Friday, the first suicide bombing of the conflict took place in Gao, while government troops in the capital city Bamako started fighting amongst themselves.

Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Lydia Polgreen of The New York Times in Bamako.

The current turmoil in Tunisia is all too reminiscent of the civil war with Islamists that swept Algeria in the 1990s, she says.

That conflict took some 200,000 lives.

The January hostage siege at Algeria’s In Amenas gas field has only deepened Algerians fear of militant Islam, according to Walt.

“The great specter is that there will be a return of Islamic parties, and militant Islamic organizations which is what the civil war focused on in the 1990s,” Walt says. “Everybody you meet in Algeria has lost loved ones in some terrible, violent conflict, and they look over at Tunisia and they see what they might become if there’s a popular uprising here.”

“Aging and positions of power can influence a psyche as much as an experience such as Vietnam,” O’Brien says. “But in Hagel’s case, for example, he was not only in Vietnam, he was in Vietnam as a sergeant, as an enlisted man. And both men, both Kerry and Hagel, saw combat.”

The experience of seeing war up-close, O’Brien says, no doubt “seeped into the bones” of the former senators.

O’Brien says he’s mystified when Hagel and Kerry are chastised for being “too careful” when contemplating the use of US military force.

“When one of these men is being criticized as possibly too cautious, I want to yell at the top of my lungs, ‘How can one be too cautious? You can’t be too cautious!’”

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Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman and this is “The World”. Today on the program, we’re looking at wars, past, present, and possibly future. We start with former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, the nominee to head the Pentagon. He faced intense questioning in Senate confirmation hearings today. Senator John McCain grilled him on his opposition to the troop surge in Iraq. Critics say they’re worried Hagel might be reluctant to use US military force and he tried to dispel that today when he dealt with the issue of Iran getting nuclear weapons.

Chuck Hagel: As I’ve said in the past, many times, all options must be on the table to achieve that goal. My policy has always been the same as the president’s. One of prevention, not of containment.

Werman: Earlier this week, former senator John Kerry was confirmed as Secretary of State and if Hagel is confirmed, it would be the first time two Vietnam vets hold two top cabinet positions. Author and Vietnam vet Tim O’Brien has written a lot about the Vietnam War including the classic, “The Things They Carried”. I asked him about the lingering impact of the conflict on Kerry and Hagel.

Tim O’Brien: Aging and positions of power can influence a psyche as much as an experience such as Vietnam. But in Hagel’s case, for example, he was not only in Vietnam, he was in Vietnam as a sergeant, an enlisted man. Both men, both Kerry and Hagel, saw combat and I think you return from an experience like that with the knowledge that bullets and bombs and artillery shells and so on, can kill the enemy. But bombs, and artillery shells, and bullets, can also manufacture an enemy. A bullet strikes a six year old kid in the head, you’ve got one very angry mom and dad. The multiplier factor is enormous. It can be counterproductive not achieving the goals you want but instead manufacturing problems.

Werman: Do you think for both Hagel and Kerry, they’re likely to be more cautious in the use of force? Or is it just too simplistic?

O’Brien: Well, I hope that they would be more cautious as a consequence of their experiences in Vietnam. I mean, what’s wrong with caution? It astonishes me that Hagel is being criticized for possibly becoming too cautious. There are dead people. It’s not an abstract issue for someone who has been in combat. It may be abstract to civilians and to officers back in the rear echelon area. But to someone who has had to carry your dead friends and look at dead enemy soldiers, it’s not an abstract issue. It’s an issue that goes into your bones and I hope it has gone into the bones of Mr. Hagel and Mr. Kerry.

Werman: It was interesting to hear Chuck Hagel’s narrative today during his confirmation hearings. We were reminded of his family’s almost, destiny to serve in the military. His father was in World War 2. His grandfather in World War 1. There he was in Vietnam, two purple hearts, shrapnel in his chest, war hero. How did it affect him personally? Maybe you have an anecdote that is worth mentioning?

O’Brien: The fact that in the way it affected all of us, in the last analysis that war is hell and it’s ugly and it’s nasty. The images of heroism are now and then true, but there’s the overwhelming temper of war, is ugly and nasty on a day by day, second by second basis. Kicking around civilians, peeing in wells, busting into people’s houses, rolling in with your armor, intimidating people. It’s ugly, not just in the sense of atrocity. It’s ugly in its daily second by second ethos.

Werman: Tim O’Brien, you served as an infantryman in Vietnam. When did the ground shift for you and kind of change your essential notions of war?

O’Brien: It shifted on a hot day in 1969. It was July. We had taken two causalities earlier in the day and we entered a village. In the middle of this village, was this village well and at the well stood an old man, seventy, eighty years old. He was completely blind. His eyes looked liked little aluminum discs. For about a half an hour, that old man dipped into his well with a wooden bucket and gave us showers, dumping the water on us and saying “Good water for good GIs”. It could have been a pigeon English. And at one point, one of my fellow soldiers, a kid named Tom from my home state of Minnesota, picked up a little carton of milk and from two or maybe three feet away, hurled that carton of milk at the old man’s head, hit him in the face. The man lost his balance, fell down. After a moment, he stood up, milk just dribbling down his face, a little cut over his eye. The village had gone silent. All the kids who had been giggling a little bit before were dead silent. That village, that old man, that moment, lasts inside me even though there was no real bloodshed, in a way that will never go away.

Werman: What was it about that moment? Was it the random cruelty of it?

O’Brien: It was the [sp] inexplicability of it. The question of why? Why would a man do this? Granted, we had lost two men earlier in the day. Granted, we were feeling full of anger and sorrow. But still, that old man had nothing to do with it. And it’s an example of what I meant when I said a bit earlier that, war can have the effects that are precisely the reverse of your intentions, to save the world for democracy, to win the hearts and minds of villagers.

Werman: Tim O’Brien, do you, as a Vietnam veteran, feel more encouraged that two Vietnam veterans will likely be Secretaries of Defense and State? Does that make a difference to you?

O’Brien: Yes. A huge difference. To have an experience, face to face, as I did, with the horrors of war. Its sinfulness and the nastiness. When one of these men is being criticized as possibly too cautious, I want to yell at the top of my lungs, “How can one be too cautious??” You can’t be too cautious.

Werman: Tim O’Brien, author of the Vietnam era classic, “The Things They Carried”. He now lives and works in central Texas, where he teaches at Texas State University San Marcos. Very good to hear your thoughts, Tim O’Brien.

O’Brien: Thank you, Marco.

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Anchor Marco Werman talks with three women who work at a rape crisis center in Mogadishu, and finds out why the entry of women into Somalia’s armed forces might be helping to combat rape.

We hear first from Lisa Shannon the co-founder of Sister Somalia, a sexual violence crisis center in Mogadishu.

Then we talk with Somali activist Fartun Abdisalan Adan, and her daughter Ilwad Elman who both work at the women’s center in the Somali capital.

They discuss Iman Elman’s decision to join Somalia’s armed forces.

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Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World. News out of Somalia has been more positive recently than it’s been for decades. The nation on the horn of Africa is trying to overcome its reputation as a failed state. In September, a new leader took over, and he’s been working to create the country’s first functioning central government since 1991. Residents of Mogadishu say the capital’s main streets are often chockablock with shoppers now, as Somalis who’ve been living abroad have returned to open stores and businesses. And Somali women have been especially encouraged by a new constitution that promises equality for women, and by a government pledging to do more to address problems like rape. But women’s rights activists still see reasons for concern. Lisa Shannon is the co-founder of Sister Somalia, a sexual violence crisis center in Mogadishu that she created with Somali activist Fartun Abdisalan Adan. Shannon has just returned from the Somali capital where she saw some worrying developments.

Lisa Shannon: The week before I arrived, a woman who had talked to the press about a gang rape at the hands of government soldiers was arrested, and then the journalist who they believed interviewed her was arrested, and they were both held for about a week until she recanted the story. That seemed to really change the climate. I mean, women at the center had been feeling like they could be more open. Obviously everyone was really optimistic, and the tone just changed really quickly. I mean, even when I was there we saw an awful lot of harassment of women’s advocates who were believed to have helped the victim. So it’s very mixed messages and kind of chilling. We’re not sure what it means.

Werman: Let’s establish though that things are indeed changing, outside of women’s issues, in Somalia. I mean, more Somalis are coming back. You were just telling me that there are now four flights a day to Mogadishu, as opposed to four flights a week. And you actually made it into the center of Mogadishu on this trip that you just got back from.

Shannon: Yeah, a year and a half ago, I got about four blocks away from the African Union compound. This time I spent several hours driving around the center of Mogadishu, got out of the car, walked onto the beach where kids were playing soccer. You know, it’s a city that’s just piles of rubble, but at the same time you can see that they’re using some of the rubble to rebuild walls, there’s new construction, so it’s very hopeful right now.

Werman: So in this transition, is the idea of a rape crisis or a sexual violence crisis center perceived as kind of a very Western notion to the citizens of Mogadishu?

Shannon: You know, that’s an interesting question. I certainly would have imagined it would be, but the ideas of women’s rights seem to really be spreading. The women who come to the center themselves are actually going back out into their camps and serving as kind of word-of-mouth contacts or counselors for people who may have gone through some things like this. So you would not expect Mogadishu or Somalia to be a new hotbed of the women’s movement, but that seems to be happening.

Werman: What are the rules for being a woman there these days? Do you have to behave a certain way?

Shannon: Absolutely. Women wear full head dress and they’re covered from head to toe. I mean, that was particularly true with Shabaab but it continues on. You would never go out without your head covered.

Werman: Shabaab, of course, the militants in Somalia.

Shannon: Right. Obviously, there have traditionally been issues around women speaking about rape at all, and if they do, there has been this kind of brutal, systemic victim-blaming that happens, so women can be jailed, they can be killed. So there’s that set of issues. I mean, they can run businesses, move about, but they have not traditionally been invited to the table in decision-making roles.

Werman: What is just the risk of going to the authorities and saying so-and-so raped me? Are there reprisals?

Shannon: Often they will arrest the victim, saying that it’s a false accusation, that she’s lying. In Shabaab territory, a woman could be stoned to death for making an accusation like that against Shabaab militants, so it’s very risky. And even if she does report it, there’s not a solid justice system in place to pursue the complaint, even if they weren’t attacking her for showing up and reporting it.

Werman: And I gather Fartun, the woman with whom you founded Sister Somalia, has been threatened.

Shannon: Fartun’s husband was killed for his human rights work, and she talks about basically every day feeling grateful she’s still alive. When I was there, I saw someone had written on the back of her SUV in the dust, “I want to kill you.” So there’s this sense of kind of measured risk for them, that it may be risky but it’s worth it. People are hungry for this, you know. Like for instance, when I was leaving, I was going through the airport. I was stopped, and they opened my bags. They thought I was a journalist, and for me this was actually a pretty scary moment because I had published something on The New York Times website the night before criticizing the government. I thought, oh, no. They opened my bags and then they asked, “Are you a journalist?” And I say no, I mention Fartun, I mention the center, and the woman’s eyes light up. She throws her fist in the air and says, “Women’s rights!” and waves me right through.

Werman: Wow. That’s impressive.

Shannon: So that’s a shift.

Werman: That was Lisa Shannon, co-founder of Sister Somalia, a sexual violence crisis center in Mogadishu. Shannon created the center with Somali activist Fartun Abdisalan Adan. We called Fartun to ask her about those threats on her life.

Adan: The work we are doing, a lot of people, they’re not happy with it. A lot of people, they don’t want to talk about what happened to them, because all the stigma involved as the rape victims.

Werman: Fartun’s daughter Ilwad Elman also works at the Sister Somalia center in Mogadishu. She says Somalia’s new government needs to begin investigating allegations of abuse, especially charges of rape perpetrated by soldiers and other authorities.

Elman: We feel that the government needs to accept that this happens and respond to it instead of denying it. What we feel right now is a very dangerous turn, is a government that’s more interested in protecting itself and its new image as opposed to its civilians.

Werman: Some of the change happening in Somalia, though, could help Ilwad and Fartun’s cause. Take Fartun’s other daughter, 22-year-old Iman. She had also been working at the rape crisis center, but then she made a bold move. She joined the Somali armed forces. Her decision hasn’t been easy for Fartun to cope with.

Adan: I am always worried about her. Going with the soldiers and having a gun. it worries me a lot. I ask her many times she shouldn’t do this, and she always said, “I like this, and I can change. It feels like I’m changing something.”

Werman: Iman is one of a just a handful of female soldiers in Somalia. She dresses in battle fatigues and full head scarf. Ilwad says she’s proud of her younger sister.

Elman: It’s very uplifting for a lot of young girls that see her in that position. People are usually taken aback, or they’re shocked.

Adan: Even the wearing the clothes.

Elman: Yeah, most women in Somalia, they wear skirts or dresses, and she’s in her uniform gear, wearing pants and she demands respect.

Werman: And Iman’s decision to join the military could help the rape crisis center. Sister Ilwad says she’s seen some evidence of that already.

Shannon: Since she has been in her position, we have had better connections, better communications with the government, especially the army. And she takes it upon herself to really follow up with many of the cases that she hears that involve men in government uniforms and women being raped and to see how she can actually investigate it.

Werman: And it’s not just her family saying that. Activist Lisa Shannon thinks Iman’s decision to become a soldier has itself brought some change.

Shannon: You know, that move did shock a lot of people. I think she’s one of four women who are in the Somali armed forces. And she got a lot of looks and a lot of pushback until she actually ended up on the front lines behaving in a way that was quite brave and won a lot of respect. And in fact, even in the armed forces, she said there was a situation where a woman was reporting a rape, and she came across a lot of men kind of grilling this girl about it, and she suggested, hey, why don’t we just get a written statement, and take it from there. So her presence there is sort of shifting things as well.

Werman: That was author and activist Lisa Shannon, who recently returned from Mogadishu. We also heard from Ilwad Elman and her mother, Fartun Abdisalan Adan, who both work at a sexual violence crisis center in the Somali capital. We have photos of the women, including one of Iman Elman in full combat gear and head scarf, at TheWorld.org.

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US Marine Corps Reserve Capt. Zoe Bedell is one of four plaintiffs along with the American Civil Liberties Union who sued the Pentagon to overturn the ban.

She tells host Marco Werman that soldiers on the frontline need skills beyond simple physical strength.

“Leadership is not just about being strong. It’s not about having the biggest biceps,” says Capt. Bedell. “It’s about being able to react under pressure and make decisions when bullets are flying around you.”

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Marco Werman: I am Marco Werman and this is The World, the co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston.

[Defense Secretary Leon Panetta speaking]: Female service members have faced the reality of combat, proven their willingness to fight and, yes, to die to defend their fellow Americans.

Werman: Defense Secretary Leon Panetta made it official this afternoon. Women in the U.S. Military will now be able to serve in many frontline combat roles. Not all, but many. Some exceptions will be decided over the next few months by the Pentagon. US Marine Corps Reserve Capt. Zoe Bedell is one of four plaintiffs who sued to strike down the Pentagon’s policy barring women from some combat roles. She served two tours of duty in Afghanistan. Capt. Bedell says banning women from direct combat roles made it much harder for them to climb the career ladder.

Zoe Bedell: Eighty percent of Generals come from combat arms which are these jobs that are closed. So, you can see that the promotion funnel narrows for women and there are fewer jobs available at the top levels. But additionally, women were supposedly barred from serving in combat, but the fact was they were serving in combat. Anyone in Iraq and Afghanistan these days is in a combat zone and is in danger of being shot at or are being targeted by a roadside bomb.

Werman: I really want to unpack the reality of women being on the ground. What are the scenarios that might cause you anxiety?

Bedell: When I was part of the female engagement team, my marines and I were living with male marines in very small bases and operating with them and patrolling with them every day. So, those things are already happening so there will be a little bit of adjustment for some of the men who haven’t done that yet or who haven’t been in these situations. But the fact is men have already made those adjustments too and they’ve proven that we can work in these environments professionally.

Werman: Give us a couple of examples of things that happened to you in Afghanistan that could have been awkward situations and maybe were or weren’t.

Bedell: Well, there is infinite opportunity for awkwardness anytime you’re living with someone for an extended period of time. One potential challenge is when you’re patrolling and you have to relieve yourself. You’re in the open and it’s hard to do so there can be some difficulty there, but I know women would sort of band together, they’d hold up a tarp and you make things happen. Women have been doing this for the last ten years and are proving that some of these what seem, I guess, to people to be insurmountable obstacles are really not that big of a deal.

Werman: Then there’s the critique of the undeniable physical differences between men and women – upper body strength quite different. What are the differences that you accept between men and women in combat that give men a physical advantage?

Bedell: There are absolutely some women who aren’t going to be able to do this work, just like there are some men who can’t do the work. But right now, the fact is that all men are let in regardless of whether or not they’ve been evaluated to be able to do it and no women are. That’s what’s changing here, is that women will now have a chance to prove that they are one of those people who can do that work and then given the opportunity to do it if they can.

Werman: What is the toughest thing you’ve ever had to do in the field where you really felt challenged?

Bedell: There are a lot of different challenges that you come across all the time. Some of them are those physical challenges where you are just on a long hike and your gear weighs a ton and you’re exhausted, and your feet hurt and those are incredibly challenging. But other challenges are more mental. It’s a stressful situation; you’ve been going without sleep for a long time. Leadership is not just about being strong. It’s not about having the biggest biceps. It’s about being able to react under pressure and make decisions when bullets are flying around you. Those are absolutely qualities that women possess just as much as men do.

Werman: I was going to ask you – do you think women may be in a better position to handle the mental stress than men?

Bedell: I think everyone is equally well qualified here. The military gives you training on this. They help prepare people. There are certainly some advantages women probably have and there are some advantages men probably have. I think, in business settings for example, they’ve seen that the different approaches to problems complement each other and make units stronger. That’s what I’ve seen so far in the military, as well.

Werman: You’ve been out there in the field in Afghanistan. What was the reality for you in that respect?

Bedell: The forces there are doing a lot of what was formerly called ‘hearts and mind’ and winning the hearts of the population. If you come in with a whole group of men in a society where men can’t even interact with the women, it doesn’t look very sincere because you’re trying to help their population but you’re only trying to help 50 percent of them. The other thing is we were able to use some of those cultural stereotypes – use them against them, to some extent, because they think that women are nurturing, and they are healers, and they are there to support and they’re not aggressive. So, when they bring women in, it sort of lowers the tension to some extent. So, we found that coming in as women actually helped us in that environment and would really change the tone of some engagements in a positive way.

Werman: Finally, Capt. Bedell, I have to ask you what you think the lifting of the ban will mean for the frequency of sexual assault in the military. I mean, it’s already out of control by many accounts – over 3,000 cases reported in 2011. What’s gonna happen to that?

Bedell: The policy, as it used to stand, justified the behavior of treating women as second class citizens. If you’re now saying, “No, women are equal; they have a chance to do these jobs; they can compete for these roles” that equality will eventually permeate the organization. That’s not going to be an overnight thing but I think it’s a step in the right direction of the organization seeing women as equal and that the individuals in that organization adopting that policy or that belief as well.

Werman: US Marine Corps Reserve Capt. Zoe Bedell – one of four plaintiffs who challenged the Pentagon’s policy barring women from some combat roles. Capt. Bedell, thank you very much.

Bedell: Thank you for having me.

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Secretary Clinton faced tough questioning about the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya last year.

Steve Clemons, the editor-at-large of The Atlantic says Clinton weathered the barrage, and discusses Clinton’s legacy at the helm of the State Department.

Khouri says the prospect for a two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “probably has died.”

And he’s worried about the lack of analysis of internal Israeli politics.

“Nobody bothers really anymore in the Arab world to analyze what’s going on inside Israel or inside Washington. And this is really worrying because what it means is people are going to possibly look at other options,” Khouri says. “And one of the other options that we’ve witnessed in the past 30 years is the rise of Hezbollah, and the rise of Hamas, and closer ties to the Iranians. And this only creates greater tensions and portends bad days ahead, potentially.”

“It can still be astonishing if you stop and think about it, but you would have to stop and think about it,” he says.

Younge, who writes for a primarily British audience, says expectations abroad for a second Obama administration are greatly reduced.

“There was this unfounded expectation that Obama’s election would signal not just a radical departure – and I think it has been a significant departure from the Bush era – but a radical reconstruction, a reformation of American foreign policy and that hasn’t happened,” he says. Younge adds that discussions of the Obama regime abroad are not likely to prompt mention of civil rights or efforts to combat racism, but instead spark discussion of “drones, Pakistan and Guantanamo Bay …These are the touchstones abroad,” says Younge.

Anchor Marco Werman talks with one Tehran-based musician about the limits of artistic expression in Iran.

The musician describes what it’s like to try to get a new composition approved for censorship from the Ministry of Islamic Guidance and Culture.

For security reasons, the guest is not using his name.

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Marco Werman: In Iran–you know, that arch-enemy of Israel–there are some jobs that can be really troublesome. Take being a musician, a risky business. That was clear this week when Iranian authorities arrested five members of an underground band. Their crime was working with dissident Iranian singers and TV channels in the US. We wondered what it’s like to be a musician in Iran, so we asked one.

Iranian Musician: Self-censorship starts even before any notes is played.

Werman: That’s a composer and musician based in Tehran. We’re not using his name for security reasons.

Musician: If you want to compose a piece of music or an album and release it officially in Iran, the fear starts in the beginning. There is an Office of Music in the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, which is downtown, and the procedure is that first you supply them with the lyrics. Then they will ask you, how do you want to sing these lyrics. Then you have to either say it’s a melodic, or it is spoken, or it is a mixture of melodic and spoken. They will cross out some words or they will just say no, or they will approve it. Then the next step is you go to a recording and then provide the pre-release album to the same place, but to the other room, which is controlling the musical part of it. Then they go to another meeting for themselves, it will take another couple of months, and then they finally may say this is approved or not approved. They may take out part of a song, or remove complete songs from the album. They have a very closed mentality, and this kind of things which are totally illogical happens.

Werman: The whole process sounds not only bureaucratic but quite surreal. I’m wondering, are there talented musicians in Tehran who just say, this is just too much, I’m not even going to be a musician, or try to, because I have to go through this whole rigmarole?

Musician: Yes, many people have just put away music, or they are just playing music for themselves at home, and they record and put the music as MP3 online just for the heck of it. Because it’s only the first part. If you get the permit of the album, then you may or may not get the permit for performing that album. Because of the mentality of these crazy people, they say that maybe one song is approved to be release on a CD, because a CD can be played at home or in a car with a maximum of 10 people around you.

Werman: Is that stated in the law, you can’t have more than 10 people listening?

Musician: No, no, no. There’s nothing written about this.

Werman: Okay.

Musician: They will tell you right there. But if you go to a concert, they say that one particular song, if it can raise the hormonal level of the young people in the concert which may lead to inappropriate social behavior of the concertgoers, that song will be omitted from the performance.

Werman: What about the government? Is there a possibility that they do see some of these censors in place to kind of prevent a cultural flood of western sounds coming into Iran?

Musician: The scholars concluded that anything that takes the mind away from the religion, from God and create an illusion or a joyous feeling which takes you away from the religion is prohibited. And then they conclude this can be music.

Werman: Can’t have that joyous feeling I guess.

Musician: Yes.

Werman: We’ve been speaking with an Iranian musician in the capital Tehran. He has not used his name for security reasons. I want to thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us.

Musician: You’re welcome. Thank you for having me.

Werman: Now, despite the enormous restrictions, many Iranian rock and pop bands somehow manage to thrive, above ground and below. Not surprisingly, the ones who really take off have to leave Iran to do so. Here’s one such group I presented a few years ago at SXSW in Austin, Texas. The first underground Iranian band to tour the US, this is 127 and a lovely tune from a couple years back titled Coming Around.

[music playing]

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The canine roundup has sparked on uproar on social media where some dog lovers are advocating on behalf of the strays at the Twitter hashtag #yosoycan26.

Journalist and blogger Jennifer Schmidt has investigated the plight of the hundreds of thousands of strays in the Mexican capital.

Schmidt says there is a growing recognition in Mexico of the need to do more to protect dogs. Still, she says the population of strays is exploding, in part because dogs are considered by many to be “disposable.”

“I have personally found many dogs with collars embedded in their necks that are basically going to die of infection because people put the collars on as pups and didn’t take them off,” Schmidt says. “I have picked up dogs that have been walking down busy sidewalks in the city with broken legs and people just haven’t noticed that the dogs are there. They don’t seem to recognize that these are dogs in need of assistance.”

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Marco Werman: This next story from Latin America is about something people anywhere tend to feel passionately about: dogs. Authorities in Mexico City say that stray dogs were responsible for the deaths of four people whose bodies were found recently in a city park. Police in the Mexican capital have rounded up a pack of 25 skinny strays they suspect mauled a young woman, her baby, and a teenage couple. The details are hideous, but many people have also gone online to support the dogs. Demanding that officials not euthanize any of the captured animals. Freelance journalist Jennifer Schmidt was based in Mexico City for four years and just recently returned to the U.S. So Jenny, you know well the conditions that dogs in Mexico City have to endure. During your time there, you were involved in rescuing stray dogs. Does this story surprise you?

Jennifer Schmidt: Not at all. There are literally hundreds of thousands of stray dogs in the city. I’ve read estimates of up to two million. I don’t think there’s any way to do a count, but they’re everywhere. You can not go to that city without seeing starving dogs in the streets, sleeping in alleys, sleeping under people’s cars. It’s an atrocious situation that seems to only be getting worse.

Werman: Why are these dog populations so large in Mexico City and growing?

Schmidt: The biggest problem is that Mexico City does not have any kind of effective sterilization campaign. There are volunteer groups that do some sterilization. There are some government run programs, but they’re minor and ineffective and, you know, the street dogs of Mexico the people worry that they are diseased. That they carry rabies and so people don’t want to get near them. They don’t want to touch them. They don’t want to deal with the street dogs of the city and so there is no one sort of controlling the population.

Werman: But isn’t that fear of these feral legitimate? Especially after this story where four people apparently have been mauled by strays.

Schmidt: The fear is legitimate. I think it is an issue. I mean I can tell you that sort of the main park in Mexico City, Tultepec Park, has huge populations of stray dogs and many of those dogs really are becoming wild dogs. They sleep in caves. They roam in bands. There have been attacks. The recent alleged attacks occurred in Iztapalapa, which is a huge, very poor part of the city and also an area where people dump dogs which is a big issue too. People adopt, or not adopt, buy puppies. Pure bred puppies. When they get older, they just dump them and absolutely I think it’s something that has to be addressed. The issue is that in Mexico what in Mexico City what they do is they have a squad of trucks that are called Anti-Rabico trucks. That means anti-rabies and they go around rounding up dogs and then electrocuting them en masse and in a fairly inhumane manner I might add, but that’s effective for an individual dog but it really doesn’t address the larger issue which is that for every one dog that you kill in an Anti-Rabico, you have thousands and thousand more breeding. Ready to replace the dogs you’ve picked up and what the city need is an effective sterilization campaign.

Werman: Now Mexicans who feel strongly about the story have been vocal on social media that the hashtag for their campaign to prevent any euthanizing of these dogs #yosoycon26. Con being short of Latin for dog. That was trending big time on Twitter yesterday in Mexico. Take us into Mexico City’s culture of dogs and why this has become such a polarizing issue.

Schmidt: I think what’s happening in Mexico is that there is a very small emerging dog culture. You’ll see in some of the parks and in the more affluent parts of the city. You’ll see signs about how to be a good owner. To walk it, walk your dog, on a leash. To feed it. They’ll have some sort of basic instructions on how to be a dog owner and so there is some growing sense that the country has to do a better job in taking care of the animals that are domesticated and that are people’s pets.

Werman: Jenny, full disclosure here. I know you and you do care about the plight of animals a lot. How does Mexico City rank as a dog city compared with other places you’ve been?

Schmidt: As a dog city, I would say it ranks fairly low. Lots of people have dogs now in the affluent classes. They are almost always pure bred dogs. They can be decked out very beautifully. There are little treat stands in some of the more popular, hip parks of the city, but nonetheless dogs still are living in terrible conditions on people’s rooftops solely for security. I have personally found many dogs with collars embedded in their necks that are basically going to die of infection because people put the collars on a pups and didn’t take them off. I have picked up dogs that have been walking down busy sidewalks in the city with broken legs and people just haven’t noticed that the dogs are there. They don’t seem to recognize that there are dogs in need of assistance. So I would say it’s low, but I see hope for the future if you’re a dog person.

Werman: Freelance journalist Jennifer Schmidt was based in Mexico City for four years. She recently returned to the U.S. Jenny, thank you so much.

Schmidt: You’re welcome.

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She says that the competition between Indian men and women for scarce jobs adds to the tensions.

But Butalia tells host Marco Werman that deeply held traditional beliefs about women in Indian society can be challenged.

“A lot of the time we say changing mindsets is really difficult,” Butalia says. “But the speed with which globalization has changed mindsets makes me feel that it’s possible and that it can be done. If Coke and Vodafone can reach every village in India, why can’t state policies, why can’t governance, why can’t the sort of changes the society really needs? There has to be a will behind that.”

Ananya Vajpeyi, an associate fellow with the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in New Delhi attended two very different protests on New Year’s eve.

Lia Lee was the profoundly disabled daughter of Hmong refugees living in California.

She died in August.

Lia Lee suffered from epilepsy and had a catastrophic seizure at age 4.

Her family, newcomers to America, believed her condition to be spiritual in origin and questioned the medical care she received.

Although she was in vegetative state, Lia was cared for in her home, by her family for 26 years.

Her story was immortalized in the 1997 book by author Anne Fadiman called, “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down.”

THE SPIRIT CATCHES YOU AND YOU FALL DOWN (Chapter 1) Birth

If Lia Lee had been born in the highlands of northwest Laos, where her parents and twelve of her brothers and sisters were born, her mother would have squatted on the floor of the house that her father had built from ax-hewn planks thatched with bamboo and grass. The floor was dirt, but it was clean. Her mother, Foua, sprinkled it regularly with water to keep the dust down and swept it every morning and evening with a broom she had made of grass and bark. She used a bamboo dustpan, which she had also made herself, to collect the feces of the children who were too young to defecate outside, and emptied its contents in the forest. Even if Foua had been a less fastidious housekeeper, her newborn babies wouldn’t have gotten dirty, since she never let them actually touch the floor. She remains proud to this day that she delivered each of them into her own hands, reaching between her legs to ease out the head and then letting the rest of the body slip out onto her bent forearms. No birth attendant was present, though if her throat became dry during labor, her husband, Nao Kao, was permitted to bring her a cup of hot water, as long as he averted his eyes from her body. Because Foua believed that moaning or screaming would thwart the birth, she labored in silence, with the exception of an occasional prayer to her ancestors. She was so quiet that although most of her babies were born at night, her older children slept undisturbed on a communal bamboo pallet a few feet away, and woke only when they heard the cry of their new brother or sister. After each birth, Nao Kao cut the umbilical cord with heated scissors and tied it with string. Then Foua washed the baby with water she had carried from the stream, usually in the early phases of labor, in a wooden and bamboo pack-barrel strapped to her back.

Foua conceived, carried, and bore all her children with ease, but had there been any problems, she would have had recourse to a variety of remedies that were commonly used by the Hmong, the hilltribe to which her family belonged. If a Hmong couple failed to produce children, they could call in a txiv neeb, a shaman who was believed to have the ability to enter a trance, summon a posse of helpful familiars, ride a winged horse over the twelve mountains between the earth and the sky, cross an ocean inhabited by dragons, and (starting with bribes of food and money and, if necessary, working up to a necromantic sword) negotiate for his patients’ health with the spirits who lived in the realm of the unseen. A txiv neeb might be able to cure infertility by asking the couple to sacrifice a dog, a cat, a chicken, or a sheep. After the animal’s throat was cut, the txiv neeb would string a rope bridge from the doorpost to the marriage bed, over which the soul of the couple’s future baby, which had been detained by a malevolent spirit called a dab, could now freely travel to earth. One could also take certain precautions to avoid becoming infertile in the first place. For example, no Hmong woman of childbearing age would ever think of setting foot inside a cave, because a particularly unpleasant kind of dab sometimes lived there who liked to eat flesh and drink blood and could make his victim sterile by having sexual intercourse with her.

Once a Hmong woman became pregnant, she could ensure the health of her child by paying close attention to her food cravings. If she craved ginger and failed to eat it, her child would be born with an extra finger or toe. If she craved chicken flesh and did not eat it, her child would have a blemish near its ear. If she craved eggs and did not eat them, her child would have a lumpy head. When a Hmong woman felt the first pangs of labor, she would hurry home from the rice or opium fields, where she had continued to work throughout her pregnancy. It was important to reach her own house, or at least the house of one of her husband’s cousins, because if she gave birth anywhere else a dab might injure her. A long or arduous labor could be eased by drinking the water in which a key had been boiled, in order to unlock the birth canal; by having her family array bowls of sacred water around the room and chant prayers over them; or, if the difficulty stemmed from having treated an elder member of the family with insufficient respect, by washing the offended relative’s fingertips and apologizing like crazy until the relative finally said, “I forgive you.” READ MORE>>

Zeynep Tufekci of Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy joins us from Istanbul, Turkey to talk about what steps journalists and others might take to ensure that coverage of Newtown does not inspire similar killings.

Frenzied media coverage of mass killings turns them into a spectacle & inspires copycats. This needs to change: theatlantic.com/national/archi…

— Zeynep Tufekci (@techsoc) December 20, 2012

Gun control & mental health are important issues for mass killings but attention seeking is part of the story. Need to discuss coverage.

— Zeynep Tufekci (@techsoc) December 20, 2012

I’m not suggesting censorship or blocking the story. Not at all. But we could change the tenor. We did for teen suicides.

— Zeynep Tufekci (@techsoc) December 20, 2012

Like the narrator of his story, Powers was a soldier in Iraq. He served in the US Army in 2004 and 2005, in Tal Afar, and in Mosul where he worked with bomb disposal squads and as a machine gunner.

Powers’ novel examines the bond between two privates, and the traumas the two men suffer in battle. He’s not interested in romanticizing combat.

“We really can’t hide behind this vision of war as this kind of glorious, heroic endeavor, because we just have more information,” Powers says. “It’s sort of undeniable what it really is.”

Soldiers’ ideas of what war will be like, rarely match their actual experience, according to Powers.

“And of course you’re trained and the training is effective to a certain point. But it’s just one of those things, that until you’re actually in that situation, the effect that it has on you emotionally isn’t something that you can be prepared for,” Powers adds. “The kind of double-edged sword of being a human being is we do have this capacity to adapt to almost any environment, even if that environment is essentially the worst thing that human beings can participate in, which is war.”

The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers (Excerpt)