• BBC coverage
• Global Economy podcast
• The World’s Alex Gallafent reported from Dubai in 2007

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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman.  This is The World.  Shoppers are turning out in strong numbers today for the start of the holiday season, but cloudy economic skies hover over this Black Friday.  Unemployment is high, credit is tight, and most investors have less money today than they did yesterday. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 154 points to close at 10,310.  Wall Street may have been reacting to financial trouble in Dubai.  That’s the semi-autonomous city-state that’s part of the United Arab Emirates.  The World’s Alex Gallafent begins our coverage.

ALEX GALLAFENT: You may have heard about some of the things that made Dubai famous as a kind of Disneyland for grown-ups.  The indoor ski dome in the middle of a desert, the tallest tower in the world, the biggest man-made islands.  These were all part of a program of colossal spending in Dubai, but it wasn’t paid for with oil money.  Dubai’s wells are dry.  Matthew Martin is editor of the Middle East Economic Digest.

MATTHEW MARTIN: A lot of the massive growth that we’ve seen in Dubai over the past few years has all been fueled not directly off the government balance sheet but by taking on debt from the capital markets.

GALLAFENT: The company at the center of the current crisis is facing the consequences of that approach.  That company is Dubai World.  It’s a real estate group backed by Dubai’s government, and it’s one of the prime movers in the city-state’s explosive growth.  But Dubai World has racked up almost 60 billion dollars worth of debt.  This week the company asked creditors if it could postpone repayments on that debt for six months.  Christopher Davidson is the author of Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success. He says Dubai World’s troubles are the result of a broader economic strategy in the emirate.

CHRISTOPHER DAVIDSON: What we’ve seen in Dubai is trying to build an economy that’s been aimed at bringing in foreign direct investment to keep it in a desert creating a sponge like economy to bring in wealth from the region, from Britain, America, anywhere that wants to invest in real estate.  And this really has been tinkering with Dubai’s historical success as a port economy, a place where money passes through and goes somewhere else. But really, the last few years has seen a shift in the focus of the economy, and that’s really what’s been its undoing.

GALLAFENT: The global economic crisis exposed Dubai’s flawed business model. Real estate prices plummeted after years of flying ever higher.  Foreign investment slowed down.  Mahmood Nadi is a Jordanian mechanical engineer who has worked in Dubai for two years.  He says you can see the emirate’s problems in its glittering collection of high-rise buildings.

MAHMOOD NADI: Almost fifty percent not finished yet, thirty percent still not occupied.  You can say twenty percent are occupied, from the new high-rise buildings. The situation is really not stable.

GALLAFENT: Indeed, Dubai has a skyline bought on credit, and Christopher Davidson thinks creditors are unlikely to accept Dubai World’s request to postpone its debt repayments.

DAVIDSON: For the last several months, there have been a number of international companies that have been owed sums for labor and construction work they’ve conducted in Dubai.  They’ve been rather quiet and polite about that hoping the good times will return, but I think now we’ll get to the stage where lawsuits will be pressed on the government of Dubai.

GALLAFENT: Dubai will probably look to its neighbor for help.  That’s Abu Dhabi, another part of the United Arab Emirates.  Unlike Dubai, Abu Dhabi does have oil.  In February, it bought 10 billion dollars worth of bonds from Dubai.  Many saw that deal as a bailout, but it’s not clear when or at what price Abu Dhabi would come to its neighbor’s rescue again. That uncertainty propelled today’s market worries. Another concern of investors is the lack of detail about how Dubai’s proposed debt rescheduling would work.  But British Prime Minister Gordon Brown predicted today that Dubai’s problems will not set off a second global economic meltdown.

GORDON BROWN: If this is a localized problem, then it can be dealt with, and I believe that that is the case. And I believe that this is one of things that we will see over the next few months as the world economy returns to growth, but it is an event that can be dealt with.

GALLAFENT: That’s a hope investors in the United States most likely share.  For The World, I’m Alex Gallafent.

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• BBC coverage
• Background Brief: Nuclear standoff with Iran

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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a coproduction of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH in Boston.  The White House said today the world’s patience with Iran is running out.  Today the U.N.’ nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, voted to censure Iran over its nuclear program, and this time China and Russia joined in on the rebuke.  But Iran is already signaling it will resist any pressures, resolutions or sanctions.  The World’s Katy Clark has more.

KATY CLARK: 25 nations backed today’s resolution condemning Iran for developing a uranium enrichment site in secret, and they’re demanding that the project be frozen immediately.  The move was endorsed by the six countries that have been overseeing negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. Until now, Moscow and Beijing had been reluctant to strongly condemn Iran’s actions. Russia’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement calling on Iran to treat today’s resolution seriously.  Britain’s Prime   Minister, Gordon Brown, was also blunt.

GORDON BROWN: This is the world sending a signal to Iran that this is completely unacceptable. That we now know what their level of nuclear ambitions are. That they must desist from them. This is the strongest wording I’ve seen. The next stage will have to be sanctions if Iran does not, as it should, respond.

CLARK: The U.S. Envoy to the IAEA said today that round after round of fruitless talks with Iran could not continue.  Today’s censure is not likely to improve Iran’s relations with the rest of the world.  But David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security says Iran’s leaders are largely responsible for that.

DAVID ALBRIGHT: They’ve made it clear that they want to build things in secret, for whatever reason. They’ve turned down pretty reasonable offers. And finally, Iran either wants nuclear weapons and wants to limit the transparency over its regime because of that.  It doesn’t want to have inhibitions on its ability to have nuclear weapons.  Or it so mistrusts the west that no deal is possible.

CLARK: China’s support for today’s vote is especially noteworthy. China has been the most reluctant of the major parties involved in negotiations with Iran to take a tough stance. That’s mainly because of strong economic ties between the two countries.  But Albright says voting to condemn Iran’s behavior today was one thing. Getting China to vote for tougher sanctions against Iran in the U.N. Security Council will be a far different matter.

ALBRIGHT: That whole battle is going to have to be fought, and probably have to go through lots of negotiations with China.  To get it to accept sanctions, it will probably be weaker in the end than what United States and Europe wants.

CLARK: That is unless China becomes convinced that Iran really does want to pursue a nuclear weapons program.  Iran continues to maintain that it only wants to build a civilian energy purposes.  Iranians generally support their country’s nuclear program.  Not surprisingly, some dismissed today’s news that the IAEA had condemned Tehran’s enrichment activities.

IRANIAN MAN: [In Farsi]

CLARK: This man says that the resolution, like previous resolutions, will not be effective because Iran’s nuclear energy program is truly peaceful. With the unity of the Iranian people, he says, this resolution will remain as ineffective as the previous ones.  Perhaps so, but today’s vote by the IAEA board could indicate a new international resolve.  President Obama and his European counterparts have given Iran until the end of the year to begin talks on the nuclear stalemate, and the end of the year is fast approaching.  For The World, this is Katy Clark.

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• “Change for Equality” homepage
• “I was Iran’s last woman minister”

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MARCO WERMAN: Iran has been acting provocatively in other ways.  Authorities this month confiscated Shirin Ebadi’s Nobel Peace prize medal.  Activists say the move against the Iranian human rights lawyer exemplifies Teheran’s hostility toward women. Mahnaz Afkhami was the Minister for Women’s Affairs in Iran before the 1979 Revolution.  She now lives in Bethesda, Maryland.  Afhkahmi wrote the forward to a new book called “Iranian Women’s One Million Signatures Campaign for Equality.”  The book describes a drive to overturn Iran’s so-called family laws.

MAHNAZ AFKHAMI: Mainly the rights of women within the family from the right of a woman to marry without anyone’s permission, the right to divorce, the right to guardianship of children, the right to travel freely, the right to hold a job without her husband’s permission, a whole range of law. Actually, you know, it’s called family laws, but in effect this set of legislation controls all aspects of a woman’s life, woman’s worth as a citizen.

WERMAN: So to get a lot of signatures on a petition, you have to convince people that what you’re doing is right, and obviously this movement inside Iran has had to be very innovative. One thing that really caught my eye, and is innovative is this guerilla theater that the campaign has been conducting.  Tell us about that.

AFKHAMI: Yes, actually what they want is not just one million names under a petition, but what they want is really to recruit one million activists. So this involves really convincing people, getting them mobilized. And so since they’re not allowed to gather in large numbers or hold workshops freely and that type of thing, so what they do is improvise. They have street theater for instance. At bus stops they begin a conversation between two of the campaign activists taking the two sides of an argument, and people gather around them and begin to participate in the argument.  And then, before long the major issues of the legislation come under discussion by people who don’t even know they’re being part of the street theater. And it’s been said that in previous times police have come to stop what they consider an argument, and sometimes they have joined in the discussion and then the two people who started it get on the bus and leave. They do it in different places. You know, they do it in taxi cabs, beauty shops, in schools, wherever women gather.

WERMAN: So Ms. Afkhami, I mean, it’s a pretty radical program you’ve got going.  We’re talking not just a simple petition here.  Is that an especially toxic form of activism in Iran, and how have the authorities of the Islamic Revolution reacted to this?

AFKHAMI: Well, they haven’t liked it one bit actually, and what they haven’t liked also is the fact that the movement has grown to include other social justice movements.  And this is something that very important. At least 30% of signatures on the campaign are from men and men are really very active in the campaign, and they take it on as their own aspiration and not just something that they’re supporting the women for. And that worries the authorities a great deal and, of course, you know, almost everyone who was one of the founders or leaders of the movement has been harassed, has been imprisoned, is in prison or has some kind of suspended sentence hanging over their heads.

WERMAN: You live here in the United States but the author of the book, “Campaign for Equality” Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani lives in Iran.  Has she been able to be public about this book and this petition drive?

AFKHAMI: Yes, she has, as others do, a number of websites in constant interaction both in Iran and with the outside world, and she has that website. She has published the book in Persian, although surreptitiously without permission. And she asked to have the book publicized in the United States, and although we were all rather concerned about the backlash, they are very courageous women. They really know what dangers they face and, of course, that’s part of also being very young, and most of them are. Most of them are under the age of 30.

WERMAN: We should add that you’re in the United States because after the 1979 Revolution the Ayatollahs put you on their death list, and charged you with corruption on earth and warring with God.  I supposed you’ve had quite a few years to think about what that actually means.  What does warring with God mean?

AFKHAMI: Well, at first it was very frightening because at the beginning of the Revolution there was a lot of also state executions being conducted outside.  The only other woman who was a minister was actually executed on these charges in Iran. At first, it was very frightening, but actually as time goes by I feel in such  august company.  All of my wonderful colleagues, democrats, freedom fighters, strugglers for human rights, all of them have something of that sort of a label attached to them. So I feel very proud to be in that company.

WERMAN: Mahnaz Afkhami was in charge of Women’s Affairs for the Iranian government before the Revolution.  She’s now a proponent of women’s rights in the Islamic world.  She spoke with us from the BBC studios in Washington.

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• BBC coverage
• Clark Boyd’s previous story on this case (July 2009)
• Technology podcast 252 (July 2009)

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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman.  This is the World.  British hacker Gary McKinnon faces extradition to the United States. McKinnon admits he hacked into Pentagon and NASA computers in the months after September 11th, 2001.   He’s blamed for $800,000 dollars worth of damage.  He could face 60 years in jail.  Now it seems like an open and shut case, but McKinnon insists he was looking for secret evidence of UFOs, and he has Asperger’s Syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism. Yesterday, the British government announced that it cannot block Gary McKinnon’s extradition.  His mother, Janis Sharp, says the decision is unfair.

JANIS SHARP: Gary knew what he was doing.  We didn’t think about it, but he obviously must have known what he was doing was wrong, but he felt he was on a moral crusade to find the truth.  And to be honest, would they rather someone else had found that there was no passwords and firewalls? Would they rather an actual terrorist had walked in?  I mean, I think it’s a scandal that I couldn’t believe that the Pentagon would have no passwords and no firewalls.  To me, that’s a scandal, and it was a very stupid thing to do.  But anyone who’s up to no good doesn’t leave notes, and doesn’t leave their email address there.  They just don’t.

WERMAN: How is your son coping, Ms. Sharp?

SHARP: Badly.  He’s very, very gentle and he had a breakdown. He’s had several breakdowns.  He’s under the care of a Professor Jeremy Kirk and also Simon Byron Cohen [PH], and thank God he’s got them is all I can say.

WERMAN: Are these gentlemen psychologists?

SHARP: A psychiatrist and a psychologist and they’re really good in their field.  They are the absolute best, and it’s so helpful for Gary to have them there, because Gary believes that he’s caused all these problems and he’s ruined our life, and he felt … I don’t want to get emotional.  He felt that everyone would be better off without him, which is … Sorry.  Absolutely not the case because Gary could never have realized that what he did would come to this. He had no way of knowing that.  I mean, we’ve been in terror for almost eight years. We have every second of every day you feel terrified, and you wouldn’t have an animal in that heightened state of terror permanently for almost eight years.  You just wouldn’t and I say he is never denied responsibility. I wish he had.  I wish he had never admitted it, because I think that that’s why it’s ended up in this way for him. I wish he had been more worldly wise and cleverer and got a lawyer and then did all those things. I’ve brought Gary up to … He’s a good guy.  That’s the reality.  Sorry, I’m emotional because I’ve just had all this and it’s been a very difficult few days.

WERMAN: Yeah, I understand.  It does strike me as kind of odd that if Gary has Asperger’s Syndrome, and the government was interrogating him knowing this that anything he said without a lawyer in the room would have been tossed out.

SHARP: Well, the government didn’t know at the time. At the time, Gary was known as eccentric and there were problems, but Asperger’s Syndrome was only recognized by the World Health Authority in 1995, and it wasn’t a common thing until the late ’90s. And what happened was Gary was given an interview, and in this interview it was televised.  He was telling the truth even to his own detriment. And medical people wrote into the Solicitors and the T.V. said he’s got Asperger’s.  He has no facial expression. Asperger’s people don’t have facial expressions. They don’t recognize facial expressions and they have a monotone voice.  I know it sounds odd, but they have a very flat monotone voice, and they tell the truth to their own detriment.  And people wrote in and said he’s got Asperger’s. When I was told this and they wanted to test him I said no because Gary is intelligent.  He hasn’t got it and Simon Byron Cohen, Professor, he explained to me that that is Asperger’s because I said Gary came on very fast when he was young.  He could talk when he was ten months old.  He could read when he was three and he said, “No, that’s Asperger’s.”  He says, “It’s high functioning autism.”  He says, “But people assume because they’re intelligent that they have an understanding, but there are certain areas that they don’t.”

WERMAN: What is next for your son?  Presumably this extradition is going to go forth.

SHARP: No, Gary’s Solicitor is applying to judicially review the Home Secretary’s decision, and normally you get three months for that to put in the judicial review, but for some reason the government has decided that our lawyers have only got seven days to do it. And why should Gary only be given seven days when everyone else gets three months?  The real reason is that our government I’m sure wants it done and Gary gone, and that’s the reality.

WERMAN: Janis Sharp, Gary McKinnon’s mother.  Thank you very much for speaking with us and the best of luck.

SHARP: Oh, thank you so much.  Thank you.

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MARCO WERMAN: Investors in the United States hope that the Dubai problem can be dealt with, but they’ve got a couple of reasons for concern, too.  That’s according to Matt Slaughter, Associate Dean at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

MATT SLAUGHTER: There might be two kinds of worries. One is depending on what particular mix of bonds and stocks you own, the world is scrambling to figure out which international banks have direct exposure and other companies have direct exposure to the default by Dubai World. And then, more generally, the second risk is regardless of which assets you own, I think many investors are viewing the Dubai World default as a challenge for thinking about where the global financial economic system might be and some of the risks it faces today.

WERMAN: Now, European markets fell yesterday. Today, Asian markets fell sharply, and it was also a sharp drop on Wall Street as well. Is this all because of Dubai?

SLAUGHTER: I think it was part of it maybe. It’s always hard to know with these high frequency movements, but I think investors in recent weeks have increasingly been voicing concern about how stable the economic recovery really is in different parts of the world.

WERMAN: Dubai World is essentially reacting saying that they don’t have the money to pay off their debts and they’re just going to wait it out.  What impact will that have on western companies beyond banks?

SLAUGHTER: Great question.  Some companies may be doing direct business with Dubai.  It has developed a major construction industry, a major financial industry in recent years.  And so, a lot of trading companies, a lot of construction services companies may have some direct exposure to the challenges that Dubai is facing right now.  And then more generally, again, there’s a sense of increased risk and uncertainty about the economic prospects for lots of companies in lots of parts of the world.

WERMAN: I mean, Dubai has been seen kind of as a bell weather for growth and praised for that.  I think the famous statistic from a couple of years ago was that Dubai had 60% of the world’s cranes there. So massive construction.  But maybe you can characterize for us, Matt, just what Dubai represents today as an economic barometer?

SLAUGHTER: So I think it represents the continued uncertainty about how sustained economic growth is going to be realized in the coming quarters and years.  I think you’re exactly right that Dubai has been the symbol of very rapid economic growth, and in its attempt to diversify economic growth from different sources in a very global world, Dubai has endeavored to position itself as a real center for international trade services, and international financial services.  If Dubai is facing these kind of struggles within world markets, they seem to be saying, “Wow, how do we think about the economic prospects for companies around the world, and also for like governments and sovereign debt that’s being issued by a lot of governments around the world.

GALLAFENT: So it sounds like what you’re saying, Matt, is that this is about confidence, and I guess the final question is could fear in, you know, the debts of Dubai have a compounded negative effect on the markets beyond that of a country or an emirate just unable to service its debts.

SLAUGHTER: I think it could.  Time will tell as with many of these challenges in financial markets, but investors have been watching in the past many months as governments and some companies also have been issuing very large amounts of debt. And so one of the indicators of the increased uncertainty, I think, that Dubai World presents to the world is you see the price of default insurance rising very dramatically as investors I think step back and say, “Okay, maybe we’ve been misperceiving the risk that other companies in other countries around the world face as they struggle to emerge from this very deep depression and financial crisis.

WERMAN: Matt Slaughter, Associate Dean at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.  Thank you very much.

SLAUGHTER: Than you very much for having me on the show.

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MARCO WERMAN: The economy of Honduras is also at the breaking point.  The Central American nation was already hurting from the Global Economic Slowdown. Then in June the Honduran Army ousted the President, Manuel Zelaya. The political unrest has scared away tourists and foreign investors, and it’s driven up unemployment.  Hondurans are set to choose a new president on Sunday. Many of them hope the election will diffuse the crisis and get the country’s economy back on track.  Reporter John Otis sets the scene.

JOHN OTIS: American businessman Chris Haughey is trying to set up a toy factory on the outskirts of the capital, Tegucigalpa.

CHRIS HAUGHEY: So what you see in the factory here is roughly 50% of the machines were purchased here in country and the rest were, you know, have been brought in from the U.S.

OTIS: But shortly after Haughey broke ground, a military coup ousted President Zelaya. Street protests led to curfews, and that caused construction delays at Haughey’s plant, pushing back the start-up date for toy production.

HAUGHEY: The impact for us has mostly been with delays. You know, providers not showing up because there’s a curfew for all or part of the day and so they’re not going to come out to the factory.

OTIS: Haughey is determined to stick it out, but most new business ventures in Honduras have been put on hold.  Now the Honduran economy is expected to contract by 4% this year. But the economic problems began even before Zelaya was forced out of office. Most Honduran exports go to the United States, but the U.S. financial crisis depressed demand for the country’s coffee, bananas and apparel. Remittances from Hondurans living in the U.S. also plummeted.  Last January, President Zelaya boosted the monthly minimum wage to about $300.  He also decreed that domestic workers are entitled to Social Security Pensions. Those moves prompted a wave of layoffs and turned the Honduran business community against Zelaya.  Then came the military coup. Reductions in foreign aid to the de facto government of Roberto Micheletti soon followed.  Now, many Hondurans are buying only buying essential items.  Alaba Castaneda runs a printing press that turns out books, envelopes, and calendars. But since the political crisis began, Castaneda has laid off 5 of her 18 workers. Sales have dropped by 40%.

ALBA CASTANEDA: [Interpreted]   There were curfews.  We couldn’t leave home. It seemed like war could breakout. So people only bought the bare essentials, like food, because people have to eat.

OTIS: Hotel owners claim the coup has been even worse for business than Hurricane Mitch, which laid waste to much of Honduras in 1998.  Ana Maria Maradiaga runs the Hotel Escuela Madrid, a training school for future hotel and restaurant employees. She says aid workers flooded into Honduras after Hurricane Mitch and stayed in hotels for months. But the coup led to an exodus of tourists and a wave of cancellations.

ANA MARIA MARADIAGA: Tegucigalpa was completely empty. Big hotels, small hotels, restaurants.  I mean, everywhere, the tourism in Tegucigalpa was dead.

OTIS: Honduras is the third poorest country in Latin America with nearly 70% of the population living below the poverty line.  But the ongoing political crisis has put much needed aid projects on hold, says the American toymaker Chris Haughey.

HAUGHEY: There are constantly groups coming down from the U.S., from Canada, from other developed nations to assist with social project; water projects, health, you know, poverty alleviation. And those groups have basically put their plans on hold as well.”

OTIS: President Zelaya remains holed up in the heavily guarded Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa and it’s unclear whether he will be reinstated before his term ends in January.  Unlike the left-wing Zelaya, the two leading candidates in Sunday’s presidential election are mainstream politicians with close ties to business and to the United States.  U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens has pushed for Zelaya’s return. But he also maintains that the swearing in of a democratically elected president to replace the de facto government could go a long way towards stabilizing the economy.

HUGO LLORENS: Our hope is that democracy can be restored, the country’s situation can be normalized, its relations with the international community so that Honduras can again become a place for growth and investment.

OTIS: For The World, I’m John Otis, Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

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MARCO WERMAN: We’ve still got a little time to dip into our mailbag before the latest news roundup. Listener Anna Marie heard our story about Italians who are up in arms because a government official suggested that lunch breaks are bad for the economy.  Anna Marie writes, “I lived in Spain, which also has a tradition of long lunches. As a journalist, I discovered that the best time to have a good talk with a source was over lingering lunches with wine, of course. In the Mediterranean culture, this is when business is best conducted, not in boardrooms or offices.

Another listener, native Mississipian Becky Selzer, was delighted to hear our story about coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in newspapers in the state.  She says the story projected the newspaper editors as introspective, intelligent, hard-working people who are trying to make good decisions about what they publish in their newspapers.

Finally, John Nicholas Granet of Palm Springs, California, says he’s generally not overly impressed with our global hit segments.  He can do without what he calls the “folkish kitsch and rap.”  But he liked one band we featured this week, the Dolapdere, Big Gang from Turkey.  Doctor Granet likes the group’s “unique combination of Roma and Middle Eastern elements and classic rock tunes.”   He calls their music “a prize.”  What do you think?

DOLAPDERE, BIG GANG:  [Plays Bill Jean]

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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.

MARCO WERMAN: The civil war in Sri Lanka is over, but the work of reconciliation has barely begun.  For 25 years, Tamil Tiger rebels fought for an independent homeland for Sri Lanka’s minority Tamils.  Eighty to a hundred thousand people were killed.  Then, in May, Sri Lankan government troops routed the rebels. The war had ended and the government promised that the Tamils would be accorded equal rights as citizens. But many Tamils say they are being persecuted. Rebecca Henschke spoke with some of them in Colombo.

REBECCA HENSCHKE: Vijayan opens the door to his family’s two room apartment in Colombo.  He peers down the alleyway to see if anyone is following us.

VIJAYAN:  There is no safe place in Sri Lanka for Tamils.  Now the government is dominating and Sinhalese are the dominating force in Sri Lanka and the government has a very active military machine.  There are attacking, still abductions going on, disappearance going on.  So most of the people are Tamils, the disappeared people are Tamils. No more safe places to escape. That’s our fate.

HENSCHKE: Vijayan and his family fled the northern city of Jaffna two years ago when he saw his name on a poster under the heading “enemies of the state.”  Men in uniform later came to his house asking for him.

VIJAYAN: I thought I was finished and no more. That’s the final thoughts that I didn’t think I’ll be with my parents.

HENSCHKE: Vijayan insists he was never involved with Tamil Tiger rebels, but was a student activist for human rights.  Months after the end of the war, his mother Saratha still fears for her son’s life.

SARATHA:  [Translated] I want him to study and finish his degree, but if he goes back he may have to face some of the problem. So I don’t want him to face that, but I’m very worried about him.

HENSCHKE: Vijayan says he wants to go back north to finish his degree and then leave Sri Lanka.

VIJAYAN: Otherwise we don’t have an opportunity to find our future.  That’s our one and only opportunity to find our future.

HENSCHKE: Tamils like Vijayan are particularly worried about the continued military detention of over 100,000 Tamils in former rebel controlled areas up north.  The Sinhalese dominated government suspects Tamil Tigers are hiding among the displaced civilians or IDPS in the camps.  Mahinda Samarasinghe is the Human Rights Minister.

MAHINDA: The IDPs can and will be permitted to leave the relief villages and welfare centers once they are screened. Many thousands of applications have been received, requesting the release of these IDPs to the custody of host families. It is our responsibility to ensure that these checks are stringent.

HENSCHKE: But Opposition Tamil politician Mano Genesha says this process amounts to collective punishment.

MANO GENESHA: The people are being kept against their will in the barbed wired fence.  It’s built for security with military guard.  So people are kept against their will.  What is that? What do you call that? It is sheer terrorism.

HENSCHKE: Journalists and rights groups have been barred from entering the camps.  Mano Genesha has filed a law suit demanding access.

GANESHA: We need to know what’s really happening there.  We need our government as a transparency. Now, government is giving only head counts. They say 300,000 [INDISCERNIBLE]. Then later they said 290,000, 280,000.  There are some differences from their last head count and the current head count, at least about 10,000 people. They said 10,000 people have gone missing.  I wish to ask the government where is this large scale hole through which people go away?

HENSCHKE: The government has promised that those inside will be given greater freedom of movement starting next month, and President Mahinda Rajapaksa says the largest camp will be closed early next year.  His administration claims it’s liberated the Tamil people and they can now live in peace and prosperity.

PRESIDENT MAHINDA RAJAPAKSA: [In Tamil Language]

HENSCHKE: Addressing the Sri Lankan Parliament last May, President Rajapaksa announced, “We have removed the word ‘minorities’ from our vocabulary.”  But Tamils say they still feel they are being singled out in the capital.  On a recent evening, my Tamil pedi-cab driver was stopped twice in the space of less than a half mile.  Young armed soldiers kept asking lots of questions.

Regina Ramalingam of the Sri Lankan Institute for Peace says for Tamils like her this kind of questioning happens almost daily.

REGINA RAMALINGAM: You are made to understand that you are, you are a different person because you are from a different community.  The Tamil person, as a Tamil person I know I am being harassed.

HENSCHKE: Authorities maintain these security checks are preventing attacks from remaining Tamil Tigers rebels.  They recently approved a 50% increase for military spending, and plan to build two large military bases in former rebel-held territory. But Jehran Perera says the government needs to change its wartime mentality if it wants to create a lasting peace.  He’s director of the Sri Lankan Institute for Peace and an ethnic Sinhalese.

JEHRAN PERERA: There is always the possibility of guerilla attacks. I am quite sure that not all the Tigers have been eliminated.  I think that sleeper cells would still be there, but that is not a reason to have the type of enormous security precautions we are continuing to have, which has denied us the fruits of the end of the war.  The war has ended but it appears that all the institutions of war are still in place

HENSCHKE: He says Sri Lanka’s government needs to realize that in a democratic society you have to take risks.  Even though there may be a danger of lingering terrorist cells, he adds, you can’t turn the capital into a military state.  For the World this is Rebecca Henschke, Colombo, Sri Lanka.

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.

Last year the town hauled in more than 12,000 tons of shellfish. More than half the town works in the fishing industry. But the town is also becoming known for something else – its beer. One of the world’s strongest in fact — 32 proof!

…and that town in Scotland known for its shellfish industry, and now for its beer is Fraserburgh.

BrewDog is the local brewery. And it claims to have produced the strongest beer in the world. James Watt is BrewDog’s managing director. He says the potent drink is called “Tactical Nuclear Penguin.”
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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.

MARCO WERMAN: All right now that I’ve gotten us into this Frank Zappa moment, how do I get out of it?  Hmm, I know, an accessible number one hit.

VANESSA DA MATA: [Singing]

WERMAN: This tune called “Boa sorte” or “good luck” was number one in Brazil last year and it was also huge in Europe.  It’s by the young Brazilian singer Vanessa da Mata.  She’s not unknown in the U.S.  “Boa sorte” appears on da Mata’s CD “Sim,” and it won a Latin Grammy last year for best contemporary Brazilian album.  All of this as you may have noted happened last year.  Well, just last month Sim got its official U.S. release, and hopes are that it’ll do well here too.  It could.  After all, Boa Sorte features U.S. neo-bluesman Ben Harper, who also co-wrote the song.

DA MATA AND HARPER: [Singing]

WERMAN: And for the U.S. release, Ben Harper and Vanessa da Mata have redone the tune in English.

DA MATA AND HARPER: [Singing]

WERMAN: All the pieces seem to be there for “Boa Sorte” to be a North American hit.  Vanessa da Mata’s tune features drum and bass from Jamaican legends Sly and Robbie and percussion from Bob Marley’s former drummer Sticky.  Vanessa da Mata even recorded part of the album in Jamaica.  But what’s number one in Europe and Brazil might not mean that much to American listeners. Try it on for size, though, and tell us what you think.  Our one stop online headquarters where you’ll find the useful “comment” tab is the world dot O-R-G.  Our theme music was composed by Eric Goldberg in the Nan and Bill Harris Studios at WGBH in Boston.  I’m Marco Werman.  Thanks for listening and have a great weekend.

DA MATA AND HARPER: [Singing]

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.