>> walked onto "european journal." riots break out on the streets. also in the program. 50 years on, unearthed, an escape tunnel between the u.s. -- east and west berlin. the danube delta. they are reform the catholic

church. it was 50 years ago this month that the berlin wall was built. friends and family were cut off from each other, east separated from west. one family was house right next to the wall. they started the dangerous task of digging an escape tunnel. 30 made it to the west. today, they are back in their former home and the historic tunnel has ben unearthed. >> a historic site that is less than 50 years old. they are excavating an escape tunnel built in 1963. right now, he is clearing sand from the tunnel's remaning supports. discoveries like this from germany's more recent past are almost as good as ancient artifacts. >> we were fortunate enough to uncover four sections of the escape tunnel.

it was a successful escape. nobody was killed or injured. the fact that we can uncover the for structure with this underground escape tunnel in such a compromise space. that really is a happy moment for an archeologist like me. >> he was just 11 years old when he crawled through the tunnel with family and friends. for him, it was a huge adventure. >> we did not think about the consequences. all we cared about was getting to the west. the tunnel is about 80 centimeters wide and about 40 meters long. >> this was the border on the street where they lived as it looked shortly before the fall

of the wall. border police constantly on patrol. was a crazy to dig a tunnel here, of all places? >> my father said, if you are going to escape, and do it under the guards' feet. guards know what is going on far away, but not right in front of them. >> the east german secret police did not suspect that they could be building a tunnel because their house did not have a basement. the tunnel went straight from the living room. today, he once again lives in his parents' house. so much of -- so much here reminds him of his childhood like the hiding place with old sand removed from the tunnel. it had to remain in the house so as not to raise suspicion.

>> there is a wall with kitchen shelves. here and back, in the house no- space, that is where we put the sand. >> by the end, every closet was full of sand. his father once said, if he knew how much sand would accumulate, he would not have built the tunnel. he wanted out. because the house was close to the border, they always had to show their ids. his father could not take it anymore. >> you would be walking home from the store and the police were always asking for your id. at ast, where did you come from? where are you going? where do you live? there were some that were just coming by. >> finally, it was time to leave. on the night of march 9, 1963,

they escape from east berlin. 13 people crawl through this tunnel, which the east german secret police later photographed. while digging, an archeologist has found additional artifacts of the escape. >> you see here two bulbs from a string of christmas tree lights that family and friends used to eliminate the tunnel. not just for lighting, but also a signal. as soon as the authorities came into the house, it was turned off, which told the tunnel diggers to stop work immediately. >> the tunnel was one of 39 escape tunnels dug in and around berlin. the last one was dug in 1973. >> authority started to use microphones to localize digging

sounds. they also extended the no-man's land is zoned so it was the law possible. it was just a greater distance. >> once a week, and he shows a visitor is the tunnel and sometimes his mother tells us about the escape and her son. he was asking, how much longer? when do we get out? are we talking about a train station? i had to tell him twice. today, a memorial where it -- with a piece of the real wall stands in front of their house. >> thousands lived in the danube delta. to whom do they belong?

people living in a romanian village captured this. these are animals off of their property. they are not wild at all. animal rights groups say that the animals are wild and they should establish a sanctuary to protect them. >> the danube delta, a biosphere reserve and home to rare animal species. it is also home to an estimated 4000 wild horses. it is believed that the refuge came centuries ago. now, the animals are under threat. they are being hunted. locals say that the horses are their private property. >> we set the forces free because we were too poor to feed them. >> of course they are our

horses. it is hard to catch them. >> this spring, men caught 150 wild horses and beat them cruelly. 100 animals were butchered. the locals wanted to sell the meat. the villagers want to the forest in the region. and will rights activists managed to intercept the last shipment to the slaughterhouse. many are outraged by the former's conduct. >> no one takes care of these horses. nobody feeds them. they have no staples where they can sleep. that means that they have no owners. the delta residents claimed that they know them. these horses are part of romania's wild animal kingdom. >> the activists are keeping a close watch to prevent more horses from being caught. however, the locals remained

adamant. >> why should these animals belong to the state? we pay taxes for the horses in the pastures. >> in romania, all the horses in barnes and pastures are taxable. until now, forces were left to feed. administrators have to deal with horses. they have to give up responsibility for the courses completely. >> courses that have no clear corner -- horses that have no clear owner become property of the mayor's office. >> at present, there are no laws in romania regulating the ownership of wild horses.

activists are working for protections. he is the leader of the movement. on this farm, he takes care of all of the horses that are slaughtered. he wants to set them free. >> these animals should be the property of the nature reserve and be protected but -- protected like any other species living there. you cannot just leave them to the slaughterhouse because some greedy people want it that way. >> in the bio-diversity has been threatened before. more than 20 years ago, a dictator wanted to introduce fish farms here. the fall of communism prevented that from happening. now, the animals could face renewed threats bank activists

cannot prove that the danube delta is an established habitat for wild horses. >> people in britain are struggling to understand how there could have been such a breakdown of law and order on the streets of many of its cities. the riots broke out on the streets of london. since then, there have been several riots and what police call copycat criminal activity. they were trying to understand how and why this sort of violence could happen. >> london, the british capital. these days, the city is dominated by scenes of violence and looting reminiscent of civil war. the rioting began here. local youths clashed with police. at the violence spread to other

english districts and cities. bergsten, south of the river thames, is known as a friendly, multicultural area. it was considered an up-and- coming. rundown houses have been renovated. middle-class professionals have been moving in. >> to go back, it is terrible. i hope that this is not a beginning of something worse to come. >> a major shopping spree during the night. most of the rioters are young men. when we visited britain three years ago, we met david wilson. a social worker group on this estate. he paid visits to local residents, especially the younger ones. wilson wants to put an end to that. >> it is about the area that you live in.

you go over to britain. that is not going to happen. >> strangers are unwelcome. >> why do you come here? >> are you coming to rob us? >> they say that they are only acting in self-defense. the government has invested millions of pounds to end conflicts like this. he runs a state-sponsored youth center. money has been put into improving security. three years on, and violence and looting have erupted again. left-wing politicians say that the causes are clear. >> i want to address the 1.5

million that have not been accounted for. to get that money back. >> the financial crisis prompted britain to cut public spending by 20%. are those cuts and enough to have caused such a violent outburst? one thing is for sure, now britain has more than a financial crisis on its hands. >> hundreds of priests in austria are making a stand against the catholic church in rome. they are offering commune into believers who were married outside of the church. they say that it should be opened to women and married men. all sorts of pressure on rome to introduce reforms. >> to his parishioners, he is a hero. to others, he is a troublemaker. he called that an initiative that is calling for open

protests against the church in austria and its plan to merge parishes. they want to allow women and married men to be ordained, a huge break with tradition in the catholic church. >> of course the bishops are against it. they were not chosen by us. they were appalled -- appointed by rome and are accountable to rome. they only care about their own leaders in rome. that is why they act the way they do. >> the church authorities want to resolve the shortage of priests by merging parishes and relying on theological renewal. >> it is about listening during these times and how the church might look at the future.

>> they say that the priests main responsibilities may lie with the parishioners. he has to administer sacraments, discuss funeral preparations. how could a priest with tens of thousands of parishioners find the time? >> the authorities have lost touch with the people. the bishops really have their ears to the ground. they have noticed that our initiative is more of a status report then a call for a utopia. >> there is no doubt that the unrelenting faith of some parishioners. last year, he wrote to the spanish city of santiago. this year's pilgrimage takes him to bratislava.

he and his horse are welcomed by the father. he lost his faith and a young age. after he was abused as a young boy by a catholic priest, he dislikes the term of abuse. he calls himself a victim of sexual violence. the church covered up the incident. only decades later was he able to talk openly about his experiences. to underline his protest, he has closed off a pilgrim's trail to priests accompanied by children. >> i put up these signs as a personal protest. i want to draw attention to how cases of sexual abuse in the church are dealt with in

austria. >> the protests made the headlines. the lack of measures taken to do with sexual abuse have led to lots of austrians in the catholic church. he maintains the building, but has left the catholic church. >> how can you reform the church from above when you have got himself at the top? >> he would have to come down from heaven. and i cannot see him. >> it is the reluctance to allow reform that has seen an increasing number of austrians to turn its back on the church. to many administrators is see no evil and hear no evil. >> people are not leaving the catholic church because of insufficient reforms. they simply do not get to know the power of faith signet --

sufficiently. want to know the power of faith, the secondary reforms become unimportant. >> that leaves parishioners' shaking their heads. they resent being told that they lack faith. they say that the church has a credibility problem and question church dogma. >> the protestant church allows ordain men to marry. why can that worked in the -- why cannot that work in the catholic church? >> the catholic church is in peril not just in austria, but across europe. the vatican is incapable of moving with the times and introducing reforms. >> trouble is brewing at the grass roots of the catholic church. not only in his parish. >> in our local live series we are off to france, a small

village being overrun. the reason, they are convinced that this village is the only place that people will be safe on the days when the world comes to an end. >> hour overnight train or bribes at the foot of the pyrenees at 6:00 a.m. and we are heading into a village near the mountain. some people say it will be the only place to survive on the world ends next year. believers are convinced that extraterrestrials will come here to rescue them. we drive through the pyrenees on narrow roads. suddenly, are gps system starts acting up. it tells us to take a stony pass instead of the road leading to

the mountain. we ignore it and drive on. then the forest opens up. there it is. the mountain of the extraterrestrials. this is how the story goes. according to one reading of the ancient mayan calendar, doomsday will, at december 21, 2012 and all lead this place will survive. >> i have a book here about the mayan calendar. you can find the word here. no mention or why it is the chosen village. at the church, we need a family from belgium. they want to go hiking. we asked if may have heard about the looming apocalypse. >> no. >> she wants to climb the mountain. we want to go up there because

there is a powerful energy before tax. a vortexes is a direct connection to the universe. a pipeline between heaven and earth. many villagers cannot understand the fuss. the apocalypse of legend has prompted many people to visit. some want to move here. real-estate prices are said to have risen. this house is for sale. the owner has no time for journalists. he's seen too many in the village recently. the village mayor returns from a stroll in the forest. he does not seem to concern about doomsday either. in fact, he seems much more

interested in the mushrooms he has collected. did you feel any special vibrations? >> they are always there, but they are not from aliens. >> and john is a british pensioner. he wants to move there because it is so idyllic here. >> what do you think? should we try to get everybody to come here in 2012? should we try? >> absolutely not. >> no, really not? because i do have contacts a british newspapers. >> people come here because the beauty of the mountains, not because of this fairy tale about the end of the world. >> many residents are irritated by the dubious claim to flame.

they say that the apocalypse believers are just crazy. >> we have people to see extraterrestrials. people who talk to stones. people that feel vibrations. >> some people think that the craze could turn dangerous. >> so many people already living here. you wonder i could come up with something even more ridiculous. a suicide pact or something like that for example. two years ago, somebody tried to kill himself on the mountain with a samurai sword. >> we also find more moderate followers of the movement outside. they assure us that the world will not end in 2012. they do predict earthquakes.

>> the earth feels everything that we suppress and react to that. the pressure between the geological plates are not the only cause of earthquakes. >> what about the aliens that will supposedly land here in 2012? >> we can only perceive a certain spectrum of energy and light. everything that lies between infrared and ultraviolet. we do not notice them. >> perhaps the villagers are in the know and want to keep the special village to themselves. to learn more, i will have to climb the mountain myself. >> it is not the end of the world yet, but it is the end of the program. thank you for watching and thank

you for the e-mails. goodbye.