PRI's The World » 07/01/2009

Entire program – July 1, 2009

Michael Rass — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:23:16 +0000

Today on The World: China steps back from requiring computer makers to install Internet filtering software on every new computer; the debate heats up in Europe over the benefits, real or imagined, of increased biofuel production; and an Islamic take on the evolution vs creationism debate.
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Iran clamps down on journalists

The World — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:22:34 +0000

Today, Iranian opposition leader Mir Hussein Mousavi called the crackdown on protestors in Iran “a coup.” Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with Iranian author Reza Aslan about the clampdown.
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Spanish authorities bust sweat shop ring

The World — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:08:17 +0000

The World’s Gerry Hadden has details on a major sweat shop bust in Barcelona, where Spanish authorities freed more than 300 Chinese immigrants working in appalling conditions. But the immigrants are protesting the move.
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LISA MULLINS: In Spain, police have freed hundreds of Chinese laborers working and living in textile sweatshops and living in them The Chinese had been working in deplorable conditions, 12 hours days, seven days a week. The workers that the police liberate are now protesting. As the World’s Gerry Hadden reports from the coastal town of Mataro, they’re not angry with their bosses, but with Spanish authorities.

GERRY HADDEN: After a yearlong investigation, Spanish police raided dozens of sweatshops in this beach community near Barcelona. Some 450 Chinese, most here illegally, were stitching clothes under what a police spokesman described as slave like conditions.

POLICE SPOKESMAN: [SPEAKS IN SPANISH]

GERRY HADDEN: He says, the boss in one sweatshop had mirrors on the walls so he could monitor the output of workers, even when he had his back to them. Most of the places had virtually no ventilation; they were very hot and without natural light. Just hours after the raids, the liberated Chinese were on the streets picketing, not for better conditions but for their old jobs back. Lam Chen Ping is a leader among these now out of work immigrants. He lashed out at the police, saying they’d disrupted many lives.

LAM CHENG PING: [SPEAKS IN SPANISH]

GERRY HADDEN: He says, in china what would these people earn? Seventy dollars a month. Here they earn thirty to forty dollars each day, therefore these people want to be allowed to return to their sewing machines. That reaction has surprised authorities and ordinary Spaniards. Why would anyone want to return to an illegal and exploitive sweatshop? First of all, because it’s all relative, as Lam Chen Ping implied. The Chinese workers tend to compare conditions here with those back home. And also, says Begonia Ruiz de Infante, these workers have obligations. Ruiz de Infante is a mediator between local government and the area’s growing Chinese community.

RUIZ DE INFANTE: [SPEAKS IN SPANISH]

GERRY HADDEN: The Chinese, she says, have to repay the money they borrowed to reach Europe. And then they need money to bring other family members over, this acts as a powerful motor to keep them working. Ruiz de Infante says this has been going on for a generation, and often with great success. Chinese bar owner Joana Yeh Yeah is an example. Yeh Yeh says she arrived two decades ago speaking no Spanish, and with no work experience.

JOANA YEH YEAH: [SPEAKS IN SPANISH]

GERRY HADDEN: She says, “A Spaniard might say I have my house and my car, I’m not going to work for 7 dollars an hour. But me, I’ll work for that wage for 12 hours, because the more I earn, the more I have, and my child will have a roof over his head. Yeh Yeah actually worked 18 hours a day when she first arrived here. Now with her successful bar, she’s supporting her two kids, and hopes they’ll go to college one day. No doubt, many Chinese see better opportunities in Europe, but Europe has its labor laws, say unions and prosecutors. The Chinese can’t be allowed to exploit recent arrivals arguing that things are worse back home. Pedro Nueno is an economist and China expert at Barcelona’s IESE business school. He argues that European laws must be enforced, but he says in the long run, they must be changed. If not, even more jobs will move to China. The Chinese, he says, have an old fashioned work ethic, while Europeans are lazy.

PEDRO NUENO: What happens with us Europeans when we lose a job, then we go to the unemployment rolls, and then we try to exhaust all the unemployment potential we have. And then when we find a job, and then we want to work only a few hours. We want free healthcare, we want pensions from when we retire at 55, until we die at 105. And this is not sustainable.

GERRY HADDEN: Nueno suggests Europe adopt 12 hour work days and lower salaries. He says the reality of global competition leaves no other choice, but for the time being, no European State is willing to consider such options. For The World, I’m Gerry Hadden Mataro, Spain.

China backs down on internet rule

The World — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:04:31 +0000

Anchor Lisa Mullins and The World’s Beijing correspondent Mary Kay Magistad discuss why China is backing down on a new Internet filtering rule that was supposed to go into effect today.
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LISA MULLINS: In China itself, there’ve been protests of a different sort. They have to do with computers, and what the Chinese government allows Internet users to see on their screens. The World’s Mary Kay Magistad is in Beijing. Very interesting story with interesting beginnings, Mary Kay, what’s it about?

MARY KAY MAGISTAD: Right. So this is about the Green Dam Youth Escort Software. And it was introduced about three weeks ago by the government, who said, okay, starting on July 1st, which is today, computers sold in China, whether they’re foreign made, or Chinese made, have to have this software on them. And this will filter out the pornography. Well, okay, fine, except that it does more than that, it filters out politically sensitive words, it filters out images that the government doesn’t want people to see, maybe pornographic, maybe other. What happened was that it became clear quickly, that this software also did other things, like, it allowed remote computers to take control of your computer and get information off of it, which would be bad for businesses, and it would be bad for government departments if they had to have that software on their computers. At the same time, Chinese Internet users were up in arms; there was amazing chatter on the Internet. There were death threats issued to the software makers of the Green Dam Youth Escort. There were some groups that were saying that starting today, if this went ahead, they were going to start a full scale global attack on government censorship systems on the internet.

LISA MULLINS: These are Chinese Internet users who are making these threats?

MARY KAY MAGISTAD: [TALKS OVER] These are Chinese Internet users.

LISA MULLINS: Is that unusual?

MARY KAY MAGISTAD: Well, they’re becoming more vocal as time goes on. But, to be that outspoken is a little unusual.

LISA MULLINS: But hold on Mary Kay, doesn’t the Chinese government censor what its citizens can get on the Internet all the time?

MARY KAY MAGISTAD: It does, but there’s still a lot on the Chinese Internet, and an increasing number of Chinese Internet users know ways of getting around the blocks that are there. Also, a lot of Internet users don’t know how much the Chinese government is censoring, they don’t realize it. And this has been a very ham-handed attempt to censor more. So when people can actually sort of see the seams, they can see what’s actually going on. They get kind of irate. A lot of Chinese don’t necessarily know everything the government’s doing.

LISA MULLINS: So when they found out about this, there was a barrage of threats, and the government said what?

MARY KAY MAGISTAD: And not just that, but also 22 different chambers of commerce or international trade associations took the very rare step of writing directly to Premier Wen Jiabao and saying, “Please don’t do this. This would be bad for business, it would be bad for international investors. This puts our computers at risk, and it, you know, stems the free flow of information.” And it’s just a bad sign coming from China; it suggests you’re taking a step backward.

LISA MULLINS: And did the government listen?

MARY KAY MAGISTAD: Apparently it did, because just today they said, “Okay. We don’t think computer companies are ready yet, the software hasn’t been bundled. We need to do more preparation. We need to double-check the software. So, we need more time.” Now, many people who are watching all of this, think that this just a face saving way of shelving it and moving on. But, you know, we’ll see what happens in the coming weeks. It is a very sensitive time in the two months leading up to the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. That might be part of what was behind this, but also, you know, there have been reports that, in fact, maybe this was just mid level deal that was done, you know, by someone in the government with someone he knew in a software company to, you know, sort of try to help out the business, and it snowballed from there. And then the government felt it needed to justify why it was doing this.

LISA MULLINS: Alright. Well thank you very much. The World’s Mary Kay Magistad in Beijing. Thanks for telling us the story.

MARY KAY MAGISTAD: Thank you, Lisa.

Creationism in Turkey

The World — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:01:58 +0000

The World’s Aaron Schachter profiles a man in Turkey who’s warning the Islamic world about the dangers of evolutionary theory. Creationist Harun Yahya is on a mission to defend his faith against evolution.
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LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins, and this is The World. Charles Darwin’s theory on the evolution of species has lots of critics among creationists here in the US, but now a creationist in Turkey is getting a lot of attention is his name, although he’s better known by his pen name of Harun Yahye. He’s on a mission to defend Islam against what he regards as an attack from the God-less West. And his followers are on a mission to convince others around the globe to join their cause. The World’s Aaron Schachter sent us this report from Istanbul.

OKTAR BABUNA: [SOUND CLIP] Hello everybody, my name is Oktar Babuna, I’m a medical doctor, brain surgeon from Turkey.

AARON SCHACHTER: Oktar Babuna is a man of science, but he’s also a missionary of sorts. He travels the globe on behalf of the world’s leading Muslim creationist to urge people of the book. Here delegates at an interfaith conference in Tel Aviv, to unite against Charles Darwin and materialism.

OKTAR BABUNA: [SOUND CLIP] These two ir-religious philosophies, Darwinism and materialism, are the foundation of the conflict and corruption going on in the world. Because we all believe, Christians, Jews and Muslims, that God has created the entire universe out of nothing and that he dominates all that exists with his omnipotence.

AARON SCHACHTER: Babuna’s lecture against Darwin took many by surprise, when they were expecting to hear one against terrorism. But for Babuna, and especially for his boss, Harun Yahya, evolution is up there with such evils. Harun Yahya gets set for yet another TV interview as part of his mission, he contends, to defend the Abrahamic religions against Darwin. A controversial figure in his native Turkey, he’s built a large following throughout the Muslim world, and stepped into a virtual void when it comes to debate in Islam over evolution.

HARUN YAHYA: [SPEAKS IN TURKISH]

AARON SCHACHTER: Yahya runs websites, holds seminars, and has written, with some amount of help, over 300 books. His latest, The Atlas of Creation, is a 12-pound, 800-page refutation of Darwin. He delivered it unsolicited to schools and research institutes around the world. In it he agrees with scientists that the earth is hundreds of millions of years old, the Qur’an’s account of creation is ambiguous on the length of the six days. But he argues that God formed the world whole, and he denounces supporters of evolution as pagans and crackpots.

HARUN YAHYA: [TRANSLATED TO ENGLISH] I’m a believer in science. If I had ever found any hard evidence for evolution, in the Koran or in the world, I would accept it. There are millions of fossils, but none of them ever show creatures evolving. Darwinism is nonsense, and dangerous. Despots like Stalin and Hitler used Darwin to justify murdering millions.

SALMAN HAMEED: Harun Yahye certainly is popular, and he loves publicity, he loves controversy.

AARON SCHACHTER: Salman Hameed is an Assistant Professor at Hampshire College in Massachusetts, who teaches a course called History and Philosophy of Science & Religion.

SALMAN HAMEED: Let me be very clear. He presents a very crude form of creationism, most of it is borrowed from Christian creationists, or the fundamentalists here in the US. These are not sophisticated ideas. However, he connects evolution with atheism, and he presents himself as standing up to the West. So the popularity of his views against evolution has really nothing to do with the science.

AARON SCHACHTER: In other words, it’s an ideological battle. And evolutionary biologists like Richard Dawkins, who so publicly links his science with his atheism, indirectly help Yahya’s cause. In fact, surveys suggest a large majority of Muslims reject evolution. Hameed laments that there is yet to be serious debate about evolution’s compatibility with Islam, and notes that while it’s taught in schools in Turkey and Pakistan, it’s often within a religious context. Still there are stirrings of debate among scholars. Suleiman Attash once ran Turkey’s Religious Affairs ministry, and taught religion for nearly a decade in Saudi Arabia. He turns to a passage in his well-worn Koran that he says supports the evolution of species.

SULEIMAN ATTASH: [TRANSLATED TO ENGLISH] Proclaim, in the name of the lord, who created man out of leech-like clot. The lord is most bountiful.

AARON SCHACHTER: Attash interprets leech-like clot to mean embryo. He says this proves God created embryos of plants and animals, but he believes God made each to evolve distinctly within its own species. Another scholar, Yasar Nuri Ozturk, more fully embraces evolution as described by Darwin, though like Christian theologians, Ozturk believes God began the process. He calls Yahye’s anti-Darwin crusade sick.

YASAR NURI OZTURK: [SPEAKS IN TURKISH]

AARON SCHACHTER: Ozturk says honestly I can’t understand why those who call themselves religious authorities deny evolution. There’s no contradiction, evolution as described by Darwin reconfirms the existence of God. Ozturk says, who but God could design such a system? Religious scholars, like Ozturk point to the work of a Persian philosopher, Ibn Miskaveyh, who wrote a thousand years ago about the evolution of matter, first created by God. Recent controversy, however, suggests the Islamically oriented government in Turkey may be less sympathetic. Earlier this year, its science council fired the editor of its science magazine, allegedly for trying to run an article about Darwin. When asked whether she thought her firing was a ham-fisted attempt at censorship, the editor said only that she’d never had her worked questioned before and it was up to the public to decide why she was fired. For The World, I’m Aaron Schachter, Istanbul.

‘Camp Atheist’

The World — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:58:26 +0000

A group of kids in Britain will soon head off to the country’s first official atheist camp. It’s called Camp Quest. Anchor Lisa Mullins has details.
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LISA MULLINS: Children can learn a thing or two about nature when they go to summer camp. Whether they learn about evolution or creationism, well that might depend on what kind of camp they attend. It’s going to be evolution for those kids getting ready for Britain’s first-ever atheist summer camp. It’s called Camp Quest. And if the name sounds familiar, that’s because Camp Quest already operates at several locations here in the US. Campers in Britain are gonna take part in many of the usual camp activities, canoeing, and swimming, and making crafts. But the children, ages 8 through 17, will also take lessons in subjects such as evolution and rational skepticism. Samantha Stein is the director of the British Camp Quest. She says the purpose is not to spread atheism.

SAMANTHA STEIN: The idea of Camp Quest is really to let the children decide what they think. So we’re gonna run some activities on philosophy for children, and we’ll run activities on logical fallacies. So it’s really a way of getting the kids interested in thinking, interested in philosophy and questions of religion, and all sorts of scientific and critical thinking.

LISA MULLINS: One of the games played at Camp Quest is called the Invisible Unicorn Challenge. Campers are told that unicorns live in the area around their tents, and then they’re tasked with proving that the unicorns don’t exist. The aim is to illustrate the difficulty of proving a negative. Any children who manage the feat, will win a British ten pound note signed by Britain’s most famous atheist, author Richard Dawkins. His foundation is helping to fund the camp.

Rethinking biofuels in Europe

The World — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:55:40 +0000

Biofuels have been touted as the best hope for reducing reliance on fossil fuels and limiting greenhouse gases. Now many scientists are raising doubts about that. Reporter Kathleen Schalch examines the debate in Europe over the costs and benefits of biofuels.
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LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins, and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH in, Boston. Scientists say to fight global warming; the world has to wean itself off oil and other fossil fuels. But what kind of energy should we move toward? A few years ago, there was a lot of excitement about bio-fuels. Those fuels come from plants, such as ethanol from corn. The US Congress set targets to triple domestic bio-fuels production; the European Union mandated an even steeper increase. But many in Europe now question the wisdom of this policy. Kathleen Schalch has the second in a series of stories on energy in Europe, she reports from Brussels.

KATHLEEN SCHALCH: European cars may be small and fuel-efficient compared to American cars, but they still burn a lot of fossil fuel. Just two percent of the energy that powers them comes from renewable resources, like bio-fuels. But by the year 2020, that’s slated to rise five fold. The increase isn’t just a goal, it’s the law.

FERRAN TARRADELLAS: And if a member state by 2020 don’t have this 10 percent target, they are going to break the law, and we are going to open an infringement case against them.

KATHLEEN SCHALCH: That’s Ferran Tarradellas, Energy Spokesman for the European Commission. There are a number of reasons behind Europe’s sharp turn toward bio-fuels. As in the US, one goal was to help domestic farmers. Another was greater energy security for the EU, which now imports nearly 90 percent of its oil. But the main reason for the bio-fuels target is its potential to slow climate change.

FERRAN TARRADELLAS: Bio-fuels, by definition, have no emissions, because the plants where bio-fuels come from absorb the CO2 that they produce when they are combusted.

KATHLEEN SCHALCH: Of course, in real life, it’s hardly such a neat closed loop, because it takes energy to produce the bio-fuels themselves. And not all bio-fuels are created equal.

FERRAN TARRADELLAS: For instance, bio-ethanol from Brazil saves 80 percent CO2 emissions compared with oil. Other crops produced in Europe, their levels of savings arrive only to 35 percent. And there are other crops that don’t even arrive to this 35 percent.

KATHLEEN SCHALCH: And Tarradellas says, under Europe’s mandate, bio-fuels must create at least 35 percent less CO2 overall than petroleum.

FERRAN TARRADELLAS: So, we don’t want any bio-fuel. We only want sustainable bio-fuels or good bio-fuels.

KATHLEEN SCHALCH: But good is in the eye of the beholder.

ARIEL BRUNNER: I think the case is building, and it’s really a question of getting people to realize that there’s been a huge hoax being played of them.

KATHLEEN SCHALCH: That’s Ariel Brunner, with the conservation group Birdlife International. He says the EC’s rationale for bio-fuels rests on a huge accounting error. It doesn’t factor in the land it will take to grow all those new bio-fuels crops. Brunner predicts Europe’s new bio-fuels mandate will prompt farmers in places like Indonesia and Brazil to chop down more forests, drain more wetlands and plow up more grasslands, releasing the huge amounts of carbon stored in these natural ecosystems.

ARIEL BRUNNER: The worst you can do is destroy a peat land forest in the tropics, because there you lose the carbon in the trees, but also the carbon in the peat soil, which is massive.

KATHLEEN SCHALCH: Princeton University Environmental Policy Researcher, Tim Searchinger, has calculated how long you would have to burn various bio-fuels to offset their land use impact.

TIM SEARCHINGER: For corn ethanol, our calculation was a payback period of 167 years. For soybean bio-diesel, we came up with roughly the same numbers. For bio-diesel made directly from palm oil in Southeast Asia, we’re almost certainly talking several hundred of years.

KATHLEEN SCHALCH: Searchinger says, in many cases, we’d be better off just continuing to burn gasoline. The European mandate does acknowledge the land use problem. It disqualifies bio-fuels produced by directly destroying valuable ecosystems. But environmentalists like Ariel Brunner say that still leaves a gaping loophole, that’s because the rules don’t account for the indirect impact of bio-fuels on land use, as fuel crops displace food crops.

TIM SEARCHINGER: So you will not be able to cut down rainforests to produce bio-fuels and sell those bio-fuels on the EU market. But you will be able to sell to the EU market the stuff coming from your old plantation, and then chop forest for a new plantation that will be supplying the market you were supplying before.

KATHLEEN SCHALCH: The bottom line, critics say, is that new bio-fuels mandates add to the overall demand for cropland. And they say bio-fuels targets in the US and Europe are setting off a global chain reaction that could lead to a huge increase in the rate of deforestation. That argument has put bio-fuels advocates on the defensive.

AMANDINE LACORD: Of course you don’t want the forests to be cleared just like that. I mean, no one wants that.

KATHLEEN SCHALCH: But Amandine Lacord, of the European Bio-diesel Board, bristles and the notion that bio-fuels are to blame. She says there’s simply no way to know whether farmers are clearing land they wouldn’t be clearing anyway.

AMANDINE LACORD: So in our view, if you were to include today a penalty for instance, of indirect land use change effects on bio-fuels, that would be unfair because how are you going to calculate that precisely enough?

KATHLEEN SCHALCH: A similar argument has been raging in the US. Regulators in both California and the EPA decided that indirect land use impacts are a valid part of the bio-fuels equation. But alarmed lawmakers from ethanol producing states fought back, and added a provision to the climate bill just passed by the House of Representatives. It would bar the EPA from factoring in indirect land use for five years, and require more study. An EU study is underway as well, but meanwhile, says Nusa Urbancic, a Policy Officer at a group called Transportation and Environment, Europe’s new bio-fuels targets have already created a lot of momentum.

NUSA URBANCIC: Because as soon as you start an industry, well, it’s always difficult, it’s always somebody’s profit that you jeopardize. Because, I mean, the argument of bio-fuels industry, yeah, but we have already invested so much, you have to give us the target.

KATHLEEN SCHALCH: Ultimately, just about everyone agrees that there’s a brighter future in new generations of bio-fuels, made from such things as plant and animal waste. These wouldn’t compete for land, and would potentially have a far smaller carbon footprint than today’s bio-fuels, but they’re likely years away. For the World, this is Kathleen Schalch, Brussels.

France cuts meal tax

The World — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:51:34 +0000

The French government has slashed its high tax on restaurant meals in an effort to help out ailing cafes and restaurants. Reporter Genevieve Oger has the story.
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LISA MULLINS: The French government made a change today that it hopes will have an immediate impact. It slashed France’s high tax on restaurant meals. The move is aimed at helping out France’s ailing cafes and restaurants. They have been hard hit by the economic downturn, as people cut back on eating out. Genevieve Oger reports from Paris.

GENEVIEVE OGER: It seems like a typical afternoon in the Henri Quatre Tavern in central Paris. A handful of customers are lingering over dessert at this upscale wine bar. But it’s not such a typical day; the sales tax on restaurants and cafes is dropping today from about 20 percent, down to five percent. That’s something the industry has been lobbying for years. Henry Quatre Manager, Philippe Virmoux points to the new prices listed on the blackboard.

PHILIPPE VIRMOUX: [TRANSLATED TO ENGLISH FROM FRENCH] Prices have dropped today on our most popular items. On coffee, on house specials, we brought prices down by 12 percent, because people expect it. Our regulars especially do, and also the tourists.

GENEVIEVE OGER: The tax cut is expected to cost the French government up to 3 billion dollars a year, but the restaurant industry employs about 700 thousand people in France. As part of the deal, restaurants have agreed to create 40 thousand more jobs, and increase wages. The industry has also pledged to lower prices on a handful of items, though its up to individual establishments to decide whether to comply. Across town, prices won’t drop at Le Clairon, a working class bar and restaurant. Owner Christine Liard doesn’t think the lower tax will help her business much. For one thing, it doesn’t apply to alcoholic beverages.

CHRISTINE LIARD: [TRANSLATED TO ENGLISH FROM FRENCH] I don’t expect much. It only applies to some of the things we sell; it won’t change our staffing at all. For us, it won’t make one bit of difference. It’s too bad it doesn’t apply to everything.

GENEVIEVE OGER: The daily lunch special at this café goes for about 11 dollars, and an espresso a dollar 80, making it one of the least expensive places to eat and drink in town. This customer says the tax relief won’t change her habits. She lives nearby and says she comes because the people are nice and the food is good. But Christine Pujol, President of the UMIH, a group that represents France’s 180 thousand cafes and restaurants, says the tax reduction will make a big difference.

CHRISTINE PUJOL: Well, it’s important because it’s going to give new opportunities for managing their restaurant, you know? They will pay less taxes, and they will have all this money. It’s really savings for them.

GENEVIEVE OGER: But many restaurant owners aren’t so sure. They’re worried about having to apply different tax rates for different items in the same meal, and they’re not convinced the lower tax will bring more people in the door. For The World, I’m Genevieve Oger in Paris.

Geo Quiz

The World — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:48:40 +0000

Our daily geography quiz.
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Swine flu hits Argentina

The World — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:42:19 +0000

A health emergency is in effect in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, following the latest outbreak of the H1N1 swine flu. Anchor Lisa Mullins finds out more from reporter Richard Reynolds.
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LISA MULLINS: A health emergency is in effect in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. Officials there are worried about the latest outbreak of the H1N1 swine flu virus. The flu crisis is getting less attention here in the US these days, but nations in the southern hemisphere are being hit hard as winter gets underway there. And scientists everywhere are keeping a close eye on the pandemic to determine if the flu virus is changing and becoming more deadly. Richard Reynolds is a freelance reporter now in Buenos Aires, how hard had the capital region been hit?

RICHARD REYNOLDS: Well the region immediately around Buenos Aires has actually been hit quite hard. Officially, there are 44 deaths, most of which have happened over the last two weeks. But unofficially, if you talk to people in the health ministries here, the toll, nationally, may be more like a 150, which actually makes Argentina the country with the highest death toll of any of the countries struck by the virus, anywhere in the world.

LISA MULLINS: So, I would imagine that is creating a certain amount of tension among the people there. How are they reacting?

RICHARD REYNOLDS: Well, only in the last 24 hours they’ve become to react. People are getting concerned. Walking around the streets today for the very first time, I saw large numbers of people, perhaps as many as one in five, you know, one in four, actually wearing surgical masks to protect themselves against getting infected from this particular variant of the flu.

LISA MULLINS: And is this the kind of thing that the government is calling for?

RICHARD REYNOLDS: Well, yes and no, you know? Argentine politics is a very strange brew. Yes, there are some people going on television and saying its huge crisis, and why aren’t we doing more? And there were others going on television and saying, what’s the big deal? You know, and in some ways, scientifically, it really is a question of what’s the big deal? You know, hundreds of people die from the flu in this country every year. You know, thousands die in countries like the United States. So, in some ways, our reaction to this particular variant of the flu is a bit of an overreaction. But people are obviously scared. So, perhaps the public reaction is the more important one here, other than what we’re actually hearing from scientists.

LISA MULLINS: So tell us what scientists are saying right now regarding whether or not the H1N1 virus has morphed down there? Because there are a lot of people up in the northern hemisphere who are watching very closely what countries, such as Argentina are experiencing, and whether or not the virus itself has changed, whether or not its mutated because that could indicate, not only a tough time for people down there, but also for us up here, for this coming winter time. Are they finding that it’s any more virulent? That it’s more lethal than it was when it was first in the northern hemisphere?

RICHARD REYNOLDS: Well, at this point, no, there’s absolutely no evidence of that, but obviously the great fear is not so much what we have to deal with right now, but that the flu virus mutates constantly. Pretty much every six months, as it moves from the northern to the southern, to the northern hemisphere, the flu virus mutates. And there’s always the potential that it can mutate into a truly killer virus. But, it is the potential that is scaring people, and scaring scientists.

LISA MULLINS: Richard, did the government of Argentina appear to learn any lessons from the experience here in the US or in Mexico?

RICHARD REYNOLDS: Well, I think without sounding too terribly cynical, I think governments in Argentina are very slow to learn lessons from anybody. The current administration in this country is an extremely autocratic one, which tends to think, without over exaggerating things, that they know best about pretty much everything. And they probably have been a bit slow to respond to this particular crisis, although the health minister did actually resign two days ago over this particular crisis saying that she’d done a bad job and she needed to go. But she was probably forced out, just as a political excuse, because the government really has done very little. And you have to keep in mind, while the death toll and the crisis is hitting the capital, and the province around the capital quite hard, it doesn’t seem to be having much of an impact outside the capital, which is actually highly suspicious. There are parts of the country that are very poor, had very poor reporting conditions, and that’s why many people believe the death toll, and the overall infection rate is actually much higher than that the government is officially reporting.

LISA MULLINS: Alright. Speaking to us from Buenos Aires about the outbreak of the H1N1 swine flu virus in Argentina. Freeland reporter, Richard Reynolds, thank you.

RICHARD REYNOLDS: Thank you.

Geo Quiz Answer

The World — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:38:47 +0000

Today’s answer is Ukraine, home to the village of Oktyabrskoye, where some residents want to change the village name to honor the late Michael Jackson. Anchor Lisa Mullins has details.
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Yemenia crash survivor

The World — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:35:37 +0000

Anchor Lisa Mullins has the latest on the rescue of the sole survivor of the Yemenia aircraft that crashed in the Indian ocean yesterday. The fourteen year-old girl survived the crash by clinging to a piece of plane debris for more than 12 hours.
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LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins, and this is The World. The sole survivor of yesterday’s plane crash in the Indian Ocean is flying home to France tonight. Her name is Bahia, she’s 14 years old. She was on the Yemenia jet en route from Yemen to the Comoros islands. Bakari managed to survive by hanging on to some plane wreckage until rescuers arrived. Her only injuries were cuts and a fractured collarbone. French official Alain Joyandet says the girl demonstrated incredible strength.

ALAIN JOYANDET: [SPEAKS IN FRENCH]

LISA MULLINS: He says, “She is OK. She had amazing courage because she clung to a piece of debris for more than 12 hours in a rough sea. Psychologically she’s doing as best as can be expected. She lost her mother on the plane, but she’ll see her father in Paris tomorrow. Her father Kassim Bakari says he that he was stunned to hear that his daughter survived the crash.

KASSIM BAKARI: [TRANSLATE TO ENGLISH FROM FRENCH] I asked her what had happened and she said: “Daddy, we saw the plane falling into the sea, I found myself in the water, I heard people talking around me, but I was in the dark, so I couldn’t see anything. And daddy I can’t swim well, but I grabbed onto something, I’m not sure what.”

LISA MULLINS: The official, Alain Joyandet, says Bah-ya also told doctors that she heard a loud bang just before the plane fell into the ocean. The French Transport Minister says France has banned this specific jet from its airspace after inspectors discovered problems with it back in 2007. Kassim Bakari says he’s upset that Yemeni authorities didn’t ground the plane as well.

KASSIM BAKARI: [TRANSLATE TO ENGLISH FROM FRENCH] They knew this plane was being used in Yemen, but they did nothing. If it was forbidden to fly to France, why was it allowed to fly elsewhere?

LISA MULLINS: A Yemenia airline official says the aircraft was regularly maintained and inspected, and that the crash had nothing to do with maintenance. He also said that the accident was out of anybody’s control. But some Comoran nationals in Paris don’t agree. Today they formed a human chain at Charles de Gaulle airport to stop passengers from checking in to another Yemenia flight. One protester said, “We don’t want any more flying coffins. We don’t want Yemenia any more.” About 60 passengers did not check in, another 100 did board the flight, it took off as scheduled.

Global Hit: Staff Benda Bilili

The World — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:01:03 +0000

The Congolese band Staff Benda Bilili just released an amazing album, but as The World’s Marco Werman tells us, it’s the story behind the music that’s really amazing.
Listen

More information on the band here.

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