The Calm On Guam
From Our Own Correspondent
BBC
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 24 August 2017
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Despite the threat from North Korea to fire missiles towards Guam, we find a surprising calm on the island. Kate Adie introduces correspondents’ stories from around the world.
From Guam, Rupert Wingfield Hayes has the latest developments in the war of words between the US and North Korea.
Secunder Kermani hears tales of the horrific violence that followed the Partition of India 70 years ago but finds little remorse amongst some of its perpetrators.
Hannah Armstrong visits Cape Verde where European migrants are starting new lives in Africa.
In Cuba, Will Grant finds that the 'battle against bureaucracy', launched by the late Fidel Castro in 1965, is far from over. Simple tasks like paying your rent can still take hours.
And in Swedish Lapland, Elizabeth Hotson goes down to the woods in search of a big surprise, and a bear.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the BBC. |
| 0:02.0 | Hello. |
| 0:04.0 | Today, a murderous slice of history remembered this week across India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. |
| 0:10.0 | We hear surprising memories of partitions 70 years ago on the subcontinent. |
| 0:15.0 | We have more migration tales, but not of people leaving for Europe, |
| 0:20.0 | but coming from it to a small island in the Atlantic. |
| 0:24.0 | The joy of having to wait or not in Cuba, |
| 0:28.0 | where personal administration involves much bureaucracy. |
| 0:32.0 | And if you go down to the woods today in Sweden's Arctic |
| 0:35.5 | be prepared for the bears. This week North Korea's leader has been seen |
| 0:42.2 | enthusiastically reviewing plans to launch ballistic |
| 0:45.8 | missiles towards Guam. |
| 0:47.6 | Guam, for most of us I suspect, needed finding in the Atlas before Kim Jong-un fixed his glare on it. |
| 0:55.0 | US Territory, a tiny speck in the Pacific, with military bases covering a quarter of the |
| 0:59.9 | island and 6,000 US military folk among the 160,000 locals. |
| 1:06.6 | Although still prepared to unleash enveloping fire at Guam, Kim Jong-un said he'll wait and see what the foolish Yankees do next before making |
| 1:16.6 | a final decision to strike. Despite the slight softening in rhetoric, you might expect the people of Guam to be living in fear as the threat of nuclear war continues to loom over them. |
| 1:28.0 | But that's not what Rupert Wingfield Hayes found. |
| 1:32.0 | Writing this, I am sitting at the top of a towering cliff looking out over the vast empty expanse of the |
| 1:38.8 | Pacific Ocean. |
| 1:40.4 | Rain clatters on the tin roof of the café. A warm tropical breeze rustles the trees outside. |
| 1:46.0 | A short distance away, Japanese and South Korean tourists are posing for selfies at the lookout point. |
... |
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