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From Our Own Correspondent

What is Truth? What is Fantasy?

From Our Own Correspondent

BBC

News, News Commentary

4.41.3K Ratings

🗓️ 7 May 2016

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What's life like in North Korea? Our reporter Steve Evans gets rare access, but wonders if all is as it seems. Gabriel Gatehouse meets Hungarians once so keen to tear down barriers between them and their eastern European neighbours who now believe it's time to put up fences. Katy Watson witnesses poignant scenes on the US/Mexico border as families enjoy a brief reunion amid speculation about what a Trump presidency might mean for Mexicans. What's trash-talking got to do with playing chess? David Edmonds has been finding out on a visit to the American state of Missouri. And Emma Jane Kirby's in Istanbul learning why a gentle novel from the 1940s is striking a chord with today's young Turks

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

You've downloaded the very latest edition of BBC Radio 4's from our own correspondent.

0:05.0

It's the program which went out on Saturday the 7th of May 2016,

0:09.0

and it's introduced by Kate Aide.

0:12.0

Who's that looking over your shoulder?

0:14.0

Who's that listening at the door?

0:16.0

A week of uncertainty and surprises for our man visiting Pyongyang.

0:21.0

Also in this morning's programme, a brief poignant reunion on the US-Mexico border.

0:27.0

Six families with just three minutes each to get the hugging done.

0:31.0

We're in Chesopolis in the American Midwest where it isn't just the

0:35.4

moves on the board which intimidate an opponent and an unlikely literary

0:40.4

success reaches a classroom in Istanbul and it isn't just the girls who are

0:44.6

crying. It's a big weekend in North Korea the first Congress of the ruling

0:50.7

Workers Party in nearly 40 years is underway. The state news

0:55.1

agency tells us the occasions filled citizens with emotion and delight and

1:00.1

the BBC team's been surprised by rare access to schools, hospitals,

1:05.0

universities and even places of leisure like fairgrounds.

1:08.0

A fascinating experience for our correspondent Steve Evans.

1:12.0

But all he feels may not be quite as it seems.

1:17.0

The word surreal just doesn't do the place justice.

1:21.0

Travelling round Pyongyang is to enter an Alice in Wonderland world

1:24.8

where reality and appearance play tricks. You think you see something solid and it turns

1:29.9

out to be facade. You never quite know what's truth and what's fantasy. Or perhaps an Orwellian

...

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