PRI's The World » 09/10/2009

Entire program – September 10, 2009

The World — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:33:47 +0000

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Today on The World: a fact check on whether illegal immigrants will or won’t receive government benefits under Obama health care reform; Afghan journalists complain of double standards, after the rescue of a New York Times reporter and the death of his Afghan colleague; and one man’s quest to turn a favorite song into Portugal’s new national anthem.

Health care reform and illegal immigrants

The World — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:30:33 +0000

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The World’s Matthew Bell does some fact checking on claims (and counterclaims) that illegal immigrants would be excluded from government health benefits under the health care reform plans being debated in Washington.

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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World. President Obama today picked up where he left off last night in his push for healthcare reform.

BARACK OBAMA: I am confident the plan that we’ve put forward is the right plan for the American people. I continue to be open to suggestions and ideas from all quarters – house members, senate members, Democrats, Republicans, and outside groups. What we cannot do is stand pat. What we can’t do is accept a status quo that is bankrupting families, businesses, and our nation.

WERMAN: The president also said he accepted an apology from South Carolina Republican Joe Wilson. Last night the congressman heckled Mr. Obama. He yelled, “You lie” just as the president said that healthcare reforms would not apply to illegal immigrants. We’ll have more about that breach of protocol in a few minutes. First The World’s Matthew Bell has been doing some fact checking. He explores how Democratic healthcare plans would deal with immigrants – both legal and illegal.

MATTHEW BELL: Healthcare reform and illegal immigration – two contentious issues that when combined apparently got the best of Congressman Wilson. But he’s far from the first person in weeks to become animated over the suggestion that illegal immigrants might receive new benefits through healthcare reform. Questions about this notion came up during town hall meetings over the summer and at protests like this one during a presidential visit to New Hampshire last month.

PROTESTOR: They should be sent on the first bus one way back to where they came from. We don’t need illegals. Send them home with a bullet in their head the second time.

BELL: Last night president Obama attempted to put the issue to rest. He said the claim that reform efforts would provide insurance to illegal immigrants is false and that reforms he’s proposing would not apply to people here in the US illegally. But Steven Camerota isn’t buying it. He’s with the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington. The group advocates for stronger limits on all immigration into the US.

STEVEN CAMEROTA: What we have right now is analogous to a speed limit sign on a highway that the police have said they’re never going to patrol. So the sign is there – the law is there – but the enforcement provision is not.

BELL: Camerota says yes there is language in healthcare reform legislation being debated now that says illegal immigrants are not eligible for government subsidies but he says the legislation doesn’t include reasonable enforcement measures.

CAMEROTA: There’s a program called the save system which runs people’s names through databases to make sure that they’re entitled to the programs that they’re trying to sign up for. That provision [INDISCERNIBLE] left out of this bill and then when it was voted on in committee it was killed.

BELL: But advocates of the current reform efforts say it’s a work in progress and it’s not clear yet what kind of verification measures will be used to make sure that undocumented immigrants don’t receive benefits they’re not entitled too. The enforcement mechanisms used by government programs like Medicaid will stay in place and whatever new programs are created they will include a system for determining eligibility as well.

LEIGHTON KU: This is clearly is an example of where people are trying to raise a boogieman that does not exist.

BELL: Leighton Ku is a professor of health policy at George Washington University.

KU: It is true that the health reform bills that are being considered by congress and what the president is considering would not provide any federal subsidies for the undocumented. However one of the points that’s come up as a sticking point periodically in the senate was whether legal immigrants would be eligible to participate in the health insurance exchanges and to get some of the federal subsidies that were being considered as a way of making health insurance more affordable for low and moderate income people.

BELL: Ku says giving legal immigrants access to health insurance pools is probably good policy and good economics. As a group, immigrants tend to be younger and healthier and they use health services than native-born Americans. That means making health insurance to legal immigrants could actually lower health premiums for everyone. For The World I’m Matthew Bell.

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Foreign lessons in hospital efficiency

The World — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:28:02 +0000

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Containing health-care costs is a key goal of reform efforts. The World’s Katy Clark reports on the work of Eugene Litvak, a Russian who works with US hospitals on ways to increase efficiency, improve patient care, and cut costs.

MARCO WERMAN: The high cost of healthcare in America was addressed at length by the president last night. Mr. Obama argued there’s so much waste and abuse in the current health care system that making more efficient would provide a way to expand coverage to the nation’s uninsured. That’s a message Boston University professor, Eugene Litvak, has been promoting for years. Litvak is a Soviet-trained management consultant who now advises US hospitals on better ways to manage the flow of patients. The World’s Katy Clark has more.

KATY CLARK: Eugene Litvak is an unlikely prophet. He learned the art of efficient business operations in the notoriously inefficient Soviet Union. But Litvak says his outsider status helps him when it comes to addressing the inherent waste in America’s healthcare system.

EUGENE LITVAK: Many people who were born in this country believe the healthcare delivery system should not be even touched because it just was this way forever. I don’t have this baggage and many people just forgive me because believe that this guy is Russian, crazy; he just doesn’t know what he is doing.

CLARK: But Litvak does know what he’s doing. It’s called operations management or the art of meeting customer’s needs as efficiently as possible. Operations management is common in other industries – making cars for instance or making donuts – but it’s relatively new in hospitals. Litvak says running a hospital is a lot like running a restaurant.

LITVAK: If you want to increase customer throughput through the restaurant we have only three means to do that. The first one you would ask your diners to eat quickly and you would ask your waiter to serve them quickly. That’s the first option. Second option you build more restaurant tables so you make sure you accommodate more people. That’s how you improve access to your restaurant. And finally the third option that you make sure that your tables are not staying idle.

CLARK: The healthcare system has already implemented the first two options, reducing the length of a typical hospital stay for instance and adding more beds. Litvak says the third option, managing the flow of patients more efficiently, is the least tried. But he maintains it holds the most promise. Take what happened at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. CEO Jim Anderson brought Litvak on as a consultant four years ago. Anderson was concerned about chronic delays and patient overcrowding.

JIM ANDERSON: He helped us understand the importance of surgical scheduling so that in our elective surgeries we schedule those in a much more even way throughout the week rather than have them peak at any particular time of the week in a very unregulated way.

CLARK: Litvak also suggested that Cincinnati Children set aside two operating rooms strictly for emergencies in order to minimize disruptions to scheduled surgeries. These days Cincinnati Children’s Hospital is doing more surgeries with the same resources and pulling in an additional $137 million in revenue. Jim Anderson is thrilled with the results but he says it wasn’t a simple process.

ANDERSON: Well it is hard work and it does go against the cultural norms of healthcare.

CLARK: Translation: Doctors don’t like to change their schedules around and administrators are loathed to antagonize doctors. That’s meant an uphill battle for Eugene Litvak. In 12 years of preaching efficiency Litvak and his colleagues have managed to get only a half dozen in the US to implement their ideas. Fighting an entrenched system though is nothing new to him. America’s healthcare bureaucracy reminds him of his life back in the Soviet Union.

LITVAK: Frequently having some conversations with decision makers I feel that if I can only replace English with Russian I would feel like I’m back home.

CLARK: But Litvak remains hopeful that hospitals will come around to his way of thinking especially if President Obama’s healthcare reform efforts succeed. Litvak believes if America is ever going to provide high quality healthcare to all its citizens, hospital administrators have to start thinking more like modern factory bosses and less like Soviet-era bureaucrats. For The World this is Katy Clark.

Decorum in Congress

The World — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:24:35 +0000

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The World’s Alex Gallafent looks at questions of political decorum sparked by Republican Congressman Joe Wilson’s outburst during President Obama’s speech to Congress last night.

MARCO WERMAN: If you didn’t hear it last night here’s the moment Representative Joe Wilson interrupted President Obama during his speech to Congress. The president was countering accusations against his healthcare plan.

BARACK OBAMA: There are also those who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants. This too is false. The reforms I am proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.

JOE WILSON: You lie.

OBAMA: It’s not true.

WERMAN: We’ve already heard about the content of this debate but the tone of that exchange is generating a lot of heat. Politicians including Vice President Biden and Senator John McCain have said that such a breach of decorum has no place in the United States Congress. Here’s The World’s Alex Gallafent.

ALEX GALLAFENT: It didn’t take long for Congressman Wilson to offer an apology to President Obama. Today the president accepted it.

OBAMA: I’m a big believer that we all make mistakes. He apologized quickly and without equivocation and I’m appreciative of that. I do think that, as I said last night, we have to get to the point where we can have a conversation.

GALLAFENT: Forgive me Mr. President. The speech last night interrupted the conversation that’s dominated the news over the last couple of months. Raucous town hall meetings and the like. Now it wasn’t the speech of a member of Congress – a debater. This wasn’t in the style of say a British prime minister standing up in parliament and expecting flak from the backbenches. It was the head of state leaving the safe harbor of the executive branch behind and heading into the foreign waters of the legislature. All this reminded Elihu Katz of another political moment. Katz is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School of Communication. It was 1977. Egypt’s president, Anwar Sadat, made a historic visit to Israel’s parliament. Katz says Sadat went in armed only with rhetoric.

ELIHU KATZ: Their arrangement was that he would speak in Arabic and that Prime Minister Begin would then reply in Hebrew in the presence of the entire assembled parliament and it was a very dignified reverent occasion.

GALLAFENT: But Katz adds there was heckling just like there was last night. Though there the similarities end. The heckling in Israel was accompanied by a debate between Sadat and Begin – a conversation. A conversation was not the point of President Obama’s visit to Capital Hill last night. It’s not the point of presidential addresses generally. There, says Elihu Katz, conversations are held at a distance in the form of prepared responses and that explains, if not excuses, Congressman Wilson’s interjection.

KATZ: The outburst, while irreverent and unconventional, is not so hard to understand given that the opposition has no voice in the parliament at that moment on that ceremonial occasion.

GALLAFENT: And thus the ceremonial bubble was burst. In another country, say South Korea, things aren’t considered out of hand until punches are thrown. But in the rarefied air of the United States Congress all it takes is a couple of angry words. For The World I’m Alex Gallafent.

Sarkozy pushes for carbon tax

The World — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:21:52 +0000

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French President Nicholas Sarkozy wants to impose a carbon tax on households and businesses that emit greenhouse gases. But the French say they feel too taxed already. Anchor Marco Werman finds out more from Guillaume Debre of the French TV Channel TF-1.

MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World. French President Nicholas Sarkozy took a stand against global warming today. He announced a plan to introduce a carbon tax on French households and businesses that emit greenhouse gases.

NICHOLAS SARKOZY: [SPEAKING FRENCH]

TRANSLATOR: It’s time to act. Time is against us. It’s our generation that must decide and decide now. For too many years we put off until tomorrow the decisions we must take now.

WERMAN: Sarkozy’s dramatic flourish may not be enough to persuade French citizens many of whom feel they’re paying enough taxes already. Guillaume Debre is Washington correspondent for the French TV channel. He happens to be in Paris today. Guillaume explain how this tax would work.

GUILLAUME DEBRE: Well in a sense you pollute, you pay. Or phrased differently it’s sort of a buy yourself a good conscious. The government calls it, the contribution to the climate and the energy but everybody else calls it the carbon tax. Basically the goal is to tax the usage of energy that comes from fossil fuel. Everybody – households, businesses, companies – will pay all together 17 euros per ton of CO2 carbon dioxide emitted. So if you use your car you’ll pay more. If a plant uses coal or natural gas; they’ll pay more. The interesting thing is that you will pay by the ton of CO2 emitted. That means that the use of electricity if France will not be taxed because in France, as opposed to the US, 80% of electricity comes from nuclear plants, from renewable energy. So they do not emit CO2. The idea of course is by taxing CO2 the hope is that people will pollute less. The other interesting idea is that household people when they pollute and pay their carbon tax they will be actually reimbursed for whatever they pay. If you pay 100 euro of carbon tax you’re income tax will decrease so the net sum will be zero. That’s the idea. That’s what Sarkozy tried to propose this morning to basically make this tax bill easier to swallow because everybody here is opposed to a new tax.

WERMAN: Right I mean it’s kind of a zero sum game it sounds like but yet the French aren’t too excited about this tax.

DEBRE: No everybody’s pretty much against it. Even in his own party, the conservative party, people are against it. Again election in three years. Nobody wants to put higher taxes. What’s interesting is the green party is also opposed to it for different reasons. Because they think actually it’s just cosmetic. It’s sort of a placebo measure. You know the government wants to say they’re fighting for the environment but the 17 euro per ton is not enough. What they wanted is 32 euros per ton is about $50. Some suggested $100 euro per ton of CO2 emitted. It’s $140 per ton which is approximately what Sweden has. And the green movement and the green vote is at the core issue of this carbon tax. Sarkozy is a master of coalition building. He has in his government everybody from former leftist, to royalist, from people who were opposed abortion, to a feminist. And he wants to broaden his coalition and attract this green vote that’s pretty much up for grab. We’re three years away from the elections and he thinks that by you know if he kept putting more green on his image he can attract this vote. His opponents it’s all show. He doesn’t actually want to really combat and reduce pollution because this measure is way too little to do that.

WERMAN: So what happens next? Will this have to be voted on by the French parliament or will it be a public referendum?

DEBRE: No, no. It won’t be a public referendum. It will be voted in the French parliament. But the system is structured in France in a way that you have a political debate but it’s most likely it will be voted by the parliament because Sarkozy’s controlling the majority in the parliament. There might be some amendments. There might be some changes – maybe in the price – but there won’t be major changes. And it has to be voted by the two houses which is likely to do in the next you know weeks or months. By the end of year it will be sort of implemented.

WERMAN: Guillaume Debre, Washington correspondent for French TV channel TF1 speaking to us from Paris. Thanks Guillaume.

DEBRE: Thank you.

Green adventures

The World — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:18:56 +0000

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The World’s Laura Lynch meets an eco-adventurer who’s combined low-tech and high-tech to turn a scrapyard bus into a green mobile home. Now he’s planning a voyage around the world using sustainable fuels and a low-carbon budget.

Follow the bio truck expedition online

MARCO WERMAN: Now to a much more personal quest for climate change solutions. This weekend an old school bus takes off from London for a trip around the globe. The bus has been reinvented as a model of echo-efficiency. It’s a somewhat eccentric combination of high-tech and low-tech and its owner hopes to prove a point. The World’s Laura Lynch paid him a visit.

LAURA LYNCH: Just days before his adventure is set to begin, and Andy Peg is scrambling to finish outfitting the bus that will be his mobile home as he travels the world over the next 12 months. You might not think of a school bus as an echo-friendly way to travel but Peg found the rusting shell in a scrap yard and began restoring it. One man’s trash quickly became Andy’s treasure.

ANDY PEG: In fact all the carpet throughout is all off cuts that I found outside people’s homes when they’ve changed their carpets and throwing them away. These chairs and table here, that’s made out of an old office furniture desk. And the shelving here, that’s made with broken shopping baskets.

LYNCH: But Peg, a former journalist turned self-styled echo-adventurer, is doing something else here – combining the old with the very new.

PEG: Apart from the rubbish there’s some really cutting edge technology. So this unit over here is the charge controller for the solar panels on the roof. We’ve got six solar panels, that’s 500 watts, which is actually a massive amount and that powers that fridge and everything else I need for my sort of day-to-day life. And I’ve kind of wired up to it like the flux capacitor from Back to The Future.

LYNCH: Peg is doing all he can to avoid using any fossil fuels. He’ll cook with a wood gas stove, shower with solar heated water, and use low-energy light bulbs.

PEG: But this is the kind of piece de resistance at the back here … .

LYNCH: That’s a huge plastic drum in the back of the bus. It holds 1200 liters of used cooking oil and it’s supposed to last about 5000 miles.

[SOUND CLIP OF STARTING ENGINE]

PEG: That doesn’t so good. There we go. Nice little puff of white smoke coming out there. It’s good healthy stuff. It’s all vegetables.

LYNCH: Peg’s plan is to top up the tank throughout his travels wherever and whenever someone wants to contribute their used oil. But incase he runs out he’s got a high-tech backup fuel system – a hydrogen gas generator power by the solar cells on the roof. His goal is to complete his global journey without emitting more than two tons of carbon dioxide. That’s about a fifth of what the average British person emits each year but it’s the target some experts say everyone will have to meet by 2050 to avoid the worst effects of climate change. Peg thinks his bus combining low and high tech will at least serve as inspiration.

PEG: Whenever there’s a green solution it’s very easy to knock it down – say well that will never work to solve all the problems. And I think any one solution will work to solve all the problems. And it’s really a showcase if you like for the fact that there is no one simple answer to our energy problems and our energy needs but actually lots of little solutions. Hopefully if we put them all together they can have a pretty significant impact.

LYNCH: Peg is already getting e-mails from as far away as China supporting his expedition. Though he is not certain he’ll be allowed to enter the country. He does have a Visa for Iran where he believes he’ll be warmly welcomed. For all of his work and enthusiasm though, Peg is a realist.

PEG: I’ve got no idea whether this will work. I’m a little bit skeptical as to whether I will be able to do it but you know I’m willing to give it my best shot and see if there is this kind of infrastructure of waste around the world that facilitates fuel being made from waste.

LYNCH: People walking by sometimes stop and stare at his bus now painted with images of the world. Andy Peg hopes to attract the same kind of attention on his travels to spread the gospel of echo-efficiency and maybe even learn something new from the people he encounters along the way. His expedition starts off from London on Saturday. For The World I’m Laura Lynch in London.

Lebanon’s prime minister steps down

The World — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:12:11 +0000

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Lebanon’s prime minister-designate Saad al-Hariri announced today he was stepping down after failing to form a government with rival groups. Hariri blamed the Hezbollah-led opposition for blocking his efforts. The World’s Aaron Schachter reports.

MARCO WERMAN: Afghanistan also has big political problems at the moment. The country is still sorting the results of presidential elections last month. The vote and the count have been marred by allegations of fraud. It’s unclear when the post electoral dust will settle in Kabul. It may be a while. It’s already been a while since elections last June in Lebanon and that country is no closer to forming a government. Today the man who led the winning coalition gave up on the task. From Beirut The World’s Aaron Schachter explains what happened.

AARON SCHACHTER: Lebanon’s prime minister designate was until today Saad Hariri. His Saudi and US-backed coalition won at the polls in June. His talks about forming a unity government with the Syrian and Iranian Hezbollah block didn’t go well. Hence Hariri’s announcement today.

SAAD HARIRI: [SPEAKING ARABIC]

SCHACHTER: Hariri apologized to Lebanon’s president for not being able to form a government and said he hoped his decision to throw in the towel would benefit the country. The country’s president will now start consultations with lawmakers to name a new prime minister designate. Hariri spent three months trying to put together a unity cabinet which he presented this week. Hezbollah called Hariri’s proposal inappropriate and unhelpful. Hariri bemoaned what he called constant obstructions. Lebanese politician Misbah al Ahdab is a Hariri supporter. He says what’s happening is absurd given that Hariri’s coalition won last June’s elections.

MISBAH AL AHDAB: We have the majority. We have people’s support – people went to these elections against all the pressure that has been done against them and gave us a clear message saying that we would like to have a state.

SCHAHCTER: Hariri and his allies won 71 out of 128 seats in the Lebanese parliament. Theoretically Hariri doesn’t need the opposition to form a government. But this is a place, as some say, where those with the guns call the shots and Hezbollah is armed to the teeth and backed by powerful friends in the region.

FARID CHEDID: The situation in Lebanon is not controlled by the Lebanese.

SCHACHTER: Farid Chedid is editor of the news site Lebanon Wire dot com. He says it’s hard to figure out these days who’s pulling what strings in Lebanon, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, once staunch adversaries, are now getting along. And that may have angered Iran, Hezbollah’s main backer. Or Saudi Arabia may be upset that the US and Syria are becoming closer. Or perhaps even the US is peeved at the Saudi-Syrian thaw in relations. Chedid says things could get really ugly.

CHEDID: It’s a new civil war. You might even say that it will be heading to an Iraq-type conflict.

SCHACHTER: A new civil war or even an Iraq-type conflict those are the worst case scenarios. Chedid concedes Hariri’s resignation is more likely a political tactic intended to pressure the opposition. Many here expect Lebanon’s president to reappoint Hariri as prime minister designate and give him another shot at forming a government. Besides, it’s still early days by Lebanese standards. In 1969 Prime Minister Rashid Karami took nine months to form a government. For The World I’m Aaron Schachter in Beirut.

Geo Quiz

The World — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:07:41 +0000

Download MP3 Our daily geography puzzler.

China stays ahead of economic slump

The World — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:03:35 +0000

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It’s been just about a year since the start of the global economic crisis, and China’s doing better than most. Today, China’s premier said the country’s economy experienced 7 % growth since the start of 2009. The World’s Mary Kay Magistad reports.

MARCO WERMAN: It’s almost a year to the day since the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the start of the global economic crisis. It’s been a rough 12 months but China has weathered it better than most. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said today China had more than 7% growth in the first seven months of the year and it didn’t just fall in China’s lap, he said, the government really worked at it. Other countries have noticed and some believe the center of economic gravity is shifting toward China. The World’s Mary Kay Magistad reports from the World Economic Forum in the northern Chinese city of Dalian.

MARY KAY MAGISTAD: There were a lot of thinly veiled swipes at the United States today at the World Economic Forum in Dalian.

LUIS VILLEGAS: Fortunately Latin America is this time not blamed for being the source of the world crisis.

MAGISTAD: Luis Villegas is the president of the National Association of Industries in Columbia. He said not only did the United States cause the economic crisis, it didn’t take the medicine it had prescribed to others.

VILLEGAS: Ten years ago the advice for the crisis in Latin America and Russia was first, you’re going to have increase your public deficit. Two, you cannot print money. Three, you cannot increase your debt. And four, you cannot bail out anyone. Then you take ten years later the same recipe and look the most flourishing manufacturing industry in the United States is printing money.

MAGISTAD: Egypt’s minister of investment, Mahmoud Safwat Moheildin, peddled more softly but still said the center of gravity is shifting.

MAHMOUD SAFWAT MOHEILDIN: Things are changing very fast and it is very much predicted by almost everybody including some European think tanks that within 20 years China is going to be number one, India number two, the United States and Japan number three or four. This is very much a changing world.

MAGSITAD: And the head of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, was effusive in his praise of Chinese Premiere Wen Jiebao when he introduced him to the forum audience. Schwab called Wen a patron of the forum and said the Chinese government had acted responsibly when others have not.

KLAUS SCHWAB: China’s engagement [INDISCERNIBLE] in terms of stimulating the world economy or its role in enhancing international corporation and economic development uniquely confirms China’s and Premier Wen Jiebao’s active commitment to responsibility to the global community that is just equitable and stable.

MAGISTAD: Chinese Premier Wen Jiebao took the podium and more or less said hang on we’re doing better than we were and we worked hard to get here but there’s still a long ways to go.

WEN JIEBAO: [SPEAKING CHINESE]

MAGISTAD: Wen said the stabilization and recovery of the Chinese economy is not yet steady, stable, and balanced. He said it will take time to increase domestic demand, to make up for plummeting exports. But the government is increasing spending on healthcare, education, and pension plans so Chinese feel more comfortable saving less and spending more.

That’s the right direction says economist Arthur Kroeber who heads the Beijing-based consulting group Dragonomics. But he says there’s a reason why it’s going to take time to convince people they don’t have to save as much.

ARTHUR KROEBER: From the early 1990’s until about three or four years ago the personal experience of almost every Chinese household was the government taking stuff away from them. We used to have that benefit and it’s gone and we’re on our own. So our expectation is every year we’re going to be more on our own. And so they built that into their spending decisions. Now objectively I think things are going the other way and government is giving them more. But how long does it take people to reverse their expectations?

MAGISTAD: Meanwhile Kroeber says the government could spur more domestic demand by deregulating the services sector and promoting more competition in the private sector.

KROEBER: To my mind the next year is really pretty crucial because this tells us are they serious about domestic structural market reforms that can build a solid foundation for future growth or are they just pouring money into the system and hoping that the Americans will come back and save them.

MAGISTAD: No one in Dalian today seemed to be counting on the Americans to save them. Certainly not as a long term strategy. The buzz here is that a transition has begun. The reality is the transition may be rocky and far from linear, if it happens as predicted at all, but it seems China has started a serious effort to increase its odds. For The World I’m Mary Kay Magistad in Dalian, China.

Geo Quiz Answer

The World — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:59:41 +0000

Download MP3 The answer to today's Geo Quiz is Pietermaritzburg, the capital of the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal, and the site of a very unusual race. Anchor Marco Werman tells us why a South African financial services company wanted to see which would be the first to cross the finish line, a carrier pidgeon, or an email.

Global Hit: Deolinda

The World — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:50:20 +0000

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A man in Portugal started a petition to turn a song by the Lisbon-based band Deolinda into the country’s new national anthem. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with the petition leader — and the band’s lead singer.