>> the crisis in ukraine is not a local one. caught between eastern and western europe, developments there have implications for the whole region and the potential to destabilize it. hello and welcome to "global 3000." more on that in a moment, but here's what else we have coming today. tough neighborhood? what's happening on the eu-ukraine border? how the struggle to survive clashes with conservation efforts in kenya. and new connections -- how iran's new government is easing access to the digital world.

the crimean referendum is highly controversial. and it could set a dangerous precedent. the uncertainty affects not just ordinary ukrainians but the entire region and other countries that have a political stake in the conflict. some eu states are even already drawing up plans on how to deal with a possible influx of refugees and migrants from the east. our reporter, miltiades schmidt, travelled along ukraine's borders with slovakia, hungary, and romania. there he talked to ukrainians on the eu side of the border about their hopes, dreams and fears of what may come next. >> we're travelling through outlying areas of the european union to see how the mood is among ukrainians. hundreds of thousands of ukrainians live here, most of them for generations, but they still have relatives and friends in ukraine.

our first destination is micula, a village in romania just five kilometers from the border to ukraine. vasile buciuta and fedor oneis earn a living from woodcraft, like most of the ukrainians here. >> we're already working on the assumption that people will flee here from ukraine and we'll take them in. i don't believe in war, but president putin has to understand that ukraine belongs to ukrainians, not russia. >> we leave the border between romania and ukraine. here, it's still business as usual. our next destination is hungary, about a hundred kilometers farther north. nyíregyháza is the largest city near the border. most ukrainians immigrated here after the fall of the iron curtain.

[bells ringing] on sundays they meet in the local orthodox church. >> ♪ >> here they find comfort in times of crisis and pray for the safety of their ukrainian neighbors. >> i'm frightened because i have relatives in ukraine. i feel deeply for them and what they're doing. i hope things calm down and become peaceful again. all people want is a quiet and peaceful life. >> the large supermarket chains lie on the outskirts of nyíregyháza. there we meet people who have crossed the border from ukraine. right now they can still travel to the european union with a visa.

usually they come to do some shopping. >> in ukraine there are calls to boycott russian products that have been imported to ukraine. but we can't yet see what effect that will have on our shops in ukraine. right now stores are still well-supplied, thank goodness. >> after their visit, the ukrainians return home. despite the crisis, none of them are staying in hungary or planning to emigrate to eu countries. we go on to preov, in slovakia, a town in the east of the country. ukrainians have lived here for centuries. relations with their slovak fellow citizens are good.

pavol bogdan has ukrainian roots. he's involved in a cultural exchange project between ukraine and slovakia. because of the crisis, funding for the cross-border project is threatening to run out. but his fears lie in another direction. >> i'm afraid that if crimea split from ukraine, it could create a precedent, that ukraine could break up. there are separatist movements in other regions as well as crimea. they could gain impetus from a crimean secession. i'm very worried. >> our last stop is bratislava, the capital of slovakia. in the city on the danube, the interior ministry is already preparing for a possible wave of refugees from ukraine.

>> we're ready to take in 1000 ukrainian refugees in a first step. we could immediately put them in asylum seekers' accommodation on the border. if that's not enough, our armed forces could set up tents for about 10,000 people. >> on our trip, we've discovered that the mood is surprisingly sober and relaxed. but everywhere there's a great amount of fear that ukraine could eventually disappear from the map. >> most conservation efforts are driven by the increasingly alarming facts about our ecosystems around the globe. kenya has seen many projects come and go, but often they run into the same challenge -- how to find the right balance between the needs of the locals and the desire to protect nature. kenya's mida creek used to be a rich fishing ground. now the nets often remain empty, leaving many locals desperate to make ends meet.

a conservation group called "a rocha," meaning "the rock" in portuguese, aims to involve locals in what they do. and it offers local communities, including children, a better understanding of how the ecosystem they live in actually works. >> these fishermen are throwing their nets into mida creek lagoon for the fifth time. one of them, katana gona, has a wife and 26 children to feed. >> we used to go out and catch 60 to 70 kilograms of fish. i earned enough to support my family for three or four days by selling them. but now i go fishing all day and i catch barely three or four kilos, and sometimes nothing.

>> other fishermen have caught the juvenile fish in the lagoon with mosquito nets. and high tide no longer brings enough other fish to feed a family. today there's just one fish in the net, and it's poisonous. in the open sea in front of mida creek, a coral reef protects the lagoon from the breaking waves. these two men work for an international environmental organization, a rocha. they're researching fish stocks and the growth of the corals. >> the two habitats are completely intertwined, the fish that are spending time as juveniles in the creek and then may be coming out to the reef as adults and i am sure there are species that even feed at different times maybe on the reef and in the creek. so, both habitats are completely interconnected and if one of the

habitats was lost, the other one would become degraded. >> the marine researchers have been collecting data for a few months now, to find out how great the damage to the reef already is. most coastal residents have little idea of how much the reef and lagoon depend on each other. so, the organization is also teaching children from neighboring villages about environmental protection. stanley baya explains the interplay within this ecosystem. >> so there is a balance here, every part depends on the other, the mangroves are protected from being eroded by the coral reef. then the mangroves also protect the coral reef because sand that would come from the land being washed away by rain does not reach the corals because mangrove roots holds it, traps it so it doesn't damage the

coral in the end there. >> at low tide there are sponges, starfish, and crabs to discover and touch. that way the children learn to protect their resources. >> we target the parents of the students, that is, the adults, the fishermen, the farmers, with environmental education, but we also focus on the students, so that we build sustainability for the future. they will grow knowing how important this ecosystem is. >> in the afternoon the tide comes in, and with it water, fish, mussels, and crabs flow into the lagoon. thousands of birds migrating from the north spend the winter in mida creek, where they find

the best food. david ngala has been observing the fauna in the lagoon and mangrove forest behind it for more than 30 years. for a rocha, he guides tourists through the nature reserve. they bring in the money he needs for himself and the environment. >> there has been a very big change. many people are encouraged to destruct the forest, to destruct the mangrove trees to earn some money to help their families but still we are really educating them to stop.

>> behind mida creek lies arabuko sokoke national park. david ngala is on the lookout for rare animals. today he's been following the call of the sokoke scops owl. he only found it after two hours. >> the sokoke scops owl is endemic to sokoke and it is threatened by destructions being done by the community. >> many animals threatened with extinction live in the forest, among them dwarf antelopes and various species of shrew. during the past few years, david ngala has seen them less and less. 19-year-old kahindi gona, the fisherman's son, goes to secondary school. he's one of 130 pupils from the lagoon whose education is being paid for by a rocha.

>> being sponsored was a very good thing to me because my parents are not able to produce the school fees. that's why i felt happy. >> kahindi plans to take his final exams in three years. most of these students don't want to hunt or fish for a living. like him, they want to go to university. in the evening, the gona family members meet in front of their huts. kahindi tells them about the history paper he wrote in school today. his father talks about the lack of fish. >> i would like to be a teacher, to proceed with the education of my brothers and sisters so that they can also be educated. >> there's no fish for supper tonight.

they hope the catch in mida creek will be better tomorrow. >> so, still early days there. following the 9/11 attacks the united states launched a major new system to increase security of container cargo. the aim is to get as good a risk assessment as possible before any container reaches port. but given the scale of global trade, there is no absolute safety. africa is a major transit area for all sorts of questionable goods ranging from bootleg brands to arms and illegal drugs. usually they are hidden in containers full of socks or other harmless cargo. in ghana's largest port of tema, we visit a special unit tasked with fighting illegal trade. >> the sniffer dog is let loose. he sticks his nose in everything humans can't reach. edmund landy tie and his team work at ghana's largest deep-water port, tema. under the auspices of a program

sponsored by the un and the world customs organization, they're searching for goods that shouldn't be imported here. in addition to counterfeit designer labels, that means weapons, drugs, and all sorts of contraband. more than 1650 ships dock in tema every year. 70% of ghana's imports are unloaded here. in addition, there's cargo for neighboring countries that have no access to the sea, container after container after container. but do the containers really withhold the goods that are declared? to find out, the inspectors use profiling. >> it helps us to select those consignments we believe we could find something. we are looking for risk indicators -- where the

container is coming from, who is shipping it, which port is it coming from? is it a first- time importer? is it a port where we have come to know we usually have contraband moving out of? >> that's just the case with this load of toner cartridges. are they genuine or fakes? even if the logo looks real, the way it's printed betrays it as counterfeit. >> when you turn it this way, this must be lighter and this must be darker. they have been able to perfect from the left to the right, but not been able to perfect from the down to the up. >> ghana is also a popular destination for drug traffickers from south america. the reason is the lax border controls between african countries. an estimated 15% of the cocaine smuggled into europe comes via africa. that's why this shipment of machetes from colombia is being x-rayed. importing these weapons isn't

illegal, but their country of origin leads the inspectors to suspect there might be drugs on board. on the monitor, they check the container's contents. >> it's a comparison to what has been declared by the importer to see if it matches the declared item in the container. >> the machetes have passed the x-ray test. but is cocaine hidden anywhere else? a few random samples are unloaded, inspected and weighed. >> we just found out that some of the boxes are a bit heavier than the others. so, we need to confirm physically why that is so. >> cocaine might be hidden in these handles, but the inspectors find nothing. before they give the green light, there's one more expert to be consulted. and he always follows his nose.

but in the end, the sniffer dog confirms there's no white powder hidden here. still, as a reward, he's allowed to find a practice packet, because, just like us, he's motivated by success. >> great stuff. and until recently it would have been risky to even exchange this global snack recipe on facebook or twitter in iran. access to the web is still restricted there. and human rights and press freedoms are still being violated. but there are also signs that the country could truly be opening up under president hassan rouhani. the fact that some iranian politicians themselves have started using social media, suggests that these latest freedoms may be here to stay. we've asked a couple of iranian journalists what they make of this. >> a harsh wind blows over the caspian sea, whipping up the waves. that doesn't bother amir and javad. they often come here for the

weekend to get away from the teeming metropolis of tehran and sort out their thoughts. >> before rouhani became president, like many other people, i had a plan to leave the country. but a lot happened in 2013. and after the elections i began to hope again. the situation has improved. it's more open. >> and he says that, because there's a political thaw in iran, some of his friends who emigrated abroad years ago are even thinking of returning. amir and javad travel over the mountains back to the city, once again enjoying the clear air out here and the hot tea that's long been a tradition in iran. it's their favorite leisure activity.

amir's computer is his working tool. pushing these keys was punishable by law six months ago, and even now it's not clear whether its really permissible to access facebook, a popular website in iran. he's a journalist and blogger. increasingly, amir writes his articles on facebook, because he gets more direct responses. since iran has had a new president, and the foreign minister uses facebook, he's glad that things are slowly changing. >> now it's great. since four or five months it's been much easier to access the internet. opening this site used to be a complicated procedure. >> amir is 29 and lives with his mother in western tehran. like many people who haven't yet married, he remains at home in the family fold. it's also cheaper. that's important because, ever since international sanctions really took hold about two years ago, the cost of living has

risen dramatically. shopping is anything but a pleasure. prices for bread have tripled. that also goes for fruit and vegetables. goods from abroad cost five times as much as they used to, if they're available at all. the country is virtually bankrupt. tripling the cost of fuel and gas didn't help, it just accelerated the general rise in prices. many people had hoped things would become cheaper after the first successful nuclear talks. >> prices for staple foods haven't changed yet. it will certainly take a few months, if anything changes at all. >> we go with amir to iran khodro, the largest car manufacturer in the middle east. after oil and gas, the automotive industry is the country's most important economic sector.

as the sanctions became more effective, production output plummeted. but iran knew how to react, and countered the trend with the help of south korea and china. amir has always written about numbers and statistics, which, especially during mahmoud ahmadinejad's era, were falsified, and not just in the car manufacturing industry. of course, iranians would prefer to cooperate with the west. many of their machines come from western countries, including germany. siemens, bosch, and continental have done good business here. iran now manufactures many car parts it used to import two years ago. iran khodro's deputy director expects that after the positive results of the geneva talks, sanctions will be eased and companies from europe will soon return to iran.

>> most of the companies that have already done business with us, such as bosch and conti. they were supplying to us major electronic and safety components. they've announced us they're interested to restart their cooperation with us. >> amir earns his living not from blogging, but by writing for a business and economics magazine. facebook is once again on many computer screens. even if individual newspapers and websites are still closed or blocked, the atmosphere in the editorial offices has eased. like many of his colleagues, amir has been in jail. he spent ten days in solitary confinement in the notorious evin prison. he's rather skeptical as far as rapid change in his country is concerned. but still, writing a long story on facebook would have been

unimaginable six months ago. >> now it's easier to criticize the government without fear of being charged with a crime. but everything else has remained the same. >> there's still a certain amount of skepticism among the journalists here. they're all taking a wait and see attitude, because eight years under ahmadinejad still have an effect. >> the first thing that happened after the elections was that people became quieter. they have the impression that the current government can manage the country and its problems. >> the hope of better times is noticeable on the stock market. popular enthusiasm gives the markets stability. the index has risen and prices for some goods are falling. >> we accompany amir and javad to an exhibition. censorship used to be especially

extreme in the arts. even a hint of dissidence was forbidden. this exhibition is highly political. 93 artists have painted 93 portraits of politicians from all over the world. here it's easy to see how large -- to see that censorship still looms large, in the space where a portrait of ayatollah khomeini should be hanging. obviously fearing to do something wrong, the artist painted nothing. >> that's what i call a clear message. and that was "global 3000." thanks for watching and bye-bye. captioned by the national captioning institute ÷ggç

>> the following program is an original production of link tv. >> coming up, does the american defense secretary make u.s. china relations a better? is india's election campaign getting out of hand? celebrity scandals that set records on china subscriptions. all here on link asia. welcome to linkasia.