PRI's The World » Lisa Mullins

Images of 9/11 and What They Mean

The World — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 12:50:17 +0000

What do the images from Sept. 11, 2001 say about America? David Friend has studied Sept. 11th photographs and tells The World’s Lisa Mullins what they reveal after the passage of time. Friend is an editor of Vanity Fair magazine and author of “Watching The World Change: The Stories Behind the Images of 9/11.”

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Marco Werman: For many of us 9/11 was seared into our memories through images, and David Friend has studied those images. He’s a Vanity Fair editor and author of Watching the World Change: The Stories Behind the Images of 9/11. David Friend told my colleague, Lisa Mullins, that one image from 9/11 that really affected him was taken by photographer, Jerry Spagnoli.

David Friend: That day he saw the first tower coming down and he went to his roof with this old wooden box camera. The image is reversed, it’s in black and white, it looks like old time New York.

Lisa Mullins: What are we seeing in it?

Friend: One of the towers has already come down and in the foreground are some water towers and you really could be looking out on a scene from 1890. You sense that time passes, that we heal. This horrific loss of life and this terrifying event really with the passage of time we can overcome it and we can be resilient toward it, and that’s what this picture does. It crosses that gulf in time.

Mullins: Is there another image that you think of that’s been taken since 9/11 that is maybe you know, something that really strikes you as expressing the 10 years since?

Friend: The picture that really to me was the nadir since then were the Abu Ghraib pictures. And suddenly what was made plain was there was systematic torture of people who were being detained, so you really did have this sense that now we can see how America is really, the true face. Well, that’s not really the true face of America. This was really individuals documenting themselves conducting atrocious acts on other human beings, inhumane acts.

Mullins: David, if the Abu Ghraib photos are the nadir, represent the nader for you in the 10 years since 9/11, how about the Zenith?

Friend: Well, it’s not a great picture, but it’s such a curious image, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama in that team sitting watching a monitor and someone in Pakistan has a night vision scope, and they’re not in Bin Laden’s bedroom, but they’re looking at the raid from the outside as it’s happening. And this shows a real change in technology where the people who wage war can actually see the results of that action in real time.

Mullins: What in that context is the worth of these single shots that we’ve been talking about, the photographs that tell a story of intimate personal distress or enormous horror? What’s the value of these shots?

Friend: Consumers of news are skeptical. They realize that everything is subjective, there is no objective reality. And in this age where we’re very skeptical we demand pictures to prove it. People are saying show me. Show me the woman who was killed in Iran in the streets. Show me the crowds that are gathering in Tunisia. Show me the two planes hit two towers the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

Mullins: Even if reality can be distorted.

Friend: Yes, I think there’s…I think still we think in pictures, we dream in still images and so I think people are just looking for some kernel of truth.

Mullins: David, it’s always difficult to go down the what-if route, but as you point out, you know, we didn’t have Twitter in wide use then, not Facebook, digital photography was just taking hold. We had incredible sound, phone messages that were left from people who were possibly in their last minutes. We didn’t have the images. And you say, what if this was now?

Friend: Well, I think had we had in 2001 the technologies we have today, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. we would’ve seen something even more horrific. And I think what might’ve happened would’ve been that global sympathy toward the attacks might have been even greater because you were seeing not something pulled back and towers on fire, but you would’ve seen people in the immediate moment, and the the trauma might have been even more horrifying as hard as that is to imagine.

Mullins: What’s it been like for you to review these images and even to look back on the past 10 years as you update this book?

Friend: Because I live in New York and I work for Vanity Fair magazine and we’re moving down to the World Trade Center, Conde Nast, our company is the first tenant in what will be the World Trade Center in 2014, I look at it as it’s not so much the pictures and it’s not so much reliving some of the stories, it has seen the downtown area of New York be rebuilt and getting the sense of resilience and resourcefulness on the part the people of the city.

Werman: That’s David Friend, author of Watching the World Change: The Stories Behind the Images of 9/11. He spoke with my colleague, Lisa Mullins. You can see some of the iconic images from Watching the World Change at theworld.org.

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A Building Embedded With Famous Stones

The World — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 12:40:43 +0000

There are many attractive buildings in the United States. Many are made of stone. But there’s only one American building that has stones from the Taj Mahal and the Great Wall of China built into its base. There are also pieces of the Colosseum in Rome, the Great Pyramid at Giza and England’s House of Commons.

For this Geo Quiz, we want you to name the building and the city you’ll find it in.

The structure in question dates back to the 1920s. Its design was the result of a competition to create ‘the most beautiful and distinctive office building in the world.’ Stones from famous structures across the globe were embedded in the exterior walls at street level.

So, can you name the building?

The answer is the Tribune Tower in Chicago.

Political Fallout of Phone Hacking Scandal

The World — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 13:40:13 +0000

UK Prime Minister David Cameron has came under renewed pressure over the phone-hacking scandal. He apologized in the British parliament for hiring ex-News of the World editor Andy Coulson as Downing Street’s communications chief. Anchor Lisa Mullins talks to Elizabeth Rigby of the Financial Times about the political impact of the scandal on the British government. (Audio available after 5PM Eastern)

Coverage of the Phone Hacking Scandal on The World

Lisa Mullins: In Britain, it wasn’t Rupert Murdoch on the defensive today over the phone hacking scandal over at one of his newspapers, it was the Prime Minister, David Cameron’s turn to apologize. Cameron’s been dragged into the scandal because he hired a former News of the World worker, Andy Coulson, as his communications director. Andy Coulson has since resigned, but today, at an emergency meeting of parliament, the Prime Minister was still answering questions about his hire.

David Cameron(clip): Of course, I regret, and I am extremely sorry about the furory it has caused. With 20/20 hindsight, and all that has followed, I would not have offered him the job, and I expect that he wouldn’t have taken it, but you don’t make decisions in hindsight, you make them in the present. You live and you learn, and believe you me, I have learned.

Mullins: That again, Prime Minister David Cameron speaking in parliament today. Elizabeth Rigby is chief political correspondent at the financial times in London. She explains why Andy Coulson’s hire was so controversial in the first place.

Elizabeth Rigby: Andy Coulson had to resign as the editor of the News of the World in 2007 after two people were convicted of phone hacking. Cameron, then hired Andy Coulson, as his communications chief, when he was the opposition leader. When he assumed power in May, he took Andy Coulson into the heart of Downing Street. Now, it emerges, that he was advised by the deputy Prime Minister, by other senior politicians, to not take Andy Coulson into Downing Street because of these allegations around phone hacking, and they sensed that Coulson could somehow be implicated in it. And so it’s really tarnished the Prime Minister’s reputation.

Mullins: Tarnished the Prime Minister’s reputation, because he made what seems to be possibly a bad hire, or is David Cameron himself, the Prime Minister,implicated in this?

Rigby: It’s tarnished in the sense that he, it’s a catastrophic error of judgement, that he actually brought Andy Coulson into government when he was advised not to. Subsequently though, what’s beginning to emerge in the press, is that on numerous occasions, various different people, be it editors of newspapers, other politicians, tried to present evidence to mister Cameron, saying, ‘Look, Andy Coulson is tarnished, you should not have him in government.’, and he turned a blind eye to this. And so he’s been really hounded at the moment as to why he’s turned a blind eye to it, and he partly called this emergency debate today, to try and get back on the front foot with this, and re-establish his reputation and his image.

Mullins: But aside from being accused of making potentially a very bad hire by bringing Andy Coulson on, is the Prime Minister implicated in any other way?

Rigby: No. I mean, what we could say about this is for David Cameron, this is like a rash not a plague, so the Coulson connection, brings him into phone hacking in that he made a bad judgement hire in this guy, so it’s an irritation, but it’s not fatal.

Mullins: Tell us, what the American interests are here, because there are many on different spheres.

Rigby: There are two American interests here, the first one is corporate government at news core, the second one is whether American citizens, or British people in America have been victims of phone hacking. On the first issue, Rupert Murdoch, appeared in front of a select group in the House of Commons this week, and he repeatedly said he didn’t really know what was going on at the News of the World, which is not really acceptable in terms of corporate governments. So there’s a question mark now over how news core share holders, and non-executive directors, are going to chew that information over and take action or not. My sense is it’s only a matter of time, before this story tips over into the U.S.

Mullins: Elizabeth Rigby, chief political corespondent at the Financial Times, telling us about Prime Minister David Cameron’s appearance in parliament and what the hacking scandal means politically, there and here. Elizabeth, thank you.

Rigby: Thanks.

Read tweets about the UK Hacking Scandal

Music Picks For Summer 2011

The World — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 12:00:19 +0000

What are your favorite picks this summer? Let us know here.

Anchor Lisa Mullins and KCRW’s Tom Schnabel discuss their favorite summer music releases.

Tom Schnabel’s picks:

Los Chicharrons "Roots of Life"

Los Chicharrons “Roots of Life”

Arco Iris

Amina Alaoui “Arco Iris”

Africa Caribe

Joaquin Clausell “Fania Remixes”

Lisa Mullins picks:

The Celtic Viol II

Jordi Savall “The Celtic Viol II”

Mayhem

Imelda May “Mayhem”

Carving Out the Meaning of the USDA’s “My Plate”

The World — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 20:05:46 +0000

My Plate (Image: USDA)

Lisa Mullins talks with Nicola Twilley, author of the blog Edible Geography, about the US Agriculture Dept.’s new “My Plate” symbol and other nutritional guideline symbols used around the world.

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Lisa Mullins: The food pyramid is out. Today, the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture officially replaced its symbol of healthy eating. Say hello to My Plate. The new symbol is as the name suggests, shaped like a dinner plate. It’s divided into quadrants. USDA officials think it’s a better way to convey nutritional guidelines to people than the old food pyramid. Nicola Twilley writes a blog called Edible Geography. It’s about food, design and culture. She’s now in San Diego. What’s your own reaction to this new My Plate symbol?

Nicola Twilley: I’m pretty impressed actually. They’ve eliminated fats, sugars, and oils, and by using a plate you can start talking about portion size and also eating practices — eating full meals rather than snacks.

Mullins: And what’s on the plate?

Twilley: Proteins, vegetables, fruits, and grains. The dairy is a circle, which implies that it’s a glass of milk actually maybe, or a yogurt cup, not a slice of cheese.

Mullins: Now, I know you’ve done research into the symbols that other countries use to represent nutritional guidelines. Compare this plate, My Plate, to some of the others you see elsewhere.

Twilley: Well, Germany has a very interesting pyramid, but they’ve made it a 3-dimensional pyramid, with the base of the pyramid talking about proportions and then either side talking about plants, animals, fats, beverages. There’s some other countries that do pyramids too. Japan does one. They invert it. China has a pagoda for its food guidelines. And then a lot of other countries do do a circle or plate format; the UK, Netherlands, Norway.

Mullins: And you have a slideshow, a pretty interesting one, of some of these other countries’ guidelines and their graphics. We’re gonna link to in fact, at theworld.org. Curious to us that one of the countries in the slideshow was Greece, where you note that olive oil gets an entire level of its own on the food pyramid, and that the chart seems to show red wine as being equally important as exercise. Is that a cultural thing? Is that a sign that the red wine lobby in Greece is alive and well?

Twilley: I think it’s a cultural thing. The nutritional guidelines and the design presentation are both very culturally different in different places. Spain also has a separate section for olive oil and rates it as important as fruits and vegetables in the diet. The French do prescribe two glasses of wine daily for women, three for men, which you would expect. The Swiss have a rather charming approach to the foods that are usually at the tip of the pyramid, the fats and sugars, they say consumer carefully, but with pleasure — which I quite like.

Mullins: This is soda, and cake, and chips, you gotta love the Swiss. You’d think that fondue would be in there someplace, but maybe that’s in the dairy section.

Twilley: Yeah, they are actually pro-cheese on their pyramid. They have an interesting approach. Some countries include beverages. The Swiss put water at the very base of their pyramid, so that should be the thing that you consume the most of.

Mullins: So what guides what the symbols look like and most importantly, what they contain? Because we should say that the emphasis on the new American My Plate symbol is simplicity, but really the politics that go into what’s on the plate or on the pyramid are anything but simple.

Twilley: Yeah, the business of recommending certain foods to people and recommending other foods that they don’t eat is fraught. In the U.S. traditionally the government is freely able to say eat more of something, eat more vegetables. What is harder is saying eat less, red meat, for example, or salt; that gets you know, the Salt Institute or the red meat lobby very upset. So in the UK there’s an ongoing debate about the place of potatoes. Are they a vegetable, are they a grain? And powerful producer and farming lobbies are behind those, which usually have more money to spend than the physicians’ committees that are advocating reduction.

Mullins: Nicola Twilley writes the Edible Geography blog. We’re gonna make a link on our website at theworld.org. Thanks, Nicola.

Twilley: Thanks, Lisa.

Forum: Are Insects the Food of the Future?

Rhitu Chatterjee — Thu, 19 May 2011 20:15:05 +0000

Crickets, beetles and ants may not be your idea of good meal, but they are considered a delicacy in many tropical countries. Dutch entomologist Arnold van Huis would like to see people in Western countries embrace insects as food. He explains why to The World’s Lisa Mullins. Van Huis is taking your questions in the latest online science forum discussion.

Download MP3

Join our latest science forum

Haiti: A country re-divided?

Amy Bracken — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 09:00:49 +0000

Just a note for the record: In a recent interview, Lisa Mullins asked me about Aristide’s popularity. My reply suggested that if one digs down, one might find the occasional, quiet, non-enthusiast. While this reflected my experience near the airport on March 17, 2011, the day of the former president’s return to Haiti, I’m afraid it glossed over important recent history. I should have mentioned that in the months preceding his departure in 2004 there was a robust anti-Aristide movement in Port-au-Prince, with demonstrations almost daily, with the number of marches at times reaching some 20,000. And they were met by similarly sized pro-Aristide demonstrations.

The vast majority of protestors on both sides were peaceful. Generally, the violence was committed by pro-Aristide gang members in Port-au-Prince and by anti-Aristide gang members and ex-military in Gonaives and elsewhere. But occasionally a peaceful demonstration turned violent, as when a pro-Aristide activist was brutally beaten by a crowd of opposition demonstrators – an incident that was caught on tape. What’s more, leadership in and out of the government too often fanned the flames of division and mutual distrust rather than trying to unify the country.

Seven years later, on March 17, some of the one time anti-Aristide demonstrators were unhappy to know that their former enemy was back on home turf, but many shrugged it off as a citizen’s right of return. On the Aristide front, people have largely moved on, and it’s easy to forget how polarized the country was then, and how dangerous it could be to affiliate with one side or the other in certain parts of town at certain times.

Then again, history repeats itself in Haiti. The demonstrations that followed the fraudulent first round of presidential and parliamentary elections four months ago turned violent, and Port-au-Prince residents described the climate as scarier than 2004. This time a camera captured the shooting death of one demonstrator by another.

Now, with the results of the second round of the vote due out on Monday, and with findings, again, of widespread fraud, the electoral council has asked for calm. Let’s hope those vying for the top job show their leadership skills by bringing peace and unity so Haiti doesn’t keep repeating 2004.

Fighting war and waging peace

The World — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 19:55:49 +0000

Rye Barcott with Tabitha's oldest son Kevin and her best friend Jane Atieno. The new Tabitha Clinic rises up behind Kevin, March 2010-photocredit-Beth-Ann Kutchma(Photo: Rye Barcott)

Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with Rye Barcott about his memoir, “It Happened on the Way to War: A Marine’s Path to Peace.” Barcott was a Marine captain in Iraq, but he learned more about ethnic violence and how to prevent it when he moved into one of the biggest slums in Africa, called Kibera.
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Lisa Mullins: When Rye Barcott was thirteen years old his parents decided he should see more of the world so they traveled from their rural town in Rhode Island to the Middle East and to Kenya. He says he’ll never forget the sight of kids sifting through a mountain of junk in a traffic circle in Nairobi.

Rye Barcott: Many of them had small bottles in their mouths with industrial strength glue that they were inhaling and one little girl had a baby bound to her back and she was walking up to these cars as they were swerving and blaring their horns with her hands out. And I remember just wanting to help her; wanting to do something; give her some of the money from mowing lawns that I had made that summer. But before I could do that it felt volatile and insecure and so my mom and I turned around and we walked back to the hotel. And my mom said something that I’ll never forget. “There’s a lot of pain in the world,” she said, “and you should try and help when you can.”

Mullins: It was that advice to help when you can that eventually brought Rye to another place in Kenya, Kibera, one of the largest slums in the world. Hundreds of thousands of people are crammed into an area the size of Central Park in New York. In the year 2000, Rye Barcott was a marine. He joined the corp to pay for college. He went to Kibera as a student to study ethnic rivalry and how it might be prevented. Barcott figured to stay there would serve him well in the marines. He learned Swahili and he moved into a ten by ten foot tin shack in the Kibera slum.

Barcott: It was completely overwhelming. The noise was everywhere. It was a cacophony. And you’re separated from your neighbors by a thin piece of tin that’s no thicker than your thumbnail.

Mullins: And you thrust yourself into that life. I mean you lived in the slum. You made friends with and associations with lots of people there but specifically Tabitha Festo and Saline Mohammed, two very different people. Briefly tell us how you became friends with and associates with both of them.

Barcott: Well Saline Mohammed was a young leader in a neighboring sports program called the Mathara Youth Sports Association. And I went there and to this other slum because what really impressed me about it was that it was a sports program using soccer to promote community development and youth leadership but it was led by young people from the slum, not outsiders. And Saline was one of those young people and he was about my age and you know, we didn’t share a lot in common. He’d had grown up on the streets, he was Muslim, he was a pacifist, physically we looked very different. He was about 100 pounds soaking wet. But for whatever reason we really connected when I showed up without an appointment and walked into his office. And I think one of the reasons we connected was because he pushed back. You know, at the end of my interview he said, “You know, you’re going to leave this office with research but what are you going to give back? What’s the community going to see in return?” And those words from Saline really stayed with me and sometimes, in someways they kind of haunted me for the next few months before I reached back out to him on email and said, “Okay, buddy, let’s try and do something…”

Mullins: He so pushed your buttons.

Barcott: “together.” Yes, he did. He’s very savvy. The other co-founder of our organization was another person who I met named Tabitha Festo and she confronted me as well and she said, “You know, you’re asking all of these young people about their problems, [Speaking (Swahili)]. I got big problems too.” She was a widow with three kids. She had formally been a nurse but lost her job when the government downsized it’s spending and she’d been jobless for two years. And towards the end of that conversation she confronted me and said, “You know, you should give me $2,000 shillings;” about $26. I’d made a habit of not giving out any money so I asked her what she was planning on doing with it and she told me that she wanted to start a vegetable selling business.

Mullins: And these are like spinach greens that are a staple there?

Barcott: Exactly. [Speaking (Swahili)] is what’s it’s called, collard greens basically.

Mullins: But that wasn’t her intent ultimately?

Barcott: Right. She didn’t tell me this but her real dream in life was to start a small medical clinic. For whatever reason I gave her the money. I didn’t think I’d see her again and I returned back the next summer, I was a second lieutenant in the marines on leave for three months to start this nongovernmental organization. The marine corp was remarkably supportive of this. And Tabitha found me and sort of silently grabbed my hand and went zigzagging through these ally ways and she took me to her ten by ten foot shack which she had converted into a medical clinic, in the heart of Kibera, that treats over 40,000 patients a year.

Mullins: I want to get to the other part of your life and that is your service in human intelligence in Iraq because for many people I think the juxtaposition of the two is an odd one; of the service and sense of purpose that you brought to Kibera and then to the marine corp. You said Kibera happened on the way to war. What happened in war?

Barcott: Well after founding Carolina for Kibera I went on and spent five years in the marine corp as a human intelligence officer and led small teams of marines into Bosnia, the horn of Africa, and Iraq. And I recognize that there’s also a contrast here that really is striking and difficult for people to reconcile and that idea that I was in some ways waging peace while fighting war. But the thing was I really didn’t see them as mutually exclusive. Many military men and women in particular have a fuller sense of the value and fragility of peace than others. I mean in the marine corp we talked about the three block war which was the idea that you could seamlessly shift from combat to peacekeeping operations to humanitarian aid delivery in the course of seconds, a city block. And I thought that I’d be particularly well prepared for that and to lead marines into that because of my experience in Kibera. But what I found was that it was just really difficult. I was too busy scouring the waistlines of young kids for concealed weapons to even imagine kicking a soccer ball with them. And so what I left with was a really profound sense of both the strengths as well as the very large limitations to the use of military force. It’s very difficult to build trust when you’re covered in body armor and carrying a weapon. And in the end we’re not very good at preventing violence even though that is so much more cost effective in terms of life and dollars. And I think that’s a really important point. There’s an inextricable link between development and our global security.

[Singing (Swahili)]

Mullins: Rye Barcott’s memoir is called “It Happened on the Way to War: A Marine’s Path to Peace.” The group he helped found Carolina for Kibera continues to help Kibera residents run a soccer league and more. You can see all sorts of stuff, including videos about Carolina for Kibera and it’s ten years of work in Kenya, at theworld.org.

[Singing (Swahili)]

Shadowy graffiti artist causing stir in LA

The World — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 20:45:24 +0000

The signature work of the British graffiti artist known as Banksy is showing up in Los Angeles. He’s rumored to be in town for the Oscars. Anchor Lisa Mullins has more on what kind of mischief the mysterious artist has been causing. Download MP3

Banksy homepage

Robert Springborg on the Egyptian Military

Jeb Sharp — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 10:58:39 +0000

We continue our coverage of Egypt on How We Got Here, The World’s history podcast. On this episode Lisa Mullins interviews Robert Springborg of the Naval Post-Graduate School in Monterey about the role and structure of the Egyptian military. All the coverage and analysis suggests the military will play a key role in any transition of power. Robert Springborg says it may appear that the military sides with “the people” but in fact, President Mubarak is still very much in control, for now. Download MP3

More on this topic from Andrew McGregor for The Jamestown Foundation and Josh Rogin at The Cable and Joshua Stacher in Foreign Affairs.

Lisa Mullins Podcast: Egypt

Lisa Mullins — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 10:00:58 +0000

A couple of years ago, I went to Egypt to visit some friends in Cairo.

Sure, it was a personal visit. But it never hurts to pack a tape recorder, does it? After all, it’s small and with the right kind of suitcase.

Once I landed at Cairo International Airport, it was a matter of minutes before I yielded to temptation, pulled out the recorder and let it roll.

Over the next ten days, I emptied the pre-packed batteries and more, as I recorded anywhere I could — in Islamic Cairo, the heart of the ancient city — in Coptic Cairo, the core of the indigenous Christian community — in the silver shops and nooks of the Khan al-Khalili, the fantastic medieval mall — in Luxor at the Temples of Karnak — and on a felucca ride down the Nile.

I want to turn some of these audio snapshots in to future podcasts, to help round out what we’re all hearing and seeing from Egypt these days. I want to include conversations I had with Egyptians I met throughout the trip, too.

But for this podcast, I’m staying on US soil. I wanted to get a broader perspective on the protests in Egypt this week and what they may yield — even after the violence subsides.

So it was a lucky break to find myself in the same room several days ago with prominent thinkers in the world of international affairs, US foreign policy, democracy and religion: Robert Hefner, who directs the Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs at Boston University.

I also spoke to Monica Toft, associate of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Finally you’ll hear from Noah Feldman, of Harvard Law School.

It was just what I wanted: big thinkers weighing-in on the big picture.

It’s just one more slice of the complex picture. But I hope it gets you thinking, too.

Remembering a pioneer in the fight against river blindness

The World — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 20:50:07 +0000

French entomologist Rene Le Berre passed away earlier this month. He led efforts to eradicate the disease known as river blindness from the African continent. Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with Dr. Joel Breman, a friend of Le Berre and a tropical disease expert at the National Institutes of Health. Download MP3

Lisa Mullins: A medical pioneer passed away earlier this month. His name was Renee Leber and he was a French entomologist, who helped free millions of people in Africa from a disease known as river blindness. The disease involves parasitic worms that invade victims ultimately causing them to go blind. Dr. Joel Bremen knew Renee Leber very well. Bremen is a tropical disease expert at the Fogherty International center of the national institutes of health. How did you both first.

Joel Bremen: We met in 1972, when i arrived with my family to live in Bobojulasso, ex-Upper Volta today Burkina Faso. And he was working on river blindness and I was working on smallpox eradication and measles control.

Mullins: Well we’ve gone a considerable way since that time thanks to your efforts and uh, certainly Renee Leber’s efforts and we’ve come a long way in terms of dealing with those diseases. His primary focus was as you say River blindness. What did he do to nearly eradicate the cases of River Blindness.

Bremen: Well he started out as a very young man by a old looking at where the, the fly, the black had carried the parasitic worm lived, and bred, and bit humans. So he spent many, many years traveling around Africa to finding that. And then just by chance he had a chance to meet someone who had the wherewithal to fight this terrible disease. He also found that a particular type of insecticide could kill the larva that is the early form of the fly in the water where it bred, and actually stop transmission of the disease.

Mullins: And that was his approach as an entomologist. Now you said there was a key figure there who enable him to do what he did to help fight river blindness. The key figure was the former us secretary of defense Robert McNamara, who was at the time in 1972, president of the World Bank. They actually had a meeting in Burkina Faso. They met, he saw photographs of people who had river blindness at that point McNamara said that he will, would give one hundred twenty million dollars for a campaign to fight river blindness. How unusual was it for somebody like Doctor Renee Leber to be able to not only do the scientific research but also secure the funding and then implement this program on the ground.

Bremen: Virtually unheard of. What you’ve just said is actually what occurred, didn’t all occur to in one of famous three-hour meeting but certainly convincing McNamara of that, at a small town, backwater place in a forgotten land and talking about basically forgotten people was exactly what occurred. Leber showed McNamara some of the pictures that you mention, took McNamara and his wife on the plane ride around showing them the villages and the places where they got infected.

Mullins: So, there was a long-term, insecticide spraying strategy that was implemented with this money from the world bank. how successful was it.

Bremen: Resoundingly successful. Um, the organization of the program was masterful there were literally thousands of workers in ultimately these thirty countries of started with seven countries in West Africa and went to eleven. And now there’s still thirty countries looking into the most ambitious goal that is completely eliminating it at some time.

Mullins: Well thank you very much, Dr. Joel Bremen, tropical disease expert remembering his friend, Renee Leber, the French entomologist, who helped fight to free millions of people in Africa from a disease known as River Blindness. Thank you very much, Dr. Bremen.

Bremen: You’re entirely welcome.

UN ends sanctions against Iraq

The World — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 20:55:19 +0000

The UN Security Council today lifted key sanctions against Iraq, 19 years after they were put imposed. One former UN diplomat says the sanctions harmed civilian population more than anyone else. Anchor Lisa Mullins has details. Download MP3

Kosovo leaders ‘run crime network’

The World — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 21:20:22 +0000

President Bush with Kosovo leaders in 2008 (Photo: White House)

It’s never good when a friend is accused of serious crimes. And a US friend – the new Balkan nation of Kosovo – is about to face some very serious accusations. A report is due to be presented to the Council of Europe tomorrow that says the government of Kosovo is a mafia-like group. The report states that Kosovo’s leaders have been involved in drug-trafficking, arms-smuggling, and even organ harvesting.

The US helped install and legitimize this government after the war with Serbia in 1999. A copy of the report was obtained by the British newspaper, The Guardian, and by the US-based Center for Investigative Reporting. Lisa Mullins talks with Michael Montgomery who is a journalist with the Center. Download MP3

Montgomery also reported for this program last year on abuses by Kosovar guerrillas in the aftermath of the 1999 war, including secret detention, murder, and organ harvesting.
Download MP3

LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World. It’s never a good thing when a friend is accused of serious crimes and a U.S. friend, the new Balkan nation of Kosovo is about to face some very serious accusations. A report is due to be presented to the Council of Europe, tomorrow that says that the government of Kosovo is a Mafia like group. The report, commissioned by the Council of Europe states that Kosovo’s leaders have been involved in drug trafficking, arm smuggling and even organ harvesting. A copy of the report was obtained by the British newspaper, the Guardian and by the U.S. based Center for Investigative Reporting. Michael Montgomery is a journalist with the Center. You reported, Michael, for this program last year on abuses by the Kosovar guerrillas in the aftermath of the 1999 war, including secret detention, murder, organ harvesting. Can you tell us, briefly, what the connection is right now between those guerrillas, the Kosovar Liberation Army and the current government of Kosovo?

MICHAEL MONTGOMERY: Well, the allegation here from the Council of Europe report is that there’s a network that was created in the run up to the Kosovo war more than 10 years ago by a group of, I think, Albanian guerrillas and that network is essentially proliferated in postwar Kosovo. To the extent that it has a significant grip on the control of institutions, ministries, the police and other elements in Kosovo and the allegation is that the figure at the center of that network and the report refers to him as something akin to a Mafia boss, is the current Prime Minister, Hashim Thaçi.

MULLINS: These are allegations only and these are not any charges that we’re talking about right now. This is not a judicial investigation. What we’re talking about is a leaked report that’s making these allegations that have been made in the past. So, is there any new evidence?

MONTGOMERY: Yes, there is new evidence here. And what, I think, is new is that the Council of Europe investigator, Dick Marty, appears to have penetrated the inner circle of this alleged network. There is direct testimony, disturbing testimony that Mr. Marty’s team has gotten which describes the executions of prisoners, gunshots to the head and the removal of their bodies to makeshift clinics where their organs were extracted.

MULLINS: The Kosovo government is denying these charges. What specifically is said to you or to Dick Marty, who wrote this report?

MONTGOMERY: Well, the Kosovo government and certainly Hashim Thaçi, we interviewed him last year, are strongly denying the allegations. They say that these are allegations that have been around for years. They say that they are based in part on Serbian propaganda or propaganda being circulated by people who were trying to derail Kosovo’s independence or besmirch the reputation of the Kosovo Liberation Army, which is widely respected in Kosovo, having many people believe liberated the province from Serbia.

MULLINS: Bring the United States into the conversation right now because the U.S. helped install and legitimize this government of Kosovo after the war with Serbia in 1999?

MONTGOMERY: Well, the report lays out this idea and we have seen this elsewhere. We’ve seen it in Afghanistan and in Iraq, and that is that in order to ensure a kind of short term stability in a place that has experienced conflict, you sometimes have to do it, deal with the devil, so to speak, and you really have to not focus too much on justice or pursuing war crimes cases because your partners in building stability may very well be people who are implicated in some of these crimes. That doesn’t mean that the U.S. was necessarily aware of these macabre allegations of organ harvesting and covered them up. On the contrary, there’ve been efforts by diplomats from a number of countries including the U.S. to try to get to the bottom of this. The problem is there are no structures to really take this on. There’s no criminal investigative body that has the power to force Albania to cooperate or to force Kosovo or any of these other countries implicated in the trade, to cooperate. And I think we may see calls for some kind of international criminal inquiry to take on these allegations.

MULLINS: That’s Michael Montgomery of the Center for Investigative Reporting. He reported at length on these issues for our program last year. You can hear his reporting at theworld.org.

The US relationship with Kosovo

The World — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 21:00:20 +0000

Retired Army Major-General William Nash was the United Nation’s civil administrator in Kosovo in 2000. He says Washington should re-examine its close relationship with Kosovo’s government. Download MP3

Lisa Mullins: After the 1999 war in Kosovo, the man who took on the job of United Nations civil administrator there was U.S. Retired Army Major General William Nash. He says that achieving stability was a top priority.

William Nash: There was insufficient effort to establish order and the rule of law from the very beginning.

Mullins: General Nash says that during his time in Kosovo, he heard a stream of allegations about Kosovo officials, including the current prime minister, Hashim Thaçi.

Nash: And there were some people, and Thaci certainly was one that was mentioned at the time, that were suspect of very tough behavior, at the very least, during the war.

Mullins: So bring us to now. Should the international community, should certainly the United States at this point, still enjoy the warm relations it has with Hashim Thaçi? He is welcomed in Washington. Should he get diplomatic and financial backing still from Washington?

Nash: It has been my opinion for a long time, to include when I worked for the United Nations, that the United States was overly supportive of folks that had not necessarily demonstrated their commitment to the ideals for which we were working.

Mullins: And Hashim Thaçi would be one, the prime minister of Kosovo?

Nash: Yes.

Mullins: What should the U.S. be doing right now, then?

Nash: Well, I think the United States today should be supporting a thorough, comprehensive, complete investigation of the charges. And it’s time to either produce the goods or stop the talk.

Mullins: Why isn’t that happening?

Nash: I can’t tell you that.

Mullins: What do you do, I mean, you know the politics on the ground. Why wouldn’t it happen?

Nash: One of the reasons, and this is supposition on my part, but because the nature of the Balkan wars and the role of Slobodan Milosevic in bringing about this conflagration and the cruelties that took place, that some people may have tended to excuse misbehavior by others, other than the Serbs. And I thought that was a serious mistake, and it had many arguments over even-handed approach to some of the post-conflict efforts.

Mullins: So they’d look the other way in terms of what the KLA was doing.

Nash: Well, looked the other way is such a clear cut expression. But the fact of the matter is, there was a prejudice against the Serbs to the favor of, quote, the freedom fighters of Kosovo.

Mullins: Is that the only thing they could do in terms of expedience to get the fighting to stop? Or are there other options? Presumably the United Nations, NATO, knew what the prime minister of Kosovo, Hashim Thaçi, was up to.

Nash: See, I don’t necessarily think that’s a safe assumption, Lisa. Because he certainly was not transparent in his misbehaviors. Nor was anyone else in their misbehaviors, other than at times some of the Serb forces. But the fact of the matter is, is that Kosovo was a continuation of circumstances that had begun seven, eight years earlier, nine years earlier in the greater Yugoslavia

Mullins: So at this point now, given what â€“ at least what the charges are in terms of Hashim Thaçi, the prime minister of Kosovo, being part of an organized crime network that engaged in illegal trafficking, including organ harvesting, what becomes the obligation of Washington, of the United Nations, to deal now with this unsavory character that it’s been dealing with since the Kosovo war?

Nash: I would caution you that to date we’ve had more accusation than evidence. And so the path forward is the presentation of evidence and the examination of that evidence as to the likelihood its truthful.

Mullins: But clearly you are saying that this is not a good relationship, being a warm relationship.

Nash: Well, I would recommend more caution and a more reserved relationship while this is under investigation.

Mullins: That’s retired Army Major General William Nash, who was the U.N. civil administrator in Kosovo in the year 2000. He also commanded 25,000 soldiers from 12 nations, whose job it was to enforce the Dayton Peace Accords in Bosnia Herzegovina. We contacted the U.S. State Department for this story but we did not receive a comment from the Department in time for this broadcast.