tv Our World BBC News February 4, 2017 4:30am-5:01am GMT
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on travellers from seven mainly—muslim countries. the judge said the restrictions could be lifted immediately while a full legal case was heard. in the past hour, white house has said it will seek to have the ruling overturned. iran has condemned new sanctions imposed by the us and promised to respond. washington says the sanctions are a response to iran's missile test on sunday, and what it describes as tehran‘s support for terrorism. the president of the european council donald tusk has said good relations with the us remain an absolute priority, despite concerns about the policies of president trump. speaking at a summit in malta, mr tusk said transatlantic cooperation had, until now, been a key pillar of the free world. let's take a quick look at what's making the front pages of some of the papers: and it's one of those days when no
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single story dominates. we start with the guardian — which leads on the political tensions between europe and the us. the paper says eu leaders are unhappy with donald trump — insisting he's shown them a lack of respect. the telegraph reports on government plans to build new homes. developers are being told to get building quickly or lose planning permission. there's also a picture of the man who was shot by soldiers in the louvre after allegedly attacking them with a machete. turning to the independent and it says angela merkel has warned theresa may not to turn the uk into a tax haven if a brexit deal can't be agreed. the german chancellor says taxes are the price you pay for a just society. the daily mail continues to focus on the shortage of vegetables in britain's shops. shoppers are to be stopped from bulk buying iceberg lettuce, broccoli and aubergines among others. you can also see a picture of prince harry and his girlfriend, meghan markle, out on a date. and the daily mirror leads on an increase in electricity bills.
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the paper says the supplier npower is putting up prices by 15% — meaning some annual bills will go up by more than £100 a year. now on bbc news it's time for our world. ba by chimpanzees, just a few months old. seized from the jungles of africa to be sold as pets. it's a shocking and illegal trade. animals that are our closest relatives of the natural world are suffering terrible losses. to get one infant chimpanzees out of the jungle, all of the adults and its family have to be killed and as many as ten adults slaughtered. we infiltrate an animal smuggling network that spans the globe. during a year—long investigation we went undercover.
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two months? are you still able to follow? we discovered that there is far more trafficking than the authorities suspect. is you may find some of the scenes in this film disturbing, as we reveal the secret trade in baby chimps. ourjourney into an underworld of animal smuggling began in cairo. for centuries, egypt has been one of the world's
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great trading centres. ground floor. going up. posing as buyers and filming secretly, we found two dealers who said they could get us baby chimpanzees. they sent us videos of the animals they had ready. pitiful sights of infants, recently captured and now destined to be pets or kept in private zoos in the gulf states and asia. once they grow too big and strong... 7 that they are killed or dumped. it was in cairo that we learned how the smugglers operate. there is an international treaty to stop the trafficking of rare wildlife, but for the right money, you can obtain one of its official export permits. and one dealer claimed he could get hold of a permit allowing us to export chimps.
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we paid him a deposit and he checked it in his pet store. publicly he deals in birds, secretly he was offering much more. two weeks later, we met him to collect the permit. and here it is. an official export document falsely filled in and illegally obtained. it seemed to be signed and stamped by an official in the government ofjordan.
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and it shows our address which was fake, a basic internet search would have shown that. we asked khalid about the chimpanzees themselves and what state they would be in when they reached our clients. what followed was a down payment for the chimps. the money came from a swiss wildlife activist who campaigns against the trafficking of chimpanzees. price? $20,000 each. and these were the animals we were being offered. khalid told us they were ready for shipping, but then something went wrong. khalid got nervous and the deal was suddenly off. he was worried about being exposed. we assumed that our investigation was dead. but we weren't going to give
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up, our focus shifted from the middle east to west africa, to ivory coast. one step closer to the source of the illegal trade. the egyptian dealers had always said that the chimpanzees would be flown out of here. in the end that never happened. then, right here, we had a breakthrough. our research led us to an animal trader. his facebook page reveals a boastful personality. it turned out that he had been supplying the egyptians we have been talking to. this is the box.
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you see. in a video he sent us, he shows a crate, specially designed for wildlife smuggling. animals that are allowed to be exported act as a cover for a chimpanzee hidden inside. he claimed that he could also get us the export permit. we were pretending to be an indonesian pet trader called alex. the dealer said he was based in guinea but would meet
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us in abidjan. he sent us pictures showing that he had chimpanzees. filmed secretly, he told our undercover colleague how he could provide us with chimps. we told him that we needed a permit first and he quickly got us one which was stamped national parks of liberia. he then told us what baby chimpanzees would cost and he showed us videos to prove that he could deliver. he handed over the permit he had obtained for us. thank you. he made this look almost routine. this is where the meeting took place and where there is rather flimsy looking but important document was handed over. it is in effect a passport allowing us to export live chimpanzees. we should never have been able to get hold of it. the whole point of the international permit system is to try and stop the trade in endangered animals
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but what this reveals is how easily you can get around that. getting the paperwork sorted was one thing, but then came an agonising wait for the deal itself. keeping watch for the next message and then... this video confirmed that he had a chimpanzee ready for export. the recording used ourfake name and the correct date. he even showed his face on camera as he had in earlier videos,
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apparently not worried about incriminating himself. 0ur undercover team got ready to see the chimp for themselves. but we weren't going into this alone. we briefed interpol and the police in ivory coast and they prepared a sting. 0ur undercoverjournalist was going to meet him to see the animal before confirming the deal and we were following. we're now on our way and our undercover colleague is in a car in front of us and he is following the dealer in a taxi who is meant to be leading him to his house
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where the chimpanzees are. we are in convoy with the police and we are told it will be about 30 minutes until we get there. this was the pivotal moment in the investigation and it was incredibly tense. if we got too close, we risked being seen. but too far and we would lose them. a tracking device helped to guide us along a highway. a call from our undercover team ahead of us. we were leaving the highway and heading into a maze of dusty streets on the edge of abidjan. we were obviously getting closer.
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to ring his client. in fact, this was the signal for the police raid to begin. initially, there was confusion. the chimpanzee had been hidden. and everyone there denied knowing anything about it. and the dealer had also vanished. detectives charged through the neighbourhood. they called on local people to help.
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minutes later, police got their man. they've got him. the dealer had been caught. one minute he had been discussing a deal that would have earned him tens of thousands of dollars, the next, he was under arrest. the police then focused on his family's house. they weren't taking any chances, everyone was ordered to the ground. and the search led them to a small room where they found a crate
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holding the chimpanzee. so the police had just made all of these arrests. it is pretty edgy here, the atmosphere, and it is all about this — a baby chimpanzee taken the jungle. the real tragedy of this trade is that to get one infant chimpanzee out of the jungle, all of the adults in its family have to be killed. that's as many as ten adults slaughtered just to get one chimp here ready for trade. we'd been advised not to touch the chimp until a vet had checked him. so for a few agonising moments, he was all alone.
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the police then made a major discovery. that this house was a key centre for chimpanzee trafficking. for years, when investigators have been looking for clues about smuggled chimpanzees, they had often seen these blue tiles in the background of the videos offered by the traders. this is it, what everyone calls the blue room, it is like a holding centre for animals on their way to be trafficked abroad. the chimpanzee was taken away, into the care of wildlife officials. a crowd gathered outside the house.
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the cops are getting worried. many here were beginning to take the side of the men the atmosphere was becoming more tense. the police told us that we all had to go. in the back of a car, a baby chimp watched nervously. a new chapter in its short life was about to begin. at the interpol headquarters in abidjan, the questioning began. the dealer faced charges relating to wildlife trafficking. so did his uncle, mohamed. the chimpanzee was yet again searching for reassurance. he clambered towards
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the only people he knew. the men who had been holding him captive. the police colonel in charge of the operation was clear about why the trafficking had to be stopped. the dealers‘ mobile phones, a potential treasure trove of information about how the smuggling worked and who was involved. after the raid, the action moved here to lyon, in the south
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of france, and the headquarters of interpol. those mobile phones and laptops were analysed and an investigation which had started into one dealer in one country suddenly broadened. his voice? perfect. you have got him. the detectives quickly found evidence of global connections. from the hunters in thejungles, to the middleman, to corrupt officials and ultimately to the buyers. this was the starting point for dismantling an international criminal network. the bbc was given access to this material. it revealed a history of baby chimpanzees being kept in this small blue room, all heading for a life of captivity abroad. 0n the dealer's mobile phone,
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a video of a chimpanzee destined for china. the tiny animal can't have been more than a few weeks old. and on his computer, more cites permits for chimps and other animals set to be traded between countries as distant as china and south africa, nepal and congo. we put this to the head of the cites convention. we showed him the two permits that we'd managed to get. surely, it shouldn't be so easy to get hold of the permits that allow you illegally to export animals, including chimpanzees? yes. so, people steal permits. people photocopy permits. if you think, we can, in 2016, people can make false currency. think of all of the security that goes around creating a british currency or a us currency. so these permits aren't secure then?
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neither is anybody‘s currency, because people who are savvy can make counterfeits, they make counterfeit passports. isn't that admitting defeat in some way? absolutely not. it's nputting it in context. that if people are criminally minded and they can see a profit in something, they will do what they can to manipulate that system to their advantage. whether it is a passport, a currency, drivers license or a cites permit. exploiting that weakness was the dealer. and it turns out that he comes from a family involved in animal trafficking. his brother operates from the democratic republic of congo. he was named by cites for illegally trading in endangered birds. and his father also seemed to be involved. his bank account was known to be used for payments, including ours, allowing the lucrative trafficking to continue. for interpol, to tackle this is a massive undertaking.
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and until now, governments have wanted it to focus on other threats to wildlife. like the smuggling of ivory and rhino horn. at the moment, chimpanzees are not a priority. without the funding, we cannot do anything. but what we're trying to become is more intelligence led so we start looking at what the threats are and what law enforcement needs to address in orderto maintain a level of security. so, primates, unfortunately, our information holdings is not as strong as it could be. back in west africa, after a bewildering day, the tiny chimp was hungry. but now safe at the zoo in abidjan. the keepers named him. he was most relaxed when clinging to someone. a first look at a chimpanzee family. later, they may live together.
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or he will be found a home in a sanctuary. the materialfrom our investigation has been given to the authorities. the dealer and his uncle are awaiting trial. the trade will not be stopped overnight, but this one network at least is now out of action. hello, good morning. things are calming down a bit for this weekend. on friday, we had an area of low pressure bringing strong winds onto the south coast of england — gusts of 60 mph. big waves and rough seas. outbreaks of rain and even some snow over the hills. and here, earlier on in the night across parts of northern ireland.
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the wet weather is moving northwards up into scotland right now. clearer skies following on across england and wales. maybe northern ireland, too. meaning it will be chilly with the risk of icy patches. another area of low pressure on the scene on saturday. we will miss the worst of that but it could bring disruptive weather around the bay of biscay and into france. a lot of people travelling up for the six nations rugby. for the two matches on saturday, it looks like it's going to be generally fine. improving weather at murrayfield. it should be dry in london. a chance of a little rain first thing from the weather system that is bringing the wet and windy weather into france, but away from the south—east corner of england, it could be a dry, chilly, bright start across england and wales. a few showers coming into the north—west corner of england. it should have dried off by the morning for much of northern ireland. a cold and wet picture north of the central belt. for scotland, rain and snow in the hills. one or two showers further south and developing later in the day in west wales
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and the far south—west of england. that area of low pressure takes the rain away from the extreme south—east of england and eventually that cloud breaks as well. for many parts of the uk, it will be dry with quite a bit of sunshine but a bit colder, temperatures seven or eight degrees. looking at the showers developing in the west and south—west, that develops into a more organised band of rain. again, there could be snow in the hills. either side of that, the winds are quite light, skies clearer. there could be frost and maybe some icy patches but also some patches of freezing fog as well. certainly not widespread but that will take a while to clear from parts of southern england and maybe northern ireland on sunday. a lot of that rain tends to peter out, leaving us with a few showers around across the northern part of the uk but further south, it could be dry. again, some sunshine coming through but a chillierfeel. 6—8 degrees. clear skies and light winds overnight and it could be quite a frosty start on monday morning. again, some patches of freezing fog which will take a little
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while to clear away. we have a bump of high pressure to start next week but lurking out towards the west, signs of change again, stronger winds on the way. that will blow in outbreaks of rain off the atlantic and tend to lift the temperatures for a while. that's it. goodbye. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting at home and around the globe. our top stories: from seven mainly—muslim countries — but the white house says it will fight on. iran condemns new sanctions imposed by the united states and promises to retaliate. a tourist lodge on fire in kenya as drought forces traditional herders into conflict with land owners. and — nearly 50 years ago they helped invent heavy metal. now black sabbath are about to
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