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Episode details

Radio 4,18 Aug 2012,30 mins

Available for over a year

French police have been placed on higher alert after rioting in the northern city of Amiens. Christian Fraser says the unrest poses a growing challenge to the new president, Francois Hollande. Government forces have been re-deployed from north-east Syria. Orla Guerin believes the Kurds, who've long wanted to establish their own homeland in that area, see this as a window of opportunity. There've been more protests in Delhi against corruption in public life. But Mark Tully wonders if public support for the anti-corruption movement is ebbing away. How will life change in Egypt now there's a president from the Muslim Brotherhood? It's a question exercising many including foreign visitors to Cairo like Edwin Lane. He speculates whether time might soon be called on the capital's thriving bar scene. And Daniel Nasaw tells of the difficulties and the embarrassments an American can face when he decides to get to grips with Farsi, the language of the Iranians.

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