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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.

LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is the world. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with the president of Somalia’s transitional government today. The two met in Nairobi, Kenya, that’s the first stop on Clinton’s 11-day tour of Africa. The secretary pledged to expand and extend support for Somalia’s shaky government. And she issued a warning to Eritrea to stop supporting militants in Somalia. The World’s Katy Clark reports.

KATY CLARK: Secretary Clinton said today that Washington plans boost military supplies and other aid to the Interim Somali government, as well as to an African peace-keeping force supporting it. She left little room for doubt as to why America wants to deepen its commitment to a country that hasn’t had an effective government since 1991. Speaking to reporters following a meeting with Somalia’s new president, Clinton mentioned al-shabab, the Islamist extremist group threatens to over-throw the government in Mogadishu.

HILARY CLINTON: If al-shabab were to obtain a haven in Somalia, which could then attract al Qaeda and other terrorist actors, it would be a threat to United States.

KATY CLARK: Still, Clinton didn’t say anything about the Obama administration committing US troops to stabilizing Somalia.

HILARY CLINTON: We want to be supportive, but again this is an African-led mission, and we want to applaud that, and we want to support the African intervention into Somalia.

KATY CLARK: An al-shabab spokesman has said that any US assistance to the Interim Somali government would lead to a repeat of the 1993 Black Hawk Down incident. That’s when 18 US soldiers were killed in a battle in the streets of Mogadishu. Clinton didn’t elaborate on what this new US assistance will entail. The United States has already sent 40-tons of weapons and ammunition to Somalia in recent years. There’s speculation the administration may double that supply. Salime Lone is a former UN spokesman. He’s now a newspaper columnist in his native Kenya. Lone says, what Somalia needs more than weapons is a political solution to its problems.

SALIME LONE: You must find a way to bring large sections of Somali people together. And I do believe they’re ready for it. They have been suffering, they’re ready for it. Include part of al shabab in new administration, we must find a different track.

KATY CLARK: Others wonder whether the Obama administration is betting on a losing horse by trying to prop up the interim leadership in Somalia.

AHMED SAMATAR: I think the question is really what’s the alternative? There is no alternative.

KATY CLARK: Ahmed Samatar is dean of the Institute for Global Citizenship, at McAlester College.

AHMED SAMATAR: On one side are the militant Islamists, who are hell bent on trying to conquer the country violence means. On other side is this weak, corrupt government that really have very little legitimacy even inside the county. So what does one do then? There’s really very little choice, so the US government then is trying to perhaps bank on this government, this transitional government. Which barely controls three or four streets in Mogadishu. So it’s a question, really, of choice, Hobson’s choice almost.

KATY CLARK: But Somalia’s foreign minister used a different term today. Muhammad Abdullahi Omar says American support for his fragile government is a golden situation for his country to start a new chapter.

MUHAMMAD ABDULLAHI OMAR: The golden situation now is that the major global power in the world is today engaged, seriously engaged, in helping the government of Somalia to establish stability and peace in the country, and to achieve that is very substantial.

KATY CLARK: But what the current Somali government does with this opportunity is anybody’s guess. Still, Hillary Clinton called this government the best hope we’ve had for some time.   For The World, this is Katy Clark.

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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.

LISA MULLINS: As we heard in Katy Clark’s report, the United States is worried about Somalia becoming the next breeding ground for violent extremists. President Obama’s Assistant for Homeland Security and Counter-terrorism gave a talk in Washington today. John Brennan spoke about the administration’s strategy. Sarah Mendelson was at that talk. She is the director of the human rights and security initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. This talk by John Brennan was billed as a chance for the Obama team to really lay out its counter terrorism strategy. What was the takeaway message that you came away with?

SARAH MENDELSON: Well, I’d say that there were bits of it that were new, old and unknown. On the new part, essentially the Obama Administration is declaring that there’s not a global war on terror, that there’s a specific battle with terrorists in various places. Um, what is old or in some ways what we saw in the Bush Administration is a focus, at least at the rhetorical level, on the condition that can lead to someone to join a terrorist organization. The socio-economic deprivation. That is something that we heard a lot of from David Colcullen [PH], who was a state department official in the Bush Administration. And I think it’s interesting that it was a central part of John Brennan’s speech today.

LISA MULLINS: Well let’s get to that then first, how one prevents terrorism? How one specifically prevents individuals from gravitating toward extremist groups? Is there a new plan under the Obama Administration?

SARAH MENDELSON: I didn’t hear too much about details, what I heard was a focus on the fact that terrorist organizations often times can provide governments structures, deliver services to people in environments where the government itself is not doing that.

LISA MULLINS: Specifically places like Somalia?

SARAH MENDELSON: Well, like Somalia. I mean, he mentioned [INDISCERNIBLE]. I can think of parts of the north Caucuses in Russia where we know that this has occurred. So, what the specific policy is that the Obama Administration is gonna under take to address that is not clear to me. I mean, he talked about integrating every element of US power, including foreign assistance. At the moment we have no idea who the head of US Aid is gonna be.

LISA MULLINS: US Aid, which is what?

SARAH MENDELSON: Which is the instrument of the US government that delivers foreign assistance.

LISA MULLINS: Okay, so Brennan talks about the political economic social factors that put individuals on the path to violence, but he’s not saying how the Obama Administration would differ from the Bush Administration on cutting that path short.

SARAH MENDELSON: Well, I mean, I would say that he was making an argument that combined both, although I think the White House doesn’t like to speak this way, but combines both hard power and soft power, that there’s a military element to this. But there are also very specific political economic, and social dynamics that need to be addressed. Again, the details of how exactly they’re gonna do that, I didn’t really hear today.

LISA MULLINS: Okay, so how about on the other end then, as you say, the use of military force potentially. One of the things I know that Brennan said today, this counter terrorism advisor to the president, said that the US needs to replace the so-called war on terror with a new strategy, because, he said, terrorism is a tactic, a means to an end, and you cannot have a war against a tactic. It sounds in a way as if it’s just semantics. Do you hear more than that in it?

SARAH MENDELSON: I think it’s more, it is more than semantics. He’s quoting Dr. Braginski, who is former national security advisor to President Carter. What they’re really doing is they’re putting terrorism, or the struggle that we have with terrorists, in a larger context. It’s not the only challenge before obviously the Obama administration, and US foreign policy. In some ways, I think critics are gonna read this as a downgrading of terrorism. And I think people who’ve been long concerned that the Bush Administration focused on terrorism to the detriment of other issues, will be greatly relieved.

LISA MULLINS: So is the Obama Administration taking the US in a new direction, in terms of countering terrorism or not?

SARAH MENDELSON: I think that Mr. Brennan put some architecture around what has already been, a house that’s been built in some ways. I think we’ve been going down this path for quite a while, you don’t hear Obama Administration officials talk about a global war. They haven’t talked about it that way for a long time. But there’s still pieces that are left to be put in place. I mean, if foreign assistance, for example, is gonna play a role, if democracy assistance is gonna play a role, we need to know more about how it’s gonna play a role, who’s gonna be leading it, and what role precisely it plays in the arsenal that the Obama Administration is using to counter terrorist threats.

LISA MULLINS: Alright. Sarah Mendelson is with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, speaking to us about the Obama Administration’s strategies on countering terrorism. Nice to speak with you, thank you.

SARAH MENDELSON: Thank you.

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INTERVIEWER: We’ve got an update now for you on another story stemming from the U.S. Counter Terrorism strategy. You might remember the Chinese Muslim wiegers who were released from the Guantanamo military prison in Cuba earlier this summer. The Pentagon freed them after they determined the men posed no threat but they wouldn’t go back to China for fear of persecution so instead four of the wiegers moved to another island farther north than Cuba. They went to Bermuda and they’ve taken up a new line of work. Brian Darby is a correspondent for Bermuda Radio. What are these former captives of Guantanamo doing now in Bermuda?

BRIAN DARBY: Well they’ve been given the chance to I think recover from their experience. Bermuda’s weather has been particularly good this summer so they’ve had a nice time. Lovely photographs of them swimming and fishing and watching cricket. Now to get down to some work they’ve been given a temporary job each working on a beautiful golf course in Bermuda called the Port Royal. It’s just undergone a 14 million dollar face lift so they’re coming in right at the top of it when it’s really being polished up because we have something called the PGA Grand Slam of golf every year played in Bermuda. This year it’s going to be played at the Port Royal for the first time.

INTERVIEWER: Pretty nice work if you can get it. What landed them that job?

DARBY: Well it’s a little embarrassing. They shouldn’t have really been given the job because they haven’t gone through the normal Bermuda work permit procedures. This is a rather nice gesture that’s been made and it happened because a group of Philippine workers who were working on the golf course decided to end their contracts prematurely and go back to the Philippines. As a result, there was an opening that appeared very quickly. Some bright spark in government decided this was a good spot to put the wiegers and give them a chance to do some work and I guess pay for their own stay.

INTERVIEWER: Help pay for their stay. How long are they going to be there?

DARBY: It’s going to be indefinite if the British government allow it. The British government are of course very upset that they’re here in the first place so there is a bit of a cloud over them at the moment. They don’t have passport. While we’re all being very nice to them, the decision has to be made by the end of September. The government in England has said it will make a decision on what to do about the wiegers.

INTERVIEWER: Just to be clear on this, the reason the British are upset themselves is because Bermuda is a British territory. Why would Bermuda go against what the British government wants and why would it support something so controversial that the United States wants and that is to take in these men?

DARBY: We have a very aggressive and determined premier, Premier Dr. Ewart Brown. During a meeting with Mr. Obama in Washington recently he made the offer of taking four wiegers. He could have had 28 but he took four without asking the permission from Britain. What could have been a wonderful act of humanitarianism which Bermudians would have supported and in fact do still support turned out to be a diplomatic firestorm.

INTERVIEWER: Why did he do it?

DARBY: He confesses now he thought he was doing something rather wonderful for both the wiegers and for our relationships between Bermuda and America. He thought this would kind of put Bermuda on a pedestal. There are difficult times ahead with things like tax haven legislation going through American congress and he probably wanted to get a good word in for Bermuda.

INTERVIEWER: For these four men who now have a job prepping the fairways for the PGA Grand Slam this coming fall, what’s their life like?

DARBY: They have a cottage they live in. They have a lot of friendly Bermudians who are kind of working with them side by side. They also have a lot of Portuguese and overseas workers on the golf course. It’s 6,500 yards long and it’s on the coast with beaches everywhere. It’s really probably one of the most spectacular golf courses in the world. They must be loving it.

INTERVIEWER: Brian Darby thank you very much. Brian Darby correspondent for Bermuda Radio. Thanks again.

DARBY: My 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.

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World. In France, Socialist Party leaders are preparing to go on their annual summer retreat later this month, but this year’s strategizing may be overshadowed by infighting.  The quarreling is so bad that some high-ranking members are saying it may be time to do away with the leftist party once and for all. The World’s Gerry Hadden reports from Paris.

GERRY HADDEN: Remember the movie, The Sixth Sense?  The main character, played by Bruce Willis, goes around helping ghosts only to discover that he himself is dead.  That’s a bit how one of France’s most famous leftist icons recently described his own socialist party. Commentator for all seasons, Bernard-Henri Levy, told French media that the French left is dead, but unwilling to recognize it.

[SOUND CLIP]

GERRY HADDEN: He said, as an alternative to President Nicolas Sarkozy, in terms of retaking power, the Socialist Party has become a non-actor. He went on to say that instead of providing hope, the party provokes anger and exasperation. A major reason is a furious power struggle among its top brass. The party has more than half a dozen factions. Their differences are ideological and personal.

[SOUND CLIP]

GERRY HADDEN: That’s Manuel Valls, the socialist mayor of a city of Evry, outside Paris.  He’s been lambasting party’s bosses of late, for their inability to turn this ship around. Valls, a relatively young politician, is calling for the party to drop the word ‘socialist’ from its name, purge the old guard, and start anew.  His comments earned him a telephone text message from Party president, Martine Aubrey.  “If you really think the party’s doomed,” she wrote, “then you should leave it.” Instead, Valls appeared on the cover of a major French magazine to protest against his scolding. In the photo he has black tape over his mouth.   Then he announced that he’ll run for president of the republic in 2012. So much for quelling internal dissent.  To put an end to this destructive feuding, one French leftie proposes changing the way Socialist leaders are chosen.  Olivier Ferrant wants to see an American style primary, a more open process in which candidates campaign publicly for the nomination.  Ferrant says without such reform the party will remain, as he calls it, a headless chicken.

OLIVIER FERRANT: We need an Obama.  We don’ know where she or he hides, so we need test the maximum number of personalities within our party.  When you refuse to have a legal leader that will emerge from a procedure like a primary, you end up waiting for a natural leader, for a messiah that will come out of the blue.

GERRY HADDEN: One of the few points the squabbling Socialists agree on is that the party has reached a low point in its 100 year history. The spiral really took off after a trouncing in the 2007 presidential elections, when French voters overwhelmingly went for center-right politician Nicolas Sarkozy.  Since then the Socialists have failed to bounce back. Veteran party leader Laurent Fabius recently offered this explanation as to why.

LAURENT FABIUS: [TRANSLATED TO ENGLISH] On a local level, people strongly support the Socialist Party.  Because we respond to their needs, provide service.  And we’re efficient and modern.  But when we look at politics on the national level, there’s a lot about us to criticize.  We need to rediscover the same self-confidence on the national stage.

GERRY HADDEN: And update the party’s platform, analysts say.  When the Iron Curtain fell, most socialist parties in Europe moved to the center to survive, reinventing themselves as social democrats.  But the French left entrenched.  Current Socialist leader Martine Aubrey is the architect of France’s 35-hour workweek.  Her faction staunchly defends other worker gains, including comparatively early retirement and laws making it difficult for bosses to fire people. But in a time of crisis slogans like ‘work less, retire early’ have not rallied citizens to the socialists’ side.

[SOUND CLIP]

GERRY HADDEN: On the larger stage they haven’t faired any better. During ceremonies to welcome the European Union’s newly elected Parliament last month, the Socialists were not to celebrating.  They won only 16 percent of the vote, as citizens continued to look to the right for answers to the global economic crisis. For The World I’m Gerry Hadden in Paris.

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.

Listen to chef Jacques Pepin tell how Julia Child sliced her finger and created a media frenzy–and a spoof on Saturday Night Live.

Julia Child presents a variety of chickens on “The French chef.”
Julia Child’s The French Chef talks about the varieties of chickens

www.julieandjulia.com

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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.

LISA MULLINS: Another French institution is in no danger of fading away, although this one’s not technically French. We’re talking about the late Julia Child. Her classic “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” introduced French cuisine to Americans back in the 1960s. There’s a new film coming out called “Julie and Julia.” It’s directed by Nora Ephron. The film tells the story of blogger Julie Powell who cooked her way through Julia Child’s cookbook in 2002. But it also chronicles Child’s first years in France, where she discovered the art of cuisine, and in the process, herself. The World’s Adeline Sire has more.

ADELINE SIRE: On November third, 1948, her first day in France, Julia Child took a fateful step. She and her husband had lunch at the restaurant La Couronne in Rouen, Normandy. The lunch included a Sole Meuniere, a Dover sole sautéed in butter. It was apparently a life altering moment. Here’s what Julia Child later said about it in the book “My Life in France.” “It was an epiphany. In all the years since that succulent meal, I have yet to lose the feelings of wonder and excitement that it inspired in me. I can still almost taste it.”  She called it the most exciting meal of her life. The new film, Julie and Julia, shows that meal and other transformative moments in Julia Child’s life in France, as she studied and mastered French cuisine. French-born chef, Jacques Pepin co-hosted the PBS cooking show Julia and Jacques cooking at home. The two were close friends. He says he enjoyed the film Julie and Julia, especially the sole meuniere scene.

JACQUES PEPIN: When she stopped in Rouen to eat their first sole meuniere that she discussed very often with us, the shot of the food there was incredible, it was really good.

ADELINE SIRE: It’s during another meal that Julia Child began to close-in on her passion. In this scene, Julia, played by Meryl Streep, and her husband Paul, played by Stanley Tucci, are dining

at a restaurant. The restless Julia wonders what she will do with herself in France while her husband is working at the American Embassy.

[SOUND CLIP]

ADELINE SIRE: [INDISCERNIBLE] as Meryl Streep is a very believable Julia Child, even though she’s about eight inches shorter than the American chef. And the high-pitched voice is right on. But Pepin says he wishes Julie and Julia had spent less time on the blogger Julie Powell, and more time showing Julia Child cooking in her kitchen. He says the scenes showing the trials of Child, as the only female student at the Cordon Bleu school in Paris, really brought back memories for him.

JACQUES PEPIN: Julia always joked that we wanted to apprenticeship at the same. I mean, I was in an apprenticeship in 1949 when she came to Paris. So of course I was 13 years old. However, the style of cuisine that she’s talking and the reaction, and the way the chef act, and all that, I was pretty familiar with that because this is the way it was when I was a kid. There was discipline, there was certainly a scale of where you belong in the kitchen, you know?

ADELINE SIRE: Where French cooking was concerned, Julia Child wanted Americans to feel that they belonged in the kitchen. And she insisted that even if French cuisine could be intimidating, it was not rocket science. Take a recipe for the sole meuniere.

JACQUES PEPIN: Salt, pepper, dip it in flower, and in a skillet with butter, depending on the size of the sole, three, four minutes on each side. And with a little of lemon juice at the end. That’s it.

ADELINE SIRE: The film Julie and Julia is for foodies and non-foodies alike. It opens tomorrow nationwide and it’ll definitely make you hungry for buttery French cooking. For The World, this is Adeline Sire.

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.

LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins, and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH in Boston. Now that the two reporters held for months in North Korea are back home in the United States, some human rights groups in South Korea are speaking up. They’re concerned that Euna Lee and Laura Ling May have jeopardized their efforts to help North Korean refugees. In Seoul, South Korea, Jason Strother spoke with some of the human rights groups.

[SOUND CLIP]

JASON STROTHER: They call their group the catacombs, a reference to early Christians who gathered in the underground graveyards of ancient Rome to avoid persecution. The modern version is a weekly meeting of Christian missionaries and secular aid workers who travel back and forth to China’s border with North Korea. Many try to prevent the trafficking of female defectors.  That was the story that Lee and Ling were working on in March when they were captured by North Korean border guards. The activists hear that the two journalists had notebooks, video footage and phone numbers of North Korean refugees and aid workers they met in along the way. And these were taken by the North Korean security forces. Tim Pieters runs Catacombs and overseas missions in northeast China.

TIM PIETERS: For them to be carrying such potentially incriminating evidence with them, is somewhat representative of cases that we’ve seen in the past, that journalists come into that area not fully prepared for the depths that they may have to deal with.  And that’s why myself and our organization tends to be extremely cautious about lending assistance in cases where people are not deeply familiar with the terrain , their not familiar with possible consequences if things go south in their investigations.

JASON STROTHER: Pieters says often journalists who come in for a few days, looking for a good scoop, try to use missionaries as fixers. And some reporters might not fully realize the risk they are putting refugees in.

TIM PIETERS: So for journalists to kind of parachute into that area and think that the North Korean refugees are going to be eager to talk, is really a bit naive, and its also assuming that they’re going to risk putting themselves on record in case, the record, whether its video, or whether its notes, or whatever, are ever to be confiscated.

JASON STROTHER: Pieters says its hard to know right now if the information that Pyongyang found in Lee and Ling’s possession has been put to any use. What is clear about reporting in China on North Korean refugees, is that journalists, activists and defectors can never be too sure who to trust. Peter Jung is a South Korean missionary who spent time inside a Chinese prison for helping North Koreans along the so-called Underground Railroad that runs through China to Southeast Asia.  Jung says at the time, one out of five North Koreans in China was in fact an informer. And Jung, and many others believe, Lee and Ling got snared by one of those.

[SOUND CLIP]

JASON STROTHER: Jung thinks that the journalists were deceived by a Chinese of Korean dissent. He appeared to be working with a missionary group in northern China.  Jung says, he’s heard the man had some sort of connection with the North Korean government, and he either alerted border guards about the Americans, or deliberately took them into North Korean territory. Tim Pieters says aid groups are now walking a fine line.  On the one hand they need journalists to publicize the humanitarian crisis occurring in China. On the other, Ling and Lee’s detention is forcing them to make changes.

TIM PIETERS: It has raised so many flags in that region, without getting into specifics, it just simply means that security measures have to be redoubled. This has become such a sensitive issue, that it complicates matters immensely for protecting the refugees. Its even more necessary to take things more underground and more precautions have to be taken.

JASON STROTHER: In recent months, activists say North Korea has cracked down on Christians and defectors, one women was shot for distributing Bibles, others have been sentenced to long prison terms. For the World, I’m Jason Strother, in Seoul, South Korea.

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.

NICHOLAS KRISTOF: For many years now, based on five visits to North Korea, and its border areas, I’ve advocated an engagement approach toward North Korea. These days I reluctantly concluded that engagement is probably not gonna get us very far at the moment, and that we need some cover sticks.

LISA MULLINS: That’s reporter, Nicholas Kristof, who is paraphrasing his opinion column in today’s New York Times. He’s on the line with us now from Oregon. You’re thinking has evolved on North Korea, tell us why.

NICHOLAS KRISTOF: I think a couple of things have changed. First of all, North Korea is very inwardly focused at the moment. It’s looking at a transition from Kim Jong Il to his son. It seems less interested in being engaged, frankly. It’s retreating from its economic reforms, it doesn’t wanna see the US special envoy for the Koreas. And the other thing that has really changed is proliferation. There are a lot of really nasty countries around the world, and some of them play with nuclear weapons. But, so far the idea of transferring nuclear weapons, or nuclear technology to another State, really has been a red line. And this is something that North Korea has breached. We now know that North Korea actually supplied a nuclear reactor to Seria, and very recently there’ve been a lot of concerns that it may be doing the same thing to Burma.

LISA MULLINS: How secure is the information, the design for a nuclear plant has been sold by North Korea to Myanmar, Burma.

NICHOLAS KRISTOF: It may be completely false. And certainly a rock has taught us to be wary. On the other hand, we were all completely surprised, including the intelligence community, when it turned out that North Korea had built a reactor, just like this, in Syria. If North Korea is willing to sell nuclear supplies, a nuclear reactor to Burma, then it may well be willing to do that to the highest bidder. It may also be willing to sell Sierra nerve gas, or anthrax.

LISA MULLINS: So are you suggesting military action?

NICHOLAS KRISTOF: No. That’s, A, impossible. There is no military solution here whatsoever.

LISA MULLINS: [OVERLAPPING] Wait, before you go on. Why is that?

NICHOLAS KRISTOF: Well, North Korea has a huge military and–

LISA MULLINS: [OVERLAPPING] The Million Man Army.

NICHOLAS KRISTOF: Exactly. And Sole is within range of its rockets. If we were to try anything military, Sole would be destroyed. We just don’t have military options. We don’t have good options at all, frankly. It’s, I think simply an effort to contain over time, and above all, prevent proliferation in the mean time.

LISA MULLINS: Okay. So just in closing here. When you’re talking about sticks, specifically what are they? And would they replace the kind of diplomacy that Barack Obama seems to be looking for?

NICHOLAS KRISTOF: I don’t think that they would replace diplomacy. I just don’t think that outreach is gonna get us anywhere, and I don’t think we should dilute ourselves, but it’s perfectly fine to try that. On the stick side, I think, one aspect of that is financial sanctions, which were used for a time in the Bush Administration, and were extremely effective. We need to work with China, which is increasingly fed up with North Korea. But I think we also really need to be more aggressive about shipping from North Korea to Burma, and Iran, in particular. And it seems to me that if we have the intelligence, we may need to go beyond the UN sanctions, and indeed, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but actually board ships, if that is the price to prevent a war head, for example, being sold to Iran.

LISA MULLINS: When you said you can’t believe you’re saying this, why is that such a dyer option for you?

NICHOLAS KRISTOF: Well look, I’m a dove. I’ve always preached engagement, on the other hand, the prospect of a weapon being sold to Iran, for example, I think is deeply chilling.

LISA MULLINS: Nic Kristof, we’re gonna make a link to your full opinion column that appears in today’s New York Times on our website, the-world-dot-o-r-g. Thank you very much Nic.

NICHOLAS KRISTOF: My pleasure.

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LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins, and this is The World. Ronald Biggs is nearly as famous an outlaw in Britain as Robin Hood is, not for stealing from the rich to give to the poor, but for The Great Train Robbery in 1963. Biggs and 15 others took over a mail train, they made off with two million pounds, that 50-million dollars in today’s money. A lot of the cash was never recovered. The driver of the train was hit on the head during the robbery, he never recovered from his injuries. Ronnie Biggs’ claim to fame was that he escaped prison and managed to evade capture for years. To avoid extradition, he lived in Brazil, in Rio de Janeiro, where he gave interviews to the British news media and regaled tourists with stories about the robbery. Eight years ago, Biggs returned voluntarily to Britain. He was immediately issued with an arrest warrant by British police.

BRITISH POLICE: Ronald Arthur Biggs, I am now going to formally arrest you on the authority of that warrant.

LISA MULLINS: Today,  just before his 80th birthday and ailing from pneumonia, he’s being released. His son Michael Biggs says he’s delighted.

MICHAEL BIGGS: Finally common sense has prevailed. It’s, you know, my father has done his time.  He’s absolutely no threat to society whatsoever.  So, all I can say is we are extremely happy at the moment.  I’m just very hopeful that my father can have another few months ahead of him in his life, so he can have a little bit of quality time with the family and die with some dignity.

LISA MULLINS: Mike Gray, one of his biographers, saw Ronnie Biggs just a few days ago.

MIKE GRAY: Ronnie just looked as though he was in a coma.  He was staring non-stop and you gradually caught a blink of his eye.  Apart from that, there was no movement whatsoever.

LISA MULLINS: Another biographer, Tel Currie, said that he was pleased but thinks Biggs should have been released sooner.

TEL CURRIE: My upset on this is that they’ve let him out to die, which they’d done with Reggie Kray. And then they’re letting him out just to look compassionate, and make themselves look like, you know, we’re a compassionate government to free him, but they’re not.  They know that he’s not got long left.

LISA MULLINS: During his years living beyond the reach of the law, Biggs became a minor celebrity. He even recorded a song with punk rockers The Sex Pistols.

[SOUND CLIP]

LISA MULLINS: Ronnie Biggs singing with the Sex Pistols, Biggs was ordered released from prison today.

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.