A Doomed Romance
From Our Own Correspondent
BBC
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 30 January 2014
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A love affair going nowhere in Damascus -- it's what happens when a rebel footsoldier falls in love with the daughter of one of the Syrian regime's security chiefs; one correspondent comes face to face with what she describes as 'the most exquisite banquet in Chinese history' while another is with the protestors in the Ukrainian capital Kiev saying the city 'looks and feels like some surreal parallel universe where an idealised, heroic past has collided with a menacing dystopian future.' We hear that Kazakhstan is suffering an identity crisis: while some now chase post-perestroika wealth, others are looking to the past and seeking guidance from the cults of their ancestors. And their songs have been labelled 'vulgar and slanderous' but we find out that the Calypsonians of Guyana claim their government's trying to silence them.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, today a doomed love affair between a man and a woman on opposing sides of the warring |
| 0:17.2 | divide in Syria. |
| 0:19.6 | Hands off our Calypso, the Caribbean musicians who say their governments determined to silence their music. |
| 0:26.0 | We're in Kazakhstan free now from the shackles of communism only to suffer an identity crisis, |
| 0:32.2 | and face to face with the most exquisite Chinese banquet ever |
| 0:35.4 | 40 mouthwatering dishes and not one of them is edible. But first the political drama |
| 0:42.0 | in Ukraine shows no sign of coming to an early end. |
| 0:45.0 | Already this week the Prime Minister has announced his resignation and the government has repealed the anti-protest laws which led to violence earlier this month and last night the Parliament |
| 0:55.1 | approved a law granting an amnesty to those detained during weeks of anti-government protests. |
| 1:01.4 | Opposition parties refused to back the bill which stipulates that demonstrators must remove barricades in the centre of the capital Kiev and leave the government buildings they occupy within 15 days. |
| 1:12.0 | Gabriel Gatehouse has spent the last few days with the protesters who are still on the streets of the capital and say they won't go until the president has resigned. |
| 1:21.0 | At first I thought perhaps I'd stumbled into some sort of historical theme park. A |
| 1:26.6 | Burley man in Cossack Garb, white tunic, astrocan cap, a bullet belt slung across his chest was stoking a wood-burning stove. |
| 1:36.2 | His jaw was set in an attitude of grim determination as he waited for his tin kettle to boil. Frost settled on his fulsome drooping moustache. Day and night battle cries echo around Kyiv's independent |
| 1:50.4 | square in a well practiced call and response routine. |
| 1:54.0 | First, a single voice rings out. |
| 1:57.0 | Slava Ukraine, glory to Ukraine. |
| 2:00.0 | Heroyam slava intoned the crowd, Glory to our heroes. |
| 2:04.7 | Those words were the slogan of the Ukrainian insurgent army, |
| 2:08.4 | a nationalist outfit that had fought a doomed guerrilla war |
| 2:11.9 | against the Soviet government in Western Ukraine in the 1940s and 50s. |
| 2:17.0 | Today their black and red flags flutter from green canvas tents right in the center of the city. What had been a peaceful protest |
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