PRI's The World » 09/18/2009

Entire program – September 18, 2009

The World — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 20:09:36 +0000

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Today on The World: Competing demonstrations in Iran as tens of thousands of people took to the streets for rallies both FOR and AGAINST the Iranian government; Also, a top British official tells us about efforts to craft a new international agreement on how to tackle climate change; And, we meet an Italian musician who started out with an American-inspired dream…to rap like the Beastie Boys.

Competing rallies in Tehran

The World — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 20:00:11 +0000

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Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Tehran today, as both government and opposition supporters staged rallies. The World’s Laura Lynch has details.

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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World. There were clashes on the streets of Tehran today. These were some of the first major confrontations between opposition and government supporter since July. They came as the country marked “Quds” day or Jerusalem day. It’s an annual observance decreed by the government to show support for Palestinians and condemn Israel. But the tensions still simmering in Iran after a disputed presidential election spilled out into the open again, overshadowing the official agenda. The World’s Laura Lynch reports.

LAURA LYNCH: The government organized the marches it wanted to see filling the streets with tens of thousands of people chanting slogans against Israel and America.

WOMAN: [In Farsi]

INTERPRETER: It is true that I, as one person, cannot do much for the Palestinian people. But have come here to be a drop in the ocean of people and prove my solidarity with Palestinians.

LYNCH: But today showed that in Tehran at least, there was precious little solidarity among Iranians. Blocks away from the official rallies, opposition supporters poured into the streets determined to show they had not disappeared in the wake of the government’s crackdown this summer. They wore the green color of the opposition, carried green banners and shouted death to the dictator. One protestor, who we’ll call Akbar, says it didn’t take long for the clashes to start.

AKBAR: There were skirmishes. They burnt down the police house first on their way but again the militias, the plain clothes men were out in force, and it was very, very difficult to maneuver.

LYNCH: Away from the street battles, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad carried on as if all was normal. He spoke before Friday prayers at Tehran University repeating his familiar claim that the Holocaust is a myth.

PRESIDENT AHMADINEJAD: [Translated] Four to five years after the Second World War, all of a sudden they claim that during the war, the holocaust had occurred. They claimed that a few million Jews had been burnt in the ovens. They institutionalized two slogans. First they used lies ad sophisticated propaganda and psychological ploys to create the illusion that the Jews were innocent. And secondly, they created the illusion that the Jews needed an independent state and government.

LYNCH: After months of internal turmoil following his disputed re-election, Ahmadinejad is set to remerge onto the international stage. Next week, he’ll travel to New York for the annual general meeting of the United Nations. So Massoumeh Torfeh of the University of London, believes today’s speech was meant to deliver a message of defiance beyond Iran’s borders.

MASSOUMEH TORFEH: And it was in a way saying no to the United States as well and Obama who’s been trying to hard to find some way of engaging with Iran, as they put it themselves. He actually went further than I had heard him before in holocaust denial.

LYNCH: Ahmadinejad’s attack on Israel, his aggressive tone, are nothing new. But now, his strong words, along with his authority, have been weakened by Iran’s internal divisions and his own struggle to hold onto power and influence. Even now, senior clerics still question the outcome of the election along with the jailing and punishment of protestors. And on the streets, Akbar says there could be more violence in the days to come.

AKBAR: I think there is more opposition that there’s going to be even more violence on the horizon unless there is a comprehensive settlement. I think the situation on the ground is intolerable. What we’re seeing at the moment, the ban on civil liberties, the massive imprisonment of political activists, youngsters and journalists, obviously. This is all adding up to the discontent inside the country.

LYNCH: The discontent, and the continuing protests, carry big risks for Ahmadinejad as he tries to consolidate his hold on the president’s office. He has staked much of his domestic support on his promises to redistribute Iran’s wealth. But the government has been distracted by dissent, forced to spend money and time squelching protests, suppressing the flow of information and mounting a series of show trials. With the potential of more trouble to come, Ahmadinejad may want to continue to shake his fist at the world when he comes to New York next week. Some world leaders though may have a rude reply of their own, reminding him that there are many thousands inside his own country clenching their fists in defiance of him and his government. For The World, I’m Laura Lynch.

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The new missile defense strategy

The World — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:59:04 +0000

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Stanford University professor David Holloway authored a report on Iran’s nuclear and missile potential that influenced the changes in President Obama’s missile defense plan. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Holloway about the new plan.

MARCO WERMAN: The U.S. yesterday revised its missile defense plans, which were developed in part to respond Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program. President Obama shelved the idea of building key parts of the missile shield in Eastern Europe near Russia. Russia had threatened to retaliate by deploying missiles near its border with Poland. Well, today, the Russian government announced it was cancelling that deployment. And NATO’s Secretary-General suggested that Russia, the United States and NATO should now consider linking their missile defense systems. Stanford University Professor David Holloway recently authored a report on Iran’s nuclear missile potential. He says he doesn’t see Russia’s announcement as part of any deal with the U.S.

PROFESSOR HOLLOWAY: I don’t think it was quid pro quo as that implies something agreed in detail, but the Russians have been making a huge issue of the plans to deploy missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic. And if they were not to respond, if they were to say this change is nothing, that would really give an enormous kind of insult really to the Obama Administration and would set back any chance of improving relations.

WERMAN: You know, people were talking about the renewal of the Cold War, a kind of a Cold War of light, if you will, toward the end of Bush 43′s second term. Does the news yesterday give you hope that maybe that won’t ever be the case?

PROFESSOR HOLLOWAY: Yes, it does give me some hope for improvement in U.S.-Russian relations. Of course, solving one problem often opens up other problems, and now there’s a very important issue, which many people have raised about U.S. relations with the countries of Eastern and Central Europe that were formerly part of the Soviet Block. And many people there had come to these the Planned Missile Defense as a symbol of the U.S. commitment to that region. So I think it will be important for the U.S. and indeed for NATO as a whole to make clear that this does not mark an abandonment of those countries or lessening of a commitment to their security.

WERMAN: Professor Holloway, let’s talk about the nuclear missile capability Iran may actually have. What are they working on and what do they have now?

PROFESSOR HOLLOWAY: They have now a number of missiles that have a range of somewhere between 1,200 and 2,000 kilometers.

WERMAN: 2,000 kilometers. That’s approximately 1,200 miles?

PROFESSOR HOLLOWAY: 1,200 miles, yes, and the assumption that most people make is that these missiles could carry warheads including nuclear warheads weighing about a ton to the ranges that I’ve mentioned. That’s what they’re working on in a most determined way at the moment.

WERMAN: Right, but they don’t actually have those nuclear warheads at their disposal right now?

PROFESSOR HOLLOWAY: No, they don’t and they have said, of course, they are not developing such warheads, but that’s the threat that many people fear is the most dangerous threat, the capacity to deliver nuclear warheads to that range by the missiles they’re developing.

WERMAN: Right, and your research has shown that there is no imminent threat from Iranian long-range missiles. So tell us what they’re aiming at?

PROFESSOR HOLLOWAY: I took part in a study done with American and Russian specialists on Iran’s nuclear and missile potential, and we came to the conclusion that while they have a very active program to develop missiles of the ranges we’ve just talked about, it would require a very significant technological effort for them to develop longer range missiles that could strike the United States or even strike the northern and western parts of Europe. So the 1,200 hundred miles, that range gives some coverage, of course, of the Middle East, of the Gulf, of Southern Europe and of Southern Russia. And that seems to be where the emphasis of their program has been up ’til now.

WERMAN: So give us some more tangible information you might have about the presumed target, if this is the case, Israel.

PROFESSOR HOLLOWAY: Yes, we assume that certainly Israel would be a target and would be covered by missiles of the kind they are developing and have tested. But so, too, would other countries in the Middle East, and one could imagine that even apart from possible military use of such weapons that Iran is aiming to bolster its position as a regional power through the development of these capabilities.

WERMAN: David Holloway, Professor of International History at Stanford University. Thank you very much.

PROFESSOR HOLLOWAY: Thank you.

Turkey’s potential role in missile defense plan

The World — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:58:03 +0000

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The World’s Aaron Schachter reports on what role Turkey might play in President Obama’s new missile defense program and what impact that might have on Turkey’s image in the Middle East.

MARCO WERMAN: One country that might play a more prominent role in America’s new defense system is Turkey. The World’s Aaron Schachter reports on how that could affect the way that country is viewed in the Middle East.

AARON SCHACHTER: For Analyst Maher Mezher, with St. Joseph’s University in Beirut, there is no question what would happen if Turkey were to take on a missile defense system at the behest of the United States.

MAHER MEZHER: Unfortunately, in the Middle East you are either here or there.

SCHACHTER: Mezher says Turkey has spent years positioning itself as the Middle East’s most honest broker. It’s avoided being pigeonholed as a member of either the Iran/Syria/Hezbollah camp or the U.S./Israel/Saudi camp. But if Turkey were to host a missile defense system designed to counter an Iranian threat, its reputation would suffer.

MEZHER: Even if it they will pretend those weapons are American but those weapons are for your safety, the other party will not work with them as an ally any more. Because your actions will show who you are and what you want to be.

SCHACHTER: Not so fast says Rami Khoury. He’s director of the Issam Fares Center at the American University of Beirut. He points out that Turkey already takes sides, and its officials are still trusted. So putting missiles on Turkish territory wouldn’t automatically mean an end to its positive image in the Middle East.

RAMI KHOURY: Turkey is a member of NATO, it’s close to the U.S., it has joint military exercises with Israel, it does a lot of things that do not disqualify it because at the same time it has good working relationships with the Arab countries and with Iran. So I don’t think that having missiles that are marketed as defensive missiles, by itself disqualifies them, no.

SCHACHTER: Khoury says what really matters is how people in this part of the world would view U.S. missiles in their back yard. Khoury says President Obama needs to make the case to regional leaders that it would be in their best interest for America to deploy such a system.

KHOURY: Is there real information they have about an Iranian threat? Is it exaggerated anti-Iranian agitation by many of the pro-Israeli groups in the United States that have become hysterical about Iran? Is it a desperate bid by the Obama people to show that they’re tough on defense?

MEIR JAVEDANFAR: President Obama, with less than one year in office, is proving to be quite a capable chess player in the Middle East.

SCHACHTER: Meir Javedanfar is co-author of the book the Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran about Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He believes that by placating Russia, the United States has gained a pivotal ally in talks with Iran scheduled for October 1st in Turkey.

JAVEDANAFAR: If the negotiations fail and sanctions need to be imposed by having Russia on board, then the changes of tougher sanctions against Iran being applied would increase and that would decrease the chances of war in the region.

SCHACHTER: An increased chance of sanctions would give Turkey something of a stick with which to nudge Tehran. Turkey does a lot of business in Iran, so it doesn’t want an economic embargo either. And there would be no disguising Turkey’s allegiances were it to join in on tougher sanctions. Bulent Aliriza runs the Turkey Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

BULENT ALIRIZA: They would be very uncomfortable in the event of harsher sanctions, which would bring up the question of the gas purchases from Iran that Turkey is currently engaged in. What the Turks are saying to the Iranians, “Look, do your best in these talks so we can avoid a worsening of the situation now.”

SCHACHTER: But the Turkish government is already causing some to call into question its actions. Turkey’s military announced today it might spend a billion dollars to buy Patriot anti-missile packages from the U.S. The Turkish Foreign Minister says there’s no connection between the missile purchase and President Obama’s missile defense proposal. For The World, I’m Aaron Schachter in Beirut.

Italy calls for exit from Afghanistan

The World — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:57:08 +0000

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Italy’s Prime Minister says he wants Italian troops out of Afghanistan as soon as possible. That’s after six Italian soldiers participating in NATO operations in Afghanistan died yesterday in a suicide bomb attack. The World’s Gerry Hadden reports.

MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World. Italians were shocked yesterday by news of a bomb attack in Afghanistan. The blast in Kabul killed several people including six Italian soldiers. The deaths sparked calls for Italy to withdraw its troops for Afghanistan. That’s not new in a country where the war is highly unpopular, but those calls don’t usually come from the country’s Prime Minister. The World’s Gerry Hadden reports.

GERRY HADDEN: As images of the bomb attack in Afghanistan reached Italian T.V. viewers yesterday, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was arriving in Brussels for an unrelated meeting. Pressed by reporters to comment on the deaths of the six Italian soldiers, Berlusconi said we are all convinced that the best thing for all of our troops is to leave soon, to no longer have a presence there. The Italian leader then added that he’s spoken recently with President Obama to discuss a withdrawal plan that could be enacted as soon as Italian troops finish their training of Afghan forces. Berlusconi did not say when that might be. But his remarks made headlines in Italy, where the war is already unpopular. Other Italian politicians are calling for a specific withdrawal time table. Speaking to World Focus T.V., Italian journalist Alesandra Baldini says what’s different now is that such calls are coming from Berlusconi’s enemies and allies alike.

ALESANDRA BALDINI: In last past hours there has been calls for rapid withdrawal of the troops. Not just by the left parties but the opposition but inside the majority, inside the government coalition. The Northern League, which is one of the strong blocks of the government coalition, called for troops back home by Christmas.

HADDEN: Italy has 2,800 troops in Afghanistan. 500 of them were already scheduled to return home in December. The political establishment’s demand for an accelerated withdrawal comes in direct response to fresh public outrage in Italy.

ITALIAN MAN: [In Italian]

HADDEN: This man told Italian T.V. they always say our soldiers are there for peace and to fight terrorism. But they should also figure out a way to let those boys come back home. But even as Italians question the length of the mission, NATO officials say they don’t foresee Italy staging a hasty retreat from Afghanistan. James Appathurai is a NATO spokesman in Brussels.

JAMES APPATHURAI: We obviously follow carefully national debates in all countries but what matters is the decisions that are taken ultimately by the government.

HADDEN: For now Italy’s government is staying the course. Prime Minister Berlusconi was careful to say that any withdrawal of troops must be done in agreement with other nations. But Appathurai acknowledges that public opinion across Europe is increasingly against the war. He says it’s pressure that can’t be ignored.

APPATHURAI: Very bluntly, yes, that is a concern for us. We need to show people, and that is people in our countries we’re referring right now, but as well, the Afghans as well, light at the end of the tunnel. They need to see progress. That is why district by district, province by province we need as soon as possible to be handing over the security responsibility to the Afghans. So that the Afghan people but also people in troop contributing countries can see that it is going somewhere.

HADDEN: Italy, Germany and France are calling for a conference later this year to map out just how and when that security transfer in Afghanistan can happen. For The World I’m Gerry Hadden.

Dancing boys of Afghanistan

The World — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:56:12 +0000

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An ancient tradition banned by the Taliban is now experiencing a comeback in Afghanistan. It’s the practice of “bacha bazi” or ‘boy for play’. Teenage boys abandoned by their families are forced to dance at parties and sometimes become sex partners for men. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Ghaith Abdul Ahad, who wrote about ‘bacha bazi’ for The Guardian newspaper.

MARCO WERMAN: The U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 ousted the Taliban from official power there. Right now, the Taliban are once again in control of large parts of the county. Still, a number of practices once banned by the Taliban have re-emerged since 2001. One of them is a disturbing 5,000-year-old practice called bacha bazi. Loosely translated it means “boy for play.” It involves young male dancers, often runaways, who are kept and hired out by older Afghan men for parties and weddings. Ghaith Abdul Ahad is based in Beirut for The Guardian Newspaper in London. He’s written about the so-called dancing boys, and Ghaith, first of all, describe the scene for us at one of these parties.

GHAITH ABDUL AHAD: Well, it’s a bunch of men, Afghan men, bearded sitting cross-legged in the middle of a room. After dinner, there will be a dancer. Usually, the dancer conceals his face, of course, but they pretend they’re woman. So they dress like woman, they have lots of bells around their ankles and feet and arms and they dance in a very specific way like in a sort of stomping the feet and shaking the bells and they sing also. And, of course, they are boys.

WERMAN: And if they pretend they’re women, why aren’t women dancing?

GHAITH: I think it’s the 5,000-years-old question, but I ask this question, “Why don’t you bring woman?” They say woman are not allowed to dance in front of men, even if they were prostitutes or belly dances.” So the society is so … I don’t know what words to use, but the society is so weird, it’s so difficult, it’s so strange that a woman cannot dance in public but a boy can dance in public.

WERMAN: A boy can dance in public dressed up as a woman?

GHAITH: Dressed as a woman and abused. Of course, they are not just dancing boys, they’re abused boys. They’re like sort of concubines, but they’re boys.

WERMAN: And as you say, the bacha dancers are often abused children whose families have abandoned them, and then they end up by getting virtually owned by their master. That sounds like sexual slavery.

GHAITH: Well, it’s a mixture between sexual slavery, between abuse, between pedophilia and between dancing. So sometimes they are kind of abused children abandoned by their families. Sometimes they’re kidnapped children. Sometimes they are poor children sold by their families for such a job.

WERMAN: Now, you spoke to several of these boys, two in particular, Mustapha and Habib, and they seemed to have different views on the practice. What did they tell you?

GHAITH: Most of it is this dancer in some tiny little village. He’s abused. He’s young. He hates what he’s doing. He’s forced to do what he’s doing, and he has no choice. Habib, on the other side, he sees himself as a dancer. He loves doing what he’s doing. He is apparently a very famous dancer. So these are the two different characters.

WERMAN: Habib told you that people accuse him of being gay but he says he’s not. What about the men, though, who keep these boys and are entertained by them. Are they gay?

GHAITH: This is the weirdest thing in the world. In Afghanistan, in the Afghan context, no they are not gay. They have sexual relationships with men, but then if you ask them if they are gays, they say no. Most of the time even when they keep a dancing boy or a bacha bazi or they have sexual relationship with another man, they have a wife, they have a family, they have children, and then they keep this other relationship. This is Afghanistan.

WERMAN: How widespread is this practice, Ghaith, and how accepted is it?

GHAITH: It’s very widespread. Of course, in some areas more than other area, but in this belt around Kabul north of Kabul and a bit south of Kabul, you rarely go to a wedding in countryside unless it is like a very conservative Islamic wedding. If you go to like a tribal wedding, you must probably see one, two, three, five bacha bazi boys dancing in the wedding.

WERMAN: Does the Afghan government frown upon this?

GHAITH: It’s banned by the Afghan government. It’s banned by the police. It’s banned by the Afghan government, but because Afghanistan is such a lowest place at the moment, I think the list of priorities of the Afghan government, bacha boys comes like towards the end of the list.

WERMAN: And what happens, Ghaith, to these boys once they’ve grown up? Because 19 is kind of the cut-off age for being a bacha bazi.

GHAITH: Once the bacha bazi reaches the age when they become men, they get out. They leave it. They leave this thing and then the become men and they marry wives and they have children and they have families.

WERMAN: And are they ever ostracized by society once they get older because people find out they used to be dancing boys?

GHAITH: A man who used to be a dancing boy would, of course, be ostracized but, yeah, they become men.

WERMAN: Ghaith Abdul Ahad has written about the practice of bacha bazi or dancing boys for The Guardian Newspaper. He’s been speaking to us from his base in Beirut. Ghaith, thanks very much.

GHAITH: Thank you.

Crunch time for climate change treaty

The World — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:53:23 +0000

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Anchor Marco Werman speaks with British Secretary for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband, about efforts to craft a new international agreement on how to tackle climate change. The head of the United Nations has called a special meeting of global leaders next week to instil a sense of urgency.

MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH-Boston. Time is running out on efforts to craft a new global treaty to address climate change. That’s the warning from many world leaders and climate activists. The clock is ticking toward a December deadline for agreeing on a treaty to replace the 12-year-old Kyoto Protocol. Serious rifts remain between developed countries and the developing world, and Europe and the United States aren’t on the same page either. The head of the United Nations has called a special meeting of global leaders next week to instill a sense of urgency, and many key players are in Washington this week to try and rally support for action. Among them is Britain’s Secretary of Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband. He says the U.S. has to act soon on climate change.

ED MILIBAND: I think we do need the U.S. to move as quickly as possible and get its legislation through. We have a deadline that’s been set by the world of December this year at Copenhagen in Denmark to reach a new agreement on climate change. It’s very urgent that we do it. Obviously, we need the U.S. on board.

WERMAN: But there is great concern that the U.S. could come into Copenhagen in December and essentially scrap all of Kyoto and try something completely different. Are you concerned about that?

MILIBAND: I think in a sense the question of legal forms is less important to me. What really matters to me is do we have significant cuts in emissions from developed countries? That includes Europe and the United States, and do we have significant action on carbon emissions from developing countries? Because the truth is that we’re in this together, and we can’t solve the problem unless we get developed countries and developing countries to act. And that’s what I’m talking about here in Washington this week, and indeed in New York next week at the U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Meeting on Climate Change.

WERMAN: How are you going to pay for this new treaty? I mean, there’s been a consensus in Europe for a common fund, but in the U.S.? There is probably little chance of people paying taxes to a foreign entity.

MILIBAND: Yeah, that’s another difficult issue for us. We have put forward proposals, the U.K. Government, for how we can raise about $100 billion a year of public and private finance by 2020. It is one of the important responsibilities of developed countries. We have caused the problem. We’ve got countries like India, for example, that have 400 million people living on less than a dollar a day. We need to help them both to adapt to climate change, but more importantly as far as a country like India is concerned, also to go down the low carbon path, not the carbon path that we took which was high carbon but to grow in a low carbon way so they can continue to take their people out of poverty, but they don’t increase their carbon emissions at the same time.

WERMAN: Well, fair enough. It’s good to be hopeful but why persist with the idea that the U.S. will sign up for any revenue generating scheme when there’s very little chance that that will happen?

MILIBAND: Well, maybe I’m an optimist by nature. Look, I think that it’s in the U.S.’s self-interest to sign up to a scheme that both reduces its own emissions and that helps other countries because the truth is that there’s no solution to this problem without developing countries being on board. I think the U.S. recognizes that. So I guess I’m more optimistic than you that as part of an overall agreement, which gets global warming under control internationally, the U.S. will also sign up to the financial part of this.

WERMAN: A lot of people are saying, Mr. Miliband, that Copenhagen is the last chance to save the planet from a temperature rise of 3-1/2 Fahrenheit, a kind of danger benchmark that could bring calamity, but a lot of big players like China and India are making big strides toward renewables. I’m wondering how important it really is that we get a strong treaty this time around?

MILIBAND: I think it’s pretty make or break, to be honest. I think if the world ducks this opportunity or fails to meet this opportunity, I don’t even guarantee this will just come along again next year or the year after. So that’s why in Europe there is huge pressure rightly on politicians to make December at Copenhagen count and that’s the message I’ve been taking to the discussions here this week.

WERMAN: And next week U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is aiming to sit down with all the heads of state and government and regenerate a sense of urgency and commitment to lead up to Copenhagen. Will that be enough to get everyone on the same page?

MILIBAND: It will not be enough on its own, but I think it’s an important contribution. Obviously, the power of the convening power of the U.N. Secretary General is important. I think the point about this is how do we overcome these obstacles? The answer has to be imagination. If we leave this like a conventional negotiation like the trade talks, for example, until three o’clock in the morning on the last evening, we won’t get an agreement. That’s why Britain took the lead in saying we’ve got to [INDISCERNIBLE] for finance for developing countries. That’s why I’m pleased that developing countries like India are now saying that we will quantify the actions we will take on emissions. That’s a recent announcement that they’ve made. I think everyone needs to understand each other’s constraints but also see that we’ve got to contribute to solving the problem. The U.N. Secretary General will be an important factor in this, but really it’s up to us. It’s up to the governments of the world to say we understand that this is something where if we don’t act, future generations will look us in the eye and say, “You knew the scale of the problem, but you failed the test.”

WERMAN: I’m interested about your title as Secretary for Energy and Climate Change, which is a job created in 2008. It kind of hints at a new mindset, but also a possible conflict of interest. It must be tough to balance lobbying from energy giants like BP and National Grid with environmental activists.

MILIBAND: You’re right but there are tensions in this. It’s interesting, over a particular issue like coal where I’ve put forth some proposals on how we regulate new coal-fired power stations in a pretty strong way to encourage carbon capture and storage. I think there’s more consensus possible than people might imagine in this thought. Because the truth is, and this is something that we do have to make industry realize, is that we’re moving towards low carbon. There’s no other way to go, and it’s the question whether it happens sooner or later, and it might be it needs to happen sooner and those countries that actually wake up and smell the coffee will benefit as a result.

WERMAN: Well, we certainly see the BP propaganda in the pages of glossy magazines here in the States, but it’s still got to be difficult with coal lobbying and BP breathing down your neck. How committed are you personally to your portfolio?

MILIBAND: I’m very committed to this. I do think this is the biggest challenge the world faces. And I think it emphasizes something very important, which is that we can’t think about any policy now in isolation now from the issue of climate change, whether it’s your energy policy, whether it’s your transport policy, or your economic policy. And I think that sort of the strides … I guess, in the U.K. we’ve still got to fully make, and all countries still have to fully make is to integrate climate policy with everything we do.

WERMAN: Ed Miliband the British Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. Mr. Miliband, thank you very much for your time.

MILIBAND: Thanks, it’s been a pleasure.

UN creates agency dedicated to women’s issues

The World — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:52:13 +0000

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The UN General Assembly has authorized the establishment of a new UN agency devoted to women. Women’s advocates hope the new agency will make women’s concerns more of a priority at the UN. The World’s Jeb Sharp reports.

MARCO WERMAN: As we just heard, climate change will be a major issue at the U-N General Assembly next week, but the General Assembly has already taken action on another key concern. This week it passed a landmark resolution authorizing the establishment of new U.N. Agency for women, one that advocates hope will finally have some clout. They’ve long complained that women’s issues have been neglected and sidelined at the U.N. That’s in part because of the U.N.’s bureaucratic structure. The World’s Jeb Sharp reports.

JEB SHARP: Before your eyes glaze over at the mention of U.N. bureaucracy, consider this: Everyone’s heard of UNICEF the U.N. agency for children. It has a budget of $3 billion and a big presence around the world. Now, name the U.N. entity that deals with women’s issues. Stumped? Well, there are actually several, including UNIFEM, that’s the U.N. development fund for women. Their budgets altogether are only a fraction of UNICEF’s.

CHARLOTTE BUNCH: The U.N. is at the forefront of declarations on women’s rights. Where it is behind is in not having a real agency to follow that up, more or less not having a UNICEF for women.

SHARP: That’s Charlotte Bunch of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University.

BUNCH: I think because women’s rights came onto the agenda, you know, in the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, and the U.N. already had its major agencies in place so that women’s rights is a commitment but there isn’t the leadership at the high level, and there are not enough resources to turn that into a reality.

SHARP: Bunch says a U.N. women’s agency will mean there’s always somebody at the table advocating for women, whether at the top of the U.N. hierarchy or out in the field. In the past, their absence has been glaring she says.

BUNCH: I know a woman who was head of the peacekeeping mission in Burundi a few years ago, and they were having discussions at the U.N. level about what should happen in the peacekeeping mission. And at one point she looked around the table at who was there and she said, “I care about what’s happening to women who’s here who’s supposed to represent that issue?” There was total silence and she realized that the way in which the upper levels of the peacekeeping mission were structured there was no institutional presence.

SHARP: Another example advocates point to is the U.N. AIDS effort organized in the 1990s. The committee that ran U.N. AIDS had representatives from the World Bank and the U.N. Refugee Agency and others but no one designated to deal with women’s concerns. Paula Donovan is Co-Director of the advocacy group AIDS-Free World.

PAULA DONOVAN: On the AIDS issue in general in the United Nations, women’s concerns have always been an afterthought. You address an issue and afterwards you add women to the mix and squeeze them in where you can. And this new women’s agency will deal with that immediately by having a woman or several women at every meeting to bring the perspective of women to the table right from the start.

SHARP: Donovan says it’s premature for women’s rights advocates to celebrate, though. There’s a lot more work to be done to make the agency successful, not least of which is choosing the right leader. Prominent women’s rights advocate June Zeitlin campaigned for the agency. She wants to see someone appointed to head it by the end of the year.

JUNE ZEITLIN: Over the coming weeks we’re going to see serious candidates emerge, some names that have come forward people like Michele Bachelet the President of Chile or people at the U.N. who are already at the Under-Secretary-General level like the special rapporteur for children and armed conflict Radhika Coomaraswamy.

SHARP: Zeitlin says those are examples of the level of candidate she wants to see. Wellesley College Professor Filomena Steady hopes whoever it is; it’s someone who comes from outside the U.N. Steady used to work on women’s issues at the U.N. and remembers well the careerism and calcifying effect of the U.N. bureaucracy.

PROFESSOR STEADY: And so when you bring in someone from outside, usually they’re not caught up with those kinds of internal politics, and they can come in with a fresh vision especially if they’ve worked in women’s movements and they know what the issues are and what the challenge is.

SHARP: There will no doubt be lots of challenges, including securing a billion dollars in new funding for the budget. The overall challenge will be to translate well-meaning rhetoric into better lives for women. For The World, I’m Jeb Sharp.

Geo Quiz and answer

The World — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:50:21 +0000

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Today’s Geo Quiz deals with a tussle over the new Tube map in London. The city’s latest map of the London Underground excludes an image of the Thames River, and that’s ruffled some feathers. We asked you to name some other cities where the local subway map leaves out a major river. The cities we were looking for are Berlin, Madrid, Osaka, Bilbao, Beijing, Stockholm, Valencia, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Chicago. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Mark Ovenden, author of Transit Maps of the World.

Global Hit: Lorenzo Jovanotti

The World — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:15:08 +0000

Download MP3 Italy’s Lorenzo Jovanotti used to dream of becoming his country’s answer to the American rap group The Beastie Boys. Jovanotti’s sound has changed over the years. His latest release is called Safari. The World’s Marco Werman will tells us more.