PRI's The World » 11/23/2009

Entire program – November 23, 2009

The World — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:52:30 +0000

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Today on The World: We begin a series about India’s Muslims, with a look at why very few in that community have been radicalized; Also, from under the sea, we hear about tentacled, transparent sea cucumbers… and tubeworms that feed on oil; Plus, slow food in Lebanon.

British inquiry into Iraq war

The World — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:51:13 +0000

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John Chilcot

The man in charge of the official British inquiry examining events surrounding the Iraq war has said his committee will not produce a report that is a “whitewash.” John Chilcot, a retired career civil servant, has promised to produce a “full and insightful” account. Evidence from senior government figures will start on Tuesday and politicians, including former Prime Minister Tony Blair will be expected to testify in due time. Laura Lynch reports.

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FAQ British Iraq inquiry

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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World. Britain is revisiting one of the most divisive issues in its recent history. An independent panel will begin public hearings tomorrow into the country’s role in the war in Iraq. It’s the third time a government appointed panel has investigated circumstances surrounding the war and supporters say this inquiry will be the definitive one. But as The World’s Laura Lynch reports others are already saying these hearings won’t do much to shed light on Britain’s decision to go to war.

LAURA LYNCH: From the day Sir John Chilcot took on the role as chair of the Iraq inquiry he’s heard the accusation – it will be nothing more than a whitewash.

SIR JOHN CHILCOT: It won’t be but the judgment is to whether people think it is and will lie on how it’s read when it comes out.

LYNCH: Britain’s decision to go to war in Iraq was and still is controversial. Then prime minister, Tony Blair, pushed ahead with the plan to send 45,000 troops despite widespread opposition and some claims that the war was illegal.

TONY BLAIR: This is not the time to falter. This is the time for this house – not just this government or indeed this prime minister – but for this house to give a lead. To show that we will stand up for what we know to be right. To show that we will confront the tyrannies and dictatorships and terrorists who put our way of life at risk.

LYNCH: Blair himself is expected to testify at the inquiry early next year. Other senior politicians, bureaucrats, military leaders, and intelligence officers will also be on the witness list. Sir John Chilcot insists the five-person panel, all appointed by the government, is ready to take on anyone including members of the government itself.

CHILCOT: What you can’t do is make up a committee like this of people who have no experience of the workings of government from the inside. There is one other point worth making. When you set up an independent inquiry of this sort you set the members of it free to do what they will and our determination is to do not merely a thorough job but one that is frank and will bear public scrutiny.

LYNCH: Already though his inquiry is facing criticism. Carne Ross is a former British diplomat and an expert on Iraq who resigned after testifying at a previous inquiry. Ross reels off a list of problems with the current inquiry starting with the names on the witness lists.

CARNE ROSS: They’re all the most senior people. These people were deeply implicated in having carried out the execution of the war. Why would they reveal an account at odds with the government’s own narrative of what has happened. How will the panel get to that deeper truth of what took place here? What is the mechanism of accountability if dishonesty is uncovered or even God forbid illegality by certain members of the government?

LYNCH: That’s also a concern for many of those who lost relatives in the Iraq war. Elsie Manning’s daughter staff sergeant Sharon Elliott died in a bomb attack in 2006.

ELSIE MANNING: You know it’s alright having these inquiries and for someone to sit at the other side of a desk and listen and write everything down but where does that leave us? Where does that leave the families? Where does it leave the soldiers who are serving now?

LYNCH: Manning and others want Tony Blair and his cabinet to answer for their decision to send British soldiers they believe was illegal. But they also worry that even if this inquiry confirms their belief it can only say that without punishing anyone for what happened in the past. For The World I’m Laura Lynch in London.

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India’s Muslim community – part 1

The World — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:50:20 +0000

One year ago, 10 militants arrived from Pakistan in Mumbai, India. They fanned out across the city to attack hotels and other targets. It took almost three days for the Indian authorities to end the violence. The Muslim community was terrified of a backlash, fortunately it never came. Miranda Kennedy has the first in her series of reports about the lives of India’s Muslims. Download MP3

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BBC coverage of Mumbai attacks

MARCO WERMAN: It was one year ago this week that India suffered a horrific terrorist attack. Ten militants arrive from Pakistan by boat to Mumbai on November 26^th. They fanned out across the city. They attacked hotels, a train station, a Jewish center, and other targets. It took three days for the Indian authorities to end the violence. By then more than 160 people were dead. Mumbai’s Muslim community immediately hunkered down terrified of a backlash. Fortunately for India’s Muslims and for their country that backlash never came. Miranda Kennedy has the first her series of reports about the lives of India’s Muslims.

NEWS CLIPPINGS: And the news tonight is dominated by a series of terrorist attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai.

There have been multiple attacks at high profile locations in the main tourist and business area of India’s financial capital, Mumbai.

Nikhat Sheikh is a little ashamed of what first went through her mind last year when she heard that the attackers had laid siege to her city.

NIKHAT SHEIKH: We were very worried you know that now the kind of hatred people will have for us and then it would not be very good to say like that, there was a little relief when I came to know that no Indian was involved in this. Thank God you know.

MIRANDA KENNEDY: Thank God that Indian officials blamed Pakistani-trained militants rather than homegrown terrorists. Nine of the attackers were killed during the siege and the 10^th was captured. He’s on trial in Mumbai and could be given the death sentence for the attacks widely referred to in India as 26/11. India’s Muslim’s are a significant minority of 160 million but they’ve had an uneasy relationship with the state going back to India’s partition in 1947 when many Muslims moved to Pakistan. Those who stayed felt obliged to prove their allegiance to India over Islam and for many that feeling of insecurity remains. Nikhat sits down on the floor of her parent’s bedroom to play with her toddler son. Nikhat says she senses an increasing need amongst Muslims to prove that they’re not all terrorists. She’s writing a doctoral thesis about the impact of terrorism on her community. It’s something that especially concerns her because she has a second child on the way. Nikhat’s pregnancy shows even under her long black robe. She decided to wear it and to cover her hair with a head scarf when she went to college much to the surprise of her secular middle class family. Nikhat’s economically comfortable upbringing is unusual for her community. India’s Muslims are significantly poor and less educated than the general population.

SHEIKH: I really want to give that same kind of good feeling to my children that I had in my childhood. I was always proud to be an Indian. I never felt you know that being Muslim and being an Indian are two different things. I can be a very good Muslim and I can be a very good Indian. But now not anymore you know.

KENNEDY: Just in her lifetime Nikhat says she’s seen Muslims become more alienated from India. That’s partly due to the widespread international perception of Muslims as terrorists. After last year’s strikes in Mumbai the fear was that India was becoming a target for, or even a home for, international jihad. But that doesn’t seem to have happened.

ASHOK SINGH: There is a degree of alienation amongst the large Muslim community. There is radicalization but by and large Indian Muslims have stayed away from bombings.

KENNEDY: Ashok Singh, who studies Islam and terrorism, points out that Indian Muslims have been blamed for several domestic attacks over the years including major bombings on Mumbai in 1993 and 2006 and there’s been militant attacks in the disputed region of Kashmir for years. But there’s no evidence of any Indian ever joining al-Qaeda or any other international terrorist group. Singh credits India’s democracy saying it gives Muslims a peaceful outlet for their dissatisfaction. Irfan Engineer who runs a research center on Islam and secularism says there’s another explanation tool.

IRFAN ENGINEER: The Indian roots of Muslims are strong. We have not yet got Arabized or what they call Islamized. You know the standard Sunni Wahhabi ideology has not got roots amongst Indian Muslims. Muslims here were converted more Sufi saints who didn’t preach hatred against anyone not even against Hindus even during Muslim rule.

KENNEDY: Nikhat aggress that Indian Muslims have largely not been radicalized but she’s a little more cynical about why. Muslim’s economic status and education levels remain extremely low and they feel chronically persecuted.

SHEIKH: At least I have not seen Muslims you know in that position to take revenge. They’re too weak. They are too powerless to even think to do anything you know.

KENNEDY: She worries that her children will suffer discrimination or that her family or neighbors in her Muslim dominated Mumbai neighborhood could be blamed if there are more bombings or riots.

SHEIKH: We want out children to be safe. We want our men to be safe. We want our lives to be safe. It’s that way.

KENNEDY: For The World this is Miranda Kennedy, Mumbai.

WERMAN: Miranda Kennedy’s stories from India were funded by a grant from the International Reporting Project. Tomorrow she tells us about discrimination toward India’s Muslims.

Reporting the war at home

The World — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:49:11 +0000

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The news about Afghanistan and Iraq can feel like background noise, as listeners and readers become desensitized to the long, ongoing conflicts. How do local newspaper editors balance their duty to report on very important issues vs. losing your attention, with stories day after day on the same topic? The World’s Jason Margolis visited Mississippi and asked editors at three local papers. (Photos: Jason Margolis)

Brian Hawkins, editor, Starkville Daily News

Ronnie Agnew, executive editor, The Clarion Ledger

Jesse Bass and Meryl Dakin, editors, The Student Printz Newspaper of the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg

MARCO WERMAN: Newspaper coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has risen and fallen. Lately it’s fallen. For one thing stories about the wars which have lasted six and eight years respectively might be sounding a bit repetitive by now. For another, even newspaper giants like the New York Times face financial constraints on their foreign coverage. So you can imagine how difficult it might be for smaller papers to provide adequate reporting on the wars. The World’s Jason Margolis visited Mississippi and met with editors of three local papers.

JASON MARGOLIS: The Clarion Ledger is Mississippi’s largest newspaper. Its circulation is 85,000. Executive editor, Ronnie Agnew, says his goal is to not let the wars be forgotten.

RONNIE AGNEW: Mississippi has a very heavy presence in both Iraq and Afghanistan. And so initially yeah we start off being aggressive and trying to cover our folks, their families and such but as you know as time has gone on it’s become quite difficult.

MARGOLIS: That’s partly a matter of resources. The Clarion Ledger is a small paper with a shrinking budget. Also the wars just aren’t front page news in Mississippi.

AGNEW: When you’ve got soldiers being killed by roadside bombs almost on a daily basis those stories initially years ago made page one. Now they’re inside. So now it’s to the point now where if it’s involving a local unit or if it’s a major, major catastrophe – I hate to say that but that’s the reality of it. That’s when we know we have a big story.

MARGOLIS: All the editors I met with in Mississippi say they worry about reader fatigue. Nobody expressed this concern more strongly than Jessie Bass. He’s the editor and chief of The Students Prints, the University of Southern Mississippi’s Campus newspaper. He says he’d like to run more stories about Iraq and Afghanistan but he puts his head in his hands and says what’s the point?

JESSIE BASS: It’s kind of useless to run something that nobody’s going to read you know. I might as well write it on a piece of paper and put it in the ceiling.

MARGOLIS: That doesn’t mean the student editors have entirely given up. Co-editor Meryl Daken says The Student Prints does find some angles that hit home with students.

MERYL DAKEN: We do have a ROTC presence an ROTC presence on campus and we’ve run things about them in the past. Like we just did a story on their training camp they had at Camp Shelby. So that’s an angel that we like to look at is how the students are involved with it. And if you get politics involved that’s always something to look for. There’s political groups on campus that have their own take on it and we can go to those students and talk to them about it. And whenever we do interview a lot of students or have a lot of student interaction it’s more readable.

MARGOLIS: That’s the magic formula – localizing the conflicts. That also works well for a paper about 200 miles north of the University of Southern Mississippi. Brian Hawkings is the editor of the Starkville Daily News.

BRIAN HAWKINGS: We are a small town community newspaper. We have about 3500 subscribers and we cover the home town news. That’s what we’re here for.

MARGOLIS: Hawkings was speaking over breakfast at a local diner on Main Street where everybody seems to know everybody. One hundred and sixty five people from the Starkville unit of the Mississippi National Guard are deployed in Iraq. I asked Hawkings how often his readers think about the wars.

HAWKINGS: Heavily right now. When you have a unit that’s deployed it’s on everybody’s mind.

MARGOLIS: Hawkings says the national TV news has become jaded. He says war stories in his paper aren’t about faceless soldiers and statistics. For example, Starkville lost its second soldier in a suicide attack last year.

HAWKINGS: That brought it home again. I mean a lot of people thought the violence in Iraq had ended and then we have one of our own, the second soldier we’ve had in this community that was killed. You know so you know I think when it involves local people it tends to bring it home and remind people that it’s still happening.

MARGOLIS: Of course it’s easier to personalize stories in small communities. But that doesn’t excuse big city papers from covering the wars in a compelling way. Ronnie Agnew of Jackson’s Clarion Ledger says he tries but admits he doesn’t always succeed.

AGNEW: It’s kind of a failing on my part that we haven’t pushed that issue and that’s something I need to push because I think it’s important. I mean Mississippi’s presence is huge in these wars and there are a lot of families that are hurting. There are a lot of families here who have had multiple deployments and their finances are being wracked and their lives are being uprooted and they don’t see the end. And I think they’re looking for us and they’re looking to us to help them at least to understand the whys.

MARGOLIS: For The World I’m Jason Margolis, Jackson, Mississippi.

Life in the deep

The World — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:48:59 +0000

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The latest update on a 10-year census of marine life reads like something Walt Disney or Dr. Seuss might imagine. The report describes some of the thousands of species that oceanographers now say live in the depths of the ocean. Scientists have found tentacled, transparent sea cucumbers, and tubeworms that feed on oil. And then there are so-called “Dumbos,” with large ear-like fins. All these species live below 656 feet – too deep for sunlight to penetrate. Marco Werman talked with Jesse Ausubel, Program Director for The Census of Marine Life project.

MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World. The latest update on a 10-year census of marine life reads like something Walt Disney or Dr. Seuss might imagine. The report describes some of the thousands of species that oceanographers now say live in the depth of the ocean. Scientists have found tentacle transparent sea cucumbers and tube worms that feed on oil. And then there are these beasts called dumbos with large ear-like fins. All these species live below 656 feet – too deep for sunlight to penetrate. Jesse Ausubel is program director for the census of marine life project. He’s in New York. So I’ve got to ask you first Jesse, an oil-eating tube worm? What’s that about?

JESSE AUSUBEL: Animals need food. Food can come from the surface, from the sun, but food can come from inside of earth. And of course oil and gas come from the interior of earth. Bacteria live on oil and worms like the worm that you refer to – the wildcat worm as we call it – feeds on oil that seeps out of the continental margins of 5000 or 6000 feet deep.

WERMAN: So that oil-eating tube worm is just one of many species now being catalogued at these extreme depths. How many do you believe are still to be observed?

AUSUBEL: We’re reporting on almost 20,000 forms of life that never come closer to the surface than 600 or 700 feet. But there may be tens of thousands more and if you look at really small things like microbes there could be hundreds of thousands of more. You know there can be 10,000 unique types bacteria in a gram of sand. There are about 20 grams in an ounce. So if you look at the really small stuff it’s just huge. But we’ve been concentrating as you mentioned on the bigger animals like an octopus that’s about six feet long and weighs 13 pounds – almost as much as your Thanksgiving turkey. You might meet one of those down in the abyss.

WERMAN: It’s interesting how you actually go about this research because presumably you have to look at these animals. So how do you do that? I mean do you use night vision goggles? And if you introduce these unknown species to artificial light do you spook them?

AUSUBEL: Our team has conducted over 200 expeditions and we use all kinds of technology. We use acoustics like sonars to take pictures with sound of the animals. We do bring lights down deep and take photographs and in some cases we try to capture the animals as well. Some of them are not easy to capture as you can imagine. Especially in the pressures, the darkness, the cold at 15,000 or 20,000 feet deep.

WERMAN: Now you spoke about the tube worms and the fact that they eat oil. A lot of the species down at these depths eat something called marine snow. Explain what that is.

AUSUBEL: At the surface of the ocean you can think of the existence of meadows that do harvest the sunlight and grow grass – the ocean’s equivalent of grass, phytoplankton. And then the phytoplankton are fed on by other small animals and these fall to the sea floor. And so the snow that falls to the sea floor is also a source of food for animals down deep. I should mention that big animals also fall to the sea floor. You may have wondered what happens to a whale when it dies. Well a whale also falls to sea floor and then it becomes a feast – in fact a feast for some new kinds of worms that we’ve discovered including one called the ocidax which sounds kind of like a heavy metal band. But in fact it feeds on whale bones.

WERMAN: Now that’s not the only stuff that’s falling to the ocean floor. There’s also pollutants and then you add to that over fishing and rising CO2 and nitrogen levels. I’m wondering how your research, how this census, sheds light if you will on what human beings are doing above the surface. How is that affecting the ocean at these depths?

AUSUBEL: In some places where we’ve explored, for example some parts of the Mediterranean, we found more trash than life on the sea floor even in 10,000 or 12,000 feet of water. So there’s a lot of trash going into the ocean and of course it has to have somewhere to go. Over the long term as you mentioned of course people worry that warming of the surface atmosphere and the surface waters could also penetrate to the deep and that would certainly change the distribution of life and the kinds of life that flourish there.

WERMAN: Jesse Ausubel, program director for the census of marine life. Thank you very much for your time.

AUSUBEL: Marco thank you.

Implications of the Chilcot inquiry

The World — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:15:27 +0000

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Marco Werman speaks with Jonathan Freedland, editorialist with the Guardian newspaper in London, about the implications of the Chilcot inquiry.

MARCO WERMAN: There has not been a similar inquiry in the United States about the lead up to the Iraq war. There are a couple of reasons for that. Columnist Jonathan Freedland writes for The Guardian newspaper in London. He says for one thing the British always doubted what they were told about why they should go to war.

JONATHAN FREEDLAND: Politicians and press were asking fierce questions and being deeply skeptical interrogating the evidence for war before the invasion. And it was noted here that the position was very different and that for example the mainstream press was rather more credulous in the United States than it was here. So I think it’s understood that there was, if you like, the kind of lag between what happens here and happens there on that point. But the second reason I think is that in some ways it’s understood or perceived here that the election of Barack Obama who of course was against the war, calling it a dumb war, was in some ways a catharsis for Americans that has not happened here. And the very administration which took us into that war is still in place. And so therefore there has not been the catharsis that perhaps Americans got in November of last year.

WERMAN: Now given all that context this inquiry seems like a very British undertaking. Could you imagine a similar inquiry taking place in the US and if not why not?

FREEDLAND: Well in fairness to the United States I think it’s not too outlandish to imagine an inquiry. I mean the 9/11 commission won admirers around the world through all its thoroughness, its rigor, and for the fact that it took important testimony in public. Indeed it was in some ways the 9/11 precedent which many people here cited when arguing and insisting that at least some of the proceedings of the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war should at least be in public. Initially it was going to be all in private and people got up and said well look if the Americans can have their 9/11 inquiry, at least partially in public, than why can we not have the same thing? So no I don’t think it seems absurd to imagine Americans doing something similar.

WERMAN: Well how closely do you think the US government is going to be watching the undertakings of this inquiry of this commission?

FREEDLAND: Well I think they’d have watched it closer if it had been the Bush Administration still in place because Blair did not act, except in lockstep, with the Bush Administration and what may embarrass Tony Blair surely will embarrass George W. Bush and Dick Cheney too. Now that is easier to bear for Obama and Biden because they weren’t the administration. But nevertheless it will embarrass lots and lots of people in Washington because this is a war that kind of everybody in the Washington political establishment is implicated. Many, many people including for example just off the top of my head the current secretary of state and thee current vice president both voted for it. Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden were for it. So were most democrats in congress. It’s very hard for those people to escape from any kind of damning inquiry without themselves feeling implicated. So I think a few of them will be watching and they’ll hope that the distance of the Atlantic Ocean will mean that it doesn’t really rub off on them.

WERMAN: Now some have said, in the UK, that if the responsibility for the Iraq war, if the commission finds that it goes to the highest echelons of power there in Great Britain, i.e. 10 Downing Street, that could lead to war crimes charges. How likely is that?

FREEDLAND: I think that’s pretty unlikely for a few reasons. I mean the first is that Sir John Chilcot is the former career official civil servant as we describe it here who’s in charge has reminded people, even very recently, this is not about finding a verdict guilty or innocent on any individual. Second thing is the precedent. These civil service [INDISCERNIBLE] tend not to point a very clear finger. There have been a couple of other more narrow inquiries and they absolutely avoided apportioning blame. These civil servants career officials it’s absolutely bread into the marrow of their bones not to point crude and clear fingers of anybody. That’s just not their training. But lastly I think there’s nobody really in the political establishment who wants that for the simple reason that okay it’s Blair today but they would worry and fear that it’d be them tomorrow. That’s the kind of precedent they don’t want.

WERMAN: Jonathan Freedland of The Guardian newspaper in London. Thank you very much for your time.

FREEDLAND: Thank you.

No Joke: Sea blobs on the rise

The World — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:13:36 +0000

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Scientists say global climate change is responsible for the spread of massive blobs of floating marine mucus. The blobs are concentrated along Italy’s coast but have been spotted in more than 20 oceans around the world. The blobs are harmful to humans and sea life. And they’re taking a toll on Italy’s multi-billion euro tourism economy. The World’s Marina Giovannelli reports.

http://www.plosone.org

MARCO WERMAN: Researchers are finding other surprises in the world’s seas as well. Here’s The World’s Marina Giovannelli.

MARINA GIOVANNELLI: A few years ago Serena Fonda Umani took a dip off the Italian coast in the Adriatic Sea. But her swim was not as refreshing as you might expect.

SERENA FONDA UMANI: To swim with these blobs it was something very strange because you have this feeling like a ghost hanging over you.

GIOVANNELLI: That ghost Umani is talking about is what scientists call marine mucilage or what you and I might just call a blob.

UMANI: If you swim naked when you get out of the water you were covered by a sort of sugar and it was not such a great pleasure.

GIOVANNELLI: Umani didn’t just swim into the blob by accident. She’s a marine ecologist at the University of Trieste and was collecting blob samples for her lab.

UMANI: This large accumulation of jelly material are basically sugar as I said before – polysaccharides.

ROBERTO DONAVARO: These aggregates represent a very strange form of existence.

GIOVANNELLI: Roberto Donavaro is Serena Umani’s colleague and president of the Italian Association of Limnology and Oceanography. He says the blobs themselves aren’t alive per se. The sugar that makes them up is basically what we think of as mucus. And that mucus traps bacteria, crustations, and other tiny critters.

DONAVARO: So it’s a strange environment that deserves further study.

GIOVANNELLI: They’re not however an entirely new phenomenon. They’ve been spotted in the Mediterranean for centuries. But in the past two decades scientists have tracked a sharp increase. During the unusually warm winter of 2007 Donavaro and Umani found blobs floating off 60% of Italy’s coast. And they’ve also documented the blobs creeping into new corners of the globe.

DONAVARO: Records are being reported from New Zealand to the Tonga Islands from Canada to the United States. So we can say there are no seas which are without any possibility of this problem in the future.

GIOVANNELLI: Donavaro says there’s more mucus because the seas are getting warmer and that heat he says … .

DONAVARO: is a physiological stress over the algae that produce mucus like we do when we get a cold.

[SNEEZE]

GIOVANNELLI: Donavaro and Umani recently published their findings in the online scientific journal PLOS ONE and they resonate with observations of other researchers.

ALLICE ALDREDGE: There’s no doubt that increases in temperature are having some relationship to this particular phenomena.

GIOVANNELLI: Marine ecologist Allice Aldredge studies gelatinous plankton at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She’s not entirely convinced that hotter seas are directly responsible for the blobs. She says nay number of human activities could be involved. Whatever the cause though Aldredge agrees that the growing presence of sea blobs is a problem. They can blanket huge patches of sea, suffocate other marine life, and clog up fishing nets. And the blobs could also be a problem for swimmers. That’s because the research suggests they’re loaded with bacteria and other pathogens.

ALDREDGE: They’re relating of course this mucilage and the high virus content of it as well to skin problems. So I think there are some real health issues here.

GIOVANNELLI: And in the short term that could mean some real problems for Italy’s tourism economy. Mara Manentes studies the economics of tourism at the University of Venice.

MARA MANENTES: If tourists think that water is contaminated for sure this is a very, very negative effect.

GIOVANNELLI: And if researchers are right the negative effects of the sea blobs might be coming soon to a beach near you. For The World I’m Marina Giovannelli.

India’s state visit

The World — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:11:59 +0000

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India’s Prime Minister arrives in Washington tomorrow. Manmohan Singh’s appearance at the White House will constitute the first state visit of the Obama presidency. It comes at a delicate time. The US has lavished attention and aid on India’s neighbor and historical enemy, Pakistan. We speak with Sumit Ganguly, a professor of political science at Indiana University in Bloomington.

MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH Boston. The White House is preparing for the first state visit of the Obama presidency. India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, will receive an elaborate welcome when he arrives tomorrow. His visit comes at a delicate time in relations between the world’s two largest democracies. And that’s because the US has lavished attention an aid on India’s neighbor and historical enemy Pakistan. Sumit Ganguly is a professor of political science at Indiana University in Bloomington. Can you tell us what is at the top of the agenda for Barack Obama and Manmohan Singh when they meet this week?

SUMIT GANGULY: Well they may have different items on the agenda as far as what they consider to be their principle priorities. For Obama it will be to try and convince Prime Minister Singh to accept certain kinds of limitations on emissions, carbon emissions from India. But for Manmohan Singh there may be other items on the agenda for example pushing through the US-India civilian nuclear deal that was arrived at last year under the Bush Administration. But the final implementation of it still is in [INDISCERNIBLE]. So it’s entirely possible that they may have different top priorities.

WERMAN: Where does Afghanistan figure in the agenda? I mean how is India involved in the US involvement in Afghanistan?

GANGULY: India’s involvement in Afghanistan is quite substantial. It is the fifth largest aid donor to Afghanistan, to the tune of $1.2 billion. It has primarily been involved in the construction of schools, rural roads, hospitals, and the like. But India depends upon sort of the kindness of the United States and the international security assistance force to protect its workers in India. Indian workers building a road have been attacked and killed. The Indian embassy has been attacked twice with substantial casualties. So it is of vital importance to India to ensure that there is a stable and non-Taliban government in Afghanistan and consequently, at least on this issue, US and Indian views neatly dovetail.

WERMAN: I mean a lot of people, a lot of observers on the region, say that one of the critical issues for the stability in Afghanistan and bringing Afghanistan and Pakistan together is the stability of Kashmir and focusing on this Muslim territory controlled mostly by India should somehow lead us to perhaps stability in Afghanistan. Can you connect the dots for us why Kashmir is so important and why people are talking about it?

GANGULY: It’s actually one of the worst red herrings imaginable. I firmly decent on this popular notion that somehow or other Kashmir is connected to Afghanistan. Kashmir is an issue that the Pakistani military establishment routinely trots out as a justification for its failure or its inability or more importantly its unwillingness to go after the Taliban in a rigorous fashion.

WERMAN: Don’t you think though … . I mean you don’t agree with the idea of using Kashmir somehow in all of this but shouldn’t diplomacy be a little more clever in using Kashmir as a kind of chest piece in getting all parties what they want? I mean should for example the US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan maybe expand his brief to include India as well?

GANGULY: His brief should include India in that India should have a place at the table in terms of the settlement of Afghanistan, n terms of bringing about a [INDISCERNIBLE] of stability in Afghanistan. But the moment you put Kashmir in the mix it becomes completely toxic and this is the quickest way to bring the entire proceedings to a screeching halt. No government in India, regardless of its political orientation, will tolerate an American role in Kashmir. The Indians have long memories which hark back to the Cold War where the United States blatantly and shamelessly tilted towards all manner of scrofulous regimes in Pakistan and supported the Pakistani claim on Kashmir which in my judgment is rather tenuous. But that aside, in terms of diplomacy by attempting to inveigle the Kashmir issue into the Afghanistan-Pakistan mix is about the biggest non-starter that I can possibly imagine.

WERMAN: Sumit Ganguly, professor of political science at Indian University in Bloomington. Thank you very much for your time indeed.

GANGULY: Thank you.

Geo Quiz

The World — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:10:16 +0000

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Our daily geography puzzler.

Slow food in Lebanon

The World — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:09:35 +0000

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Like many places in the world, Lebanon has a burgeoning movement known as “slow food.” Its proponents want to ensure that Lebanese don’t lose their food traditions and don’t get sucked in by American style fast-food joints. Yet The World’s Aaron Schachter reports, the slow-moving country seems an unlikely spot for a slow food movement.

MARCO WERMAN: The drive behind slow food is really kind of a protest movement against fast food. It seeks to preserve local food traditions and to make people more aware of the food they eat and where it comes from. The slow food movement has made inroads just about everywhere and that includes some countries you wouldn’t expect. The World’s Aaron Schachter tells us about one of them – Lebanon – in this report from Beirut.

AARON SCHACHTER: Nothing is accomplished in Lebanon with any great speed. Official business takes hours. A trip to the bank involves chatting about recent weddings or trips. “Shway, shway” slowly slowly is more or less the country’s motto. So what’s the point of a slow food movement in Lebanon?

WALID ATAYA: To remind us so we can stay slow and relaxed.

SCHAHCTER: Walid Ataya owns a bakery called Bread and several restaurants. He says the slow food movement is intended to steer people away from buying cheap produce grown halfway around the world and to keep them in touch with their food heritage. The Lebanese are proud of their food and sing its praises at every possible opportunity. But they’re not cooking it much anymore.

ATAYA: It’s getting harder and harder to find people that cook at home. And now what’s left is the grandmothers are cooking. You know the outside help is learning how to cook at the homes and those people sooner or later will go back to their country and you have restaurant mushrooming left and right you know and they have nothing to do with the local food.

NAYLA AUDI: We have freekeh which is the smoked wheat. We have the Zaatar which is our dry thyme with sesame seeds. We have … . This is really interesting because … .

SCHACHTER: Nayla Audi owns a successful Beirut restaurant called Gruen that serves a mix of western and local fare. She’s also started a line of traditional Lebanese foods called Oslo W. Get it? O-slow. Her current passion is freekeh. It’s a grain from Southern Lebanon often seen as peasant food. But Audi recently started using it in fancy salads and it’s a big hit. She says slow food isn’t either or – traditional or modern. But the craving here for things western is slowly eroding the idea of eating what you or your neighbors produce.

AUDI: I eat sushi. I love everything. Anything you can think of I would eat and crave and love it. But I really think I owe it to myself, to my children, to my country, to how I was raised and who I am to defend that line of thinking and of producing.

SCHACHTER: Around 100 food producers and craftsmen from southern Lebanon gathered a few weeks ago at a home show in a Beirut suburb. The exhibitors were mostly older folks. I visited the exhibition with Barbara Abdeni Masaad. She’s something of a crusader for what’s called mouneh which roughly translates as pantry. It describes foods that are grown locally and preserved or pickled at home. Mouneh has a long history in Lebanon but fewer and fewer people are doing it. Masaad says this tradition won’t vanish over night but it is on the way out.

BARBARA ABDENI MASAAD: We’re not talking maybe about this generation but we’re talking about the next generation and the one after that. It’s better to be safe than sorry. Do you understand? You have to see things coming.

SCHACHTER: One of the Masaad’s favorite producers is Mohammed Na’ameh. He grows organic herbs and produces zaatar, a blend of thyme, other herbs, sesame seeds, and salt. It’s a staple of the Lebanese diet. He can’t get his kids to join the business and says neither can most of the others here.

MOHAMMED NA’AMEH: [SPEAKING ARABIC]

SCHACHTER: Na’ameh says the new generation we were counting on is only interested in things that move fast. They grew up after our civil war so they think life is precarious. They want to get paid a monthly salary, want to eat fast, surf the internet, do everything fast. Lebanon’s slow food movement is trying to well slow things down. Like similar movements in the US, Italy, and elsewhere slow food is gaining a small following among the middle and upper classes here. For most people though it’s still something they either can’t afford or can’t be bothered with. For The World I’m Aaron Schachter in Beirut.

Geo answer

The World — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:08:50 +0000

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For today’s Geo Quiz we were searching for the leader of the 13th century Mongol empire. The answer is Genghis Khan and the whereabouts of his grave have been a mystery for centuries, but investigators may soon crack the case. Josuha Kucera recently travelled China, Mongolia, and Russia to research this story.

Khaled

The World — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:00:39 +0000

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Anchor Marco Werman tells about one song on the new CD by Algerian superstar Khaled. The song “Zabana” tells the story of Ahmed Zabana, a martyr in the Algerian War of Independence in the 1950s.

Khaled's oud player, foreground, with Salar Nader on the floor with tablas in background

As you may have heard last Friday, I spent the last couple of days in Las Vegas, covering a concert of Middle Eastern music that took place there on Saturday night. The headliner for that show was the Algerian rap superstar Khaled. He also has a new recording out called “Liberté” which has received rave reviews. During our interview, Khaled gave me a brief history lesson that provided the background to one of the songs on “Liberte.”

The song is called “Zabana.” It’s a popular name in the Algerian town of Oran where Khaled is from. There’s even a large sports arena there, the Zabana Stadium. It’s named after Ahmed Zabana, the most famous Zabana, and the inspiration for Khaled’s song.

“Je chante pour quelqu’un qui a donne sa vie pour mon pays.”

Khaled says he’s singing an homage for a man who gave his life for Algeria. So who was Ahmed Zabana?

“Cest le premier guillotine…”

Khaled describes Ahmed Zabana in a way that many Algerians remember him: the first person guillotined by the French in the Algerian War of Independence. Zabana was one of the leaders of a nationalist movement in Oran.

His group was part of the simultaneous attacks on French targets on day one of the Algerian War of Independence, November first, 1954. Zabana was taken prisoner by the French. Khaled admires Zabana he says because he was motivated — not out of hate for France — but for love of Algeria.
When the French came to get him, he didn’t shoot back says Khaled. He said, you looking for me? The French said, we’re going to convict you, we’re going to kill you.

Zabana said OK!

Khaled says there’s a significant phrase in his song: j’offre, or, I offer!

“I offer my blood for this beautiful Algeria, words that many Algerians to this day remember as Zabana’s final words.”

Algerian singer and composer Khaled there, with a short history lesson from his country.

His latest CD is titled “Liberte.”