4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 3 January 2026
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Kate Adie introduces stories from Syria, China, the USA, Greece and Brazil.
In the devastated Syrian district of Ghouta, a man calls out from the ruins to our correspondent Lyse Doucet and tells the story of how he is rebuilding his home - and his life - after the fall of the Assad regime.
Chinese ambition continues to strive for pole position in the global pecking order as it makes advances in green energy, artificial intelligence, and military might – but what could be its Achilles heel? Laura Bicker looks at the challenges facing Beijing in the year ahead.
It’s nearly a year since Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States – a victory built around unquestioning loyalty among his MAGA base. But some Republican voters are now beginning to question the effectiveness of some of his policies. Tom Bateman reports from New Orleans.
An outbreak of sheep pox in Greece, which began in the Summer of 2024, has seen a surge in cases over recent months with mass culling affecting farmers across the country - more than 400,000 sheep and goats have been killed so far. Hester Underhill travelled to the agricultural heartland of Thessaly.
In Brazil, a group of industrial agriculture companies are trying to overturn a landmark moratorium on trading soybeans grown on newly deforested Amazon land - a policy said to have said thousands of hectares from the chainsaws. Justin Rowlatt gets a bird's eye view on the issue.
Series Producer: Serena Tarling Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith Production coordinators: Sophie Hill & Katie Morrison
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| 0:00.0 | Hello. Today, China is pole position as a global power, with advances in green energy, AI and military might. |
| 0:14.8 | But what's it's Achilles' heel? We're in New Orleans, where we hear how President Trump's hold on the Republican Party could be on the wane. |
| 0:24.2 | We're in Greece, where a blame game is underway as the country battles a sheeppox crisis. |
| 0:30.7 | And finally, we're in Brazil, where a cameraman faces his fear of heights to capture the impact of climate change on the Amazon. |
| 0:39.4 | But first, a year after the sudden fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria, |
| 0:44.8 | the country is still struggling to spark any kind of rebuilding program. |
| 0:49.7 | Many of the sanctions imposed in recent years are now being lifted to help encourage the investment |
| 0:55.3 | Syria desperately needs. The World Bank has estimated Syria will need at least $200 billion |
| 1:01.9 | to recover from 14 years of civil war, though some Syrians are modestly taking matters |
| 1:08.5 | into their own hands. Lees-Ducet reports from a neighbourhood in Guta. |
| 1:14.2 | Much of Jobar is gone. |
| 1:16.8 | Streets are just charred skeletons of shattered cement. |
| 1:20.7 | A ghostly landscape, haunted by pain and loss. |
| 1:24.8 | Everyone who once lived in these neighbourhoods fled long ago or is dead. |
| 1:30.4 | It's chilling just to be here. Hello? A man's voice suddenly pierces the silence. I look around, |
| 1:37.5 | my eyes searching the gaping holes in the buildings around me. Hello, he calls out again. |
| 1:44.3 | I look up. |
| 1:45.4 | A blue and white knitted cap with a shaggy fringe is all that's visible. |
| 1:50.0 | You're sitting on the window sill of the room where I was born, he shouts. |
| 1:54.3 | I turned to look inside a jagged frame, which used to be a window. |
| 1:59.1 | I used to crawl on that floor, comes the voice from above. |
| 2:03.0 | I step into the street to look up, and what a few. Several stories above, there's a balcony, intact, |
... |
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