Archive for January, 2013


Jazz Samba Singer and Pianist Tania Maria

Tania Maria (Photo: taniamaria.org)

We spin tracks off Tania Maria’s new album ‘Canto.’ The Brazilian singer, composer and pianist swings to the sound of choro, samba and jazz.

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Music Heard on the Air for January 24, 2013

Tunes spun on The World between our reports for January 24, 2013. Artists featured are: Daleduro, Domenico and Samuel Yirga.

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Discussion: How Drones Change Everything

MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle. (Photo: US Defense Dept.)

The World reporters Jason Margolis and Arun Rath join our partners at NOVA to discuss the future of unmanned aerial vehicles for both military and civilian use.

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PRI’s The World: 01/24/2013 (South Africa, Italy, Spain)

As the United Nations launches an investigation on the impact of drone strikes on civilians, we examine the evolution of US drone policy under President Obama. Also, the Italian Mafia’s involvement in the renewable energy business. And how a cultural anthropologist works to identify the remains of migrants who died trying to cross the Sonoran desert.

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Why President Obama Embraces Drones

National security briefing in 2010. (Photo: White House/Pete Souza)

The UN is launching an investigation into the impact of drone strikes and so-called targeted killings on civilians. Marco Werman speaks with Daniel Klaidman of the Daily Beast, who has interviewed hundreds of US officials about the Obama Administration’s embrace of drones.

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Books Not Bombs or How About Tweets?

Teju Cole (Photo: Teju Cole)

Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Nigerian-American author Teju Cole, about a series of literary-inspired short stories about drones that Cole posted recently on Twitter aimed at bridging what Cole terms our empathy gap.

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What It’s Like to Pilot Drones

Predator Drone (Image: US Department of Defense)

Piloting a drone can be a strange mix of reality and virtual reality. A former British drone pilot weighed in on what it’s like to fly drones, and the potential moral implications.

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The Upside of Austerity in Spain: Rooting Out Corruption

Demonstrators take part in a march during a 24-hour nationwide general strike (Photo: Reuters)

Spain’s top corruption investigator recently called corruption a cancer destroying democracy.

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Italy’s Mafia Gets Into Renewables

Wind generators near the Sicilian town of Trapani. ( Photo: REUTERS/Giuseppe Piazza)

A multi-year investigation and sting operation has revealed deep infiltration into the wind and solar sector by Italy’s crime families.

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Pentagon Lifts Ban Barring Women on the Battlefield

US Army Cpl. Kristine Tejada, Iraq, Sept 2011 (Photo: US Army/Flickr)

The Defense Department’s decision to drop the ban excluding women from combat roles has stirred discussion among veterans and those still serving in the armed forces.

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Jake McNiece, D-Day Paratrooper Dies, the Last of the ‘Filthy Thirteen’

Jake McNiece applying warpaint to a comrade, June 5th 1944. (Photo: Stars and Stripes)

Jake McNiece died Monday aged 93. McNiece was the last of a group of paratroopers who jumped into Normandy on D-Day. In 2002 The World’s Chris Woolf helped reunite McNiece with one of his comrades, who’d been reported lost on D-Day.

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Identifying the Migrants Who Die Crossing the US/Mexico Border

A staghorn cholla in the Sonoran Desert. (Photo: iStockphoto)

Cultural Anthropologist Robin Reineke studies the personal items found on the bodies of migrants who have died crossing the Sonoran Desert in Arizona in an effort to identify who they were.

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Crocodiles On The Loose in South African River

Nile Crocodile keeping an eye on things (Photo: Rakwena Crocodile Farm)

Flooding along a river in South Africa forced a crocodile breeding farm owner to release its crocodiles into the river. All 15,000 deadly crocodiles!

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Quebec’s Separatists on Charm Offensive with Bilingual Song

Screen shot from "Notre Home" video

Quebec’s new separatist government is promising to require French exams in English language schools and to ban bilingual newsletters in some municipalities. That’s enraging many English speakers. So the government is bankrolling a province-wide tour by a pro-English musician.

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Reddit Users Debate the Idea of ‘Leftover Women’

When The World’s Asia correspondent Mary Kay Magistad reported last Friday that Chinese women in their late 20s are considered “leftover women,” social networks were quick to respond. Here are several interesting conversations happening around the role of unmarried women in Chinese society [...]

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