The story has generated more than 1,200 online comments.

Many commenters pointed out that there are women-only transportation services in many cities. Tokyo has train cars for women; London has Lady Chauffers; Kuala Lumpur has a fleet of women-only taxis; Medellín has Pink Taxis; and Dubai has pink-topped “Women’s Taxis.”

“ilovethelight” wrote:

I wish we had these in the U.S. I would definitely use them.

And “dance in the puddles” wrote:

It’s not just there [in India], it’s more common in a lot of countries than you may think… I’m in Australia and … I would welcome a female-only service. Despite how sad that is, it’s reality.

But many commenters also asked if this kind of service is actually a form of discrimination or segregation of men.

“Glayden” wrote:

If 1 out of 100 cab companies refused to take non-white passengers for the purpose of providing peace of mind to whites who were afraid of how non-whites would treat them, would that be a good thing? …Switch race with gender. There is no substantial difference.

Read more of the ongoing coversation and add your thoughts on our World Gender page.

Many non-Chinese commenters identified the cultural stigma in their own countries.

“Popogun” wrote:

In Japan they’re called “loser dogs.” The “winner dogs” are the ones who get married (and usually quit working right after).

“arch4non” said:

In Japan they’re known as Christmas Cake, because after the 25th they’re no longer wanted.

“pebrudite” wrote:

In Latino cultures after 30 they say a woman is “para vestir santos”, i.e. she’s only good for dressing up the statues of saints in the church since no one will marry her. This is quickly changing, though.

And “Bartleby1955” added:

In America, we call them Sit-Com material.

A lot of commenters identified with the cultural stigma around unmarried women in their late 20s and beyond, and mentioned the popularity of blind dating to avoid the situation.

“Xuanlie” wrote:

It mentions it in the article, but blind dates are a huge thing. In the West they’re seen as sort of a desperate measure to try and get married, but in China they are a legitimate way of finding a husband or wife (again, often perpetuated by the parents). I’ve had several friends practically forced into blind dating after they finished university, because they couldn’t find a boyfriend.

And “fiat_lux_” wrote:

I’m pretty sure that in every major Chinese city, there’s a place called “The People’s Park.” In that People’s Park will be a [edit] ton of old people advertising for their children and trying to set up blind dates.

Many commenters took issue with the fact Magistad’s article placed blame on the Chinese government for the “leftover woman” stigma.

“StevefromRetail” challenged:

It’s worth mentioning that Leta Hong-Fincher says the words “state media” over and over as if the order to criticize these women came down from Hu Jintao himself. The government’s grip on the media is slightly more nuanced than simply telling the news organizations what to run and when. If it’s a time of crisis, direct orders will come down, yes, but more often, it’s the government giving them directives on what not to publish. Hong-Fincher also doesn’t mention whether or not these are op-ed articles she’s referring to (which it sounds like they are), which is important information. For someone completing her PhD, she should know to cover her bases.

Others agreed that the problem lies in the Chinese government.

“viskarenvisla” wrote:

Most of the people who control China are old men who are used to seeing women in their place, and so I personally think that this whole ‘leftover woman’ campaign (pronounced ‘shung-nyu’) is a last desperate attempt by the patriarchy to reestablish women’s notions that they are lesser and incomplete without a man, that they need to be constantly worried about finding a man, and that they shouldn’t be distracted by such unimportant things as government corruption, advancing reform, protesting criminal behavior by public officials, or taking high paying jobs from men.

“wiseduckling” agreed:

I also read an article which mentioned that the term was made up by the CCP to encourage woman to marry earlier because of the demographic gap. Lots of single men = big social problems. That would make a lot of sense if it’s the case.

And hundreds upon hundreds of commenters raised the issue of unmarried men, and why they might be fighting an even bigger stigma.

“Dimeron” said:

Older well educated professional women who is looking for the right men that can match her status (who is most likely already married), and is not willing to marry down. At same time, there is huge number of less successful men can’t find wives, not because of physical or personality flaws, but rather because they are too poor or not well educated. Edit: lastly, just want to say, the issue with first group is rather overblown, while the second group does pose an interesting demographical challenge for the Chinese government.

“PIngp0NGMW” wrote:

I think this is one of the most messed up long-term implications of the one child policy. Since males are preferentially selected there are now literally millions more unmarried, single Chinese men. I think I read somewhere the figure was like 50 million. I wouldn’t be surprised if their prospects for marriage are essentially zero.

“StevefromRetail” wrote:

My wife actually told me a story several months ago of a family in Tianjin with a male son who was preparing to get married. The parents sold most of their possessions and borrowed lots of money from relatives in order to raise the money for a house so the son could get married. In the end, though, the funds were insufficient. The son got angry and told his mother that if she wasn’t prepared to buy him a house, then she should’ve just never given birth to him. The mother ended up committing suicide.

This guy was an [edit] about it, sure, but it’s indicative of the pressure that’s placed on young Chinese men to act as the primary breadwinner in a marriage and the expectation by Chinese women themselves that they be afforded the opportunity to simply not work and play the complacent trophy wife role.

These readers and commenters show there is a lot left to unravel about this new generation of women in China. Keep the discussion going in the comments section of Magistad’s story or by tweeting with the hashtag #worldgender.

Eighteen million hits later, that A is a safe bet.

“The assignment was to create a hoax,” says Félix Marquis-Poulin, one of the four students in the course. Marquis-Poulin and his classmates had seven weeks to use animation to create a video that fooled viewers. The four students spent a collective 400 hours producing the 60-second video.

The final video, titled “Golden Eagle Snatches Kid,” was posted on Tuesday evening and quickly went viral. The amazing footage, which showed an eagle swoop down and grab a toddler playing in a park, was covered internationally on Wednesday morning. However, doubts quickly surfaced on social networks.

I lived in Montreal for 25 yrs and never seen an Eagle, let alone a baby snatching one. That’s unfair.

— Evy(@Zooomingevy) December 19, 2012

I’m now working on a screenplay about a baby who is raised by an eagle after being abducted from a park in Montreal. Nobody steal my idea.

— aaronwherry (@aaronwherry) December 19, 2012

I am not convinced that the viral video of the eagle picking up a baby in montreal is completely genuine… may be a viral ad? Idk

— Andrew Ramsaran (@djmashup2009) December 19, 2012

By the time the school issued a press release on Wednesday, the video had garnered over 1.2 million views. “We were expecting a little bit of views in Montreal, around Quebec, but not that much,” said Marquis-Poulin.

The video features Haitians reading tweets from the hashtag #FirstWorldProblems as they stand by the rubble of their former homes and neighborhoods.

The ad campaign is from the organization Water is Life, a non-profit group that works to provide clean water for those in need.

The #FirstWorldProblems hashtag began in June 2009 and has since become a popular meme for first world citizens to post their seemingly mundane complaints, such as “I want to enjoy my beer in the garden but the wifi doesn’t work out there.” The Water is Life campaign turned this idea on its head by featuring Haitian children and adults reading these tweets aloud.

The video is intended to highlight the gap between the haves and the have-nots and has been described as one of the most innovative charity campaigns to hit YouTube. Lines such as “I hate it when my phone charger won’t reach my bed,” and “I hate it when my house is so big I need two wireless routers” are read out by Haitians, most of whom live on less than a dollar a day.

It’s one of the first campaigns that is trying to “reverse-trend” a popular hashtag. The video has been watched millions of times in just five days.

We speak with Matt Eastwood, the chief creative officer for the ad agency DDB New York which produced the campaign.

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Marco Werman: There’s a new phrase you may have been picking up in current lingo, “first world problems”. You know, someone says something like, “It sucks having a house so big I can never find anything,” and then person number two replies, “Yeah, first world problems.” Well, there’s an ad agency in New York, DDB, that is dealing with this “sucks to be me in America” attitude head-on in a new video campaign. Here’s an excerpt.

[Clip plays]
Girl 1: I hate when my phone charger won’t reach my bed.

Boy: I hate when my leather seats aren’t heated.

Man: When I go to the bathroom and I forget my phone.

Girl 2: [Speaking Creole]
[Clip ends]

Werman: It’s kind of hard to hear, but what you’ve got in the video are ordinary people in Haiti, kids and adults, parroting straight into the camera some of the first world problems that people tweet about. One of those kids said, “I hate it when my leather seats aren’t heated.” You can see what I’m talking about at theworld.org. The video was created for Water is Life, a non-profit group that works to provide clean water for those in need. It’s one of the first campaigns to try and reverse trend a popular hashtag on Twitter. The hashtag in this case is #FirstWorldProblems. Matt Eastwood is chief creative officer at DDB New York, the agency that created the spot. Matt, was there one specific tweet that set this campaign in motion?

Matt Eastwood: Not really. The reality is that as we started developing the campaign, we realized that there are approximately 5 first world problem tweets per second. It’s one of the biggest trends on Twitter, so there’s a lot.

Werman: So what did you set out to do with these ad spots? I mean I know one press release says “DDB wants to eliminate the hashtag #FirstWorldProblems.

Eastwood: We were working on a brief for Water is Life and at that exact time one of the guys working on the brief, his air conditioner at home broke down and he was complaining that he had to pay two hundred dollars get it fixed and should he pay it or should the landlord pay it, and that contrast between this country of people who don’t have access to clean water is so in contrast to that that it has really struck us as a big idea.

Werman: Did you ever feel as if maybe these Haitians were being exploited? That you were maybe exploiting them, I mean admittedly, to make a point about the division between the poor and the wealthy? But still I mean what are they getting out of it?

Eastwood: The big thing they are getting donations and donations are massively up at Water is Life. Water is Life is an organization that funds and builds wells, so we are helping them raise money.

Werman: Have you gotten any responses from people who wrote one of the original featured complaints on Twitter?

Eastwood: We have actually, and it’s funny. People, they have a little bit of a Homer Simpson moment. They’re like, “D’oh!”. They feel a bit embarrassed, like, “Oh, I can’t believe I was complaining about I left my headphones in my car,” or whatever.

Werman: Well, Matt, since you and DDB created the ad, let me put you in the role of ethicist for a moment. I mean I feel the pain too because I have used the phrase “first world problems” in passing. I mean don’t people who use the phrase essentially cop to their cushy lives and recognize that they have this really insignificant problems compared to everybody else? I mean doesn’t self-awareness count for something?

Eastwood: The reality is they’re absolutely aware of what they’re doing when they’re doing it, but I think the continual use of it does desensitize us to the realities of real problems in the third world. We just felt like you can keep tweeting first world problems, but maybe if we could just get everyone to have a little second thought every time they did that, then I think we’ve achieved our goal.

Werman: Well, listeners can see the DDB campaign at our website, theworld.org. Matt Eastwood, chief creative officer at DDB New York. Thanks so much.

Eastwood: 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.

In an op-ed published in the New York Times earlier this month, Saihati wrote that oil wealthy states are, “engaged in calibrated reforms and measured crackdowns,” and therefore will be less likely to democratize.

But she claims change will happen faster in Saudi Arabia.

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Aaron Schachter: I’m Aaron Schachter, this is The World. The turmoil of the Arab Spring has brought great changes to many countries in the Middle East, but not to Saudi Arabia. It remains a tightly controlled conservative monarchy, one that uses oil revenues to keep its population from demanding too much change. Still, some see an opening for democratic reforms in Saudi Arabia as the country’s rulers age and as Saudis push for a bigger say in their government. Young Saudi blogger, Aiyah Saihati says women are at the forefront of that change.

Aiyah Saihati: The gender inequality in Saudi Arabia is just to great that now it’s coming to boil. I mean it’s the women who are protesting and making a lot of noise, more than the men.

Schachter: As a young Saudi woman, what does democratic Saudi Arabia look like to you?

Saihati: My vision for Saudi would be a peaceful and collaborative transformation into a constitutional monarchy. I like having a king or queen as a figure head because it tempers the damaging shortsightedness that comes with cyclical democratic campaigning, you know, as we see in the United States, for example. People when they’re campaigning in four year or five year cycles, they tend to look at their score card according to short term goals rather than seeing some sort of continuity in the long term vision. And I believe that a kind can play a role in emulating the soul of the country in terms of the long term.

Schachter: How much influence do you think does the younger generation have, you and your peers, in transforming the political system in the kingdom?

Saihati: They have plenty of influence and they recognize it. I do believe that there is a united vision in the youth, generally speaking, in where they would like to see their country. We live in a technologically integrated global society, I mean everybody is a global citizen right now, especially the youth. And they are able to compare the freedoms different government assure for their populations and are able to examine what preferences they have for their own society.

Schachter: I think Americans just find themselves just sort of shocked because we get to talk to people like you and we see people like you on television because they’re the ones who speak English, and then we’re sort of shocked when people say no, no, no, we want an Islamic society. We don’t want America in the Gulf.

Saihati: I understand your question and I think that our point of view is that we’re proud people and we don’t want others to interfere in our domestic affairs unless we specifically ask for help. But also something really important to remember is as Muslims we do not believe there is a conflict between Islam and democracy. In fact, we believe that Islam is first philosophy that abdicated the values of equality, freedom and fraternity. I mean France, with Liberte, Egalite, fraternite came way later.

Schachter: Now you mentioned that women are in the forefront of change in Saudi Arabia, how so?

Saihati: Women realize they have more power because in a conservative society like Saudi Arabia when women are vocal it is a lot less likely that they are going to suffer consequences the way men would. That would just turn the society upside down if women in scores are being imprisoned. But also, there are so many women like me and far more advanced than me who are interested in playing roles in leadership, whether it’s in the private sector or a public service. And they are denied you know, the honor of serving as ambassadors and ministers in Saudi Arabia. This is why I think a lot of women are now being very vocal. I mean one of the universities, a all-women university in Saudi Arabia several months ago, the girls are unapologetic, their quite ready to see change.

Schachter: Aiyah Saihati is a business woman and writer. She joined us from New York City. Thank you so much.

Saihati: Thank you so much.

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.

Listen to Rhitu’s investigative report below, or read more about this mysterious form of kidney disease in Sri Lanka.

Annan quit last month because his peace proposal was largely ignored by all sides.

In an interview with the BBC, Brahimi said the task ahead of him is “nearly impossible.” He put the burden of the task in very personal terms.

“I’m scared of the weight of the responsibility. People are already saying, ‘People are dying. What you you doing to help?’ And indeed we’re not doing much. That, in itself is a terrible weight. There is everything to be scared of,” Brahimi said.

Of late, the main conflict zones have been in the Syrian cities of Homs and Aleppo. But the capital Damascus has also seen its fair share of fighting as well.

Anchor Lisa Mullins talks to author and journalist Janine Di Giovanni to get more details.

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Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World. Today in Syria a government minister welcomed the new United Nations envoy to the country and he vowed that Syrians would give the UN’s Lakhdar Brahimi “maximum assistance, the way we did Kofi Annan, his predecessor”. Annan quit last month because his peace proposal was largely ignored by all sides.
Brahimi said the task ahead of him is nearly impossible. In fact, in an interview with the BBC he put the burden of the task in personal terms.

Lakhdar Brahimi: I’m scared of the weight of the responsibility. People are already saying “People are dying, what are you doing to help?” and indeed, we are not doing much. That, in itself is a terrible weight. There is everything to be scared of.

Mullins: That is the new UN envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi. The major activity in Syria has been concentrated for the most part in the cities of Homs and Aleppo, but the capital Damascus is seeing its fair share of fighting as well. Author and journalist, Janine di Giovanni is there in Damascus now. You were there, also, just about one month ago. I wonder if you can tell us what you see has changed in the past month.

Janine di Giovanni: There has been a huge difference in the attitude and people’s response to the war, also to the shelling. There’s much, much more shelling. The people are frightened. It’s no longer descending into an evolving war. It is at war.

Mullins: And has that level of fear that is heightened now, the fact that the war seems to be so close to home, has that changed the attitudes of people with whom you’ve spoken about the Syrian regime and people’s ability to tough things out.

Giovanni: People during war, it doesn’t matter where they are, basically have one concern, which is for the well-being of their family and their own situation, their own life, you know, how they’re going to live, how they’re going to get food, water, send their kids to school. Politics are important, but I think right now the concern for most people is getting through today.

Mullins: How are people making the decision about whether or not they should up and leave, especially if they’ve lived there all their lives? Have you spoken with residents of Damascus who are making plans to exit?

Giovanni: This is the first question I ask people, always, in any war zone I’ve ever worked in, is “Why don’t you leave?” and I think the answer is always the same, you don’t leave because you do not want to leave your home and Syrians and middle eastern families in general have deep roots, you know, they’re very family-oriented, so you don’t just pick up and leave and leave your elderly mother behind and your brothers and your aunts and your uncles. They’re not as rootless as we are; Anglo-Saxon lives where we would back a backpack and your documents and go. So it’s a choice of “Do I stay and maybe I’m gong to weather out this war?” or “Do I go and take a chance of the complete unknown, uprooting my family?”, becoming a refugee, and the loss of identity and the loss of your national identity, it is for many people enormous.

Mullins: Thank you very much Janine di Giovanni who’s a journalist and the author of the book, Ghosts By Daylight: Love, War and Redemption. We spoke to her from Damascus, Syria. Please take care of yourself. Thank you.

Giovanni: Thank you.

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.

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Lisa Mullins: Sun Myung Moon started his unification church in South Korea in the 1950’s. He eventually claimed millions of followers around the world, including here in the U.S. Ilene Barker is professor emeritus of sociology and religion at the London School of Economics. She says that despite America’s reputation as a country open to different religions, it look a personal visit by Reverend Moon in the early 1970’s for his church to gain traction here.

Dr. Ilene Barker: He went on a series of rallies in the early seventies, started organizing conferences to which he invited various notables. And lots of people started to join, particularly in California, where there was quite a lot of heavy influence. I wouldn’t use the term brainwashing because the majority of the people didn’t join. But,

Mullins:What was the appeal here, in the United States?

Barker: A number of things. One was that a lot of the young people who joined who were disproportionately young and disproportionately well-educated. They were idealistic, they wanted to make the world a better place. And another thing that was quite important was the theology. Unificationism has a very well worked out theology. It provided answers, where the kind of theology they’d been brought up in didn’t.

Mullins:What kind of answers? Or, answers to what questions?

Barker: Well, for example, why is there so much suffering and sin? Moon said that the fall in the Garden of Eden was due to Eve having a sexual relationship with the archangel Lucifer, so that the children were born of what they call Lucifer centered union rather than a God-centered union. And this meant that they had what they call a fallen nature. Sort of an original sin and the whole of history has been interpreted as trying to restore the situation that was in the Garden of Eden.

Mullins: Restore it by what?

Barker: For one thing, having a messiah. Jesus was meant to get married and set up the God-centered union family. But he was killed before that happened so we had to go through a whole lot of other things until eventually Moon came along, as the new messiah. And when he married his present wife, in 1960, he had at least one, possibly two wives before, that, it was believed, provided the foundation for the restoration.

Mullins: Professor Barker, you met Reverend Sun Myung Moon, maybe you can tell us what he was like. And I’m curious as to whether he was a messianic as the founding of the church would have him be. I mean he said that he was fulfilling the mandate of Jesus because Jesus died before he could reach his goals. What was he like?

Barker: I remember once when I went to a meeting, and I skipped out just before he was going to come and talk and when I came back I got stuck with a lot of the Unificationists, who had come to the door to see him and their faces were all alight and they were smiling, and saying “isn’t he wonderful?” And those of us who weren’t members just saw this man speaking in Korean, gesticulating and looking rather horrified. But there’s no doubt that for a lot of people he has a very strong charismatic authority. They did believe, and still many do believe, that he was someone special sent by God, in touch with God and with Jesus, and able to bring about radical changes in the world.
Mullins:Do you have a certain kind of admiration for this man?

Barker: Yes I do, in a way. I wouldn’t say that I liked him. I certainly didn’t accept his theology. But I could see the effect that he had on people and I admired the way in which he lived his life to the fullest.

Mullins:What do you think the future of the church is? The Unification church, both here in America and elsewhere?

Barker: I think the movement will continue. There are some problems and a whole lot of rumors circulating in America about the daughter who’s in charge which suggests that she hasn’t been living exactly the kind of life that she’s been preaching about the perfect family and I think as that emerges there could be quite a few eruptions in America because of this. But exactly what direction it will take, I don’t know.

Mullins: Dr. Ilene Barker of the London school of Economics speaking with us about the future of the Unification church following the death this weekend of its founder Sun Myung Moon. Thank you very much for speaking with us.

Barker: You’re welcome

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.

Last month, 14-year-old Rimsha Masih was arrested, and accused by the Imam Khalid Chishti of carrying burned pages from an Islamic children’s textbook. She’s been in a high security prison ever since, even though she was deemed to be a juvenile with some mental impairment. Now, it turns out the cleric making the accusation may have done the deed himself.

Journalist and independent Pakistani filmmaker Beena Sarwar tells anchor Lisa Mullins that blasphemy cases in Pakistan often have to do with economic and political rivalry.

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Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World, the co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH in Boston. Police in Pakistan are detaining a Muslim cleric who is suspected of planting evidence, to frame a young Christian girl for blasphemy. Last month the 14 year old girl named Rimsha was arrested. She was accused by the cleric of carrying burned pages from an Islamic children’s textbook. She’s been in a high-security prison since then, even though she was deemed to be a juvenile with a mental disability.
Well now it turns out the that cleric making the accusation may have done the deed himself.
Beena Sarwar is an independent journalist and documentary filmmaker from Pakistan. She now lives in Cambridge. Beena was an eyewitness who came forth and has turned this case around with what he said he saw the cleric do. What was that?

Beena Sarwar: He says he saw the cleric put in pages of the burned, of the Quran into the bag that Rimsha was carrying to burn them and he said that the cleric, when he told him “Why are you adding material to what she’s carrying” the cleric told him “This will make our case stronger” and he said that he told him not to do that but the man didn’t listen and said “We want the Christians out of this area”.

Mullins: So he wanted the Christians out of this area. Tell us about that. I mean, was this the motivation if he’s proven guilty for trying to accuse this young girl of something that she did not do?

Sarwar: In every single case of blasphemy that’s been investigated so far it’s been found that there’s some kind of motive other than the religions behind it which has got to do with property, with the debt evasion, with trying to, you know, and prime property in Punjab and to get the Christians out of that area and take over that area might well have been a motive because a lot of them have fled that area now.

Mullins: So versus religious intolerance or an anti-Christian sentiment.

Sarwar: This is not about, I do not think this is about an anti-Christian sentiment. In Pakistan the different religions have lived peacefully and co-existed for years, but there are troublemakers that create these kinds of disturbances in a very deliberate way. It’s instigated, planned and religious emotions are then played up to created this kind of an atmosphere.

Mullins: This is far from the first case. In fact, there’s another case of a woman older than Rimsha who has been sentenced to death. Tell us about that case.

Sarwar: So that’s a case of Asia Bibi who’s a young mother. She has three young children and she’s the first woman to be sentenced to death under the blasphemy law, but having said that I should emphasize that no superior court in Pakistan has upheld the death sentences pronounced by the lower courts or the trial courts and Pakistan has never yet, the state has never yet executed anybody for so called “alleged blasphemy”.
Asia it he first woman who is in prison for that and her case should go to the lower high court and under normal procedures it would get overturned. I think that’s a case where it also shows the kind of transition in the society, the tensions of a society that’s changing where she’s a woman from the lowest socio-economic strata of society. Maybe 10 years ago she wouldn’t’ have argued back with the woman who accused her and the woman who accused her registered the case three or four days after the argument had taken place.

Mullins: And what’s the significance of that?

Sarwar: The significance of that is that some people went to those women, the women who accused her and, you know, worked on them and said, you know “This is your chance to go to heaven. If this woman has blasphemed, she has disrespected our religion. She has disrespected our prophet and you must take a stand and we will be with you and then you go and register this case” and the police are very quick to do that without investigating the real, what’s behind it.

Mullins: Being that blasphemy laws that exist in Pakistan are notoriously severe, in who’s interest is it to keep them severe?

Sarwar: I think it’s in the interest of the religious extremists and the religious right wing in Pakistan because that gives them some kind of place to unify and align people with and it kind of also falls in line with the ideology that, you know, Pakistan is an “Islamic state”. These people, this is their bread and butter and as democracy takes root in Pakistan and they find that they have no local standard with the population then they want to hang on to these kind of things and this law was introduced by a dictator who used religion to perpetuate his military dictatorship for 11 years.

Mullins: Even though you say there might be political underpinnings to a case like this it’s a class issue as well, this girl being from a poorer class. It’s a complex situation, but the tensions as they emerge sound like they’re coming from religious differences even if you say they’re not.

Sarwar: They are religious differences but it also has a lot to do with the national discourse in Pakistan, the public discourse, the way that it has been, the way that certain issues have been projected in the media, in the textbooks. I mean, it’s a very, very deep and complex issue, as you said. It’s not as simple as somebody just saying something and being punished for it. There’s a lot of different elements at play here.

Mullins: Does the case of this 14 year old, we don’t know what’s going to become of her or what’s going to happen in the case right now, but does this give you an idea of the direction that Pakistan is going in right now? Is it an illustration of anything for you?

Sarwar: I’m very hopeful that this will be a turning point. That because All Pakistan Ulema Council has come out in her support and they came out in her support before this issue of false evidence came out. They came out in her support that and said that, you know, she’s young and she’s got a mental disability. So if the All Pakistan Ulema Council which includes some really hard line clerics came out in her support, that shows that these people also realizing that they’ve gone too far now.

Mullins: Thank you very much for coming to the studio. Independent journalist and documentary filmmaker, Beena Sarwar, thank you.

Sarwar: Thank you.

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.

Sergeant Flaherty was born in Oiso, Japan, to an American father and Japanese mother. Ronald Flaherty, stationed in Japan with the US Army in the early 1950s, convinced his parents to adopt Steve after meeting him in a local orphanage. Steve came to the United States at the age of 9.

He was raised in Columbia, South Carolina, and won acclaim at Dentsville High for his baseball skills. In 1966 he attended Bryan College in Tennessee on a baseball scholarship.

His uncle, Kenneth Cannon, said that Major League Baseball scouts had contacted him, but he chose instead to enlist in the Army in October 1967.

Flaherty joined the 101st Airborne Division and was sent to Vietnam in 1968. He wrote home telling horrific tales of booby traps and fallen comrades.

One letter to his mother reads, “If Dad calls, tell him I got too close to being dead but I’m okay, I was real lucky. I’ll write again soon.”

Flaherty was killed in the A Shau Valley on March 25, 1969 at the age of 22. Before Flaherty was declared dead by US officials, Vietnamese soldiers took the letters from his body retired Defense Department POW/MIA expert Robert Destatte suggested.

Four unsent letters were confiscated from Flaherty’s body and sent to Vietnamese Col. Nguyen Phu Dat, who was responsible for directing propaganda messages for Radio Hanoi. Dat would have lifted passages out of Flaherty’s letters and read them on air in order to persuade American soldiers to refuse to go into battle, says Destatte.

In 2011, Destatte noticed a mention of the unsent letters in an online magazine written by Dat on the website “Bo Dat Viet Online,” which loosely translates to “The Vietnam Nation.”

Destatte worked with the Richland County sheriff’s office to contact Martha Gibbons, Sergeant Flaherty’s sister-in-law, and the rest of the Flaherty family.

The letters were delivered to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta during his visit with Vietnamese Defense Minister Phuong Quang Thanh in Hanoi on June 4. It was the first official exchange of war artifacts between the two countries.

In exchange, Panetta gave Thanh a diary of Vietnamese soldier Vu Dinh Doan, which was taken by US Marine Robert Frazure after Operation Indiana in 1966. Included in the transfer were letters written by two other American soldiers killed in Vietnam, but the Army Casualty Branch has will not release the identities of these soldiers until next-of-kin are located.

The family received the four unsent letters on Saturday. The letters were addressed to Steve’s mother, Lois; Mrs. And Mrs. Barnes, Flaherty’s neighbors; the family of a classmate named Wyatt; and Betty Buchanan.

Again, it was Robert Destatte who discovered the connection with Betty Buchanan. Betty was the younger sister of Coleen, a girl Steve had dated before leaving for Vietnam.

Although Steve and Coleen ended things before he shipped off to Vietnam, Betty decided to remain in touch, and the two exchanged letters.

The letters are historic in that they symbolize the first transfer of war documents between the two countries, and the Flaherty family plans to donate the letters to be displayed at the South Carolina State Museum. Wherever they end up, after 43 years, the letters will finally be home.

Letter to Mother: “If Dad calls, tell him I got too close to being dead but I’m okay I was real lucky. I’ll write again soon… Our platoon started off with 35 men but winded up with 19 men when it was over. We lost platoon leader and whole squad… The NVA soldiers fought until they died and one even booby trapped himself and when we approached him, he blew himself up and took two of our men with him.”

Letter to Betty: “We have been in a fierce fight with NVA. We took in lots of casualties and death. It has been trying days for me and my men. We dragged more bodies of dead and wounded than I can ever want to forget… Thank you for your sweet card. It made my miserable day a much better one but I don’t think I will ever forget the bloody fight we are having… I felt bullets going past me. I have never been so scared in my life. Well I better close for now before we go in again to take that hill.”

Letter to Mrs. Wyatt: “This is a dirty and cruel war but I’m sure people will understand the purpose of this war even though many of us might not agree.”

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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.

Clark Boyd: I am Clark Boyd and this is The World. co-production of the BBC world service, PRI, and WGBH in Boston. Steven Flaherty was a talented athlete. He dreamed of becoming a professional baseball player. He even went to college on a baseball scholarship.

Martha Gibbons: One of his teammates on the baseball said that he remembered being a Freshman starting out for the team and Steve was showing him the ropes and how hard he needed to practice and go that extra mile. And after he explains all that he said, “And the things that Steve taught me on that baseball field were not just for baseball but they were life lessons”. And that is the kind of guy Steve was.

Boyd: But his Major League dreams ended in 1967. That is when Flaherty enlisted in the U.S. Army. A year later he was a Sergeant in the 101st Airborne Division serving in Vietnam. Flaherty died in combat there on March 25th, 1969. He was 22 years old. Like many young soldiers Flaherty wrote letters to family and friends back home. When he died he had 4 unsent letters with him. Two were for his mother, one was to a neighbor, and one was to a friend. Those letters were found on his body and used as propaganda by the North Vietnamese government. They were read aloud on Radio Hanoi in an effort to lower the morale of American soldiers. Then last year a retired P.O.W. M.I.A. expert noticed a mention of unsent letters in a Vietnamese online magazine. He set out to get them delivered. Last month the letters were handed to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta during his visit to Vietnam. And on Saturday, 43 years later, Sargent Flaherty’s family finally got them. Martha Gibbons was Steven Flaherty’s sister-in-law.

Gibbons: We have not yet opened the letters. Saturday was just to emotional for us and so we have decided to wait until our emotions calm down a little bit until we open them. The first time we can get together as a family is Wednesday evening, so that is our plan.

Boyd: I understand though that you do have excepts from the letters.

Gibbons: yes, we do.

Boyd: Is there an except or two that you could or would like to read to us.

Gibbons: Yes, I could do that. I have an excerpt from three letters that I would share with you. The first was to his mother, and in it he says “If Dad calls tell him I got to close to being dead but I’m okay. I was real lucky”. Then later he says “I am ready for my R’n'R. Don’t know where I am going and don’t care just as long as I get the much needed rest that I need. We’ll let you know where, I’ll write again soon”. He wrote “Our platoon leader was killed and I was temporary leader until we got our replacement. Nothing seems to go well for us, but we’ll take that Ridge Hill. Thank you for your sweet card, it made my miserable day a much better one. But I don’t think i will ever forget the bloody fight that we are having. Felt bullets going past never been so scared in my life”.

Boyd: This isn’t the typical story of a young American wanting to serve his nation, can you tell me little bit about his history?

Gibbons: Oh yes, Steve was born in Oiso, Japan. When he was about two or three his mother had to take him to a Elizabeth Sanders Home, which was a Japanese orphanage for Japanese-American children. Because at that time in history Japanese-American children were not accepted. They were kind of persecuted so she had no choice, but to give him up for his safety and for her to be able to get a job and make a living. Steve’s brother, to whom I was married was stationed in Oiso when he was in the Army and on his free time he found out about the Elizabeth Sanders Home. And he went down and started working with these young kids and had a church here in Columbia send him a lot of baseball equipment over there, he taught these kids to play baseball. When he got ready to come home he wanted to bring one of these children with him. He was single at the time and couldn’t do it. So he talked his parents into adopting one. And Steve was the one that was adopted. So he came from a very meager background and I think that is why Steve was so eager to help everybody and that ultimately he gave up the opportunity to be a professional baseball player to serve the country that had given him a home and given him so much of an opportunity.

Boyd: Wow, that’s an amazing tale. I want to bring in Robert Destatte at this point. Robert joins us from his home in Temecula, California. Robert, I understand that you are responsible for stumbling upon these letters, the fact that they even exist. Tell me about how you found about them.

Robert Destatte: I had received a question from a person who was writing about some of our former prisoners of war, and I was looking through Vietnamese websites looking for information to answer his question when I stumbled on this series of articles that described Sargent Flaherty’s letters. I realized immediately something of interest to Veterans of his unit and to his family if we could find them.

Boyd: So how did you find Martha Gibbons and the Flaherty family then after you learned about the letters?

Destatte: I sent a letter to Richmond County Sheriff explained the purpose of my search and asked if he might help. And he responded immediately that he would be honored to help. And he assigned one of his captains, Captain Howard Hughes to help out and Miss Gibbons could tell you better than I how he made that connection and then the question is Miss Gibbons was able to put me in touch with other family members.

Boyd: Martha Gibbons, if you want to pick up the story there I would love to hear it.

Gibbons: Ah yes, the very first day I got that call from Captain Hughes, I didn’t have my glasses on I was out in the yard working and I answered the pone and he said is this Martha Gibbons? And I said yes it is, and he said “This is Captain Howard Hughes from the Richmond County Sheriff Department”, and of course that scares you to death. And he said “Did you know Sergeant Steve Flaherty?”, and i said yes I did and so then he tells me that this Mr. Destatte in California wants my phone number and how to get in touch with me. 43 years after the fact, you just a little bit skeptical about what is going on, who is this? What is this all about? So I immediately went inside, got my glasses put on, and saw that the phone call had come from a South Carolina state number. So then I gave Captain Hughes my information, he gave it to Mr. Destatte, Mr. Destatte got in touch with me, and it went from there.

Boyd: Martha I do want to ask about, in general the feeling, the importance you place on getting these letters back and getting them returned to your family. How do you feel about that?

Gibbons: Well as his uncle said when he received them on Saturday, the Army having determined him to b e the next-of-kin, he was the one who actually they handed them to. he said it’s just like having Steve back. it really was. Saturday was a day of total mixed emotions. it was very reminiscent of his funeral, because lots of his extended family was there. His class was having a reunion Saturday evening. A lot of his classmates came, there were a lot fo Vietnam veterans there. Everybody expressing their sympathy, remembrances, it was just very emotional, very emotional. But just wonderful to have these letters back in the possession of the family.

Boyd: Martha Gibbons and Robert Destatte, that you both for sharing your stories with us today.

Destatte: It was my pleasure.

Gibbons: Thank you.

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.