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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.

KATY CLARK: I’m Katy Clark.  This is The World.  It took a while to count all the votes from last month’s presidential election in Afghanistan.  Today, a complete preliminary count was officially unveiled.  President Karzai came out on top with over 54% of the ballots cast.  Normally that would be enough to declare Karzai the winner after the first round of voting, but the results have not been finalized because of persistent voting fraud allegations.  Today, observers from the European Union added their voice of concern.  They’re questioning the validity of more than a quarter of all the votes cast.  The World’s Jason Margolis has more.

JASON MARGOLIS: There were almost six million votes cast in Afghanistan’s election.  According to European Union observers, one million votes registered for Afghan President Hamid Karzai are suspect.  And the second place challenger, Abdollah Abdollah, was allocated roughly 300,000 suspicious votes.  These huge numbers of irregularities led the head of the EU observer mission, Phillipe Morillon to declare today.

PHILIPPE MORILLON: Any claim from any camp for any victory will not be credible.

MARGOLIS: The international community has invested a lot of financial security and political capital into Afghanistan’s election.  Election administration alone has cost some $220 million.  That’s a lot of money to pay for what could turn out to be a sham election.  But let’s keep things in perspective says Brian Katulis who was an election observer in Afghanistan and is a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for American Progress.

BRIAN KATULIS: In transition elections in countries that are in early political transition like Afghanistan, it’s not uncommon to have irregularities and instances of fraud.  And I still think it’s a bit early to cast judgment on this because a lot depends on how not only the Independent Election Commission but the Electoral Complaints Commission, two key institutions in Afghanistan, deals with these allegations.

MARGOLIS: President Karzai’s office issued a statement today calling the new vote fraud allegations partial, irresponsible and in contradiction with Afghanistan’s constitution. Karzai’s campaign manager said that the election had some shortcomings but was a “success for the entire population.”    If Karzai declares outright victory amidst so much election uncertainty that makes U.S. strategy more difficult says Brian Katulis.

KATULIS: If you don’t have leaders who are seen as actually holding power with legitimacy in their own country, it really creates a weak foundation for building an overall Afghanistan policy.

MARGOLIS: In Washington, Congressional Democrats are calling for accelerated efforts to train and equip more Afghan security forces before more American troops are committed to Afghanistan.  Yesterday in Congress, the nation’s top military commander pushed back.  Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, asked for more U.S. forces, more time, and more commitment for protecting the Afghan people.  President Obama weighed in on the debate this afternoon.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: There is no immediate decision pending on resources because one of the things that I’m absolutely clear about is you have to get the strategy right, and then make determination about resources. You don’t make determinations about resources, and certainly you don’t make determinations about sending young men and women into battle without having absolute clarity about what the strategy is going to be.

MARGOLIS: The disputed election in Afghanistan will likely make the debate over U.S. troop levels more complicated.  But Hardin Lang with the Center for Strategic and International Studies says military matters are being kept separate from Afghan politics.

HARDIN LANG: I think that Admiral Mullen is probably right to ask for some additional troops if that’s what the commanders in the field feel that they need, particularly as that we’re just beginning to start or pivot into a new strategy that’s focused on protecting the population. But to do so, until we have credible interlocutors in Kabul, and if that’s going to be in question for some time, I think we all need to take a breath and step back.

MARGOLIS: Overall, western officials seem split over how much control to exert over Afghanistan’s election.  This week, American diplomat Peter Galbraith, the number two man at the United Nations mission in Afghanistan, abruptly left Kabul.  He wants the U.N. to take a more assertive stance against the Afghan government.  The head of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, downplayed any internal dispute.  But he said it’s tremendously important to respect Afghanistan’s constitution and avoid any impression of foreign interference.  For The World, I’m Jason Margolis.

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.

KATY CLARK: Sarah Chayes has lived in Afghanistan for more than seven years.  She runs a non-profit organization in Kandahar.  She’s also currently an advisor to the International Forces there known as ISAF. Sarah Chayes, Karzai is officially the winner, at least according to these preliminary final figures with an outright majority, but are Afghans buying it?

SARAH CHAYES: Well, not really because there was just massive fraud, and it was very, almost industrially executed.  It wasn’t sort of accidental fraud in the margins.  It was pretty carefully organized, and very widespread and certainly in Kandahar.  I mean, no one in Kandahar really felt that there was a proper election between Taliban intimidation of most of the Province really, and then stuffing the ballot boxes where people hadn’t been able to vote.  No one was really satisfied with the election that I know.

CLARK: Which is notable because Kandahar is the home province of President Hamid Karzai.

CHAYES: Yeah, and what’s interesting is there’s a kind of general international assumption that Pashtun, the ethnic group that President Karzai belongs to are kind of collectively in favor of him.  Whereas, all I know of in Kandahar is opposition, and where there was an active opposition during the election and that was able to protect the integrity of some of the voting stations.  I was able to see the official results which had, you know, I mean, in one case it was 166 I think for Karzai and 144 for the runner up, Abdullah Abdullah, 42 for somebody else.  So you did have a Karzai plurality, but by no means an overwhelming Karzai majority.  Whereas where they were able to stuff the ballot boxes, you know, you were turning up 100% results for Karzai and everyone knows this, and so there’s a widespread feeling in the population that the whole process was a sham, and some perplexity as to what it felt to be a fairly muted international response to that.

CLARK: So if the credibility of the election is in doubt, what will happen?  I’m guessing the Karzai camp won’t volunteer to annul the election. So can the international community do anything about it at this point?

CHAYES: These are preliminary results, and I think there really is a possibility that the Electoral Complaints Commission disqualified a significant number of ballots. Now whether it’s enough to slow the entire election or let’s say reduce President’s Karzai’s score to below 50%, is an open question and means that they’re really on the seat.

CLARK: Well, Sarah we mentioned that you’re an advisor to the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.  What are you advising right now?

CHAYES: The problem is we are the Security Assistance Force, and this is really a political matter.  And so particularly at this stage of the game, there really isn’t a role ISAF to be playing.  It’s very much a political issue.  But the ball really is now in the court of the United States, of the key embassies, the U.S. Embassy, U.K. Embassy.  There are a couple.  The ones that really are contributing a lot of vote development assistance and military forces here.  And frankly, I think it’s a strategic problem.  I mean, I think this is something … I hope there are people in Washington who are taking this very seriously right now because I think it becomes a little bit more difficult to legitimize or rationalize the tremendous investment that our nations are making in the Afghan mission if there is a government that is in contempt of its own citizens.  And I think that that way tends to lie failure for counterinsurgencies.  If there’s not a political process that the population can adhere to, insurgencies tend to win.  And so, I think this situation really at a strategic level puts in question the whole U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.  So for me, this is the question to be discussed at the level of the White House and a U.S. policy …  Quite a robust U.S. policy needs to be developed.

CLARK: Sarah Chayes an Advisor to the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.  She also runs a non-profit in Kandahar.  She was speaking to us from Kabul.  Thanks, Sarah.

CHAYES: 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.

KATY CLARK: Whatever their hardships, many Afghans manage to make the annual haij or pilgrimage to Mecca each year. But the sheer number of pilgrims has made safety at the event difficult to ensure.  So Saudi Arabian authorities are now in the midst of a multi-billion dollar makeover of the area around Mecca’s grand Mosque.  A variety of top international architects including Norman Foster and Zaha Hadid have submitted proposal for a make-over.  As you might expect, the plans are controversial. Traditionalists are horrified, but other say modernization is necessary.   Kieran Long, editor of the magazine Architecture Review, has had a glimpse of Mecca’s possible future.

KIERAN LONG: So we’ve seen some early images of the Foster and Hadid plan.  Zaha Hadid has done some work, which appears to be kind of around the Mosque itself, expanding it, adding to it, not actually demolishing too much of the Mosque that exists.  Now the Foster, part of the plan appears to be a series of very large scale towers, which will presumably accommodate hotel accommodations, temporary accommodations for pilgrims.

CLARK: These changes are tantamount to vandalism, according to Irfan Al Alawi.  He’s the founder of the London-based Islamic Heritage Research Foundation.

IRFAN AL ALAWI: I think it’s the end of Mecca.  I clearly believe it’s a Manhattanization. Of course, there’s a need for expansion, but not these ugly skyscrapers overlooking the Grand Mosque, and certainly you don’t have buildings, huge buildings, looking over the Vatican, over the White House.  My main concern is the historical monuments of Mecca are being demolished, wiped away.  The very well known mountains of Jabal Karba [PH], Jabal Omar [PH, Jabal Khandama [PH] at one time were historical mountains mentioned in the Koran. These mountains have been dynamited; they have been blown up into pieces to make way for these huge skyscrapers.

CLARK: The proposed hotel and apartment towers haven’t yet been built, and Al Alawi argues there’s a religious reason for not permitting them to be built.

AL ALAWI: When the Grand Mosque was expanded under the Ottomans, the spiritual aspect of it, the brick work, the color, dimension, the minarets were kept within the Islamic architecture.  When one visits Mecca, you are trying to get close to God, not way into what we call dunia, the world and, of course, these big buildings are going to cater for wealthier pilgrims.

CLARK: That’s important says magazine editor Kieran Long.  This is a business venture, too.  He points out that the land surrounding the Grand Mosque in Mecca is extremely valuable.

LONG: And when you have this many people meeting and needing to stay somewhere, and needing to buy things, needing to just exist in the city for a couple of days, this clearly is a lot of money at stake.  I would say the more important aspect of these buildings is probably their architectural identify even though the Saudi Royal Family isn’t in need of a massive amount of income from this project.  But, of course, there will be hotel operators and their commercial outfits looking at this project and looking for a way in.

CLARK: Irfan Al Alawi doesn’t object to hotels and the like in principle.  He just doesn’t want them anywhere near to the Grand Mosque.

AL ALAWI: Mile and a half, two miles away.  You can build huge buildings if you like but not close to the sanctuary.  If Mecca is not preserved now, then historically we will not have anything to give to our future generation.  It will be a legend.

CLARK: Kieran Long says even the Saudi Royal Family will likely not be able to railroad through any plans, and when a final plan is agreed to, the scale of the project means Mecca is completed makeover could be decades away.  One other thing, if Norman Foster’s plans are adopted, he’ll have to send assistants to work on the site in his stead.  Non-Muslims are not allowed in Mecca, even if they’re building it.

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.

KATY CLARK: I’m Katy Clark.  This is The World.  Japan has a new Primer Minister; Yukio Hatoyama was sworn in today.  His Democratic Party won last month’s parliamentary elections.  It now replaces Japan’s ruling party.  The Liberal Democrats, who held control for nearly 50 years.  The new Prime Minister promised change.  And it’s fair to say that his wife, Miyuki Hatoyama, provides some of that.  As Akiko Fujita reports, it’s not just because of some of the unusual comments she’s made.

MIYUKI HATOYAMA: [TV interview on YouTube]

AKIKO FUJITA: First there was this interview that’s making the rounds on YouTube.  Miyuki Hatoyama claims Tom Cruise was Japanese in a past life.  She says she feels a direct connection to him because of that.  Then there’s the book she put out last year. It’s called, The Most Bizarre Things I’ve Encountered.  In it, Mrs. Hatoyama claims that aliens took her soul to Venus while she was sleeping.  Not surprisingly, these statements have gotten some attention abroad since her husband’s election last month, and they’ve made her a joke on late night T.V. in the U.S.

CRAIG FERGUSON: She says she’s been abducted by aliens.

FUJITA: Japanese political analyst Minoru Morita admits the comments are a little odd. But he says Mrs. Hatoyama is anything but strange. In fact, he says, she represents a bold break from past Japanese first ladies.

MINORU MORITA: [Speaking Japanese]

FUJITA: Morita says Miyuki Hatoyama says what she’s thinking whether it’s revealing her dreams or her opinions.  In a political society where wives are expected to shy away from the public, she is not afraid to come forward. That approach may reflect Mrs. Hatoyama’s background.  She was born in Shanghai during World War II.  She grew up in Japan and became an actress. She moved to the U.S. with her first husband, and was working at a restaurant in San Francisco when she met Yukio Hatoyama. The future Prime Minister was a student at Stanford University.  The two began living together and eventually married in 1975.  The incoming First Lady hasn’t been shy about letting the public in on the couple’s personal life.  She’s talked about everything from her husband’s dishwashing skills to the foot massages she gives him at home.

MINORU MOIRTA:  [Speaking Japanese]

FUJITA: Analyst Minoru Morita says the Hatoyamas are very close.  In fact, Mrs. Hatoyama is her husband’s closest advisor.  Morita says she brings flare to an otherwise dull politician.  He adds, she’s a cross between Michelle Obama and Nancy Regan.  Mrs. Regan raised some eyebrows herself when it was revealed that she consulted an astrologer about her husband’s presidential schedule.  The new First Lady’s quirks don’t seem to bother many in Japan.  Her fan base among women here is already growing.

YUKI OBAYASHI: [Speaking Japanese]

FUJITA: In Ginza Tokyo’s shopping district, Yuki Obayashi says Mrs. Hatoyama was made to be a first lady. I like that she doesn’t fit into a mold.   Her friend says that women have been pushed to the back for too long. I want Mrs. Hatoyama to be as aggressive as she can be in public.  Morita expects Hatoyama to be the most visible first lady in the country’s history.  She is already a frequent guest on TV talk shows as a self-described life composer, and made frequent stops on her husband’s campaign trail. With a public skeptical about Mr. Hatoyama’s ability to deliver on campaign promises, Mrs. Hatoyama may be the person he needs to win them over.  For The World, I’m Akiko Fujita in Tokyo.

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.

KATY CLARK: There’s a vast stretch of protected forest on Canada’s Pacific Coast called the Great Bear Rainforest.  It’s red cedar and sitka spruce trees as far as the eye can see.  But recently conservationists have been sounding an alarm. Bears are a rare sight these days. Ian Mc Callister is director of the conservation group Pacific Wild.  And, Ian, I understand you are somewhere out in the Great Bear Rainforest as we speak.

IAN MC CALLISTER: Yes, that’s correct.  I’m just anchored off of Princess Royal Island.  Pretty much right in the central part of the area known as the Great Bear Rain Forest.

CLARK: So what is the crux of your concern about the bears?

MC CALLISTER: The disturbing issue that we’re finding now is a lack of bears returning to the salmon rivers here, and we believe the reason for this is because last year we had a catastrophic collapse of wild salmon.  The bears just could not find salmon to eat because they were not returning to the rivers.  The big scare then was that the bears were going to their dens very hungry and did not take on enough fat reserves to make it through the winter.  And what we’re finding now is just a lack of cubs of the year or mothers with newborn cubs.  But starvation because of the lack of salmon seems to be the culprit here.

CLARK: Have you seen any today as you’re out and about?

MC CALLISTER: I have.  I’ve seen a few bears.  You know, it’s not completely dismal, but generally speaking on the mainland coast where the winter was more severe those are the areas associated more with the die off.  And we’ve requested some action from both the federal and provincial government and so far have been met with more of a wait-and-see approach.

CLARK: What have you asked the government to do?

MC CALLISTER: We’ve asked them to cancel the fall trophy hunt.

CLARK: Which is going on right now, isn’t it?

MC CALLISTER: It’s going on right now.  We’ve come across two active camps that have trophy hunters in them, and they’re targeting both black bear and grizzly bear. So, you know, we feel that at this point every bear that made it through the winter is a very lucky one, and an impressive one.  And should not be targeted just for fortuitous sport, especially because of between 30 and 50% of bears that are killed here for trophies are female.

CLARK: How many bears are the hunters allowed to take in the hunting seasons that is currently going on?

MC CALLISTER: It’s open season on black bears.  So an unlimited amount of black bears can be killed, but it’s a limited entry hunt for grizzly bears.  So approximately between 250 and 350 grizzly bears are killed in the Province of British Columbia every year just for sport.

CLARK: And from what’s been described to me, the bears sort of line up along the river waiting for the salmon to go by.  The hunters show up there, too, and it’s not that difficult to shoot a bear when you have this combination?

MC CALLISTER: Well, that’s absolutely correct. More than 90% of the bears killed in the fall season are killed right on the edge of these salmon rivers while they’re feeding for salmon. So in many respects it’s an unethical hunt.  What’s especially discouraging is to look at the amount of First Nation led bear viewing companies emerging and diversifying the local economies here, and of course they are at odds with the trophy hunting.  So in some rivers there might be bear viewers with cameras and tripods and trophy hunters with rifles.  And these bears in some cases are being habituated to people and are at a real disadvantage to get away from people because they, of course, don’t know whether they’re having their picture taken or whether they’re being killed for a trophy.

CLARK: Sure.  Give us a picture of what is out there on the river where the bears are today.  Sort of describe the scene for us.

MC CALLISTER: Sure, I’m just anchored off of Salmon Creek right now.  They have grizzly bears, Spirit bears and black bears.  So it’s extremely impressive that way.  We do have pink salmon that have returned in above expected numbers this year.  So there is a lot of salmon in the creeks for the bears, and they should be here feeding, and the question is really where are they?  We’re finding a few, of course.  Some have made it through the winter, but not in the numbers that we would normally see.

CLARK: Ian Mc Callister is Director of the Conservation Group Pacific Wild.  Thanks for speaking with us.

MC CALLISTER: It’s my pleasure.

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

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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.

KATY CLARK: I’m Katy Clark.  This is The World a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH-Boston.  A top Senate Democrat today unveiled his version of health care reform.  Max Baucus is the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.  His bill does not call for a publicly-run health insurance option, but otherwise, it’s pretty much what President Obama called for in his speech last week. That is, a plan to bring the United States into line with other wealthy countries which provide health care coverage for all or almost all.  Whether that includes any of the country’s estimated 12 million illegal immigrants has been the subject of much debate recently. We’re going to discuss that with John Sheils.  He is Vice President of The Lewin Group, a non-partisan health care management consulting firm.  Okay, John, the now famous “You lied” shout by Congressman Joe Wilson. In the Baucus proposal, would there be any way for illegal or undocumented immigrants to get health care coverage?

JOHN SHEILS: Well, no.  Things really wouldn’t be any different for undocumented people than they are today.  Under the existing law, if you’re not documented, you can’t get coverage under the Federal Medicaid Program, and Medicaid is the program that covers many of the poor in the United States. Those individuals regardless of how low their income, cannot be enrolled in Medicaid, and it certainly looks like that will continue to be the case under this bill.  It is true, though, that if you have an emergency, if you need emergency care, as an undocumented individual you can get the services and it can be reimbursed under Medicaid.

CLARK: What about illegal immigrants who are here working?  Can they be getting health insurance through their jobs?

SHEILS: They do today.  It’s estimated about half of undocumented workers are actually getting coverage from an employer.

CLARK: How do they get that and how is that translated into cost and other things?

SHEILS: Well, there’s really no requirement that you demonstrate that you are here legally to purchase insurance from an insurer.  It’s interesting.  They did a survey, INS did a survey of people who were recently permitted to stay here after an amnesty program, and they asked them what life was when they were undocumented?  And about 45% of them said that they had insurance through an employer.  The health plans really aren’t required in any way to determine that you’re here legally in order to give you coverage.

CLARK: So will that be the same case under the various proposals that are being discussed in Washington right now?

SHEILS: It would be the same under the House Bill and under the Baucus Bill it appears that people would be able to continue to purchase private insurance without proving that they’re here legally.  They would not qualify for any of the premium subsidies created under the Baucus Program or under the House Bill under the subsidies provided under those bills.  The Premium Subsidy Program is something that would be over and above the Medicaid Program.  Medicaid would cover the very poorest people in the country.  The Premium Subsidy Program would help people buy private insurance, and that would be for people whose incomes are too high to qualify for Medicaid, but too low to be able to purchase the coverage on their own.

CLARK: And I wanted to get to the question about crowded emergency rooms.  There’s this perception that crowding in ERs is caused by illegal immigrants using the ERs like a clinic.  How true is that?

SHEILS: Well, I think that’s probably an overstatement.  Certainly, over half of the undocumented don’t have coverage.  So they’re more likely to be uninsured and more likely to need to go to an emergency room because the physician won’t take them without insurance.

CLARK: And how many people are we talking about when we say that over half?

SHEILS: Well, we’re talking about maybe five or six million people, but that’s just a small portion of the total uninsured population.  We have 49 million uninsured people.  Only six million of them are undocumented people.  But the undocumented actually represent a pretty small part of the problem.

CLARK: John Sheils is with The Lewin Group, a non-partisan healthcare management consulting firm outside Washington, D.C.  John Sheils, thanks for speaking with us.

SHEILS: All right, 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.

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CLARK: Israel is launching a diplomatic offensive against a United Nations report on the War in Gaza last winter.  The report accuses both Israel and Hamas of war crimes during the three-week conflict, though most of the report focuses on Israel’s actions.  The report was authored by South African Judge Richard Goldstone. He’s prosecuted war crimes in Rwanda and the form Yugoslavia.  Israeli President Shimon Peres says the report makes a mockery of history.  And officials say they’ll block any attempts to bring Israeli soldiers before a war crimes tribunal.  Linda Gradstein has the story.

LINDA GRADSTEIN: Israeli officials said today that a nearly 600-page report was even worse than they had feared.  The report said Israel had deliberately used disproportionate force against Palestinian civilians, and had employed weapons such as white phosphorous that should not be used in heavily populated areas.  The report also called on the U.N. Security Council to demand that both Israel and the Palestinians launched domestic investigations into possible war crimes or refer the issue to the International Criminal Court.  Israel did not cooperate with Goldstone’s investigation saying it was ordered by a U.N. body with an anti-Israel bias.  Israeli Government spokesman Mark Regev said the report released yesterday clearly reflects that.

MARK REGEV: Israeli Government made the right decision in not cooperating with this almost kangaroo court.  They had decided in advance who was the guilty party, and we saw that with the way they acted.  Conducting public hearings in Gaza totally under the brutal control of the authoritarian Hamas Regime is like conducting a Stalinist show trial.  It has nothing whatsoever to do with independent fact finding.

GRADSTEIN: Hamas welcomed the U.N. report’s condemnation of Israel, but Hamas official Mushir Al-Masri also criticized the report’s accusations that Hamas rocket fire on civilian areas constituted a war crime.

MUSHIR AL-MASRI: [Translated]  There is no doubt that the United Nations’ report was in some respects not balanced nor fair towards the oppressed Palestinian people since it equates the victim with the oppressor.  And on the other hand, the report affirmed in some respects the credibility of Hamas, and the facts that it reported regarding crimes committed by the Zionist enemy.  True war crimes and the killings of dozens of Palestinian families.

GRADSTEIN: Even today almost ten months after the fighting ended, there is no definitive casualty list.  Israel says some 1,100 Palestinians, most of them Hamas fighters, were killed while Palestinians and human rights groups say the total is closer to 1,400 and most were civilians. Israeli officials are working hard to discredit the U.N. report.  Gerald Steinberg runs NGO Monitor. It’s a Jerusalem-based group that analyzes the reports of human rights organizations for anti-Israel bias.  He told Israel Television that the Goldstone Report accepts claims by both Palestinian and human rights organizations without investigating them.

GERALD STEINBERG: I think every page is egregious because it’s all based on not just hearsay but NGO reports, [INDISCERNIBLE], Human Rights Watch, Palestinian Center for Human Rights, which actually has no truth behind it, no credibility.  The entire report has no credibility.  It’s a disaster in terms of international law.  It’s all made up as they go along.  It’s amazing that someone with the prestige and experience of Judge Richard Goldstone could put out such a terrible report.

GRADSTEIN: Israeli officials said today they would protect any Israeli soldiers and commanders from international prosecution.  The report could make it more difficult for senior military officials to travel to Europe if they are eventually charged in the international criminal court.  The ICC Prosecutor’s Office said today it’s, “examining all issues related to its jurisdiction in the Gaza case.”  Gerald Steinberg of the NGO Monitor said it’s wrong to equate Israel and Hamas.

STEINBERG: Nobody is going to lift a hand against Hamas.  Nobody is going to take Hamas or Iran to the International Criminal Court.  It won’t make any difference.  It’s Israel that’s the target here, and this is simply a façade to [SOUNDS LIKE] because you handle this to say okay we are being kosher.  We’re not going out after Israel and I don’t think anybody who takes this issue seriously is going to accept that kind of false moral or immoral equivalences.

GRADSTEIN: Meanwhile, efforts today to restart the peace process appeared to stall. U.S. Special Mideast Envoy George Mitchell failed to get Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a freeze on expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.  Palestinian officials say that without that freeze there won’t be a three-way meeting between Netanyahu, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and President Obama at the U.N. General Assembly next week.  For The World I’m Linda Gradstein in Jerusalem.

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KATY CLARK: The remains of a 19th Century French num arrived today in Britain.  She wasn’t just any nun, though.  She was Therese of Lisieux revered as a saint by the Catholic Church.  Her bones have been taken to many other countries before, but not Britain where the dominant church is the Church of England. The World’s Laura Lynch was there for Saint Therese’s arrival.

LAURA LYNCH: The casket arrived in a funeral hearse on the first stop of a month-long thousand mile tour.  It’s been nearly five centuries since the Catholic Church in England and Wales so publicly venerated saintly remains, but this morning at the Catholic Cathedral in Portsmouth, the long wait was over.

PRIEST: As we welcome these relics of St. Therese to this Cathedral Church of St. John the Evangelist., we give thanks to God who gives us such witness to guide us along our pilgrim way.

LYNCH: Therese Martin was just 24 when she died of tuberculosis in 1897.  She was a Carmelite nun living in the Town of Lisieux in Normandy.  Nothing too remarkable there, but her writings published after her death inspired and moved millions.  She was declared a saint in 1925, and she’s had many miracles attributed to her. Chris Offen visited Therese’s shrine in Lisieux many times, after her doctor told her she would never have children.  She now has two daughters.

CHRIS OFFEN: I spent a lot of time praying with St. Theresa asking her to intercede with my prayers, and eventually my prayers were answered. And I just think it’s a really special relationship with her really.  I just think you take away all the pomp and everything of the church, and I think she’s a person that can just bring you closer to God.

LYNCH: Therese is easily the most traveled saint in history.  Her relics have gone to more than 40 countries from Iraq to Australia.  Part of Therese even took a trip to space last year aboard the space shuttle Discovery, but she’d never made it across the English Channel where the legacy of the English Reformation had left relations between the Catholic and Protestant churches sensitive, to say the least.  The Catholic veneration of bones was frowned upon.  In the 1990s, the late Cardinal Basil Hume, then the top Catholic official in England, blocked efforts to bring Therese over for fear of stirring up tension.  Father Michael Mc Goldrick is the head of the Carmelite Order in England and Wales.

FATHER MC GOLDRICK: Relations were good but it was just that relics weren’t a part of the Anglican tradition really, and he was just very sensitive to that.  In fact, you know, he didn’t want some sort of triumphalistic thing and kind of rubbing their nose in it for want of a better way of putting it.  And he just thought it wasn’t appropriate at that time, and I think he was right.

LYNCH: There was another worry, one I put to Canon John Udris of the Northampton Cathedral.

Some people might look at something like this in the modern day, and think, “Well this is just a bit strange, isn’t it, Worshiping some bones?”

CANON JOHN UDRIS: Well, I say first of all we are certainly not worshipping those bones, you know.  But we all need …  We all need a God we can get close to.

LYNCH: All the same, Udris admits they are important.

CANON UDRIS: Behind this whole idea of relics and of coming to see the relics is that people can reach up and touch, something of the holy, something that brings them closer to God.

LYNCH: Some had traveled for several hours to greet the relics.  Rosemary N’Gowza came from London and was one of the first to touch the casket or at least the plastic shield that protects it. Afterward, she was overwhelmed.

ROSEMARY N’GOWZA: I can’t tell you the feeling that I have, you know, when I touched the relics. I can’t explain.

LYNCH: If this morning’s crowd was any indication, predictions of a mass outpouring of religious fervor akin to what greeted her in Ireland or New York may have been overblown, but it is a historic occasion, and in a neat twist the Catholic saint will make one of her stops in an Anglican cathedral.  For The World, I’m Laura Lynch in Portsmouth.

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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