The German Sense of Humour
From Our Own Correspondent
BBC
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 25 May 2013
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Reporters around the world with the news behind the headlines: Aleem Maqbool talks of the 14-hundred-year old conflict which lies behind today's breakdown in law and order in Iraq; the bicentenary of the controversial composer Wagner causes Steve Evans to question preconceptions about Germans and their society; Ed Butler meets a billionaire in Azerbaijan and chuckles over his plans for a huge building project; the African Union's optimistic about the continent's future but Gabriel Gatehouse finds good news in short supply in the Democratic Republic of Congo. And French schoolchildren will soon lose their traditional midweek day off school. Joanna Robertson tells us they're not happy about it!
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello from the from our own correspondent studios at Broadcasting House in London. |
| 0:04.8 | You've downloaded the latest edition of the program broadcast on BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:09.2 | It's introduced by Kate Aide. |
| 0:12.3 | Today the African Union tosts the prospect of a bright new future for the continent, |
| 0:18.0 | but in Congo its conflict as usual. |
| 0:21.4 | French children are about to lose their traditional day off school. They are not |
| 0:25.8 | happy. There are chuckles all round as we're shown plans for the world's biggest ever |
| 0:30.9 | building project in Azerbaijan. |
| 0:34.4 | And it's time to dispense with all those preconceptions about Germans. |
| 0:38.4 | They don't work hard. |
| 0:40.1 | They're thoroughly inefficient, and they've got a terrific sense of humour. |
| 0:45.6 | But first there are real fears this weekend that Iraq is on the verge of slipping back into |
| 0:50.7 | a full-scale civil war between its Shia and Sunni Muslim communities. |
| 0:56.0 | More than 300 people have been killed in the past week. |
| 0:59.5 | In April, more than 700 died, the highest monthly total in almost five years. |
| 1:06.2 | Today the minority Sunnis believe the Shiite administration of Prime Minister |
| 1:10.5 | Nuri al-Maliki is discriminating against them. |
| 1:14.0 | But the dispute between these two branches of the Islamic faith is an ancient one. |
| 1:19.0 | Alim MacBool has been to the spot in Iraq where it all began in the seventh century. |
| 1:25.0 | It's a privilege to do this work. |
| 1:27.0 | I kept thinking that as we travelled along the road from Baghdad to the city of Karbala, |
| 1:32.0 | just like Bethlehem and Nazareth for Christians, Karbela is one of |
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