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From Our Own Correspondent: Turkey Opens Border with Europe

06/03/2020

Turkey Opens Border with Europe

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent, Turkey Opens Border with Europe

Stories from China, Spain, the South Pacific, Arctic Norway & the Greek-Turkish border.

Stories from China, Spain, the South Pacific, Arctic Norway & the Greek-Turkish border where people heading for Europe face bitter cold, tear gas and worse says Jonah Fisher.

Turkey’s President,  Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has accused the European Union of failing to help him manage the growing crisis in northern Syria. Turkey already has 3.7 million refugees from the conflict there and the recent killing of at least 50 Turkish soldiers last month may have been the last straw. Although the EU promised billions more euros in aid, Turkey decided to open its borders with Greece and has gone out of its way,  says Jonah Fisher,  to help people cross into Europe. 

This week Italy shut all of its schools in an attempt to contain the coronavirus outbreak. In China, even beyond the quarantined cities, all schools across the country have remained closed since Chinese New Year.  As a result, school children and college students have had to stay indoors and study online.  Yvonne Murray, says millions of families have found e-learning something of a nightmare. 

The Great Mosque in the  city of Cordoba is one of Spain's biggest tourist attractions. It is also a reminder of the country's complex history, which included a period of Islamic rule in the middle ages. But an on-going disagreement over the monument’s origins has fed into present-day tensions in Spanish politics says Guy Hedgecoe.

The Solomon Islands, once a South Pacific paradise of  blue lagoons, and emerald forests are severely affected by climate change.  On a recent visit, funded by the Pulitzer Centre,  John Beck discovered a nation  vanishing beneath the waves. 

The Svalbard archipelago, one of the most inhospitable places in Europe,  is now home to a fast-growing community from Thailand. Norwegians are still in the majority yet Thais already make up about a third of the foreign population on the main island.  They go to make money but at quite some cost says Clodagh Kinsella.

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