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Episode details

World Service,27 Jun 2013,55 mins

Saving Timbuktu's historic manuscripts

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Available for over a year

Abdel Kader Haidara risked his life to save hundreds of thousands of precious historic manuscripts in Mali when Islamist militants took control of Timbuktu. He called on the American conservation expert Stephanie Daikite to help him, in a dramatic rescue operation. Jack Reece, a British vet working in India, explains how you lance a boil on the back on an elephant. Also, Khaled Jarrar used to be a bodyguard for the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. But after he was shot in the leg he turned his back on the military life - and became an artist. He tells Matthew about his latest exhibition - he made work from concrete chipped from the wall erected between Israel and the Palestinian territories. And we hear from Kyrgyz lawyers who were beaten up because they defended Uzbeks after the ethnic violence of 2010. Picture: Abdel Kader Haidara (right) with Stephanie Diakite (left) and a Malian elder look at some of the manuscripts he saved Picture credit: Stephanie Diakite

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