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Kate Adie introduces insight, wit and analysis from BBC correspondents and writers.

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From Our Own Correspondent: Still There: The Migrants Trapped in Calais Limbo

17/02/2022

Still There: The Migrants Trapped in Calais Limbo

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent, Still There: The Migrants Trapped in Calais Limbo

France is making life tougher for those camped in Calais, to try to deter them from coming

Conditions for migrants in Calais, and those with learning disabilities in Russia, plus psychedelics as therapeutics in the US, a rare bird in Costa Rica, and a walk across Europe.

Many migrants still set off by boat from Calais each week, in the hope of reaching Britain. The French authorities insist they are trying to deter people from coming to Calais, by making conditions there tougher. Horatio Clare says they are removing tents, mattresses, and even the blankets people sleep under.
 
More than 150 thousand Russians with learning disabilities live in institutions which have been criticised as inhumane or cruel. The aim, Lucy Ash says, is to keep out of sight people who are considered a social embarrassment. She has been meeting activists in Moscow, trying to provide alternative ways for them to be cared for and supported.

LSD and magic mushrooms were once supposed to be a means to tap into an alternative universe, to “Break on Through to the Other Side,” as the Doors singer, Jim Morrison put it. Nowadays, conventional medical establishments are exploring how various psychedelics can be used to treat people with mental health problems. Stephanie Theobald went to a convention in the US state of Nevada, which proclaimed a new psychedelic renaissance.

Stephen Moss has travelled the world as a producer for the BBC’s Natural History Unit, seeing plenty of unusual wildlife along the way. But he had a particular, yet unfulfilled ambition to see the bird species known as the “Resplendent Quetzal.” In the end, he had to travel to Costa Rica to catch sight of it.

It is sometimes hard to believe that border requirements such as visas and passports are a relatively modern development, passports themselves only being standardised in the 1920s. So how has all this affected those who seek to roam around the continent - for pleasure, for exploration, to experience other cultures? Nick Hunt has made many such journeys, and reflects now on how they have changed, and how they have stayed the same.

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