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From Our Own Correspondent

Trainspotting

From Our Own Correspondent

BBC

News, News Commentary

4.41.3K Ratings

🗓️ 31 March 2018

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Kim Jong Un’s train rolls into to Beijing as the North Korean leader meets President Xi. Kate Adie introduces stories, wit, and analysis from correspondents around the world: China correspondents were once known as tealeaf readers, now they’ve become motorcade analysts and trainspotters says Stephen McDonell, as he tries to unpick the meaning of Kim Jong Un’s surprise visit to Beijing. Jonah Fisher has the story of Nadya Savchenko and her journey from prison to national hero and back to prison again. Bethany Bell explores why Austria won’t be implementing a smoking ban any time soon and finds out what the coffee drinkers of Vienna think of that. Mike Wendling joins the pro-gun control crowds at the ‘March For Our Lives’ in Washington DC and reflects on how things have changed since he was a teenager in the US when he and his classmates would shoot at paper targets in their school’s basement. And in Morocco, Kieran Cooke learns what impact Chinese tourists are having on Fes and comes face to face with the head of a dead camel.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This is the BBC.

0:03.6

Hello. Today she was once a national hero,

0:07.1

talked of as a future president, but now she's in jail accused of plotting to blow up parliament.

0:15.5

We have the rather strange story of the rise and fall of a former Ukrainian soldier. We find out why Austria won't be implementing a smoking ban anytime soon. We join gun-controlled

0:25.9

campaigners in the US and then in Morocco our correspondent comes face-to-face with the

0:31.8

head of a dead camel.

0:35.0

Next month the leaders of North and South Korea

0:38.0

are scheduled to meet for the first time in more than a decade

0:41.0

and Kim Jong-un's promise meeting with Donald Trump could happen as early

0:45.3

as May.

0:46.9

On Monday, the North Korean leader made his first foreign visit since coming to power, to meet another foreign leader. But this was not an encounter that had been publicized in advance.

0:58.0

As rumors began to circulate about a surprise secretive train trip to China, journalists were left guessing

1:05.0

whether the man in charge of nuclear-arm North Korea was indeed on his way to

1:09.3

Beijing, Stephen McDonnell among them. There was a time when China Correspondence,

1:15.0

trying to guess what was really happening on their patch,

1:18.0

were known as T-leaf readers.

1:21.0

Now they've become motorcade analysts and rail enthusiasts. How many motorbikes

1:26.5

at the front? What does that mean? Is it only a head of state who gets an ambulance at the back?

1:31.8

How senior do you have to be to get a railway station

1:34.9

guard of honor? On Monday Chinese train spotters noticed a series of mysterious

1:40.7

delays in services in and out of the northeast. Chinese trains don't run late,

1:47.0

so what was going on? Then Japanese reporters shared images of a green and yellow train racing through a level crossing.

...

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