The Cupboard is Bare
From Our Own Correspondent
BBC
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 9 June 2016
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Reporters with the news behind the news. In this edition: it used to be Cuba, but today Venezuela is the more troubled of the two socialist allies and the country the US president prefers to visit; there's a portrait of the city of Venice, of the quarters where the tourists don't visit, where houses are boarded up as more and more residents move away; exotic Kashgar used to be one of the key stop-overs on the ancient Silk Route. Today the modern and the ancient are coming into conflict there as China tries to bring the restive region under control; countries in southern Africa face a damaging drought after another year of insufficient rainfall - we're in landlocked Lesotho, where food supplies are now at risk; and why do we develop loyalties to one particular part of a city? In Paris, there's acute rivalry between neighbourhoods on the north and south of the River Seine. Our man in the great city climbs on his bike to sample life on the other side ...
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello from the from our own correspondent office at Broadcasting House in London. |
| 0:04.4 | You've downloaded the latest edition of our program which was broadcast on the 9th of June 2016. |
| 0:09.5 | It's introduced as ever by Kate Aide. |
| 0:12.3 | Hello, today the rains are failing across southern Africa. |
| 0:16.0 | In Lissutu, they're expecting the worst drought in a generation. |
| 0:20.0 | A battle is underway for the heart and soul of the quintessential Silk Road City of Kashgar. |
| 0:26.0 | Record numbers of tourists are swamping Venice, but fewer and fewer people want to live there. |
| 0:31.0 | And our man in Paris and in |
| 0:33.2 | veteran southerner sets off on his bike to find out if all those stories about |
| 0:37.4 | people north of the river are really true. There have been more demonstrators on the streets of the Venezuelan capital Caracas this week, |
| 0:46.0 | protesting about shortages of basic goods and an economy falling through the floor. |
| 0:51.0 | Heavily armed police and soldiers are out trying to stop looting. the L'iolas Maduro. His latest gambit is to introduce heavily subsidized food bags for the poor. |
| 1:07.0 | While some Venezuelans accuse the president of playing politics with food, he maintains the |
| 1:11.9 | bags are a great instrument of the revolution which will |
| 1:15.0 | win the economic war. |
| 1:17.0 | Now the opposition has long claimed the country in the hands of Mr. Bedouro is on its way to becoming another Cuba. Will Grant, who's lived in both countries |
| 1:26.4 | says the parallels are indeed becoming evident. |
| 1:29.8 | Eched into Cuba's collective memory is its infamous special period. |
| 1:34.8 | A reference to the years just after the collapse of the Soviet Union, |
| 1:38.8 | it is a time forever synonymous with suffering, austerity and hunger on the Communist island. |
| 1:44.0 | Without its wealthier benefactors in Eastern Europe Cuba struggled to provide enough food for its people. |
| 1:50.0 | The stories from those days are Legion. People remember selling family |
... |
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