Clean Up Your Act
From Our Own Correspondent
BBC
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 18 August 2018
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Greece is poised to exit the terms of its third EU bailout as of August 20th. The Tsipras government has claimed this signals "the end of the drama" and greater freedom for Greeks to decide on their own fate and their own economy. Theopi Skarlatos talks to the Finance Ministry cleaners who became a symbol of the country's economic pain when they protested to keep their jobs - and hears what they make of the situation today.
Meanwhile Dublin is preparing for its first papal visit since John Paul II told a crowd of millions "young people of Ireland, I love you!" in 1979. Vincent Woods considers what message today's Irish Catholics would most like to hear from Pope Francis, as the Church reels from a string of scandals and faces some existential threats.
BBC Africa Editor Mary Harper pays tribute to a young Somali friend with a profusion of fresh ideas about how to make daily life in Mogadishu cleaner - and more colourful. Mohamed Mahamoud Sheikh Ali spotted a huge gap in the dry-cleaning market, ran a florist's, and mentored a whole new school of young entrepreneurs.
As the Trump Administration pushes a policy of "Hire American, Buy American", and steps up immigration enforcement measures, Hugo Bachega visits a mid-American town feeling the effects of recent raids to find and deport undocumented workers.
And fifty years on from the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia, Alexa Dvorson hears from three men who vividly remember the Praque Spring and its aftermath as turning points in their own lives, as well as in their country's history.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the BBC. |
| 0:04.0 | Today to Prague, 50 years since tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring. |
| 0:11.0 | Just how Catholic is Ireland these days, our correspondent asks as Pope Francis |
| 0:16.8 | prepares to visit what used to be a great stronghold of the faithful. In Somalia |
| 0:22.2 | our correspondent pays tribute to a young entrepreneur who tried to make |
| 0:26.2 | everyday life in Mogadishu cleaner and more colourful. And President Trump's policies under trailer park in Ohio, we see the aftermath of a US immigration raid. |
| 0:38.0 | First to Greece, next week at midnight on the 20th of August the country will finally end its time |
| 0:44.9 | under the conditions of its third EU bailout in recent years. The Prime Minister |
| 0:50.6 | Alexis Tsipras has called it a transcendent moment for the nation when it finally |
| 0:55.6 | claws back more control over how to allot and spend its budget. |
| 1:00.4 | Greece has managed to stand on her feet again, his office said last week, now a new page of progress, |
| 1:05.8 | justice and growth can be turned. |
| 1:08.7 | But is it really the end of the drama, as the statement claimed? |
| 1:12.4 | There's been nearly a decade of extreme privation |
| 1:15.1 | during which hundreds of thousands of Greeks have emigrated and GDP has plummeted by |
| 1:20.5 | nearly 25%. |
| 1:22.9 | The statistics are terrifying and although the economy is predicted to expand by 2% next year, |
| 1:28.8 | their skepticism about how long it will take for improvement to be seen on the streets according to |
| 1:34.1 | Theopis Galatos. Reporting on Greece's financial troubles I always felt you could |
| 1:39.4 | tell a lot about the situation by the writing on the walls. On the journey from the airport to the |
| 1:44.5 | center of Athens for years I was greeted by a scream of economic pain picked out in |
| 1:49.4 | giant black lettering. I'm being tortured, it read in Greek. Now most of it's faded away, perhaps |
... |
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