CHRISTMAS AROUND THE GLOBE (2:00)
CHRISTMAS IN KOLKATA (5:00)

SONG: Zamuchi Se Bozha Majka
ARTIST: Kitka
CD TITLE: Wintersongs
CD LABEL: Kitka
CD #: DPCD2004

EGYPT’S CONSTITUTIONAL VOTE (5:30)

SONG: Betlehem Betlehem
ARTIST: Marta Sebestyen
CD TITLE: Hungarian Christmas Folk Songs
CD LABEL: Hungaraton
CD #: HCD12888

END TIME: 19:35

SONG: Morning Star
ARTIST: Lisa Lynne
CD TITLE: Celtic Christmas IV
CD LABEL: Windham Hill
CD #: 01954-11357-2

START TIME: 21:00

BELATED HONOR FOR WORLD WAR II HEROINE (8:15)

END TIME: 29:29

SONG: Whiter Than Snow
ARTIST: Nightnoise
CD TITLE: Celtic Christmas IV
CD LABEL: Windham Hill
CD #: 01954-11357-2

BBC NEWS (2:00)

TRACING YOUR ROOTS THROUGH DNA: A PERSONAL STORY (10:30)
MAGGI AS THE TASTE OF HOME (5:30)

SONG: The Goose is Getting Fat
ARTIST: Jon Kennedy
CD TITLE: Reindeer Room, Vol. 2: A Christmas Chillout Audio CD
CD LABEL: Kriztal
CD #: KRI-CD-3009

START TIME: 50:00

GLOBAL HIT (6:15)
Ear worms – Funky Cold Medina performed by Tone Loc, Nathan Jones by Bananarama

CHRISTMAS DAY EAR WORM (1:50)
Mambo Santa Mambo, the 1957 recording by The Enchanters.

UN ENVOY MEETS ASSAD IN SYRIA (4:30)
LEGENDARY ART DEALER REMEMBERED (4:30)
KOREANS CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS WITH MASSIVE SINGLES EVENT (3:50)

SONG: Clavesong
ARTIST: Mdungu
CD TITLE: Gambian Space Program
CD LABEL: www.mdungu.com

END TIME: 19:35

SONG: Esta Navidad
ARTIST: Willie Colon, Hector Lavoe, Yomo Toro
CD TITLE: Asalto Navideno, Vol. I
CD LABEL: Fania
CD #: Fania 463 950 7113-2

START TIME: 21:00

ISRAELIS AND GUNS (3:25)
CATHOLICS PRAY IN HEBREW IN THE HOLY LAND (4:30)

END TIME: 29:29

SONG: Puer Natus
ARTIST: Baraban
CD TITLE: La Santa Dell’Oriente
CD LABEL: Associazione Culturale Baraban/Felmay

START TIME: 32:59

PROTESTS OVER RAPE IN INDIA ESCALATE (5:30)

GEO QUIZ
SONG: Djarabi
ARTISTS: Toubab Krewe
CD TITLE: Toubab Kewe
CD LABEL: Upstream Records
GEO QUIZ (1:00)

CELEBRATING MITHRAS IN ROME (4:15)
GEO ANSWER – THE ROLE OF REINDEER (4:25)

SONG: Afe Jyia Pa
ARTIST: African Guitar Summit
CD TITLE: Sounds of the Season
CD LABEL: CBC
CD #: TRCD3018
END TIME: 48:41

SONG: Kalimba
ARTIST: Silina Musango
CD TITLE: Samite
CD LABEL: Xenophile
CD #: XENO 4047

START TIME: 50:00

REMEMBERING U-S VETERAN OF SPANISH CIVIL WAR (2:05)
EARLY PUBERTY AND BOYS’ CHOIRS (6:00)
Music played at end of this feature: Haydn’s Nelson Mass, sung by the Choir of New College Oxford.

GAZA CEASEFIRE DEAL REACHED (3:15)
BUS BOMB IN TEL AVIV (2:25)
CELEBRATIONS IN GAZA: (2:25)
GAZA’S TUNNEL SYSTEM (4:30)

SONG: Bibbe Leydy
ARTIST: Baaba Maal & Mansour Seck
CD TITLE: Djam Leelii
CD LABEL: Mango
CD #: CCD9840

END TIME: 19:35

SONG: Ujaheni
ARTISTS: Soul Brothers
CD TITLE: Putumayo: South Africa
CD LABEL: Putumayo

START TIME: 21:00

WITH STAKES RISING, CAN WE STOP CATASTROPHIC CLIMATE CHANGE? (6:30)
NEW RED DAWN (2:00)

END TIME: 29:29

SONG: Torin Torin
ARTISTS: Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba featuring Harouna Samake
CD TITLE: Africa Express Presents…
CD LABEL: Africa Express

START TIME: 32:59

PRESERVING INDIA’S HAMPI RUINS? (6:40)

GEO QUIZ
SONG: Djarabi
ARTISTS: Toubab Krewe
CD TITLE: Toubab Kewe
CD LABEL: Upstream Records
GEO QUIZ (1:00)

YOUNG CHEFS KILLED IN HONG KONG ACCIDENT (1:10)
PHILIP PULLMAN ON THE BROTHERS GRIMM (7:00)

END TIME: 48:41

SONG: Nina
ARTIST: Oran Etkin
CD TITLE: Kelenia
CD LABEL: Motema Music
CD #: MTM 24

END TIME: 19:35

START TIME: 50:00

GEO ANSWER (2:30) (Malta)
GLOBAL HIT: A TRIBE CALLED RED (5:45)

END TIME: 58:15

Perhaps that’s why the US State Department selected Della Mae to be America’s cultural ambassadors to Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The band calls it their “‘Stan Tour.”

Members of the band spoke to The World’s Aaron Schachter from the US Consulate in Lahore, Pakistan, seven days into their six-week tour. They said their first show of the tour, in Islamabad, was particular memorable.

“When we showed up, after having only been in Pakistan for about four hours, we arrived to an audience of very excited and enthusiastic women who were yelling like we were the Rolling Stones.”

That first concert, at Pakistan’s oldest women’s college, Fatima Jinnah University in Islamabad, set the tone for the first days of the tour. The group’s high energy music was matched by a hectic schedule of appearances, including more concerts in Islamabad and in Pakistan’s cultural capital Lahore before moving on to the remaining ”Stans.”

The next year, a man wearing an underwear bomb manufactured in Yemen was subdued on a Detroit-bound passenger plane.

In 2010, cartons containing printer cartridges packed with explosives were successfully loaded onto US-bound cargo planes.

These plots, all foiled, were discovered to be the work of extremists, based in Yemen, linked with al Qaeda.

Author and Yemen scholar Gregory D. Johnsen has written a comprehensive history of al Qaeda in Yemen, and shares his thoughts with The World’s Marco Werman. He observes that al Qaeda’s roots in Yemen go back to the 1990s.

Americans may first have learned of al Qaeda in October, 2000, when the group detonated a bomb that blew a hole in the side of the USS Cole. This was not the group’s first attempt to hit a US warship. Says Johnsen, “al Qaeda had attempted to carry out a similar attack in January of 2000, and they overloaded the dinghy that they were going to use to attack a US war ship, and it sunk.”

After 2001, al Qaeda members in Yemen were arrested and imprisoned. But when many escaped in a 2006 prison break, authorities paid little attention. Says Johnsen, “al Qaeda essentially had two years in which to rebuild their organization with no sort of interference from the US or Yemeni governments. And the result was the embassy attack in 2008, and all the attacks that have taken place since then.”

Johnsen says the US wants to avoid becoming mired in a Yemen ground war similar to the one the US has fought in Afghanistan. Rather, it is targeting top al Qaeda leaders in Yemen with air strikes, drone attacks and covert operations.

“The problem is that the US says there are 10 to 15 al Qaeda commanders that it’s trying to kill in Yemen,” says Johnsen. “This year it’s carried out anywhere from 37 to 50 strikes in Yemen – in an attempt to kill 10 to 15 individuals. So, in my view, one of two things is happening. Either the drone strikes are not as accurate as we are continually being told that they are, or that the US is targeting many more individuals than those 10 to 15 on its list. And I think that if it’s the latter then the US really does run the risk of being sucked into a much longer, much costlier conflict in Yemen.”

Gregory D. Johnsen’s book is entitled The Last Refuge: Yemen, Al Qaeda, and America’s War in Arabia.

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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH Boston. Defeating Al Queda in Yemen is one of the top priorities on President Obama’s national security agenda. But Obama isn’t the first White House occupant to take up that fight. Let’s go back to the year 2000 and the bombing of the U.S.S Cole.

[RECORDING] Unidentified Male: There was an explosion caused externally to the ship. There are more than 30 injured, some seriously.

[RECORDING] President Clinton: If, as it now appears, this was an act of terrorism it was a despicable and cowardly act.

Werman: The Cole was docked in the Yemeni port of Aden when a dingy packed with explosives plowed into the side of the warship. Seventeen American sailors were killed and thirty-nine were injured. Then came the attacks of September 11, 2001, which drew attention away from Yemen and onto Afghanistan and later Iraq. That changed again in 2008 with an attack on the U.S. embassy in the Yemeni capital Sana’a.

[RECORDING] Unidentified Male: We understand that there were two vehicle-borne bombs that were part of this attack.

[RECORDING] President Bush: One objectives of these extremists as they kill is to try to cause the United States to lose our nerve and to withdraw from regions of the world.

Werman: Gregory Johnsen is author of “The Last Refuge: Yemen, Al Qaeda, and America’s War in Arabia.” He describes that 2008 attack on the embassy.

Gregory Johnsen: This is an attack that took place on the U.S. embassy in Sana’a in September of 2008 and this is really the moment where the U.S. once again woke up to the threat of al Queda in Yemen. There had been a prison break in February of 2006 in which 23 al Queda members tunneled out of this maximum security prison in Sana’a. They tunneled their way into a mosque. They said their morning prayers and then they walked out the front door to freedom and that’s really the genesis moment of al Queda in the Arabian peninsula. Two years later in 2008 they were able to carry out this attack on the U.S. embassy. What happened is al Queda essentially used a one two punch. They had the first car, they had a lot of bombs in the car. It drove through the opening gate there at the embassy and it was speeding its way towards the final gate where it would attempt to sort of explode and then breach the door and then another five attackers would sort of run in through that breach with automatic machine guns and attempt to kill as many Americans as they could. Thankfully in this case a Yemeni security guard, a local individual, was able to lower a bar that forced the car to explode several yards away from the gate. But this is the moment in September 2008 when the U.S. really woke back up that al Queda is once again a threat and is carrying out attacks against the U.S.

Werman: I mean that narrative sounds a little like Benghazi in September of 2012. Do you think the U.S. let its guard down in 2008 in Yemen?

Johnsen: Absolutely. I think what happened is that al Queda in Yemen was largely defeated by the end of 2003/2004 and essentially the U.S. along with the Yemeni government took their eye off the ball, took their eye off of what al Queda was doing and so when this prison break happened in February of 2006, they paid very little attention to it and al Queda essentially had two years in which to rebuild their organization up from the ashes with no sort of interference or pressure from either the U.S. or Yemeni governments. The result was then this attack in September 2008 and of course all the attacks that have taken place since then.

Werman: Right. We’ve got the underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, from Nigeria who was stopped on his way into Detroit with a bomb. There was also the printer cartridge bombs that were found on cargo planes. That was a plot that was foiled. Let’s just move straight up to 2011 and the Anwar al-Awlaki announcement of his death.

[RECORDING] Unidentified Male: As we know he was involved in the Detroit bombing. He was involved in the cargo bombing efforts. He continued to try to inspire people.

Werman: So, the loss of Anwar al-Awlaki was brought about through a drone strike. you were just in Yemen, Gregory Johnsen. How are the U.S. military and CIA drone programs perceived there right now?

Johnsen: Well, they’re incredibly unpopular in Yemen. For the last three years what we’ve seen is that the U.S. has carried out a number of drone and a number of air strikes against al Queda in Yemen in an attempt to eradicate the organization, in an attempt to keep the organization back on their heels enough that they’re not able to carry out an attack against the United States. So, this is what we saw with the drone strike that killed Anwar al-Awlaki. The Obama administration has attempted to be very clear that it doesn’t want to get sucked in to any sort of a war in Yemen, that it wants to only target the top commanders of al Queda who are plotting and planning against the United States. the problem is that the U.S. says there’s about 10-15 of these individuals that it’s trying to kill in Yemen. This year it’s carried out anywhere from 37 to 50 strikes in Yemen; 37-50 strikes in an attempt to kill 10-15 individuals. So, in my view, one of two things is happening. Either the drone strikes aren’t as accurate as we’re continually being told that they are or the U.S. is targeting many more individuals than those 10-15 on its list. And I think if its the latter, then the U.S. really does run the risk of being sucked into a much longer, a much costlier conflict in Yemen.

Werman: Gregory Johnsen writes the blog Waq al-Waq and is the author of the new book The Last Refuge: Yemen, Al Qaeda, and America’s War in Arabia. Gregory, good to speak with you again. Thank you.

Johnsen: Thanks so much, 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.

SYRIAN REBELS TAKE KEY PARTS OF ALEPPO (6:35)
THE STRUGGLE FOR MEMORY IN COLOMBIA AND MEXICO (5:50)

SONG: Bibbe Leydy
ARTIST: Baaba Maal & Mansour Seck
CD TITLE: Djam Leelii
CD LABEL: Mango
CD #: CCD9840

END TIME: 19:35

SONG: Ujaheni
ARTISTS: Soul Brothers
CD TITLE: Putumayo: South Africa
CD LABEL: Putumayo

START TIME: 21:00

FREE TRADE AND LATIN AMERICA (3:45)
FORD STALLS OUT IN EUROPE (3:30)
GEO QUIZ (1:00)
SONG: Djarabi
ARTISTS: Toubab Krewe
CD TITLE: Toubab Kewe
CD LABEL: Upstream Records

END TIME: 29:29

SONG: Torin Torin
ARTISTS: Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba featuring Harouna Samake
CD TITLE: Africa Express Presents…
CD LABEL: Africa Express

START TIME: 32:59

AI WEIWEI GANGNAM STYLE (4:20)
DUTCH BIKE LANES MAY GET SOME HEAT (2:45)
BRITAIN’S STIFF UPPER LIP ON THE WANE (7:50)

SONG: Migingo Express
ARTIST: Just A Band
CD TITLE: Soundtrip East Africa
CD LABEL: Reise Know-How Sound

END TIME: 48:41

SONG: Kalimba
ARTIST: Silina Musango
CD TITLE: Samite
CD LABEL: Xenophile
CD #: XENO 4047

START TIME: 50:00

GEO ANSWER (3:45)
(Windsor, Ontario)

INDIAN COMEDIAN JASPAL BHATTI REMEMBERED (4:25)

END TIME: 58:15

Milton Nkosi, a BBC reporter in Johannesburg, says the mass firing followed unsuccessful negotiations over a demand for a 20 percent pay increase. In a nation that has only a modest 5 percent inflation rate, employers considered the demand unreasonable.

Nkosi says labor unrest and economic hardship are a nationwide problem.

“It’s not just in the mines,” he says. “We are in a two week truck driver strike, and some of the fuel stations are beginning to run dry because some of the fuel truck drivers have been on strike demanding a higher wage increase.”

There are also strikes at some of South Africa’s coal and gold mines. Nkosi points out “this will certainly add on the unemployment rate of South Africa, which is at approximately 25%, and that will put President Jacob Zuma’s administration under pressure.”

Read the Transcript
The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: Hi, I’m Marco Werman, this is The World, the co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH Boston. Big News out of South Africa today: after weeks of striking, hire backs, then not hiring back, and more strikes, the world’s largest platinum producer, Anglo-American Platinum, pulled the big plug. Today the company fired 12,000 workers who were taking part in a three week old strike. Wild cat strikes have been spreading across South Africa since August when police shot and killed 34 striking miners in Marikana. Milton Nkosi reports for the BBC, he’s in Johannesburg, South Africa, now, but he’s been on the story since it began. And Milton, it all began in August, as we said, when police shot and killed those striking miners. What’s been the story since then?

Milton Nkosi: Well, what’s happened since then is that the miners at Marikana, the survivors, and all those who were striking for a wage increase in August following the massacre got a pay rise of 22%. Now the inflation in South Africa which a lot of employers are using as an annual pay rise is 5% and because of that massacre the managers at Longman Platinum the third largest platinum producer decided that they would rather just give into the miners demands and continue with their production and because of that decision the other mines decided that they would go on strike and they will also demand around 20% increase.That’s what has happened since the Marikana massacre, Marco.

Werman: This has got to be a shocking bit of news for those miners and their families, tens of thousands of families in the region, and many more people are going to be affected by this.

Nkosi: Yes, indeed, because these strikes have actually happened outside the official collective bargaining chamber process. What has happened is that a few months ago the unions in the mines negotiated a 10% pay rise with the employers for 2 years. Now what has happened is that in the middle of this deal, this is what is happening, and it’s strikes as an insult, it’s not just in the mines, we are in a two week truck driver stikre, and some of the fuel stations are beginning to run dry because some of the fuel truck divers have been on strike demanding a higher wage increase. Now this will certainly add on the unemployment rate of South Africa which at approximately 25% and that will put President Jacob Zuma’s administration under pressure.

Werman: Milton, you’ve been traveling across South Africa staying on top of this story and all these strikes. What’s the mood right now? I mean, what’s going on in that country? It just feels like it’s a different place from here.

Nkosi: Well, South Africans, as you would recall Marco, are still fresh historically speaking, from apartheid, and 18 years into this democratic system, the fundamental issues that have plagued the country for centuries in essence are still there. You still have a very large section of this country which is uneducated and poor and you have a very tiny minority- largely white, who control the levers of power and the difficultly for the African National Congress, Nelson Mandela’s party, which delivered the democracy into South Africa, are actually trying very hard to have a slow change over process. Where else if you follow the Zimbabwe situation you would actually create bigger problems. Now they are caught between a rock and hard place because they’ve gone the slow route and people have become impatient. And if they go the fast track route that is a recipe for disaster in itself as we have seen elsewhere on the continent. Now that is what really South Africa is dealing with now.

Werman: As for today’s news, Milton, 12,000 people sacked in one fell swoop, how is this playing out in the South African media?

Nkosi: People are shocked and they are bewildered, as they were in August during the massacre. They could not believe the announcement made by Anglo Platinum. What the Chamber of Minds has said, and President Jacob Zuma addressed them last night, is that they cannot allow a situation of anarchy where miners leave the negotiation chamber- the collective bargaining process through the unions, and they go individually to the employers and then they strike, they become violent, and they intimidated those who want to go to work. So, President Zuma said that cannot be allowed in a constitutional democracy and as a result the company decided to take on these steps because they know government is behind them on the issue of discipline alone.

Werman: The BBC’s Milton Nkosi speaking with us from Johannesburg, South Africa. Thanks very much, Milton.

Nkosi: Cheers, Marco.

Copyright ©2009 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.

ASSANGE GRANTED ASYLUM IN ECUADOR EMBASSY (5:00)
THE VIEW FROM ECUADOR (2:00)
RUSSIAN-AMERICAN MUSICIAN’S TAKE ON PUSSY RIOT TRIAL (5:00)

SONG: La Cumbia Lounge
ARTISTS: Charanga Cakewalk
CD TITLE: Loteria De La Cumbia Lounge
CD LABEL: Karuna

END TIME: 19:35

SONG: Nine Years
ARTIST: Ticklah
CD TITLE: Ticklah vs Axelrod
CD LABEL: Easy Star Records

START TIME: 21:00

HAITIAN MIGRANTS WAIT TO GET INTO BRAZIL (5:30)

GEO QUIZ (1:00)

SPANISH ROBIN HOOD (1:00)

SONG: Sous le Soleil
ARTISTS: Major Boys, feat. Aurelia
CD TITLE: Putumayo Presents: World Groove
CD LABEL: Putumayo World Music
CD #: PUT – 227-2

END TIME: 29:29

SONG: Nama
ARTIST: Oran Etkin
CD TITLE: Kelenia
CD LABEL: Motema Music
CD #: MTM 24

START TIME: 32:59

MILITANTS ATTACK PAKASTANI AIRBASE (4:30)
ISRAELIS OUTFITTING FOR A WAR (5:00)

SONG: Sangoma
ARTISTS: Malombo
CD TITLE: John Armstrong Presents South African Funk
Experience
CD LABEL: Nascente

GEO ANSWER (Brazil’s Xingu River) (5:00)

SONG: Dibi
ARTIST: Issa Bagayogo
CD TITLE: Mali Koura
CD LABEL: Six Degrees Travel Series

END TIME: 48:41

SONG: Ja Fun Mi Dub
ARTIST: King Sunny Ade
CD TITLE: The Rough Gude to African Guitar Legends
CD LABEL: Rough Guides
CD #: RGNET 1295CD

START TIME: 50:00

ETHIOPIA’S MISSING PRIME MINISTER (2:30)
GLOBAL HIT – Son Jarocho Festival in Los Angeles. (5:30)

END TIME: 58:15

AFGHANISTAN AND THE U-S (4:30)
AFGHANISTAN FUTURE (3:00)
WEIBO TURNS 3 (5:30)

END TIME: 19:35

START TIME: 21:00

GLOBAL LEGACY OF HELEN GURLEY BROWN (7:15)

SONG: Sous le Soleil
ARTISTS: Major Boys, feat. Aurelia
CD TITLE: Putumayo Presents: World Groove
CD LABEL: Putumayo World Music
CD #: PUT – 227-2

GEO QUIZ (1:00)

END TIME: 29:29

SONG: Saharony Ellil
ARTISTS: Ragheb Alama
CD TITLE: Putumayo Presents: World Groove
CD LABEL: Putumayo World Music
CD #: PUT – 227-2

START TIME: 32:59

TWO LAREDOS (4:45)
GEO ANSWER – (Lugazi, Uganda) (4:45)
“AMERICA, BUT BETTER” (6:00)

END TIME: 48:41

SONG: Tameyawt
ARTISTS: Tinariwen
CD TITLE: Tassili
CD LABEL: Anti-

START TIME: 50:00

LANGUAGES INVENTED IN HOLLYWOOD (8:15)
Music from the soon to be released Bollywood movie, “Joker.”

END TIME: 58:15

Princeton scholar Gregory Johnsen tells Marco Werman that this power play has to be handled with care.

Last Monday president Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi transferred the command of several Republican Guards’ units to his newly created Presidential Protection Force. That force will also include a brigade from the army’s First Armored Division led by General Ali Muhsin al-Ahmar, who last year supported opposition protests against the Salih regime. Other units from the Republican Guards, commanded by former President Ali Abdullah Salih’s son Ahmad, will move to other regional commands.

“I think this is a significant story and one that has been developing for some time,” says Johnsen. “This is Hadi’s latest step in his attempt to simultaneously erode the ground from beneath the feet of Ahmad Ali Salih and Ali Muhsin al-Ahmar, while the whole time not bringing Yemen’s military crashing down around his ears.”

But Johnsen is wary of the new Presidential Protection Force. “One of the things that was quite disturbing about president Salih’s rule is that he did exactly this sort of thing,” Johnsen tells The World. “In 1980, two years after he came to power, (Salih) created the Central Security Force as, basically, an anti-coup protection agency. What the United States, and the international community, felt they were getting in president Hadi, is someone completely different from Salih. And so, for the new president to essentially take a page out of president Salih’s playbook, and create his own force that’s just loyal to him, is, I think, a very worrying development for people like myself.”

Read the Transcript
The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: Yemen’s new President has begun to take charge of his nation’s military. Last Monday, President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi announced a reconstruction of the Yemeni army. Princeton scholar Gregory Johnsen follows Yemen closely. Gregory, much of Yemen’s army was loyal to the former President and dictator, Ali Abdullah Salih. How should we be interpreting this reorganization? Is it a big deal in your opinion?

Gregory Johnsen: Yeah, it’s absolutely a big deal. I mean basically what we have in Yemen is that President Hadi is attempting to stop what’s been for the last thirty years under President Salih, really a runaway truck. So what he’s trying to do is stop this runaway truck and get it moved back in the other direction because in Yemen we have a situation in the military where soldiers are not necessarily loyal to the commander-in-chief, to President Hadi, rather they’re loyal to their own individual commander, which in this case means the former President’s eldest son, Ahmed Ali Abdullah Salih and another general, Ali Muhsin al-Ahmar. So you have this very tense situation in Yemen where you have these powerful generals who are opposed to each other and the President is essentially attempting to erode the ground out from under the feet of these two generals while not having the entire Yemeni military come crashing down around his ears

Werman: Right. So the runaway truck in Yemen is the military and adding to the metaphor is this: An anonymous Yemeni official said today that the commander of the Republican Guard there is preparing a military coup. Is that a surprise?

Johnsen: This is something that’s been rumored about for quite some time. You’re going to hear rumors. And it’s also important know that President Hadi has now been in office almost six months, and just as important as the things that he has done, he has had this restructuring of the military, that continues to be in development, he has created a new force that he calls the Presidential Protection Force which I’m a bit concerned about, but he also has failed to nominate a Vice President in Yemen. And so if something were to happen to President Hadi, if there was a coup, if there was something, no one knows what would come next.

Werman: And why was this Presidential Protection Force such a concern in your view?

Johnsen: For myself, one of the things that was quite disturbing about President Salih’s rule is that he did exactly this sort of thing. So in 1980, two years after he came to power, he created the Central Security Forces basically an anti-coup protection agency. What the United States and the international community felt they were getting in President Hadi, is someone completely different from Salih. And so, for the new president to essentially take a page out of President Salih’s playbook and create his own force that’s just loyal to him, is, I think, a very worrying development for people like myself.

Werman: Overall, Gregory Johnsen, are you encouraged by the first six months of President Hadi?

Johnsen: Yeah, President Hadi has done, I think, a much better job than many people, including myself, felt he was capable of and I think the reason that President Hadi has been able to this is that he’s gotten very strong support from the United States and from the international community in particular. Unfortunately, because of how the transition came about in Yemen, none of the challenges that 2011 and all the popular protests brought to the forefront, none of those were really dealt with, so you didn’t get rid of President Salih’s relatives withing the military, you didn’t figure out how to handle this other general, Ali Muhsin al-Ahmar, and all these individuals are still in the capital, they still hold their positions which is why President Hadi has to be so careful in the moves that he makes and essentially make them in an incremental fashion, hoping that he can sort of tip the balance of power his way toward the central government before the generals react. So it’s a very delicate situation and one I think a lot of countries are watching with a great deal of concern.

Werman: Gregory Johnsen writes the blog “Waq al-Waq” and is the author of the forthcoming book “The Last Refuge: Yemen, al-Qaeda, and America’s War in Arabia”. Gregory, thank you so much.

Johnsen: Thanks so much for having me.

Copyright ©2009 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.

LONDON BANK ACCUSED OF LAUNDERING MONEY FOR IRAN (4:30)
HOW EURO TROUBLES HIT NEW ENGLAND STATES (5:00)
REMEMBERING ROBERT HUGHES (3:00)

SONG: Inspace
ARTIST: Royksopp
CD TITLE: Melody A.M.
CD LABEL: CAROLINE ASTRAL WERKS – CAT

END TIME: 19:35

SONG: Desert Phase
ARTIST: Kaya Project
CD TITLE: Desert Phase
CD LABEL: Interchill
CD #: ichill CD 038

START TIME: 21:00

GREECE CRACKS DOWN ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS (3:00)
RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE IN GREECE (5:00)

SONG: Clownie
ARTIST: Generation Bass
CD TITLE: Transnational Dubstep
CD LABEL: Six Degrees
CD #: 657036117228

END TIME: 29:29

SONG: Kalimba
ARTIST: Silina Musango
CD TITLE: Samite
CD LABEL: Xenophile
CD #: XENO 4047

START TIME: 32:59

DOPING SCANDAL TODAY IN LONDON (3:30)

SONG: Welcome to Beijing
ARTIST: Yin Tsang
CD TITLE: Soundtrip China
CD LABEL: Reise Know-How Sound

BETHLEHEM MURDER SHOCKS PALESTINIANS (5:00)

SONG: Buddha Waltz
ARTIST: Kila
CD TITLE: The Best of Kila
CD LABEL: Celtic Airs Records

GEO QUIZ (1:00)

END TIME: 48:41

SONG: De L’Alouette
ARTIST: RJD2
CD TITLE: Bucket of B Sides
CD LABEL: Definitive Jux

START TIME: 50:00

GEO ANSWER: Genoa, Italy

GLOBAL HIT
Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with Canadian jazz singer Daniela Nardi about the music of Italy’s Paolo Conte.

END TIME: 58:15

The UN correspondent for the Washington Post, Colum Lynch, was watching the vote. He told The World’s Aaron Schachter that the UN resolution, which is not enforceable, will have little impact. “It can do absolutely nothing about the violence in Syria,” Lynch said. “The whole process of the negotiation collapsed last month when Russia and China vetoed a resolution that was laying out the envoy Kofi Annan’s final blueprint for resolving the crisis diplomatically.”

“The real gravity is shifting to the region, and the next phase of this will be largely military,” Lynch observes. “In a way this seems like a bit of a side show.”

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Aaron Schachter: I’m Aaron Schachter and this is “The World”.

Recording: The voting has been completed. The machine is locked.

Schachter: Today, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted a resolution written by the Saudis. It condemns the violence by the Syrian government and the Security Council’s failure to stop it.

Recording: The result of the vote is as follows: in favor – a hundred and thirty-three, against – twelve, abstention – thirty-one.

Schachter: The UN correspondent for the Washington Post, Colum Lynch, was watching the vote. Colum, what is the UN actually able to do about the violence in Syria?

Colum Lynch: Absolutely nothing. I mean I think that the General Assembly action today, somebody described the diplomacy to me at the UN. They’re saying the whole process is kind of going to this diplomatic twilight zone where it’s like there’s someone dead in the family sort of in another room and nobody wants to acknowledge that they’ve passed away. I mean it’s the strange. I mean the whole process of the negotiations sort of last month when Russia and China vetoed a resolution which was kind of laying out the envoy Kofi Annan’s sort of final blueprint for resolving the crisis diplomatically. The were elements of pressure on the parties to go along with a plan for a political transition and the Russians and the Chinese blocked this and left Kofi Annan with very little diplomatic leverage to apply to the parties and we saw that he has resigned this week. And so the UN diplomatic track is essentially dead. It’s possible it could come back to life down the road, but I mean the real sort of gravity is kind of shifting to the region and the next kind of phase of this is going to be largely military. I mean in a way it feels like this is a bit of sideshow.

Schachter: Well, given the fact that Kofi Annan resigned for these very reasons, these big divisions within the UN, especially the Security Council, and the fact that this resolution was non-binding, why do you think they even brought it up?

Lynch: Well . . .

Schachter: It does look pretty silly, as you say.

Lynch: Yeah, but I think that another example of this is the French Foreign Minster after the vetoed resolution was saying, “Let’s hold a meeting of Security Council ministers and the Security Council and plot new steps,” and they had to cancel it because no one was going to show up for it. I mean there’s no prospect for breaking the impasse between the West and the Arabs on one hand and the Chinese and the Russians on the other, so it’s kind of stuck. But everyone, like the French Foreign Minister, wants to show that they’re doing something.

Schachter: Yeah, well, it’s a wonderfully noble thing what they purport to be trying to do, but it seems that every failed resolution, every failed plan just makes the UN look worse and worse.

Lynch: Yeah, it doesn’t make it look like it’s a serious organization when it’s an organization set up sort of to do diplomacy and it’s kind of handled in such a ham-handed way.

Schachter: Is it safe to assume that Moscow and Beijing are two of the votes against?

Lynch: Yeah, it’s safe to assume that. I mean before the vote you had a lot of the usual suspects, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, coming out and denouncing the West and saying that this resolution is kind of a cover for a military intervention. South Africa [sounds like] came out with a kind of somewhat convoluted reasoning, sort of saying that “This was not a balanced approach, but that in the cause of international unity we’ll support the resolution anyway,” but clearly they wanted to register their sort of disquiet over the process

Schachter: Colum Lynch is the UN correspondent for the Washington Post. He spoke to us today about an UN resolution condemning the violence by the Syrian government and the Security Council’s failure to stop it. Colum, thank you.

Lynch: All right. Thanks a lot for having me. No problem.

Copyright ©2009 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.

India’s new power minister Veerappa Moily insists that the outage will “not be repeated”. But Indians are used to spotty power supplies. So they’re not so sure.

The BBC’s Tinku Ray, in New Delhi, says that even though Indians are accustomed to power cuts and rolling blackouts, the breakdown of four of the nation’s power grids caused widespread misery. She saw it firsthand in India’s capital city.

“Everything was out,” she says. “Not just in the homes. On the streets, there were no traffic lights. Delhi’s subway, the Metro, was completely halted. People had to be evacuated off the trains. The city was grid locked. There were thousands of people out on the streets.”

She says the government is still not sure of the cause. And that a panel is investigating the outages.

But she notes, “The government today was saying, ‘Compare us to the United States back in 2003. It took days for the US to get its grid back up when we saw that massive blackout on the eastern seaboard, and, hey, it took us less than 24 hours to get our power back up.’”

Ray says many people and businesses had backup power. And a great many Indians did not experience the blackout personally, as they are not yet on the power grid. But she thinks “it’s the sheer magnitude of the failure of this blackout that is more shocking and surprising, and that’s what really angered Indians the most.”

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Aaron Schachter: In India, the power is back on, at least for now. That’s after hundreds of millions of people across the country suffered through two days of what’s been called one of the world’s worst blackouts. India’s new power minister Veerappa Moily insists that the outage will not be repeated. But Indians are used to spotty power, so they’re not so sure. The BBC’s Tinku Ray is in the capital New Delhi. Tinku, to start out, you’ve been living through the blackouts. What’s it been like?

Tinku Ray: It’s been pretty miserable, actually, Aaron. I mean, even though we’re no strangers to power cuts. We have controlled rolling power cuts here at certain times of the day for certain periods, but this was something different. You had full power grids just breaking down, so that meant everything was out. Not just in the homes but on the streets. There were no traffic lights. Delhi’s Metro, the underground, the subway here was completely halted. People had to be evacuated off the trains. The city was grid-locked – Delhi was grid-locked. There were thousands of people out on the streets. Yesterday alone, it happened in the middle of the day so you can just imagine what that would mean.

Schachter: Did business just grind to a halt for two days?

Ray: For some people, it did. Yes. Like I said, we are no stranger to power cuts and, therefore, people who can afford it, big businesses, people who own the building that we broadcast from all have power generators as backup. That is the norm for people who can afford it here, but for small businesses, they can’t afford that. For them, they are reliant on the government and so that’s who was really affected, and also farmers in the rural areas of much of these northern and eastern parts of India. They were the ones that were really hit hard.

Schachter: Many people are blaming the farmers, in part, for causing the blackouts because there is no rain, they needed electric pumps to get water to their crops. But there are lots of other theories for what’s caused the problem. What are you hearing?

Ray: I think the farmers can’t really be blamed. I know that’s what many people are saying. The government will not say. We still don’t know why this happened. It’s a huge embarrassment for the government here. There have been some reports that greedy states were actually drawing more power than they were supposed to. But some scientists and technical people who actually know about power and grid systems say, “Actually, you know what, this could have been human error. This could have been somebody not noticing that there was a surge or some other technical fault and that’s what could have just tripped the whole system.” I think we won’t know for quite a while but there is an investigation underway and a three-member team is now looking into the problem.

Schachter: Now the Indian historian Ramachandra Guha was quoted in The New York Times today as saying, “India needs to stop strutting on the world’s stage like it’s a great power and focus on its deep problems within.” I wonder if that’s a widely held feeling.

Ray: I think a lot of people are saying exactly that. Even though, the government today was saying, “Compare us to the United States back in 2003. It took days for the U.S. to get its grid back up when we saw that massive blackout on the eastern seaboard, and, hey, it took us less than 24 hours to get our power back up.”

Schachter: Is there a feeling there that the news of this event, massive though it seems, is being overblown?

Ray: There is a lot of talk about it being hyped up because of the sheer number of people that might have been affected but, as we should actually clarify, huge swathes of India never have power – were no stranger to power cuts. But I think it was the sheer magnitude of the failure of this blackout that is more shocking and surprising, and that’s what really angered Indians the most.

Schachter: The BBC’s Tinku Ray in New Delhi; thank you.

Ray: You’re welcome Aaron.

Copyright ©2009 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.

SYRIAN REBELS TAKE BORDER CROSSINGS
BEACHES AND RAMADAN IN EGYPT
OLYMPIC PREVIEW

END TIME: 19:35

SONG: Djelimady Rumba
ARTIST: AfroCubism
CD TITLE: AfroCubism
CD LABEL: Nonesuch

START TIME: 21:00

A SLOTH AND HIS TEDDY BEAR
MEAT LOAF SUES IMPERSONATOR

SONG: I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)
Composed and written by Jim Steinman, and recorded by Meat Loaf.
ARTIST: Dean Torkington

SONG: Aosta
ARTIST: Markku Lepisto
CD TITLE: Soundtrip Finland
CD LABEL: Reise Know-How Sound

END TIME: 29:29

SONG: Kalimba
ARTIST: Silina Musango
CD TITLE: Samite
CD LABEL: Xenophile
CD #: XENO 4047

START TIME: 32:59

NORWAY REACTION TO COLORADO SHOOTING
ONE CRIME VICTIM’S STORY IN EL SALVADOR

GEO QUIZ (Tour de France)

SONG: Tanyasi Joska
ARTIST: Kerekes Band
CD TITLE: Fel A Kalappal
CD LABEL: Kerekes Band
CD #: KB02

END TIME: 48:41

SONG: Lemonade and Buns
ARTIST: Kila
CD TITLE: The Best of Kila
CD LABEL: Celtic Airs Records

START TIME: 50:00

GLOBAL HIT (SEARCHING FOR SUGARMAN)
Music by American musician, Sixto Rodgriguez. From the new documentary ‘Searching for Sugarman.’

END TIME: 58:15

The BBC’s reporter in Cairo, Jon Leyne, tells anchor Marco Werman about Mursi’s speech and the reaction to it by thousands gathered in Tahrir Square to hear him.

Leyne says the speech was marked by its populist message.

“One thing that really struck me above all,” Leyne observes,” is when Mursi said that every institution of government – their first aim will be to work for the dignity of all Egyptians.”

Leyne says Mursi grew “more populist by the minute in this speech, especially when he pushed his security guards aside and moved away from the lectern and actually started speaking to the people.”

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Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman, this is The World. Egypt’s new leader was in a defiant mood today in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. President-elect Muhammad Morsi is to be officially sworn in tomorrow but today he read an informal oath of office before a crowd of tens of thousands in the square. Many of those in the crowd, like Morsi, were members of the Muslim Brotherhood and Morsi told them that they are the real power in Egypt. The BBC’s John Lyons in Cairo describes the scene.

John Lyons: It was a very unique spectacle because, strange to say to a democratic nation, Egyptians aren’t used to seeing their president and most Egyptians will never have seen the president face-to-face and will rarely even have seen him on television; Hosni Mubarak was that remote in the three decades of his rule. So for the first time, they are, they are literally having a face-to-face experience with their own president and he absolutely milked that. Muhammad Morsi was standing behind a lectern podium with a presidential seal of office on it but as he got into his stride he moved away, pushed his security guards aside, said, “Look I’m here, I’m a man of the people,” took microphone in hand and even opened his jacket to show the crowd that he wasn’t wearing a bullet proof vest, he wasn’t afraid of them, stressing that he was a man of the people and that his authority came from the people right in front of him.

Werman: Wow that sounds pretty dramatic. I mean, what about his comment about getting Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman freed from prison in the United States?

Lyons: Well that will go down very well with the crowd in Egypt and not so well, I suspect, in the United States, frankly. He was careful in this speech to be mostly pretty pragmatic actually, but at the same time to assert his independence and independence of his new movement. I think realistically he must now there’s a very remote chance of that happening, of course Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman has been convicted of courts of law in the United States so there’s no way one can see that he would be released and moved to Egypt. So he’s speaking to the crowd here as he did on many other issues, like wanting the disillusion of parliament to be overturned, again something that’s not going to happen, but at the same time he was also giving a reassurance to all of America’s international partners for example, there’s no threat to end the peace treaty with Israel although he hasn’t actually mentioned it absolutely specifically and they want to maintain good relations with the United States. Before the election they sent out emissaries around Europe to the United States to reassure all those old, traditional, western allies that the Muslim Brotherhood would not be a radical change in Egypt’s foreign policy.

Werman: I mean Egypt has numerous pressing demands at home, were there promises Morsi made to Tahrir Square that did resonate sort of at a domestic level for the crowd?

Lyons: I think one thing that really struck me above all, he said every institution of government, their first aim will be to work for the dignity of all Egyptians. That’s a great promise, now if he can fulfill that or even repeat it in a year’s time, we’ll have to wait and see but I think that is exactly what the whole revolution was about and that’s exactly what people want to hear from him. For decades, frankly, this country’s had rulers, particularly one ruler Hosni Mubarak, who treated them with almost open contempt and I think this message will be extremely welcome. As I said, it depends how it is put into practice and there’s extreme difficulties on the way in terms of relations with the military, in terms a rusty, broken, and drenched old bureaucracy that mainly works for its own interest, but at least he’s saying the right thing.

Werman: The BBC’s John Lyons in Cairo, thank you so much.

Lyons: My pleasure.

Copyright ©2009 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.