I have not been to Islamabad, or even Pakistan, in over two and a half years. After the killing of Osama bin Laden by American special forces last year, visas were hard to come by. Still, I managed to get a visa last week, just in time to accept an unusual invitation.

It came in an email just after Christmas. Former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf, who has been living in self-imposed exile in London and Dubai since leaving politics in 2008. But Musharraf planned to stage a return to both active politics and Pakistan with a high-profile flight into Karachi planned at the end of January. I, along with a number of other journalists, was invited to buy a ticket for what promised to be a dramatic return.

After all, I had been in Karachi on October 18, 2007, when Benazir Bhutto returned from her own self-imposed exile to contest elections. The streets were jammed with hundreds of thousands of cheering supporters. As Bhutto’s convoy crawled along its route, I waited under an overpass. Realizing she was still more than an hour away, I returned to my hotel to file my report.

I saw the explosions happen, at the very spot I had been standing earlier, on the television in my room. 139 people died, 450 others were injured.

Bhutto herself was unhurt, though when I interviewed her two days later, she complained that her ears were still ringing from the blasts. Still, she vowed to carry on. And she did, until she was assassinated just over two months later on December 27th.

In Pakistan’s tumultuous and dramatic political stage, the ghost of Bhutto undeniably haunted Musharraf’s planned return. Even as the preparations grew more intense the government, (headed by Bhutto’s widower Asif Ali Zardari ), made it clear Musharraf would be arrested if he returned, on charges relating to the death of Bhutto.

Musharraf’s officials insisted the former president was not deterred. He admitted he knew the risk but planned to go anyway. So I booked a flight to Dubai, still not certain he would actually take the gamble, not certain I would see the former president who seized power in a coup return to try to cloak himself in the mantle of democracy.

On Friday, as I flew from London, Musharraf’s top advisers did the talking for him. He would not return at this time, they said; instead he would wait for better conditions inside the country.

That does not mean there aren’t plenty of other stories of political intrigue to tell from inside Pakistan. There is the continuing power struggle between the government, the military and the judiciary that is threatening to destabilize the country even further. There is the deteriorating state of relations between the US and Pakistan, exacerbated by American drone strikes, a cross border attack that left Pakistani soldiers dead and of course, the daring American mission to kill Osama bin Laden.

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s admission that a Pakistani doctor helped the CIA by collecting evidence of bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan probably will not help. Nor will Panetta’s thinly veiled criticism of Pakistani officials for holding the doctor in custody pending potential charges of treason.

And so that is why Musharraf’s change of plans did not deter me, it simply meant buying the ticket that brought me to Islamabad in the middle of the night. Now I can only hope it will not take too long for Musharraf to reimburse me for the flight that never happened.

“Patience,” I say to myself.

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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman, this is The World. Tensions between Tehran and the west continue to rise. Iran concluded 10 days of war games in the Persian Gulf today, but not before firing off two long ranges missiles. Iran’s pushing back against US sanctions on its central bank. Those sanctions were prompted by Iran’s refusal to halt its uranium enrichment program. Iran is widely being seen as flexing its military muscle right now as a potential precursor to shutting down the Strait of Hormuz. Twenty percent of the world’s oil passes through the strait. The BBC’s Mohsen Asgari joins us from Tehran. Mohsen, why is Iran holding these missile tests now?

Mohsen Asgari: The timing is quite interesting because these military exercises are taking place exactly at the time that the west and particularly America is increasing the pressures over Iran and particularly Iran’s economy. Iran is trying to send various messages to the outside world to say that on the one hand it is ready to defend itself in one way or another, and on the other side of the story we can hear that Iranian top nuclear negotiators have sent letters or are going to send letters to the 5-plus-1 countries to set the stage for the fresh round of nuclear talks in order to decrease tensions.

Werman: I also want to ask you Mohsen about another troubling bit of news out of Iran, at least as far as the west is concerned.

Iranian TV Announcer: [speaking Arabic]

Werman: Now, this announcement on Iranian state-controlled TV is saying that researchers have produced Iran’s first nuclear fuel rods. The announcer is saying here that the rods have been inserted into the core of Tehran’s research nuclear reactor. Mohsen, is this a big step in Iranian nuclear technology?

Asgari: Potentially it’s a bigger step for Iran and also it can raise a lot of concerns on the western side, but it is exactly an incarnation of the same policy to increase Iran’s bargaining power in the run up to the new round of nuclear negotiations. And on the other side of this story Iran wants to say that it has progressed enough in nuclear activities so it cannot hold uranium enrichment or it cannot change its policy.

Werman: I mean for the west this news about the nuclear fuel rods will be provocative. How are Iranians reacting to all of this? I mean it can all be kind of contained under the heading Save a Rattling, I mean they know how these national actions and the back and forth can escalate.

Asgari: That’s right, Iran has adopted a strategy of carrot on a stick; on the one side they sent letter to the west announcing that they are read to sit on the negotiating table, to talk about nuclear tensions, and on the other side Iran is trying to show its power on testing missiles and also on nuclear activities and the progress that it has achieved through nuclear activities.

Werman: Is all this making common Iranians nervous?

Asgari: Common Iranians they are upset with their economic problems at the moment. They know that the sanctions have caused a lot of problems for them. They have heard about nuclear activities and they understood this story from this angle of vision that the west is against Iran’s progress. This is what is advertised on and off on Iran’s state TV. So they are obsessed with their economic problems because inflation rate is going up, unemployment is torturing. They are obsessed with these problems and they don’t pay attention to military exercise or these uranium enrichment at first in the same way that the western people may look at it.

Werman: So the economy is what’s dominating the lives of most Iranians right now is what you’re saying. How bad is it?

Asgari: It is bad because Mr. Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president, has cut all the subsidies that used to be allocated for electricity, petrol and bread, so when they cut these subsidies they put huge pressure on the people and especially on the working class of the society because the salary of these people has not increased, but the price of goods and cost of life has drastically increased. So the people if you come to Tehran’s streets, you’ll see that people are working three shifts in a day and they are looking for ways to earn more money you know, for their families. And it is interesting that the fluctuation of foreign exchange rate in Iran has become a huge story these days. People are rushing to banks and foreign exchange centers in order to buy US dollar, keep those US dollars in order to sell it at a higher rate later. So these are not the signs that shows that Iran’s economy is suffering from bad diseases these days.

Werman: The BBC’s Mohsen Asgari speaking with us from Tehran, thank you very much indeed.

Asgari: My pleasure.

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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: For a perspective on what this EU deal means for the global economy, we turn to Mark Weisbrot. He’s Co-Director of the Center for Economic Policy Research in Washington. He also writes a weekly newspaper column on economic and policy issues. Mark, you’ve compared the European financial mess to a house on fire. Explain that for us.

Mark Weisbrot: Well, it is kind of like a house on fire in the sense that the financial crisis there is already slowing the European economy. In fact, according to the OECD, the Eurozone is already in recession. The United States, they lowered their projection for the U.S. economy from 3% to 2% for next year. They lowered the forecast for Russia, China, Brazil and most of the world. So, the house is on fire and the owners are basically arguing about fire safety regulations for the future and they’re not even really getting that right. Meanwhile you also have… to take the analogy further, you have the fire chief – that’s the European Central Bank – saying that he’s not going to touch or let anybody touch the fire hose until he gets what he wants.

Werman: But doesn’t this agreement essentially show that the European leaders are not letting the house burn down, they are taking this seriously?

Weisbrot: No, because they are not doing what needs to be done in the short term. The whole cause of the acute crisis that is slowing the world economy right now and threatening to cause the second world recession in 3 years is the bond market for Italy and Spain. The markets are afraid that the European authorities are going to do to Italy what they did to Greece where they set in motion this process where the government cut spending, the economy shrinks, revenues to the government fall because the economy shrinks and then they have to cut more. And meanwhile, the interest rates on their bonds go up to unsustainable levels because bond holders begin to believe that they are not going to be able to pay their debt. That is the real problem and the European Central Bank has the ability to end that crisis right now simply by buying Italian and Spanish bonds. It wouldn’t even have to buy that many if they just set a guarantee on the interest rate.

Werman: Won’t the stricter fiscal and financial discipline implicit in this new agreement help to prevent further ‘Italys’ and ‘Spains’ and the EU from going bust?

Weisbrot: No, because the fiscal tightening is what’s made this crisis worse. Look at Greece. What happened there, they had a deficit of 115% of GDP when they signed their first IMF agreement early last year, and now it’s 162% because they shrunk the economy by cutting spending. I mean, that problem could have been resolved very easily a year and a half ago. Now they could cancel 60% – 70% of their debt and they would still default. This is the fear in the financial market, is that the same thing is going to happen to Italy. That’s why they really have to change course, and the most important part of that is just buying up the Italian and Spanish bonds to make sure that those interest rates don’t rise to unsustainable levels as they did in the case of Greece and Ireland and Portugal.

Werman: Do you think European leaders still don’t fully grasp the gravity of the situation there? Or, are they just politically unwilling to accept tough medicine?

Weisbrot: I don’t know if they don’t understand the gravity of it, but they have these goals. They want Italy to cut its budget, to raise the retirement age, to do all these…and the other countries as well – Spain, Greece…to make these very unpopular changes that people would never vote for. And so, what they are doing is they are saying, “If you don’t do these things, we are going to let your interest rates rise, the interest rates on your bonds go up to the point where you will be at the brink of default.” So they are playing a game of brinkmanship and chicken, and they’ve been doing this for the last year and a half. You can see for yourself, this is the fifth time that the leaders have met and come to agreement, and each time they have an agreement they don’t do enough to resolve the problem. That’s why this is going to go on, most likely, for years to come.

Werman: Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director of the Center for Economic Policy Research in Washington, thanks for explaining this to us.

Weisbrot: Thank you.

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

Burmese cartoonist Harn Lay shows what Hillary Clinton is stepping through and around in making her historic trip to Burma. Harn Lay is the staff cartoonist for The Irrawaddy, an independent news source published in Thailand by Burmese exiles.

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Join the conversation here

China hasn’t always had the best reputation with food safety.

Should we trust it? Or is it a problem of perception?

Host Marco Werman talks with Mitch Lipka, the consumer columnist with the Boston Globe and Reuters.

Issues of food safety have global ramifications. Which got us wondering about the precautions YOU might take at the supermarket.

Are there certain imported foods that you stay away from?

Clinton did concede that sanctions are a blunt instrument.

“I am aware that from time to time, certain sanctions can be difficult for totally innocent people going about their daily lives. But I would ask you to put yourself in the position of the international community and those who seek a better future inside Iran.”

One group of Iranians whose daily lives are being made more difficult by sanctions is Iranian students studying in the US.

When “Sarah” flew to San Francisco from Iran, she and her father were carrying $30,000 in cash.

“Handbags. I put it in my handbag, and my father put it in his carry on.”

I asked if that made her a bit, well, nervous?

“Yea, a little bit nervous, yea.”

Sarah was carrying stacks of hundred dollar bills because she needed the money to pay for her graduate studies. It’s not illegal to carry in large sums of cash. You just have to declare anything over $10,000.

Sarah had to do this because US sanctions imposed last year restrict Iranian banks from transferring more than $100 to American banks.

Sarah didn’t want to use her real name. Neither did her father. He lives in Tehran but was visiting Los Angeles when we spoke.

Speaking through a translator, he said he sent another $90,000 to Sarah through a third party. They wired money to his daughter from Turkey or Kuwait. Sarah’s father wasn’t sure which country the middle man used.

In the end, Sarah got the money to pay for her tuition, books and housing. But she and her father argue that the process was more than just an inconvenience. For instance, if something were to happen with the money transfer and Sarah was late with her tuition, she’d be in violation of her visa, and could be deported.

The US government wants Iranian students to come here. After all, they’re paying good money and serving as cultural ambassadors. Sarah’s father says the newest sanctions discriminate against average Iranians.

Banafsheh Akhlaghi

“The intention behind the sanction is to support democracy, eliminate the aiding and abetting of further national security issues. It’s not to have this young lady, Sarah, have difficulty in being able to be an international student here. I can’t imagine that the policymakers sat around the tables and thought that that’s the way in which they’re going to be able to get us to a safer nation, a safer global environment.”

“It’s very unfortunate that Iranian students, or Iranian citizens, should be hurt because of the actions of their own government,” said Nicholas Burns at the Harvard Kennedy School. “But I think the blame has got lie with their government”

Burns said sanctions are highly imprecise instruments. But they serve a purpose.

“They appear to be working well in Iran because they’re isolating the Iranian government, and that has been the purpose all along. Not just by the United States by the way. This is a policy agreed to by the European allies, and also by the other members of the (UN) Security Council.”

US officials have recently said that sanctions are slowing Iran’s nuclear program. Still, politicians and scholars have long argued over the effectiveness of sanctions.

Ibrahim Warde with the Fletcher School at Tufts University says the story of the Iranian students illustrates one point: It’s not that hard to get around the sanctions.

“An easy thing to do when you’re a tourist in Iran is to go to rug merchants and ask them, ‘OK, if I were to ship 20 of your carpets to the US, how would I do it?’ And then they would say, ‘Well, it’s very easy, because we have sister company in Turkey, or in Malaysia, or in Iraq. And what we’ll do is, we’ll do the billing thru these companies.’”

Those may just be carpets we’re talking about. But Warde says, in general, sanctions aren’t that effective if the rest of the world doesn’t cooperate.

“And there are always countries that are willing to help Iran and unwilling to go along with the sanctions.”

So what’s the answer? I asked attorney Banafsheh Akhlaghi what she proposed?

“So what do we want?” said Akhlagi. “An opportunity to also be part of those conversations as these policies are being written. We’re not there.”

Akhlaghi isn’t opposed to sanctions on the whole. But she says if policymakers see the broader impacts on average Iranians, they could write in exceptions.

When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for tighter sanctions yesterday, she also called for a “virtual embassy” for Iran. That could provide Iranians with online information about visas and student exchange programs.

Jazz singer Kurt Elling met Jens Klüver, leader of the Klüvers Big Band, in Denmark in the 1990s and they have been working on projects ever since.

Right now, they are enjoying the result of an inspired collaboration to bring the Danish jazz band to the United States.

Elling has nine Grammy award nominations to his name. He won one in 2010 for his album “Dedicated to You.” His classically trained baritone voice, which can be smooth or metallic at times, has received much praise, and he’s become a star vocalist over the past decade.

But he’s not just an American phenomenon. Elling has a huge audience all over the world, especially in Europe, from Spain to Denmark. One of his favorite spots is the Danish city of Aarhus.

“It’s one of the loveliest places I’ve been able to visit,” he said. “I do about 200 nights a year on the road, and I’ve been welcomed in Aarhus maybe as many as six or seven times now.”

There’s a rich jazz culture in Aarhus, and all over Denmark. It started in the 1950s when American musicians moved to Copenhagen and began recording there.

The trumpeter and big band leader Thad Jones performed with his band in Soborg, Denmark, in 1969. He had enormous influence on Jens Klüver, whose big band has been going strong in Aarhus for 30 years. Klüver still channels Jones’s energy to this day. He said Jones’s presence in Denmark gave his band a “kind of spirit he represented,” because “he had a fantastic personality.”

What’s unique about the Klüvers Big Band is that it is the only state-funded jazz ensemble in Denmark. Jens Klüver said that gives him a chance to help American artists like Kurt Elling, who have given so much to Denmark.

“What I’ve tried to do with my big band was give something back,” he said. “Being funded in Denmark, I could hire these people and sometimes I could make new arrangements for them in the big band, arrangements that they can take back home and perform with other big bands.”

Klüver said he feels his contribution helps fund not only American jazz artists in Denmark, but the jazz industry back in the US as well.

“It’s definitely helped me pay my rent on a number of occasions,” adding Elling

Klüver said it also helps that many jazz venues in Denmark receive state funding as well.

Danish television journalist Kim Bildsoe Lassen said it makes sense in a small country for the government to finance the arts.

“The challenge for a country of our size,” he said, “with only 5.5 million people who speak Danish in the world, is that a lot of cultural institutions and people who work the arts in our society have a very hard time succeeding commercially because of the size of our country. And that demands that the government support them in some way.”

He added that people in Denmark think it’s critical to have locally produced arts, “so that we are not dependent entirely on music, or books, and arts in general, that come from the US, the UK or some of the largest countries in Europe.”

Bildsoe said he expects that the government that came into office earlier this month in Denmark will continue the tradition of funding the arts.

But even with the government sponsorship, Danish jazz bands have never toured in the United States – until now.

“It’s very difficult for a Danish band to come to the United States if they just come and play their own music, “said Klüver. He said nobody knows the Danish bands in the US; no one would show up. “So I thought to ask Kurt to do this together.”

Kurt Elling called up a few of his contacts, and pitched a tour, featuring himself and the Klüvers Band.

He told them, “you’re gonna love these guys. Let’s bring them in, and you can put my name on the headliner thing if that helps.”

Now that the tour is under way, Elling said he’s especially grateful to the Danish government and the Danish Crown Prince, the sponor of the tour.

Ladies and gentlemen, Kurt Elling and the Klüvers Big Band brought to you by His Royal Highness, Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark.

Klüver said touring in the U.S. is a thrilling experience for his band.

“Almost half of them have never been to the United States before.”

Kurt Elling and the Klüvers Big Band are performing in New York the last week of October, before heading to Washington DC and Boston.

Tour Dates
October 26-30, 2011
Kurt Elling Quintet featuring the Klüvers Big Band, with special guests: Miguel Zenón, Lew Tabackin, Ravi Coltrane (2 nights), Robin Eubanks, and Stefon Harris — 2 sets each night.
Birdland
New York, NY

November 1, 2011
Kurt Elling Quartet featuring the Klüvers Big Band
Blues Alley – Two Shows
Washington, DC

November 2, 2011
Kurt Elling Quartet featuring the Klüvers Big Band
The Wilbur Theatre
Boston, MA

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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, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH in Boston. Two days of nuclear talks between the US and North Korea ended today without an agreement. The US wants North Korea to reopen its nuclear program to inspections. Today Chief American Negotiator Steven Bosworth said the sessions were positive, but fruitless.

Steve Bosworth: We came to the conclusion that we will need more time and more discussion to reach an agreement in an effort to assess whether we have sufficient agreement to resume our active negotiations, both bilaterally and in the six party process.

Mullins: These latest US-North Korea talks were held in Switzerland. Authorities in Pyong Yang don’t like to host visitors, but some people are allowed in. Sam Gellman had the chance to visit the country as a tourist back in September. Gellman works in Financial Services in Hong Kong. Every moment of his four day tour of North Korea was tightly supervised, but he took and he took a lot of pictures and his photos, which are now posted on Flickr have been viewed by nearly a quarter of a million people. Sam Gellman says some of his best images show something called “The Mass Games”

Sam Gellman: The Mass Games are that it’s a one hundred thousand person performance which is just kind of a grand spectacle full of propaganda and it’s a show that I think that they’re very proud of.

Mullins: So you were there at the Mass Games and a lot of folks will recognize the descriptions that you provide and the pictures, in fact, that you provide which are stunningly beautiful pictures, but this is basically, as you say, images of human pixels. Tell us what the set up was like and what you mean by that term.

Gellman: That’s just kind of a term I have used myself and you have tens of thousands of performers and the probably more interesting part is in the background which you might be able to see in some of those images. You have thirty thousand children who have these individual signboards and they flip the signboards kind of in rhythm with each other and to a very very distinct, you know, cue and those create incredible images that are constantly changing and they can go from being the North Korean flag to a picture of Kim Il-sung to a boy playing a beach ball and then individual kids will just flip their signs so, you know, everybody is the same, but the beach ball flies across that side of the stands.

Mullins: And this is like split second accuracy?

Gellman: Split second accuracy, yeah. I mean you even have little things like cars driving up mountains and that’s pretty incredible to watch. I mean perhaps a little strange that, you know, thirty thousand children are doing it.

Mullins: Do you have a favorite photo of your own?

Gellman: I think some of the Mass Games pictures are visually very appealing. I like one picture of the soldier in the bumper car. Yeah, we spent a few hours a kind of like a carnival type event where, you know, we’re playing bumper cars with soldiers and I found that festival really interesting because it was an opportunity to really kind of interact with people in a much more fun way and, you know, a lot of the soldiers would have their kids with them and clearly these are people who, you know, on a Saturday night want to have fun with their kids just like you or me. I think there were little moments like that where you really get the sense that regardless of how much our countries probably kind of dislike each other, that you can kind of break through that.

Mullins: You know, one picture that I’m kind of marveling at as I look at it, unusual to be able to get a North Korean soldier to smile, but also smile for the camera and you got it.

Gellman: That was actually pretty interesting because we were at the border between the North and South Korea and the soldier gave us a tour and spent a lot of the time talking about kind of American Imperialism and Americans occupying the South and South Korea, saying negative things about Americans and then after the tour, he was more than happy to have his picture taken. I mean at those moments you realize that in some ways these are just people who are doing their jobs and people tend to be friendly when other people smile at them and he was no different.

Mullins: Were you ever stopped from taking a photo of anything?

Gellman: Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, you have to be careful about what you take pictures of I think. I mean you don’t want to take pictures that make the country look poor. Those are clearly pictures the pictures they don’t want.

Mullins: Was it worth it?

Gellman: I think it is worth it. I think, you know, you go to places like North Korea, you go to, I’ve been, I’ve spent ten days in Myanmar, you know, and these are countries where the people have very little exposure to foreigners. I think there is kind of a real fear of the unknown and as just someone who goes into these countries and tries to be friendly and kind of have moments where you are actually hanging out with people who probably were afraid of you ten minutes earlier I think is worth doing. You know, that, for me, I’m just most intrigued by the fact that the people are in many ways similar to us and I think that experience is worth it.

Mullins: Alright. Sam Gellman, thank you very much.

Gellman: No problem.

Mullins: You can see Sam Gellman’s captivating photos from the thousands of North Koreans moving in unison in the Mass Games to the picture of the soldier in a bumper car. The slide show is at the theworld.org.

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

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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.’ Ilan Grapel should be a free man soon. Grapel is a 28-year-old Israeli American. He was detained in Egypt this past June. Egyptian authorities arrested him on suspicion of spying for Israel. He’d been seen in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the heart of Egypt’s revolution. Now Egypt has struck a deal to release Grapel in exchange for 25 Egyptian prisoners who are being held by the Israelis. Grapel’s family in New York says he was in Cairo working as an intern at a legal aid group. Grapel is a law student at Emory University. He speaks fluent Arabic. He also once served as a paratrooper in the Israeli army. His mother Irene spoke with us today from her home in Oakland Gardens, New York. She says she’s hoping the exchange will happen this week.

Irene Grapel: What I’m hearing is that he’ll be released to the Israelis on Thursday. And I am the type of person that will believe it when I see it, but it’s been hell. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. You know I feel for any mother who has a boy in the service now and anybody who’s got a kid over in Iraq or Afghanistan not knowing where your child is, what they’re being exposed to or what kind of danger they’re in.

Mullins: And you yourself have you talked to Ilan at all?

Grapel: Not recently. The last call would have been two weeks tomorrow.

Mullins: And what did you talk about there, if you don’t mind my asking?

Grapel: I just wanted to hear his voice. I can always tell from his voice how he’s feeling. I think he’s very strong internally. He was trained in the Israeli Defense Force as a paratrooper and I always got a lot of solace from the fact that he was given the best training in the world. I mean it’s like being a U.S. Marine. And I’m sure that at some point they were taught how to deal with situations like this.

[Phone rings]

There we go again.

Mullins: Is this what it’s been like for you’¦

Grapel: Yes.

Mullins: Getting non-stop calls?

Grapel: Yes.

Mullins: Official, unofficial, what?

Grapel: Usually the press and’¦

[Phone rings]

‘¦the Israeli press through the night. We didn’t get enough sleep last night.

Mullins: I bet you probably haven’t had a lot of sleep at all, I would think. Just one more thing and I’ll let you go. But I wanted to ask you, has he responded to the accusations he was spying for the Israeli government?

Grapel: Yes. Everybody’s denied vociferously that he was ever spying or connected to Mossad. First of all, they claimed that he was there during the revolution and was helping to foment all kinds of rebellion and he was in Atlanta at Emory Law School. And Emory has been exceedingly helpful in documenting his whereabouts so the charges were totally bogus.

Mullins: I just want to tell you in closing, I don’t know if you’ve heard from an Israeli Parliamentarian who visited Ilan, your son in detention on Monday?

Grapel: No.

Mullins: Have you heard this? The quote that we have is this. He says, ‘We said, ‘˜Shalom,’ to him. He answered me in Arabic. He thought he was in another kind of session with his interrogators. He didn’t quite understand. ‘But then after a short period of time he recovered from it and the rest of the conversation you can ask him about in just a few days. It was an emotional meeting.’They also said he was in good condition and had been treated fairly. I imagine that’s heartening to hear.

Grapel: Oh yes, very. Terrific.

Mullins: We wish you the very best and we’ll be following what happens with your son.

Grapel: Thank you very much.

Mullins: Irene Grapel is the mother of 28-year-old Israeli American Ilan Grapel of New York. Ilan Grapel is being held by the Egyptian government. He has been since June on charges of spying for Israel.

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He ordered a complete withdrawal from the country, nearly nine years after the invasion under President George W Bush.

About 39,000 US troops remain in Iraq, down from a peak of 165,000 in 2008.

The US and Iraq were in “full agreement” on how to move forward, Mr Obama said, adding: “The US will leave Iraq with its head held high.”

Before the speech the White House said: “This will allow us to say definitively that the Iraq war is over,” and said the US and Iraq would work as two sovereign nations.

Anchor Lisa Mullins discusses the announcement with former New York Times Baghdad bureau chief John Burns.

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Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World. President Barack Obama today announced that all US troops in Iraq will leave the country by the end of this year. The president made the announcement after speaking through video conference with Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad. Mr. Obama left open the possibility of future US military help for Iraq, but he made clear that he’s set on plans to pull American troops out of Iraq completely by the end of December.

Barack Obama: After nearly nine years, America’s war in Iraq will be over. Over the next two months, our troops in Iraq, tens of thousands of them, will pack up their gear and board convoys for the journey home. The last American soldier will cross the border out of Iraq with their heads held high, proud of their success, and knowing that the American people stand united in our support for our troops. That is how America’s military efforts in Iraq will end.

Mullins: President Obama speaking earlier today. John Burns has spent over twenty years covering Iraq. He’s the former New York Times Bureau Chief in Bhagdad. He’s now in London. John, about President Obama’s announcement today, how do you look back on all that’s transpired since 2003 and how are you hearing this announcement?

John Burns: Well it’s a momentous occasion of course. An occasion which America has longed for, I think, in it’s great majority. It’s fought, of course, with danger and complications, not the least of which is getting the troops out.

Mullins: Maybe talk, John, as well about the enterprise itself. When we look at how many American troops alone, I think it’s about a million troops have passed through Iraq since 2003. A forty thousand remain. We’re talking about more than four thousand at least US troops that died in Iraq. What are we left with right now as President Obama makes this announcement of the final withdrawal?

Burns: Well, it struck me that the President did leave the door open in his remarks by talking, saying that they would be continuing discussions about the training program and that suggests that there might be some residual presence. Not, obviously, the three to five thousand troops that have been in discussion and not combat troops and it seems to me that Iraq will enter into a new phase of great danger when the last American troops go because, in effect, those diminishing number of US troops, and they have been out of major combat operations now for some time, were the tripwire. They were the guarantee against real political mayhem in Iraq. Nothing political has been resolved in Iraq. Let’s remember that. The fissures which bedeviled the American occupation from the beginning have never been resolved. Your listeners will be very familiar what the, with what those are. Sectarian, political, ideological, you name it. It’s a very fractured society. It hasn’t mended and there is a grave danger that Iraq could slide back into the sort of situation that we saw in 2005, in 2006 when Iraq, as you know, was plummeting towards an all-out civil war. We may hope that the Iraqis have learned that the lessons of that time and will not wish to return to it. The vast majority of them don’t, but there are some very sinister characters on the Iraqi political scene. Not the least of them is Muqtada al-Sadr, the very man who has made it impossible for the present Iraqi government to make an arrangement with Washington to keep a residual troop presence there. So I think that we have to be alert to the possibility, not perhaps immediate, but certainly within a matter of months of the political center in Iraq beginning to disintegrate.

Mullins: John Burns, former New York Times Bureau Chief in Baghdad. He’s now in London. Nice to speak with you.

Burns: It’s a pleasure.

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Lopez has been an agent with Grupo Beta for two decades. It’s a Mexican government agency with a mission to protect northbound migrants from smugglers. The agents had the authority to conduct investigations and make arrests.

Carlos Diaz de Leon walks up to Lopez and extends his hand, showing him a folded US deportation slip. The Sonora migrant has just been sent back to Mexico and he asks Lopez for help.

Diaz de Leon said he’s crossed illegally many times over the years, and Grupo Beta was always there for him.

“They have fed me when I was hungry,” Diaz de Leon said. “They’ve given me change when I needed to call home. I think they’re the only ones out there looking out for undocumented migrants.”

There used to be dozens of local smuggling operations here, charging migrants up to $2,000 a head. Beta agent Mario Lopez said with tightened border security, it’s more difficult to smuggle people across.

“Smuggling has decreased through this part of the border by almost 90 percent,” he said. “Now there’s more surveillance, there’s a second border wall, there are guards patrolling by horse, motorcycle, and cars. And there are cameras and sensors.”

Grupo Beta agent Mario Lopez gets into his signature orange Jeep, during his patrol. (Photo: R. Guidi)

On a typical day, Lopez still patrols along the Mexico side of the border. But he no longer conducts investigations and he’s no longer armed. It’s too dangerous. Now he and his fellow agents focus on handing out food and providing first aid to migrants. Grupo Beta has become a force without much power or much of a mission.

It’s not just Grupo Beta that’s pulled back from investigating. Victor Clark Alfaro, director of the Binational Center for Human Rights in Tijuana, said that the violence and insecurity have pushed his group to curtail their work.

“It’s too risky to really research the smuggling business of today,” he said. “It was hard enough in the 1980s and 90s.”

In the past year alone, the bodies of more than 150 migrants were discovered in the state of Tamaulipas, 80 miles south of the Texas border. It was one of the worst mass killings in Mexico in the past decade, and it sparked new concerns about the vulnerability of migrants.

Grupo Beta agent, Mario Lopez, stands near the point where the San Diego-Tijuana border fence meet the Pacific Ocean. (Photo: R. Guidi)

Rafael Hernandez heads the volunteer-run Desert Angels, a 14-year old civilian rescue group on the US side. Hernandez fields calls from family members of migrants lost in the desert. He said crossings here may have fallen to a 40-year low. But those who do make the attempt face greater peril.

“Along the way, they are mugged, kidnapped, raped,” he said. “But groups like ours, we can’t point it out. It’s very compromising to say that we know illegal activity is happening somewhere along the border.”

By compromising, he means dangerous. Hernandez said the consequences of speaking out about smuggling or the violence against migrants would be terrible.

The billions spent on border infrastructure and law enforcement over the past decade have dramatically changed the smuggling business. And in many ways, it’s become a much more dangerous game for everyone involved.

Ruxandra Guidi is a reporter at KPBS

Billboard with Bruce Willis for Trust Bank in the middle of Moscow. "Trust it's like me, only a bank." (Photo: Jessica Golloher)

The US and Russia have allegedly hit the “reset” button on their relationship. But there is one bit of America that especially sticks in the Russian craw these days, American movie stars are hawking Russian products, nearly- edging out local talent.

“Do you really think you have a chance against us, Mr. Cowboy? Yippee kai yay, mother … BOOM!”

Does that sound like a man you’d trust your life savings with, a man who knows the ins and outs of banking?

“It’s not a personality you would necessarily associate with banking or someone to whom you’d trust your money,” said Adam Lewis, from the ad agency Jay Walter Thompson, in Moscow.

“Branding in the banking sector is often very conservative because you want someone who is reliable, secure. This idea of taking a character from a Hollywood film from a thriller to many would seem dangerous almost,” said Lewis.

Well, apparently danger is the way to go with your money here because Die Hard renegade Bruce Willis is the face of none other than Trust bank.

The bank’s Vice President, Dmitry Chukseyev, is quoted as saying that the company needed someone “stable” and “understandable” for the job.

Stable and understandable?

“He’s an easy guy to like and a hard man to kill. BOOM. CRASH. Bruce Willis. Die Hard.”

“In the West, we demand a little bit more of a connection between our spokespeople and the products they represent,” said John Rose, owner of Rose Creative Services in Moscow.

And well, Rose says Russians don’t.

Rose and others say Russians just identify with Bruce Willis’ Die Hard personality and think, “Yeah, I believe that tough guy!” Willis’ slogans for the bank include, “When I want money, I just take it.”

These foreign actors, known as “Migrant Workers from Hollywood,” are used constantly here. They include Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell and Sylvester Stallone hawking Russian Ice vodka.

Alexei Andreev, president of branding agency Depot WPF isn’t laughing. He addressed the issue on state radio saying that he thinks it’s shameful that Russian stars don’t have the same pull as foreigners and are devalued.

That seems to be a growing sentiment here, but the fact remains that while Hollywood Migrants hawk products all over the globe, in Russia even the B-listers far outnumber local stars as spokespeople for major brands.

Case in point, before Willis, Trust bank used a famous Russian wrestler as their spokesman, but he didn’t have nearly the same cache or results as the Die Hard renegade.

Trust claims that since Willis signed on, the bank has consistently ranked in the top five fastest growing institutions for both credit card and deposit growth.

Yippee kai yay Hollywood!