The Dry Bones of a Thousand Empires
From Our Own Correspondent
BBC
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 21 September 2013
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Correspondents' despatches: Jeremy Bowen in Damascus reflects on the lessons a reporter learns after more than twenty years covering conflicts around the world; Steve Evans meets a lady down on her luck in a Baltic port city as Germany prepares for new elections; Diana Darke looks at Turkey's huge 'GAP' water project and wonders if it will work for or against the country's Kurdish population; near Toulouse in France they've found a crashed German wartime aircraft in a cave -- and some locals, it seems, weren't all that keen on digging up its history and can Emma Thomas really get to grips with the Danish language without looking at textbooks or going to classes? All will be revealed. Tony Grant produces From Our Own Correspondent
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, in the From Our Own Correspondent Studios at Broadcasting House in London. |
| 0:04.8 | You've downloaded the latest edition of the programme, |
| 0:07.1 | broadcast on BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:09.1 | It's introduced by Kate Aide. |
| 0:11.5 | Hello, in today's edition, questions and more questions. |
| 0:16.0 | Has the world missed its chance of ending the bloodshed in Syria? |
| 0:20.0 | Will Germans opt for change in tomorrow's elections, or are they thinking safety first? |
| 0:25.1 | Underwater tourism, what is it and will it help Turkey with its Kurdish problem? |
| 0:30.9 | And can one really learn Danish without taking lessons and without consulting a grammar book? |
| 0:37.0 | The International Chemical Weapons Watchdog says Syria has not yet provided it with full details of its arsenal of its poison gas and nerve agents. |
| 0:46.8 | The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said it was expecting further disclosures |
| 0:52.0 | ahead of the deadline later today. |
| 0:55.2 | Syria must also reveal details of its storage production and research sites, otherwise |
| 1:00.2 | it faces sanctions from the United Nations. |
| 1:03.0 | Meanwhile a senior minister in Damascus has been suggesting that his government is now ready to propose a ceasefire. |
| 1:10.0 | Jeremy Burns spent the last few weeks in the Syrian capital. |
| 1:14.0 | I went to Damascus thinking I'd be there while the Americans were bombing the city. |
| 1:18.0 | So it was strange a few Fridays ago, to be standing in the sun in the square next to the Western gate of the |
| 1:24.3 | Umayyad mosque being offered a glass of freshly squeezed pomegranate juice. |
| 1:28.6 | The juice squeezer scraped flakes off a great block of ice into a glass, poured the foaming pink |
| 1:35.6 | juice on top and presented it with a gappy grin. |
| 1:39.5 | He was a man in his 50s without many teeth left, standing proudly behind his cart and his heap of pomegranate. his any money. The juice was delicious, by the way, just sharp enough. Because it was Friday, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.