PRI's The World » 07/02/2009

Entire program – July 2, 2009

The World — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:10:32 +0000

Today on The World: Pakistan seals its border against Taliban fleeing a major U-S operation in Afghanistan, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says he’s ready to begin a new relationship with the US, and Amsterdam’s big plans for a green future.
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US launches operation in Afghanistan

The World — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:15:20 +0000

The United States has launched a major military operation in southern Afghanistan aimed at getting Helmand Province back from the Taliban. The World’s Jeb Sharp reports that the battle is being seen as part of the new Obama Administration strategy.
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Pakistan seals borders against Taliban

The World — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:02:58 +0000

Pakistan is sealing parts of its border with Afghanistan, trying to prevent Taliban militants from escaping a major US military operation that’s just been launched in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. Anchor Lisa Mullins gets the latest from the BBC’s Mike Wooldridge in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
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LISA MULLINS: The new operation in Afghanistan is being backed up by Pakistani army troops across the border. The BBC’s Mike Wooldridge is in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad. He describes what these troops are doing.

MIKE WOOLDRIDGE: What they say they’re doing is to concentrate their forces there, in the places where they feel any escaping Afghan Taliban are most likely to try and cross into Pakistan, moving in from left and right, as one military official here put it to me. Now, this is a desert part of the border. It has actually got one main transit route between Afghanistan and Pakistan on it, but there’s plenty of other places where it’s known that Taliban quite regularly cross. So, what they’re doing, they say they’re not putting any additional troops into this. It’s very much about reorganizing their forces in this area. And in a sense, therefore, to try and back up what’s happening on the other side of the border, and also, of course, protect Pakistan itself from more Taliban coming over into this country.

LISA MULLINS: Well, would you suggest the geography of the region makes it notoriously difficult to entirely seal, but are Pakistani forces now any more able to seal it than they were before, and any more willing to?

MIKE WOOLDRIDGE: Well, one of the problems in a way, although they quite clearly do want to contribute to helping the coalition forces on the Afghan side, it’s that they’ve very much got their own pre-occupations, at the moment, in taking on the Pakistan Taliban further to the north, and the north west of Pakistan. That’s consuming a lot of the military effort here. So, the Pakistan army is most certainly focused on that, and that’s probably one reason, there may be others, why they’re working with their existing troops, making sure, as they would see it, that they can be out there most effective in trying to prevent this infiltration into Pakistan.

LISA MULLINS: Well, I wonder how effective they can be, and how much the United States is counting on these Pakistani forces right now? How significant Pakistan’s role is overall to the United States, and international forces as they try to get the Taliban out of Afghanistan, or at least try to stabilize Afghanistan.

MIKE WOOLDRIDGE: Well, the Obama administration has, of course, in its new strategy for this whole region said that what happens on this side of the border, the actions that the military take here and other agencies in this country, is absolutely critical. That is why they’re being so encouraging of this new military offensive here against the Pakistani Taliban. And not only against them, They obviously hope that as a byproduct of that, it will make it more difficult for Al Qaeda, indeed any other militant groups to see those, and use those areas in the tribal regions along the border as a safe haven. It’s all joined up, really. And I think that undoubtedly significant that General David Petraeus, the regional commander, was here in Pakistan just to the weekend on Sunday, having discussions that were described by officials here at the time, on matters of mutual interest. Now, they were obviously about all of these operations, and co-ordinations are going to be critical.

LISA MULLINS: Well, it’s interesting that Pakistani officials even announced what’s happening with the Pakistani soldiers. I mean, is this unusual that, especially who’s to say a maneuver of this size, this magnitude, has been basically broadcast, trumpeted?

MIKE WOOLDRIDGE: I think that Pakistan is very keen that American and the rest of the world sees what it is doing at this time. It knows that it’s being accused in the past of not being fully committed to tackling militants here of all kinds in these Afghan/Pakistan border regions. So they are doing a great deal to try and convince everybody that they are playing a full part in this, both in Pakistan and in supporting what’s happening on the other side of the border. And they would say, very much backed up by public opinion in this country at the moment, the government calls it a fight for Pakistan’s survival, quite a lot of Pakistanis see it that way too.

LISA MULLINS: Alright. The BBC’s Mike Wooldridge, the world affairs correspondent, speaking to is from Islamabad, Pakistan. Thank you.

MIKE WOOLDRIDGE: Thank you.

Russia is ready for better US relations

The World — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:58:54 +0000

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s latest video blog strikes a positive note on his expectations for President Obama’s visit next week. Reporter Jessica Golloher has the story.
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LISA MULLINS: The war against the Taliban is sure to be a topic of conversation when President Obama visits Moscow next week, and Russia’s president Dimitri Medvedev seems willing to talk about it. Medvedev recorded a video address about Obama’s upcoming visit, in which he talked about common concerns such as terrorism and extremism. The video appeared first on the Kremlin website today. Reporter Jessica Golloher watched the video in Moscow and has this report.

JESSICA GOLLOHER: Wearing a sharp black suit with a red tie, Russian President Dimitri Medvedev spoke in front of his countryside resident. An informal setting, perhaps signaling that the meeting with Mr. Obama would be a get acquainted session. He clearly indicated Moscow is ready to reset relations with Washington.

[SOUND CLIP IN RUSSIAN]

JESSICA GOLLOHER: Medvedev admitted relations have worsened over the past few years. He said there’d been a crisis of confidence, a lack of action, and unwillingness to take new steps despite good personal relations between George Bush and Medvedev’s predecessor, Vladimir Putin. Medvedev admitted relations had declined to levels on par with the cold war era, but Medvedev had sensed a new spirit in the US.

[SOUND CLIP IN RUSSIAN]

JESSICA GOLLOHER: He said the new Obama Administration is showing a willingness to change and build a more effective, reliable, and ultimately more modern relations. “And,” said Medvedev, “Russia was willing to do its part.” And Medvedev listed the common challenges in what he called the common responsibilities of both countries.

[SOUND CLIP IN RUSSIAN]

JESSICA GOLLOHER: He talked about international security, and the fight against terrorism, extremism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and drug trafficking. On the world wide economic crisis, Medvedev was pretty frank.

[SOUND CLIP IN RUSSIAN]

JESSICA GOLLOHER: He said it was hard to say which country is having a harder time getting through the difficulties. And went on to say, that now is not the time to say who is suffering more, or who is stronger. Medvedev called for uniting efforts to find solutions to the serious economic problems facing both countries. And Medvedev said both countries needed new mutually beneficial projects in business, science, and culture. And to show that he and Obama were part of a new dynamic generation, Medvedev ended by quoting another young American, President John Kennedy.

[SOUND CLIP IN RUSSIAN]

JESSICA GOLLOHER: “If we cannot end now our differences,” said Kennedy, “at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.” Medvedev called Kennedy’s words very wise, but it’s a sign that Russia has no intention of totally following into line with the American Agenda. For The World, I’m Jessica Golloher in Moscow.

Old newsreels unearthed in London

The World — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:56:06 +0000

More than 3,500 hours of newsreel footage found in tunnels under central London are being made public today. The footage is from the 1960s and 70s. Anchor Lisa Mullins samples some clips.Listen

LISA MULLINS: Sometimes we come across some great sound from the past that we want to share with you. We’ve got a good example of that today. It’s from a collection of old television recordings just discovered in London. It’s more than 35 hundred hours of news footage from the 1960s and 70s were found in a vacant office building. The bit we’re gonna play you comes from 1974. It’s from a press conference in Beirut, Lebanon given by none other, than boxer Muhammed Ali. Here he is, talking first about a recent pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

MUHAMMED ALI: After seeing so many Muslims there of all kind, and after being so accepted by all of them, after being accepted by the mayor of Mecca. King fights himself, prince fights him. And going inside the city with hundreds of thousands of people following me and praising me, this really made me closer and a better Muslim.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Say that you are gonna build a Mosque in Las Vegas, and you said Lad Vegas is the international center for gambling.

MUHAMMED ALI: Well, there’s two sides of Las Vegas. There’s the gambling center, then there’s the center where 90 percent of the poor people live, and this is where we wanna help recruit and organize more Muslims. If the sinful want to come to the Mosque where it’s being taught, then everybody’s welcome. But I will not go into the gambling houses teaching Islam, because I’m sure Allah wouldn’t want a minister in such filth talking his word.

LISA MULLINS: That’s boxer Muhammed Ali speaking in Beirut, Lebanon, back in 1974. That newsreel recording was just one of many recently discovered in an empty office building in London.

Art and trauma

The World — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:50:53 +0000

Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with American artist Ross Bleckner about his work with children in Northern Uganda who had been forced to become soldiers for a murderous rebel group.
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More about Ross Bleckner

LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins, and this is The World. Ross Bleckner is a well-known artist in New York City. He also recently became the first artist named by the United Nations as one of its Goodwill Ambassadors. Bleckner’s duty as ambassador is to shine a light on the problem of human trafficking. So he traveled to Northern Uganda to a place called Gulu. It’s where a group known as The Lord’s Resistance Army has perpetrated violence for nearly two decades. The UN estimates that over the years, the group abducted some 20 thousand children, forcing many of them to become child soldiers. Ross Bleckner went to Gulu to teach some of those kids art.

ROSS BLECKNER: The children I worked with had been formally abducted soldiers, and the girls had been sex slaves, who had been either let go, or had escaped. I met them at the convent where they came to work in what was called an art workshop, and they all volunteered to do this, and were interested in telling a story.

LISA MULLINS: How old were they?

ROSS BLECKNER: They were from 13 to 18, and there were 30 of them.

LISA MULLINS: 30 kids in one classroom. So what was your mindset as you walked in?

ROSS BLECKNER: Well, I knew, obviously, that they would be traumatized. They were really afraid of authority because obviously people in authority have exploited and violated their trust continually.

LISA MULLINS: But that must have made it difficult for you, Ross. As you hand these kids paints, could you say to them, draw, paint about trauma?

ROSS BLECKNER: No, I did not tell them draw or paint about trauma. They drew people in villages, a lot of guns, a lot of huts, a lot of little black spots.

LISA MULLINS: [OVERLAPPING] Little black spots meaning?

ROSS BLECKNER: [OVERLAPPING] Kind of like soldiers and stylistically simple uniforms, and almost like stick figures. Good guys, bad guys. I came back the next day, and I said to them, we’re not gonna use charcoal anymore. I thought the use of color would help, so I said, no more charcoal, and what we’re gonna do is, you know, you can never go back and you’re always gonna have to live with what’s happened in your past. Now, you have to remember that these boys, for instance, every one of them has been a murderer forcibly. And when you look at them, I would say to the translator, I cannot believe that these kids murdered somebody. They have so much joy, and they have so much enthusiasm for the future, even though they live here and they have less than nothing. But now we’re here together, and this is a safe space, and nobody is judging you. So lets talk about today, about your dreams, about the future of Uganda, about what you want to see happen for yourselves. Suddenly, there really was a tremendous burst of joy and color and optimism.

LISA MULLINS: What else could you say? I mean, could you say please, whatever you’re drawing now, even when they were drawing about their past, you know, did you say, be less abstract, more abstract, use–

ROSS BLECKNER: [OVERLAPPING] Absolutely, I did. I guided them.

LISA MULLINS: [OVERLAPPING] But that gets into their own psyche and what they’ve been through.

ROSS BLECKNER: Yeah. One day we just used letters, and the next day we put the letters in with words, like what do you wanna be? Then you got a lot of, I wanna be an accountant, I wanna be a designer. I suddenly, I kept seeing I wanna be an artist. And, I kept telling then, people will see their work, that they will go to school, that this will be followed through.

LISA MULLINS: Have you sold any of the paintings as you intended to?

ROSS BLECKNER: Many, many of the paintings. We had a show here at the UN, after that I organized a show at a major gallery.

LISA MULLINS: Ross, we’re gonna make a link to some of the photos and have more information about the works of these children, and what you’re doing as a follow through on our website, theworld.org. Ross, before I let you go, did you keep a particular image for yourself?

ROSS BLECKNER: [LAUGHS] I actually kept a few images for myself. I think the last day when I had left, they made images with my name, and one of them said, “Thank you Ross for showing us a way of life.”

LISA MULLINS: Thank you very much Ross Bleckner, thanks.

ROSS BLECKNER: Okay, my pleasure.

Piano project in London

The World — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:46:03 +0000

A musical art project is underway in London. It’s simple: place a few pianos out on the street and see what happens. The BBC’s David Whitty walked the streets to finds out.
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LISA MULLINS: A musical art project is underway in Britain. The idea is simple, just place a few pianos out on the streets of London, and see what happens. The BBC’s David Whitty went looking for the pianos and their players.

DAVID WHITTY: Liverpool Street train station in central London, one the main transport hubs for London. Commuters rushing home after work, and by the main entrance is two people sitting at a piano. Do you know each other?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. [LAUGHS]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.

DAVID WHITTY: But you’re sitting here on the same piano stool and one is teaching the other. How have you ended up on this piano stool together?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Basically I was going back from work and I just found a piano. It’s a lovely idea, I’m a piano player, so I love playing the piano.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then we got talking, I go, I’d love to play the piano. And then I was asking her, how do you do this, and how do you do that? And then she [INDISCERNIBLE] and then she’s been teaching us since then.

DAVID WHITTY: So you get your piano lesson right outside Liverpool Street Station.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Almost. [LAUGHS]

DAVID WHITTY: I’ll let you get on, thank you. I’ve come about two streets away from Liverpool Street now, to Devonshire Square Estate. And somewhere, I think I can hear destiny of pianos somewhere here.

[PIANO PLAYING]

DAVID WHITTY: Can I just ask you, why are you playing this piano?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE 2: Well, I’m waiting for my girlfriend to get the train at seven o’clock, so, and we found this. And I used to play piano quite a lot when I was young, so.

DAVID WHITTY: Are you charmed by his playing?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE 2: Very charmed.

DAVID WHITTY: Fantastic. What do you think about pianos just being randomly scattered around on the streets of London?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE 2: [OVERLAPPING] I think it’s really, really, really good, actually, I think it should be here permanently as well.

[PIANO PLAYING]

LUKE JERRAM: My name’s Luke Jerram, and I’m the artist behind the street pianos project called Play Me, I’m Yours. The idea is to provide a creative blank canvas, really, for the public to express themselves. I installed 15 pianos in Sao Paulo, 30 pianos in Sydney. In Sydney there were people who’d never actually seen a really piano before, let alone have the opportunity to play one. Rather than asking the public to come in to an art gallery or museum, I’m interested in delivering an artwork directly to their door.

DAVID WHITTY: Just [INDISCERNIBLE] third piano, it’s in a housing estate in the middle of a big square. There’s four stories of flats on each side, it’s totally empty. The piano’s covered in a sheet of plastic, maybe it’s to waterproof it, and nobody’s playing. And, that’s why, because there’s a padlock on it. Maybe it disturbs people when they’re trying to put their kids to sleep here. But, I don’t know, this piano seems to be wasted at the moment. There’s a young man who’s just come up the steps to the square, what do you think of that piano there?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE 3: It’s not necessary for keeping that there.

DAVID WHITTY: You don’t think it’s a good idea?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE 3: It’s a good idea, but what’s one gonna do between like, a thousand of people?

DAVID WHITTY: Has anyone played it so that you–

UNIDENTIFIED MALE 3: [OVERLAPPING] Yeah. I must have come here yesterday, come in with one of my boys in it, and he was playing that yesterday in it. But that’s just like, that was just me and him, The Terminator.

DAVID WHITTY: What, the theme music for the film?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE 3: The theme music, yeah.

[PIANO PLAYING]

LISA MULLINS: Amateur piano players interviewed by the BBC’s David Whitty in London.

Ban on gay sex overturned in India

The World — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:42:15 +0000

Gay rights activists in India are heralding a new court ruling that overturns a colonial-era ban on gay sex. Indian gay rights advocate Vinay Chandran tells host Lisa Mullins that India’s long history of acceptance of gays has been suppressed.
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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 Boston. Gay rights advocates are celebrating in India, that’s because a court in New Delhi issued a landmark decision today. The court decriminalized consensual gay sex. And it ruled that a colonial-era law, known as section 377, that banned gay sex is unconstitutional. This is the first ruling of its kind in India, a country where homosexuals still face widespread discrimination. Members of India’s gay community are hailing this decision as a historic step. Vinay Chandran runs Svabhava. Svabhava is a counseling group for gays and lesbians in Bangalore. After the ruling today, many homosexuals came to celebrate on Vinay’s balcony well into the night.

VINAY CHANDRAN: We’ve been celebrating. So people are refusing to leave my office, and I’m waiting to lock up, because I think everybody wants to have a party considering the change in the law. So, that’s where I am.

LISA MULLINS: The people who are celebrating with you there, what is that they’re celebrating? Is it they feel as though their lifestyle can change, can be more open? Is it they feel that they won’t be subject to discrimination even though it has not been a crime to be homosexual in India?

VINAY CHANDRAN: I think it’s a mix of honesties. Considering how ultra evasive this notion of homosexual as a sinner, as a criminal, as somebody who’s mentally challenged, all of these have been. And, I mean, just today I got a case from a young in his mid to late 20′s who was talking about being harassed by a particular police station over here because they were asking him for about 25 thousand rupees as blackmail charges or else they put him into prison and book a case under section 377. And I put him in touch with a lawyer to be able to deal with that, but this is the kind of fear that section 377 has been put to use for. That really, in 149 years it’s never been used as anything more than just a tool for extortion and blackmail of homosexual and transgender people. And perhaps this celebration is really, you know, a coming out of, an therefore symbolic that I’m no longer a criminal in the society that I pay to keep up, that I am productive in, that I pay taxes for.

LISA MULLINS: Homosexuals in the United States face legal challenges in many areas that are rooted in our past. And I wonder if you can tell us about the origins of this law in colonial era India, and also the history of homosexuality throughout the centuries in India.

VINAY CHANDRAN: Well, there is this perception that homosexuality was never part of Indian culture. But the perception is wrong because if one takes, for instance, the same as example of Kama Sutra, which is really what a lot of non-Indians recognize as being very Indian. And this written way back in the 10th and 11th centuries, you see that there are chapters in that which dedicated itself to looking at same sex sexual pleasure. And we’re talking about a thousand years ago. So, there is feeling that it wasn’t homosexuality, that was the western import as a lot of the governments there. And a lot of religious people keep saying, it’s really, it’s homophobia, and the anti homosexual traditions of the law that were the western in import.

LISA MULLINS: You know, there are those who even backed the ruling, supported the ruling that decriminalizes consensual gay sex, who are still very concerned about the impact on Indian culture, family culture there. I wanna quote now, Doctor Babu Joseph, this is a spokesperson for the Roman Catholic Church in Delhi, who told the BBC that the attempt by gay rights activists, he says, is to redefine the very concept of family, and he thinks that’s very damaging for society against the very order of nature. He says, wherein we say man and woman are complementary to each other, and they found families, they gave birth for generations of people, and sustain society. Do you understand that concern?

VINAY CHANDRAN: I don’t share that sentiment. I think it’s improved in various contexts across the world that the notion of family has changed over the past five thousand years of recorded history. There is no universal notion of family, there is the perception that it has to be like this, but we all know that it doesn’t work like that. And I don’t think families are going to get destroyed just because two men fall in love, or two women fall in love.

LISA MULLINS: Vinay, thank you.

VINAY CHANDRAN: Thank you so much. Bye-bye.

Amsterdam’s green future

The World — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:38:43 +0000

Correspondent Kathy Schalch reports from Amsterdam on the Dutch city’s pledge to reduce its carbon footprint.
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LISA MULLINS: Amsterdam has long been known as a pioneering city. Four hundred years ago, it was a leader in religious tolerance and global commerce. More recently, the Dutch city’s been known for its relaxed approach to drugs and prostitution. Well now Amsterdam is hoping to lead the way on one of the most critical challenges of our time, climate change. We have another installment now in our series on energy and climate in Europe. As Kathleen Schalch reports, Amsterdam hopes to build a green path to the future by dramatically lowering the carbon footprint of its residents.

KATHLEEN SCHLACH: Compared to Americans, the Dutch are energy misers. They emit half as much greenhouse gas per capita, as Americans do. This is Amsterdam, where the electricity used to power trams and light buildings comes from burning municipal waste. And where people take more trips by bike, than by car. But Amsterdam has much bigger ambitions still. Meet Maurits Gruen.

MAURITS GRUEN: It means green.

KATHLEEN SCHLACH: That’s right, his name in Dutch is Mr. Green. He’s with Amsterdam’s Climate Bureau.

MAURITS GRUEN: We envision a plan that the municipality of Amsterdam itself will be climate neutral by 2015. And that the city at large will be reducing its CO2 footprint by 40 percent in 2025

KATHLEEN SCHLACH: That’s 40 percent below what the city emitted back in 1990, and down sixty percent from its emissions today.

MAURITS GRUEN: That’s a very steep drop.

KATHLEEN SCHLACH: To put this in perspective, Amsterdam’s self-imposed deadline, 2025 was the year the Bush Administration proposed to merely stop US emissions from going up. The city has a multi pronged strategy. By next year, it plans to replace a thousand garbage trucks and other municipal vehicles with vehicles that run on electricity. Within six years it aims to switch all the light bulbs in streetlamps and municipal buildings to LEDs. Gruen says the potential savings are huge.

MAURITS GRUEN: In the street lighting, it will be over 93 percent so we will almost annihilate the electricity consumption from the lighting in the streets, and the same holds true for electricity consumption in the buildings that the government uses.

KATHLEEN SCHLACH: Old buildings will get new windows and insulation. And new ones?

MAURITS GRUEN: The new buildings from next year on will be carbon neutral, which means that we will not need any fossil fuel to heat those buildings.

KATHLEEN SCHLACH: Gruen explains how you make houses carbon neutral.

MAURITS GRUEN: In the first place, well we have the houses closed to the north and open at the south where the sun’s coming in. Then we collect all the heat by very efficient insulation. We have solar collectors, we have photovoltaic cells.

KATHLEEN SCHLACH: But to get real savings, the city will need to do much more than showcase state of the art technology.

GER BARON: It’s about interaction, and not only with early adopted type of people, but also with normal people living in normal neighborhoods.

KATHLEEN SCHLACH: Ger Baron is senior project manager at a public-private joint venture called Amsterdam Innovation Motor. It’s testing energy saving concepts for the mass market, things that will pay for themselves within two or three years. One pilot program is distributing so called smart meters, that track household energy use, and can cut it by up to a half. Some US cities testing these as well, but Amsterdam plans to scale up its program really fast.

GER BARON: This year we’re going to want to prove it on a one thousand house scale. And after this year we want to role it out to over the 800 thousand houses in the Amsterdam area. And what you see all over the world is that on paper there are all these brilliant plans to develop smart grids, to develop smart homes, and it’s all on paper. So the big thing is we should just do it.

JORIS JONKER: We have here three models.

KATHLEEN SCHLACH: Joris Jonker is CEO of a company called Home Automation Europe, which makes some of the meters.

JORIS JONKER: I would say they look like a photo frame.

KATHLEEN SCHLACH: [OVERLAPPING] So you touch the screen and we see three different bands. One says strom?

JORIS JONKER: That’s power. What this display does, it’s just an example. It will ask you how much energy you used last year, then it will ask you how much you want to save. What we’ve

found is that just by knowing this information in detail, you can save 10 to 15 percent. Just by changing your behavior.

KATHLEEN SCHLACH: You can save more, Jonker says, by adding little adaptor-like plugs to the power chords for each appliance. Push a button now, and icons pop up on the screen, a refrigerator, TV, washer, even the power adaptor for you mobile phone. If something is using more energy than it should, its icon turns redder and redder. The meter even gives you a hard time. It might say, “Did you know your TV is on 8 hours a day,” or.

JORIS JONKER: It’s impossible. A freezer shouldn’t use that much electricity, so buy a new one or close the door.

KATHLEEN SCHLACH: The electric utility providers foot the bill for these and other technologies to make the whole grid smarter, and eventually cheaper to operate. Mauritz Gruen of the Climate Bureau says together, the municipality and private companies plan to spend more than a billion dollars on cutting energy use over the next three years.

MAURITZ GRUEN: Very important, I think, is that it’s not only the municipal government, but that this program is really something of the community itself. Quite a number of business factors in the city got together and they’re trying to figure out in what way they can cooperate with the municipal government in order to secure our future.

KATHLEEN SCHLACH: Public private partnership leader Ger Baron, says the city is now proceeding even faster than it planned to, to stimulate the local economy in the face of the global recession. Baron says Amsterdam’s energy-saving ambitions stretch far beyond the city limits.

GER BARON: We can develop the technology over here to be more energy efficient so other economies like India and China can learn and we can help development it over there as well. I mean, the country as the Netherlands, 50 million inhabitants will not make the difference on a global scale, but we can set an example and I think we are very keen to that.

KATHLEEN SCHLACH: Marits Gruen, of the city’s climate bureau says Amsterdam feels a special sense of urgency

MARITS GRUEN: Amsterdam is situated below sea level, and we are very much aware that we need to do something against global warming because otherwise we won’t be there.

KATHLEEN SCHLACH: For the World, I’m Kathleen Schalch, Amsterdam.

Geo Quiz

The World — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:22:08 +0000

Our daily geography quiz.
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What’s that band?

The World — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:19:53 +0000

The World’s Marco Werman speaks with anchor Lisa Mullins about a recent Global Hit that peaked listeners’ interest.
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More info on Staff Benda Bilili

LISA MULLINS: But first we wanna circle back briefly to our global hit from yesterday.

[MUSIC CLIP]

LISA MULLINS: A lot of you wrote us about this band from Congo, and many of you said that you really loved the music, but you didn’t quite catch the name of the group. So we’re going to give it to you again, along with the album title. Get a pen and paper because The World’s Marco Werman is here to give us the info once again. Marco?

MARCO WERMAN: Okay, hopefully everybody has a pen and paper now. The band is called Staff Benda Bilili. And I hate to say this, but it’s spelt just like it sounds. Staff, like faculty and staff, S-T-A-F-F. Benda, B-E-N-D-A. And Bilili, B-I-L-I-L-I. Staff Benda Bilili from Congo, and by the way, the name of the band means something along the lines in the Congolese language of Lingala, something along the lines of, the people who see beyond. The album is called Tres Tres Fort, which is French for very, very, strong. It’s on Crammed Records out of Belgium. And if you come to theworld.org, we’ll take you the rest of the way.

LISA MULLINS: So I guess you’re not gonna give us the answer to the Geo Quiz?

MARCO WERMAN: No, that’s, I don’t even know it. [BOTH LAUGH]

LISA MULLINS: Well, everyone else will, right after the break. Thanks Marco. And you have another global hit on the way?

MARCO WERMAN: That’s right. From Iran, via Los Angeles.

LISA MULLINS: Thanks again.

MARCO WERMAN: Sure.

[MUSIC CLIP]

Geo Quiz Answer

The World — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:18:27 +0000

The answer to today’s geoquiz is Brunei. Reporter Nancy Greenleese samples a gelatinous native dish and sends us an audio postcard.
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Geo Quiz archive

Global Hit: ‘United for Neda’

The World — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:17:39 +0000

The World’s Marco Werman reports on “United for Neda,” a song composed and performed by a group of Iranian artists in Los Angeles to acknowledge the sacrifices made by protestors in the streets of Tehran. Neda is a reference to the young woman killed during street protests there two weeks ago.
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