In Search of Happiness
From Our Own Correspondent
BBC
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 29 April 2017
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The summer fighting season has begun in Afghanistan and, as Justin Rowlatt discovers, there is already a shortage of coffins following a Taliban attack. As the world worries about North Korea, Nick Danziger gets a glimpse of life in Pyongyang; designer coats, European football shirts and courting couples furiously tapping away on locally-manufactured mobile phones were not what he was expecting. In Uzbekistan, it’s the crunch of crinoline and sound of snapping cameras that surprise Caroline Eden – because now is wedding season in the former Soviet state. In the UAE, Julia Wheeler discovers a road named ‘Happiness Street’, a Minister of State for Happiness and fines for those who aren’t quite happy enough. And Mark Stratton goes to Sao Tome and Principe to see how a new approach to the cocoa trade is replacing the bitter legacy of the slave trade.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the BBC. |
| 0:02.0 | And this is from our own correspondent. |
| 0:05.0 | And now with enforced happiness, |
| 0:07.0 | some blushing brides and organic chocolate, |
| 0:09.0 | here's Kate A.D. |
| 0:11.0 | This edition was first broadcast on Radio 4 on April the 29th 2017. |
| 0:17.0 | Hello today a trip to North Korea is not on everyone's bucket list, but our correspondence senses a hint of |
| 0:25.7 | social change amid the drums of war. |
| 0:29.2 | United Arab Emirates, a glamorous destination for tourists and business folk, but beware the men from the |
| 0:35.7 | ministry, the Ministry of Happiness that is. |
| 0:39.7 | We're off to the islands known as the chocolate isles and then to Uzbekistan where it's the |
| 0:45.1 | wedding season, sequins, flower petals and cameras, cameras everywhere. |
| 0:52.2 | Afghanistan no longer grabs major headlines, but it's still violent with the Taliban now controlling |
| 0:58.7 | something like a third of the country. |
| 1:01.8 | American generals want more troops to train the locals who lost at least a hundred |
| 1:06.0 | men, possibly 200 at a base attacked by the Taliban last week. An unsettling time, according to Justin Rowlett. |
| 1:15.0 | I wasn't keen to board the plane out of carball up to Masa E. Sharif. |
| 1:20.0 | It wasn't that I didn't recognise this was a big story. The attack was the most deadly in the entire history of the conflict in Afghanistan, a horrific reminder of just how effective a military force the Taliban are. |
| 1:34.0 | So many men had died. |
| 1:36.0 | There was a shortage of coffins, the local carpenters couldn't keep up with demand. |
| 1:41.0 | I'll be honest, I was squeamish. What does looking at the blood-stained wreckage |
| 1:46.5 | of an army base add to our understanding of the situation in Afghanistan? I reasoned. What's more would we even get access? |
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