The Great Fall of China
From Our Own Correspondent
BBC
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 29 August 2015
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The news behind the news. In this edition: severe turbulence in the financial markets in China: why the country's leadership makes no mention of it and the mainstream media avoids the subject; what's it like living on Little Diomede, the American island in the Bering Strait, just a few miles from Russia? Our correspondent has been talking to fishermen trying to pursue their livelihoods amid mounting tension between the two superpowers; hundreds of migrants have been arriving on the Greek island of Lesbos. Some there, we find, are treating the new arrivals as business opportunities; we've been meeting some of the hermits and holy men still living in caves amid the sandy wastes and rocky mountains of the West Bank and have been touring Jamaica in search of a moonshine rum with a particularly notorious reputation.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Thank you for downloading the latest edition of BBC Radios from our own correspondent, |
| 0:05.0 | the best in news and current affairs storytelling. |
| 0:08.0 | It's introduced by Kate Aide. |
| 0:10.0 | Hello, today is it the great fall of China? It's a topic most people there can't even discuss, |
| 0:17.0 | and they won't be hearing about it on the evening news. |
| 0:20.0 | Who is making money out of the migrants? They may be homeless, even desperate, but it seems they do present business opportunities. |
| 0:28.0 | The modern world's intruding upon the ancient lifestyle of the hermits who live in caves in the Judean desert. |
| 0:35.3 | And does it still smoke in the glass? |
| 0:38.3 | We're searching downtown Kingston Jamaica for an infamousipple they call rude to your parents. |
| 0:46.2 | But first, President Obama is due to visit Alaska on Monday, amid mounting American concern |
| 0:51.6 | about a buildup of military forces just across the narrow bearing |
| 0:54.9 | straight in Russia. |
| 0:56.9 | The Russians have set up a new military headquarters in the region. |
| 1:00.5 | New air bases are being built. |
| 1:02.1 | Old ones are being brought back into service. |
| 1:05.2 | Relations between Russia and the US have been deteriorating for some time, and in this corner |
| 1:09.6 | of the Arctic the countries are just three miles apart. They're separated by two islands, one |
| 1:16.0 | Russian and one American. Humphrey Hawksley's just been to the remote US |
| 1:20.4 | outpost of Little Diomede and tells us people there have little interest in trumpeting American sovereignty. |
| 1:28.0 | The island rises out of the bearing sea tall, isolated, its steep sides covered in green plants, grey rocks, and faded |
| 1:36.2 | wooden crosses of village burial sites. |
| 1:39.4 | Mist comes and goes in seconds amid flocks of birds so thick that as they dart back and forth they lighten |
... |
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