A Banquet of Unpalatable Choices
From Our Own Correspondent
BBC
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 31 August 2013
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Correspondents tell their stories: Mark Mardell in Washington on difficult decisions for President Obama: Charles Haviland, off for dinner with the departing president of Pakistan, ponders over the milk pudding on the legacy Asif Ali Zardari leaves behind; a different perspective on the state of Chinese justice comes from John Sudworth, who was covering the trial in Jinan of ousted politician Bo Xilai; as immigration tops the election headlines in Australia, Jon Donnison tells the story of a refugee who made it from the civil war in Syria to the offices of a women's magazine in Sydney and Nick Thorpe's unearthed the reason why, somewhere in the dry Hungarian soil, the heart of Suleiman the Magnificent is beating a little faster. From Our Own Correspondent is produced by Tony Grant.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, by Kate Adi. Hello. Today, a banquet of unpalatable choices for Barack Obama. |
| 0:17.4 | We're off to dinner with the unpopular and departing President of Pakistan. |
| 0:22.4 | There's a long and difficult journey from the war in Syria to the |
| 0:25.6 | officers of a women's magazine in Sydney. And we find out why buried somewhere in |
| 0:31.1 | Hungary, the heart of Sule Solomon the Magnificent is beating a little |
| 0:35.0 | faster. |
| 0:36.0 | So what exactly will President Obama do about Syria? |
| 0:41.0 | Last night his Secretary of State said there was compelling evidence that Bata |
| 0:44.9 | Al-Assad's army carried out a poison gas attack in Damascus killing more than |
| 0:49.3 | 1400 people. The American president said he was considering a limited military response that would not |
| 0:56.2 | involve ground troops or a long-term campaign. |
| 0:59.9 | But Mark Mardale in Washington says, for Mr Mr Obama there are no easy options. |
| 1:05.6 | The President of the United States keeps himself busy. |
| 1:08.5 | Perhaps he has to to keep his mind off the curse of Iraq. |
| 1:11.9 | It's a conflict that still casts a long shadow. So while |
| 1:15.2 | pondering one of the biggest decisions of his term in office, President Obama |
| 1:18.9 | continues to give the Medal of Honor to veterans, talk to city mayors about gun control, and discuss the cost of higher education. |
| 1:26.0 | He's spoken about the chemical weapons issue twice in recent days. |
| 1:29.6 | Both times the bulk of the interview was on a different subject, I presume at the insistence of the White House. |
| 1:35.0 | This may simply be the political equivalent of juggling plates while riding a unicycle and whistling the star-spangled banner. |
| 1:41.0 | It may simply be to keep his mind off the appalling set of choices which |
| 1:45.6 | confronts him. I'm pretty sure the highlight of his week was when he did talk directly |
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