Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Aung San Suu Kyi during her visit to Myanmar in December.(Photo: State Department/Flickr)

In the past day, as the country’s most well-known political prisoners have been set free, that optimism has grown a little less cautious. “It is very significant,” said David Steinberg, a Myanmar expert at Georgetown University.

He says the fact that Khun Tun Oo, a leader of the country’s Shan ethnic minority was released will move the government a bit closer to reconciliation with the ethnic groups it has been fighting for decades. And the release of Khin Nyunt, a former military intelligence chief and Prime Minister who was imprisoned in 2004 after he made motions toward reform, could signal a lessening of infighting within the still hugely powerful military.

Steinberg sees changes coming about in part thanks to new leadership in Myanmar. “You have a different leader as head of government—a person who is approachable, who will willingly meet with other people, and with whom you can disagree. Which was not the case under the Senior General Than Shwe,” he said.

Despite the announcement that the US is beginning the process of restoring an ambassador to Myanmar, which they haven’t had since the late ‘80s, Steinberg thinks the US is unlikely to lift its sanctions against the country any time soon. But he says it could take some smaller steps like easing travel restrictions on members of the Burmese government.

There was joy on the streets of Rangoon, Myanmar’s biggest city, today, as throngs waited to greet prisoners being released from Insein Prison. But, despite this joy, and the strategic significance of these prisoner releases, people who have seen the Myanmar government up close and personal are skeptical.

Nyi Nyi Aung is a pro-democracy activist now living in the US He spent several months in jail in Myanmar in 1988 and again two years ago. He’s been talking to a lot of people in his home country over the past 24 hours and says that emotions are very mixed.

“One side is they are really happy,” he said, “because they see all the famous friends and comrades coming out from the prison-they are really free. So they are really happy about it. So one side is they worry—they are worrying for the future, next step.”

“We all have to note that we have been here before,” said Soe Aung, a spokesman for the Forum for Democracy in Burma, speaking to the BBC from Bangkok. “In 2004 and last year there have been mass release of prisoners, but there are still more than 1,100 political prisoners who remain in prisons. There must be a legal and institutional reform to ensure that our friends, our colleagues that have just been released today are not re-arrested and then put in prison again.”

Murray Hiebert, Deputy Director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in D.C., agrees that a key test will be how much freedom these newly released political prisoners are actually given.

“I think the other thing to watch will be to see what these people just released are able to do now,” Hiebert said. “Are they able to participate in the political campaigns leading up to the bi-elections in April? Will they going to be very closely proscribed and basically not able to move around. So we have things to watch, surely.”

But, for today at least, there’s hope.

New Burmese Flag

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Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s travels to Southeast Asia this week posed a number of challenges. Among them, whether to call the country she’s now visiting Burma, which evokes the old British Colonial days, or whether to call it Myanmar, the name the repressive government adopted in 1989. The United Nations has recognized the country as Myanmar, the US has not. Koko Aung of the BBC’s Burmese Service says the name game is a hot topic in his homeland and the country’s democracy icon has weighed in.

Koko Aung: Aun San Suu Kyi chose to call the old name, Burma, and the regime tried to change it. And if you talk to for example, a government official, particularly some high ranking official, and then you refer to the country as Burma, they will instantly take it as someone who supports the cause for democracy.

Mullins: So what name has Secretary Clinton chosen?

Hillary Clinton: Obviously, we and many other nations are quite hopeful that these flickers of progress will be ignited into a movement for change that will benefit the people of the country.

Mullins: Well, you heard it there, “the country,” which was maybe a bit of a dodge. Reports suggest we’re gonna hear more compromise and equally squishy names for he country, including “this land” and “what you call Myanmar.”

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• Live updates from the BBC
• Possible scenarios for Libya
• New York Times photos from Libya

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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.  Today, Muammar Gaddafi denied the people on the streets are demonstrating against him.  Quite the opposite, said the leader.

Muammar Gaddafi: They love me, all my people with me, they love me all.

Woman: But if they do love you…

Gaddafi: They, they will die to protect me and my people.

Mullins: Despite Gaddafi’s words, reports say there was intense fighting today between pro and anti government forces in northwestern Libya, and a protest took place in the suburb of the capital, Tripoli.  Several hundred people took to the streets to chant slogans against Gaddafi.

Protestors: [Speaking Arabic]

Mullins: They cried, “The blood of martyrs won’t go to waste.”  Otherwise, today was a relatively quiet day for most residents of Tripoli.  A business professional, a man named Ahmed, spoke with us this afternoon.

Ahmed: The regime has done a fantastic job making things seem to be quite safe.  And I’ll have to admit from about 9:00 o’clock in the morning until about 3:00 o’clock in the afternoon it’s relatively quiet in Tripoli in the sense of any military, nothing really visible, people are going on with their normal lives, and getting, buying the food, and going about the city.

Some are just furious to see what has happened from the day before.  Schools are still shut.  Offices, governmental offices are open.  The government is handing out cash, 500 dinars per family.

Mullins: Let me just…

Ahmed: So it’s a substantial amount of money for many families.

Mullins: That’s pretty substantial as you say, Ahmed, say 500 dinars per family is roughly about 400 U.S. dollars, I believe.  How is that working? This has never happened as you say in Libya before, that there have been handouts, cash handouts to people.  How is it working?

Ahmed: No, this has not happened before.  This is actually the first time.  We expected there will be a lot of payments from the regime, sort of incite people against the protestors.  And if some of the population who actually buy into the gesture of goodwill from the regime for more good things to come, then I will be worried.

Mullins: Do you see…

Ahmed: In other words, the 500 Libyan dinars could be buying some people’s souls at the moment.

Mullins: Ahmed, you mentioned that things seem to be business as usual between 9AM and 3:00 in the afternoon.  What happens after 3:00?

Ahmed: Yes, now the past 10 days or so the resistance has been active at light, from 7:00 in the evening onwards more than during the day.  So what we, most of us unfortunately, we do sit idle waiting to see what will happen next.  And fair enough, I mean every night it’s almost been since seven o’clock in the evening until about two or three o’clock in the morning, that’s when the most activity happens.

Mullins: When you talk about resistance Ahmed, often we think of armed resistance.  And I wonder if you can make the distinction for us, from what’s happening at least right now in Tripoli.  I mean speak to what you know.  Are there protestors there conducting the kind of resistance we’ve seen in other countries, Tunisia or especially Egypt?  Or is it more armed resistance?  Do people have, those who are against the government, do they have easy access to weaponry?

Ahmed: I wish there was.  And there are none.  The reason being that we’re not very mobile outside Tripoli.  Tripoli is heavily guarded so we might be able to exit, but on entrance we’re gonna be heavily searched, so everyone is avoiding that.

Mullins: Ahmed, I don’t want to mischaracterize what you’re saying or what your intentions might be, but it sounds like you’re saying that if there were an armory that were opened up that you would happily arm yourself and be part of some kind of resistance if it turns violent, then it would all be resolved sooner.  Is that what you’re saying?

Ahmed: That’s correct.  If we have access to weapons the resistance will be much more effective, and we will be able to take much more control in truth than we do at the moment.

Mullins: Well, how do you, I mean…

Ahmed: And I would be personally very happy to be active in that as well.

Mullins: That again is a man named Ahmed, he’s a critic of Muammar Gaddafi.  He spoke to us from Tripoli this afternoon.

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A year ago, we told you about a special series of global presentations that feature architects, designers, authors and other creative people. They’re called PechaKucha nights (pecha-kucha means chit-chat in Japanese). The organizers decided to do a special series of PechaKucha nights to raise awareness of, brainstorm ideas about, and collect donations for the rebuilding of Haiti. They sponsored this in conjunction with the group Architecture for Humanity. The Global PechaKucha night for Haiti ended up raising $80,000, and that money was put to use in rebuilding the school you see above. You can see and hear Architecture for Humanity’s Cameron Sinclair talk about this school, and about all of the group’s rebuilding work currently going on in Haiti. We think that’s the highlight of WTP 319.

We do have some other stories, too. You can hear Iranian cartoonist Nikahang Kowsar  talk about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s speech on Internet freedom from last week (check out his cartoons, too!). We’ll also tell you about how a British pressure group called UK Uncut [VIDEO] is employing social networking tools to make their points, and how the idea is spreading now to the United States.

We’ll also hop into the way-back tech machine again to revisit the cyronics craze of the 1960s. Trust me, it’s a great listen, but please, no jokes about being “frozen in time.” And, because we missed Valentine’s Day, we’ll go back and hear about a man who carries his heart (or at least the pneumatic pump for his Totally Artificial Heart) in a backpack.

And yes…we’ll make mention of the Egyptian man who named his kid “Facebook.”

Speaking of which, feel free to join us on Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to be social with you.

Photo courtesy of PechaKucha

• BBC coverage
• Q&A: Kosovo’s future
• Revisiting the Kosovo air war

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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: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World. Kosovo is celebrating a victory at the International Court of Justice. The court ruled today that Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008 did not violate international law. The court’s opinion isn’t binding. But it’s causing a stir in other countries contending with regions that harbor their own dreams of independence. The World’s Laura Lynch reports.

LAURA LYNCH:  The opinion was clear, unequivocal and signed by 10 of the 14 judges. Court president Hisashi Owada delivered it to a packed courtroom in The Hague.

HISASHI OWADA:  It concludes that the declaration of independence of the 17^th of February 2008 did not violate general international law.

OWADA: Kosovo’s foreign minister Skindar Hoosaynee quickly called on Serbia to agree to fresh talks to improve fractured relations.

SKINDAR HOOSAYNEE: But such talks can only take place as talks between sovereign states, between two neighboring states, because finally the statehood of Kosovo was firmly confirmed today with the court’s advisory opinion.

OWADA: 69 nations, including the United States, have recognized Kosovo. Today Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on other countries to do the same. Kosovo’s capital, Pristina, saw its biggest celebration since independence was declared in February of 2008. Actor Blarim Goochee says there’s every reason to be optimistic about the future.

BLARIM GOOCHEE: I have been walking the streets of Pristina right now and there’s a big party going and now we have a kind of a legal proof that our independence didn’t break international law.

OWADA: But the mood was much more subdued in the divided city of Mitrovica in the north of Kosovo. Serbians living there are by turns worried and defiant.

SERBIAN SPEAKING

MALE SPEAKER: This is a shameful decision by the court in The Hague. After this it will be hard for us Serbs here in Kosovo.

SERBIAN SPEAKING

MALE SPEAKER: One more scandalous verdict by The Hague court. As far as we Serbs are concerned, nothing is going to change.

OWADA: The Serbian government in Belgrade had hoped for a much different outcome. Within hours, it condemned the ruling, vowing never to recognize Kosovo as a separate state. And Serbia’s foreign minister, Vuk Jeremic, had a warning for other nations struggling to contain nationalist elements in their midst.

VUK JEREMIC: There are going to be people in the world tempted to write declarations of independence that are, obviously, according to the court in their narrow sense, okay with international law, but once again the right to secession was not considered.

OWADA: That may be one reason Russia, mindful of Chechnya’s separatist sentiments, rushed out a statement dismissing the court’s opinion. And indeed there are some who are already arguing the ruling has bolstered their fight for independence. Aitor Estaban is an MP from a Basque nationalist party in Spain.

AITOR ESTABAN: I think that the main consequence is that Spain cannot keep saying that the international rules doesn’t allow for a split of the country for a Basque independent country into the European Union. So I think that should be already over and that’s good news for us.

OWADA: However careful the judges may have been to ground their judgment in the law, there’s little doubt the ruling will provide fresh fuel for domestic political disputes around the world. For The World, I’m Laura Lynch.

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• BBC coverage
• UN condemns attack on warship
• North Korea’s agenda

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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: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World. The Obama administration is ramping up pressure on North Korea. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today announced a new round of economic sanctions against the already isolated regime. The move comes just two months after an inquiry blamed a North Korean torpedo for sinking a South Korean warship. 46 sailors were killed. Tensions between the two Koreas have been high ever since. The World’s Laura Lynch reports.

LAURA LYNCH:  In the gloom and the grey of a drizzly day, the camera shutters clicked as two high profile American visitors climbed to an observation post at the demilitarized zone. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates peered across the line with the help of binoculars, then toured a small building straddling the border. With North Korean soldiers staring them down from the other side, Clinton and Gates began piling on the pressure, urging the regime to change its ways.

HILLARY CLINTON:  There is another way. There is a way that can benefit the people of the north.

ROBERT GATES: It’s stunning how little has changed in the north and yet how much South Korea has continued to grow and prosper.

LYNCH: Later, flanked by South Korea’s defense and foreign ministers Clinton took the show of solidarity a step further.

CLINTON: Today I’m announcing a series of measures to increase our ability to prevent North Korea’s proliferation, to halt their illicit activities that help fund their weapons program, and to discourage further provocative actions.

LYNCH: The sanctions target the trade in counterfeit cigarettes, liquor and luxury goods. Things most impoverished North Koreans cannot even dream of buying. The visit and the new measures come after the sinking of a South Korean naval vessel, the Cheonan in March. An international inquiry later blamed North Korea. That drew both a denial and an act of defiance, all read out on state television.

KOREAN SPEAKING

LYNCH: The newsreader announced North Korea’s response, scrapping an agreement intended to prevent accidental clashes with South Korean military vessels. Today, Clinton reiterated US demands for Pyongyang to stop stirring up trouble.

CLINTON: We do expect to see North Korea take certain steps that would acknowledge their responsibility for the sinking of the Cheonan which would demonstrate their commitment to the irreversible denuclearization of the peninsula, which would end the provocative and belligerent actions.

LYNCH:  This joint trip by Clinton and Gates coincides with the 60^th anniversary of the start of the Korean War. Joint US-South Korean naval exercises will follow in the coming days, as both countries take to the seas to send a message to the North. Gates acknowledges that the declining health of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il and the sinking of the Cheonan are sparking concerns that the exercises themselves could trigger fresh confrontations.

GATES: By the same token, I think taking steps that further strengthen deterrence and also demonstrate our determination not to be intimidated are very important.

LYNCH: The pressure on North Korea and the military exercises aren’t helping to repair frayed relations with China. Gates admits he worries about that too. But not enough to put a halt to efforts to put the diplomatic, economic and military squeeze on Pyongyang. For the World, I’m Laura Lynch.

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• BBC coverage
• No easy options
• North Korea discussed in US-China talks

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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:  I’m Marco Werman and this is The World.  Hillary Clinton visited the South Korean capital, Seoul, today.  She called on the world to respond to what she called North Korea’s unacceptable provocation.  The Secretary of State was referring to an incident in March. International investigators say a North Korean torpedo sank a South Korean Navy ship killing 46 sailors.  North Korea denies sinking the ship and it’s ratcheting up the rhetoric as The World’s Matthew Bell reports.

MATTHEW BELL:  Speaking in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, a veteran of the Korean War today denied that his country had anything to do with the sinking of South Korea’s ship, the Cheonan.  General Pak Chan Su said the South’s president is manufacturing this crisis.  General Pak implied that President Lee Myung Bak is a puppet of the United States.  North Korea’s enemies are clamoring for sanctions, he said, but we will answer with all out war.  North Korea is already one of the most isolated and sanctioned countries on earth.  So if the investigation’s findings are accurate, and North Korea did sink that ship, what were its leaders thinking?

SUNG-YOON LEE:  North Korea does such things because by exporting insecurity and by backing down, it can get away with not only murder, but it can actually get away with a lot of economic concessions.

BELL: Sung-Yoon Lee is an international relations expert at Tufts University.  He says North Korea is threatening to cut off all ties with South Korea now because it’s holding out for a bigger payoff down the road.

LEE:  For North Korea to survive and for North Korea to preserve its own regime, facing the constant existential threat of being absorbed by the richer, freer, South Korea, North Korea sees it to be in its best interests to resort to such acts of provocation from time to time, create tension, create crisis, and then say okay, let’s go back to negotiating and be rewarded.

BELL: North Korea is going through a political transition right now.  Leader Kim Jong Il is thought to be ill and preparing to hand off power to one of his sons, the 20-something Kim Jong Un.  Professor Lee says North Korean leaders do not earn legitimacy at the ballot box.

LEE:  Their credentials, the source of their legitimacy come from being a so-called great General, military leader.  Although the current leader never served a day in the military, so to have a strategic mind, to try to prove oneself as an able General or military leader that is able to engineer a military act like this against South Korea, this would boost up the credentials of this young man, the heir apparent, Kim Jong Un.

BELL: Experts say another thing North Korea would have been trying to do with an attack like the one against the Cheonan is to stir up a political reaction ahead of upcoming elections in South Korea.  Stephan Haggard is a Korea expert at the University of California at San Diego.  He says the left in South Korea is accusing the right leaning government of Yee Myung Bak of playing politics with the sinking of the Cheonan.

STEPHAN HAGGARD:  It’s really become quite polarized and those who favored in engagement strategy have obviously been marginalized under the Yee Myung Bak administration. And so I think they want to taint the LMB administration, the Yee Myung Bak administration as partly response for this incident.

BELL: After months of stalled six party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program, a question on the minds of many experts right now is whether North Korea is looking for a fight.  Mike Chinoy is the author of a book about the nuclear showdown with North Korea called “Meltdown”.  He says the leadership in Pyongyang is not suicidal.  However . . .

MIKE CHINOY:  What’s worrying now is there aren’t any diplomatic channels and in the absence of that the danger of miscalculation or things getting worse certainly increases.

BELL: United Nations is expected to take up the issue of new sanctions against North Korea and all eyes will be on China.  It holds a seat on the Security Council.  China is also the closest thing North Korea has to a political ally.  For The World, I’m Matthew Bell.

MARCO WERMAN:  I’m Marco Werman and this is The World.  Hillary Clinton visited the South Korean capital, Seoul, today.  She called on the world to respond to what she called North Korea’s unacceptable provocation.  The Secretary of State was referring to an incident in March. International investigators say a North Korean torpedo sank a South Korean Navy ship killing 46 sailors.  North Korea denies sinking the ship and it’s ratcheting up the rhetoric as The World’s Matthew Bell reports.

MATTHEW BELL:  Speaking in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, a veteran of the Korean War today denied that his country had anything to do with the sinking of South Korea’s ship, the Cheonan.  General Pak Chan Su said the South’s president is manufacturing this crisis.  General Pak implied that President Lee Myung Bak is a puppet of the United States.  North Korea’s enemies are clamoring for sanctions, he said, but we will answer with all out war.  North Korea is already one of the most isolated and sanctioned countries on earth.  So if the investigation’s findings are accurate, and North Korea did sink that ship, what were its leaders thinking?

SUNG-YOON LEE:  North Korea does such things because by exporting insecurity and by backing down, it can get away with not only murder, but it can actually get away with a lot of economic concessions.

BELL: Sung-Yoon Lee is an international relations expert at Tufts University.  He says North Korea is threatening to cut off all ties with South Korea now because it’s holding out for a bigger payoff down the road.

LEE:  For North Korea to survive and for North Korea to preserve its own regime, facing the constant existential threat of being absorbed by the richer, freer, South Korea, North Korea sees it to be in its best interests to resort to such acts of provocation from time to time, create tension, create crisis, and then say okay, let’s go back to negotiating and be rewarded.

BELL: North Korea is going through a political transition right now.  Leader Kim Jong Il is thought to be ill and preparing to hand off power to one of his sons, the 20-something Kim Jong Un.  Professor Lee says North Korean leaders do not earn legitimacy at the ballot box.

LEE:  Their credentials, the source of their legitimacy come from being a so-called great General, military leader.  Although the current leader never served a day in the military, so to have a strategic mind, to try to prove oneself as an able General or military leader that is able to engineer a military act like this against South Korea, this would boost up the credentials of this young man, the heir apparent, Kim Jong Un.

BELL: Experts say another thing North Korea would have been trying to do with an attack like the one against the Cheonan is to stir up a political reaction ahead of upcoming elections in South Korea.  Stephan Haggard is a Korea expert at the University of California at San Diego.  He says the left in South Korea is accusing the right leaning government of Yee Myung Bak of playing politics with the sinking of the Cheonan.

STEPHAN HAGGARD:  It’s really become quite polarized and those who favored in engagement strategy have obviously been marginalized under the Yee Myung Bak administration. And so I think they want to taint the LMB administration, the Yee Myung Bak administration as partly response for this incident.

BELL: After months of stalled six party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program, a question on the minds of many experts right now is whether North Korea is looking for a fight.  Mike Chinoy is the author of a book about the nuclear showdown with North Korea called “Meltdown”.  He says the leadership in Pyongyang is not suicidal.  However . . .

MIKE CHINOY:  What’s worrying now is there aren’t any diplomatic channels and in the absence of that the danger of miscalculation or things getting worse certainly increases.

BELL: United Nations is expected to take up the issue of new sanctions against North Korea and all eyes will be on China.  It holds a seat on the Security Council.  China is also the closest thing North Korea has to a political ally.  For The World, I’m Matthew Bell.

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• BBC coverage
• North Korea – secretive state
• South Korean official blames North Korea

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MARCO WERMAN:  I’m Marco Werman and this is The World.  Tensions on the Korean peninsula are about as high as they’ve been since the Korean War.  The reason is the sinking of a South Korean warship, apparently by North Korean in March.  South Korea today announced sanctions against the North, but the only country with leverage over North Korea is China and so far China has refrained from criticizing its neighbor.  U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is seeking a tougher stance from Beijing.  She’s in the Chinese capital and The World’s Mary Kay Magistad is following her mission.  Mary Kay, what does the U.S. need from China to be able to get tough on North Korea?

MARY KAY MAGISTAD:  Well at the very least the United States would like to hear rhetoric from China.  Today President Hu Jintao did not even mention North Korea specifically.  He said that the U.S. and China should strengthen coordination on regional hotspots and global issues, which doesn’t exactly get to the critical issue at hand.  I think what the U.S. would like to see is for China to even consider its own sanctions against North Korea.  It is North Korea’s main supplier of oil and one of its main suppliers of food aid.  So if it were to decide to impose sanctions on North Korea, it would make an impact.  However China doesn’t really want to do that because there would be implications for China as well in terms of possible refugee flows coming in and geopolitical considerations as well that might be against China’s own interests.

WERMAN: Secretary Clinton is in Beijing today.  How would you assess her urgency at her meetings with the partners there?

MAGISTAD: Well she actually had some pointed things to say today about this issue.

SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON:  Today we face another serious challenge provoked by the sinking of the South Korean ship.  So we must work together again, to address this challenge and advance our shared objectives for peace and stability on the Korean peninsula.  We asked North Korea to stop its provocative behavior, halt its policy of threats and belligerence toward its neighbors and take irreversible steps to fulfill its denuclearization commitments and comply with international law.

WERMAN: Mary Kay, are Secretary Clinton’s counterparts hearing this?

MAGISTAD: Well they’re certainly hearing it, but China has its own geopolitical concerns when it comes to North and South Korea.  They do want to see a denuclearized Korean peninsula.  They have hosted talks of six different countries including North and South Korea, the U.S., Russia, China and Japan over several years to try to get this to happen.  They lose a little bit of diplomatic credibility in the sense that nothing really has happened that has had a lasting effect.  But also, China doesn’t really want a unified Korea on its border.  It neither wants North Korea to implode and to have a flow of refugees to China, but nor does it want a unified Korea that would be friendly to the U.S. on its border.  So it’s playing a fairly complicated diplomatic game in how it’s dealing with North Korea and it’s not really prepared to cut off all assistance that it’s giving at this point.

WERMAN: What are some of the sticking points in the U.S.-China relationship right now that Secretary Clinton is presumably talking about with the Chinese in Beijing today that may get in the way of these North Korea talks with China?

MAGISTAD: Well from the U.S. side there’s concerned about increasing Chinese protectionism and how that’s affecting U.S. investment and U.S. trade.  From the Chinese side, they say well we would like to see export controls lifted of high tech equipment that we would like.  We want to have cutting edge equipment coming in; cutting edge technology and you’re not letting us get a hold of it.  And in fact, at news conferences over the last week at gatherings where, for instance, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke spoke, question after question after question about this specific issue.  So it seems that this is a bit of a campaign that the Chinese government is doing.  But then there’s also the point of just the bigger relationship and what it means as China continues to grow and China’s place in the world continues to grow and China feels that it has the right to challenge what has, for a long time, been the U.S. position in the world as being the predominant power.  And there is a certain, aggressiveness would be perhaps a little too strong, but there is a certain assertiveness that China seems to be feeling these days that it has a right to question the U.S. position in the world and I think just sort of finding a new footing, finding a new balance in the relationship is a big part of what’s going on in this dialogue.

WERMAN: The World’s Mary Kay Magistad in Beijing.  Mary Kay, many thanks.

MAGISTAD: Thank you.

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• BBC coverage
• Report card for Afghanistan’s government
• NY Times: At War blog

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MARCO WERMAN:  I’m Marco Werman, this is The World.  Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai got a warm welcome at the White House today.  This, after months of tension that appeared to threaten the U.S.-Afghan relationship.  But all seemed to be forgiven as Mr. Karzai met President Obama.  The two men spoke about cooperation and respect between Washington and Kabul and they insisted that any strain between them has been exaggerated.  The World’s Katy Clark begins our coverage.

KATY CLARK:  Hamid Karzai, in the middle of a four day visit to Washington, said today that disagreements are normal after nearly nine years of an extremely difficult joint war against the Taliban.

PRESIDENT HAMID KARZAI:  I believe what you saw in the past few months are reflective of a deep and strong relationship.  And that sort of relationship, as President Obama right described, there are moments that we speak frankly to each other and that frankness will only add to the strength of the relationship and contribute to the successes that we have.

CLARK: President Obama agreed.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:  There are going to be setbacks.  There are going to be times where the Afghan government and U.S. government disagree tactically.  But I think our overarching approach is unified and I think that the visit by President Karzai to the United States and his willingness to listen to our concerns, even as we listen to his, as he indicated, only makes the relationship stronger.

CLARK: Both leaders were pressed today about civilian casualties in Afghanistan.  President Obama said he feels the weight of responsibility whenever non-fighters die and he’s instructed his commanders to do everything they can to avoid civilian deaths.  Mr. Obama also said he expects to stick to his plan to start bringing American troops home next summer.

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  But we are not suddenly, as of July 2011, finished with Afghanistan.

CLARK: That comment seemed directed at both the Afghan public and the American public.  Support for the war in Afghanistan has waned in this country.  Critics view President Karzai as an unreliable partner, and the war there unwinnable.  A new report out this week from the International Crisis Group seems to support that second point anyway.  It says the Afghan Army is riddled with corruption and feuding.  That’s bad news for President Obama whose strategy for stabilizing Afghanistan hinges on expanding and improving the Afghan Army.

KURT VOLKER:  I agree, it doesn’t sound good and I think it is a real problem.  It’s a real challenge.

CLARK: Kurt Volker was U.S. Ambassador to NATO from 2008 to 2009.  He’s now with the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.  Volker says the ledger on Afghanistan is a mixed bag.  On the positive side, efforts to reverse the Taliban’s military momentum seemed to be working and progress is being made to better engage the local population.  But Volker says there’s no question efforts to build Afghan security forces are lagging.

VOLKER: Concerning the Army, it’s very difficult when you have a population that is largely illiterate, when you have strong tribal ties, when you have competition where the Taliban is willing to pay people to fight on their side rather than to fight on behalf of the Afghan National Army.

CLARK: Volker is quick to add though that training an Afghan National Army has been going better in the last two to three years and he cautions patience.  Afghanistan isn’t going to be fixed overnight, he says, but it can be fixed.  Volker points to some other situations that also once seemed hopeless.

VOLKER: Remember Bosnia was much simpler by comparison.  We said we were going in for a year, we were there for at least ten, and the international community is still playing a strong role in Bosnia.  Kosovo, we’re still there as well.  This has got to be a long term commitment and a long term engagement.

CLARK: President Obama seems to understand that as well.  But that commitment may be tested soon again.  The U.S. led coalition in Afghanistan is preparing for a massive push next month into Kandahar Province.  Kandahar is the birthplace of the Taliban.  The fighting is expected to be among the bloodiest so far.  For The World, this is Katy Clark.

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Another busy week at the tech desk. We lead off the podcast with two items on Haiti. The first is on efforts to create good, interactive maps of the country. Here are relevant links:

• Haiti: Open Street Map
• Ushahidi’s Haiti page
• FrontlineSMS
• Gaia GPS iPhone app for Haiti

Then, we spoke with Professor Leysia Palen of the University of Colorado at Boulder about Project EPIC’s “Tweak the Tweet” campaign. Here’s a short video:

We then had a report from Cyrus Farivar on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Internet freedom speech. You can read the full text of the speech here, or watch the video from the speech here.

Following that, we dug a bit deeper into Google’s recent announcement that it might leave China. We feature two interviews, one with Rebecca McKinnon, and another with blogger Isaac Mao.

And we return to Haiti to finish the podcast. Amid all the coverage we’re doing about the efforts to get telecommunications up and running, it pays to remember the power of the good old-fashioned wireless: the radio. Our short segment is on SignalFM in Port-au-Prince.

• BBC coverage
• Full text of Clinton’s speech
• Video: Clips from Clinton’s speech
• On The World: Cyrus Farivar’s report on Clinton’s speech

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MARCO WERMAN:  I’m Marco Werman.  This is The World.  The White House says President Obama wants some answers from China.  A spokesman said today that Mr. Obama is troubled by recent cyber attacks in China against internet giant, Google.  The comment came just hours after Beijing warned Washington that continued U.S. criticism of its internet policies could be harmful to relations between the two nations.  Yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton challenged China and other countries to end internet censorship.  Rebecca MacKinnon is a fellow at the Open Society Institute and is writing a book on the internet in China.  This war of words is certainly starting to sizzle.  China denounced today what it called information imperialism.  Hillary Clinton warned of an information curtain echoing the old iron curtain descending.  Are the U.S. and China really ready to go to the mat on this issue or is this just posturing?

REBECCA MacKINNON:  I think the Chinese reaction was pretty predictable.  They tend to react this way any time the United States criticizes them so I wouldn’t immediately predict that we’re on the brink of some kind of escalation necessarily.

WERMAN:  Information imperialism is a great phrase but that’s from the Chinese government.  How much, if at all, do ordinary Chinese feel the idea of allowing a free flow of information is cultural imperialism?

MacKINNON:  There is certainly a lot of people in China who were able to watch Secretary Clinton’s speech on internet freedom and who reacted positively to it and who are very frustrated with censorship.  There are other people, however, who are more nationalistic and who feel that their government is being threatened and they kind of draw upon China’s history of being a victim of imperialism and actually there are a lot of people in China who feel very emotional about China’s independence and it’s ability to stand up to foreigners who criticize it and try to meddle so there are lots of different conflicting opinions in China.  And there are some people who are very frustrated with their government who don’t like the censorship but also don’t welcome foreigners to come in galloping in on their white horses.

WERMAN:  Well here is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday in Washington, articulating some of Washington’s demands.

HILLARY CLINTON:  We look to the Chinese authorities to conduct a thorough review of the cyber intrusions that led Google to make its announcement.  And we also look for that investigation and its results to be transparent.

WERMAN:  Rebecca MacKinnon, rather than moving in that direction, the Chinese government seems to be re-doubling its efforts to more tightly control the flow of information.  What do you think would happen to China if they just opened everything up?

MacKINNON:  China isn’t entirely closed off.  At any rate, there are a lot of people who actually do know how to use various technologies to get around the internet blocks.  You know, the Chinese government is also pretty good at manipulating information so that there are large websites full of people who actually take the Western media reports about China and pick them apart and analyze them in such a way to prove that New York Times reports about China and so on are all just lies and Western anti-China conspiracies.  So I think this is a government that definitely does feel threatened in a number of ways and is very serious about its need to control the internet in order to contain those threats.

WERMAN:  Do you think China will change the internet more than the internet will change China?  I mean do you think that maybe in the future the West will have to play by China’s rules?

MacKINNON:  Well that’s a very good question.  I mean China now has more internet users than any other country on the planet.  There are more Chinese online than there are Americans certainly and China is also working very actively to encourage its industry to be at the forefront of innovation in the new generation of internet technologies and really shaping the future generation of internet standards and whether those standards end up being more conducive to making censorship more easy or whether there will be more pushback from citizens around the world and companies to make sure that the internet remains open and free, that’s really an open question.

WERMAN:  Rebecca MacKinnon, a fellow at the Open Society Institute.  She’s also writing a book on the internet in China.  Thanks very much.

MacKINNON:  You’re welcome.

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• Full text of Clinton’s speech
• BBC coverage
• Video: Clips from Clinton’s speech

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MARCO WERMAN: Americans have donated millions of dollars toward relief efforts in Haiti.  That includes some $25 million donated via text messages.  That’s just one example of how technology helps to shape our response to events beyond our shores.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton mentioned Haiti in her speech today about technology and Internet freedom.  Cyrus Farivar has more from Washington.

CYRUS FARIVAR: After reminding the audience of the importance of communications technologies in disaster situations, and how one woman in Haiti was apparently rescued because of a text message, Secretary Clinton tempered her words. She acknowledged that technology itself does not have an inherent agenda.

HILARY CLINTON: Just as steel can be used to build hospitals or machine guns, or nuclear power can either energize a city or destroy it, modern information networks and the technologies they support can be harnessed for good or for ill.

FARIVAR: She noted, for example, that terrorist groups and authoritarian regimes use the Internet to recruit new followers and to spread their own propaganda. But even if the technology was value neutral, Clinton said the American government is not.

CLINTON: We stand for a single Internet, where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas. And we recognize that the world’s information infrastructure will become what we and others, make of it.

FARIVAR: She likened the freedom to connect to the Internet as a modern analogy of the centuries old American right to freely assemble. And just as dissidents of the 18th Century were free to communicate in person, so should they be allowed to freely congregate online.  Clinton also added that more and freer Internet connectivity isn’t just about political freedom, but also about increasing economic activity.  Still, Clinton closed by alluding to the recent case in China where Google would no longer comply with China’s systems for censoring search results.

CLINTON: For companies this issue is about more than claiming the moral high ground. It really comes down to the trust between firms and their customers. Consumers everywhere want to have confidence that the Internet companies they rely on will provide comprehensive search results, and act as responsible stewards of their own personal information.

FARIVAR: Reactions to Clinton’s speech seemed to be positive.  She drew a standing ovation from the crowd, which included government officials, technology advocates and human rights activists.  However, many wished that there had been more concrete examples of what the United States will do beyond giving general statements of freedom and prosperity in China, Iran, and other global hotspots.  During the question and answer period, Courtney Radsch of the NGO Freedom House asked Clinton whether American technology policy has any teeth. Clinton responded by saying that it was generally in the long-term interests of business and government to provide and open Internet.  But after the speech, Radsch was not completely satisfied with Clinton’s answer.

COURTNEY RADSCH: I think that relying on businesses to morally do the right thing is a nice idea, but it has to translate into profits, right?  I mean, as we’ve seen, businesses do not do the right thing.  Otherwise, we wouldn’t be in this financial crisis, right now, right?  So I would have liked to hear stronger language. Because I asked her where are the teeth?  And she really didn’t answer that question.  She didn’t say where the teeth are.

FARIVAR: Others seemed to think that this represented a new direction for the State Department, and would help technologists who want to do what they can to help countries where the Internet is censored. That’s according to Austin Heap, one of the creators of the forthcoming program Haystack, an anti-filtering tool for Iranians.

AUSTIN HEAP: Well, it will ultimately impact Haystack and other projects like that because it will make it easier for people to, you know, focus on the product and focus on developing the tools necessary to keep the Internet free in places where it’s censored without having to jump through all the federal hurdles.

FARIVAR: Haystack is currently awaiting State Department clearance before it’s released to Iran.  Clinton suggested that such projects will receive support from the Obama Administration over the coming year.  As part of an approach that she calls 21st Century Statecraft.  For The World, I’m Cyrus Farivar in Washington.

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• BBC: Taliban defiant over Obama surge
• PBS NewsHour: Analysis of Obama’s speech

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MARCO WERMAN: President Obama’s new plan for Afghanistan was under scrutiny on Capitol Hill today. The Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing on it.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, were there to field questions.  Many of those questions focused not on the decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, but on this part of the president’s speech.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: These additional and international troops will allow us to accelerate handing over responsibility to Afghan forces, and allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011.

WERMAN: Senators from both parties wanted more specifics on that.  The World’s Jason Margolis has more.

JASON MARGOLIS: Senators were each given six minutes to question the Panel. Senators from both parties were largely supportive of the President’s new Afghan strategy, but one after the other most Senators asked the same question worded slightly differently.  Here’s Republican John McCain asking about the July 2011 timeline.

JOHN MCCAIN: Will we withdraw our forces based on conditions on the ground, or based on an arbitrary date, regardless of conditions on the ground?

MARGOLIS: Defense Secretary Robert Gates offered this response, which he repeated many times throughout the hearing.

ROBERT GATES: We will begin the transition in local areas in July of 2011. We will evaluate in December 2010, whether we believe we’ll be able to meet that objective.

MARGOLIS: That answer failed to satisfy many senators. Some, like McCain, thought it represented the wrong strategy. Some senators thought the answer was too vague.  Here’s Lindsay Graham, Republican from South Carolina questioning Gates.

LINDSAY GRAHAM: Will the evaluation decision be how fast we withdraw, or whether or not we should withdraw?

GATES: I think it will be principally whether the strategy we put in place is working.

GRAHAM: Is it possible in December 2010 to reach the conclusion it is not wise to withdraw anyone in July 2011? Is that possible?

GATES: I think the President in Commander-In-Chief always has the option to adjust his decision.

GRAHAM: So it is not locked in?

MARGOLIS: Graham posed the same question to Secretary of State Clinton.

HILARY CLINTON: Well, Senator Graham, I do not believe we have locked ourselves into leaving. But what we have done, and I think it was an appropriate position for the President to take, is to signal very clearly to all audiences that the United States is not interested occupying Afghanistan, we are not interested in running their country, building their nation.  We are trying to give them the space and time to be able to build up sufficient forces to defend themselves.

MARGOLIS: That answer fed the next major line of questioning senators wanted answered about the President’s new strategy. Here’s Republican James Inhofe of Oklahoma.

JAMES INHOFE: You see so many of these young, healthy Afghans that are walking the streets who ought to be in the military. What can we do differently than what we’ve done in the past to encourage a greater participation?

MARGOLIS: Gates answered that one with a monetary response.

GATES: In many instances the Taliban actually pay more than the Afghan government. And so one of the things that particularly in terms of retention is to increase their pay, and I think most people believe that will have a real impact.

MARGOLIS: Besides getting more Afghans involved, Senators pressed the Panelists how they would get NATO members to commit more troops. That’s a question the Panelists didn’t answer with any certainty, to the frustration of some Senators. Senator Graham pressed the issue, asking Secretary Gates to give the NATO allies a grade between an A and an F.

GATES: Senator, in all honesty, I don’t think any good purpose is served by doing that. I would say that those of us, those that have been fighting with us in the South, the Australians, the British, the Dutch, the Danes, the Canadians the Poles, I’d give them all an A.

MARGOLIS: Secretary Gates, Secretary Clinton and Admiral Mullen will face more questions about the Administration’s plan for Afghanistan at another committee hearing tomorrow.  For the World, I’m Jason Margolis

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ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP/Getty Images

The United States and Russia say there’s been considerable progress in talks on a new treaty to reduce their nuclear arsenals. The American Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who’s in Moscow, said the world’s two largest nuclear powers had a responsibility to show leadership on disarmament. The World’s Matthew Bell reports.

• Scaling back on nuclear weapons (Sept. 2009)
• US and Russia make nuclear pledge (July 2009)
• Q&A on nuclear disarmament (July 2009)

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MARCO WERMAN:  I’m Marco Werman, and this is The World.  Hillary Clinton is in Moscow today.  It’s her first trip to Russia as Secretary of State.  And it comes at what may be a transitional moment in US-Russian relations.  They were pretty stormy under President George W. Bush.  Barack Obama is looking for a change in the weather, and he sent his top diplomat to the Russian capital to take the next step. The World’s Matthew Bell tells us how the Clinton visit has fared.

MATTHEW BELL: Hillary Clinton came to the job of Secretary of State saying she wanted to hit the “re-set button” on US-Russian relations.  After meeting with her counterpart in Moscow today, Clinton used some diplomatic language to suggest that process is well under way.

HILLARY CLINTON: We really are committed to this relationship.  We believe strongly that working together step by step we are transforming a relationship that was once defined by the shadow of mutually assured destruction into one that is based on mutual respect, and over time, increasingly, mutual trust.

BELL: President Obama’s recent decision to scale down US missile defense plans in Eastern Europe might have been a down payment on building that mutual trust.  Moscow long considered American missile defense to be a deterrent aimed at Russia, but Secretary Clinton today described the program as an opportunity for both countries.

CLINTON: We are very interested in working with Russia to develop cooperation, including a joint threat assessment and intensified efforts to establish a joint data exchange center, as our presidents agreed to in July, as a means of making missile defense a common enterprise.

BELL:  Clinton said the common threat comes from Iran.  And when it comes to Iran’s nuclear program, she said Washington and Moscow are on the same page.

CLINTON: We believe that Iran is entitled to peaceful nuclear energy, but that it is not entitled to nuclear weapons.  Russia agrees with us on that.

BELL: But there may be some disagreement on what to do if negotiations with Iran fail.

CLINTON: We have always looked at the potential of sanctions in the event that we are not successful.

BELL:  The Russians though have been hesitant to play up the threat of new sanctions.  Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov made that point clearly today.

SERGEI LAVROV: [speaking in Russian]  Threats of sanctions, and threats of pressure right now are counterproductive.

BELL: So, was Lavrov pouring cold water on the idea that the Obama administration could expect a tougher line on sanctions for Iran?

KATHRYN STONER-WEISS: He’s throwing luke warm water.

BELL: Kathryn Stoner-Weiss is a Russia expert at Stanford University.  She says the Russians are in a tricky position with Iran.

STONER-WEISS: They can’t come out and openly declare sanctions against Iran because they have too many ties in there on a bunch of different levels, especially economically.  But they also don’t have an interest in having Iran sitting right below them, close to a very volatile area that they have an interest in as well, which is central Asia.  They don’t have a big interest in Iran having a nuclear weapon either.

BELL: Stoner-Weiss says the Russians are walking a fine line with Iran.  They want to keep selling the Iranians military equipment, oil and gas.  But they also see that there’s leverage to be gained with Washington by stepping up the pressure on the nuclear issue.  The Russian foreign minister might have had that in mind today.  He said there are no disagreements with the US over Iran’s nuclear program, because there’s nothing to disagree about. For The World, I’m Matthew Bell.

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Earlier, following talks with Congolese President Joseph Kabila, she said there should be no impunity for the perpetrators of sexual violence. The UN estimates 3,500 women have been raped in DR Congo so far this year. And in a report released to coincide with Mrs Clinton’s visit, the aid agency Oxfam said it had monitored 20 communities and found that children, some as young as four, had been raped in half of them.

Jeb Sharp will report on Clinton’s visit on The World later today, >>> click here for her award winning series on rape in Congo (Jan 2008)

Read more about the war in Congo and listen to coverage on The World

BBC coverage of Clinton’s visit in Congo