Unrest in Russia's eastern outpost

From Our Own Correspondent

BBC

News, News Commentary

4.4 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 25 July 2020

⏱️ 29 minutes

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Summary

Tens of thousands of people in Russia's Far-Eastern city of Khabarovsk have been demonstrating against the removal of the popular local governor Sergei Furgal. He was arrested on old murder charges dating back 15 years, and taken to Moscow. He had beaten the Kremlin-appointed candidate in the elections. Steve Rosenberg reports on the mood in a city closer to Tokyo than Moscow. A five-year old black boy has died in Brazil, while briefly under the care of a white woman. This has renewed questions about racism in Brazil, which likes to think of itself as being free of racial discrimination. But it was the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery, and the police kill thousands of young black men a year. Katy Watson reports. Laszlo Bogdan was mayor of Cserdi in Hungary, which became known for the "Cserdi miracle" as he was reported to reduce the local crime rate to zero, and young women now go on to university rather than become teenage mothers. Bogdan was a Roma, or Gypsy, as are many villagers. But last week he died - in an apparent suicide. Nick Thorpe had met him many times. Cuba's most popular sport is baseball, unlike in other Latin American countries where football reigns supreme. But that has been changing, and more and more Cubans now play football. Many follow foreign teams, particularly Spain's Barcelona and Real Madrid. And then there are the die-hard fans of the newly-crowned Premier League champion Liverpool. Among them, Will Grant. Presenter: Kate Adie Producer: Arlene Gregorius

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:04.6	Good morning.
0:05.9	Today Brazil has a toxic mix of problems, but the racial tensions are on the rise in a country which calls itself a racial democracy.
0:16.1	A village in Hungary has lost its leader who proudly called himself a gypsy and who transformed life in his Roma village reducing crime to zero and
0:26.2	educating young women for university. Carnivals and festivals are the lifeblood of
0:31.8	Venice though this year even the festival which celebrates
0:35.2	saving the city from the plague has had to be a low-key affair because of the modern plague.
0:42.0	But we have a celebration in Cuba where our correspondent and his fellow
0:46.4	diehard fans of Liverpool rejoice at their team's success. First to the far east of Russia, almost on the border with China and not far from
0:57.1	the Sea of Japan.
0:59.2	Habarovsk is a long way from Moscow.
1:01.8	Today, thousands took to the streets to demonstrate against the removal of their popular regional governor, Sergei Furgal.
1:09.0	He'd been arrested and taken to Moscow on murder charges dating back 15 years. Two years ago he
1:16.9	beat the Kremlin-backed candidate by a landslide, something that didn't escape
1:21.6	the eyes of President Putin,
1:23.6	despite the distance.
1:25.4	But Steve Rosenberg says this part of Russia couldn't in many ways
1:29.2	be further from Moscow.
1:31.0	There are two things that never cease to amaze me about Russia.
1:36.3	The first is this.
1:38.0	You can get on a plane in Moscow, fly seven hours east, and when you get off the plane you'll still be in Russia.
1:46.0	Such as the scale of this country, the largest in the world.
	...

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