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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. Former President Bill Clinton’s surprise visit to North Korea appears to have worked. North Korea’s news agency says Laura Ling and Euna Lee have been pardoned and will be released. The American journalists were arrested last March and convicted of what North Korea said were hostile acts. Clinton arrived in Pyongyang today to try to get them out of prison. He was greeted warmly and had a meeting with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-Il. The announcement of a pardon from Kim came several hours later. As The World’s Matthew Bell reports today’s events could signal a change in US/North Korean relations.

MATTHEW BELL: The North Koreans went big on this story today. Their official news agency’s English language site had a banner headline reading Bill Clinton arrives here. Footage from North Korean state television showed Clinton getting off a private plane and then being greeted by a little girl with a giant bouquet of flowers.

[SOUND CLIP OF NEWSREADER SPEAKING KOREAN]

A newsreader gave some details of Clinton’s visit. She said the dear leader Kim Jung-Il met with former US President Bill Clinton and went on to say that Clinton respectfully delivered a verbal message to Kim from the current US president, Barack Obama. She said Kim expressed his thanks and then the two men had exhaustive discussions that included a wide-ranging exchange of views. Meanwhile the White House kept mostly quiet about Clinton’s mission. Spokesman Robert Gibbs however made one thing clear. He said President Obama did not give Bill Clinton a message to pass along to Kim Jong-Il. The administration was also clear that Clinton’s visit was carried out in a private capacity. For months North Korea watchers had predicted that it would take some kind of high level visit to free the two American journalists. Mike Chinoy is a former Asia correspondent for CNN and the author of a book about the nuclear standoff with North Korea called meltdown. Chinoy says Clinton was the perfect emissary for the job but beyond that today’s meeting between Clinton and Kim Jong-Il could change the direction of US North Korea relations.

MIKE CHINOY: The North Korean’s have a soft spot for Bill Clinton because they invited him to come to Pyongyang in the waning months of his presidency and he clearly wanted to go to meet Kim Jong-Il. There are clearly very tough issues still but I think Former President Clinton will come back with the best sense that any American official will have had of Kim Jong-Il physical state, his mental state, what’s on his mind politically and that will be of enormous use to the Obama Administration in figuring out where to go on the diplomatic process.

BELL: Clinton is the first prominent American to sit across the table from Kim Jong-Il in nearly a decade. The last to do so was Clinton’s secretary of state, Madeleine Albright. That was in 2000. And Robert Carlin traveled with her. He’s a former intelligence official and an expert in North Korea. Carlin says back then, just as with the photos of today’s meeting between Clinton and Kim, he was struck by how happy Kim Jong-Il appeared to be in the presence of Americans.

ROBERT CARLIN: In one sense this is what he was striving for for so long – to get a more positive relationship underway with the Americans which would transform a lot of his problems – economic, international relations, etcetera. And it would be a real achievement, a serious achievement, for him.

BELL: Carlin says the timing of today’s visit is significant. Kim Jong-Il is reported to have suffered from a stroke or worse. There are rumors of a succession struggle going on in North Korea and after conducting a second nuclear test this spring the North has sent signals that it’s willing to return to the bargaining table. But again big questions remain. For North Korea’s part will it agree to give up its nuclear weapons program in exchange for financial and security guarantees from the US and will the Obama Administration make that kind of a deal with North Korea when a similar bargain made by Bill Clinton in 1994 fell apart in 2002. For The World I’m Matthew Bell.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

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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: Bill Clinton’s wife is on the road too. This is day one of Hilary Clinton’s eleven-day trip to Africa. The secretary of state arrived today in Kenya. Ms. Clinton is expected to focus on the state of Kenya’s democracy and lieu of last year’s post-election violence. In a moment we’ll hear about one Kenyan’s efforts to promote peace in his country through art. But first another issue on Clinton’s Kenya agenda – the turmoil in neighboring Somalia. The BBC’s East Africa correspondent Peter Greste is in the Kenyan capital Nairobi. Peter Washington has largely ignored Somalia since it pulled out American combat troops. That was back in 1993. Why is Secretary Clinton focusing on Somalia now? What is she hoping to accomplish?

PETER GRESTE: The problem for the United States and indeed Britain and much of the West is that Somalia is fast moving along the path that Afghanistan moved the last time the United States abandoned that country. And the problem is that we’re seeing resurgence in extremism. We’re seeing a movement called al-Shabaab which loosely translates as the youth and which has been accused of having links to al-Qaeda. And Somalia is essentially the world’s worst failed state. There is no effective government to speak of. Al-Shabaab is laying siege to the capital city and we’re seeing alarming rising reports of terrorism and extremism across that country. Now Somalia is right on Kenya’s border. Islamic extremists were implicated on the bomb blasts against the US Embassy here in Nairobi more than 10 years ago and also in Dar El Salam. So it is a pressing problem and Hilary Clinton will be meeting the Somali president, Sheik Sharif Ahmed, in her visit here to try and figure out a way of helping ease the problem in Somalia and perhaps bring about some stability.

WERMAN: Now as you say Peter Secretary Clinton will meet with Sheik Sharif Ahmed the Somalian president later this week in Kenya. He’s something of a figure head in Somalia. He doesn’t even live in the capital Mogadishu. What kind of clout does Mr. Ahmed have at this point and is he an ally Washington should be counting on?

GRESTE: He’s an interesting character because he was actually a man that Washington dismissed as an Islamic extremist not so long ago. He led a movement called the Islamic Court’s Union. As such the US felt that he was a threat to the regional stability. Now he’s a man who heads the transitional federal government and he has the endorsement of the United Nations. He has enormous amounts of international recognition including the United States. But his problem is that he has very little military clout. The al-Shabaab movement has the military initiative in Somalia at the moment. They have pushed the government into a very tiny corner to the point where as you say it’s not even safe for the president. The government controls Mogadishu and one other small district in central Somalia. So in practical terms and domestically he doesn’t have anywhere near the amount of authority and power that he needs to really bring stability to the country. And I think this is really one of the major dilemmas facing the international community when it comes to dealing with that country.

WERMAN: In the meantime hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees have fled across the border to Kenya and they keep on coming. The UNHCR, the UN refugee agency said that it was actually failing to provide even the most basic amenities for these refugees in one camp, very sprawling, Dadaab Camp. Now you went to that camp today. What did you see Peter?

GRESTE: That’s right it is an absolutely desperate situation. As you’re saying almost 300,000 people in a camp that was designed for just 90,000. The congestion is so extreme out there that there’s simply no more space to put new arrivals. And the effect of this is really quite staggering. The problem is that the infrastructure simply cannot cope with those numbers. The authorities don’t know where everybody is now because of the way that they’re filtering into the camp. And new arrivals are coming in at a rate of more than 6000 a month. So clearly something has to be done and very urgently.

WERMAN: the BBC’s East Africa correspondent Peter Greste in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Thanks for the update Peter.

GRESTE: Pleasure.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

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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 year and a half ago Kenya suffered an ugly chapter in its history. It was just after the December 2007 presidential election. Two candidates claimed victory. Their respected supporters took to the streets in protest. Then came a wave of ethnic violence. The World’s Andrea Crossan recently visited one of the communities that was a flashpoint for the violence and that’s the Kibera slum in Nairobi. There she met a man who took to the streets with a paint brush.

ANDREA CROSSAN: Walk the streets and alleyways of Kibera and you see the same message everywhere. The words are written in big, block letters with white paint. They say Peace Wanted Alive. And they’re signed or tagged Solo 7.

SOLOMON MUYUNDO: I’m Solomon Muyundo AKA Solo 7.

CROSSAN: Solomon Muyundo is the artist behind Solo 7. Muyundo is a member of Art 4 Peace. The Art 4 Peace studio uses art as a way to foster reconciliation in conflict areas. The group offers community art courses for kids and they paint peace murals and slogans in public spaces. Solomon Muyundo estimates that he’s painted his street art in more than 4000 locations around Kibera – on bridges, fences, buildings.

MUYUNDO: Even I used to write across the road. On trees even in the forest there and I used to also to write on my pets, on my dogs, and they go around they spread the message so that when it’s going to fetch for food no one will think of throwing a stone at it.

CROSSAN: Muyundo began his peace graffiti shortly after the December 2007 elections. He says things changed in Kibera when the results were announced.

MUYUNDO: I saw a gang of youths, ranging from 400 to maybe to 600. All of them carrying weapons like crude weapons, panga, machete, and hammer, a sharp knife and a big one. They were carrying those weapons and coming towards the main road shouting. “No Raila no peace, no Raila no peace.”  And then I knew there was something wrong.

CROSSAN: The crowd was shouting, “No Raila no peace” because they believe that the challenger Raila Odinga had won the election even though incumbent Mwai Kibaki claimed victory. Solomon Muyundo said he had to act fast to protect himself from the angry mob.

MUYUNDO: I was really terrified. In fact I wanted to run away but I thought to myself if I could run away maybe one of them may follow me. So I decided to jump in front of them with the bare hands and I just started shouting, “No Raila no peace. No Raila no peace.”

CROSSAN: Muyundo was able to get home safely that night by shouting his support for Odinga. But the experience shook him. Part of Kibera was in flames and the community was caught between the mob and the police. So Muyundo decided to go out and start writing the message Peace Wanted Alive.

MUYUNDO: As in it should be alive active peace because if we attain peace when it’s alright injured or dead that’s not peace. So I decided now I’ll go with the paint and do something. I started Peace Wanted Alive. Then when I mobilized those signs some of the youths told me now Solo we have seen all your messages. We don’t want violence.

CROSSAN: Kibera still bares the scars of the post-election violence. Many of the corrugated metal roof shops and homes sit burned out and empty. The bright white paint of Solo 7’s message decorates the outside of the charred black walls. His words stand as a reminder to Kibera’s residents.

MUYUNDO: They really appreciate what I did and I feel like I’m serving this community and the people recognize me as a peace man. Yeah.

CROSSAN: For The World I’m Andrea Crossan Kibera, Kenya.

WERMAN: You can see some of Solo 7’s artwork at our website. That’s The World dot org. Andrea Crossan’s trip to Kenya was funded by a fellowship form the international reporting project in Washington.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

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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. You see them growing in thickets and forests around tropical coasts. Their intertwined roots become visible when the tide is low. They’re called mangroves. They’re a crucial ecosystem and the trees protect the land from erosion but they are disappearing. Only in the past few years has there been a growing recognition of the importance of mangroves and renewed efforts to restore and preserve them. Reporter Ari Daniel Shapiro visited a mangrove restoration project in Indonesia.

ARI DANIEL SHAPIRO: The Celebes Sea laps at a narrow, gravely beach on the northern arm of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Not long ago this stretch of coastline in the village of Minahasa was thick with a web of mangrove trees. And if the efforts of local residents are successful it will be again.

[SOUND CLIP OF SHOVELS DIGGING]

Under the warming tropical sunshine dozens of community members dig grapefruit-sized holes every few feet along the beach to prepare the way for mangrove seedlings. Others stand by to do the planting – local residents, government officials, and even the president of one of Indonesia’s largest banks. Thirty years ago the shores of Indonesia’s 17,000 islands boasted more than 42 million acres of mangroves. That’s an area the size of Wisconsin. By the 1990s half the mangroves had been destroyed for firewood, charcoal, and timber and to clear the way for fish and shrimp farms. But attitudes towards mangroves have started to change here. Fifteen year-old Susi Mashanafi is one of several hundred school children helping with the replanting. She’s got a warning for people who’d cut down mangroves.

SUSI MASHANAFI: I think we must give them a hard punishment to them because it can be a big problem for us in our future if they’re cutting down the mangrove in the beach.

SHAPIRO: The problem is that when mangrove stands are destroyed coastal areas become far more vulnerable to the ravages of the sea. A few years ago Mashanafi and other Indonesians learned this the hard way.

MASHANAFI: Tsunami of course. It was happening our country many years ago in Aceh.

SHAPIRO: The Tsunami of 2004 devastated parts of Indonesia. Entire communities were washed away. Over 240,000 Indonesians died. The massive wave made it clear just how valuable intact mangroves are. Janot Mendler de Suarez is a project coordinator with the Global Environment Facility, a group that supports the replanting efforts.

JANOT MENDLER DE SUAREZ: We can see from the satellite data that those communities where the mangroves were intact, where the coastal ecosystems had not been degraded, suffered much less damage. They were protected. So we don’t need to do studies and wait to find out if this is going to work. We know it’s going to work.

SHAPIRO: The Indonesian government seems to share that certainty. They’ve moved to safeguard mangroves throughout the country by designating a protected greenbelt along the coast. They are promoting rehabilitation programs like the community planting in Minahasa and encouraging the use of fast growing trees instead of mangroves for firewood and charcoal. The government’s also trying to raise awareness of the mangrove’s broader and ecological and economic importance. John Tasirin, a professor of ecology and conservation at Sam Ratulangi University, says mangroves provide vital habitat for fish and countless other animals.

JOHN TASIRIN: So the government, the university, has been for the last years here, has been intensified to tell people how important the mangrove is to support the life of the organism in the sea therefore it also supports the life of the people in a coastal community. So almost 90% of the villagers along coast of North Sulawesi here they want to restore the mangroves, bring it back as what they see long time ago.

SHAPIRO: Some of the local restoration programs begin here, at the mangrove seedling plantation of Madgid Blongkot, in a village to the north. Blongkot is a gentle man with leathery sun-baked skin. On a humid afternoon he shows off a few hundred seedlings growing in little bags of earth under a thatched roof. Local children play nearby. Blongkot started the plantation 10 years ago on a former mangrove swamp that had been converted to shrimp farming and then abandoned.

MADGID BLONGKOT: [SPEAKING INDONESIAN]

TRANSLATOR: The businessmen who cultivated shrimps here, they just left the land unused. He realized that this area must be cultivated so after rehabilitating this area it can become the home of creatures such as birds and other things and then it can increase the income of the people.

[SOUND CLIP OF BLONGKOT’S EMPLOYEES CHATTERING]

SHAPIRO: Blongkot employs 15 people fulltime and sells about 600,000 seedlings a year including the ones now growing on that gravely beach in Minahasa. Blongkot and his group are a real success story says Nola Femmy Rondonuwu, the head of the watershed management office in Minahasa. But Rondonuwu admits that other Indonesian communities still have a ways to go.

NOLA FEMMY RONDONUWU: [SPEAKING INDONESIAN]

TRANSLATOR: Some of them are not well educated and still don’t realize about the importance of protecting the area and the importance of rehabilitating the area. It’s a matter of human resource skill and the awareness of the people living around that area.

SHAPIRO: Some here say it’s also a matter of an even stronger government commitment. Their concerns include lax protection of the greenbelt and inadequate monitoring of replanted areas. But the government does seem quite serious about education. That’s one of the reasons so many school children came to the mangrove planting. There’s a national effort to teach students about the importance of conserving the environment, including mangroves. Public high school number 5 in the nearby city of Manado is part of that effort. Its classrooms encircle a sun-drenched courtyard where 16 year-old Yoann Ayuwa is just getting out of biology class. The conservation message is certainly grabbing her.

YOANN AYUWA: [SPEAKING INDONESIAN]

TRANSLATOR: We are going to start first from ourselves and then we go on to our families and then we go on to the community, the society, and the whole nation.

SHAPIRO: Are adults listening to you?

YOANN AYUWA: Uh yeah. [SPEAKING INDONESIAN]

TRANSLATOR: We have to be committed to keeping our environment and we have to convince them by doing that ourselves.

SHAPIRO: For The World I’m Ari Daniel Shapiro, Manado, Indonesia.

WERMAN: You can see some of Ari’s photos from Indonesia at The World dot org.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

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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. This is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH Boston. Bombings, suicide attacks, and gun battles are nearly everyday occurrences in much of Afghanistan. Kabul has been generally spared the most extreme violence. But today police say insurgents fired nine rockets into the Afghan capital. The missiles landed across the city including in the diplomatic district. It was the most significant Taliban attack against Kabul in months and it shows the Taliban’s increased strength ahead of the upcoming presidential election in Afghanistan. The World’s Aaron Schachter is in Kabul. Aaron these attacks today what kind of damage did they cause and did anybody die in these attacks?

AARON SCHACHTER: Well, they didn’t cause much damage and there weren’t deaths from what’s being reported. Apparently a young child was hurt in the attack. These are quite unsophisticated rockets. They’re probably Chinese made and basically they’re propped up against something and just fired at random. Kind of pointed at the city and fired. They have a crude device – crude but ingenious. They put the detonator in a can of water, poke a hole in the bottom of the water and run away and as the water leaks out the two electric charges touch each other and they fire off. They’re generally relatively safe but as you say they’re starting to fire them now on Kabul which is a densely populated city.

WERMAN: There was also, Aaron, a suicide attack in southern Afghanistan. What do you know about that?

SCHACHTER: Well it was apparently targeting a provincial governor down there. It was an attack on his convoy. Five people were killed and 18 were wounded. Those are the reports we have now. This has been happening all over the south, targeting government officials and candidates. Provincial elections are happening in two weeks as well as presidential elections and the Taliban has vowed to disrupt them all.

WERMAN: Now we’re about to hear a report from you about the readiness of the Afghan National Army. But with the presidential election as you say only weeks away what do all of these attacks say about the security situation in the country and particularly in the capital?

SCHACHTER: Well, certainly that it says that the security situation is precarious. People keep telling me that 34 provinces are out of the control of the government. I was at a meeting today between one of the candidates and some Pashtun tribal elders and he was saying look can you ensure that the ballot boxes will get to your constituents and that people will be able to vote? And they said yes we can. We have made deals with the Taliban. We talked to them and they will let us vote in this area. Now this was several provinces out of many provinces in the country. And the government and candidates are trying to make these deals all over but in some places they’re working and in some places they’re not.

WERMAN: So politically Aaron that’s how some leaders are preparing for the election. Militarily what’s the army doing?

SCHACHTER: Well, Marco, the military in conjunction with the independent election commission are holding rehearsals around the country to show people that they are in control and one of them took place today in Kandahar.

WERMAN: Okay Aaron let’s hear your story.

SCHACHTER: The rehearsal today was part of the effort by the government to demonstrate the Afghan National Army can protect voters during the upcoming elections. The Taliban has promised a flurry of attacks before and during the polling and there’s little room for error.

GARY: Good afternoon gentlemen if you will sit down. Okay. And for about the next hour and a half we will be talking about counter IED.

SCHACHTER: This is Gary. He won’t give his last name but he’s a former British serviceman, now a private contractor training Afghan soldiers. In this country identifying IEDs or improvised explosive devices is arguably one of the army’s most important jobs.

GARY: Okay there are four component parts – main parts. Power, the trigger or the switch, the initiator or detonator, and the main charge. We will talk through each of those in turn. Okay?

SCHACHTER: Gary shows the soldiers IEDs hidden in cigarette packs, Listerine bottles, and cell phones. The soldiers are mostly attentive under the baking sun but it’s hard to know whether it’s all sinking in. But Gary says in general the Afghan army is coming along.

GARY: There’s already people emerging in the groups that are coming through that you can see their interest. You can see they want to learn more. And they’re the guys that we need to bring on. But I think we can’t rush that process. We need to take our time.

SCHACHTER: But many here argue that a lot of time has already been wasted. It’s been almost eight years since the US and its coalition partners overthrew the Taliban with the goal of letting Afghans take charge of their country. But the army here still isn’t up to speed and about 70% of recruits leave after their three-year contract. That’s more than double the attrition rate of Western armies. Another problem is trust. In this IED training for example recruits are only shown so much. The trainers don’t want to give away exactly how much they know about IEDs for fear one of these guys might report it to the Taliban.

KEVIN STEWART: In my opinion right now the only reason that the Afghan army can’t stand on its own is because they don’t have a gross national product to pay for the logistics to do it.

SCHACHTER: Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Stewart is the incoming head of the Afghan army mentor program based in Kandahar.

STEWART: Tactic wise they’re very good. You know they know the terrain. They know how to use the terrain. They know their enemy. They know how to think like their enemy. They can shoot as well or better than their enemy. They can’t support themselves well. You know it’s just like any big unit. You know if you’re talking about a core you’re going to have five really good battalions, you’re going to have 10 fairly good battalions, and you’re going to have five weaker battalions. We have the same thing in the United States in our armies.

SCHACHTER: Even so Brigadier General Shir Mohammed Zazai is confident that the years of training have paid off. Zazai heads the Afghan army in the south.

SHIR MOHAMMED ZAZAI: [SPEAKING PASHTO]

SCHACHTER: Zazai says the Afghan army is ready for the elections fully capable of handling whatever comes its way from the Taliban or anyone else. He blames the foreign media for the Afghan army’s bad image. But Kabul University analyst Wadir Safi says he thinks the general doth protest too much.

WADIR SAFI: The most they say the least they can do. If my speaker of the defense ministry is talking since seven years, eight years, talking about Helmand and he cannot go even for 15 minutes to see Helmand, only the foreign troops are fighting there, how I can believe what my defense minister official or the police official says to me and nobody trust them.

SCHACHTER: Estimates for turnout on August 20^th are low. Some say it might not top 20% or 30% and a large part of that has to do with security fears. The Taliban have urged voters to boycott the election. Others though suggest that widespread dissatisfaction with both the current government of Hamid Karzai and in some areas with the Taliban may lead to a surprisingly high showing. For The World I’m Aaron Schachter in Kabul.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

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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: There was a reminder today that extremist groups are still enraged over the US-led military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. Police in Australia have arrested four men who were planning to carry out a suicide attack on a military base. The group is said to have been inspired by a Somali Islamist group with links to al-Qaeda. One of the suspects has been charged with terrorist-related offenses. All four are thought to be of Somali and Lebanese decent. David Tanner is an editor at The Australian in based in Sydney and that’s the newspaper that broke the story. And David who are the men who are now under arrest and what were they trying to do exactly?

DAVID TANNER: There are five men of Somalian-Lebanese decent in custody. Four of them were arrested in the raids that took place very early this morning Australian time. The fifth man was already in jail awaiting trial on an unrelated court case – an assault. They had allegedly hatched a plot to attack a very large army base in Sydney in a suicide attack. The plan was allegedly to take out as many soldiers at the base as they possibly could in the name of Jihad.

WERMAN: And how close were they to carrying out this attack?

TANNER: Well police have said today that they believe that the attack was likely imminent which is what prompted them to launch raids on 19 houses in Melbourne and I believe one in Sydney which led to the arrests very early this morning our time. They felt that, while on one hand they probably would have liked to have continued to gather evidence against the men that they’ve arrested, they felt that the likelihood of an attack probably outweighed the risks and they proceeded at about 4:30 this morning.

WERMAN: How do authorities know this attack was imminent?

TANNER: There’s been a lot of monitoring of telephone calls and SMSs over the past seven months according to police documents in court today. About three weeks ago police became particularly concerned when a Somali-Australian returned to the country from Somalia. They feared that while he was over there he had secretly obtained a fatwa from a Sheik or a cleric over in his homeland that had given this group religious blessing to carry out a terrorist attack in Australia. So that’s really what prompted them to push ahead with the raids they’ve gone through with today.

WERMAN: And David is there any sense what the likely motive would have been? I mean is it somehow linked to Australia’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

TANNER: It’s possible. The group has been linked to a terrorist group in Somalia called al-Shabaab and that group is linked to al-Qaeda and of course whenever you start talking about al-Qaeda anything targeting the countries that have been involved in Iraq and Afghanistan becomes a possible motive.

WERMAN: How significant and new is this for Australia and did Australians wake up today kind of shocked by this news?

TANNER: It was a complete surprise. We have had one series of terror raids several years ago when a large number of men were arrested and they went on trial last year. But we have never had a terrorist attack on Australian soil. The closest we’ve come was the attacks on Bali in 2002 and 2004 I think it was. There were 88 Australians killed in the first attack.

WERMAN: So do you think this is going to somehow reshape the country’s attitude toward immigrants from Arab countries?

TANNER: The government today has been very quick to point out that it would be wrong to start targeting Muslims or to target the Somali community – that these are allegedly extremists. So in that sense I don’t think it is. Australia is a very multicultural society. We have a lot of people from all sorts of countries living here and many, many Muslims so I don’t believe it’s going to have a huge effect in that sense.

WERMAN: Well David we’ll leave it there. David Tanner is an editor at The Australian based in Sydney. Thanks very much for your time David.

TANNER: You’re welcome.

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MARCO WERMAN: We turn now to the Middle East where the Palestinian Fatah movement is holding its first convention in two decades. Fatah is the party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. It rules the West Bank but lost control of the Gaza Strip to militant Islamic group Hamas two years ago. Fatah members kicked off their meeting today in Bethlehem. Linda Gradstein is in the West Bank town. She reports that the delegates from the president on down are trying to come up with ways to revive Fatah’s flagging fortunes.

LINDA GRADSTEIN: As long Fatah banners waved in the wind outside the conference center Mahmoud Abbas spoke emphatically for more than two hours. He showed more energy than he has in many months.

MAHMOUD ABBAS: [SPEAKING ARABIC]

LINDA GRADSTEIN: We’re in the right place today Abbas said to applause. We will never leave this land. Whatever anyone says we will stay here until we establish our Palestinian state. Abbas maintained that resistance to the Israeli occupation is legitimate under international law though he emphasized nonviolent resistance. And he said he will not restart peace talks with Israel without a complete settlement freeze in the West Bank. At the end of three-day conference delegates will vote on a new party platform and elect representatives to two important Fatah institutions – the 21-member central committee and the larger revolutionary council. Taysir Nasrallah is a delegate from the West Bank town of Nablus. He said these elections are for an opportunity for Fatah to revitalize itself after its humiliating electoral defeat to Hamas 2006. He said Fatah must include some of what is called the Young Guard. Of course everything is relative and these youngsters are in their mid-40s. But Nasrallah says their time has come.

TAYSIR NASRALLAH: [SPEAKING ARABIC]

TRANSLATOR: Okay of course we are in need for new blood – for Fatah to be on the highest level of its capacity. And we hope that this election will come up with a new leadership – competent leadership – so we can get rid from the status of weakness inside the movement itself.

GRADSTEIN: Nasrallah said Fatah needs to get rid of some of the old corrupt leaders who damaged Fatah’s standing among the people. He said he was pleased that Abbas mentioned mistakes Fatah had made and hoped there would be real changes. Abbas himself is not up for election. Another delegate Mahmoud Al-Assadi made the trip to Bethlehem from Lebanon where he is the consul general for Palestinian affairs. The 49-year-old Palestinian was born in Lebanon and has never been to the West Bank before. He said that Abbas, who he called by his nickname Abu Mazen, has been too conciliatory Israel.

MAHMOUD AL-ASSADI: [SPEAKING ARABIC]

TRANSLATOR: I hope that this conference will lead into unanimous unity among the members of Fatah because without the Fatah unity we cannot bring back the Palestinian people together. So we want Fatah to be united and this will lead to unification of the Palestinian people.

GRADSTEIN: Israeli officials paid close attention to Abbas’ speech but kept their comments fairly neutral. When asked about Abbas’ use of the term resistance government spokesman Mark Regev said that Israel seeks a historic reconciliation with its Palestinian neighbors through negotiations. Hamas officials were less diplomatic. Hamas refused to allow more than 300 Fatah delegates to leave Gaza to participate in the conference. The move underlined the bitter split between Hamas which controls Gaza and Fatah which reins in the West Bank. Hamas spokesman Ayman Taha told the Reuters news agency that Abbas’ speech reflected, “a sick mentality representing a narrow factional vision.” Palestinian elections are scheduled for next January. But Fatah officials say they have to find a way to work out their differences with Hamas before they can hold the elections and restart negotiations with Israel. For The World I’m Linda Gradstein in Bethlehem.

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.