A Nightmarish Tale
From Our Own Correspondent
BBC
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 8 December 2012
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The BBC's Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen examines claims that a conclusion to the long conflict in Syria is within sight. After a year of protests against President Putin, Steve Rosenberg finds support for him is still strong -- particularly in cities away from the capital, Moscow. Bethany Bell's in South Tyrol where some are angry that the Italian authorities, in the midst of financial crisis, want this wealthy Alpine province to contribute more to the national exchequer. The Turks know that the television soap opera's an effective means of extending influence throughout the Middle East. And the BBC man Rajan Datar gets offered a screen part! And they've been harvesting the olives in the hills of Tuscany. Dany Mitzman's been lending a hand and observing that the harvest methods have changed little since ancient times.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to a download from the BBC, this is from our own correspondent. |
| 0:04.6 | You can hear the version of the program we make for the BBC World Service by visiting our |
| 0:08.6 | site at BBC online. |
| 0:10.8 | But here's the latest edition broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and introduced by Kate Adi. |
| 0:16.0 | Today from Damascus a nightmarish tale of two cities. |
| 0:21.0 | A message from the Russian president from the town of Crystal Goose. |
| 0:24.8 | The television soaps helping Turkey extend its influence through the Middle East, and in the |
| 0:29.9 | Tuscan hills why they're still picking olives by hand just as they did in ancient |
| 0:34.8 | times. |
| 0:37.8 | Shocked, humbled, deeply moved. |
| 0:39.9 | Those were the comments of the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon yesterday after he talked to |
| 0:44.8 | Syrian refugees at a camp just inside the Turkish border. |
| 0:49.0 | Earlier a senior Syrian official had told the BBC that army operations were at a crucial turning point. |
| 0:55.8 | The information minister O'Rum Al-Zobe predicted that government forces would in three to four |
| 1:01.2 | days win what he called the Battle for Damascus. |
| 1:04.3 | But Jeremy Byrne, who's in the capital, says the signs are the conflict still has some |
| 1:09.6 | distance to run. |
| 1:11.0 | At the moment the capital of Syria is having its own nightmarish tale of two cities. |
| 1:16.8 | I'm in the centre, not far from one of the world's great places, the walled old city of Damascus. It contains the 1400 year old |
| 1:25.7 | Umayyad mosque and so many layers of history that Roman columns prop up |
| 1:30.0 | arc and people still live and work in the street called straight where the Bible |
| 1:35.8 | says St Paul stayed after he was struck blind on the road to Damascus. The |
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