>> hello and welcome to global 3000, your weekly check on the global issues behind the headlines, and here's what we have coming up for you today. why america is failing to get millions of people off the streets. india's third gender. transsexuals stand up for their rights. how cambodia is trying to keep its wildlife safe from poachers. the second richest country in the world fails to provide a roof over the heads of some two and a half million children who are homeless in america. latest figures show the economy is picking up again.

still new york alone has some 20,000 people living only in the shadowns of its skyscrapers. never have so few been so rich and so many so poor. we meet a family that knows what it's like to be simply a number in a negative statistic. >> lisa picks up her youngest children from school. it's a cold new york winter day. lisa does what most parents do to try to create a stable daily routine, a warm nest. but she doesn't have a nest. for the past three years, lisa, her husband and four of their eight children are homeless. they're living in a shelter here in the bronx, but often they sit outside, in a public space on a six-lane street. lisa is deaf, but she's able to speak. >> we lost our house because the landlord, he just left. he couldn't afford to fix up the house, and he just left. i don't know what happened.

the foreclosure came, took everybody out of the house. we lost everything. >> there are some 20 thousand homeless children and teenagers in new york. aged seven, aliyah is lisa's youngest child. she can explain well where she's living right now. >> a shelter, like when people move in, or get kicked out because if people get kicked out, they have to go and ask a case manager if they can live in there. >> for eleven-year-old dallas things looks somewhat different. she can't ever bring friends home. for one thing, shelter residents generally aren't allowed to have guests, and for another, she's afraid. >> if i tell my friends, they're going to tell others, and the others will be like, you're

living in a shelter, and you're you're poor and stuff. and they get into a fight with me. >> the children wear second-hand clothing, but lisa makes sure the items are in good condition. she doesn't want their poverty to be visible. this is where lexi and justin's home begins, the subway. they've slept here for the past fours years, since they were 17 and 18. they also pay close attention to their appearance. in a rich city like new york, that's of vital importance. maintaining personal hygiene is a challenge. lexi and justin also wear used clothing. >> from the donationc losets at, like, hetrick-martin institute, or streetwalk, new alternatives church. >> the two have a lot of friends on the streets of harlem.

they spend their days hanging around, trying to get food. the ended up here for many reasons. it's a lot for a young person to have to deal with -- orphanage, foster family, drugs, problems at school. >> just because i'm trans. there are certain lgbt shelters, but sometimes they're full, there's not always a lot of beds, there are waiting lists. and the regular shelters, i'd rather not deal with all of that, having to explain myself." >> it's estimated that forty percent of the homeless teenagers in new york are homosexual or transsexual. their parents have kicked them out. lexi's been toughened by her years on the street. >> i've heard stories of people getting sexually assaulted, physically attacked, stuff like that. that doesn't really scare me. you can encounater that being on the stroll or being anywhere. >> they get federal food stamps worth 150 euros a month. but that doesn't go far in a city as expensive as new york.

so the two have learned where to find free samples. but it's not enough, so lexi has to get money. >> i just, like, stand around, or walk around, and a guy will see, and he'll go, well, she looks like she's working or whatever. sometimes they'll ask me, and i'll be like, you wanna have some fun? are you looking to get into something? i'll see what they want, and then we'll keep on pumping. >> back in the bronx with the two young girls. we meet their father, fernando. he's been married to lisa, their mother, for 26 years. he's proud of their strong marriage. but he has trouble finding permanent employment. at the moment, he's working as a custodian, cleaning another shelter at night. >> now i'm making a little good money, but it's only temporary. sometimes you find things that

you don't want to clean, and then you just gotta do it. because i really needed the money for my family. >> since bill diblasio has been mayor, there's been a program for homeless people with jobs, like fernando. during our visit the family learned that they'd be getting an apartment through that program. it's like winning the lottery. it means the girls will be able to have their friends over. >> yes, they did get that apartment. so a good chance at last for a fresh start. as we saw in that report there, transsexuals often find themselves on the sidelines of society. in india they often face ridicule, contempt and abuse. then, last year, a breakthrough: when transsexuals officially saw themselves recognised as a third gender. a completely new legal status. good news for depending on which

statistics you read. some 500 000 to two million people. in koimba-turr we catch up with a transgender woman who beat all the odds to build a career. >> when padmini's on air, she's only concerned with reading the news professionally. she presents the main news on the privately owned channel lotus tv in southern india. it's not an issue that padmini was a he until the age of 16. padmini prakash is a transgender woman, someone who was born as a boy, but who feels like a woman and wants to live as a woman. to facilitate that, she had gender reassigment surgery when she was sixteen. >> i get positive feedback from viewers. when i'm out in public, people see me as a news presenter. i'm respected and that will help other transgender women to be

respected by society one day. >> it was a bold step by the station manager to put a transgender woman on air. they're still outsiders in indian society. but it was also a clever marketing move. >> we want to make a name for ourselves with our programming. people are curious to find out what a transgender woman look like as news presenter, so they watch us. >> padmini doesn't care why people watch. she's happy with her life and that she can give her adopted son the love that she never experienced as a child. from a young age, she felt she was trapped in the wrong body. her father was ashamed of her and beat her. >> there were always problems at home. i wasn't allowed to walk in front of my parents, wasn't allowed to speak to them in public.

there was always fighting, it was like a war. they forced me to cut my hair short and to change my body language. it was a big problem. i cried every day. >> padmini tried to kill herself, then she ran away from home. she now lives with a man, but he didn't want to appear on camera. she's friendly with her neighbors, who look after her adopted son when she's at work. like most of the 500,000 transgender women in india, she does not have any contact with her parents. in delhi, we meet a few transgender women at an intersection. heena is forced to beg and work as a prostitute in order to survive. some indians believe that women like her have mystical powers, but they still lead difficult lives on the fringes of society. >> live is difficult.

we're often driven away and are always dependent on the pity of strangers. we're not accepted, otherwise we wouldn't have to beg. >> noori used to beg for money too. now she lives in coimbatore, in southern india. she lives alone, but in harmony with her neighbors. she had reassignment surgery at 17 because she'd felt like a girl since childhood. >> even though i lived with my mother and my sister, i was the one who always did the housework, the laundry. and even as a child, i always wanted to wear flowers in my hair and put on makeup. i don't know why. she was desperately poor for a long time. then noori started a small catering company. now she employs several transgender women who used to be prostitutes. they've all suffered through years of violence and exploitation.

today, they're cooking chicken, vegetables and rice for a wedding. this work is a chance for these women to find a place in society. though they now are able to mark a box labelled "third gender" on official forms, they're still not widely accepted by the general population. >> i think it's prefectly fine to belong to a third gender. it's a gift from god. i don't see what's wrong with it. if i were to be born again, i'd still want to live as a part of this group. >> at the wedding celebration noori is proud that everything has worked out with the food. but although she may be accepted as a cook and businesswoman, none of the guests here would shake her hand. homosexuality is still illegal in india. it carries a sentence of up to

10 years in prison. it shows how the country is still wrangling with a departure from conservative sexual norms. and now we'd like to tickle your tastebuds with our latest no fuss global snack. whether you have a sweet tooth or like it hot, we are yet to meet someone who would turn down a brazilian tapi-ooca. >> this tourist area in port seguro is called passarela do àlcool, or "catwalk of alcohol". and this is tapioca, a dish that originated with brazil's indigenous population. it's made of starch extracted from the cassava root. it's turned into a kind of crepe, and filled with various fillings, both sweet and savory. here at the tapioca king snack bar, it's offered in 48

varieties. most of them were invented by josevaldo. >> i'd present the customers with a new combination every day. they liked them, so that's why we have so many varieties today. >> tapioca is the name of both the cassava starch and the finished dish. ariana shows us how to make a tapioca. >> this is chopped dried meat. this is cassava purée. tomatoes. it's finished off with butter and oregano.

over. and how do the customers like it? >> strawberries with sweetened condensed milk. tastes great. >> i came here especially to try it. the quality is very good. >> and by the way, the snack bar stays open until 7:00 on certain a.m. holidays. >> cambodia is one of the poorest countries in the world. and it's certainly a tall order to ask people who do not know where the next meal for their family will come from to think about wildlife conservation.

but at a time when the illegal animal trade is booming, that is becoming all the more critical. our reporter michael altenhenne meets those determined to prevent cambodia's wild animals from becoming just another commodity. >> last-minute instructions before a raid. police and forest rangers are on their way to a remote village in the south of cambodia. they've had a tip that locals are selling meat from poaching here. the wildlife rapid rescue team goes investigating. the special unit, made up of twelve officers, is on duty throughout the country in the fight against the illegal animal trade and poaching.

they nearly always find what they're looking for. here, a cooler hidden in the undergrowth is full of poached animals from the nearby national park. >> this is a porcupine. we've also seized mouse deer, hares and other animals. we desperately need to stop poaching. the forests in the area are being so heavily hunted that they're practically empty. even common species are disappearing completely. >> cambodia's biodiversity is especially threatened by the trade in rare animals. the biggest market for them is china. the locals' poverty makes it easy for criminal gangs to recruit them as helpers.

but the officials rarely catch the big-time dealers. >> our team especially patrols the border regions with thailand and vietnam, the smuggling routes to china. whether cobras, turtles, or bears they're all smuggled out of the country as medicine or delicacies. >> some 2,400 hectares of forest serve as a kind of reception center for the victims of the booming animal trade. the phnom tamao animal protection center is located outside phnom penh. the employees of wildlife alliance take care of more than 1,200 animals that have been seized by the authorities. nick marx is the director of the

organization, one of the few of its kind in asia. he's the head caretaker for more than 100 different species, all of which are in the sights of hunters and sellers. >> the thing about serow is they're very highly prized, both medicinally and as food. so they're heavily hunted, they're becoming increasingly endangered. they love salt. that's the other thing. they lick, lick, lick. it's a demonstration of what the illegal trade in wildlife is and what is doing to the species as well as every other species, driving so many formerly fairly common species to extinction. >> more than 50 attendants and veterinarians work at phnom tamao, which is funded by the government as well as through

donations. the environmental activist has been ensuring better care for the animals for the past 13 years. >> often we receive animals in serious conditions. very, very badly injured animals come here, and this chap is one example. he had terrible bites to his head and to his he's lost his left eye completely. and now he's getting better thanks to the amazing care that the guys looking after him have given him and our vets. they do an amazing job, and against all the odds he's survived. >> chhouk came as a one-year-old calf. the elephant had been seriously injured by a wire snare and lost part of a foreleg. he's since learned to help the keepers with changing his prosthesis. the elephant will have to spend the rest of his life at the animal sanctuary. but environmentalist marx wants to release as many of the

animals back into the wild as possible. his latest project is these pileated gibbons, an endangered primate species. the animals are gradually prepared for release into the wild. >> we rescue thousands of animals every year. we cannot possibly keep them all. there's areas of forest that we have wiped out all the wildlife within that. and some of these areas, we are protecting. it's essential that wild animals live in the wild, that they don't live in cages. why the hell should we want to keep wild animals in cages? they should be where they need to be, where they genuinely want to be. however, we must first make sure that that area is safe, and also that they can survive in the wild. >> this is the angkor region, in northwestern cambodia. there used to be thousands of pileated gibbons in these forests. and the jungle around the famous angkor wat temple complex was

once home to a wide variety of animal species. today, there are hardly any animals left. wildlife alliance wants to change that and has released a gibbon pair. the arboreal acrobats from the phnom tamao sanctuary were released here around a year ago. they're under constant observation by a gamekeeper. >> at the moment, we don't want the animals to leave this area, because there's a great danger that they could be killed by locals. so we feed them a bit and always always keep an eye on them. >> the pair recently had offspring. so the animal protection

activists are hopeful that the call of the pileated gibbon may soon be heard more often once again in the forests of angkor. >> when someone gives you a big bunch of red roses, you probably won't immediately think about the conditions they were produced under. but when you look closer you may be less chuffed about getting flowers in the first place. for ethiopia they are a vital trading good, but like so often, when investors come in promising jobs and development, locals have to make way. this raises the question of whether that kind of deal isn't after all a sell-out. >> misgana zerihoun doesn't know what valentine's day is, but she suspects it be must good for business. she has been busier than usual harvesting this variety of red roses. on february the 14th roses will be sold across europe for up to five times the usual price. the exports are an important source of income for ethiopia.

>> for the community, it has created lots of job opportunities. people have more money than before, which makes us happy." the dutch-owned farm where misgana works uses organic pest control. it pays slightly more than other comparable companies and provides free health care. none of this is required by law, but for the owners, building a sustainable presence was a business decision. >> when people feel respected and people are confident, they do a better job, and that's what we see in our products. but many investors are less concerned about their impact on local communities. environmental damage and the displacement of smallholder farmers have tainted the image of the booming flower cultivation sector. land in ethiopia is government-owned and dirt-cheap to rent.

for as litle as five euros per hectare a year, it's an attractive prospect for investors. but it also means that rural populations often lose out. like in the village of sabata. investors say the jobs created by flower farms outweigh the cost of losing land, but many here don't see it that way. worku bushani was pushed into selling his land to a nearby flower company for only 200 euros, hardly enough to feed his family of 12. >> life has become much more challenging. now our children work hard at the flower farm, but the money they earn isn't enough, especially if one of them gets sick. for us selling didn't have any advantage. >> the farm that took over bushani's land is expanding by another 10 hectares this year. the owners say they paid 80,000 euros to the government, but how much of that ends up in local hands is unclear. the government insists that communities are consulted and compensated before their land is

given away -- >> in the highlands, all land questions are settled through discussion with the community and only with their agreement without force. >> the government's ambitious growth plan aims to turn ethiopia into a middle-income country by 2025. but only few ethiopians are likely to profit the way misgana zerihoun has. >> fair trade roses are a bit more expensive, but maybe next time half a dozen will do. and that's all we have time for this edition of global 3000. you can find us online where you can also join our global debate. thanks for watching and bye-bye. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

steves: in a nutshell, classical rome lasted about 1,000 years -- roughly 500 b.c. to 500 a.d. rome grew for 500 years, peaked for 200 years,

and fell for 300 years. the first half was the republic, ruled by elected senators. the last half was the empire, ruled by unelected emperors. in its glory days, the word "rome" meant not just the city, but what romans considered the entire civilized world. everyone was either roman or barbarian. people who spoke latin or greek were considered civilized, part of the empire. everyone else, barbarian. according to legend, rome was founded by two brothers, romulus and remus. abandoned in the wild and suckled by a she-wolf, they grew up to establish the city. in actuality, the first romans mixed and mingled here -- in the valley between the famous seven hills of rome. this became the roman forum. in 509, they tossed out their king and established the relatively democratic roman republic.

that began perhaps history's greatest success story, the rise of rome. from the start, romans were expert builders, and they had a knack for effective government. this simple brick building was once richly veneered with marble and fronted by a grand portico. it's the curia. the senate met here and set the legal standards that still guide western civilization. the reign of julius caesar, who ruled around the time of christ, marked the turning point between the republic and the empire. the republic, designed to rule a small city-state, found itself trying to rule most of europe. something new and stronger was needed. caesar established a no-nonsense, more-disciplined government, became dictator for life, and, for good measure, had a month named in his honor, july. the powerful elites of the republic found all this change just too radical. in an attempt to save the republic and their political power, a faction of roman senators assassinated caesar.

his body was burned on this spot in 44 b.c. the citizens of rome gathered here, in the heart of the forum, to hear mark antony say, in shakespeare's words, "friends, romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. i've come to bury caesar, not to praise him." but the republic was finished, and rome became the grand capital of a grand empire. the via sacra, or sacred way, was the main street of ancient rome. it stretched from the arch of septimius severus to the arch of titus. rome's various triumphal arches, named after the emperors who built them, functioned as public-relations tools. reliefs decorating the various arches show how war and expansion were the business of state. rome's thriving economy was fueled by plunder and slaves won in distant wars.

>> coming up next on jubilee ... ♪