06/02/2016 Witness


06/02/2016

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Hello and welcome to Witness, with me, Tania Beckett. I'm back at the

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British library in London for our first programme of 2016. Throughout

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the year, we will be bringing you remarkable personal stories from

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history. This month we will hear from a Cuban who saw the Dell Castro

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arrived triumphant in Havana. A museum director whose treasures were

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destroyed by the Taliban. And the Hungarian who invented the

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bestselling puzzle in history. But first it is 50 years this month

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since tragedy struck the US space agency NASA. In 1986, the spatial

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Challenger exploded shortly after launch. Six astronauts and a teacher

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were killed. Our first Witness, Barbara Morgan, was another teacher

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who trained alongside the Cure orange team. My husband and I were

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sitting on the sofa watching the news and President Reagan came on

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and made the announcement, it quite remarkable. Today I'm directing NASA

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to begin a search and to Jews as the first Citizen passenger in the

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history of our space programme one of America's finest, a teacher -- to

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choose. My husband, a writer, I will always remember jumped up

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immediately and said, why teacher, why not a writer? I laughed and I

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said I thought the teacher would be the perfect choice. Kristin was

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chosen as the teacher in space, I was lucky to be able to be her back

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up. Crystal was like the girl next door, she had an effervescent smile,

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she was very intelligent and just soaking it all in. We spent six

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months of training at the Johnson space centre with the Challenger

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crew. Some of our favourite training was in the simulators to learn what

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it was like to be weightless. We didn't stop laughing that entire

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flight. Launch day was January the 28th. We had been at the Kennedy

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Space centre for a few days and the crew had been spending their time in

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crew quarters going through the last minute work on preparations for the

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flight. That morning it was a very cold morning. Of course we had

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school children all over the country watching. There were 100 kids from

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her son's School. All of the families and friends. I remember I

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was so excited, I so wanted to be with them. I was waving and I'm sure

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I was jumping up and down. I was cheering them on, so happy for them

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and wanted to be with them. We have main engine start. Four, three, two,

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one and lift off. Liftoff of the 25th space shuttle mission and it

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has cleared of the tower. Very soon into the launch, things didn't look

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right. There wasn't one trail going up, all of a sudden there were a

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couple, that looked very different from the launch that Christa and I

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had watched a couple of months earlier. Then at some point you

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realise that something has gone terribly wrong. Flight controllers

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here looking very carefully at the situation. Obviously a major

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malfunction. We all went to crew quarters, where we were awaiting

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word and helping the families. It was a really tough situation.

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In September I went back to the classroom and I taught for many more

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years. In 1998, many, many years later, NASA asked me to apply for

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the astronaut office, the astronaut programme. At that point I left

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teaching and went and served as an astronaut for ten years. One of the

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wonderful legacies of the Challenger is the educational programme that

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the families of the Challenger crew members got together and created,

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where young people for themselves experienced the joy and wonder of

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spaceflight and space exploration. It's called the Challenger centre

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for space science education. That's why the Challenger crew were going

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into space, they were going to explore and discover and experience

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for all of us and to keep that future wide open for all other. The

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American astronaut Barbara Morgan there. Now to the discovery of a

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disease which affects millions around the world. Our next Witnees,

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looks at the story of the first patient to be diagnosed with

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Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's was a doctor, a physician in the

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psychiatric hospital in Frankfurt in 1888. He was a test from the idea

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that psychiatric diseases are like other diseases, diseases of the

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body, in this case of the brain. I have to find a place where I can

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prove this. The first case actually was produced Dita, she was 51, she

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lived here in Frankfurt. -- Augusto Dita. She was a normal housewife.

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Suddenly in 1901 she got jealous and then she got forgetful and was also

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very loud and cried. Alois Alzheimer said, that is my case. He wrote a

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very detailed case history of how time, but this file had been and

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nobody knew exactly where it could be. I am the former director of the

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same psychiatric hospital in Frankfurt. We went into the archives

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and suddenly we found this file laying somewhere, and that was the

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file of Auguste Deter. The file must have laid there for about 70 years

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or even more. And nobody detected it. It was a wonderful feeling to

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have these files in our hands. All these questions are documented by

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himself within this file, with his handwriting. She sits on the bed

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with a helpless expression. " What is your name? Auguste. What is your

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husband's name? Auguste, I think. She looked as if she didn't

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understand the question. I showed her a pencil, a pen, a purse, key,

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diary and cigar, all identified correctly. When she has to write Mrs

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Auguste D, she writes Mrs, and we must repeat the other words because

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she forgets them. The patient is not able to progress in writing and

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repeats," I have lost myself". She lived very long, about five

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years or even more. Was kept very well in the hospital and when she

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died, the brain had been examined immediately after her death.

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Consignment did many slices and we can still look through the

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microscope and see, and that is the most important sign of what he found

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within the brain of Auguste. -- outside. The reason of this disease,

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of this dementia, is the position of flags and new of eyes. We still

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think this is the reason for the disease. Unfortunately we have many,

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many affected persons worldwide. And we did not yet find the

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corresponding therapy, but we hope in the following years this will

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take place. Doctor Conrad Murray there. Next to the invention of the

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bestselling puzzle in history. The fiendishly difficult Rubiks cube. We

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have been to Budapest to meet the man responsible for a global craze

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in the nineteen eighties. The cute is a very special object.

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It's a toy, it's a puzzle. I prefer to call it a piece of art -- the

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cube. It's a construction. It's an educational tool. It is many

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things. I was lecturing architecture and

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construction. And for the students, the best way to teach them is to

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show them what to do. I was interested about to create something

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what is mobile, simple and contains some kind of task. And finally I

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fell in love with the cube is a form because it has very special

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qualities. After I did it and it was working

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nicely, my prototypes, I think if I like something then somebody else

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will like it as well. I thought," If we can produce it cheaply then it is

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possible for something to happen". I wasn't dreaming about success, I

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wasn't dreaming about numbers or figures. I had a feeling I could

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share what I have done. It will be good. Firstly we started to sell in

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Hungary. The big boom or change started in the 80s when we step into

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the world market, at first in New York but all of the other tradeshows

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and toy shows. And in three years, that was the golden age of the cube,

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the first big boom, and in that time, we sold more than 100 million

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cubes. We generated some income for me, but I was not expecting such

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figures -- it's generated. I felt it was some kind of... When you win a

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lottery, or you find money on the street.

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Competitions... I can say it is some kind of side-effect. It wasn't

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something he was targeting. My average time was one minute. I was

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over 30 already and the best age to do it successfully is under 20. It

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helps to understand the 3-dimensional movements, to exercise

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our mind, to imagine something, to understand that if I change the

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elements of the movements the result will not be the same. The progress

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is not a continuous line, but we go further and then a little bit back

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and forward again. We need many times to destroy something to

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achieve progress. Happy cubing. I was always a very

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happy cuber, just not always gave very successful one. You can watch

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Witness every month on the BBC News Channel or you can catch up with

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over 1000 radio programmes on our online archive. Just go to the

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website. In January 1959, Cuban revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro

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marched triumphantly into the streets of Havana. Carlos has never

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forgotten the moment that changed the history of Cuba and the whole of

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Latin America. On January the eighth, 1959, I was

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standing on this corner as hundreds of Cubans were welcoming Fidel

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Castro. And I was very excited, very optimistic. I thought these guys

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were going to change Cuba in a positive way. But Easter dominated

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Cuban politics until 1958. He was considered a guy who really enforce

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the law for the benefit of American companies -- Batista. He and his

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cabinet got $200,000 a month from the mafia to let them do whatever

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they wanted to do about casinos, prostitution. My father was a

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well-known politician who had opposed Batista from the beginning,

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and I was a young high school student influenced by my father's

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ideas. At that time, the Batista police could ease the chill you for

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something as simple as participating in a strike -- could kill you. In

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1958, I remember following the advance of the revolutionary forces

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on shortwave radio. At the end of 1958, the

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revolutionary movement called for some sort of strike, so it was a

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very bad Christmas in Cuba. Because there were no celebrations, nobody

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was going out, there were no parties. So on December 31, we went

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to bed early. We didn't even wait for the New Year. And sometime

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around three o'clock or four o'clock in the morning, I heard the phone

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ring. My father woke up, and he said, he spoke obviously, and then

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turned to all of us who had woken up and said, Batista has left. With

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Batista in-flight to the Dominican Republic, this celebration turns to

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rebel acts. Martial law is imposed. Most of the military installation

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facilities in Havana were taken away. The guy surrendered. Fidel

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Castro took eight days to arrive in Havana. He arrived in Havana in

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January that eighth. Some of my friends started to criticise the

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revolution, that it was too radical. They started to criticise the

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presence of the commonest is. Between 1959 and 1961, all my

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friends at school, all my cousins, all my uncles and aunts, left. My

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sense in those years when the revolutionaries took over,

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initially, I expected things to go well. I didn't expect the United

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States to take such a hard line in Cuba. I knew there was going to be a

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negative reaction. But I didn't expect things to turn around so

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badly. Carlos Cuba. And finally to Afghanistan, a

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country that many now associate with war. But it is also one that has

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produced great civilisations, and great art. However, these treasures

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where and anything to the Taliban regime. -- another. Annex guest was

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working at the National Museum in trouble in 2001 when the Taliban

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came to visit -- Kabul. The museum director still proudly

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working at the Kabul Museum. That is all from Witness this month. We will

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be back in February with more stories of our times told the people

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who were there. But for now, from me and the rest of the Obama team,

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goodbye. -- Witness team. Weather warnings are being

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kept under close review. They may well be escalated through

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Saturday morning,

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