James Beaton (Photo: Laura Lynch)

James Beaton has been playing his beloved set of bagpipes for 40 years.

The Project Manager of Scotland’s National Piping Center is a proud Scot and a natural performer.

For Robert Burns’ season he likes to play a tune called “A Man’s A Man For A’ That” which is generally played at Burns’ suppers.

Funny that he’s choosing a Burns tribute to unity at a time when much of the talk in Scotland is of separation.

Beaton knows his history and heritage well.

The pipes were played by Scottish warriors as they went into battle against the English but both nationalities have shared a government for more than three centuries.

So, while Beaton may feel separate and distinct as a Scot, particularly when it comes to his country’s cultural heritage, he’s not so sure about standing completely alone.

“Yes, I am a bit torn,” he says. “ I think culturally yes but certainly the economic uncertainty with the way the economic situation is at the minute it’s quite, quite difficult.”

Those promoting independence have long argued that revenue from the oil that’s being pumped out from under the North Sea will cushion any economic blows.

There was also past talk of joining forces with Ireland and Iceland or joining the euro but those ideas have been put aside as currencies and countries have crashed.

And yet, there is still lively debate, across Scotland, about the idea of going it alone among Scots of all backgrounds.

Preparing ingredients for haggis pakora (Photo: Laura Lynch)

It’s another busy night at Mr. Singh’s, a popular Indian restaurant in Glasgow – it’s Indian with a distinctly Scottish twist.

The waiters wear turbans – and kilts and this night, one chef is teaching a group of guests how to make one of the restaurant’s signature dishes: haggis pakora!

That’s haggis, deep fried in a coating of Indian spices and served with a dipping sauce.

Satty Singh – the third generation self-described Scottish Sikh who runs the restaurant, understands the emotional attraction of independence.

His father and grandfather still recall the celebrations that marked the end of British colonial rule in India.

And yet, Singh doesn’t want to let go.

“I’m just a big believer in ‘don’t mend something that’s not broken’ and for 300-odd years it’s happened, because it’s one island,” says Singh.

And among aspiring haggis pakora makers in the restaurant, there’s a big split.

“When it comes to the independence vote, I’ll be voting for independence. I mean look at the natural resources we’ve got here. The will to win and the determination to make it a success I think would boost Scotland forward.”

“Personally I really like being part of the bigger picture of the whole UK side of things and I reserve judgment as to how the whole independence is going to go as a state. I always think it’s always nice to have big brother there as well.”

“I’m as yet undecided. I think you’ve got to weigh up the pros and cons and I do think there will be a lot of pros and cons with it.”

The debate will continue here and across Scotland until the fall of 2014 when the vote is set to be held.

Despite the promises of a brighter future, public opinion polls have consistently indicated support for independence is frozen at about 35 percent.

That’s why the government is talking about giving voters a third choice – one that would give Scotland autonomy in all areas except foreign affairs and defense.

This day that’s dedicated to Scottish pride, poetry and cuisine, now also marks the date that the contest for Scotland’s future begins.

Private clinics have a “moral duty” to remove banned PIP breast implants from women they operated on, the UK says.

Czech and German health authorities both recommended on Friday that women in those countries with PIP implants should have them removed.

France banned the PIP implants, found to be made with industrial silicone, in 2010 and 30,000 women were advised to have them removed.

The World’s Laura Lynch reports from London.

“The Iron Lady” stars Meryl Streep. The film has already stirred considerable debate in Britain where Thatcher and her legacy remain controversial.

Margaret Thatcher’s rise to power in the macho world of British politics seems a perfect fit for the silver screen and an admitted challenge for Meryl Streep.

Streep, mastering yet another accent, steps into Lady Thatcher’s pumps, dons her pearls and takes on the critics.

Streep has admitted she was not a fan of Thatcher during her time in power. The actor says taking on the role gave her a chance to challenge her own prejudices

“I wanted to capture whatever it was that drew people to her and whatever it was that made people just have a special venom for her as a public figure,” Streep said in an interview with the BBC.

Streep may have been talking about the past, but the fact is, more than two decades after Thatcher left office, she still sparks strong feelings among the British.

“I don’t think she was a woman I would have ever wanted to meet,” said Liz Hoggard, a columnist and as a self described left wing feminist who is no fan of the former Prime Minister. So Hoggard was more than a little surprised to receive a very special invitation a few weeks ago.

“It was the dinner party of the year, I’ll never stop talking about it,” Hoggard said. “It was incredible. We all got this email saying would you like to come to see an early screening of “The Iron Lady” and then have a private supper with Meryl Streep? Twitter just went crazy as the women that were invited compared notes.”

Hoggard said it was a clever idea to gather together some of the country’s best known female journalists, show them the film and then subject them to Streep’s charm and even her home made baking. Hoggard said Streep baked her guests an “American apple cake.” It may have been enough to win them over to the actor and her performance, but Hoggard said most of them – lifelong critics of Thatcher – were not about to change their views.

“And around that table there were some very strong left wing political voices who loved her portrayal who found the film fascinating but who were fundamentally worried or dissatisfied by it because they felt it was going to end up in complete Thatcher worship.”

Richard Vinen of King’s College in London has chronicled the history of Britain under Thatcher. Vinen was quick to list what she would consider her policy successes such as breaking the power of unions, privatizing government enterprises and deregulating the financial sector. He argues it is a legacy that her successors on the other side of the aisle – Labor party’s Tony Blair and Gordon Brown – embraced.

But Vinen says there was a social cost to Thatcher’s rule.

“Britain does become a more divided society under Thatcher. There it is relevant to talk about very long term legacies,” Vinen said.

That division played into what Vinen called an outright hatred of Thatcher.

“And sometimes hatred for her has replaced any serious reflection. So it’s almost like she has become a voodoo doll a kind of fetish that the left can use they can say I’m still left wing because I hate Mrs. Thatcher without having to do anything that is actually left wing,” he said.

The movie does not just portray Thatcher in her prime, it also shows her in the grip of dementia, as she holds conversations with her long-dead husband.

Those scenes have upset her supporters.

But columnist Liz Hoggard, who never spared much sympathy for Thatcher before, was moved to admire a woman who broke through so many barriers.

“I brushed away a tear let’s put it that way,” Hoggard said.

If the film toys with the British psyche, if it tears the bandages off the old wounds from the Thatcher era, it may be at least partly because Britain’s only female prime minister herself was never one for sentimentality.

Just recently, her personal secretary told an interviewer that Thatcher always loved being called The Iron Lady.

What is the first word or phrase that comes to mind when I say the name Margaret Thatcher?

Strong character, really very strong character.

Loathsome. Hated, hated everything about her political philosophy.

It was my era and she was brilliant, absolutely. If we had another woman prime minister like her I think we’d be put on the right road.

What is the first word or phrase that comes to mind when I say her name Margaret Thatcher. That awful woman, yeah that awful woman. It’s not often in my lifetime that you’ve had a nasty vindictive person as a head of government.

Respect, commanding, dominance but with respect. Did a good job.

The government disputed that two million people had joined the action, with Prime Minister Cameron saying “it looks like something of a damp squib” at Prime Minister’s Questions.

“Our rigorous contingency planning has been working well,” Cabinet Minister Francis Maude said later in the day.

“Throughout the day it has limited the impact of the strikes significantly and as a result the majority of key public services have remained open.”

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber accused the government of “rhetoric today … as predictable as it has been shallow.”

“The biggest strike in a generation cannot be dismissed as a damp squib,” he said.

“Uniting so many people in such strong opposition to their pension plans should give the government pause for thought. They now need to give the negotiations real content. Unions wants to achieve a fair settlement, but it takes two to reach a deal.”

In the Commons, Prime Minister Cameron said he thought the government had made a “very reasonable, very fair offer to public sector workers.”

“I don’t want to see any strikes, I don’t want to see schools closed, I don’t want to see problems at our borders, but this government has to make responsible decisions,” he said.

But union leaders accused the government of failing to engage in proper negotiations in recent weeks.

Unison general secretary Dave Prentis said that the last time unions met Treasury ministers was Nov. 2, adding that “this idea that negotiations are continuing is just not true.”

Maude disputed that, saying formal discussions with the civil service unions took place on Tuesday and that talks would take place with teaching unions on Thursday and with health unions on Friday.

A TUC spokesperson responded: “There have been informal exchanges but nothing that could be described as negotiations at the national level.”

Chris Keates, head of the teachers’ union NASUWT, said: “We’re in this position today simply because the government had not entered into genuine negotiations at an earlier stage.”

Labor leader Ed Miliband said he had “huge sympathy” for people whose lives were disrupted by the strike.

But he said he was “not going to condemn the dinner ladies, nurses, teachers who have made the decision to go on strike because they feel they have been put in an impossible position by a government that has refused to negotiate properly”.

Mnikwa Dlamini, for example, is the current chief of Hhelehhele, a rural area in the north of the country. He’s also an 88-year-old veteran of the war in Europe.

Swaziland is a small country in southern Africa. It gained its independence in 1968.

Before that it was ruled by the British, and before them the Boers. When war came to Europe, the British came knocking.

“All our life here in Swaziland was under British control,” remembers Chief Mnikwa. “It was mostly okay because the British and us had a good relationship. They at least treated us better than the Boers did.”

“We first heard in 1939 that the Germans were fighting with the British. They only said that they used to be friends with the Germans, and then after a while the Germans had started fighting them.”

As the war drew on, the then-King of Swaziland, Sobhuza, agreed to gather volunteers to fight as part of the Allied forces. In exchange, he extracted promises from the British of greater autonomy for his country in the future. But the young Mnikwa, not yet a chief, had his own reasons for signing up.

“The reason why I was eager to go to war was because there were rumors in my home that I might become the next chief,” he recalls.

“I said it’s better that I go to die. It was never in me. I said it’s better that I should go there because the way to heaven I would definitely find there.”

He didn’t want to be the chief because there would be ‘too much noise’.

So Mnikwa and a few thousand other young Swazis registered with the British authorities. They were given boots, khaki uniforms, the works.

In late 1941 Mnikwa was shipped off for training near the Suez Canal. He was soon fighting in the deserts of Libya, and then in Italy.

“[Benito] Mussolini, who was a politician, was friendly with Hitler. We then had to fight the Italians as well.”

“There were lots of bombs around. And they used to have bombs planted around in the ground, and you would touch some of them and they would go off, and people would die.”

Along the way, Mnikwa met soldiers from all parts of the world, including the United States. He remembers that they were “not people who liked to talk to other people very much. They would talk every now and then, but most of the time they kept to themselves.”

The war ended, and Mnikwa traveled back to southern Africa. He spent some time in Johannesburg, trying to avoid the inevitable. But eventually he returned to Hhelehhele to take up his responsibilities.

“I then realized that I can’t just do my own will. Clearly it was God’s wish that I should live.”

There are people who go to war out of a moral obligation, but perhaps not that many. Most sign up to pay their bills, or to pay for college. Others go because they’re told to.

Mnikwa Dlamini, the chief of Hhelehhele, a rural area in the north of Swaziland went because he didn’t want to be a chief.

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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: Simon Mann is a former British army officer. In 2004, he embarked on a different kind of mission, to stage a Coup attempt against the president of equator guinea. The Coup attempt failed, to the day, Mann says the plot failed was backed by Spain, the former colonial power in Equatorial Guinea. Spain denies that. Simon Mann also alleges that the plot was funded by a variety of characters, one was a businessman, he refers only to as The Boss. Another was Mark Thatcher, the son of the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. In any case, the Coup against president Mbasogo was foiled in Zimbabwe. That’s where Mann and his partners has stopped to pick up weapons. They were arrested instead. Simon Mann spent five years in jail in Zimbabwe and then he was taken to Equatorial Guinea where he was sentenced to 34 years in prison. But he got a presidential pardon in 2009 and returned to England. He told us today that he thought he’d never see his need of country again when he first arrived in Equatorial Guinea.

Simon Mann: I write that having been told if I ever got to Equatorial Guinea that I would be tortured, questioned, stalked, and quite possibly ‘easoned. (Laugh). So as you can imagine, arriving in equatorial guinea was not a very good moment, to put it mildly, however, when I got there they said look, if you help us, we’ll do our best to help you, and by that stage, Mark Thatcher and The Boss and the others who I regarded as, well I had regarded as my friends and my brothers in arms, because they had done absolutely nothing to help me, or the men, or the families. I regarded them as my enemies, and so therefore I had a common interest with the president, who wished to pursue those enemies and put them under justice.

Mullins: So the president of Equatorial Guinea, who you tried to overthrow in a Coup, had an investment at that point in keeping you alive?

Mann: A big investment because he had paid 10 million dollars in cash and 80 million dollars in fuel credits for me.

Mullins: Who got that money?

Mann: President Nugabwe of Zimbabwe.

Mullins: So now you’re acting as an advisor to this president who you tried to overthrow?

Mann: That’s actually not true, I been to Equatorial Guinea three times since my pardon. I’ve met the president, but um, what I’m doing for them, which is unpaid, is that I’m helping them pursue their legal efforts against the other people involved. Mark Thatcher, the Boss, and so forth. And that’s actually exactly the same I have been doing here in the UK, because there has been an ongoing Scotland Yard inquiry.

Mullins: For you, is there any way to really rationalize what you were looking to do aside from making the money, I mean you say you were trying to wipe out a tyrant, there were a lot of tyrants in the world. You’re not gonna get paid 10 million for wiping out each and every one of them.

Mann: That’s true and I doubt I’ll be very popular if I have another go at another and in fact, in 2003 when I joined this Coup attempt, I was a multi-millionaire in Pans anyway, you know I didn’t actually really need the money, and yeah, it does seem like a job worth doing, you know, the beauty of this was, that it was the double whammy. On the one hand, it was a really ranked tourney that needed to be sorted out and on the other it was the opportunity to make a great deal of money. (Laugh). That maybe sounds completely mad to you, but there you are.

Mullins: Well, I mean, how does it come off to you? Are you seeing yourself as a good guy in this?

Mann: Well, we always see ourselves as good guys I think. I mean my entire career as a mercenary I can step through all the way, and there is nothing unethical or immoral at any point.

Mullins: Really? And you believe that?

Mann: A 100%.

Mullins: Does that separate you as a mercenary, the term itself has an extraordinarily connotation, but do you see yourself as separate and distinct from the mercenaries for instance who went into the Congo and who do carry on extraordinarily nasty business?

Mann: I certainly would, yeah. Absolutely.

Mullins: How so?

Mann: Well, I didn’t do those things, I mean; I haven’t gone around raping nuns, and um burning women and children in villages. Absolutely not.
Lisa Mullins: But what you were trying to do, in overthrowing the leader of a sovereign nation, even if he was, uh, a dictator for 30 something years, is illegal.

Mann: It is, by the laws of that country.

Mullins: (interruption) by international laws.

Mann: By the laws of that country.

Mullins: (interruption) by international law as well.

Simon Mann: International law is by treaty. There is no jurisdiction in intellectual. It’s all by treaty, and the common laws said Hey you see a mugging, your obliged to go and do something about it. And I think you should.

Mullins: Does that mean you would do it anywhere if you’re getting paid money?

Mann: Um, hm, I think my days of assisted ragine change are over. (Laugh). But, um, I’ll be tempted, sure. If there was a bad enough tyrant and there was enough money, yup, you bet.

Mullins: Simon Mann, thank you.

Mann: Thank you

Mullins: Simon Mann’s new book about the Coup attempt called Cry Havoc is due out in Britain in December.

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.

For days, there have been questions about Fox’s judgment in allowing a friend unwarranted access to official government activities – activities that included meetings with American defense officials.

And so, Liam Fox has spent a lot of time apologizing in recent days. Last weekend, he thought these words would save his reputation and his job.

“I accept that mistakes were made and I should not have allowed the impression of wrongdoing to arise. And I am very sorry for that,” Fox said.

On Friday, Fox said he was very sorry again – in his resignation letter. He admitted to blurring the lines between his personal interests and government activities. Blurry lines in a department like defense can be risky – even dangerous – to a nation’s security.

The controversy centered on Fox’s friend, Adam Werritty.

Despite having no official role in government, Werritty repeatedly attended meetings in Fox’s office. He also traveled abroad with him 18 times – including a visit to Tampa where both men dined with senior officers of the United States Central Command.

Werritty handed out business cards introducing himself as an advisor to the minister.

And there were more questions about just who was financing Werritty’s work and travel and what they expected to get in return.

When Fox offered to step down Friday, Prime Minister David Cameron accepted and tried to turn the page.

“I quite understand why Liam Fox has decided to resign,” Cameron said, “and obviously I’m sorry to see him go because he did a good job at the Ministry of Defense, clearing up the mess left by the last government and giving good leadership to that department particularly while we’ve been in action in Libya and also of course in Afghanistan as well so I wish him well.”

For the government’s opposition though, this isn’t the end of the matter. Labor member of Parliament Kevan Jones is still demanding answers about Fox’s conduct.

“He fell foul of the rules; sorry, the standards we expect of ministers and broke the rules,” Jones said. “You can’t have a minister ignores the rules that were put in place not to just to protect him, but also the civil service and government.”

Now out of cabinet, Fox remains a member of parliament and one of the most pro-American voices in British politics. He even set up a charity more than a decade ago to promote ties between the two countries.

It recently shut down after regulators deemed it too political.

It was another case of blurry lines.

Perhaps it was also a foreshadowing of the troubles to come for the now former defense minister.

Read tweets about the Fox resignation

It is said beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.

But what about brutal beauty? Brutalism is a name for a style of architecture made popular in the 1950s and 60s.

The buildings are concrete and often considered now to be eyesores.

For example in Boston there is the City Hall building, which is considered Brutalist. Some love it, some don’t.

In Britain, there is a debate raging about whether to save an example of Brutalist architecture.

Preston Bus Station, once the largest bus station in the world, is slated for demolition as part of a redevelopment scheme. That is despite being on the list of endangered cultural sites by the 2012 World Monuments Watch.

Anchor Marco Werman talks to Erica Avrami about why Britain’s Preston Bus Station is provoking strong reaction from those who want it preserved and those who want it destroyed.

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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: They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so what about brutal beauty? Brutalism is a style of architecture that was quite popular in the ’50s and ’60s. The key characteristic is concrete sculpted into imposing geometric shapes. The often boxy designs are still cherished by architects, but considered eyesores by many others. The style can be found all over the globe. Here in Boston, for example, we have a Brutalist city hall building and in England, a Brutalist bus station is the focus of a heated debate. Preston Bus Station, once the largest in the world, is currently slated for demolition, but now the World Monuments Fund has listed the building as an endangered cultural site. Erica Avrami is the group’s director.

Erica Avrami: It is one of three very important Brutalist sites in the United Kingdom. Brutalist being a style of modern architecture, particularly predominant in the late 1960s. And since the bus site is under threat of demolition we want to raise awareness about its potential loss.

Werman: Listing the bus station as an endangered cultural site may help save the building from the wrecking ball, but even in Preston there are those who just want the thing gone. Peter Rankin is the leader of Preston City Council. He says it’s all well and good to appreciate the architecture…

Peter Rankin: But it’s supposed to be a working building, it’s supposed to be a bus station. It’s never really performed that particular function particularly well. But it’s been like marmite really, you either love it or hate it, and I have to say the majority of people do like it. It has been described as Brutalism. I think that’s a brilliant word to describe it.

Werman: In case you missed it, he compared Brutalism to marmite, a yeast spread many Brits put on their toast. Given its odor, that’s a bit of a low blow if you ask me. Architectural historian, Christina Malathouni, says there are good reasons to preserve Brutalism in Britain.

Christina Malathouni: It is a late stage of modernism. It is a later development of modernism. The peak of modernism was in ’20s and ’30s. So we’re going to the ’50s and ’60s, it’s quite an advanced stage. And the significant thing is that it is very vital for Britain. This particular style of British Brutalism is so important.

Werman: Love it, hate it, you be the judge. We have pictures of the Preston Bus Station and other examples of Brutalist architecture on our website, and while you’re there we want to know if there’s Brutalist buildings in your city. Post your photos at theworld.org.

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

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Other than its dialect, the former coal-mining town we want you to name is famous for its rugby league, a Heinz baked beans factory, and a Hollywood celebrity who spent his early childhood there, Sir Ian McKellen.

So, which town in Lancashire are we talking about? Answer: Wigan!

Anchor Marco Werman talks to Martin Bradley of the British IT company Athernet Web Solutions. Bradley hails from Wigan himself. He and his colleagues have developed a mobile phone app to translate the dialect of “Wiganese” into plain English.

Night and day, including weekends, the accused have streamed into courts across England. For some who plead guilty, sentencing has been swift. David Beswick was given an 18-month jail sentence for handling a television stolen by someone else. His friend, Tony Whitaker, said that is unfair, since other people facing the same charges received milder sentences.

“He’s accepted that, guilty plea straight away and he’s still got 18 months. Now you look at other people with the same, none of them got eighteen months. He’s a working person,” Whitaker said.

Prosecutor Nazir Afzal said if people decided to join in on the looting and the violence, they better be ready to pay the price.

“One of those people said that he did it because everybody else was. Well, he’ll be paying the same penalty that everybody else will,” Afzal said. “The message today is clear – stealing, looting, handling stolen property is against the law and there are consequences.”

Everyone seems to agree that those who took part in the riots must be punished, but some are concerned that justice is being sacrificed in a rush to judgment. Much of the focus is on three so called Facebook crimes. Two young men and a teenager – who don’t know each other – posted separate messages on the social network, encouraging people to riot. The teenager has been banned from using social networking sites for a year and given a three-month curfew. The two men expected tougher penalties in adult court, but they weren’t expecting four years in prison.

Rebecca Tanner, the lawyer for one of the young men, said her client was unprepared. “Obviously, as a 22 year old, knowing that ultimately whilst he’d been extremely foolish, I think he was shocked, given that his view would be he hadn’t actually caused any physical hurt or physical harm, or caused any damage as a result of his actions,” Tanner said.

Senior police officer Phil Thompson of the Cheshire police force said that isn’t an excuse. “If they had succeeded in their criminal intention, many other people would have engaged in crime and how many hundreds if not millions of pounds worth of damage would have been caused if their intentions would have been carried through? Not just damage to property potential damage to life,” he said.

There are other examples of apparent inconsistencies. Last week, one man was sentenced to a day in jail for stealing two t-shirts. At the same courthouse, in north London, another was sentenced to six months for taking $5.00 worth of bottled water.

Vicki Helyar-Cardwell of the Criminal Justice Alliance said there are valid reasons to hand down tougher sentences to rioters, but she worries some judges are going too far.

“And we are concerned that the sentencing guidelines, which essentially exist to provide proportionality and consistency in sentencing across the country, are sort of being jettisoned at the moment and we have serious concerns about that. They are there for a reason,” Helyar-Cardwell said.

Still, the judges handing down stiff sentences have the support of Prime Minister David Cameron. “What happened on our streets was absolutely appalling behavior and to send a very clear message that it is wrong and wont be tolerated is what our criminal justice system should be doing,” said Cameron.

There is still a potent mix of emotions – anger, worry and resentment – swirling around the country. The government has responded with a harsh line: threatening to evict whole families from public housing if one member is convicted or cutting off government benefits.

In this atmosphere, many expect judges to deliver justice swiftly and with a firm hand.
For some, that has meant harsh sentences, but also a near certainty that these rulings will be appealed in the months to come.

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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: Britain is still coming to terms with the rioting that swept across so many cities there last week.  The government is now considering how to do a better job of maintaining order. One suggestion is to disrupt cellphone service and social media networks during civil unrest.  That’s already provoked strong opposition.  Another proposal is to impose curfews.  Here’s Britain’s Home Secretary, Theresa May, speaking earlier today.

Theresa May: Should it be possible to impose a curfew across geographic area and should we have extra powers for curfews to be available for people who are under 16?  We’re going to look very closely at what is going to be needed, but what I would say is the scenes that we saw on our streets last week are such that it is right that we ask whether we have given the police all the powers that they need to deal with that sort of violence and that sort of criminality.

Mullins: Again, that’s Britain’s Home Secretary.  Curfews have been tried before.  In 2008 the town of Redruth in Cornwall imposed a voluntary curfew for eight weeks.  Kevin Hawke is a community worker who joined police on that curfew.  What were the problems and the kinds of behavior that you were trying to address by issuing a curfew?

Kevin Hawke: Residents were for a long time reporting issues of congregations of young people just hanging out and just doing the things that kids would normally do really.  They would escalate to criminal damage to general anti-social behavior and consumption of alcohol.

Mullins: So how did it work?

Hawke: Young people would be challenged by police officers, by community leaders, and asked where they were going and what they were doing.  If they didn’t have justifiable cause for being where they were then a call back to their parents, and if nobody knew what was going on then we would take them back to their parents.

Mullins: Now, there’s a different scheme for different age groups.  How did that work?

Hawke: Young people needed to be in if they were under 10, they needed to be in by 8 o’clock at night.  And if they were under 16 they needed to be in by 9 o’clock.  There were punitive measures for persistent offenders, for people that continued to cause disruption, cause unsocial behavior.  These measure involved the social landlords who provided most of the young people’s parents with properties.  It was mostly tenancy enforcement making sure that they were made aware that they were in breach of their tenancy if this continued to happen.

Mullins: So, are you saying social landlords, do you mean government housing?  And the landlords are being notified, those in charge are being notified that the kids were misbehaving?

Hawke: That’s right.  Most of the targeted individuals that we were trying to address were well aware of the criminal justice system.  They’d been to court, they’d experienced police involvement a number of times.  And this wasn’t really a deterrent to them, but once it was explained to them that their parents might lose their property and they would then have nowhere to live, this had a far more resounding impact.

Mullins: And did that ever happen?  Did anybody ever lose their home because their kids were out on the street?

Hawke: One family did, yes, the social landlord took out a notice to seek possession and consequently that family were evicted.

Mullins: What about people who have private homes who don’t live in government housing?

Hawke: They’ve been gauged by the unsocial behavior team which would involve coming into the police station, talking to the parents, giving them a stern warning as to what could happen if the young person continued to be disruptive.  The stage two process involved going into the legal process and actually issuing a anti-social behavior order.

Mullins: Sounds like the punishment was a lot steeper for those kids who lived in public housing.

Hawke: It was, yeah, I mean it’s about using the measures that are gonna have the best impact.

Mullins: This is something that happened in your town, in Cornwall, a small town, Redruth.  Could you imagine this working in a larger area, London beyond several cities?

Hawke: I think it would work in larger areas if the areas are defined.  I mean if you just sort of cast a net over London it definitely wouldn’t work, but what needs to happen is specific hot spots lead by community groups and community leaders.  It will definitely work because it gives nobody the opportunity to congregate and then progress on to the issues that we’ve seen over the past couple of weeks.

Mullins: All right, thank you, Kevin Hawke who lives in the town of Redruth, England.  He worked with police on an experiment to enforce a curfew in his town.  The curfew was called Operation Goodnight.  Kevin, thank you.

Hawke: Thank you.

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The action is set in Philadelphia, PA, but that’s not where they’re filming for the next couple of weeks. The city we’re looking for isn’t in the United States.

It’s in the United Kingdom. This city has the third largest population in Britain. It also has wide roads and is laid out on a grid pattern – one of the reasons it was chosen to double for Philadelphia.

One more clue: this city is in Scotland.

And the answer is Glasgow!

Lisa Mullins talks with Liam Finn, who works in a restaurant in Glasgow, where some of the streets are now being transformed into Philadelphia for the zombie flick.

Photo quiz: spot the difference between Glasgow and Philadelphia

Cochrane Street (Photo: @glasgowcc)

The answer to the Geo Quiz is Pendine Sands on the south coast of Wales.

“Gulp” – The Stop-motion Animation movie

Making of the movie

In reality, there is no such language requirement in China. Nor is there one for immigrants to the United States. The only language proficiency test in the United States is for citizenship.

But there is now such a test in Britain.

It has been introduced by Britain’s Conservative-led government, which has vowed to tighten immigration and reverse policies of multiculturalism.

“Under the doctrine of state multiculturalism, we’ve encouraged different cultures to live separate lives apart from each other, and apart from the mainstream,” said British Prime Minister David Cameron in May. “We’ve even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run completely counter to our values.”

Cameron’s government has introduced a new English language proficiency test for some would-be immigrants.

Anyone applying for a visa for long-term residency— roughly equivalent to a U.S. green card— will now be tested to make sure they have a basic grasp of English.

As a result, Rashida Chapti, a naturalized British citizen, cannot get a visa for her 58-year-old husband, who, like her, was born in India.

Chapti said if her husband was younger, it would have been different. “If he’d come [to Britain] earlier, he would have learned English. But now he’s old.”

Chapti is suing the British government on human rights grounds. She’s essentially arguing that’s she’s being deprived of the right to be with her family.

Aside from the language issue, her husband meets all the other requirements to qualify for a visa.

Mian Myat, a local councillor from Leicester, the city where Chapti lives, said Chapti’s husband cannot reasonably be expected to take English lessons before he arrives in Britain.

For one thing, he lives in a remote village where no-one speaks English.

“He would have to travel something like 180 miles just to take these lessons,” said Myat.

Myat said Chapti’s husband would need to take at least 40 lessons to pass the test, and that would cost him “something like 15 times his annual salary.”

Family reunification is at stake. It’s a principle that’s been enshrined in British— and US— immigration law for decades. But under the new rule, Rashida Chapti and her husband don’t qualify for it.

Conservative member of parliament Dominic Raab supports the new rule.

“Of course one feels sympathy for the Chapti family but I think the government policy is right,” he said.

“Coming to Britain is a privilege, not a right [that carries] certain responsibilities. One of those is to learn enough English to get by in the community”

Raab is particularly annoyed that Chapti’s lawyers have invoked the European Convention on Human Rights. Many British politicians resent European laws that supersede their own.

But in rejecting multiculturalism, the British government’s rhetoric is actually in line with many on the European mainland, notably Germany.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has declared that multiculturalism has “utterly failed” and that everyone living in Germany should learn German.