Politics and Witchcraft
From Our Own Correspondent
BBC
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 15 August 2015
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The stories behind the news. In this edition: the government in Tanzania warns of the dangers of black magic as the country prepares to go to the polls in October; how the presence of militants in Egypt's Sinai peninsula, who are allied to the so-called Islamic State, marks an ominous turn for the authorities in Cairo; in the Czech Republic there's a plan to extend overcast mining in what was once a largely-undisturbed landscape of pine forests and deep valleys -- and it could have severe consequences for some of the people living there; an island community pulls together as a medical emergency descends on distant Tristan da Cunha, six days' sail away from specialist health treatment. And the music, the cars, the sunshine and the history - they're all part of the daily drive to work enjoyed by our man in the Cuban capital, Havana.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're about to hear from our own correspondent. We do two versions of the programme, one for the BBC World Service, and this one's a download of the latest edition from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:11.0 | It's introduced by Kate Adi. |
| 0:13.2 | Hello. Today an election is on the way in Tanzania. |
| 0:17.2 | For the country's albino population that's time to go into hiding. |
| 0:21.7 | What an earth would Beethoven have made of it, a plan to demolish a whole town in North |
| 0:26.8 | Bohemia, the place where his Eroika symphony was premiered. A medical emergency on an island in the South Atlantic. It means a fight for life in one of the remotest places on earth. |
| 0:38.0 | And can it really be the world's most beautiful drive to work? |
| 0:42.0 | We hear from the correspondent who says his commute is the finest of them all. |
| 0:47.0 | But first, militants in Egypt, allied to the self-styled Islamic State, claimed this week to have killed a foreign hostage for the first time. |
| 0:55.4 | A picture posted online appears to show that Thomaslav Salopec, a Croatian engineer, was beheaded. |
| 1:02.4 | The development marks an ominous turn for the country which is fighting an Islamist |
| 1:06.6 | insurgency concentrated in the lawless Northern Sinai region. Yesterday two senior government ministers inspected |
| 1:14.5 | police and army units there and applauded their efforts in combating what they |
| 1:18.7 | called terrorism in Sinai. The local militants now have a new name and it seems a new strategy too. |
| 1:26.0 | Yoland Nell in Cairo has been reflecting on the changes in a place she once knew well. |
| 1:32.0 | The rocky desert of Egypt's north Sinai is inhospitable terrain, |
| 1:37.0 | and many residents long survived on smuggling and criminal enterprises. |
| 1:42.0 | Yet foreign journalists used to receive a surprisingly warm welcome. |
| 1:47.0 | In the past I travelled there often. |
| 1:49.0 | I drank tea with Bedouin leaders beneath the date palms, |
| 1:52.0 | was shown secret tunnels leading to the Gaza |
| 1:55.0 | strip and reported on a war across the border from our live position perched on someone's roof. |
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