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tv   The Travel Show  BBC News  October 3, 2017 3:30am-4:01am BST

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america's worst in modern times, say they have found more weapons at the home of the man they said carried out the attack. a local sheriff told journalists they seized 18 guns, explosives and thousands of rounds of ammunition. the gunman was named as 64—year—old wealthy retired accountant stephen paddock. it's claimed he used an automatic weapon to fire on crowds from a las vegas hotel, killing 59 people and injuring more than five hundred more. as police stormed his hotel room, he killed himself. president trump has appealed for unity and peace among americans in response to what he called the "pure evil" of the shootings in las vegas. mr trump said the nation was joined together in sadness, shock and grief. he later led a minute's silence in memory of the victims at the white house. we just need to bring you another story before we bring you the
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trouble show in a moment. —— the travel show. the chancellor philip hammond has delivered a cautious message on brexit, telling the conservative party conference that withdrawing from the european union will not be easy. he said there had to be government unity if britain was secure a deal that would be good forjobs and prosperity. but there was criticism from the british chambers of commerce which said was a lack of competence and coherence at the heart of government on brexit, as our political editor laura kuenssberg reports from manchester. you might not have thought they'd need the extra champagne this year. the fizz went flat for the tories after the election. is austerity dead, chancellor? before then, they hardly knew they would have to really take their enemies on. now, if they are sure of one thing, it's that with jeremy corbyn in the ascendancy, they need to fight. he is a clear and present danger to our prosperity. by abandoning market economics, corbyn's labour has abandoned the aspirations of ordinary working people. we must be the party which picks them up and delivers on them.
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attack after attack on labour and push—back to those who suggest the way the country does business is done. our economy is not broken, it is fundamentally strong. and while no—one suggests a market economy is perfect, it is the best system yet designed for making people steadily better off over time and underpinning strong and sustainable public services for everyone. and with the government's differences over how we leave the eu, a barely masked plea. we must not downplay the difficulty nor underestimate the complexities. this will be one of the most challenging tasks ever undertaken by a peacetime government in this country. but with focus and determination and unity we will succeed. applause.
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who could he has been talking about? go for it, boris! the man who is the talk of the conference bars. the foreign secretary, who, whether he means it or not, after sharing rather too many of his views, is making his colleagues cross. my predecessorjust needs to keep his mouth shut. would you have sacked him? i think he will be sacked by the public. but is the tories' politicaljoker really that funny any more? is he a good comedian? he is funnier than me but that ain't hard! the foreign secretary will be on the main stage here tomorrow, but today three of his cabinet colleagues have told me he cannot keep behaving as he is. but nor does number ten want to get rid of him. it's a problem for theresa may without an easy solution and that is the mood right across this conference — the tories know broadly something is wrong but they don't agree on how to fix it. and even their natural supporters fear something is missing. strong on diagnosis but rather
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less strong on action. and what we need now, given the challenges facing the economy is a real focus on big ideas for the future direction of the economy. and long—time tories say the party has to get its act together now. the need to completely review how they do business. get behind theresa may, certainly through all the brexit negotiations. it's not easy. it's a bit like you saying to me, can you run 100 metres in ten seconds, i say yes, and when i get there in 18 seconds, you tell me i am a failure. politics is a race, if a long one. chanting: tories out, tories out! it's a competition of ideas. but there is a sense here this week the big conversations are happening elsewhere. laura kuenssberg, bbc news, manchester. next on bbc news, the travel show.
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this is the mighty river sava, flowing for nearly 1,000 kilometres from the alps in slovenia, right across to belgrade, in serbia. it's the longest river within the balkans. a vital artery that's borne witness to so much history, stretching all the way back to ancient and medieval times and of course the turmoil of recent decades. today, the sava connects four countries thatjust a generation ago were at war. 0n myjourney i'll be exploring how today this river is healing wounds by boosting trade and tourism and creating a new identity for the region. and finding out why locals call this the ‘vital heart of the balkans'. a nation ofjust 2 million people, slovenia prides itself on its close
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relationship with nature. it's one of the most densely forested countries in europe and nearly two thirds of its landscape is green space. this river, the sava, has been a crucial trading route for centuries, dating back to 400 bc, when the celts named it after their river god savus, protector of merchants and travellers. and this is the river's source, the magnificent savica waterfall, bursting from two separate points on the cliff face there. and my intention is to follow the river from here, at its very beginning, until it meets the danube, in belgrade. it's a near 1,000 kilometre course,
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flowing through four countries that just over 25 years ago were joined as part of yugoslavia. the emerald waters snake through the cliffs and then widen into one of the sava's main tributaries, which has now become famous for watersports. and i'm getting a face first perspective. this is bellyaking. and, yep, there's a hint in the name. it looks like a kayak, but you lay on top of it and use your hands to peddle. like many slovenian kids, luka grew up in the countryside and the sava was a huge part of his childhood. i spent my whole life in the same
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house about 50 metres away from the river, so when i wake up, if i had my window open, i can already hear it. here in slovenia, the river isn't just used for watersports — it's an important source of hydropower, and luka thinks the river also has an important role to play in uniting the communities who live throughout its course. we were formerly part of yugoslavia, so we are sort of still connected. while our languages may not be that similar, they still have the same origin, so we are still sort of one nation and it's sort of nice to have the sava river connect us all. the river isn't always this placid. it can rise a metre higher in the autumn and winter and turn a lot more aggressive. frankly, the relative calm of these rapids is more than enough for me to deal with. ah!
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oh my god! 0k... not sure if bellyaking is the sport for me. further down the valley, two tributaries merge and the sava starts its journey proper. and at the fork in the rivers lies this majestic castle, lake bled, and its historic castle of the same name. this is slovenia's oldest castle, first built in medieval times. it's got a kind of fairytale ambience to it and, because of its location, it's been a strategic lookout for 1,000 years. and standing here, i can kind of get why. you can see for miles!
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this place is legendary in slovenian history. 0n the banks of the lake still sits the former holiday home of the father of post—world war ii yugoslavia, presidentjosip broz tito. tito took the helm of the newly formed federal republic and more or less kept the country together until his death, in 1980, when yugoslavia began to fall apart. slovenia became the first to break away, with a short—lived war that lasted just ten days. it's been a sovereign nation state since 1991, and my next stop down the river sava is slovenia's capital, ljubljana. the city centre is made up of vast squares, lined with baroque buildings and the streets are packed with tourists ambling around. but it wasn't always like this.
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just over a decade ago ljubljana was clogged with traffic and the city's main piazza was a car park. but in 2006, the city's mayor made the decision to ban cars from the centre. now the only vehicles allowed are these so—called cavaliers, electric cabs that give free lifts to those with luggage or who need extra help getting around. if you had to compare how this city looked ten years ago to now, can you tell me the difference? and the children are still following you. and it's notjust the kids that are using the car—free streets as a playground. filip and blaz are ambassadors for the city. they met when one was a juggler and the other a gymnast, and together became a social media sensation with their urban acrobatic antics. we tried to put ljubljana
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on the map in our videos. so you can imagine running in a circle or something, we would run off a building. and you've done that? yeah. filip and blaz have good reason to keep the city centre, which doubles as their performance space, spick and span and they've been part of the efforts to keep it that way. cheering wow! thank you! once a year we have action. the whole of slovenia is cleaned up and the river, they have divers and clean up all the bicycles out. and you've played a big part in those campaigns? yeah. we try to help. we are strong, so we lift all of the heavy stuff, help them to keep it clean and keep
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it on the next level. citywide cleanups and specialist waste disposal points helped the capital win the accolade of being europe's greenest city in 2016, and filip and blaz are keen to encourage other locals and tourists to see the potential in ljubljana's spruced up streets. wow! and the gymnasts are firm believers that anyone can be taught to do this. just change the arms. oh, sorry. yeah, like this. and three, two, one, go! see? i told you it's simple. time to leave this urban oasis and head downstream again to radece. this region, like most of slovenia, is densely forested and has a thriving timber industry.
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hi. nice to meet you. welcome. hundreds of years ago, the sava was the only way to get the huge logs to major cities across the balkans. and i'm here tojoin other tourists to get a taste of those centuries—old rafting journeys. we managed to revive this tradition, because otherwise we would forget all that and it was important because it was alive more than 500 years ago. and duska sees the sava playing a much larger role in the region in the near future. now there is a perception of sava as a connector. connecting with who? with other communities along the river and, most important, connecting also across border regions. croatia, bosnia, serbia. and we already started to connect. baby steps, they are still, but, yes, we are connecting now along the sava river.
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but before i head across to my next country on the sava, duska tells me i need to be fully initiated into life on the river with this time—honoured tradition. are you going to behead me? no, we don't do that any more! but if you want to be a member, you have to show us if you are able to sharpen that wooden stick. ah, you show me. and just when i thought the wood chopping was bad enough... here you go — on your knees. you have to leave the head down. like this. whoa! baptised by the water
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of the river sava. next up on my voyage down the longest river within the balkans, croatia's capital, zagreb. croatia was part of the austro—hungarian empire until the end of the first world war. and you can see much of that architectural influence around zagreb. the city has been fought over by competing armies for centuries. in the 15th century,
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so the story goes, the ottoman army was camped on the other side of the sava river, just over there, preparing to attack the city. to deter them, a cannonball was fired with such pinpoint accuracy, it landed on a chicken intended for the commander's dinner. so freaked out were the turks by this that they scarpered and never returned to the city again — so the legend goes. but ever since 1877, as a nod to this alleged act of defiance, a cannon has been fired every day at noon from this tower. wow! incredible. alem is a trained engineer who used to work on the zagreb trams before he saw an advert for the position of cannon man in 2008, and landed the job. ah, how come — what does it do?
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laughs. the cannon firing has become a big tourist attraction in zagreb. alem needs at least 15 minutes a day to prepare and in his nine years doing thejob, he's never had a misfire. maybe we should pray. no, no, no. no, no praying. 0k. um, we can... let's wait. 0k. please stay here. yep. you stay here. thank you. it's 11:58. 0k.
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speaks croatian. one minute to shot, please! i'm feeling a bit nervous. bit tense. he's very, uh, focused. waiting for that clock to change. bang. 0oh! whoa! even though i knew it was coming, that was still a bit of a shock! it's still, oof, surprised me. wow! look at this! he's milking the applause! another day, job done. well done. have a nice day. thank you. croatia's struggle for independence from yugoslavia was more prolonged, complex and bloody
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than the slovenians'. today, though, it's a country of five million and a very popular travel destination, especially zagreb, dubrovnik, and the rest of its spectacular adriatic coastline. but venture away from the capital down the sava and you come across a lesser—known city. sisak lies on the confluence of three rivers and it's home to croatia's biggest river port. the town of sisak is where the river sava actually becomes wide enough for cargo ships like these to sail downstream to belgrade and serbia, and that's what has made the town such an industrial centre. now, sisak actually has a rich and colourful history but in recent times it's been characterised as dull and dreary. in fact, most guidebooks don't even mention it. but that is now changing. i am actually the fourth generation born here.
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and i lived with this town, i grew up with this town, and ijust, you know, when you're reading something about your town, you're reading the bad news and you're thinking "what are you talking about? "this is not how it is here." so, last year, dahna and her team set about creating rezthink sisak — an art festival that uses the town's buildings as a canvas for murals. this one, by croatian artist lonac, was one of the first to be created. it's the biggest mural in croatia and took 23 days and 400 cans of spray paint to complete. and how do the locals feel about this? um, well, at first, when we had to have the permission, they were first a little bit "what are you going to do with this?" but then, when it all started, they came every day here, they brought him the lemonade and cookies, and they were very, very proud of it. they got really emotionally involved — as in people from this building
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call this, ‘our mural‘ — which is what we tried to accomplish, you know, for people to accept them as their own. the murals are scattered around the city, each with a different theme or message. dahna shows me one that highlights a particularly painful part of sisak‘s history. during world war two, this was the place where the children were gathered to be put in the only concentration camp for children in europe. really? just here? yes — in this general area. in this general area? yes, yes. the camp was set up by the nazi—affiliated ustase regime during world war two. the victims were serbian, jewish and roma children. this mural by austrian artist robin abramovic is dedicated to their memory. i believe that the artist gave them a tribute that they deserved and maybe a sort of place of remembrance of all those children who didn't make it.
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we called him to be a part of our festival because we, as a team, decided that his work does have that certain dark undertone that maybe we kind of lacked in the festival. and needed to portray. and needed, of course, yes, because the art has to provoke thinking, so, notjust be pretty. there are now 17 murals in sisak and the festival has been such a success, they've decided to keep on painting. mind you, people don't come to this part of croatia just for the art. they come to see the country's largest wetland, which i'm heading through to my next stop on the sava river — the marshlands of brodski varos, where i encounter a man on an unusual fishing expedition. because stjepan goes out every day to collect food for this family of storks. stjepan found the mother, malena, 2a years ago after she had been shot and critically disabled by hunters.
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she still can't fly. because malena can't hunt, stjepan has to help feed the chicks. the fact that i can get so close, incredible. and they're beautiful! wow. congratulations! over the years, a male stork, klepetan, became malena's mate but each winter, malena has to say goodbye to klepetan and their brood of baby storks as he migrates to africa for the winter. this bond between stjepan and malena
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has become internationally famous and is even the subject of a brand—new documentary, the old man and the stork. and so, the first half of myjourney down the sava is complete and i'm beginning to grasp how important the river is to the people who live along its banks. next week, i will head to bosnia and herzegovina and then east, all the way to serbia's capital, belgrade. i'll find out how a generation who were born by the sava after the war in the ‘90s have new priorities and why the river has become so important to the future of serbia's capital. and i hope you'lljoin me.
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hello. strong winds and gales affecting northern scotland and the northern isles as tuesday begin. light winds elsewhere but it will be breezy across the uk. plenty of sunshine to begin the day. some sunny spells and a dry day in most areas. showers peppering western scotland, the odd one in northern ireland, england and were was but most ireland, england and were was but m ost pla ces ireland, england and were was but most places will have a dry afternoon with long sunny spells. 0ut afternoon with long sunny spells. out of the sunshine in the breeze it will feel quite cool with temperatures in the mid—to low teams, which isn't far from temperatures in the mid—to low teams, which isn't farfrom average. showers merge on tuesday night to give longer spells of rain. in northern scotland it will be very windy, especially into 0rkney as wednesday begin. temperatures will be lower than this in rural spots are specially. wednesday brings rain
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into scotland, northern ireland and northern england. south of that, sunny spells. the wind starts to pick up as we see more rain widespread across much of the uk on wednesday night. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. i'm mike embley. our top stories: more weapons are found at the home of the man who carried out america's worst mass shooting of modern times. 59 people were killed, hundreds more injured. the gunman has been named as stephen paddock, who fired on crowds of people from the window of his hotel room before killing himself. a minute's silence is held at the white house as president trump urges the country to stand together. last night, a gunman opened fire on a large crowd. it was an act of pure evil. the leader of catalonia says he's
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not planing a traumatic split with spain despite the disputed independence referendum.
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