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The Fifth Floor: The Kenyan clan branded 'evil'

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Talai clan Kenya

31/07/2020 GMT

The Kenyan clan branded 'evil'

BBC World Service - The Fifth Floor, The Kenyan clan branded 'evil'

How a colonial slur stuck to the Talai clan, leaving them feared and shunned to this day

How a colonial slur stuck to the Talai clan, leaving them feared and shunned to this day.

The BBC’s Anne Soy has been to her birthplace, Kenya’s Great Rift Valley, to meet members of the Talai clan, who have been feared and shunned since colonial times.  When the Talai resisted British settlers more than a century ago, they were punished and branded ‘evil’, a slur that left them impoverished and marginalised, and still persists today.   

Afghan etiquette - what's in a title?
BBC Pashto's Payenda Sargand has been putting the spotlight on the importance of titles in Afghan society.  Why is it more important to know a person’s title than their name, and what happens if you get it wrong?  He’s been sharing his discoveries with presenter Faranak Amidi.

My Home Town: Snezhinsk, Russia
Ksenia Idrisova of BBC Russian takes us to her hometown of Snezhinsk in the Ural mountains of Russia, a town so secret in her childhood that it wasn’t even shown on maps.

Covid-19 in Bishkek 
This month Kyrgyzstan experienced a surge in coronavirus cases which quickly overwhelmed the health service, and triggered an extraordinary volunteer response.  BBC Kyrgyz has been reporting on their work, and living the story: several of the team also became sick despite working from home, including Almaz Tchoroev, happily back to full health now.  

A diplomatic close shave 
The US ambassador to South Korea, Harry Harris, recently shaved off his moustache.   Quite why this made the news is explained by BBC Korean's Julie Yoonnyung Lee, and dates back to the era of Japanese colonial rule when moustaches were favoured by Japanese military leaders.  So did he bow to diplomatic pressure, or was it a decision dictated by the weather, as he suggests?

Image:  Members of Talai clan on tractor
Credit:  BBC

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