• BBC coverage
• Marco Werman speaks with former Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi
• Timeline: Tony Blair on Iraqi WMD
• Tony Blair’s closest aide defends choices on Iraq

Read the Transcript
This 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.  Tony Blair remains unrepentant nearly seven years after ordering British troops to join the U.S. invasion of Iraq.  The former Prime Minister testified for six hours today at an inquiry into Britain’s role in the Iraq war.  Blair stated that knowing what he knows today he would still have gone to war to remove Saddam Hussein.  That decision is still deeply unpopular in Britain as some outside the courtroom made clear today.  The World’s Laura Lynch reports from London.

LAURA LYNCH: Protesters gathered in the pre-dawn gloom with their verdict.  Tony Blair they shouted is a war criminal.  Among them was American Jennifer Bromlick.  She focused her anger on both Blair and George W. Bush.

JENNIFER BROMLICK: They should do something like this with Bush.  I mean, Bush is ultimately answerable for this, for the Iraq war.

LAURA LYNCH: Blair never saw the demonstration.  He arrived early going in through a side door.  Two hours later he took his seat.  Behind him were relatives of British soldiers who had died in Iraq.  Well rehearsed in defending an unpopular war, Blair’s hands trembled slightly as he readied himself for this round.  Within minutes he was on familiar ground repeating his view that the attacks of September 11, 2001 were reason enough to take a hard look at Saddam Hussein.

TONY BLAIR: That completely changed our assessment of where the risks for security lay.  Just so that we make this absolutely clear, this was not an American position.  This was my position and the British position.  Very, very clearly.

LAURA LYNCH: It’s no surprise Blair wanted to be so clear.  He’s long been accused of doing the bidding of George W. Bush in Iraq.  Today Blair was asked time and again about the former U.S. President, how he reacted to Blair’s promises, what he expected from Britain.  Blair denied any secret deals, but he did tell Bush that he would stand with him.

TONY BLAIR: I think what he took from that was exactly what he should have taken which is that if it came to military action because there was no way of dealing with this diplomatically, we would be with him.  That was absolutely clear because as I had set out publicly, not privately, we had to confront this issue.  It could be confronted by sanctions, framework that’s effective.  For the reasons I’ve given we didn’t have one.  It could be confronted by U.N. inspections framework, we’ll come to that.  Or, alternatively, it would have to be confronted by force.  I was going earlier, but I won’t do it, but I’m very happy to make available.

LAURA LYNCH: The questioning wore on about whether Blair exaggerated the threat posed by Saddam and about whether he had a strong legal case to go to war without explicit U.N. support.  Blair stood firm.  He made the right decision, he said, for the right reasons.

TONY BLAIR: As I sometimes say to people, this isn’t about a lie or a conspiracy or a deceit or a deception, it’s a decision.  The decision I had to take was given Saddam’s history, given his use of chemical weapons; given the over one million people whose deaths he caused, given ten years of breaking U.N. resolutions, could we take the risk?

LAURA LYNCH: Blair tried to deflect several questions by focusing on the Iraq of today.  Iraqi’s he said, are better off now than they were in 2003.  That prompted inquiry commissioner Lawrence Friedman to recite what he called tragic statistics, Iraqi’s who have died in recent years.

LAWRENCE FRIEDMAN: 1,042 in January 2005; 1,433 in January 2006; 2,807 in January 2007; these are monthly figures.  These are the documented deaths.  They are not the, goodness knows how many undocumented – - the deaths from the deterioration in services, poverty, poor health and so on.  The striking is they are getting worse each year.

LAURA LYNCH: In the final minutes Blair said he was sorry for the deep divisions the Iraq war caused in Britain, but that seemed to be about as far as he would go with apologies to the evident frustration of those sitting just feet away.

TONY BLAIR: I’ve no regrets.  Responsibility, but not a regret for removing Saddam Hussein.  I think he was a monster.  I believed he threatened not just the region, but the world.  His defense complete, Blair left quickly.  His bodyguards close behind.  The families, too, made their way outside.  Many like Reg Keys, upset by what they had just seen and heard.

REG KEYS:  He had an opportunity there to apply some soothing balm to some of the open wounds of grief that are in that room.  I saw a couple of mothers in there break down at the end in tears because the man, all he had to say was to assuage the grief was I do regret the loss of life, but he’s quite remorseless, no regret at all.

LAURA LYNCH: No one really expected Blair to back down, to admit mistakes or reconsider.  Today he said he would do it all again in the name of making Britain safer.  But in the same week British officials raised the country’s threat level to severe, many still believe Blair sent his troops into an illegal war with questionable results.  For The World, I’m Laura Lynch in London.

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.

• BBC coverage
• Christopher Rhoads’s article in the Wall St Journal
• ‘Convoy to Nowhere’ slideshow

Read the Transcript
This 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.  Relief workers, doctors and military troops continue to work hard to help earthquake survivors in Haiti, but conditions there remain extremely difficult.  There are reports of hospitals and clinics around Port-au-Prince running out of medicine.  That sparked concerns about survivors dying from untreated wounds and infections.  Then there is the still frustrating work of delivering food and water to quake survivors.  Wall Street Journal reporter Christopher Rhoads is in Port-au-Prince.  Now Chris, you have a front page article in today’s paper about one particular aid convoy this past Wednesday and it’s really a case study of just how difficult it can be to distribute aid there.  Briefly, what went wrong?

CHRISTOPHER RHOADS: Essentially everything that could have gone wrong, did.  There was a series of problems ranging from one truck being broken down at an entrance of a key warehouse where this convoy was supposed to pick up some food to miscommunication among military officials and just essentially uncoordinated plans.  I should put out that this organization called Eagle’s Wings Foundation out of Southern Florida, that they had had some success in the previous days.  They had been making food drops, but the day I was with them, basically everything that could have gone wrong, did.

MARCO WERMAN: You talk about the traffic, the communication and the infrastructural problems, but you also clearly describe a situation where the bottleneck seems to be this complex of 40 warehouses near the airport.  Was that the source of the challenges for the shipment of aid?

CHRISTOPHER RHOADS: That was what got things off on the wrong foot in the morning.  They had been going into that warehouse every day to pick up food.  It’s a major complex of warehouses and it’s really the new business center of Port-au-Prince since the downtown is so destroyed.  There was just a bottleneck in there that didn’t move for hours because of this broken down truck.  So that was basically a wasted morning.

MARCO WERMAN: So this is one example of the problems of getting aid to people who need it in Port-au-Prince.  What do you see, though, as the underlying issue here?  The real problem.

CHRISTOPHER RHOADS: Well, as one of the people that was in that convoy with me put it, you have people that want to help and there seems to be no shortage of that.  And then you have people that know how to help and there is a shortage of that.  We sort of saw that through the day.  On Wednesday you had a lot of eager people, lot of good will, but in terms of executing the details, numerous people just came up short.

MARCO WERMAN: So there are those that want to help, those that can help, do you have a sense that there is someone, some organization that is working to solve these problems that you describe in your story?  Who is in charge?

CHRISTOPHER RHOADS: It seems like you have a lot of moving parts, which might be part of the issue.  You have all these NGO’s that are working together with the World Food Program, which in turn is working together with the U.S. military, the U.N. troops and others for security.  But still within those groupings you have a huge number of individuals and individual entities and coordinating all that is proving to be pretty tough, obviously, even into this third week.

MARCO WERMAN: So your story mentions the U.N.’s World Food Program, the U.S. Army, you mentioned Eagle’s Wings Foundation, how does the Haitian government fit into all of this?

CHRISTOPHER RHOADS: It’s interesting.  As far as I could tell on that day there was no role of the actual government of Haiti.  There was, however, a role of Haitians.  This organization had hired 150 Haitians to help with the distribution and – - security with the idea of empowering them and showing them that they can do these things on their own and not just accept help.  But as far as the government goes, they were not part of that operation.

MARCO WERMAN: The Wall Street Journal’s Christopher Rhoads in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.  Thanks very much for your time.

CHRISTOPHER RHOADS: 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.

These women say this is the first time they’ve ever been to a theater. Some have never seen a movie.

As we pass into the theater, a few look confused as ushers hand out thick dark 3D glasses. The seats fill up so people sit on the steps and in the aisles. And then the lights go down.

Indigenous viewers are impressed by the 3D graphics in Avatar for many, it's their first time in a movie theater.

The movie tells the story of a planet called Pandora, home to the indigenous Na’vi. They’re fighting to protect their forests from a company set on mining a rare mineral called “unobtaneum.”

When it’s over, I speak with Mayra Vega. She’s 24 years old and head of the Women’s Association of the Shuar Nation. She says Avatar hit home for her people.

Mayra Vega, 24, Director of the Women's Association of the Shuar Nation, travelled overnight from the Amazonian city of Macas to see Avatar on the big screen.

“It left a huge impression on us. For example, the movies are almost real. It’s an example that makes us think a lot because the indigenous are defending their rights. We have to defend just as the indigenous so clearly defended in the movie. We had an uprising we had a confrontation with gases; it’s the same as what we just saw in the movie.”

Vega says just like in Avatar, the Shuar are fighting to protect their land from mining companies. And they’re not the only ones.

The Kichwa Community of Sarayaku took on CGC, an Argentine Energy company. Marlon Santi is President of the National Indigenous Confederation of Ecuador and a Sarayaku native. He sees the Sarayaku case as a real life Avatar story, where the indigenous triumphed over the oil company. But unlike in Avatar, they didn’t use violence.

The Sarayaku Case is one of the emblematic cases in the struggle for territorial and environmental defense, and for human rights.

Another case involves the Waorani: beneath their territory in Yasuni National Park lie 846 million barrels of oil. Yasuni is a biodiverse hotspot that’s often referred to as a grand lung of the earth. It is also one of the few places left on earth where uncontacted indigenous groups live in isolation. Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa has offered to forgo drilling in this pristine environment… if the international community will pay Ecuador more than three and a half billion dollars … about half the value of the oil. But Correa has recently questioned the deal causing an uproar at home.

At a reception after the film Marlon Santi says he hopes the president will ultimately bow to public pressure and keep his commitment to preserve Yasuni. And he thinks Avatar could help with that.

“Honestly, this is the first time I’m seeing this movie, and it’s reality, what’s happening now just in another dimension.”

Veteran Achuar leader Luis Vargas tries out the 3D glasses.

Others say there was at least one thing in the movie that veered from their reality Achuar leader Luis Vargas says it’s where the white guy sweeps in to the rescue. But he says that’s to be expected.

“This is a Hollywood movie, so it’s practically a given that a mestizo comes to the defense and leads (the people) to triumph in the end.”

Still, he liked the film and his fellow Achuar leader Ernesto Vargas says he hopes another group will get a chance to see it.

“Think of how much better it would be if we showed this film to people who actually want to exploit petroleum. I think it would serve them very well, even more than us.”

As for Ecuador’s President Correa, he saw the movie with his children the day after it premiered in Ecuador. No word yet on what he thought of it.

For the World, I’m Melaina Spitzer in Quito, Ecuador.

Video produced by Siegmund Thies.

Phoenix performing at the Fillmore in San Francisco (Photo: Adelaide Chen)

In the US, French pop and rock has been mostly the focus of ridicule than reward. In the case of Phoenix, their success as French rockers may be due to the fact they were influenced by the right musical role models.

As lead singer Thomas Mars tells Marco Werman, when he was a teenager, his older brother came back from the US, played Thomas an album by Prince, and informed him that everything else he was listening to was garbage. (Audio available after 5PM Eastern)

• Live on Letterman
• Phoenix homepage

Read the Transcript
This 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: Ayad Allawi was Iraq’s interim Prime Minister from 2004 to 2005.  He’s currently a member of the Council of Representatives in Iraq’s Parliament.  Now Mr. Allawi, it’s alleged that the Iraq National Accord, the INA that was your party in 2002 was the source of much of the pre-war information about Iraq.  This includes some of the information, or misinformation as we now know, about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.  For example, the suggestion that Saddam Hussein could launch WMDs in 45 minutes.  Did you or the INA cherry-pick intelligence to help get the results you wanted, the ousting of Saddam Hussein?

AYAD ALLAWI: No, we definitely were following up events in Iraq and were – - a lot of the information out of Iraq when – - by Saddam Hussein and by his regime against the Iraqi’s.  But we were not really the people who were behind the information on the weapons of mass destruction.

MARCO WERMAN: And did you agree with that intelligence?

AYAD ALLAWI: We knew that Saddam was capable of making; he had the means to make weapons of mass destruction.  He did have weapons and he did use weapons of mass destruction.  So we were not against the information.

MARCO WERMAN: And yet military forces that came in, the U.S. coalition forces, could not find those weapons.  So what was ultimately wrong with that information?

AYAD ALLAWI: Well this is a question that should be posed to the forces, the United States and other forces, coalition that came into Iraq.

MARCO WERMAN: Mr. Allawi your term as interim Prime Minister of Iraq covered that very difficult year of May 2004 to April 2005.  Your website says that time is now considered by many Iraqis to be the most productive and promising since Iraq’s liberation from Saddam.  Tell me, it was a violent time, what more could you have done during that period to change the violent situation?

AYAD ALLAWI: I should have accelerated the calling back the military and the police and the intelligence.  I should have accelerated that although I did get back some good numbers back into the Army.  I reformed the Army.  I recreated the Army.  I recreated intelligence.  I recreated the police and I recreated the judiciary, which I think all were, and still are, should be important parts of the civility of the country.  So the thing that I regret most is that I was not really, I should have accelerated this.

MARCO WERMAN: So today you’re still heavily involved in politics.  You’re in a coalition with both Sunni and Shiite politicians, the Iraqi National Movement.  What is the platform of the Iraqi National Movement?

AYAD ALLAWI: We are people who are supportive to this, all secular people, the intelligence, the people across Iraq.  We are proud that we have candidates in each province, whether it’s a Shiite province or a Sunni province.  We are non-sectarian forces.  We are – - Iraqis.  And we want to get an inclusive political process to exclude only terrorists and those who perpetrate crimes against the people here.  And we want, really, to build a state and institutions of the state which is loyal to the country, loyal to the constitution, based on professionalism and efficiency.

MARCO WERMAN: Ayad Allawi, Iraq’s interim Prime Minister from 2004 to 2005.  Thank you for your comments sir.

AYAD ALLAWI: Thank you sir.  Thank you very 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.

Read the Transcript
This 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: France’s President is facing what might prove to be a defining battle of his term in office. Nicolas Sarkozy is trying to salvage his plan for a carbon tax to help fight climate change.  It would be the first carbon tax instituted by a major world economy and it would raise the price of fuel for many French businesses and residents.  But the plan has run into a buzz saw of opposition.  The World’s Gerry Hadden has more.

GERRY HADDEN: This was French President Nicolas Sarkozy speaking last fall about one of his signature initiatives.

INTERPRETER:  I have made a commitment.  It is time for a new green taxation, the carbon tax.  From 2010 onwards it will be levied on oil, on gas, on coal, depending on the levels of carbon gases.

GERRY HADDEN: The carbon tax was meant to compliment the Europe-wide carbon Cap and Trade system which puts limits on the emissions of some of the country’s biggest greenhouse polluters.  It was targeted instead at many smaller industries as well as retail fuels like cooking gas, heating fuel and gasoline.  The idea Sarkozy said was simple, to get people to use less carbon based energy.  But just before the tax was set to go into effect this January 1st, France’s Constitutional Council struck it down.  The Council said the exemption of most big carbon emitters was unfair.  And consumers complained that they’d be hit hardest.  In rural communities such as Oms in Southwest France, residents are celebrating the ruling.  Contractor Alain Fontaine says the carbon tax would have especially hurt country folk.

INTERPRETER:  Take me, he says, I live here in the mountains.  I need a big four by four truck.

GERRY HADDEN: Meanwhile, there are people who live in Paris who’ve got their giant SUV’s and they would have paid the same tax as me, that’s not fair.  The tax would have amounted to several cents per gallon of gas.  It was assailed by the opposition Socialists and even the greens who called it a fraud.  But Sarkozy hasn’t given up on the idea.  His government is drawing up a revised version of the tax that would offer more ways to offset the costs for the most vulnerable people.  It would be levied against more big companies, even some already subject to Europe’s Cap and Trade scheme.  But that aspect of the tax now has some members of Sarkozy’s UNP Party speaking out.  Member of Parliament Francoise Branget this week worried about its impact on French businesses.  She said the principle behind the carbon tax is fine, but the way of applying it is not.  Most notably with regard to business.  Branget is worried that the carbon tax would make French products and services more expensive driving business jobs abroad.  But French Minister of Ecology Jean Louis Borloo countered that the revenue from the tax would be spent on jobs programs, roads and other infrastructure.  One would have to be absolutely blind, he said, not to see that this tax is absolutely necessary for creating jobs and for promoting competitiveness.  That same night President Sarkozy went on national TV to defend his flagship bill.  He said he would protect French businesses by leveling import tariffs against cheaper imports that don’t meet the same environmental standards.

INTERPRETER:  This way we level the playing field he said.  We can’t expect French meat producers to pay the carbon tax, for example, while we import meat from Australia or some other country that isn’t taking the same measures against greenhouse gases.

GERRY HADDEN: Sarkozy wants to have his carbon tax in place by July and ultimately he wants the entire European Union to adopt it.  But such prospects are dim.  Given his failure the first time around, Sarkozy could have a tough time getting the bill back through Parliament and past the scrutiny of France’s Constitutional Council.  For The World, I’m Gerry Hadden, Oms, France.

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.

Read the Transcript
This 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.  Israel told the United Nations today that it’s military acted ethically and morally in last year’s war in Gaza.  Yesterday Hamas defended its actions during the war saying it didn’t mean to strike civilians.  Both Israel and Hamas are responding to a U.N. report that accused them of war crimes in Gaza last year.  But as Linda Gradstein reports, most people in Gaza are more concerned with the difficulties of life today.

LINDA GRADSTEIN: Nothing is sure in Gaza, even the supply of electricity.  Najwa Sheikh is a secretary.  She and her four children live in Nusseirat refugee camp.

NAJWA SHEIKH: For example, yesterday we didn’t have electricity in my area from in the afternoon until 12:00 p.m. in the middle of the night.  It was really awful; you cannot do anything at home.  Your children can’t watch TV; they cannot spend good time especially that they are in their school vacation.

LINDA GRADSTEIN: Sheikh said her children went to bed at 6:00 p.m. because it was dark and cold.  Once the electricity came back on after midnight she spent several hours trying to catch up laundry and cooking.  She and other Gazans worry that the rolling blackouts will get worse.  The European Union says it will no longer pay for fuel for Gaza’s sole power plant and that it’s now up to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.  But the Palestinian Authority says Hamas has to pay since it’s been collecting an electricity tax.  What it means for Gazans is yet another headache.  Gaza is even more bleak when it rains.  The water pools in the muddy streets as barefoot children play.  In the Shati refugee camp forty year old Kifah al-Riba’i lives with her five children in one room. Her husband is in Egypt for medical treatment.  At night she lays mattresses on the floor to sleep.  She says her situation was difficult before last year’s war with Israel but now it’s worse.

INTERPRETER:  People used to work before and they used to have jobs and – - they have salaries and what is extra from their salaries they used to give it to us and the neighbors, my brothers, my family used to support us also, give us more money.

LINDA GRADSTEIN: Now she says, she can’t even make ends meet.  She opens her refrigerator to show only a few tomatoes, a gift from her brother-in-law.  Like the vast majority of Gazans, she depends on food aid from the United Nations.  Since Hamas took control of the strip in 2007 both Israel and Egypt have closed their border except for humanitarian cases.  People may not be able to leave, but until recently goods from Egypt have been able to get in.  That’s because hundreds of tunnels have been dug between Egypt and Gaza.  Everything from car parts to cola has been smuggled in through the tunnels.  Gazans complain the prices are high and the quality not as good as what they used to get from Israel.  But now this supply line may be cut off as well.  Egypt is building a steel barrier that will reach deep under ground to cut off the tunnels.  Hamas senior official Ahmed Yusuf says Gazans are furious with Cairo.

AHMED YUSUF:  To us it’s something like you’re squeezing the Palestinian into the corner.  There is a sanction and there is Gaza under siege.  I don’t think the people of Gaza will look friendly to this kind of building another wall, steel wall to tighten the sanction.  That’s why many Palestinians are so critical on Egypt.

LINDA GRADSTEIN: Yusuf stays Hamas wants to restart its dialogue with the more modern Fatah movement which controls the West Bank.  Egypt has repeatedly tried to get the two sides together and has repeatedly failed.  Some in Gaza say Egypt’s wall is punishment for that.  For ordinary Gazans it’s just one more obstacle to life here.  Prices of things like cooking gas have already gone up substantially out of fear that there will soon be shortages.  Gazans say they just want life to get back to normal although they’ve almost forgotten what that is.  For The World, I’m Linda Gradstein, the Gaza strip.

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.

Read the Transcript
This 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: It’s probably fair to say that the plight of people in Gaza is far from most Egyptian minds at the moment.  The big news in Egypt today is of a completely different sort.  Egyptians are celebrating their national soccer team’s victory over Algeria yesterday.  There’s a lot of bad blood between Egypt and Algeria when it comes to soccer.  There have been riots over this in both countries and Algeria recently qualified for the upcoming World Cup tournament by eliminating Egypt.  Well, the Egyptians got their revenge.  The World’s one-man soccer desk William Troop is here with the update.  William, what happened?

WILLIAM TROOP: Well Marco, the two teams played through an extraordinarily tense match yesterday in Angola.  This was part of the Africa Cup of Nations Tournament that’s going on in Angola right now.  Surprise!  The Egyptians beat Algeria four to zero.  Like I said it was very tense and there were lots of red cards shown.  Algerian ended up with eight men completely overwhelmed and humiliated.  So the Egyptians were celebrating big time this victory.

MARCO WERMAN: And a surprise because Egypt was not expected to win, especially after that previous Algeria victory back in November.

WILLIAM TROOP: Exactly.  They were kind of touted as an old team, running out of steam and they weren’t going to do very well at the Africa Cup.  And to get such sweet revenge against the team that knocked the out of the World Cup, probably meant a lot.  Now that means that Egypt is going for it’s third successive Champion of Africa crown in the final of the Africa Cup of Nations this weekend against Ghana, another team that did qualify for the World Cup.  So if Egypt actually wins, it actually means that the champion of Africa is the one top team from Africa that is not going to the World Cup in June in South Africa.

MARCO WERMAN: Right, a little shoddenfreuder for the Algerians who will be watching this back up in North Africa this weekend.  Now the Africa Cup of Nations, as many may recall, got off to a rocky start a few weeks ago with Togo’s team attacked by Angolan Separatist rebels.  How did the tournament go after that?

WILLIAM TROOP: Well, remarkably after much concern that that was just the beginning of a wave of violence, nothing happened.  There were no major security threats to any of the teams that participated in the tournament.  Despite the fact that this incident in Angola against a Togolese team raised questions about security at the World Cup which happens in June in South Africa.  Everybody now is expecting that this show of smoothness in Angola that the World Cup will go on smoothly security-wise in South Africa, although South African officials keep saying that they are taking nothing for granted when it comes to security for that tournament.

MARCO WERMAN: Now there’s other big news in the soccer world.  William, plans for a top match in England to be broadcast in 3D television.  What, did James Cameron now buy the rights into world broadcasting for soccer?

WILLIAM TROOP: Well apparently satellite TV provider Sky, which is conducting this experiment in England this weekend did consult Cameron on their plans.  But Sky does have plans to air a top match from England’s premier league this Sunday, Arsenal against Manchester United in 3D.  Now that’s not something that you can watch at home.  They’re beaming special 3D broadcasts into nine pubs throughout England, just nine pubs, and they won’t even say which ones.  So you got to be in the know to get in there.  It’s a special broadcast that’s a trial run for a 3D television network that Sky plans to launch later this year.  Here in this country you can’t watch that game in 3D, but broadcaster ESPN is planning to launch it’s own 3D television broadcast in June to coincide with the World Cup in South Africa and they’re going to show at least half the games in 3D here in this country.

MARCO WERMAN: Wow, very cool I think.

WILLIAM TROOP: Well, you know, its still something that you need a special TV set, you need your special 3D glasses, you need to look a little bit nerdy while you watch it.  I’m not sure how popular it’s going to be with people when a 3D television costs about $2,000.00 and up.  We’ll see.  The World Cup will be a good testing ground.

MARCO WERMAN: As if things don’t already get weird enough in British pubs now we’ll be seeing the punters with strange eyewear.  The World’s soccer pundit William Troop, thank you very much.

WILLIAM TROOP: You’re welcome 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.

Read the Transcript
This 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: A draft law in China proposes a clampdown on the practice of eating cats and dogs.  Grace Gabriel is Asia Regional Director of the U.S. based International Fund for Animal Welfare.  Grace, establish the background here for us.  How widespread is the practice of eating dog in China today?

GRACE GABRIEL: Eating dogs and cats is the practice, pretty much isolate in tradition in a few provinces in China, in Southern China and also in Northeastern China.  There are a lot of restaurants also spread out across China that are eating dogs and cats.  There are also people who are engaged in stealing dogs and cats from neighborhoods and sell them to these restaurants.

MARCO WERMAN: So it sounds like it’s a regional practice, some areas don’t do this, but other areas you find it quite a bit.  Now we’ve heard a lot about the practice of eating dogs, but how widespread is the eating of cat meat?

GRACE GABRIEL: It’s not very widespread at all.  It’s mostly done in Southern China, in Guandung Province.  Though there have been several cases of people stealing cats from neighborhoods, transporting them to Southern China to sell them into restaurants.

MARCO WERMAN: And for the most part, this is a ritualistic eating of cats and dogs.  People aren’t doing this because they’re poor and they grab a dog off the street, right?

GRACE GABRIEL: Correct.  In these regions where they eat dogs, there is a belief that dog meat somehow gives you warmth.  Most often people eat them in winter.

MARCO WERMAN: So apparently dogs can be raised as livestock in China for their meat?  What is the difference in the opinion of the International Fund of Animal Welfare between say raising dogs as livestock and raising cows, pigs and chicken as livestock?

GRACE GABRIEL: Well, the thing is, they are not raised as livestock in China.  Currently there are some regulations and guidelines for keeping livestock and transporting and slaughtering livestock, but there is no guidelines at all for dogs and cats.  Often times they are boiled alive, they are clubbed to death and they are bound and gagged and stuffed in bags and sold to the markets.

MARCO WERMAN: And you’ve witnessed that kind of treatment of dogs?

GRACE GABRIEL: Yes.

MARCO WERMAN: So how are you proposing regulating this industry that’s not really an industry?  Are you proposing an entire ban on this practice?

GRACE GABRIEL: IFAW has been supporting the draft of China’s first animal welfare legislation and what we are proposing is to regulate the whole process of livestock, but categorizing dogs and cats as companion animals because they are and there are more and more people in China regard dogs and cats as companion animals and they are not to be eaten.

MARCO WERMAN: Some – - have argued, though, that poor Chinese in rural areas actually need to eat cats and dogs just to get enough to eat.  It seems like in some ways a luxury, legally speaking, for China’s middle class, many of whom have become pet owners, as you said.

GRACE GABRIEL: It’s not a western value imposed on Chinese.  This whole initiative comes from within China.

MARCO WERMAN: Grace Gabriel, Asia Regional Director of the U.S. based International Fund for Animal Welfare, very nice to speak with you, thank you.

GRACE GABRIEL: 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.