Powerless in Venezuela
From Our Own Correspondent
BBC
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 14 March 2019
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How did it feel to survive the days of near-total blackout in Caracas? The BBC's Will Grant reports on what drove people to loot beloved local shops, or scoop water from filthy canals.
Kate Adie introduces this story and others from around the world.
Across Europe, relations between Romany Gypsy or Traveller families and their neighbours are often strained. Successive governments in France have cracked down on informal settlements of Roma people from Romania, and left French 'gens de voyage' feeling unwanted and marginalised. But near Carcassonne, Chris Bockman met one man with a plan to improve community relations.
Mark Stratton explores a wealth gap in the Indian Ocean: the yawning difference in living standards between the Comoros and the French island of Mayotte, which has driven thousands of Comorans to risk their lives on a dangerous sea crossing in the hope of earning more and maybe gaining entry to the EU.
The ancient kingdom of Dahomey, in modern-day Benin, was renowned for its martial prowess - from its fearsome battle banners to its brigades of all-female royal bodyguards, this was a culture well versed in war. Clodagh Kinsella plumbed the mysteries of its modern dynastic politics recently, watching three kings vie to inherit a supreme title.
And Claire Bates explores the eerily deserted and well-preserved buffer zone separating Greek and Turkish communities in Cyprus - to try and tap into some of her father's childhood memories of growing up on an undivided island.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. |
| 0:05.0 | Good morning. |
| 0:07.0 | Today in France, Monsieur Le Mayor, is not a mere figurehead with a chain of office |
| 0:11.3 | pinned awkwardly on a suit. we meet the only elected and powerful |
| 0:15.8 | mayor who's a gypsy. |
| 0:18.0 | A tale of migrants from the Comoros Islands fleeing political turmoil and economic stagnation to the neighbouring island of Mayotte, whose |
| 0:25.8 | supermarkets stock foie gras and champagne. |
| 0:29.5 | In West Africa we hear of the mysteries of power in Benin with three claims on a traditional throne, |
| 0:36.0 | and we explore the buffer zone on another island, Cyprus. |
| 0:40.0 | The people of Venezuela have had a torrid week, long-standing shortages of food and medicine, |
| 0:46.4 | low salaries and to top it all a massive power cut across the country, the cause of which is disputed, a cyber attack by the United States or the collapse of a |
| 0:56.3 | dilapidated network. Will Grant has been gauging the impact. |
| 1:01.4 | When the blackout entered its fourth consecutive day, Margarita Agueyor sacrificed |
| 1:06.2 | something she'd held precious for years, the candles she'd treasured since her children's |
| 1:11.4 | baptism. I'd used up everything her children's baptism. |
| 1:13.0 | I'd used up everything else, she says, handing me the stubby gnarled wax sticks, |
| 1:18.3 | across still visible on one of them. |
| 1:20.8 | But there was complete darkness and no candles left anywhere, so he had to light these. |
| 1:26.1 | Margarita gets emotional easily talking about the state of Venezuela today, having to resort |
| 1:31.4 | to burning the holy symbols of her kids' christenings during a power cut is more |
| 1:35.9 | than enough to bring a tear to her eye. |
| 1:38.9 | These weren't the plans we had, she tells me, motioning around their incredibly cramped apartment in Caracas. |
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