Lost Innocence

From Our Own Correspondent

BBC

News, News Commentary

4.4 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 17 August 2019

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The protests at Hong Kong's international airport this week and the violence that resulted have been widely reported. Jonathan Head says not only was this the week that the protest movement lost its innocence, but also that the violence has handed the Chinese authorities a propaganda coup.

Reporting from Indian-administered Kashmir has been especially challenging since the Indian government stripped it of its special status: no internet and no telephones. But Yogita Limaye finds one friendly Kashmiri who supplies both hot tea and functional broadband.

If you're nervous about snakes then Gombe District in northern Nigeria is best avoided, warns Colin Freeman. He visits a hospital that specialises in treating bites, especially those of the carpet viper, an ever-present danger to the local farmers.

Waterproof clothing made from the wool of the Bordaleira sheep has kept Portuguese farmers dry for centuries. Today, it's also the height of fashion, as Margaret Bradley reports; flying off the shelves of smart shops of Lisbon and Porto and in much demand overseas.

President Trump surprised Sweden recently when he suggested that the prime minister intervene in the case of a US rapper who'd been arrested in Stockholm on suspicion of assault. Maddy Savage was in court to see the case play out.

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:05.0	Good morning. Today, the kindness of a Kashmiri stranger means a cup of tea on broadband
0:11.2	access. We tread carefully in Nigeria where hundreds succumb to snake bites every
0:17.0	year. How high fashion in Lisbon takes its cue from shepherds in the mountains of Portugal, and the odd mix of an American rap artist,
0:26.2	the Swedish judicial system and President Trump.
0:30.6	The anti-government protests that have swept through Hong Kong for several weeks now show no signs of abating.
0:37.0	Much attention is focused on mainland China, where reports of a buildup of military equipment and personnel have many in Hong Kong and elsewhere worried.
0:47.0	The protests found new focus this week, the International Airport,
0:51.0	where hundreds of flights had to be cancelled after protesters moved in in large numbers. Jonathan Head was there.
0:58.0	It was the moment a hitherto good-natured protest Movement lost its innocence.
1:03.6	There were a lot more demonstrators than before.
1:06.2	Thousands, no longer just sitting on the floor of the arrival hall or handing out flyers
1:10.8	to bemused travellers coming through customs, they filled the upper departure
1:15.2	hall too, and had barricaded the gates with piles of trolleys jammed together.
1:21.1	Fresh-faced young men and women still wandered among the stranded passengers carrying signs
1:25.8	apologizing politely for the inconvenience they caused, but the mood had turned.
1:31.7	It was edgy, more militant. A roar drew us to a crowd surrounding a
1:36.9	man who was on the ground being beaten. He's an undercover police officer, one of the
1:41.8	protesters told me. He showed officer, one of the protesters told me.
1:43.6	He showed me a photo of the man's ID from mainland China.
1:48.1	A team of medics tried to bring a stretcher through the crowd, now bellowing its anger at the semi-conscious man.
1:54.0	A foreign journalist stepped in to shelter him from further blows, and he was eventually carried out.
	...

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