. A Yankee Learns Farsi
From Our Own Correspondent
BBC
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 18 August 2012
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
French police have been placed on higher alert after rioting in the northern city of Amiens. Christian Fraser says the unrest poses a growing challenge to the new president, Francois Hollande. Government forces have been re-deployed from north-east Syria. Orla Guerin believes the Kurds, who've long wanted to establish their own homeland, see this as a window of opportunity. There've been more protests in Delhi against corruption in public life. But Mark Tully wonders if support for the anti-corruption movement is ebbing away. How will life change in Egypt now there's a president from the Muslim Brotherhood? It's a question exercising many including foreign visitors to Cairo like Edwin Lane. He speculates whether time might soon be called on the capital's thriving bar scene. And Daniel Nasaw tells of the difficulties and the embarrassments an American can face when he tries to get to grips with Farsi, the language of the Iranians.
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 Aide. |
| 0:16.0 | Today riots in Amiens, a brutal summer in Marseille. |
| 0:20.0 | Discontent among French youth is posing a growing challenge to the new president. |
| 0:25.0 | Why the much oppressed Kurdish people could emerge winners in the battle for the future of Syria. |
| 0:31.0 | Cairo's drinkers wonder if Egypt's new Muslim rulers will call time on the city's thriving |
| 0:36.3 | bar scene. And there's an embarrassing mistake as an American tries to master the Iranian |
| 0:41.6 | language Farsi. |
| 0:44.0 | Police throughout France are on high alert this weekend after the riots in Amiens, which left |
| 0:48.9 | 16 officers injured in the city's northern suburbs. The clashes involving more than a hundred |
| 0:54.9 | youths and up to 150 police officers left a primary school severely damaged on |
| 0:59.9 | a sports centre destroyed. The area where the rioting broke out is set to become one of |
| 1:04.8 | the 15 so-called priority security zones which will be formally established next |
| 1:10.0 | month. Christian Fraser says the trouble has come at a difficult time for the country's new |
| 1:14.6 | President, Francois-O-Lornd. The French economy is showing no sign of picking up and trade unions |
| 1:20.3 | a warning of what they call a hot autumn of protest. |
| 1:24.6 | The old port of Marseille is bustling at this time of year. |
| 1:28.7 | It's the Mediterranean route into France, a haven for traders, a gateway for smugglers, and it reflects in the visiting |
| 1:35.5 | yachts that currently hug the harbour, the wealth and privilege to which many in Marseille |
| 1:40.5 | aspire. High above the towering cranes of the old waterfront is the |
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