May 14, 2011
From Our Own Correspondent
BBC
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 14 May 2011
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Assisted suicide: as the people of Zurich in Switzerland prepare to vote on the issue, Imogen Foulkes tells a moving story about a couple who believed they had a right to decide on a date for death. Fergal Keane considers the historical significance of the forthcoming visit, by Queen Elizabeth 2, to the Republic of Ireland. Andrew Harding is in the Libyan rebel stronghold of Benghazi where, he says, people are determined to continue their fight against Colonel Gaddafi and to emerge with their country still united. Matthew Teller visits the city of Taif in Saudi Arabia, a place where many Saudi people spend their holidays while James Painter's in Peru asking questions about the freshwater Amazon dolphin including: why is it pink?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi there you're about to hear from our own correspondent a download from the BBC. |
| 0:04.3 | We make editions of the programme for both the BBC World Service and Radio 4 |
| 0:08.8 | and this is the latest Radio 4 broadcast as ever it's introduced by Kate Aide. |
| 0:14.0 | Today the Swiss couple who sat down and fixed a day for dying. |
| 0:18.0 | Hidden pages of history come to light as the Queen prepares for next week's visit to Ireland. We hear about the mood in |
| 0:24.9 | Benghazi as the rebels battle against Colonel Gaddafi grinds on and take to the river in Peru |
| 0:30.8 | to try to find out why is the Amazon dolphin pink? |
| 0:35.0 | People in the Swiss City of Zurich go to the polls tomorrow to vote on assisted suicide. |
| 0:41.0 | There are two proposals, one to ban the practice altogether, the other to limit it only to |
| 0:46.4 | Zurich residents. The votes reflect growing unease in Switzerland over so-called suicide tourism, foreigners coming to the country to end their lives. |
| 0:56.6 | But the principle of assisted suicide does have widespread support among the Swiss. |
| 1:01.2 | Many believe choosing when and how they die should be a personal |
| 1:04.8 | individual matter. Nevertheless as Imogen folks has been hearing the journey |
| 1:09.6 | towards that decision can be a difficult one. |
| 1:13.0 | This is the story of Ruth and Edward. |
| 1:16.0 | Told to me by Ruth, because Edward isn't here anymore. |
| 1:19.0 | A middle-class Swiss couple, |
| 1:21.0 | they lived happily together for 50 years in a beautiful |
| 1:24.6 | traditional old house just outside Zurich. She was a psychologist, he a minister. They |
| 1:31.4 | had four children together, Like many liberal professionals in this country, |
| 1:36.6 | they believed firmly in personal responsibility and in their own individual right to choose. In their 40s they had made living wills, |
| 1:46.2 | asking that they be allowed to die, should they be involved in accidents which left them in |
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