Turkey-Syria earthquakes: How do we aid people under authoritarian regimes?
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 9 February 2023
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Authoritarian regimes in both Syria and Turkey make a devastating situation even more complicated. How do we get aid in to help quake victims when the humanitarian corridors are limited and social media communication is censored?
In Turkey many want to know where the 30 billion pounds of funding that was meant to make buildings earthquake-proof has gone.
Meanwhile, Russia is on the move - coming to Syria's rescue. What's the agenda there? We asked former Foreign Secretary and International Rescue Committee head David Miliband, Minister for Development Andrew Mitchell, and the Times's Hannah Lucinda Smith, who has lived in the regions for years and visited the quake epicentre this week.
The DEC is launching the Turkey-Syria Earthquake to deliver vital aid in the aftermath of earthquakes that hit Turkey and Syria and raise funds to help its 15 charities to scale up their work to reach more of the millions of people affected. People need help now. Please donate at dec.org.uk.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:08.1 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:29.3 | That sound is one of joy and prayer and thanks, and it's one that we're not hearing an awful lot of coming out of Turkey and Syria right now where the earthquake figures at the time |
| 0:36.6 | of recording stand at around 17,000 deaths. |
| 0:40.4 | It is a tragedy on an unimaginable scale. And that is one father who has seen his own child |
| 0:48.4 | rescued from the rubble. That is why there is vocalized joy and excitement in that clip we've played you. But today on the |
| 0:56.8 | news agents, we want to look around the tragedy and try and understand the political conundrum that this |
| 1:04.5 | is throwing up for the West, how they help, how they get aid through to a country we have no diplomatic ties with, like Syria. |
| 1:13.9 | And what that means in terms of our own government's response and our own people's response? |
| 1:18.7 | Because as well as this being clearly, self-evidently, the most appalling, the horrifying humanitarian tragedy, |
| 1:26.5 | when you're dealing with a part of the world where politics |
| 1:30.7 | exists around every corner, underneath every surface, where there is so much politics and |
| 1:36.3 | political problems between this part of the world and the West. Inevitably, this is a deeply |
| 1:42.0 | political story as well. |
| 1:45.5 | Welcome to the news agents. |
| 1:50.0 | The Newsagents. |
| 1:51.9 | It's Emily here. |
| 1:52.8 | And it's Lewis. |
| 1:58.5 | And straight away, we're going to talk to someone who has been at the epicentre of where the earthquake was. |
| 1:59.6 | Hannah Lucinda Smith from the Times who's been reporting |
| 2:03.0 | from the era. Hannah, thanks so much for joining us. Can you just give us a sense? I know you've been |
| 2:07.3 | to some of the worst affected areas in the last 24 hours. What did you see there? What was it like? |
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