Afghanistan at a crossroads
From Our Own Correspondent
BBC
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 25 February 2021
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Afghanistan has seen a surge in civilian casualties since US-brokered peace talks with the Taliban resumed last year. Ashraf Ghani, the Afghan President, however, still sees reason for optimism, thanks to the new-US administration with whom he hopes to have better relations. Lyse Doucet reflects on Kabul's battle to shake off a violent past. Businesses across Myanmar were closed on Monday as protestors in several cities held a General Strike in protest against the military coup and arrest of their civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. Initial hopes for a peaceful resolution are now fading after troops fired live ammunition and tear gas into crowds in recent weeks. But a heavy-handed response is only sharpening the resolve of those on the streets, finds Ben Dunant. In 2014, a small farming village of Kocho in northern Iraq, was the scene of one of the worst massacres carried out by the Islamic State group, killing hundreds of people from the Yazidi ethno-religious minority. This month, 103 of the victims were returned to Kocho for proper burials. Lizzie Porter attended the funeral. In Greenland, a rare earth mining project is dominating the political agenda, with snap elections called for April. The proposed mine has inspired hopes that it could provide the windfall needed to gain full independence from Denmark. But, as Guy Kiddey discovered, on a recent trip,the project is also causing some distress. Every year in February, several towns in the French Riviera hold festivals to celebrate the Mimosa harvest. There are parades in the streets with floral floats, brass bands, and street orchestras And although the usual festivities have been cancelled this year, Christine Finn finds this year’s flowering still offers hope.
Presenter: Kate Adie Producer: Serena Tarling
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts |
| 0:05.4 | Today the streets in Myanmar are still full of defiant protesters demanding an end to |
| 0:11.2 | military rule. It's a risky business with the military warning that they're hazarding |
| 0:16.3 | their lives. A funeral in northern Iraq for some of the Yazidis killed in one of the worst |
| 0:22.8 | massacres by Islamic State and there are many more mass graves to be exhumed before they |
| 0:28.6 | can be given proper burial. Mining versus the environment is becoming a more frequent |
| 0:34.9 | dilemma and this is in Greenland where there are plans for a rare earth metal mine, opinions |
| 0:41.6 | divided with a snap election possibly deciding the outcome. And a hint of spring often welcomed |
| 0:48.9 | with festivals around the world but this year blighted by the pandemic so in France they're |
| 0:54.9 | doing what they can with mimosas. First Afghanistan, where yet again this week there were calls |
| 1:02.8 | for a ceasefire as the figure for civilian casualties of Taliban attacks has been on the |
| 1:08.0 | increase. Despite the continuing violence and lack of progress to some kind of peace agreement, |
| 1:15.1 | the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani sees reason for optimism, hoping for better relations |
| 1:21.2 | with the new American administration, leads to set met him in the presidential palace in Kabul. |
| 1:29.1 | There's a blast every day now, every day, balls of flame rising from shattered cars on busy |
| 1:36.4 | streets, columns of thick black smoke curling from crumpled buses. Every day another life or |
| 1:43.6 | more is cut short in a wave of assassinations. Magnetic bombs attached to vehicles, bombs planted |
| 1:50.6 | on the roadside, one by one Afghan journalists, judges, poets, politicians, police are picked off. |
| 1:58.6 | And no group says we did it, every day there's a blast somewhere. And some days there's a scream, |
| 2:06.4 | a scream so visceral, it stops Afghans and their tracks and the rush and risk of their own lives. |
| 2:12.6 | Grandmother! Get up, grandmother! Five-year-old Aisha and her grey-hooded parka screamed in panic. |
| 2:20.6 | Her little sister, two-year-old Malika, wailed without words. Their grandmother lay motionless |
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