A Sorry Century

From Our Own Correspondent

BBC

News, News Commentary

4.4 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 3 August 2019

⏱️ 29 minutes

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Summary

Television footage from Idlib in northern Syria continues to provide distressing evidence of civilian suffering. But the world's leading nations are unwilling or unable to intercede. Jeremy Bowen recalls his visits to the region in former, peaceful times but sees no end to the current violence.

The protesters have been on the streets of Hong Kong for several months, their fury with their government undiminished. But what are they saying in Beijing, the real centre of power? Celia Hatton says they're preparing death by a thousand cuts.

Hundreds of thousands of people have fled Somalia since the outbreak of civil war in the early 1990s. But a few brave souls have been going back to try and start the rebuilding process. Andrew Harding made friends with one of them several years ago, a man who became the mayor of Mogadishu.

In Nicaragua it's now 40 years since the Sandinista movement overthrew a hated dictatorship. The man in charge then, Daniel Ortega, is still in charge now. But the movement is now accused of adopting the same autocratic methods of the government it replaced. Will Grant has been talking to opposition figures recently released from prison.

In St Petersburg there's a row over the literary legacy of one of the city's best-known writers, Vladimir Nabokov. Chloe Arnold has been meeting those on each side of the argument

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:04.7	Hello, today, trouble again on the streets of Hong Kong and in Beijing our
0:10.3	correspondent predicts the traditional death by a thousand cuts.
0:15.0	The desire of Somalis to return to their dangerous homeland remains strong
0:20.0	despite the tragedy of a modest man in Mogadishu.
0:23.6	In Nicaragua, the national flag has become the symbol of resistance to the Sandinistas,
0:29.0	who first took power 40 years ago, and a cultural row in St. Petersburg with Loleita at the center of the
0:36.3	storm. Events in Idlib province in Syria in 2011 led to a devastating war and Idlib still remains a center of resistance to
0:46.3	Basha al-Assad's regime. Civilians there are enduring appalling conditions as
0:51.7	the Syrian army has driven rebel groups out of other towns
0:55.2	and villages elsewhere in the country.
0:57.9	It live now is the last major bolt hole against Assad, but says Jeremy Bowen, that may not be for much longer.
1:05.0	In a country with more ancient monuments and layers of history than most,
1:10.0	the province of Idlib used to be a very interesting place to visit.
1:15.0	In 2010, the year before the war started in Syria,
1:18.0	we stopped in Idlib during a journey from Damascus to Aleppo,
1:22.0	a day-long drive from Damascus to Aleppo, a day-long drive from the capital to a city that had been a great
1:26.5	trading post for millennia, a crossroads on the silk road that connected Asia and Europe.
1:33.5	It was the Easter holidays and I was there with my mother and my daughter who was then nine.
1:38.6	At the time, the biggest danger in Syria for foreign visitors
1:42.4	was other people's driving.
1:45.0	We didn't break the journey in Idlib city or in the villages that this week are being hammered
	...

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