn to speak again but he's never been able to come to terms with civilizations darker side he has few friends one of whom is a forest ranger who shares marcos' passion for nature and his fear of its destruction. there is a forest fire here. the risk of more of them is high. we're going to. have people. work has been in vain i feel powerless angry i don't know what to say look. most of these fires were started by humans by arsonists i mean it's just unbelievable. in this because. police have arrested several suspect but still there is no end to the forest fires

marcus is appalled almost nothing survives here anymore. but. when you burn it all down they'll be nothing left. if they keep this up half the human population will die but. we're never going to live if nature is dead. great i don't understand how humans can let this happen it there but marcus is a fighter despite his bitter experiences he hopes people can learn to care for the natural environment for years he's been visiting schools to speak with children he makes a convincing case with his authenticity. of course. but with a look at another man of course is a wonderful nature advocate you know those animal specter than he knows people and you can learn so much from him like how to be respectful of the natural environment and marcus explains this to you it is completely different than when scientists do

it. for you and difficult sister of yours. but as time passes marcus has begun doubting whether he can make a lasting impression on people. ya know. i talk to children about nature a lot. and tell them it's the most wonderful thing there is. they must treat nature with care. i don't know if they really hear me a minute i know it's hard to change humans and when my brother and. wolves taught marcus to respect nature people showed him how to destroy it which leaves mark us to wonder whether a part of him always be more than human. something we all can learn from that's it for this edition of focus on europe for all of us here thank you for watching we want to wish you and yours a very happy holiday season and

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school. allegedly after one hundred lives the ideals of the bombers are more relevant today than they were a. hundred years ago visionaries reshapes. of all people understood this is a river. with ideas that are part of our future. the bauhaus does cross over into dance and sing music. in balinese our house means a vision of the future. what makes the powerhouse and its creations spiraling into this very. it's somehow a part of. the free market starts in january thirteenth on w. . the.

ledger legislatively . this is. the syrian military and the key towns of. the syrian and turkish back to forces close to the flashpoint town that is bracing for an assault the syrian government says kurdish forces requested support. coming up with tens of thousands made homeless by indonesia's tsunami. with one volunteer. to help those in need.