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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.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ended her Africa trip today, after a final stop in Cape Verde.  It was a long voyage:  7 countries in 11 days.  And all along, Secretary Clinton urged African leaders to embrace good governance, battle corruption and support democracy.  She also spoke out against atrocities, and in support of governments battling terrorism.  The trip was not especially groundbreaking in terms of policy.  But it did earn Secretary Clinton good reviews, as we hear from The World’s Jeb Sharp.

JEB SHARP:  Many Africa analysts were impressed by the ambitious itinerary and Hillary Clinton’s tough love, no-nonsense approach.  Robert Rotberg teaches at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.  He says no Secretary of State has ever spent 11 days focusing on Africa.

ROBERT ROTBERG:  That’s remarkable in and of itself, simply the time.  She’s covered enormous ground, she’s put the US front and center in almost all the conflict areas and she has put the continent on notice that the United States is watching and will help Africans help themselves.   This is an extension of Obama’s inaugural address when the President said that “if countries would unclench their fist, we would join them.”

SHARP:  Rotberg sees a substantial change in emphasis.  So does Akwe Amosu, Africa advocacy director at the Open Society Institute in Washington.

AKWE AMOSU:  This is not going to be an administration that pursues business as usual in Africa.  There’s a willingness to get into the weeds and really engage with actual real-life problems.  We’re not just seeing the usual pro forma reference to corruption.  Nobody could accuse Secretary Clinton of having, you know, tried to avoid the hard issues on this trip.  And from my point of view, that’s extremely welcome.

SHARP:  Amosu says the trip was mostly about delivering a message, not about delivering aid.  Although she points out there was some of that too, including a $17-million dollar program to help victims of sexual violence in eastern Congo.

AMOSU:  That issue is an absolute atrocity and an outrage, and it’s very, very good to see it getting some serious attention.  And while the really important thing is to stop the rape, not just look after the victims, I think she did something important there and sent an important signal.

SHARP:  But there was something missing from the trip,  Amosu concludes.  She’s not alone in wishing she’d heard a bit more self-criticism from US officials, including Secretary Clinton – and even President Obama before her.

AMOSU:  It’s widely believed, even among the strongest civil society actors in Africa, that the US and the West have been directly responsible for some of the problems that Africa faces.  And what we’re not hearing is a message from US officials saying, “We know we’re a part of the problem and we’re going to change the way we do business in the future.”

SHARP:  What Amosu’s referring to is a decades-long pattern of dealing with Africa in the context of larger US priorities.  James Mittelman of American University says that pattern is continuing even today.

JAMES MITTELMAN:  The priorities have been to fight an enemy of the United States.  During the Cold War, of course it was the Soviet Union.  Today, it’s defined as terrorism.  There has been an emphasis on stopping radical movements — previously, the liberation movements; today, Al Qaeda.  And there has been a priority given to sharing in Africa’s bounty.

SHARP:  One contentious aspect of US policy in Africa is whether it’s too focused on military aid and counter-terrorism.  Abdi Samatar, of the University of Minnesota, says a good example is American military support for the transitional government in Somalia.

ABDI SAMATAR:  A country that doesn’t need any more guns but needs pressure both from opposition and on the government to reconcile with one another.  So what you begin to see are patterns that are sort of continuing the policies of the past.

SHARP:  The real question, Africa analysts say, is whether the Obama administration will make a break with that past, and just how close it can come to having its policy match its rhetoric.  For The World, I’m Jeb Sharp.

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 no break from the past last week when Secretary of State Clinton met Somali’s president in Kenya.  Clinton praised President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed’s transitional government in its fight against Al Shabaab.  That’s a Somali militant group with suspected ties to Al Qaeda.  Robert Patterson is a US Counselor for Somali Affairs based in Kenya.  He says American support for Somalia’s fragile government remains strong.

ROBERT PATTERSON:  The Secretary, in her meeting with the president, just reaffirmed our support for the transitional federal government of Somalia.  Made no specific pledges but said that we had provided support in the past, and she reviewed the kind of aid that we had provided, and promised that we would remain engaged with the government of Somalia in the future.

WERMAN:   What kind of support does the US government currently offer Somalia?

PATTERSON:  We’ve provided arms and ammunition to the Somali government.  We worked very carefully with them to try to help them stand up against Al Shabaab in Mogadishu and elsewhere in Somalia.  We are trying to help solicit aid from other interested countries in the region and beyond.

WERMAN:  You know, there is almost daily violence between different factions inside Somalia.  Can you quantify how great the threat of terrorism is globally from what’s happening inside Somalia from that violence?

PATTERSON:  Yeah.   There is a lot of violence in Somalia, and as you know there has been since 1991 when the government of Sheik Fari collapsed.  We are focused at this point on the violence in Somalia, attempting to help the TFG, the Transitional Federal Government, contain, oppose, and establish its writ in Somalia.  In the past, there have been attacks outside of  south central Somalia itself, in Puntland and in Somalia land, on October 29^th last year, there were suicide bombings.  So clearly there is a potential for this to become a regional problem.

WERMAN:  How can propping up Sheikh Sharif Ahmed’s fragile government actually help Somalia, Mr. Patterson?  I mean, doesn’t any intervention into Somalia at this point need to be more profound?

PATTERSON:  We believe that this transitional federal government has the greatest potential for success in Somalia.  You’re right, it’s a fragile government at this point.  That’s why we and others are engaged in trying to help establish its writ in Somalia.  We think that Sheikh Sharif, President Sharif, brings to the transitional federal government and to Somalia a degree of legitimacy.  We think that he’s been working very assiduously to reach out to others who, like him, are interested in a peaceful, reunited, stabilized Somalia.  We find him to be a genuine interlocketer.  We think that his government, although it’s being pressed by groups like Al Shabaab and [INDISCERNIBLE] at this point still have potential for success.  There’s a long way to go.  We don’t have illusions about that, and I don’t think the government of President Sharif has illusions about that, either, but progress is slowly but surely being made.

WERMAN:  Mr. Patterson, doesn’t the US feel that Somalia is now or potentially could be the same kind of safe haven for a growth of terrorism as Afghanistan has been?  In that case, why isn’t there the same focus on Somalia as Afghanistan, whether it’s called Taliban or Al Qaeda or Al Shabaab?

PATTERSON:  Obviously, the US is worried about the potential for this, and we’ve watched this very carefully. One of the reasons we see for engaging establishing a stabile Somali government is that we believe a government in place, providing stability, peace, reconciliation, the same things for most Somalis that governments provide elsewhere – places where Somalis can raise their children, send them to school and do these kinds of things – is actually the best ultimate remedy against terrorism.

WERMAN:  Finally, do you think – do you foresee a time in the next couple of years where a US Secretary of State could actually hold a meeting in Somalia?

PATTERSON:  I hope so.  It’s – as I said, this is a long road and it’s too early to predict that at this point.  But certainly we would hope that that would take place someday.  I wouldn’t want to be contradicting when that might occur, but that’s what we’re working toward.  We hope that this government will be at some point in Mogadishu and able to receive visitors.

WERMAN:  Robert Patterson is Counselor for Somali Affairs.  He’s been speaking with us from the US Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya.  Thank you so much for your time, sir.

PATTERSON:  Thank you.

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

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

MARCO WERMAN: Mrs. Clinton ended her Africa trip today in the Atlantic Ocean archipelago of Cape Verde – an independent nation since 1975.  The singer Cesaria Evora may be the only association some Americans have with Cape Verde.  And if you’ve been to Africa, you might know Cape Verde as a refueling stop.  Now, it would be hard for me to get to Cape Verde and back in a day.  But I can come here – this is the Dorchester section of Boston, where there are many Cape Verdeans living.  In fact, there are many Cape Verdeans all over New England, about half a million or so, which is almost the same number as live in Cape Verde itself.  So here we are at Restaurante Cesaria in Dorchester, and I’m meeting Jose Barros, who is currently a community organizer; is that correct?

JOSE BARROS:  Yes.

WERMAN:  Jose, you used to work for the Cape Verdean Consulate.  To your recollection, who is the last highest-ranking US official to visit Cape Verde?

BARROS:  I cannot recall.

WERMAN:  So this is a pretty important visit, for Secretary of State visiting Cape Verde and meeting with the Prime minister?

BARROS:  Yes, I think it’s huge for the country, especially for people to know that we are there – those 10 islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean – and we are part of Africa.

WERMAN:  Do you feel African? I mean, there’s been such a history of Portuguese dominance in Cape Verde and the proximity to Europe –

BARROS:  Uh-huh.

WERMAN:  One might think that you feel more European.  But do you feel a part of Africa?

BARROS:  Yeah.  We are part of Africa.  There is no way to deny it.  We are so close to it.  We can also not deny what we got from European countries, but the main root, it’s Africa.

WERMAN:  On some of Hillary Clinton’s other stops in Africa, the countries are doing so-so to, quite frankly, miserable.  Yet Cape Verde is being offered by US officials as a kind of model for democracy in Africa.  Is that in fact the case right now?

BARROS:  I think we are proud for what we have accomplished in so little time.  I think [INDISCERNIBLE] time we had nothing, so we had a lot of questions.  “Is this going to work?”

WERMAN:  Is what going to work?  Independence?

BARROS:  Independence.  Yeah.  Being away from Portugal.  But then you have your destiny in your hands, so you are responsible for your country and not someone else.  That way you cannot blame it on someone else.

WERMAN:  So before Hillary Clinton flies out tonight, what is the one thing that you recommend she do before she leaves Cape Verde?

BARROS:  I hope that she will try the Cape Verdean food.

WERMAN:  Well, that’s a convenient answer, because Restaurante Cesaria is co-owned by Jose Barros’s brother, Tony Barros.

TONY BARROS:  This is our kitchen.  This is our chef, Carlos Ponce.  It looks like he’s preparing Arroz Marisco.  It’s like a paella. It’s rice mixed with almost every type of seafood you can think of – shrimp, octopus, calamari – one of our most popular dishes.

WERMAN:  You know, with a lot of African food, it’s hard to find certain key ingredients that just bring that kind of West African taste to it.  Do you have any problem finding ingredients here in the Boston area?

BARROS:  A lot of the Spanish seasonings are similar to the Cape Verdean – to Cape Verdean seasoning.

WERMAN:  And obviously seafood isn’t a problem here in the Boston area, to get?

BARROS:  Fortunately not.  We can get almost every type of seafood, even Strawberry grouper, which is one of the Cape Verdeans’ most favorite fishes.

WERMAN:  Strawberry grouper?  Never even heard of it.

BARROS:  Yeah.

WERMAN:  It sounds delicious.

BARROS:  It is.  It’s a red fish.  It’s flaky; it’s very tasty.  So we usually get it here from, like, Brazil.

WERMAN:  So what do you think Hillary Clinton should eat in Cape Verde to get a real sense of what the average Cape Verdean eats?

BARROS:  Hillary?  I’m sure they gave her some kachupa, and I hope she tried it.  Kachupada is a simmered stew of hominy.

WERMAN:  A cornmeal?

BARROS:  Well, it’s dried corn, and it’s cooked for about 2, 3 hours, depending on what you put in it.  It’s usually made with pork, beans, kale, yucca, and it’s very rich.  Kachuparica means that it’s rich with very different ingredients.  So hopefully Hillary Clinton tried some of this stuff while she was there.

WERMAN:  If she didn’t, she really missed out.   That’s Tony Barros.  You can get a peek inside his kitchen at Restaurante Cesaria at theworld.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.  In 1975, Northern Ireland was right in the middle of The Troubles.  Protestants and Catholics were fighting each other in the streets, and teenager Alistair Little was caught up in the violence.

LIAM NEESON:  I was 14 when I joined the Tartan gangs, and I was 15 when I joined the UVF, the Ulster Volunteer Force.  At that time, don’t forget there were riots in the streets every week; petrol bombs every day – and that was just in our town.  And it was like we were under siege.  Fathers and brothers of friends were being killed in the streets, and the feeling was we all have to do something.  We’re all in this together and we all have to do something.

WERMAN:  That’s actor Liam Neeson portraying Alistair Little in the new film, “5 Minutes of Heaven.”  In real life, Little, a Protestant, was just 17 when he murdered another teenager, a Catholic.  He shot 19-year-old James Griffin through a living-room window, as Griffin’s younger brother, Joe, watched from the street.  Little served 12 years in jail for the murder.  Joe Griffin’s family fell apart.  His mother irrationally blamed him for his brother’s death.  Alistair Little and Joe Griffin are real.  The murder actually happened.  But the story which unfolds in the film is imagined.  Director Oliver Hirschbeigel wanted to explore what would happen if Alistair and Joe met today.  This fictional meeting is what the film “5 Minutes of Heaven” is all about.  Now, you Oliver Hirschbeigel, and screenwriter Guy Hillard, spent three years interviewing Little and Griffin to get their stories and their ideas on what would happen if they did actually meet.  How much of their conversations are actually in the film?

OLIVER HIRSCHBEIGEL:  Well, most of the dialogue you hear is really kind of original dialogue coming from the two men.  And if it’s not – you know, we went back and forth between writing, changing the script, and having them read it.  So there’s not a single line they say that’s not approved by both.

WERMAN:  The premise behind this fictional meeting between Alistair Little and Joe Griffin is that a TV talk show has set it all up for public consumption.  But as we hear in the film, Joe Griffin may have agreed to the meeting, but he isn’t totally sold on it nor is he thinking reconciliation.  Let’s hear this.

GRIFFIN:  A handshake?  For killing my brother?  For me taking the bleeding?  33 years of that.  What do you think I am, a joke?  If ever a man deserved a knife thrown through the nuts, that scum of the earth.  Truth and reconciliation?  I’m going for revenge.

WERMAN:  Now, when Joe Griffin is finally escorted to meet Alistair Little, there’s a lot of things getting in the way – from Joe’s own reluctance to be a part of this to the cameraman tripping and forcing a retake of the shoot.  It all seems, like a lot of television, kind of contrived.  Do you think the act of truth and reconciliation is in a way forced and contrived?

HIRSCHBEIGEL:  It’s one way to try to, you know, solve this problem of victim and perpetrator.  But the TV people portrayed in our film, they think they’re doing something right.  But the whole idea that you can forgive another person for killing your child or your mother or your father is just thinking too short.  It’s even naive, in a way.

WERMAN:  Are the meetings between former victims and their attackers or killers of, you know, family members, do these even happen in real life in Northern Ireland today?

HIRSCHBEIGEL:  Not in that sense.  I think they were trying to set up a program, and this whole idea of reconciliation as they executed it in South Africa, it didn’t really work.  The concept – it’s well-meaning, but in reality, it didn’t really work, and that’s what they had to realize when they did these programs.  Hence our film is not about reconciliation.  It’s not about forgiveness.

WERMAN:  Why did you choose to take on this project?

HIRSCHBEIGEL:  I was fascinated by these two men.  I read the script; I realized that I liked both characters.  Plus, it’s one of the first films, if not the first one, that really shows what happens to a murderer – what a murderer goes through.  What kind of pain he inflicts on himself, makes himself a lost soul.  I was really fascinated by that.

WERMAN:  And having met both men, did you like them?  I mean, was it hard for you to think about them in the roles that they had been cast in, you know, many decades ago?

HIRSCHBEIGEL:  I never spoke to them until I had finished the film.  I deliberately did not want to meet them because I didn’t want to get emotionally involved.

WERMAN:  And once you met them, what did you think?

HIRSCHBEIGEL:  Meeting Joe, I instantly liked him.  With Alistair, it was a bit more complicated.  In the script, I liked him very much.  But meeting him in person, meeting a murderer – and I felt like resistance within me.  So I was very guarded, and I must say it’s not that I didn’t like him, but I was – it felt very strange.  Neutral, in a way.  It was only after the film was finished and we had shown it to Joe as well as Alistair that I really got a chance to sit down with Alistair and had long talk, like for three hours.  And I must say now I really equally like them.

WERMAN:  And once they saw it, do you think that their opinions of each other changed at all?

HIRSCHBEIGEL:  Well, that’s what they both said.  They learned in the process of developing the script and making the film and seeing the film, a lot about themselves.  Alistair even went as far, in a way, he really got to know the person.  In a way, he met them.  And Joe has the same statement.  He says, “Well, I understand more of this man now.”  And the good thing is, you know, Joe has started therapy now which before was out of the question.  For more than 20 years, he refused to do any of that.

WERMAN:  And what do you attribute that to?

HIRSCHBEIGEL:  The film – the experience of being part of this and seeing this character having  a development for the better, really focus on the future, moving on — appreciating that he has two beautiful daughters and a caring wife – opened his eyes really.  So I think if you ask him now – I did not deliberately – if you ask him, “Do you still want to kill the murderer of your brother?”  He would say, “No.”  Or at least he would not be certain anymore.

WERMAN:  There’s a scene near the end of the film where Alistair Little is coming to kind of a conclusion about his role in The Troubles meant, that once he joined a group and group think came into play, there were no voices anymore telling him that killing is bad.  Let’s hear the rest of his monologue.

NEESON:  No one was telling me anything other than “killing is right.”  It was only in prison when I heard that other voice.  And the Muslims now, you know, the kids now are like I was then.  They need to hear those voices now, stopping them from thinking that killing is good.  They need their own people to say no.  That’s where they need to hear it, and that’s where I would put my money, on making those voices heard in every mosque in the country.

WERMAN:  This idea, Oliver Hirschbeigel, of looking at the troubles through the modern prism of tension between Islam and the West, was this expressed by Little when you interviewed him, or is this you speaking?

HIRSCHBEIGEL:  No.  That’s something we made up, but Alistair liked that very much.  He completely supports that.

WERMAN:  And why did you put it in?

HIRSCHBEIGEL:  Because you have the problem with young people being abused for certain reasons, to do brutal, violent crimes.  The reasons basically are everywhere the same.  These young boys, they want to be bloody, they want to prove that they’re men.  They cannot live bleak, empty lives without any perspective — so that, for them, seems to be the right thing to do.  And then if there’s somebody going, “It is the right thing because of a political reason.  You’re doing

something here as a soldier.”  It makes even more sense for them.  It’s important to point out what it really means to commit a crime – that it’s not just taking another person’s life, it’s inflicting terrible damage on the family of that victim.  And on the other side, it’s terrible damage to the soul of the person who does that.

WERMAN:  Oliver Hirschbeigel, the director of “5 Minutes of Heaven”, a film about truth and reconciliation in Northern Ireland, and a very powerful film at that.  Thank you for talking to us about it.

HIRSCHBEIGEL:  Thank you very much for having me.

WERMAN:  “5 Minutes of Heaven” opens in New York next Friday.  You can see a trailer for the film on our website.  Just visit theworld.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, and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH Boston.  Myanmar, or Burma, was back in the news this week.  Democracy leader and Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced to another 18 months of detention.  She’s spent 14 of the past 20 years under house arrest.  An international outcry followed Tuesday’s sentence.  Today, a high-ranking American politician arrived in the Burmese capital.  Democratic Senator James Webb is expected to meet with the country’s military leader, General Than Shwe.  If he does, he’d be the highest-ranking American official to meet with the junta leader in more than a decade.  Brian Joseph is with the National Endowment for Democracy which promotes democracy around the world.   Senator Webb was actually briefed by the Obama administration before he left, but he’s there independently, not on behalf of the White House.  Even so, do you think the visit by Senator Webb represents a new approach to dealing with Myanmar?

BRIAN JOSEPH:  I’m not sure if it represents a new approach.  I think there’s a general frustration with Burma across the board.  I think anyone who looks at the country over the past 20 years has got to be frustrated with what’s happened.  The country is no better off than it was following the 1990 elections.  There’s been a whole host of approaches to dealing with the issue, from high-level UN delegations – Ban-ki Moon has been there twice in the past year and a half alone.  There have been something like 40 different special envoys of the UN sent in.  ASIAN, which is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, invited Burma into its membership in 1997 – that’s resulted in no improvements.  And at the same time, countries like the United States and the UK have embarked on a harder line policy on really emphasizing democracy and human rights.  Part of that are trying to target specific sanctions on the military junta.  But the junta remains in power.  It remains impervious to much – any international pressure, so there is a growing frustration of, “What do we do with a country like Burma?”

WERMAN:  If Senator Webb does manage to have a sit-down with Burmese General Than Shwe, do you think that in itself is a sign that Myanmar is opening up?

JOSEPH:  No, I don’t.  I think it’s a real mistake to look at engagement with American diplomats as a sign of anything in Burma.  You have to realize that over the last 2 years, the regime’s actions in its own country I think really govern how we should understand the country.  If you start back in the fall of 2007, when you had the rising up of a large percentage of the population, driven by the monks, which is commonly known as the Saffron Revolution; the crackdown that followed the initial response to Cyclone Nargus where the regime kept out international aid workers; and now the detention under – and sentencing of Aung San Suu Kyi under extremely thin pretenses, is really what we should understand Burma’s orientation towards its own people and the international community.

WERMAN:  For you, Brian, what makes the Burmese issue so intractable?

JOSEPH:  I think the challenge with Burma is that it’s controlled by a government that has no interest in the advancing interest of its own people.  And as long as you have a government of that nature that isn’t dependent on the creation of wealth – in other words, all of its money comes from the extraction of natural resources – gas, timber, gems — there are reports of – if not the government itself – certainly a significant income in the country generated by drug production.  As long as there’s no interest in advancing the interest of their own people. There’s very little you can do to influence policy in the short-term.

WERMAN:  Well, let’s follow the money for a second.  Who are Burma’s chief trading partners?

JOSEPH:  its chief trading partner is China.  It also has significant interaction with other countries in the region, including Indonesia and Singapore, and it has to a lesser degree trade with natural resources with countries in Europe and other places.

WERMAN:  Do you think any of Burma’s trading partners are willing to push Burma on human rights issues?

JOSEPH:  I think they’re willing to recognize the human rights issues interfere with their interactions with Burma.  I think it’s safe to assume the human rights issue is not at the top of China’s agenda.  It’s not been traditionally at the top of ASIAN’s agenda.  But all of these countries recognize that the human rights problems in Burma greatly compromise their ability to work with Burma, to treat Burma as a recognizable and respected country on the international arena.  So even though human rights is not their primary agenda, there’s recognition that it is part of the agenda when dealing with Burma.

WERMAN:  And what do you think it will take to change that?

JOSEPH:  I’m not sure what it will take to change all of that.  I think the most important piece of this is what the Burmese people are actually – are willing to do to change their own rights.  If you look back to the uprising movement 2007, this caught virtually everybody off guard.  Before that, there was sort of a largely growing consensus that the democracy movement was dead.  The regime was so firmly in power that nothing could change the environment inside Burma absent a coup or some sort of split in the military.  After the Saffron Revolution, I think you have to factor into this equation what the Burmese people are willing to do to advance their own rights.  And that, to me, is the most important piece of it.

WERMAN:  Brian Joseph, director for South and Southeast Asia, with the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, thanks for your time.

JOSEPH:  Thanks very much.

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

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MARCO WERMAN: West of Myanmar, in India, it’s the height of monsoon season right now.  There should be lots of rain across the country – but this monsoon isn’t living up to expectations.  Rainfall is way down, and parts of India are looking at drought conditions.  That’s not good news for farmers, as the BBC’s Tinku Ray reports from Delhi.

TINKU RAY:  Every year around this time, farmers in India look to the skies and pray that the rain gods will give them a good monsoon.  60 percent of all Indian farmers don’t use irrigation, so their lives and livelihoods depend on plentiful rain.  But the monsoons are unpredictable.  The northern state of Uttar Pradesh is one of the worst hit by drought this year.  Farmer Shital Prasad, in the village of Teherauli, doesn’t know what he’ll do if there’s no rain soon.   “If it doesn’t rain, then things will only worsen,” he says.  “No one can do anything.  It’s all in God’s hands.  If it rains, then things will improve.  Otherwise, it will remain bad.  I don’t know what to do,” Shital says.   Another farmer, Kishori Lai Tiwari, from Assati in  Uttar Pradesh, complains that many of the young men from his village have left to find work in the cities because their crops have failed again and again.   Kishori Lai says, “80 percent of the people in this area have gone out to find work, locking their homes and leaving their land.  There’s not even enough water for the animals.  Many have died in the last month,” he says.  Kishori Lai Tiwari has been forced to sell all his machinery and is also thinking of leaving for the big city to find a job.  Up to 70 percent of Indians are dependent on farm incomes.  The situation is grim in many parts of northern India, where the majority of the country’s rice and wheat are grown — and it’s getting worse.  LS Rathore, the head of the country’s agricultural meteorology office, says even if there are heavy rains now, some crops cannot be saved.

LS RATHORE:  Some crops – like for example, sugar cane – because of a very longer dry spell, with temperatures much above the normal, has caused a lot of damage in terms of both growth and development of the cane.  And therefore, this is a kind of irreversible process, so it is definitely going to hamper the productivity.

RAY:  Rice is a very thirsty crop.  In the northern state of Punjab, despite the lack of rain, farmers have been able to irrigate some of their lands from deep wells.  This is leading to a more worrying problem – a rapidly falling water table.  Captain Chanan Singh Sidhu is a farmer in Punjab who took me on a drive around the countryside to see just how dry the lands are.

CHANAN SINGH SIDHU:  We haven’t seen rain for last 15 days to 20 days here in this area, and that’s why the water level has gone down so much.  It has gone 30 feet down, and that’s why pumps have failed.  Now, we have to lower the tubewells further 30 feet to get the water from them.

MUKHERJEE:  In 1987, this country managed this century’s worst drought.  We transported drinking water by railways.  We organized fodder for the cattle.

RAY:  India’s finance minister is confident everything is under control, and there’s no need to hit the panic button yet.  But just this week, a report based on NASA data said that groundwater levels in northern India have fallen 20 percent more than expected.  The main reason? Excessive pumping.  And this could threaten a major food and water crisis, the study warns.   Failure of the monsoons also has wider implication, according to economist D.H. Pai Panindikar.

D.H. PAI PANINDIKAR:  Farmers have less income.  There is less production, so less income generation.  Then, because there is shortage of production, there is less availability in the markets and so higher prices; less exports; and shortage of electricity means also.  It impacts also on industrial production.

RAY:  All this is not good news for the government, which had hoped to maintain economic growth at 6 percent, despite the worldwide recession.  So the failure of the monsoon probably means a lower GDP for India.  At the end of the day, it’s here in the markets where the average Indian is feeling the impact most.  Food prices have risen by 30 to 40 percent, so that means my family grocery bill has gone from about $25 dollars a week to almost $50.  And with no sign of rain, there’s little chance of the prices coming down soon.   For The World, I’m Tinku Ray in Delhi.

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: Russia’s president wants police to crack down on dangerous drivers.  Dimitri Medvedev was responding to two spectacular bus crashes last month that killed at least 29 people and left many others injured.  It’s going to be quite a task.  Russia’s traffic fatality rate per 100,000 people is almost twice that of the U.S.  Jessica Golloher reports from Moscow.

JESSICA GOLLOHER:  Moscow is a huge city, with about 14 million inhabitants.  The sprawling metropolis has a world-class subway system, but given a choice, many Muscovites prefer to drive to their destination – even though it can often take motorists double the time to drive than it would to ride.  And then there’s the danger.  About 1100 people were killed in car accidents in the city last year.  Mikhail Blinkin is Director of the Scientific Research Institute of Transport and Road Engineering in Moscow.  He says one of the biggest problems for Russian drivers isn’t something like cell phone use or texting.  It’s corruption.  “There are lots of people who want to drive but don’t want to learn, so they buy their licenses.  If you go to the Metro, you’ll see lots of posters that offer you a driver’s license in as little as three days.”   Blinkin says that because people can buy their licenses, they have no idea what the rules of the road are, and that’s quite dangerous.  Izatullo Izarbayev has been driving a cab in Moscow for years.  He agreed to show how dangerous driving in Russia can be.   Within minutes of getting into Izarbayev’s green run-down Lada, it was clear it was going to be a wild ride.  Some of Moscow’s main streets are up to 9 lanes wide.  Drivers were weaving in and out of the lanes like they were in the Indianapolis 500.  They didn’t seem to be paying attention to the traffic in front, behind or even beside them.   “Look at that,” says Izarbayev.  “Did you see that?”  He’s referring to an SUV that swerved across three lanes of traffic, narrowly missing his cab.   “He didn’t even use his turn signal,” complains Izarbayev.  “He just cut me off.  Look how he’s driving!”   At one point during the drive, one of Moscow’s biggest boulevards, Tverskaya, was backed up nearly a half mile.   Again, cab driver Izatullo Izarbayev.   “Do you see that car parked there in the middle of the road?  The bus can’t go around it.  I don’t know.  The driver can’t just sleep there in his car.”  The bus couldn’t move because it was attached to overhead wires.  Several police cars passed the traffic jam, but none stopped.  Mikhail Blinkin, the traffic expert, says it’s routine for Moscow police not to pay attention to traffic jams or drivers breaking the law.  And even if they do pull drivers over, motorists can get out of the infraction just by paying a bribe.  “In Moscow, police corruption is terrible.  What controls are there?  Drivers shouldn’t be able to get away with breaking traffic rules just because they are rich and can pay the police.”   Reporter’s note:  During the 20-minute cab drive throughout Moscow, 7 cars ran red lights, 4 stopped cars caused traffic jams, a bread delivery truck cut through a public park, and lane changes without blinkers were too numerous to count.  Thankfully, there were no accidents.   For The World, I’m Jessica Golloher, in Moscow.

WERMAN:  We know you’re a well-traveled bunch of listeners out there.  So you tell us –what’s your worst ever driving experience?  Just visit theworld.o-r-g and join the discussion.

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.