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You don’t have to be a fan of Spider-Man to know that an arachnid’s silk is some pretty powerful stuff. After all, its tensile strength is close to that of high-grade steel. But is turns out that the strength of a spider’s web is about more than just the silk. Some new research from MIT suggests that its also the material’s combination of strength *and* stretchiness. In this week’s tech podcast, you’ll hear all about the research, and its possible implications for human building and design.

Also in this episode: you’ll hear about a German company that’s taken to the web, and to apps, to help drivers and passengers share rides. It’s called Mitfahrgelegenheit, or Carpooling.com for you non-German speakers.

We’ll also bring you the story of one Texas technology company, Eolas, that created quite a legal stir in the online world. Plus, how a virtual reality game helped one Afghanistan vet deal with the pain of horrific burns.

And we end with a lovely mini-documentary on that little block-filled game you love to hate: Tetris!

A reminder that you can ignore us equally on Twitter, Facebook, and now Google +.

(Photo: Duk)

So has the premise.

Each week, a different guest, or castaway, shares his or her musical selections with the audience.

The current senior producer of Desert Island Discs is Leanne Buckle. She says the show’s staying power is based on a very simple premise.

And which book and luxury item would you want with you, as well?

The two Central African countries are co-hosting the Africa Cup of Nations.

It is Africa’s biggest and most important sports competition.

The tournament kicks off Saturday in Bata, Equitorial Guinea.

Anchor Marco Werman talks to the BBC’s Matthew Kenyon, who is in Bata and anxiously counting down the minutes.

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The 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: Tourists interested in the region’s wildlife may be scarce, but those interested in soccer are flooding to Gabon and its tiny neighbor, Equatorial Guinea. The two Central African countries are co-hosting the Africa Cup of Nations. It’s Africa’s biggest and most important sports competition. The tournament kicks off tomorrow in Bata, Equatorial Guinea. The BBC’s Matthew Kenyon is in Bata and anxiously counting down the minutes. How excited are the locals on the eve of the Africa Cup of Nations there in Equatorial Guinea, Matthew?

Matthew Kenyon: Well Marco, they are pretty excited but it’s not the kind of fan fervor that you’ve seen at World Cups and other Africa Cup of Nations. Equatorial Guinea is, it seems, at any rate, to be quite a subdued kind of a place. I mean, there are flags, there are posters. But certainly, people are really excited to see their football team competing on the continental stage for the very first time.

Werman: Now, we’ll see how subdued the fans are tomorrow when Equatorial Guinea takes on Libya.

Kenyon: [Laughs].

Werman: Now, it’s 16 national teams from across Africa are competing, Libya among them. Given the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi and the turmoil that Libya experienced, how did Libya make it to the Africa Cup of Nations when traditional powerhouses like Egypt and Nigeria didn’t?

Kenyon: It was a fabulous qualifying performance, as you say, played out over the turmoil that was going on in their country back home. They started the competition playing under the flag of Colonel Gaddafi’s government and, midway through, the national team switched allegiance and at least one squad member left the camp and went to fight on the frontline. Many others, of course, had family and friends caught up in everything that was going on. But, they did it partly because of their skill as footballers and partly because, I think, they really, really wanted to achieve this goal because of what it would mean to, what is in some ways now, a new country. Egypt obviously were affected by what was going on in their country at the same time, but there were sound footballing reasons why they didn’t make it here as well, and likewise for Nigeria and Cameroon.

Werman: That’s an extraordinary story about Libya. It sounds like they are kind of a symbol of home almost for Africa and maybe for the Africa Cup of Nations.

Kenyon: Yes. If people are looking for great stories here, then Libya’s qualification and their possible progress out of a group which also includes Senegal, who are incredibly strong…if they make it out of that group, then they will have done very well.

Werman: Now, the last edition of the Africa Cup of Nations was in Angola and, frankly, it was a mess. Some listeners will recall that the Togolese team was violently ambushed on a highway there. Is Equatorial Guinea along with co-host Gabon prepared to make this one right?

Kenyon: I think they are. I mean, the security is very strong. All the teams are surrounded by security when they travel around the country and they are cloistered away in hotels which are very carefully watched over because memories of what happened to Togo two years ago are still very strong amongst everyone involved. In terms of the organization, this area where I’m sitting now, only a few months ago was a literal building site. They’re still doing a few fine touches, but the infrastructure appears to work.

Werman: The BBC’s Matthew Kenyon in Equatorial Guinea. Equatorial Guinea and Gabon are co-hosting the 28th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations which runs through February 12. Great to speak with you, Matthew. Thanks.

Kenyon: That’s my pleasure.

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

The small island nation is marking the second anniversary of the earthquake that devastated so many lives there.

Ceremonies were held at mass graves to remember the 300,00 dead.

And church services were held across Haiti to give new hope to the living.

About one and a half million Haitians were left homeless by the quake.

Many are still living in tents as construction proceeds at a painfully slow pace.

The BBC’s Laura Trevelyan is in the capital Port-au-Prince, a city that continues to bear the quake’s scars.

We start 2012 with a fantastic B-side podcast. The BBC’s Peter Curran takes us on a tour of a giant silver donut in the English countryside. Sounds yummy, right? Well, just wait until you hear about the tech and the science inside the Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron. As you’ll hear, these scientists take their infra-red and x-rays very seriously. So seriously that they have their own podcast!

And we should note: with the new year comes a new way to savor the joys of the tech podcast. We have created a mobile app that can be used with most smartphones and tablet devices, including Android, iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry and Windows Phone. Just follow this link with your mobile browser, and then either download or “add to home screen” as preferred. Not only can you automagically access the latest podcast, but you can also read the show notes, and follow WTP on Twitter and Facebook. One stop shopping, as they say, for Tech That Matters.

A reminder that you can ignore us equally on Twitter, Facebook, and now Google +.

But an outbreak of violence within South Sudan makes clear that the infant country faces other serious challenges as well.

Authorities say more than 150 people have been killed in the latest violence in South Sudan’s vast Jonglei state.

Thousands of fighters from one ethnic group, the Lou Nuer, attacked a town populated by members of a rival tribe, the Murle.

Anchor Marco Werman talks to the BBC’s Will Ross, who is in neighboring Kenya, about the inter-ethnic violence in South Sudan.

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The 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: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a coproduction of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston. When South Sudan became an independent nation in July there was concern that violence could break out along the new international border that separates the two Sudans, but an outbreak of violence within South Sudan makes clear that the infant country faces other serious challenges as well.

Announcer: ¨Authorities say more than 150 people have been killed in the latest violence in South Sudan’s vast Jonglei state. Thousands of fighters from one ethnic group, the Lou Nuer, attacked a town populated by members of a rival tribe, the Murle.

Werman: The BBC’s Will Ross is in neighboring Kenya.

Will Ross: We’re hearing reports from the areas outside the town of Pibor, where people have fled, that several massacres have taken place. It’s very difficult to get an idea of the scale, but I spoke to one Murle woman who told me she received a phone call fom her mother who had heard that all 20 of their relatives had been killed. They had left the town a few days ago on foot. They walked for about three hours to what they thought was a safe place, and the entire family was killed. I’ve spoken to other people who have told me about killings in far flung places outside Pibor, and basically the tens of thousands, we think somewhere between 20 and 40 thousand people on the move and they’re getting absolutely no assistance or protection whatsoever.

Werman: So is it being described as ethnic violence because as you also pointed out, this conflict began as cattle raids, which sounds very economic.

Ross: Certainly cattle are a trigger for the violence and historically that’s been the source for the conflict. I think there are many more guns in the hands of people now because of the years of war between the north and the south, and also the borders around there are fairly porous, but you can’t really overestimate the importance of the cattle to these people. They are the bank. They’re how they store their money. When somebody gets married for instance, a vast number of cattle are handed over. So when these raids take place they principally are to get cattle. And one of them I think in August last year, approximately 40,000 head of cattle were stolen. So that’s the sort of scale we’re talking about. But when those attacks happen at the same time as stealing the cattle, people are killed and also children have been abducted, especially by the Murle people. And that’s what’s angered the Lou Nuer people so much. They say we’ve gotta get our children back.

Werman: I’m wondering what people in South Sudan make of all this because I mean their country was one of the apparent success stories in 2011, became the continent’s newest independent nation. Can if live at peace within its own borders and with its neighbors? Are people there even thinking about that heady moment last summer?

Ross: Some of the problems of the south have been sort of glossed over during the celebrations, even in the lead up to those independence celebrations in July there were some terrible attacks in the south that people didn’t really talk about much because the international community was sort of building up to this momentous occasion of the south breaking away from Sudan. So obviously there’s a lot of hope, especially you know if you talk to people in towns, in the capital, like Juba. Then you go out into the villages and nothing has changed, and you get a sense that some communities might not be very aware of what the independence really is all about because their daily struggles are so immense that a celebration one day in July doesn’t really make any difference when you’re facing frequent battles with neighbors.

Werman: Will, one thing that we haven’t talked about is vast oil reserves on the disputed border region between South Sudan and Sudan, and lately South Sudan’s president, Salva Kiir, has accused Sudan’s government in the north of trying to grab that oil. I’m wondering if these two nations could cut some sort of deal to try and share the oil wealth that they both need?

Ross: Well, they’re obviously are a lot of things that weren’t sorted out when the south broke away and that is the source of a lot of tension. And the border wasn’t even demarcated properly, so there’s still a lot of tension on the border. The oil revenues weren’t worked out how they would share it all out, so it’s not surprising at this state, you know, six months down the line, accusations flying back and forth about the oil money and you know, the suggestion that some of the conflict on the border is being fueled in order to try and grab the oil fields. These two countries had a very messy divorce. Many predicted it wouldn’t even happen at all. And now they’re living with the aftermath of that messy divorce, which includes these unresolved issues. And unless they sort out the oil you know, that is very likely because obviously of the huge economic importance, it’s very likely to trigger more violence. But it’s clear if the government to the south of it really wants to have any chance of keeping the peace within the country, let alone between the north and the south, it’s gonna have to work to build the bridges between these ethnic groups because the violence is on such a scale that you don’t really know how the authority is gonna be able to stop it.

Werman: The BBC’s East Africa correspondent, Will Ross, in Nairobi talking about the roots of interethnic violence in neighboring South Sudan. Will, thanks a lot.

Ross: You’re welcome.

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.

But when they came home to Ireland, they were treated as deserters and put on a blacklist.

Now, there is growing pressure on the Irish government to pardon those men.

Anchor Lisa Mullins talks to the BBC’s John Waite, who has made a radio documentary on these soldiers.

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The 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.

Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is “The World”. During the Second World War, five thousand soldiers defected from the Irish army and signed up with the British. They fought with the Allies on the beaches of Normandy in the Battle of the Bulge and in the jungles of Burma. They helped to liberate the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. They came home to Ireland not to a hero’s welcome, but to find that the Irish government had put them on a blacklist. Now, pressure is growing on Dublin to pardon the Irish vets. Irish Senator, Mary Ann O’Brien is advocating on behalf of the men.

Mary Ann O’Brien: I would like to see their situation brought to justice and I would like to see a full pardon granted both to them and to their families and I just think it would be such a wonderful gift to those people, and it’s such a small gift to make sure that they’re properly pardoned and recognized for what they did for their continent and their country.

Mullins: Irish Senator, Mary Ann O’Brien. The BBC’s John Waite has made a documentary about the soldiers from Ireland. He says the Irish government gave them the cold shoulder because of the country’s relations with Britain at the time.

John Waite: In 1939, these relations were probably at rock bottom. If you think the beginning of the 20th century, the Irish Rebellion that had been put down “viciously”, as the Irish would say, you think about the civil war, you think about the Black and Tans. That’s, again, a vicious paramilitary group that was unleashed upon the Irish. They really didn’t didn’t like the British. So when ten percent of their own army, that’s around five thousand people as you say, deserted, that’s the word they use, the Irish army, which was neutral during the war, to join up with the Allies because they wanted to join the fight against fascism, because anti-British sentiment was so high, when they came back, they were villains, not heroes.

Mullins: So they joined up not because they were looking for a job, they already had a job, but for ideological reasons?

Waite: Most of them did I think, Lisa. Some joined up because conditions were better, but I mean the Irish army did nothing during the war. I mean it was neutral so it had nothing to do. It [xx], and for many of these men, you know, you remember in Ireland they didn’t even admit it was a war. They called it an emergency. These men could see that Europe and then the world was engulfed in this war and they were part of Europe and they wanted to take part in fighting fascism and that’s why most of them did it, and so they didn’t desert in the sense as desert as run away, they ran towards gunfire.

Mullins: What happened when they returned from the war? What happened to them and their families?

Waite: They were, I think the word has to be “vindictively”, punished. They were put on this blacklist that you mentioned. It was, in fact, a book with all their names and addresses. It was handed around to all town halls, all those public buildings, where if they went for jobs, the people could look up their names and if they were on the list, they weren’t to be given a job, so they could get no work. They could get no pensions, they could get unemployment payment, they could get no widows benefits if their loved one had been killed in the war, their children were often taken into care into institutions which were quite wicked in themselves, state-run and church-run institutions where sexual and physical abuse was wright. They were punished beyond all measure for what, as you say in America and as we would think here in Britain, they ought to have been held as heroes. They were, in fact, treated in, I think everyone agrees now, a most despicable way.

Mullins: One of the men with whom you spoke, one of the veterans, is John Stout. He fought at the Battle of the Bulge. He’s eighty eight years old now. Let’s hear what he told you about the way he and his fellow vets were treated when they got back.

John Stout: We were put down as renegades, traitors, and I know in my heart that we’d done the right thing. We fought for our nations and we liberated the camps. There were people being slaughtered. I would never regret it. I would do it again all over again.

Mullins: So he says that he would do it all over again. He left Ireland; others stayed and lived in extreme poverty as their children did. Why is the Irish government, right now, taking up this issue again?

Waite: I think this issue was buried for a very long time. I think when people, if they knew about it at all, they were embarrassed about it, ashamed about it, hoped it would go away, and of course every year that’s gone by, there were fewer and fewer people like John Stout there to remind people of the suffering, but it’s become a live issue right now. There’s a new government as you know, a relatively new government in Dublin. Fine Gael is now in coalition with the Labor Party. Now Fine Gael was in opposition in 1945 when these measures, “starvation orders” they were called, were issued and they voted against it then. Now they’re in power and if ever there was a time when this appalling piece of legislation can be revoked and possibly pardons given to these men, these few men that still survive, now is the time and all we hope is by highlighting this, and it is a story so few people know about, that it will help the Dublin government do the decent thing, and everyone I’ve spoken to in Ireland, when they heard about this story, everyone to a man says, “These people should be pardoned and recognized as the heroes they were.”

Mullins: How many of these men are left?

Waite: It’s very difficult to say because nobody wants to admit to being on the blacklist, Lisa. In fact, I’ve had the greatest difficulty talking or even finding or getting men to speak to it. They want to forget about it because they were outcasts, and one man who’s ninety two, he appears on my documentary, Phil Farrington, he still has nightmares that he will be arrested for being a deserter. He was put into prison when he came back on leave and when he was released from prison, he joined up again with the Allied Forces and he still feels that he may be arrested in the last years of his life. He’s frail now and I really don’t think has too far to go. These are the things that keep him awake at night. He’s frightened of that period in his life. So it’s very difficult to talk to these men, very difficult to get them to talk about it and therefore very difficult to say how many there are, but there can’t be more than a few hundreds. Possibly less.

Mullins: The BBC’s John Waite. We have a video clip about his radio documentary on Ireland’s punishment of it’s soldiers who fought in World War II. You can find the link at theworld.org. Thank you, John.

Waite: Thank you, Lisa.

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.

State TV said suspected al-Qaeda militants had targeted a General Security Directorate base and another security agency in the Kafr Sousa area.

But opposition activists said the government had staged the attacks to influence an Arab League observer team.

The observers are part of a plan to end the deadly crackdown on dissent.

The UN says more than 5,000 people have been killed and thousands more detained since anti-government protests erupted in March.

The monitors are tasked with overseeing the government’s compliance with an agreement that should see an end to violence by both sides, troops withdrawn from the streets and all detained protesters released.

But human rights and opposition activists said the killings continued on Friday, with security forces shooting dead at least 12 civilians.

The US state department on Friday condemned the attacks but said they must not deter the Arab League observers from doing their work.

Anchor Lisa Mullins talks to the BBC’s Lina Sinjab to get more details.

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The 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.

Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World. Two explosions tore through the capital of Syria today. The government says they were suicide car bombings aimed at security forces in Damascus. Officials say at least 40 people were killed. Syria’s government-run television showed rescue teams combing through the wreckage. The BBC’s Lina Sinjab is in Damascus. There has not been a lot of violence in Damascus so far, who were the bombs targeting today?

Lina Sinjab: Well, the attacks were targeting these state security buildings in the center of Damascus in an area called Kafr Sousa, an area that has witnessed a lot of focus in the past several months. However, this area is a highly secured area, so it is hard to breakthrough this area and the blast caused massive damages to the entrance of the building. And of course we’ve seen on Syrian television horrible pictures of the injured and of the people who have been killed. It was a massive attack, unprecedented in the capital, Damascus, since the uprisings started.

Mullins: Is it clear right now, Lina, who was behind the blasts?

Sinjab: Well, it was a surprise that the government within 20 minutes of the blast came out to blame al-Qaeda of being behind the attacks. They said later that they found in initial investigations traces of al-Qaeda-like attacks, which is basically these suicide bombings in two cars as well. They even said that the Lebanese defense minister two days ago said members of al-Qaeda have infiltrated into Syria. But the opposition is raising big questions on this attack saying the timing of the attacks coinciding with the arrival of the Arab League inspectors into town just serves the government’s line that the situation in Syria is not about peaceful protests as much as it is about a conspiracy and terrorist attacks aiming at destabilizing the country. That’s what the opposition’s saying that the attacks today could well be the make of the government to support their own arguments, but the government of course is saying these are terrorist groups, these are al-Qaeda attacks and this is part of a conspiracy against the country.

Mullins: Lina, one more question, we mentioned that there is considerable coverage on state-run television in Syria of the rescue teams responding to the bombings. Is there much coverage on the other hand of the Arab League’s peace plan for Syria?

Sinjab: Well, we heard that the Arab League inspectors have visited the site, which was the first thing they would see in their mission that was supposed to go into all these hot areas and see for themselves what’s happening on the ground. But we haven’t seen their movements. We don’t have information about their next steps and where they are going to be. I was just talking to the foreign ministry’s spokesperson who said that the Arab inspectors will have full access and free movement, that they can go wherever they want and see for themselves. They want the Arab inspectors to see that the situation in Syria is not black and white and that there are terrorists who are aiming to destabilize the country.

Mullins: The BBC’s Lina Sinjab in Damascus, the scene of two explosions earlier today.

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.

We’ve got some inspirational tech stories this week on the podcast. First up, this is a Katherine Bomkamp, a student at West Virginia University. In interviews, Ms. Bomkamp says she likes the normal student activities: hanging out with friends, going to parties, etc. But, she’s also an entrepreneur with her own company. When she was 16, she was inspired to help veterans who suffer from phantom-limb pain. Now, four years later, she’s well on her way to developing a prosthetic device that she believes can help them. It’s called the Pain Free Socket, and you can hear Bomkamp talk about it in this week’s edition of the best kept secret in podcasting, the World’s Technology Podcast.

Also, we’ve got another great inspirational item on a project called Random Hacks of Kindness, and we’ll also have an in-depth look at the Satellite Sentinel Project.

For those who prefer a bit of fear to inspiration, we’ll also take a look at the raging debate over how the rules of war apply when the war moves online.

A reminder that you can ignore us equally on Twitter, Facebook, and now Google +.

(Photo: Greg Ellis for WVU)

But in Japan, it is not just the taste and healthiness of the meal that is important – but how it looks.

The country’s ancient emphasis on food presentation has been transformed into a trend for character bento – packed lunches made to look like pandas, teddy bears or even real people.

The BBC’s Tokyo correspondent Roland Buerk has been finding out more.

Who says that robots have to be tall, dark, humanoid and metallic? Certainly not George W. Whitesides and his team at Harvard. They’ve created a whole new set of robots that take their cues from worms and starfish, not Arnie and the Terminator. These soft, flexible and squishy ‘bots can do all manner of interesting maneuvers. The hope is that they will be able to go where few other kinds of robots can. In this week’s tech podcast, you’ll hear Professor Whitesides talk about the advantages these robots have. We can’t resist giving you this video sampler as well:

There’s also this:

Also in the podcast this week, we’ll hear about two compounds that have been very much in use, and in the news, both in the United States and elsewhere: pepper spray and tear gas. One of the inventors of modern pepper spray tells us why he’s now speaking out about its use. We’ll also hear from an expert on tear gas.

We also will tell you about some research on the development of a new kind of contact lens – one that might be able to actually project your email right in front of your eyeballs. And we’ll end with a check-in one of WTP’s favorite stories, Bletchley Park in the UK. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Sue Black, who is fighting to save the building and the grounds where British code-breakers cracked German codes during World War II. Truly, tech that still matters.

A reminder that you can ignore us equally on Twitter, Facebook, and now Google +.

Vladimir Putin

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The 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: I’m Marco Werman, this is The World. Prime Minister Valdimir Putin’s grip on Russia seems a little less firm today. Thousands of protestors marched on the streets of Moscow today demanding honest elections, this after Russia’s Parliamentary elections over the weekend were marred by reports of voting irregularities. According to preliminary results, Putin’s United Russia party won the vote, but the party lost its two thirds majority in the Duma, diminishing its power and Putin’s. The BBC’s Steve Rosenberg is in Moscow. He says Vladimir Putin is not accustomed to setbacks.

Steve Rosenberg: In the 10 years he’s been in power he’s grown used to being Russia’s most popular politician, most powerful politician. And suddenly on one Sunday his party has stuttered at the polls, it’s had a bad run. It doesn’t look good just three months before the presidential elections. He wants to return to the Kremlin. There’s no doubt I think that he will win the presidential election, but I think this result shows that his party is losing popularity. And he himself has been losing popularity. There was an incident a few weeks ago when at the end of a martial arts fight in Moscow Mr. Putin turned up, stepped into the ring to make a speech, and as soon as he started speaking the crowd burst into boos and hisses and cat calls, another sign that his popularity may be waning.

Werman: I guess then the question is why the setback for Putin and United Russia? I mean in September he said he wanted to become president again; as he said, he’ll be running next year, effectively swapping roles with Dmitry Medvedev as the president. I mean did Putin assume that they had more public support for this scheme?

Rosenberg: I really think he did. I really think that this has come as shock to Mr. Putin to see his party losing support at the polls, but I think there are a number of reasons why this is happening. First of all, Vladimir Putin has been in power for more than a decade. He could be president again for 12 years if he’s elected at the next presidential election and the one after that. So a lot of people are disenchanted with having the same man in power. There’s another reason too I think, that United Russia has been labeled as the party of villains and frauds by its opponents. Many people in Russia don’t believe it’s gonna solve the big problems that exist here, like the gap between rich and poor.

Werman: You know, Steve, there are people who are disenchanted all over the world and protesting about it. Is there any evidence of some ground swell of populous anti-Putin organization in Russia right now?

Rosenberg: There are anti-Putin groups. There are opposition groups. From time to time they come out and try to hold street protests. What we’re talking about here I think is this enchantment frustration with what’s happening in the country, but it’s not developing yet into a mass protest. That is something I think that the authorities will fear, but there’s no sign of that at the moment.

Werman: Maybe mass protests aren’t in the offing in the future, but I’m wondering if the election results this weekend are some sign that Russia is in for a period of political instability?

Rosenberg: I think a lot will depend on what Vladimir Putin does now, how he reacts to this parliamentary result. Will he try to reach out to the people and reconnect himself with the electorate and restore his popularity, and address some of the problems that people are talking about like social injustice? Or will he bury his head in the sand and continue to believe that he is popular and push forward?

Werman: The BBC’s Steve Rosenberg in Moscow on the electoral setback for Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his United Russia party. Steve, thanks so much.

Rosenberg: You’re welcome.

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.

A Tamil film song in broken English has gone viral on the Internet, gaining more than 16 million hits on YouTube.

Anchor Marco Werman speaks with the BBC’s Rahul Tandon in Calcutta about the song in the Tamil language that’s become wildly popular in India and on the Internet.

New Sri Lanka Highway (Photo: BBC)

We’re on the road for the Geo Quiz, and the road we’re on is in Sri Lanka.

It’s the country’s first-ever highway. It runs north-to-south, connecting two cities 75 miles apart.

One is Sri Lanka’s capital, the other is it’s southern seaport.

The four-lane highway cuts travel time.

That’s good news for merchants moving their truckloads of cinnamon, coconut, tea and rubber, to and from the capital.

Can you name the two cities this $ 700 million highway connects?

The answers are the Sri Lankan cities of Colombo and Galle. The BBC’s Charles Haviland tells anchor Lisa Mullins about his first drive on the new Sri Lankan E01 Expressway.

This is the Kiira, an electric vehicle that has been built and successfully tested by professors and students at Makerere University in Uganda. They’ve been working on it since about 2009. Most of the parts were built in Uganda, and the car was assembled there. Some are hailing it as proof that African science and technology is pushing forward at a rapid rate. Others…are not so sure it was money well spent. Listen in to episode 346, and you can decide for yourself. You’ll hear from some of those involved in the project.

The Kiira is one of three stories from Africa on the podcast this week. We’ll also bring you a story about the arrival of a new fiber optic cable in Liberia, and what it might mean for Internet access, and the country’s economy. The third story is about a unique project for recycling plastic bottles in Nigeria. How so? Well…how about using them to build a house. Yep, a house.

We’ll also talk about how a US company’s products have been implicated in Syria’s net crackdown, and in Burma as well. And you’ll hear about Instant WILD, a phone and web app that allows you to help scientists discover new animal species.

A reminder that you can ignore us equally on Twitter, Facebook, and now Google +.