Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Rome correspondent Megan Williams about reaction to the surprise announcement.

Crowds gathered in the town of Bredasdorp in the Western Cape, where the rape occurred.

And several South African radio stations have been broadcasting an intrusive beeping noise every four minutes to symbolize the frequency of rape in the country.

Anchor Marco Werman speaks with South Africa’s Talk Radio 702 host Redi Tlhabi.

One of those places is Cambridge’s Sapporo Ramen where Anchor Marco Werman visits for a bowl of ramen.

And he finds out more about “Where Chefs Eat” from the book’s editor, Joe Warwick.

Where Radio Hosts Eat:

London: Red Fort (try the Biryani)
Paris: L’as du Fallafel
Rome: da Baffetto (pizza),
New York: Gray’s Papaya and Yakitori Totto
Austin, TX: Smitty’s Market (actually in Lockhart, down the road)
Durham, NC: Bullock’s BBQ Restaurant
Chapel Hill, NC: Crook’s Corner
Boston, MA: Coast Café
Heathrow Airport: YO! Sushi
Montreal: Schwartz’s and Le Petit Moulinsart
Miami Beach: Joe’s Stone Crab
Jerusalem: Merkaz Hafalafel Hateimani (Yemeni falafel, the best!)

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Mary Fenton (Photo: Leo Hornak)

Thousands of women and girls were locked up against their will, and forced to perform unpaid labor in workhouses managed by Catholic nuns.

The popular notion was that many were prostitutes or unwed mothers.

Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Mary Fenton.

She was just 16 when she was sent to the Magdalene Laundries.

And in the movie, British actor Ricky Sekhon has the job of playing the al-Qaeda leader, mostly after he is killed.

Sekhon’s appearance in the film was brief, but his preparations were not.

Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Ricky Sekhon about being Bin Laden.

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Marco Werman: Zero Dark Thirty is nominated for five Academy Awards, including best picture, best actress and best original screenplay. Ricky Sekhon is one of the actors in the movie. Here is the scene where he first appears.

Movie scene: Osama!

Werman: The Navy Seals are in his compound here.

Movie scene: Osama! Down.

Werman: And that’s when they shoot and kill the fugitive al-Qaeda leader. Sekhon’s on screen time goes by pretty quickly because he’s the one playing Osama bin Laden, mostly when he’s dead. Ricky Sekhon describes the process of becoming bin Laden.

Ricky Sekhon: I come from a background in physical theater and for me to learn as much about the character, I guess about the history of the character, you know, from education through to you know, what he did in his life, I guess you know, the wars he encountered, you have to try and pick from that against as much evidence of physical nature, characteristics that you can actually perform. You need to try and take as much from the history of this man to try and piece together an actual person.

Werman: And for that history what was the best book you read or best bit of research you found to kind of get you into that head.

Sekhon: I’d say yeah, it would have to be Peter Bergen with The Osama I Know, which is a really, really fantastic collection I guess of firsthand accounts on Osama.

Werman: Hm, now Peter Bergen can’t know what it’s like to be a dead terrorist in a body bag. Here’s a clip from that scene though. You are playing dead in the body bag and this is the moment when you’re back at the Seal team base and the CIA agent played by Jessica Chastain opens the bag for confirmation it’s bin Laden.

Movie scene: Sir, the agency expert gave visual confirmation. Yes, sir, a go, 100%. Yes, sir.

Werman: And Jessica Chastain zips the body bag back up. Ricky Sekhon, this is not the first film you played a terrorist, I gather. Is this becoming a habit for you? Are you going to be typecast now?

Sekhon: Hopefully, in my life there will be more range, more variety for me in terms of my future roles. I’m going up for a lot of really interesting parts now.

Werman: It’s been helpful, this role?

Sekhon: Yeah, yeah, completely, but I’m going up for a lot of interesting, mm, definitely not as extreme characters–I don’t think you can get much more extreme than this, but definitely not as extreme characters. And I like that. I like soft, interesting characters.

Werman: Now aside from the research you did in preparing for this role, you also had to lose a lot of weight.

Sekhon: Yeah, I think, I think physically he’s a very different character to me. I’m quite broad. I’m 6’4″, but I carry quite a lot a bit of weight, but a lot of it in muscle and a lot of it in chubbiness.

Werman: How much did you have to lose?

Sekhon: Yeah, I lost about 15-16 kilos, which is like

Werman: About 30 pounds, yeah.

Sekhon: Something like that, in like eight weeks, which is not healthy. I wouldn’t advise it. And plus I had to lose a lot of it in muscle, so I couldn’t work out.

Werman: What about portraying somebody who’s a good 20 years older than you?

Sekhon: Yeah, I spent a lot of time hanging around, kind of loitering outside Regents Park mosque in London. I just wanted to see you know, physically how older gentlemen would interact with each other, to get relationships with each other, with children and just try and really use that…and try and take from that as much as I can.

Werman: Final question, where are you gonna be watching the Oscars?

Sekhon: From my sofa in London.

Werman: Actor Ricky Sekhon. He played Osama bin Laden in the film Zero Dark Thirty. Thank you very much for speaking with us.

Sekhon: No worries, Marco, nice talking.

Copyright ©2012 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Reporter Laura Lynch was with them.

She’s covering the story for The World and the CBC.

Conservation groups and governments across Africa are struggling to police the poachers and protect the animals.

Now a wildlife conservancy in Kenya has purchased a drone to keep an eye on its precious residents.

Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Rob Breare, the head of strategy and innovation for the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya.

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Marco Werman: A word of caution for poachers beware the eye in the sky. The latest weapon against illegal ivory hunting in Kenya, is unmanned air craft. Conservation groups and governments across Africa have been struggling to police the poachers and protect the animals. But the stretches of land they patrol are enormous so a wildlife conservancy in Kenya has purchased a drone to keep an eye on its’ threatened residents. The conservancy crowd-sourced 45,000 dollars to help buy the drone. Rob Breare is with the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. Breare says the drone will help keep an eye on endangered species at Ol Pejeta including 110 rhinos.

Rob Breare: We actually have quite a number of variety of rhinos. We’ve actually got four of the last seven Northern white rhino in the entire world in existence. Those animals actually have their own 24 hour armed guard to protect against poaching. The rest of them are very much spread around the conservancy but we know roughly where they are sort of patches are so we’ll be able to focus our drone flights and missions where the rhinos mostly spend their time.

Werman: Wow just four out of the seven of the worlds white rhinos. What about the others are they equally threatened?

Breare: Yeah equally threatened the Northern whites are a subspecies of the white rhino but the other ones you know at the moment I would say rhino are facing somewhat of a poaching onslaught. A lot of our sister conservancy right next door have been losing rhino regularly over the last few months. We can take our eye of the ball in one second and we really worry that we’re going to lose one of ours.

Werman: So the drone is going to be your eye in the sky. Who is going to be the eye on the ground looking at what the drone is looking at?

Breare: Well one of the big things we try to focus on is maximum simplicity. We can’t afford to have a fully qualified pilot sitting in the seat in HQ. What we’ve got is a very simple ground control system that is very much like a Google Earth interface point and click and what we’ll have is one of our trained members of staff sitting behind the laptop operating it. It’s incredibly simple.

Werman: So with this drone you spot poachers closing in on one of your rhinos then what do you do?

Breare: For us we’ve seen the drone benefits in three stages. The sheer deterrence factor, people know that there’s an eye in the sky they’re far less likely to try any poaching in the first place. After that for us it’s about observation. As you rightly say, if an incidence takes place our drone can do about 125 kilometers an hour so we can get it there very very quickly. That means we can guide our rangers in on the incidence and actually by having an eye in the sky for them it allows us to look after their protection and security as well. Ultimately, we don’t want it to be just about those poaching incidences we see this as a chance to track those animals collect some behavioral data and in even the long run help us with our tours and activities and things like visitor traffic flow.

Werman: Are there poaches you can identify from the air you think?

Breare: Our drone is equipped with a 20x zoom Sony block camera zoom so really very high resolution and we expect to be able to zoom in on faces from a reasonable altitude. We do obviously have individuals that we believe are involved in that kind of thing we’ll be keeping track. We are not the same as a military, we are not going for strike capability or anything along those lines. For us it is about deterrence and observation first and foremost.

Werman: So poaches are known to be pretty ruthless and determined are you worried at all about poaches shooting down your drones?

Breare: Well you know at the end of the day the drone is only about 10 feet long. It flies at 100 kilometers an hour at reasonable altitude so you’re going to have to have someone who’s quite a crack shot to be able bring something that small down.

Werman: Robert are you focusing on other animals or just rhinos?

Breare: No. No very much other animals. Our pets [sp] is home to a number of endangered species for example the Greby Sepra [sp] which there are only relatively few left in the world. We’re quite keen to chip and track a number of different species. It’s not just about protecting them hopefully that will give us some insight into animal movements and some behavior in the long run.

Werman: Rob Breare head of strategies and innovations for the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Keyna and a drone to track endangered species is a great innovation Rob thanks for speaking with us. This is PRI.

Copyright ©2012 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Reporter Poppy Louw (Photo provided by Louw)

A man was recently robbed of his dreadlocks at a South African night club.

It’s believed that the man’s dreads were stolen to feed a growing demand for human hair extensions.

Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Poppy Louw of The Times newspaper in Johannesburg, about the growing number of dread thefts in South Africa.

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Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World. This next story will have Rastafarians terrified. The dateline is Johannesburg, South Africa. A man was recently robbed of his dreadlocks at a South African nightclub. It’s believed that the man’s dreads were stolen to feed a growing demand for human hair extensions. It seems that dreads have become a valuable commodity. Poppy Louw is a reporter with The Times newspaper in Johannesburg. So you wrote about this dreadlock theft, Poppy. First of all, what happened to this man? How were his dreads cut off without his consent?

Poppy Louw: Well, from what his friends told me is that they were hanging out at a club, and he left his friend inside for a little while. He went out looking for him and he found him passed out on the floor and his hair, which he had grown for ten years, was cut off.

Werman: Is the theory that the thieves gave him some knockout drops and then just shaved him?

Louw: Well, not quite, because he had been drinking. I mean, they were out clubbing. He had consumed a lot of alcohol. The thing is, from what I’ve heard, is that the victims aren’t really hurt physically.

Werman: So how popular are dreads, specifically real people’s dreads? Real hair?

Louw: They are quite popular. I’ve got dreads myself. It looks very neat and tidy, and you look very fashionable. A lot of women have been coming out and getting dreads. But I didn’t know about dreadlock extensions until about two, three years ago. I would see someone who had hair that was shorter than mine, and after two months their hair is down their back. You know it?

Werman: Your dreads are real though, yeah?

Louw: Yes, mine are real. I’ve had them since 2004.

Werman: Had you ever thought about the possibility that some thief might just cut them off?

Louw: Not really. That’s the weird thing, is that I don’t walk around thinking that someone might just terrorize me and take my hair. But that’s also because I don’t wear my hair loose. A lot of the victims were walking around with their hair loose.

Werman: So, you know, with a lot of stories, it’s always about follow the money. So how much can you get for a good healthy set of dreadlocks?

Louw: A good healthy set of dreadlocks. Well, mine are not even halfway down my back, so I’ve heard that mine could go for a thousand five.

Werman: A thousand five Rand.

Louw: Yeah, a thousand five Rand.

Werman: That’s about 150 bucks.

Louw: Yes.

Werman: So that’s pretty good, for just sitting down in a barber’s chair. But you’ve got no plans to shave yours, I suspect.

Louw: I actually do, but I’m not selling it to somebody, I’m giving it to my sister. When I say that I’m ready to cut mine, it’s been a long time, I’m ready to let go of all the drama that is attached to the locks. And then she was like, no, no, no, you can extend my hair with them.

Werman: Well, change can be good. Theft is not good though.

Louw: That’s the problem, that people now realize that there is currency that’s attached to dreadlocks and it’s very, very scary.

Werman: Poppy Louw, a reporter with The Times newspaper in Johannesburg. She wrote about these dreadlock thefts. There’s a link to her story at TheWorld.org. Poppy, very nice to speak with you. Thanks.

Louw: Thank you very much.

Copyright ©2012 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

At least 230 people were killed – most of them from smoke inhalation.

Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Daniel Fiterman Molinari.

He is a doctor from the neighboring city of Porto Alegre.

He traveled to Santa Maria with a team of physicians and nurses to help out with the casualties.

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Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman, and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH Boston. Brazil is in a state of shock over the deadly nightclub fire this weekend. At least 230 people were killed, most of them from smoke inhalation. The blaze allegedly started when a musician lit a flare onstage inside the Kiss Nightclub in the southern city of Santa Maria. Brazilian police say they’ve detained three people and are seeking a fourth as part of their investigation. Daniel Molinari is a doctor in the neighboring city of Porto Alegre. He traveled to Santa Maria with a team of physicians and nurses to help out with the casualties. In the last twenty-four hours, he and his colleagues have treated over eighty people who were in that nightclub fire. He describes what the scene was like at the hospital in Santa Maria.

Daniel Molinari: A lot of patients in respiratory distress, a lot of patients needing to be intubated to be assured that they wouldn’t stop breathing, so really bad respiratory problems. The first twenty-four hours is respiratory disease. Now you’re going to see some other diseases, like heart issues and renal disease. What we saw mostly was respiratory distress.

Werman: Right, and that respiratory distress results, presumably, from the massive smoke inhalation that took place during this fire. Now, I gather many of the victims were from the local university in Santa Maria. Has it been mostly young people you’ve been treating?

Molinari: Yeah, young people from 16 to 22 year olds. A lot of people. All of them were young people.

Werman: Have you ever seen anything like this before in Brazil as long as you’ve been practicing?

Molinari: No, I don’t think there has ever been something like this in Brazil. It was a disaster. It was horrible. Young people. I don’t think that anyone that was working here had ever seen something like this.

Werman: Did you have the chance to speak to any of these people who were trapped in this nightclub during the fire and then were able to get out?

Molinari: Yeah, they all were inside of the nightclub. Some of them got out in an unconscious state. One of the patients told me that he got out and went back in to bring people out. They couldn’t see because of the dark smoke. They couldn’t see anything one foot in front of them. There was a big mass of people by the door. They couldn’t get out, so people from outside were just pulling them out. Some of them were pulled out alive, and some were dead or unconscious. I’d heard a lot of people died inside the place, but also outside on the way to the hospital and in the hospital. The first moment was the worst.

Werman: So, you’ve spoken a lot about the respiratory distress among the patients you’ve seen what about burns?

Molinari: In the university hospital, there were three burn victims. They were really severe. They were transferred to Porto Alegre. Some went to hospitals in Porto Alegre; they went by airplane.

Werman: Dr. Molinari, I imagine a small city like Santa Maria doesn’t have everything it needs to address a crisis like this. You actually had to come in from Porto Alegre to help out. What does this city need right now? What does Santa Maria need more than anything else?

Molinari: When I got here, I thought it was going to be a lot worse than it was. They transferred patients to bigger cities with more resources. They’re doing a great job. 230 people died in the fire. They were all taken to a gymnasium in the city. That was horrible, horrible. It was like a pile of bodies that were, little by little, being recognized by their families and the mourning and the funeral, it was horrible. The first place we went when we got to the city to unite to the local force was the gymnasium. It was the central place of the operation here in Santa Maria.

Werman: So, when you got to Santa Maria, that gymnasium with that pile of bodies, as you say, that was the first thing you saw?

Molinari: I didn’t see the pile of bodies. We were outside. We didn’t want to go in. It was horrible. We had to go back to the patients, to the living people. The people that were already dead, the police and the fire department, they were all taking care of them. You know, so we had to go to the living ones, to the hospital instead. It was going to receive the people that weren’t dead yet. A lot of them lived.

Werman: A horrifying, horrifying scene. Dr. Daniel Molinari, thank you very much for speaking with us.

Molinari: Thank you.

Copyright ©2012 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

New Brunswick wants to raise the minimum size by a mere 1/25 of an inch.

But lobster fishermen in PEI want to keep the size limit as it is.

They’ve built a market on selling smaller lobsters.

Anchor Marco Werman gets the latest on this lobster tale from The World’s Andrea Crossan.

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Marco Werman: There’s a battle going on between two provinces in Canada, and the claws are out. Lobster claws, that is. Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick are fighting over the size of lobsters that fishermen are allowed to catch. Andrea Crossan is our unofficial one-person Canada desk here at The World, and she’s been looking into this lobster tale. Alright Andrea, enough bad puns. Can’t two Canadian provinces just get along? What’s the dispute?

Andrea Crossan: Well, you would think so, Marco, but in these two provinces, the dispute is over a shared body of water that they have, and it’s called the Northumberland Strait, and it’s a prime location for lobster fishing. Now, New Brunswick wants to raise the minimum size of lobster that they can catch. Prince Edward Island wants to keep the size limit as it is, and here’s the thing. The difference that we’re talking about right now, it would be 1/25th of an inch.

Werman: 1/25th of an inch? I can’t even make my fingers go that small. Why would that matter, that size?

Crossan: I know it seems like nothing, Marco, but that’s where it would start. They would increase it by 1/25th of an inch, and then eventually they want the minimum size of a lobster to be about one quarter of an inch larger than it is now. And Marco, the bottom line, it’s always the bottom line – it’s about money, and it’s about who’s buying these lobsters. Prince Edward Island – the lobster fishermen – sell smaller lobsters. They’re called canners, and they sell them to European and Asian markets, the kind of thing that you would find at a buffet on a cruise ship or in a casino or someplace like that, someplace where you’re not going to have a big lobster tail on your plate. Now for New Brunswick, they want the bigger lobster. They want to sell to places like Red Lobster, where there’s a minimum size requirement, and they say that they won’t be able to catch the larger lobsters if Prince Edward Island catches them before they have a chance to grow.

Werman: So, I’m thinking of a lobster I might buy at the fish market I go to. What do they actually measure? I mean, where do they put the measuring tape? Is it tail to antenna?

Crossan: No, it’s actually not about the tail at all. It’s about the length of what is called the carapace. That’s the exoskeleton shell that covers the head and the abdomen of a lobster, so it needs to be slightly more than two and three quarter inches in length, and if a fisherman catches, gets caught catching, lobster smaller than that, then they get fined.

Werman: With lobster, isn’t bigger always better? I mean, don’t the fishermen just make more off a larger lobster?

Crossan: Yes and no. There is actually something special about this body of water. These smaller lobsters are unique to the Northumberland Strait. The water is warmer there, and it causes the lobsters to mature more quickly than they do in the Atlantic, and PEI has developed an industry around selling these smaller lobsters.

Werman: Now I keep hearing, at least in the past couple of year, there have been tons of lobster in the northeast. Aren’t there enough lobsters to catch, small ones and big ones?

Crossan: Well, that’s part of the problem. There is plenty of lobster. In fact, there’s too much. There’s been a glut on the market, and just ask a fisherman in Maine about the state of the market there. The prices are at a twenty year low. Canadian fishermen are getting as little as three dollars a pound for lobster, so fishermen on both sides of this issue are fighting to try and see how much of the catch they can hang on to.

Werman: Alright, my claws are back in. I think I got it. The World’s Andrea Crossan. Thank you.

Crossan: Thank you, Marco.

Copyright ©2012 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

The goat was booked by Sydney police for eating flowers outside a museum.

Gary’s owner, Jim Dezarnaulds had contested the fine issued for damaging vegetation.

But the magistrate ruled that there was no evidence that Gary had gone to the museum with the intention of eating garden plants.

Kids these days…

Cathy Pharoah is at City University’s Cass Center for Charity Effectiveness in London.

She speaks with anchor Marco Werman about what happens when a charity’s founder becomes a liability.

Anchor Marco Werman speaks with freelance journalist Peter Tinti in Bamako.

The intervention has been welcomed by many Malians hoping for an end to Islamist control of Mali’s north.

Ousmane Diadie Toure is a film-maker in Mali’s capital, Bamako.

He’s a member of Defenders of the Republic, an activist movement led by artists and professionals.

Anchor Jeb Sharp speaks to him about reaction in Bamako to the French bombardment of Islamist bases.

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Jeb Sharp: I’m Jeb Sharp and this is The World. The conflict in Mali took an unexpected turn today despite a fourth day of French air strikes against Islamist militant in the West African nation. The militants gain more territory. The Islamists have controlled Mali’s North for months. Now they’re moving into government-held Central Mali despite the French intervention that was supposed to stop their advance. Civilians in the region are fleeing the conflict. The group [speaking French] or Doctors Without Borders is reporting that some areas are becoming ghost towns and the number of refugees crossing the border into neighboring countries is steadily growing. Ousmane Diadie Toure is a film maker in Mali’s capital, Bamako. He’s a member of Defenders of the Republic, an activist movement led by artists and professionals. Ousmane, what’s been the reaction to the French war planes bombing Islamist bases.

Ousmane Diadie Toure: The arrival of the French soldiers, there was a feeling of relief in Bamako. Now we’re seeing French flags, all over Bamako.

Sharp: You’re seeing French flags everywhere?

Toure: I think there was a reborn of French love in Mali because of the French coming to rescue us from such situations.

Sharp: Ousmane, were you surprised that the French intervened?

Toure: Surprised, we were. I mean, we were because I wasn’t expecting it. It’s most welcome anyway. It came right on time. We were wishing and hoping that the West African forces would come much earlier because we’ve seen that this conflict had been going on for a couple of months and we were really expecting a very quick reaction from West African forces. We are part of Ecowas. So we really were wishing and hoping that Ecowas would respond quickly to our demands.

Sharp: Do you see this French intervention as a turning point?

Toure: Most definitely. Most definitely. We’ve seen the result on the ground. With the French forces, we were able to stop at least the terrorists. We still need more. We still need more. We have seen on the ground, fighting on the ground, that we still need more and to secure the country and to free the other regions.

Sharp: Are you hoping or expecting other countries would get involved, including the U.S.?

Toure: We wish. We wish. We wish. We’ve heard on the news that the U.S. is already involved into helping logistically in terms of information and we should hope that they’ll help more.

Sharp: There are reports that Malians are lining up to give blood to help injured civilians.

Toure: Those who can give blood are giving blood. Those who can help financially or in terms of communication. Some doctors, civilian doctors, are going on the war front and helping.

Sharp: Ousmane Diadie Toure is a film maker and activist. He’s currently in Bamako. Thanks for your time.

Toure: Thank you.

Copyright ©2012 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

He says he told North Korean leaders to loosen their restrictions on internet access in the recluse nation, or risk being left behind.

Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Victor Cha, Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, about what Google’s attempt at diplomacy might have accomplished.

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Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World. It was a mission impossible, or at least a mission very unlikely. Former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson and the chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, went to North Korea with two main objectives: to ask North Korea to loosen its grip on Internet access, and to secure the release of an American citizen being held by North Korea for unspecified crimes. The release didn’t happen but Richardson and Schmidt did get to tour two computer centers in Pyongyang, and Schmidt says he did urge North Korean leaders to let their citizens connect to the outside world or risk being left behind. Victor Cha is Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Victor Cha, regardless of outcome, what does it mean when the head of Google goes to North Korea?

Victor Cha: A visit like this, for the North Koreans, was as much about themselves as it was about the world, in the sense that they wanted to validate for themselves that they could talk at a level of somebody like an Eric Schmidt. Now, who knows whether, when he viewed these facilities, what he thought of them, what the level of it was. But as with many things in North Korea, you know, they do, a lot of it is for internal validation, and in that sense, they probably wanted to see how they measured up in the eyes of someone like the CEO of Google.

Werman: And when you say internal validation, is that kind of just meaning it’s a visit for show?

Cha: Certainly it’s show, yeah, but I think, in terms of their own technicians, they want to be able to see what someone from the outside thinks of their work and allows them to determine if they are, sort of, up to snuff.

Werman: So when Schmidt says he urged North Korean leaders to connect to the outside world, let their citizens connect or risk being left behind, do you think they listened to him seriously?

Cha: That’s the sort of message you want to deliver to the very top leadership in the country, and to tell that to the working level officials he toured with, certainly it’s good that people say this to them, but, you know, in the end how much of a difference it will make in terms of the politics of the country is very hard to say.

Werman: Now we know Schmidt didn’t go through the usual diplomatic channels for this trip. Does this strike you, this trip, as kind of a rogue effort, and is there a place for rogue efforts in dealing with North Korea?

Cha: I wouldn’t call it a rogue effort. I mean, I think there have been private missions in the past that have gone to the country, not one that has gained as much media attention as this. The US government wanted to disassociate themselves from the trip, which makes sense because any US government doesn’t want to be seen as handing over its foreign policy to freelancers. So in that sense I think it’s fine. But in the broader scheme of things, the idea of this trip is trying to begin to pierce the information bubble in North Korea. You know, in that sense I don’t think any harm was done certainly, and if it leads to more trips like this that could, again, try to undermine the iron grip that the regime has on information in the country, that can only be a positive thing.

Werman: If we look at Eric Schmidt as a pure businessman, what’s the incentive for a trip like this? I mean, there’s no money to be made in North Korea as far as anybody can see.

Cha: That’s a good question. You know, I think North Korea is probably one of the last frontiers in terms of not being connected to the Internet, and maybe that was one of the reasons he was attracted to the trip. For someone like him who’s probably traveled the world, this is someplace he’s not been. There could have been just basic curiosity that led him to do this. I would agree with you, I don’t think Google would be looking at North Korea as a new market to enter, especially if the regime behaves as the way it does, given all the problems that Google had in China. And in North Korea, the problems would be exponentially worse.

Werman: Victor Cha, the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He’s also the author of The Impossible State: North Korea Past and Future. Thanks very much indeed.

Cha: It’s my pleasure.

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