Damascus Rules
From Our Own Correspondent
BBC
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 19 December 2015
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Almost better than travelling yourself! Insight, wit and colour from around the globe. In this one: the tablecloth approach to ending war -- serious discussions about how to end the fighting in Syria; the end of another long conflict may be in sight as the government in Bogota signs an interim peace deal with Colombia's FARC rebels; arguments intensify over territorial claims in the South China Sea -- we meet Vietnamese fishermen who now find themselves in the front line; the Turks and the Hungarians redouble their search for the missing heart of Suleiman the Magnificent, but why are they bothering? And they've got problems in Rome: alleged corruption in high places, organised crime, traditional shops and businesses being chased away. But the Romans are putting all this to one side, at least for a few days. After all, it's Christmas! And there are menus to be planned!
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Thank you for downloading the latest edition of BBC radios from our own correspondent, |
| 0:05.7 | the best in news and current affairs storytelling. |
| 0:08.8 | It's introduced by Kate 80. |
| 0:11.2 | Hello, today it's Damascus rules as efforts intensified to end the long |
| 0:16.3 | conflict in Syria. We take the dusty road to Nazareth and learn not everyone's |
| 0:21.5 | happy that the Colombian government's talking peace with the Marxist |
| 0:25.1 | rebels of the FARC. |
| 0:27.1 | At last there's news about the missing heart of Suleiman the Magnificent buried in gold but lost in 1566. |
| 0:36.0 | And festive fevers descended upon Rome. |
| 0:38.7 | The menus are being planned and the questions being asked, who's going to walk through that door. |
| 0:44.4 | So a breakthrough in New York last night. |
| 0:47.0 | Russia and the United States committed themselves to establishing a unity government in Syria |
| 0:51.5 | within months, despite continuing differences |
| 0:54.4 | over the future role of President Assad. The commitment was included in a |
| 0:58.7 | roadmap to peace adopted unanimously by the United Nations Security Council. The resolution calls for a ceasefire |
| 1:05.4 | across the country and UN supervised elections there within 18 months. Mark Urban says |
| 1:11.4 | significant progress was clearly made in New York, but an end to the war remains a distant prospect. |
| 1:18.0 | Many years ago in Damascus, I found the tables turned on me by the Syrian Foreign Minister. He was aware that actually |
| 1:26.0 | I was based in Jerusalem and back then in the mid 90s travelers coming from Israel was still quite a rarity in that minister's office. |
| 1:36.3 | So when I'd filmed my interview, he started his, about the Israeli appetite for peace and the sincerity of their Prime Minister. |
| 1:45.0 | He asked more questions than I had, cross-examining me intensely. |
| 1:50.0 | And all the time he didn't mention certain things, very obvious ones like where I was based, |
... |
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