Fighting for Life
From Our Own Correspondent
BBC
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 11 August 2018
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A hostage and captor meet again in Syria, anger grows amid Assam's floodwaters and young people take to the barricades in Nicaragua. Kate Adie introduces correspondents' stories from around the world.
Quentin Sommerville was wary of interviewing two former members of the so-called Islamic State: he didn't want to give them any kind of platform. But in Syria he did get to talk to them - and witness their reactions when a man whom they'd once held captive got to ask the questions.
As monsoon storms lash the subcontinent and flood waters rise, Nick Beake speaks to farmers and families who feel exhausted and marginalised by an endlessly repeating cycle of disaster and rebuilding in the northeastern Indian state of Assam.
In the past week, Argentina's Senate voted NOT to decriminalise abortion in the first three months of pregnancy - despite a vocal and vigorous campaign, led by women, to change the law. Katy Watson hears from both sides of the debate.
Arturo Wallace returns to Nicaragua, his homeland, and is unnerved by echoes of history in this year's political crisis there - as street protests, state repression, and unidentified assassins return to the streets of Managua.
And there's a football match in Agadez, Niger - a major stop-off on the migrant routes funnelling people from West Africa over the Sahara desert to the Mediterranean, and (they hope) to Europe. Jennifer O'Mahoney watches from the sidelines as local talent play newcomers, and even the kit is shared.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the BBC. |
| 0:03.7 | Today, Green Hankerchiefs waved by women in Argentina a signal of activism as the abortion |
| 0:10.6 | reform bid fails. |
| 0:12.1 | Changes to pension sparked protest in Nicaragua. |
| 0:16.0 | Now illegal killings intensify unrest. Floods bring complaints of abandonment from people stranded by the monsoon in the state of Assam in India. |
| 0:26.5 | And we go to a Saharan football match, so put on your |
| 0:35.0 | first to Syria and the awkward question of what to do with fighters and |
| 0:40.0 | collaborators of Islamic State who've been captured across their former area of control. |
| 0:46.0 | Many countries are faced with this. |
| 0:48.4 | Europeans tend to say they don't want them back. |
| 0:51.7 | Some have cancelled their citizenship. In the countries where ISIS |
| 0:55.2 | actually fought, notably Iraq and Syria, they're more likely to end up being rapidly sentenced |
| 1:00.9 | to death. Quentin Somerville has been hearing views of those I never wanted to interview the men's |
| 1:05.0 | personally involved. |
| 1:07.0 | I never wanted to interview the men's |
| 1:08.5 | suspected of being the Beatles. |
| 1:10.4 | Even the name itself is grating. |
| 1:13.0 | These four British jihadists, jailers and torturers of the so-called Islamic State |
| 1:18.0 | are accused of beheading 27 hostages. |
| 1:21.0 | But then I understood that the name was given to them not by the media, but by their |
| 1:25.5 | captives. James Foley, Alan Henning, Peter Abdulrahman Kaseg,iguotu and David Haynes, among others. |
| 1:34.7 | They called them the Beatles, not just because their tormentors were British, but because it was a useful |
... |
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