No Longer A Place Apart
From Our Own Correspondent
BBC
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 21 March 2019
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The bullets that shattered the image that New Zealand is a place apart. Our correspondent returns to his childhood home in Christchurch to find a city bewildered and in mourning. We hear also from Tanzania, where the imminent construction of a hydroelectric dam is threatening one of Africa's largest game reserves, but almost no-one dares to speak out; from Bosnia, where a number of young men have died in mysterious circumstances and the authorities stand accused of sweeping the problem under the carpet; from Dieppe, just across the English Channel, where, as March the 29th creeps ever closer, they're preparing for the possibility of a No Deal Brexit; and from the far west of Canada, where carving totem poles is one way of marking the historic suffering of the indigenous population at the hands of white settlers.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. |
| 0:04.6 | Hello. Today in Tanzania a new dam is about to be built. |
| 0:10.3 | It threatens the wildlife, but no one wants to complain to the president. |
| 0:14.7 | Bosnia's war ended over two decades ago, but corruption and suspicious deaths now stalk the land. |
| 0:21.8 | Brexit, what are we doing? That's not clear, but the French and |
| 0:26.1 | Dieppe are preparing for no deal. And we hear from Canada about a modern meaning for totem poles. |
| 0:34.0 | With 50 people dead and a score injured, the attacks on the mosques in Christchurch once again |
| 0:39.1 | drew the world's attention to this southern New Zealand city. Eight years ago it was hit by an immense earthquake. |
| 0:45.5 | Dominic O'Connell, usually here in London presenting the business news on the today |
| 0:50.2 | programme, grew up there and he was there when the attack began. |
| 0:54.1 | Let's go for a swim my mom would say and we jump into the Ford Zephyr |
| 0:58.8 | and head down to the beach hopping over the hot hot sand |
| 1:02.0 | and into the cold water and big waves. |
| 1:05.0 | Afterwards, we'd jump half dry back into the car, our wet legs making a satisfying squelch and squeak on the hot red vinyl seat. Many of the suburbs we drove through on the way |
| 1:16.6 | there and back no longer exist. Houses in the east of Christchurch, places like |
| 1:21.0 | Dallington and Wainoni, have been bulldozed away since a big |
| 1:24.4 | earthquake hit eight years ago. |
| 1:26.8 | The news focused on that big one, but there were actually thousands of quakes spread over |
| 1:31.0 | a number of years. It was a reminder that New Zealand is just one big fault line, |
| 1:36.4 | and a red light to insurers and the local council who decided that the ground there is not |
| 1:41.0 | safe to build on. The result is an eerie expanse, a vast |
| 1:45.8 | expanse miles wide of streets, pavements, lawns, shrubs and trees lined up in |
... |
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