26/02/2011

Available for over a year

A journalist - who can't be named - describes life in Tripoli with its empty streets, boarded up shops and burnt out buildings. Communications inside the city are being closely monitored and state security personnel are out in force. There are reports of shootings and people being killed. She also hears from doctors who claim the army is preventing them from treating casualties. Barbara Plett describes the strange goings on at the United Nations with Libya's diplomats divided over support for Colonel Gaddafi's regime. She witnesses the deputy ambassador of the Libyan Mission denounce the country's leader for waging genocide followed by the actual ambassador who tells correspondents that he is 'with Gaddafi' who is an old friend before changing his mind and denouncing him. Mark Mardell witnesses the conflicting emotions in Washington over the upheaval in the Middle East and asks why it seems that the United States so often backs the bad guys? Americans glory in the fact that their country was born out of a revolution against tyranny but their foreign policy has been largely dictated by selfish strategic interest. Jonty Bloom explores the linguistic divide behind the political impasse in Belgium. The Belgian government collapsed last year and there has still been no agreement on a new administration eight months on. The reasons can be found in the very distinct Flemish and French-speaking communities - as well as the 70 thousand German speakers - who have been able to strike a deal. And Mark Lowen reports on the end of the BBC's Serbian Service after more than seventy years of broadcasting. The World Service programmes in Albanian, Serbian, Macedonian, in Portugese for Africa and in English for the Caribbean are all coming to an end.