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The Fifth Floor

Factual: Life Stories

Global stories from the BBC’s 40 Language Services, with Faranak Amidi

Faranak Amidi presents global stories from the Fifth Floor, home to the BBC’s 40 Language Services.

Faranak Amidi presents global stories from the Fifth Floor, home to the BBC’s 40 Language Services

The Fifth Floor: Venezuela's Crisis: A Numbers Game

Venezuela

24/04/2015

Venezuela's Crisis: A Numbers Game

BBC World Service - The Fifth Floor, Venezuela's Crisis: A Numbers Game

Why shoppers are queueing eight hours a week to scan their fingers in supermarkets

Venezuela's crisis - a numbers game; celebrating national days; renaming Ukraine; and the ugly side of Brazil's beautiful game

This week saw Venezuela receive five billion dollars in finance from China. A big figure but just one of many that have been part of the larger story of the country's recent problems. From the 20,000 finger print scanners to be installed at local supermarkets to monitor food purchases to the eight hours a week spent in queues. Daniel Pardo of BBC Mundo tells the story of the numbers behind the problems facing Venezuela. 

Renaming Ukraine
Ukraine's legislators want to get rid of the country's Communist legacy by removing monuments and renaming streets and even towns and cities. No more Lenin Avenues or November 7th Streets.  Vitaly Shevchenko of BBC Monitoring reflects on the disruption and controversy this would cause. He's joined by his Georgian colleague Noah Kankia, who tells us what his country went through when the same process was carried out there.

Mexican Literary Favourites
Mexico was in the literary spotlight last week when book lovers from all around the world descended on London's annual Book Fair. And one book lover here on the Fifth Floor, who's been interviewing some of that country's great writers is Juan Carlos Perez Salazar, fresh from his time as BBC's Mundo's correspondent in Mexico. So who are his favourites?

The Ugly Side of The Beautiful Game in Brazil
This week Brazilian football has seen the ugly side to the beautiful game as eight men were killed by gunmen at a football fan club in Sao Paulo. The men were Corinthians fans and part of a group of organised supporters. BBC Brasil's Fernando Duarte tells us how watching the game has changed since his days as a young Flamengo fan.

National Days
As St George's Day celebrations are marked from England to Bulgaria  The Fifth Floor hears how national days are celebrated in Brazil, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

And Fifi picks out her favourite stories from the web this week.

(Photo: Venezuelan shoppers queueing. Credit: Getty Images)

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