Higher Powers
From Our Own Correspondent
BBC
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 22 September 2016
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Kate Adie presents the first in a new series of eight programmes. In this edition, John Murphy reports from Najaf on the mounting death toll among Iraqis from the conflict with so-called Islamic State; Olivia Crellin tells the remarkable story of a transgender couple in Ecuador who are challenging some local assumptions by seeking to become parents; as South Africa's athletes return from Rio, Lindsay Johns in Cape Town reflects on the extraordinary impact that Olympic success is having there on coloured South Africans more than twenty-five years after the end of apartheid; Caroline Davies in Cairo discovers how, despite the growing intolerance Copts face in Egypt, they are enjoying great success in the country's recycling business; and Hugh Schofield in Paris ponders the world of Anglo-French mathematics as he studies for his A level in the subject and his son works on his baccalauréat.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Thank you for downloading from our own correspondent. |
| 0:03.0 | This edition was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Thursday the 22nd of September 2016. |
| 0:10.0 | It's introduced by Kate Adi. |
| 0:12.0 | Hello and welcome to a new series of Thursday dispatchers from around the world. |
| 0:17.0 | We hear from Ecuador about a couple starting a family, two transgender parents and their baby. a Where there's muck, there's brass, a saying not lost on the Coptic Christian rubbish collectors in Cairo. |
| 0:37.0 | And our correspondent in Paris, Graples with maths, and finds it's not such a universal language after all. |
| 0:45.0 | First to Iraq and the lethal cauldron of nationality, religion and violence, |
| 0:51.0 | to many a bewildering swirl of competing beliefs and historical grudges. |
| 0:56.6 | More battles are looming particularly to retake the city of Moses from ISIS and its |
| 1:01.9 | Sunni adherents. The Sunnis regard the Shias who make |
| 1:06.3 | up two-thirds of the population of Iraq as heretics, and as John Murphy's been finding |
| 1:11.9 | out in the city of Najaf, many Iraqis are not clear what their young men are dying for. |
| 1:19.0 | It's true, death does smell sweet. |
| 1:22.0 | Walking around the world's larger cemetery, if that's what you pick up, |
| 1:25.7 | the sweet sickly smell of fresh corpses. I'm told there are more than 5 million of them here in the |
| 1:32.3 | Wadi Al-Salam Cemetery of Najaf, the third |
| 1:35.3 | holiest city for Shia Muslims after Mecca and Medina. |
| 1:39.5 | Najaf's a three hour drive south of Baghdad and that includes the numerous security |
| 1:44.5 | checkpoints you have to go through. The giant cemetery is surprisingly close to |
| 1:49.9 | the city centre. Then again that's the point. It's near one of the holiest shrines for Shias, the |
| 1:56.5 | Imam Ali Shrine. I'll come back to that later. We drive to the other side of the cemetery until we reach a parking area. |
| 2:05.8 | Men in white rubber boots are hosing the ground with water. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.