Multimedia
Buddhist festival
Today’s Geo Quiz celebrates the Perahara: It’s a 10-day Buddhist festival with elephant parades and fire-dancing all rolled into one. It gets underway this week in city in central Sri Lanka. That’s the city we want you to name.
Irish circular route
For today’s Geo Quiz, we’re going around in circles. Cairo and Beijing have ring roads, London has an orbital, and Washington’s got a beltway. Route 9 encircles Hong Kong, and Highway 1 goes around around Kabul and Kandahar. We’re looking for another of these circular routes. The one we want you to name is in south-west Ireland.
Audio Slideshow: Idi Amin Slept Here
The Ducor hotel in the Liberian capital of Monrovia was once considered one of the finest hotels in all of Africa. The hotel shut its doors shortly after civil war erupted in Liberia in 1989. During the war, the Ducor became home to thousands of squatters. A Libyan company now has plans to revamp the old hotel.
Pato Fu
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Anchor Marco Werman profiles Brazilian rock band Pato Fu, now going viral with its video of Paul McCartney’s ‘Live and Let Die,’ performed on toy instruments. Download MP3Music continues after L’Aquila quake
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
When earthquakes strike they can wipe out a community’s social fabric. That seems to have happened with quake in China. It also appeared to happen a year ago in L’Aquila, Italy when an earthquake killed hundreds and destroyed tens of thousands of homes. But L’Aquila’s music scene has resurfaced and it may be more vibrant than ever. The World’s Gerry Hadden reports from L’Aquila. Download MP3 (Photo: Gerry Hadden)Cartooning for Peace
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Political cartoonists who comment on the Arab-Israeli conflict have a lot of material to work with. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with two who take on that challenge. Khalil Abu Arafeh is a Palestinian editorial cartoonist and Uri Fink is an Israeli political cartoonist. Download MP3 (Illustration: Khalil Abu Arafeh)Global Political Cartoons: March 13-26, 2010
The World’s Carol Hills narrates her latest batch of political cartoons from around the globe. Hot topics include: the Catholic Church under seige, Israeli settlements that are unsettling the Obama Administration, and those nice Canadians get ugly and force conservative provocateur Ann Coulter to cancel an appearance.
Celebrating the seder with Rabbi Leo Trepp
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Rabbi Leo Trepp is 97 years old. He now lives in San Francisco, but he grew up in Germany. In fact, he is the last living rabbi who led German-Jewish communities during the Nazi holocaust. Lonny Shavelson sent us a radio report and a short video on Rabbi Trepp.(Photo: Lonny Shavelson) Download MP3
Train ride to the lost city of the Incas
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
For today’s Geo Quiz, we’re headed to the lost city of the Incas. Now, we’re not asking you to name that ancient city in Peru. That’d be too easy. It’s Machu Picchu, one of the world’s best known archaeological sites. What we want to know is who discovered Machu Picchu. This American explorer was a Yale professor at the time of the discovery — in 1911. Today, in Peru, you can find a train that bears his name. We’ll take a ride on that train… And reveal the name of this man who some say was a real-life model for the fictional Indiana Jones. Download MP3 (Photo: David Baron)
Afghanistan’s history from the Tajbeg
Multimedia photojournalist and filmmaker John McHugh traveled to Afghanistan in February 2010. He was there to cover the conflict, but during the trip he managed to gain rare access to the off-limits Queen’s Palace – a former seat of Afghanistan’s royal family – also known as Tajbeg. He says the building and its turbulent past represents the sad history of Afghanistan.
Audio slideshow: soccer kings of New York City
Martin Luther King Jr High School has a troubled history. In 2002 it made news when a student shot two fellow students, shortly afterward, MLK became one of the first in New York City to be closed due to low performance and high drop-out rates. The building now houses six smaller schools, and their boys’ soccer team, still playing under the MLK banner is a big success: it’s winning championships and the players have high graduation rates. The man behind the team’s success is Coach Jake, and he can rely on talent from all over the world.
Icelandic Chants
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Iceland is still trying to pick itself back up after its banking system collapsed two years ago. Perhaps that’s one reason why ancient Icelandic chanting is gaining in popularity. The chants are all about hardship and toughing it out in the cold North Atlantic, something Icelanders have been doing for hundreds of years. Gerry Hadden listens in. Download MP3 (Photo: Gerry Hadden)Weather balloon photos from space
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Our Geo Quiz usually asks you about things on the surface of the Earth. Today we’re looking up – way up. We want to know where the atmosphere ends and outer space begins. In other words — how high the sky? Download MP3 (Photo: Robert Harrison)
Argentine veterans fight for recognition
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
In 1982, Britain and Argentina went to war over a group of islands which the British call the Falklands, and the Argentines call the Malvinas. Britain won that war, but Argentina still claims sovereignty. Argentina’s government officially recognizes only those veterans who fought the British directly during the conflict. But that leaves some former soldiers out. Julia Kumari Drapkin has our story. Download MP3(Photo: Julia Kumari Drapkin)Hope after horror in Haiti
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton are visiting the rubble-filled Haitian capital Port-au-Prince today as part of their effort to raise money for, and stimulate investment in, the country’s rebuilding. The January quake left an estimated 230,000 dead, and another 1.3 million homeless. Photojournalist Bear Guerra recently went to Haiti to document the efforts of Haitians to put their lives back together, and try to get back some sense of normalcy. Guerra tells us about his trip, and his photos. Download MP3 (Photo: Bear Guerra)
Additional funding for PRI's The World is provided by:
