An unprecedented US election
From Our Own Correspondent
BBC
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 31 October 2020
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Record numbers of Americans have already voted early in the US elections. The country has become more polarised under President Trump, but it remains to be seen whether the high early turnout is due to heightened political feelings, or concerns about catching the virus on polling day. Nick Bryant reflects on the political state of the nation, and on an election campaign that turned out very differently from how it looked before the pandemic struck. Thousands of young Nigerians have protested in recent weeks against a notorious police unit, the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, or SARS, which became infamous for unlawful killings, torture and extortion. The demonstrations spread from Nigeria’s largest city Lagos, to other parts of the country and even internationally. What had started as taking a stance against police brutality, turned into much more, as Yemisi Adegoke reports from Lagos. In Poland, a ruling from the constitutional court last week outlawed terminations in cases of severe foetal defects - 98% of those carried out last year. Poland already had one of Europe's most restrictive abortion laws, and the new edict has sparked large protests over the past week. Lucy Ash caught up with some demonstrators in the capital Warsaw. Even though far fewer people are flying than usual, Berlin is opening a new airport today, Berlin-Brandenburg. Not that it was planned that way. The modern airport was meant to open a decade ago, but there were repeated delays and it went almost three times over budget. So are the locals glad the big day has finally come? Not really, says Jenny Hill, who’s not the only one in Berlin who will be mourning the old airport, Tegel.
Presenter: Kate Adie Producer: Arlene Gregorius
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. |
| 0:05.0 | Good morning. |
| 0:06.5 | Today they call themselves coconut heads, |
| 0:10.0 | meaning they're tough and won't easily break, young Nigerians who've risen up in protest against police brutality. |
| 0:17.9 | Protest in Poland too against the new abortion ruling, making it illegal in most cases including severe |
| 0:25.1 | fetal abnormality. We hear from the streets of Warsaw and you can lament the |
| 0:31.4 | loss of an airport, well, our correspondent does. It's Berlin's Tagle. |
| 0:37.0 | First, the looming election in the United States, just three days now, but this year so much is different. |
| 0:45.9 | The country is still in the grip of the coronavirus and increasingly polarised, with President |
| 0:52.0 | Trump claiming to have ended the virus, while deaths are running |
| 0:55.8 | at almost a thousand a day. |
| 0:58.4 | The early turnout has been very high, but that could mean many things, burning political feelings, a fear of |
| 1:05.4 | catching COVID at a crowded polling station. It's a battleground and Nick Bryant is |
| 1:11.1 | reflecting on the unusual nature of it all. |
| 1:15.0 | To think we began 2020 supposing the US presidential election |
| 1:18.7 | would be the foremost news event of the year. |
| 1:21.4 | The story that would monopolize our journalistic attention, |
| 1:24.0 | the traveling carnival that would see us clocking up |
| 1:27.0 | tens of thousands of miles, |
| 1:29.0 | the Democratic spectacle that would distance us |
| 1:32.0 | from our families. As we entered election year, the main |
| 1:35.3 | health story to intrude upon the campaign was the cardiac condition of |
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