WS MoreOrLess: Qatar migrant worker deaths
More or Less
BBC
4.6 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 6 June 2015
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Tim Harford asks if the World Cup is to blame for migrant deaths in Qatar. And we solve the fiendish maths exam question that baffled students so much it became a trend on Twitter.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the short edition of more or less, first broadcast on the BBC World Service. |
| 0:05.0 | Thank you for downloading from the BBC. |
| 0:08.0 | The details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use go to BBC World Service.com slash |
| 0:14.9 | podcasts. |
| 0:17.6 | Hello and welcome to more or less on the BBC World Service. We are your weekly guide to the numbers in the news |
| 0:25.8 | and in life, and I'm Tim Harford. This week the storm surrounding corruption at FIFA shows no signs of blowing over and |
| 0:34.7 | campaigners are hoping the next scalp will be the Football World Cup |
| 0:38.7 | hosted by Qatar in 2022. Conditions for some migrant workers in Qatar are appalling. |
| 0:45.6 | Journalists from the BBC and other outlets have witnessed men working long hours for low |
| 0:51.0 | pay in the blazing heat and living in squalid dorm rooms. But if reports such |
| 0:56.2 | as this one from Channel 4 news in the UK are to be believed, the conditions in Qatar aren't |
| 1:01.6 | just bad, they're deadly. |
| 1:03.7 | The London 2012 Olympics cost the life of one worker. |
| 1:07.6 | South Africa's 2010 World Cup, 2, the Sochi Winter Olympics last year, 60, and then there is Qatar, where so far at |
| 1:17.4 | least 1,200 workers have been killed. |
| 1:20.6 | Loyal listeners David True and Drew Chilton were among many to get in touch to ask if this figure is right. |
| 1:27.0 | Well the man who's been giving it the traditional 110% this week is Wesley Stevenson. |
| 1:33.4 | Where's, hello? |
| 1:35.0 | Is the number true? |
| 1:36.0 | Well, it's actually quite old. |
| 1:37.0 | It was first published back in 2013 by the International Trades Union Confederation, which has been campaigning for better working conditions in Qatar. |
| 1:45.7 | Qatar, for some reason, doesn't publish figures for the number of migrant workers who have died. |
... |
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