Lifeline service for victims of Pakistan floods
Since the news has been dominated by the terrible humanitarian disaster that has engulfed north-west Pakistan in the past few days, we decided that looking at the challenges of covering this kind of story would be an interesting topic for Over To You.
Tazeen Ahmad is presenting again this week while Rajan's on holiday, and she has a particular empathy with Pakistan, as it's the country where she was born.
As you can hear on the programme, she talks to Aamer Ahmed Khan, head of the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s Urdu Service. He admits that finding out what's really going on - when not only the physical infrastructure of the country, like roads and bridges, has been destroyed, but phone and power lines are also damaged - can often be extremely difficult.
As you can hear in the interview, he says that he might like to be able to provide more coverage - although he does feel that, bit by bit, his journalists have been able to piece together a picture of what is really happening.
He also tells Tazeen about the special lifeline programming that's planned for the region.
From next week, extra programmes in Urdu and Pashto will be broadcast, giving listeners in that part of Pakistan up-to-date information concerning the relief operation, and where they can go in order to get help.
We also have a varied selection of listeners' comments and queries in the programme, including a fascinating email from Kerubbar Sekho, who contacted us from Zambia, confused as to when to use the terms English or British - and where the UK comes into the picture.
As someone who was born in England (and, for that matter, Britain and the UK), I'm still not sure I could come up with a coherent explanation of the differences.
So we approached Robin Lustig, one of the most experienced World Service presenters, and a man who is used to conveying complicated issues to listeners.
You can hear his explanation of a tricky conundrum on this week's Over To You.ÌýÌýÌýÌý
Cathy Packe is the Producer, Over To You
Picture credit: Getty Images
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Comment number 1.
At 17th Aug 2010, RGT wrote:Pakistan floods: World Bank to lend $900m for recovery!!!
Lets hope and Pray Zaradai does not get news of this, else the whole of Pakistan can wash away and we know for sure who will be $900Million Rich
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