The All-Seeing Eye

From Our Own Correspondent

BBC

News, News Commentary

4.4 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 18 February 2017

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kate Adie introduces correspondents' stories. With President Putin enjoying sky-high approval ratings, Sarah Rainsford travels to the hear the verdict in the trial of a man hoping to replace Mr. Putin. Just how difficult is it to be in opposition in Russia? In Turkey, there have been tens of thousands of arrests, numerous terrorist attacks, and the government is planning to hold a referendum, aimed at giving the President more powers. Its a time of instability. As a result, as Louise Callaghan has found, people are flocking to the psychics. The scale of the sex trafficking trade is hard to determine, though many governments have now admitted they need to do more about the problem. Often the victims are reluctant to talk. In south east Nigeria, Colin Freeman finds that the belief in a slave goddess is now being exploited by traffickers to instill fear into trafficked women. In Indonesia, Rebecca Henschke is invited to a judge in the annual transgender beauty contest. But amid all the glamour and glitter, there is an underlying worry about growing intolerance in the country. And our man in Paris, Hugh Schofield, says sometimes the cliche that a teacher can change your life is actually true. He reminisces about a man called "Mush" who taught him French, in 1960s Dublin.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the BBC.
0:03.0	Well, thank you. You've downloaded from our own correspondent,
0:07.0	Radio 4's edition from Saturday the 18th of February 2017,
0:11.0	and with stories of coffee grounds and powerful goddesses.
0:15.0	It's all introduced by Kate Aide.
0:18.0	Hello. Today we hear how anyone wanting to predict the future, especially in international politics,
0:25.6	might well want to emulate some Turks by staring into their coffee cups.
0:31.7	International trade is equally complex, especially its darker side, as in Nigeria, where
0:36.9	attempts to deal with the sex trade are complicated by superstition and an all-seeing goddess. Glitter and glamour in Indonesia at a
0:46.2	transgender beauty contest but there's growing intolerance of the contestants and
0:51.4	their community and how to learn French with the help of tactics
0:55.0	on the football field. There's more than a year to go until Russia holds its next
1:00.3	presidential election though many are already predicting that
1:03.9	Vladimir Putin remains in charge, and he's enjoying enviable approval ratings of
1:09.4	more than 80%. But one well-known opposition activist Alexei Navalny has said he is determined to
1:16.3	join the race for president despite one major obstacle he's just received a criminal
1:21.6	conviction. As Sarah Rainsford says, it's the latest in a long line of
1:26.4	incidents would show how difficult it's become to stand up to the Kremlin.
1:31.6	We took the Vyatka to Kiruf. The overnight train uses the pre-Soviet name of the city, a 12-hour
1:37.7	chug northeast of Moscow. Our journey cut through countryside coated in deep snow at a good 12 degrees below zero.
1:46.0	But inside the cabin was cozy with regular supplies of hot food and glasses of steaming tea.
1:52.0	It's all changed since I first took sleeper trains in Russia in
	...

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