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Episode details

World Service,07 Jun 2017,49 mins

Qatar Responds to the Diplomatic Rift

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President Trump has sided with Saudi Arabia in the escalating crisis over Qatar, but the Qatari ruling family has expressed shock at the diplomatic rift with several of its neighbours. Our Diplomatic Correspondent James Robbins has been speaking to the Qatari Foreign Minister, Sheikh Muhammad bin Abd-al-Rahman al-Thani. A charity called the International Rescue Committee says millions of children in East Africa and in Yemen are at risk of dying from cholera and other preventable waterborne diseases. We hear from Ciaran Donnelly, the IRC's Vice-President of International Progammes. With election day on Thursday, voters in the UK have another 24 hours of campaigning to decide who to back. We've been giving equal airtime on this programme to representatives of all the main national parties and it's the turn of Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan who's been interviewed by the BBC's Rob Young. Thursday's general election falls just 11 days before formal negotiations are due to begin over Britain's departure from the European Union; the raison d'etre of the UK Independence Party. Does that mean that the party's essential purpose no longer exists and it's now a spent force? Susannah Streeter quizzes UKIP MEP Roger Helmer. We cast the net a little wider to draw in some of the business headlines from elsewhere in the world and cross to Taiwan to hear from the BBC's Cindy Sui. And joining us throughout the programme are Mitchell Hartman of Marketplace in Portland, Oregon and in Hong Kong, Anjani Trivedi of the Wall Street Journal's Heard on the Street column. Picture description: Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani gives a press conference in Doha on May 25, 2017. Photo credit: KARIM JAAFAR/AFP/Getty Images

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