Today on The World: The head of a peacekeeping force in Darfur says there is no more war in Sudan’s troubled region; Also, Iran’s opposition leaders continue to accuse the government of torturing and killing citizens arrested during election protests, Plus: why Muslims in Malaysia will have to sit out next month’s Black-Eyed Peas concert.

South Africa’s new president Jacob Zuma is meeting with leaders in Zimbabwe in an effort to end the political infighting there and help repair the shattered economy. Anchor Jeb Sharp finds out more from reporter Andrew Meldrum.

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JEB SHARP: I’m Jeb Sharp. This is The World. The government of Zimbabwe can be described as a troubled marriage between political enemies. Well the marriage councilor has arrived. South African President Jacob Zuma is on his first state visit to Zimbabwe and he’s on a mission to end the in-fighting between the country’s coalition partners. President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangarai formed a unity government in February. Since then there’s been lots of in-fighting and little or no progress when it comes to fixing Zimbabwe’s shattered economy. Journalist Andrew Meldrum reported from more than two decades. He says South Africa’s president has gone there with a clear agenda.

ANDREW MELDRUM: Jacob Zuma is taking this opportunity on his first visit as president of South Africa to Zimbabwe to speak to Robert Mugabe and to speak to the Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangarai to say you’ve got to get things to work there. Robert Mugabe had said oh Jacob Zuma is coming up to address our agricultural show. We’re not going to discuss any … . And his press said for weeks there’s no discussion of the political situation in Zimbabwe. But Jacob Zuma’s party said, before he went, yes there is going to be a discussion. We’ve got to make sure that things in Zimbabwe are going to work. So that is what Jacob Zuma’s doing in Zimbabwe.

SHARP: And what specifically though is Jacob Zuma’s role? Why him?

MELDRUM: Well he’s the leader of the most powerful country in Southern Africa. He is the leader of the most economically huge economy in the region and so he wants to see Zimbabwe succeed. And South Africa has a great amount of pressure that it can bare on Zimbabwe. It controls electricity that goes to Zimbabwe. It controls the truck routes that bring in imports to Zimbabwe. And so you know it has a lot of levers that it can use to try and encourage what thinks are more positive developments in Zimbabwe.

SHARP: In that sense is this a critical moment?

MELDRUM: It is a critical moment because right now there has been a government of national unity that has been formed but it hasn’t brought progress. And so Zimbabwe is really in a state of limbo where things aren’t getting worse – but they could hardly get worse – but they’re not really getting much better. And so you know it … . And it could stay in this uneasy equilibrium for some time. And we already see a situation where their warning that cholera could break out in Zimbabwe with the rains again this year. We thought that that was over. And so this, what we’re seeing, is this uneasy limbo that Zimbabwe is in could make the people of Zimbabwe suffer.

SHARP: And do you see Jacob Zuma as taking a side in this?

MELDRUM: He’s going to be very careful not to take a side; to say that he’s the you know the neutral broker and that he’s trying to do things for the best of Zimbabwe and for the best of southern Africa in general. However by not taking sides he will probably come out more critical of Robert Mugabe. Because in the past the previous president, Thabo Mbeki, was really a supporter of Robert Mugabe and he helped to enable Robert Mugabe to continue in power. Jacob Zuma, by being more neutral, is going to be putting more pressure on Robert Mugabe.

SHARP: Zimbabwe will no doubt be asking South Africa for help. I mean billions of aid it wants to sort of revive the civil service and get going. What’s your thought there?

MELDRUM: Zimbabwe needs billions of dollars in aid to turn the economy around but it has a fundamentally strong economy if it can get its agriculture started again; if it can get its industry going again. These can all work. But it’s not South Africa who has the key to that kind of aid. It is the United States, Britain, the European Union, and especially the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. And they are keeping their purse strings closed. And it’s not over economic policies; it’s over human rights policies. They say return the country to the rule of law. And these are things that Jacob Zuma is going to say to Robert Mugabe. I can help you economically but you have got to show that you have returned the rule of law to Zimbabwe.

SHARP: Andrew Meldrum reported from Zimbabwe for 23 years. He’s now senior editor at Global Post dot com in Boston. Thanks Andrew.

MELDRUM: Thank you very much.

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Anchor Jeb Sharp speaks with human rights lawyer Rebecca Hamilton about news out of Sudan that Darfur is no longer in a state of war. Nigerian General Martin Agwai made the announcement as he ended his tour as head of the joint United Nations-African Union force in the troubled region.

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JEB SHARP: Sudan’s Darfur region is no longer in a state of war. That’s according to the outgoing commander of the international peacekeeping force in the region. Nigerian General Martin Agwai is ending his tour as head of the joint United Nations-African Union force in Darfur. He says there’s only on rebel group in the region still capable of mounting limited military campaigns. General Agwai says that right now the conflict has descended into banditry and very low intensity engagements. His statement is being dismissed by Darfur insurgents though. They say they’re preparing to launch new attacks on Sudanese government troops. Rebecca Hamilton is a human rights lawyer. She’s writing a book about Darfur. She joins us from Nairobi. Rebecca Hamilton you’ve just spent the last month in Sudan. From your perspective is this war over?

REBECCA HAMILTON: I think it’s premature to say that the war is over. I mean it could be that the war is over or it could be that actually what we’re seeing is a lull in fighting simply because it’s the rainy season and as the general himself says, you know at the moment the rebel groups are so fractured that it’s true they’re unlikely to be much of a threat to the government. But imagine after Hurricane Katrina if US officials had come out and said the hurricane has past. We would have been like okay the hurricane has passed but in its wake people have died, people are injured, people are displaced. To me saying the war is over is sort of like saying the hurricane is passed. It may be true but it misses the fact that you have 2.7 million Darfurees who are displaced in these God awful camps still.

SHARP: Did the internally displaced people talk about wanting to go home? Is there a movement for people to go home?

HAMILTON: People want more then anything to go home and they would if they could. But the reality is that the conditions are just not there yet for them to go home. Now it’s interesting because I spent some time speaking with Sudanese government officials in Khartoum and they were very keen to tell me how actually Darfur was very safe and all the IDPs felt safe to go home and there were all these voluntary returns happening. When you actually check it out on the ground in Darfur what they’re talking about is the seasonal returns that happen every year around this time. Which is you send a couple of members of your family to go and try and do some planting that will give you a bit of extra food security in the coming year. But people aren’t taking their whole families home because they simply don’t feel safe.

SHARP: Rebecca Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, was indicted last year for crimes against humanity and he retaliated by expelling aid workers. Have those expulsions had a measurable effect?

HAMILTON: They absolutely have. There were a few very courageous women at one of the camps that I went to. And they sat me down and they were completely determined that I understood what the situation was. And in essence most of the agencies that were expelled were also the ones that were doing protection work. In the women’s lives what it meant was that there would be women’s centers at the camps and it meant that if a woman was raped she would feel comfortable going to tell one of these international agencies what had happened and so she could be administered a rape kit there at the camp. What has happened is that those agencies have been expelled and so the women that I spoke to were telling me now when one of our women is raped we have to report it to UN police. The UN police then accompany her to the Sudanese police. At the Sudanese police station what the women said has been happening is that in their incident report their writing down severe harm rather then rape. The thing that I thought about when these women were telling me this was well this feeds perfectly into President Bashir’s claim that rape simply doesn’t happen in Darfur.

SHARP: Rebecca what’s your overwhelming impression that lingers from the trip?

HAMILTON: I think the one image that sort of summed up the whole international community’s approach to Darfur was at the UNAMID compound in El Fasher ….

SHARP: UNAMID being the UN-African peacekeeping force.

HAMILTON: It’s this you know big compound of shipping containers that now serve as offices in the desert basically. And there’s razor wire around the outside and there are UNAMID soldiers who are standing guard. But despite all that what you have in front of it is a Sudanese police station. That captured it for me. For all of having UNAMID there UNAMID has asked for the Sudanese police to protect them.

SHARP: Rebecca Hamilton is a human rights lawyer. She’s writing a book examining the impact of the Darfur advocacy movement. You can find a link to her blog at our website The World dot org. Thanks so much Rebecca.

HAMILTON: Thank you.

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Human rights advocates in EUROPE are calling for countries there to look into their own role in CIA prisoner abuse. Several countries are accused of abetting CIA prisoner programs during the Bush administration. The World’s Gerry Hadden has the story.

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JEB SHARP: Human rights advocates in Europe are pressing for some action. They’re hoping the Obama Administration’s investigations into alleged CIA prisoner abuses will move Europe to do some self-examination of its own. Several countries are accused of abetting CIA prisoner programs during the Bush Administration. But so far no one’s been held accountable. The World’s Gerry Hadden reports.

GERRY HADDEN: Europe has been through all of this before. In 2007 Dick Marty, a Swiss member of the Council of Europe, led an investigation into Europe’s role in America’s fight against terrorism. His findings? Several EU states let the US use their airports to move terrorism suspects around the globe. Some helped the CIA abduct targets. And some countries likely hosted secret CIA prisons. But most European governments simply ignored Marty’s report. The question is whether that will change now that the Obama Administration has released an internal CIA report on the agency’s interrogations and with the Justice Department investigating. There’s been some movement in Europe this week. Lithuania says it will investigate reports that it, like Poland and Romania, may have hosted a secret prison during the Bush era. Guilietto Chiesa is a member of the European Parliament from Italy. He says Europe can no longer remain quiet.

GUILIETTO CHIESA: The question now is to have the list of the people who have been detained in Lithuania. And probably there there have been torture, illegal interrogation, and very serious violation of human rights there. That means there are political and penal responsibilities.

HADDEN: Lithuanian denies it hosted a CIA prison and says it’s only investigating to clear its name. Gabriele Betchkaypeeteh is an editor at the Lithuanian daily paper Lietuvos Rytas. She says there’s no way her country could have hosted such a prison without word getting out.

GABRIELE BETCHKAYPEETEH: Technically it’s very difficult to have that prison in a country which has 3.5 million people and the place mentioned of the possible prison is quite small and we believe that local residents probably would have noticed any secret activities.

HADDEN: Romania also denies it hosted a prison. Same with Poland. Although that country says it’s investigating. Reed Brody, with Human Rights Watch in Brussels, says he was hoping that the CIA’s internal report on prisoner abuse would shed some light on this but he says it hasn’t.

REED BRODY: There were 23 pages of information in the CIA report on detention sites that were completely redacted. And obviously the CIA or whoever was involved here was afraid that if information about those sites were disclosed it could lead to further criminal investigations and prosecutions.

HADDEN: There’s also new pressure this week on some European governments to come clean on secret rendition flights. Amnesty International in Ireland says Shannon International Airport was used to move suspects. It’s calling for the Irish government to look into it. Reed Brody says if Europe doesn’t own up to its own role in the US-led war on terrorism it will lose credibility. And worse, quipped someone at the council of Europe today, Europe this person said has been criticizing the States for years on this but not only did Europe aid the effort it may now fall behind the US in investigating it. For The World I’m Gerry Hadden.

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A 13-year-old girl in the Netherlands wants to become the youngest person to sail solo around the world. But today a Dutch court halted her plans and is placing her under state supervision while a psychologist examines her ability to cope with the two-year journey. The World’s Laura Lynch reports.

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JEB SHARP: I’m Jeb Sharp and this is The World. A 13-year-old girl in the Netherlands wants to become the youngest person to sail solo around the world. But today a Dutch court said not so fast. Laura Dekker had planned to set sail within days on her 26-foot yacht, the Guppy. But now she’s under state supervision while a child psychologist examines her ability to cope with the two-year journey. The World’s Laura Lynch reports.

LAURA LYNCH: Perhaps Laura Dekker was born to the challenge. Her mother gave birth to her onboard a yacht and she spent the first four years of her life sailing around the world with her parents. Sailing she says is in her blood.

LAURA DEKKER: [SPEAKING DUTCH]

TRANSLATOR: From the age of 10 I wanted to sail around the world. I just want to know the world – to discover it. I just want to live a bit.

LYNCH: But it’s quite a bit more than most 13-year-olds take on. And that’s apparently reason enough for a Dutch court to halt Laura’s plans to set sail. Judge M.C. Oostendrop delivered the ruling today in Utrecht.

M.C.  OOSTENDROP: [SPEAKING DUTCH]

TRANSLATOR: The court’s ruling is as follows: It rejects the primary request of the childcare authority to remove custody away from the parents and puts Laura under temporary supervision of the childcare bureau from today until the 30^th of October 2009.

LYNCH: In fact Laura will still be allowed to live with her father but she’ll be under state supervision until the court decides whether she can set sail. Richard Bakker of the Dutch Council for Child Protection says although she may now miss the chance to break records Laura’s welfare is the main priority.

RICHARD BAKKER: Well the end issue for us is the development of Laura and we are concerned about the development of Laura. And the decision of the court is quite clear about that – that they gave us time to do more research about the development.

LYNCH: The ruling comes just a day after 17-year-old Michael Perham sailed back to Britain and became the world’s youngest solo circumnavigator. It was a trip beset with technical problems, 50-foot waves, and long bouts of loneliness. Speaking from his boat off the Devon coast, he said the trip for Laura would be difficult but possible.

MICHAEL PERHAM: I was able to sail solo across the Atlantic Ocean when I was 14 so it’s definitely possible to do it younger. But you know is Laura physical strong enough to handle a boat in all situations?

LYNCH: For the first man ever to sail around the world on his own it’s more a matter of mental and emotional toughness. Robin Knox Johnston was at the ripe old age of 30 when he completed the journey in 1969. He says with today’s high tech equipment Laura could keep in touch with people on land.

ROBIN KNOX JOHNSTON: But then when things go wrong on a boat you are alone. I mean you have no one to help you deal with them. You can be very tired and the boat’s being thrown around and something’s gone wrong on deck. You can’t pick up the phone and ask for help. You’ve got to deal with that yourself.

LYNCH: Some question whether Laura’s dream is really her parents’ idea. The family’s lawyer, Peter de Lange denies that. He says the parents tried to discourage her but she convinced them.

PETER DE LANGE: And then she rents by herself a boat – the finance, the communication, the safety, the registrations. So it’s was really a top job.

LYNCH: So now it will be down to a psychologist to spend time with Laura subjecting her to a series of tests to assess her maturity and her ability to cope with stress. She may yet be allowed to pursue her dream. But psychologist Linda Blair says this is the right decision – for now.

LINDA BLAIR: None of us knows the heart and soul of anybody else that well. What the Dutch government is doing is saying we’re going to look as best we can. They have a duty of care that is correct because we have to set general guidelines. And they’re absolutely right to do what they’re doing. But I don’t like to shut the door on the possibility of exceptional people because that’s what it’s all about in this world.

LYNCH: As for the young sailor herself she didn’t come to today’s court hearing. After learning of the ruling she did what she likes to do best. She went sailing. For The World I’m Laura Lynch.

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Two Norwegian vessels are searching for the remains of a seaplane that crashed more than 80 years ago on its way back from the North Pole. It belonged to legendary Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. Anchor Jeb Sharp speaks with Rob McCallum, the leader of the expedition, to find out where they are looking…and why now.

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JEB SHARP: Roald Amundsen has been a hero in Norway for nearly a century. His fame stems from his having led the first expedition to reach the South Pole. But Amundsen’s celebrity is tinged with tragic mystery. He embarked on a rescue mission to the Arctic on June 18^th, 1928. He was trying to save an explorer who’d crashed on his way back from the North Pole. Amundsen’s sea plane went down that night and it’s never been found. Now two Norwegian vessels are searching for it. Rob McCallum is the expedition leader. Rob where are you now?

ROB MCCALLUM: Well hi there. I’m standing on the northern cliffs of Bear Island. They are here in the Barents Sea. It’s late evening here. The sun is setting but because we’re up in Arctic Circle it doesn’t set [INDISCERNIBLE] down on the horizon. So we have this glorious sunset and a freezing cold night.

SHARP: And what evidence do you have? What clues are leading you on?

MCCALLUM: We have three main clues. The first is a fuel tank on the west coast of Norway. And it had been modified after the crash. So we know that people had survived the crash. The other thing we found was a wing [INDSICERNIBLE]. And we found it on the north coast of Norway. So those two items are able to be re-navigated back to the starting point. And the third and most significant clue is a fisherman reported in 1933 pulling out a piece of a metallic object. He didn’t see what it was. The line [INDISCERNIBLE] and I fell back down to the sea floor. And that was just off the coast of Bear Island here.

SHARP: What more are you hoping to find?

MCCALLUM: To be honest we’re not really sure. I mean the … . It depends how the ravages of time have affected the aircraft. We’re confident that if the airplane is here that we at least find the engines. As to the rest of it, I mean it was flying boat from the early 1900s. So it was made of wood and fabric. We don’t know how much that will have been affected by the water here. What we are worried about is the high number of trollers that operate in the area and if one of those has hooked [INDISCERNIBLE] then it’s probably been pretty badly damaged.

SHARP: Does the Roald Amundsen legend loom as large in Norway as Amelia Earhart does here in the US do you think?

MCCALLUM: Oh yes absolutely. And for two reasons. The first that is that like Earhart Amundsen was an explorer. You know lots of tales dare and do. You know tales, passionate tales, of exploration. But more than that, in a Norwegian setting, when Amundsen was doing his concurring of the South Pole Norway was a new nation and they were desperately looking for a figurehead or something to sort of galvanize the national pride behind. And Amundsen was at the spearhead of that.

SHARP: So when you’re on the expedition and you’re thinking about the man and you’ve clearly been immersed in his life and legacy, what’s the most striking characteristic that comes through about him?

MCCALLUM: Well he’s an interesting character. And I think like a lot of explorers he was absolutely focused on his expeditions and so he didn’t have a lot of time for social nicety. I guess if we met him these days we’d probably call him prickly or a little introverted. But in reality I think he was just super focused on what it was that he wanted to achieve.

SHARP: How long will your search go on?

MCCALLUM: We’ll be searching onsite until about the fourth of September. We may extend depending on the number of sonar contacts we have. At the moment we have perfect weather so we’re just going as hard as we can.

SHARP: Rob McCallum is leading an expedition searching for the wreckage of Roald Amundsen’s sea plane. The plane disappeared into the Barents Sea more than 80 years ago. Thanks Rob.

MCCALLUM: Thank you.

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More than 10,000 refugees have fled across the border from Myanmar into China amidst fighting between the Burmese military and a Chinese ethnic group. China is telling the Myanmar’s military government to deal with conflict and stabilize the border region. The World’s Mary Kay Magistad reports.

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JEB SHARP: I’m Jeb Sharp and this is The World. China and the military government of Myanmar are usually on good terms. But right now things are a little tense between them. More than 10,000 refugees have spilled over the border from Myanmar to China this month. Their fleeing clashes between the Burmese army and an armed ethnic militia. China is calling on the government of Myanmar, also known as Burma, to deal with the issue. The World’s Mary Kay Magistad reports from Beijing.

MARY KAY MAGISTAD: This appears to be the biggest exodus of refugees from Myanmar in a decade – at least 10,000 Chinese officials say and perhaps as many as 30,000 according to the UN high commissioner for refugees. The refugees are from the Kokang area of Myanmar which heavily ethnic Chinese. Chinese traders had done a brisk business there until this month when long dormant tensions flared between the Kokang militia and the Burmese army. Many merchants like this one feared civil war was coming so they packed up and moved out.

MERCHANT: [SPEAKING BURMESE]

TRANSLATOR: We are very upset. Chinese people have lots of property over there but we obviously couldn’t bring it with us when we fled. And the Kokang people can’t go back to their homes now.

MAGISTAD: The Kokang are one of many ethnic minorities in Myanmar that have long held effective control over the area where they live. For decades they battled the Burmese government and even the British colonial rulers before them for the right to keep that autonomy. Twenty years ago the Kokang and the Burmese military government signed a cease fire and it held until now. Jeremy Woodrum, the director of the US Campaign for Burma, explains that the turning point was Myanmar’s passage last year of a new constitution.

JEREMY WOODRUM: Which says that there can be no one under arms in Burma unless they’re a part of the Tatmadaw, the national military, and they want to clean up all what’s in their view insurgencies by the elections they have scheduled for 2010. So I mean there’s millions of people who live in these areas so this is going to be widespread suffering.

MAGISTAD: Already the Burmese army has launched an offensive on the Thai border driving ethnic Karen refugees into Thailand. Further attacks are expected against other ethnic minorities. China has historically supported some of these groups although some have been known to traffic in opium and heroin. Aung Zaw is the editor of Irrawaddy Magazine in Thailand which reports on Burma. He says Myanmar’s leaders may have calculated that with these groups history of drug trafficking the United States won’t try to interfere in the Burmese army’s mopping up expedition.

AUNG ZAW: Because all these leaders used to be notorious drug lords so it’s easy to justify for the Burmese military leaders to say that we’re going after them because they’re drug lords and they’ve been wanted by the US Justice Department. But the problem is if the Burmese military started to take very forceful measure against the civilian population there and if there’s a large scale fight breakout that would be a big problem for everyone.

MAGISTAD: At least some fighting has broken out with unconfirmed reports of deaths on both sides. Refugees continue to stream across the border into China’s Yunnan province. It’s government issued a statement today saying it has setup camps in seven locations and is feeding, clothing, and providing medical care to the refugees. But when it comes to what happens next Jeremy Woodrum of the US Campaign for Burma says China’s goals may be complicated.

WOODRUM: They’ve said publicly that they’d like to see this not proceed in terms of an armed conflict. But it’s also really important to recognize that the area where many of ethnic minorities live is an area where an important oil pipeline is going to come through Burma to China that will help Chinese boats essentially not have to sail through the Malacca Straits. Basically they’re going to pipe their Middle East oil across Burma into China and these are the areas which this conflict are taking place.

LYNCH: China’s not saying anything about who should control the territory – its ally, the Myanmar government, or its other long-term allies, the ethnic minorities. It does see as essential as secure supply of oil. And for now, as so many other times in China’s relations with Myanmar and its ethnic groups China seems to be keeping all its options open. For The World I’m Mary Kay Magistad in Beijing.

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The BBC’s Jon Leyne reports that Iran’s opposition leaders continue to accuse the government of torturing and killing citizens arrested during protests that followed June’s disputed presidential election.

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JEB SHARP: In Iran the political turmoil that began after the country’s disputed presidential election in June continues. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed victory in the face of opposition protests. Today Ahmadinejad said senior opposition leaders should be punished for instigating those protests. He made the comment at Friday prayers in Tehran. Several opposition figures and activists are already on trial. Some have made public confession. Opposition supporters say the detainees were forced to make false confessions after being abused and tortured. The BBC’s Tehran correspondent Jon Leyne, who is now in London, has been examining that allegation. He prepared this report.

MOHAMMAD ALI ABTAHI: [SPEAKING FARSI]

TRANSLATOR: I took part in a street protest and I sincerely admit here that I did a bad thing and I apologize for taking part in an illegal gathering. I salute the supreme leader for saving the nation from a great danger and I thank him.

JON LEYNE: Former Iranian Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi makes a deep and sincere confession in the first of the ongoing series of trials of Iranian opposition figures.

IBRAHIM NABAVI: [SPEAKING FARSI]

TRANSLATOR: I apologize for starting a velvet revolution and misleading people and I request the most severe punishment for myself. I would like to thank all of my interrogators, the judges, the besieges who worked tirelessly in arresting people and I wish them every success.

LEYNE: Another almost identical confession. Only this was a spoof made by the satirist Ibrahim Nabavi and posted on YouTube before the real trials began – a sign of how little credibility many Iranians put on the current series of trials. Several years ago Mr. Nabavi himself had two sojourns in Tehran’s Evin prison.

IBRAHIM NABAVI: [SPEAKING FARSI]

TRANSLATOR: I almost feel like I am in the courtroom among the prisoners and it will be my turn next. It’s exactly what they did to us but now it’s much worse.

LEYNE: He told me what happens to you when you’re put under pressure from an Iranian interrogator.

NABAVI: [SPEAKING FARSI]

TRANSLATOR: You start to blame yourself. In a way you begin to agree with your interrogator who is also accusing you. Then you gradually develop a split personality – your old one and new one which accuses your old self.

LEYNE: It’s almost impossible to speak to former detainees still in Iran. But I have managed to speak to two people who were held in prison after the election and are now safely out of the country. Raza, who preferred to withhold his real name, said he was arrested simply because he strayed too close to a demonstration. Then he underwent a vicious interrogation.

RAZA: Two men came in and said you know it looks like you’re a trouble maker. You don’t want to cooperate with us and then they punched me in the face. I fell off the chair. Then they started kicking me in the face. I think that’s when they broke my nose and ….

LEYNE: In another session they tried a different approach.

RAZA: They pulled my trousers down and they threatened to rape me although they didn’t. And they said that I am an infidel and I am [PH] Baha’i, that I’m Jewish, that I don’t believe in God.

LEYNE: [PH] Shahab Mossavat is a journalist who used to work for the Iranian English-language station Press TV. He was arrested the day after the election. He said most of the pressure on him was psychological not physical but he saw plenty of evidence of maltreatment of others.

SHAHAB MOSSAVAT: I saw many people maltreated – brutally treated – tortured physically, psychologically. I didn’t see any sexual abuse but I did certainly see physical abuse. I saw people whose noses had been smashed so much so that they were flattened into their faces.

LEYNE: What has happened in Iran’s prisons has now become a huge political row after one of the opposition leaders, Mehdi Karroubi, alleged that some detainees have been raped and others have been tortured to death. His claims have been hotly disputed by the government. Chahad Mossadat said they certainly sounded credible.

MOSSAVAT: I’m absolutely confident they’re true. Because you see the thing is that it was a very, very short step from the treatment that we received to death occurring.

LEYNE: Both Shahab and Raza described a clear political motivation they saw in their jailers.

MOSSAVAT: They told us, very candidly, that the rallies in support of Mr. Mousavi which preceded the election in the couple of weeks before the pole, had riled them and that this was payback.

RAZA: Like I said, they have a skewed logic of what it is to be [INDISCERNIBLE] and faithful and whoever was there, regardless of what they knew about them, was this person who was anti-Iranian, anti-Islamic, and up to no good basically.

LEYNE: The speaker of the Iranian parliament, Ali Larijani, has set up an inquiry into conditions in Iranian jails though he was quick to deny the allegations of rape. A senior cleric has said that the allegations are so false that Mr. Karroubi should be put on trial himself for libel.

SHARP: That report from the BBC’s Tehran correspondent Jon Leyne.

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.

Our daily geography quiz.

100 years ago this weekend, Sigmund Freud made his first and only trip to the United States to deliver a series of lectures at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Anchor Jeb Sharp talks to Clark University archivist Mott Linn about the visit.

Pictured at Clark University in 1909 are, from left (front): Sigmund Freud, G. Stanley Hall, Carl Jung; (back) A.A. Brill, Ernest Jones, and Sandor Ferenczi. (Photo courtesy Clark University)

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JEB SHARP: A hundred years ago a Viennese doctor paid a visit to the city of Worcester in Massachusetts to give a series of lectures. This man had big ideas – about the unconscious, the id, and the ego. Yes we’re talking about Sigmund Freud. But back in 1909 when he made his first and only visit to the US his name hadn’t yet become an adjective. In fact back then Freud was desperate for some recognition. He got it at Clark University in Worcester. At the time the school was renowned for its psychology program. Mott Linn is the chief archivist for Clark University.

MOTT LINN: Today Freud is such a big name but back then he wasn’t. This was sort of his coming-out party. We had some credibility that he was hoping to get. And yet in Europe it may have been because of his new ideas; it may have been in part because he was Jewish but he wasn’t able to get into most areas of academia. And so this was a way to try and …. Okay we’ll go to Clark, get better well known in the US and hopefully that will reverberate into Europe.

SHARP: Let’s go back a little bit. How old would he have been and what stage of his career was he at? And also paint a picture of the journey. This is 1909.

LINN: He was a little over 50 years old. Now he came with a couple of other psychoanalysts – most famously Carl Jung. And Jung was much younger. He was 34. Both of these men ended up getting honorary degrees from Clark University. Freud’s is noteworthy because it’s the only honorary degree he ever received. And so they came over. It took a couple of weeks to sail across the ocean to New York City. Then sail to southeastern Massachusetts, took a train to Boston, took a train to Worcester. And they were there for about a week.

SHARP: So Freud comes to Clark. He gives a series of five lectures on the origin and development of psychoanalysis. Describe the impact both on the people who heard these lectures but also on Freud.

LINN: Well it really kick started his career. Before then not a lot of people knew of him and took his work that seriously. But there was very little of that. His famous book, “The Interpretation of Dreams,” came out in 1909 and even six years later only a few hundred copies had been sold worldwide. So that kind of demonstrates how little cache his ideas had. And this really did kick start his career; was taken more seriously in the US and as he had hoped it translated to being taken more seriously across the Atlantic.

SHARP: I understand Freud and Jung delivered their lectures in German. Was there translation?

LINN: There was not translation there. Back then all your best universities had been in Europe, mostly in Germany. And so if you wanted to be a scholar you had to learn German. And so all these professors of psychology and all the graduate students of psychology would have known German and to a greater or lesser extent would have been able to understand what Freud was saying.

SHARP: Tell me more about his trip. What happened to him? What did he see? What were his impressions?

LINN: Well after Worcester they took some time off. They took a train trip out to see Niagara Falls and then another train trip into the Adirondacks. One of the highlights of the trip, according to Freud, was he seeing a porcupine. And so for whatever reason he thought that this was a wonderful thing.

SHARP: Lovely. Archivist Mott Linn of Clark University. Thanks so much for coming in.

LINN: Thank you 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.

For today’s Geo Quiz we’re looking for strip of Australian coastline bordered by the Indian Ocean to the west and the Timor Sea to the north. The answer is the Kimberley Coast, where this week an undersea oil pipeline ruptured and is spewing crude oil and natural gas into the sea. Anchor Jeb Sharp finds out more from John Carey, director of the Pew Environment Group’s Kimberley Conservation Project.

The US hip-hop group, the Black Eyed Peas, are scheduled to perform in Malaysia next month…but the country’s Muslims are being told they can’t attend. Islamic leaders say it would violate Islamic law. The BBC’s Robin Brant has the story.