The World

A milestone in the history of Hib AIDS today Monday March 4th from Public Radio International the BBC World Service and WGBH Boston. This is The World I'm Marco Werman reaction to the news that a baby girl born with HIV is now apparently cured. I'm hoping that maybe this story is sort of the next benchmark that we can race towards and really galvanize the army to has worked on this for decades to keep charging forward. We'll hear what the news could mean for those working to prevent HIV transmission in Africa. And later a conversation with the former mayor of Colombia. He talks about turning the city around and winning the people's trust. Go walk Ismail Leeson. Pay attention with all your senses. Then you have the people your skin. BBC News with Marion Marshall counting is underway in Kenya following the first

general elections to be held there since the bitterly contested poll of 2007. Voting had to be extended in some places after long queues formed. The race for the presidency is expected to be tight with the prime minister being challenged by his deputy who Kenyatta the BBC's and Sawyer's at the National counting center in the capital Nairobi. So far we're looking at is in the lead with just over six hundred fifty thousand volts. Right now Dean is following four hundred and fifty thousand now still very significant given that Kenya has fourteen point three million registered voters and according to they look for a commission they just give us a statement of Altaf on the go. Expects that voter turnout will be well over 70 percent. Those are the early indications but could be higher once the results are released. Iraqi officials say at least 40 Syrians and seven Iraqis have been killed by gunman in the Iraqi province of Anbar. They said the Syrians convoy was ambushed and attacked with mortar

rounds and automatic weapons. Syrian victims were government soldiers and employees who were being escorted back to the Syrian border. According to the Iraqi officials they had crossed into Iraq on Friday fleeing Syrian rebels. It's not known who carried out the attack. Syrian opposition activists say rebel fighters have driven most of the government forces out of the city of Raka in the north. The reports haven't been verified and analysts say Syrian rebels have often struggled to hold on to territory they've taken. James Reynolds reports. Syria's rebels say that they have taken over most of the city of Raka. Activists say that opposition supporters used a rope to bring down a bronze statue of Hafez Al Assad the current president's father and predecessor. The supporters jumped on the fallen statue and hit it with their shoes. The rebels clearly want to make the most of this moment in almost two years of conflict in Syria. The opposition has yet to take over an entire city.

But it's not yet clear whether or not the rebels fully control rocka the upper house of the Czech parliament has voted to charge President Vaclav Klaus with high treason over his controversial decision to pardon several thousand prisoners. He announced the amnesty which covers almost a third of the prison population in January. To mark 20 years of independence. But the president whose term ends on Thursday has now been referred to the constitutional court which must decide whether the amnesty violated the Constitution. President Klaus said the charges were politically motivated. It's sad that some people in our political opposition are using the threat of the constitutional court in order to solve their political disagreement which is something completely different. Well news from the BBC. The U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has issued another warning to Iran over its nuclear program. Mr. Biden said President Obama wasn't bluffing when he said the U.S. wouldn't allow Iran to acquire nuclear

weapons and added that all options including military force remained on the table. But he said there was still time for negotiations. We are not looking for war. We're looking new and ready to negotiate peacefully. But all options. Including military force are on the table but as I made clear at the Munich security conference just last month. Our strong preference. The world's preference is for a diplomatic solution. So while that window is closing. We believe. There is still time and space to achieve the outcome. Iran insists that its nuclear program is peaceful. Officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo say a plane has crashed in the eastern city of Goma killing some 30 people. The plane which was flying from the central town of Marjah was operated by a local commercial airline. The Democratic Republic of Congo has one of the worst as safety records in the world. Hundreds of people in Western Bosnia have held

a mock funeral for their own town to protest about unemployment which has risen to 80 percent following the collapse of a wood factory that was the last major local employer. They lit candles for the soul of the town of Durga and left traditional to betray placards on electricity poles and in shop windows. Controversial plans to dismantle one of the few remaining sections of the Berlin wall have been temporarily suspended after further protests against its imminent demolition. The 22 metre long section of the wall covered in murals and graffiti was to be dismantled as part of the development of an apartment block near the line that separated East and West Berlin during the Cold War. BBC News. Biar rise the world is brought to you by Medtronic supporting the work of Wired international providing medical and health care information and education in the developing world and in regions affected by war.

Now on Facebook look for Medtronic NCD. I'm Marco Werman this is the world. If you turn your mind back to the beginning of the AIDS crisis you'll recall the sense that HIV was a virtual death sentence. Well a lot has changed. Drugs have extended lives dramatically and today we get the remarkable news that scientists have apparently cured an infant of infection with HIV. The girl was born to an HIV positive mother in Mississippi. But we wanted to find out what the news could mean for Africa. Each year thousands of babies There are born infected with the AIDS virus. So we took a trip across town here in Boston to meet with some people who spent a lot of time in Southern Africa. So we've come to Boston University where I'm joined by Dr. Julie Herlihy who's assistant professor of international health in pediatrics and by Doctor Donald Thea who is the principal investigator of the Boston University preventing mother to child transmission project in Zambia and by Liotta who is a director for the

project in Zambia. Doctor Herlihy let me ask you first of all what was your reaction when you heard the news about this child in Mississippi who was apparently cured. I was shocked. A cure is a word that we haven't used with the HIV AIDS epidemic for a long time and I haven't seen the evidence behind us and I'd be curious to see the evidence but as always it's another twist in our journey with HIV AIDS and very excited to see exactly what happened and what this does mean. And the evidence behind IX I think it could have great implications. And I have to ask you since you've essentially just gotten off the plane from Zambia you arrive here in the United States you hear this news and you're working on this project preventing mother to child transmission of HIV there. What was your reaction. My reaction was Well that is great. This hope I hope for the future. So Doctor Thea if this research holds up and all the indications are correct about this two and a half year old in Mississippi what would it

mean for a place like Zambia. Oh I think it could be it could really absolutely change the game in terms of preventing mother to child transmission. And that's the that's the main focus of what it is that we're doing currently in Zambia and the idea that we could actually prevent infection in these children is revolutionary. Do you think this kind of therapy where there is an aggressive use of several antiretroviral drugs is that feasible in a place like Zambia. Oh absolutely. My understanding is that the regimen of three drugs that are being used were used in this child are the same as the regimen that we would put an infected known infected child on as well as a regimen that we would put mothers on that we currently do put mothers on in Zambia. So if we can arrange to have the testing done at the bedside in some of these clinics and we could put them directly on these medicines it's absolutely feasible. What are your as a patients what are your reservations about what you've learned so far and whether something like this is reproducible in Africa.

Well it has it has funding implications. I think that it also has implications in terms of feasibility 40 to 60 percent of women deliver children not in health facilities they deliver them in their homes and those homes are oftentimes 20 kilometers away from a health facility and it takes many hours for those children to get there so those sorts of very real world delays may have a very simple serious implications in terms of the feasibility of this kind of an approach. Also as I noted earlier a lot of children are still being born infected with HIV in Africa. I mean as exciting as it is to talk about a possible cure isn't there still a lot of work to be done on prevention. Yes there is. However we have made tremendous strides in the last three to four or five years in terms of decreasing the mother child transmission of HIV and I think that this would be a really important addition to the quiver of tools that we have for this situation.

Dr. Hurley we've heard from some people who work on HIV in developing countries that the world seems to be losing interest in HIV and that there's kind of a fatigue with the subject and that maybe apathy is setting in. Do you agree and do you think news like this could rejuvenate interest. I think that's a great question. I think the history of the the fight against AIDS has constantly been driven by this idea of a breakthrough that provides some hope and then it gives us something to race towards. And I'm hoping that maybe this story is sort of the next benchmark that we can race towards and really galvanize the army to has worked on this for decades to keep charging forward. Tell me about the situation in Zambia I mean how hopeful are you feeling right now about the way things are being addressed in the realm of mother to child transmission of HIV. I think we are doing so much better now since we started this fight against mother to touch as mission and we have made tremendous strides to where we are now.

We manage to test babies at least at six weeks but we still miss some quite a number of babies. So with this information as I said it's it gives us hope. But there are a lot of logistical problems and funding implications that we need to think about. So I don't know how long you'll be here in the U.S. But at some point you'll return to Zambia. I mean people presumably will want to know what about this great news about the baby who was cured I mean. What would you tell them. Oh tell them that it's good news ahead in the U.S. and they hope it will be investigated further so that we really know what actually happened and then learn from that and then try to do something to save our children. But then you need to roll your sleeves up and get back in the trenches on the work that you do every day. Yes of course. One thing that seems kind of remarkable at least in the science of

this is that the doctors in Mississippi kind of came at this baby just hours after it was born with a pretty aggressive cocktail of drugs first of all. Is that correct I mean how aggressive is using more than one antiretroviral on a child and is this kind of thing where you have lots of inputs and costly medicines can that be done again in other parts of the world. It's my understanding that the regimen that was used as a treatment regimen rather than a prophylaxis regimen and it's a regimen that we commonly use in sub-Saharan African to treat adults. And if we have the pediatric formulations available then we would also use the same regimen to treat children. So having these meds at hand doesn't seem to be the challenge having them on the shelf certainly is always a problem. But I think the timing to treatment seems to be the linchpin that people keep focusing on so far in the media which may have made the difference in this child. And that's when you really start asking a health systems infrastructure

question can we get to kids fast enough and do we know which kids to get to do we have the diagnostics available to know which kids would need a regiment as such in order to try and keep the virus replicating just in conclusion I mean in the world of Hib AIDS today is a good news day. Yes it's a great news day. Absolutely it is. That was Leo to how Mamba director of Boston University's preventing mother to child transmission project in Zambia. She joined me at Boston University today along with the project's principal investigator Doctor Donald Thea and Doctor Julie Herlihy assistant professor of international health and pediatrics at Boston University. Thank.

You. Ever since Japan's northeastern coast was devastated by a tsunami an earthquake two years ago this month volunteers have offered food money and reconstruction efforts. But one Tokyo based group is offering something a little different. Chris Bender has a story. When a disaster hits your country it's natural to want to help. I wanted to do something but I didn't know like how to do it. Our runs a photo agency in Tokyo and eventually she did figure out what she could do. She travels to small damaged towns like the one she's in today called Yamamoto Cho and she brings along professional photographers. There was a god. That's Brian Peterson. He and you co-founded the volunteer group photo Hoku. They take free professional quality photos for the people of Tohoku that's the region where many people lost everything including all their family photos.

Today for the hook has brought about a dozen photographers here to the big town festival and Yamamoto show this Michael Michael Michael. Some of the locals are a little self-conscious about being photographed. And right now it's a family Heidi. The baby and his mom and dad not see me and Tucker but Brian is constantly doing little things to try to put them at ease. Papa watch you put your arm around my mama. So it's a little. Bit of Brian's American but he's lived in Japan long enough to speak this sort of Japan. All right right over here don't move. Ryan's camera is not digital. He uses instant film kind of like a Polaroid. You take a shot and then a couple minutes later it develops. And while we wait the dad Tucker tells me he's a firefighter. He saw a lot of damage and death after the disaster. He crawled through wreckage to count bodies and he says the little towns like Yamamoto Cho

were forgotten quickly. Even within Japan. Who felt they in this. There were rumors that when politicians visited by helicopter to survey the damage they were actually napping as they flew by separate from how the photos turn out. Tukey is pleased that anyone has come all the way from Tokyo to see his town today. Here we go you know thank you very much. OK finally Brian peels off the backing to reveal the photo. One two. Three. That one copy of the photo Ryan gives that to the Iota family. The photographers take nothing home and that's really important Bryant says he knows that even the locals are glad for the attention. Japan's disaster victims have this complicated relationship with photographers right after the tsunami. The media were here snapping photos everywhere.

I think they felt at times like they were animals in the zoo maybe. And when they saw the photos that we were making we were giving them this thing and walking away with nothing. All of a sudden they said I was. On a small patch of grass outside. Another photographer is taking portraits of cut sushi sock'em and his family was the principal of the local elementary school. So do I you know you know this is when the tsunami flooded my house he says he destroyed photos from different parts of my life and me as a kid my own kids. My first days as a teacher. It takes a couple minutes of shooting but then suddenly sock in the cracks a smile. Later Bryan tells me that reminds him of one of his first volunteer shoots. He was at a temporary housing complex taking portraits of an old woman with her family at the moment that we took the

photo. They all kind of burst into laughter because of something probably silly I said. And the woman saw her photo and she said to herself sir crime. I'm almost crying just thinking about it. Right. And she said I didn't think I would see might be able to see myself smile again. Brian says now she had evidence something to hold onto. For The World I'm Chris bender of Yamamoto Cho Japan. See the photo Hoku guys at work we have a cool little slide show at The World dot org. Hey anyone out there know what a corrupt US does and what that has to do with Abe Lincoln. Stay tuned and find out here on our Public Radio International the world it's brought to you by with support from the Medtronic foundation searching for runners who benefit from medical technology to run in the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon or 10 mile run. Medtronic global heroes application and information available at Medtronic dot com slash global

heroes. Whoa. Whoa whoa. Whoa. Whoa whoa. Whoa. I'm Marco Werman and this is the world. When I think of the city of Midian Colombia I think

of one man the drug lord public Escobar who dominated the city until he was gunned down in 1903. But Million isn't Escobar playground anymore. The city's done a remarkable job of reinventing itself new parks and schools. New science and technology centers and a new metro system have replaced the wretched social ecology of cocaine. Marion has won numerous prizes in the process. The latest awarded last week by the Urban Land Institute and the man who is arguably behind many of these changes is Sergio from Harvard Oh a mathematician turned reluctantly politician. I didn't come from the political world. I shouldn't be here today talking of all these things I should be giving lectures or talking to mathematicians not to journalist but did speak with me this weekend in Boston. The once mayor of Medellin is now governor of the province where the city is located and what he's doing today in that job goes back to the novel approach he and his citizens compromise movement took when they got into power in 2003. For harder

though says a key part of that approach was talking to the people in the streets about the kind of city they wanted. I like to say that this way we get the CD in this skin. When you go walk its mail listen pay attention with all your senses. Then you have the people in your skin. So what do we have built which is what makes us very rich politically. East thrust in a claim that trust cannot be bought. Not even Wal-Mart. Frost you have to build it. And that's very precious political capital and that's what we need in the way we related to people. I just want to jump in because I mean what a lot of people cite in Midian is that the education how that changed and how all these public works projects that you undertook parks and libraries and schools and a lot of things how these two kind of prongs ended by reducing crime and how quickly did you notice that crime went down.

Now let me explain. When you have fear of by a lens then people feel fear. And when you feel fear. The natural reaction is save yourself. That means people would retreat to their homes in they would be individuals and everyone would be sort of hiding somehow. So we knew that we wanted to remain vent public space. That's where we can get together and we wanted to reinvent the public space taking into account the following concept. First we're going to build the most beautiful things for the humblest people. We will say for example the first step in improving the quality of education is the quality of the space. Some people say about that cement that's not cement that's difficult mission that the poorest girl imaging could go to a school beautiful and as good as they want. Swung from the riches family would attend. That's equality that's respect that's dignity and that's very powerful.

How did affluent Colombians in meeting react to that. Because they're the rich. They're the ones who are saying you know this is what we've been fighting for and suddenly it becomes democratic they like it because a reasonable person. That's correct. So when you explain and you showed that we are building opportunities to have a better society people understand. So we build new spaces. We build schools the space in technology park there what I may call Garden the cultural center the printers center all places where what we were saying that we have to develop in people would be physically represented. That's very important. People understood him where seeing how things were transforming their communities associated with their talent in dignity. It's a very powerful cause of a lot of people have looked at him and seen its transformation as miraculous nothing short of miraculous and what you and the people residents of Midian have have accomplished. It also seemed

to coincide with a strong link between president and George W. Bush Plan Colombia the fight against the drug against the drug war. Do you think that your successes in Middle East could have occurred without Plan Colombia and the drug war getting much more aggressive. Undoubtedly that helped us to reduce violence because there was these negotiation saw people who were members of these paramilitary groups in the Dean. They stopped in what do we did. Very pragmatic worse. Well that's the condition so what we are going to do is move on quickly come up with these interventions so that we take away from them possibility saw it was an opportunity adored that opened up. We didn't know that it was going to happen by the once it happened we said very good for us. All these things that we did we did it in our own you know was in the national government program or durable sure all Lamo are known to us. Our idea it was our dream. He was a war proposal so he was helpful

in the sense that he gave us more leeway in order to work in I'm sure that help to do would reduce violence violence admitted you haven't finished. We still have a long way to go long as we have narco traffic we're going to have violence that there's no way a peaceful way out of it. How do you keep the peace in a city like Mehdi and once you establish this kind of. Livable City relatively speaking how do you keep the peace. I mean you're now governor of the province so you oversee much more than the city understand but I don't have to deal with the security million right now that's the mayor's affair and I myself think that there will continue to innovate. The next step is not going to be build the schools and they were already built. You have to think of something new to it to bring people's attention in and continue building Dipak. And that's the challenge for the leaders. I'm curious to know if other cities around the world have approached you. I mean cities which have you know equally entrenched problems I think of Mogadishu I

think of Kabul what you did in Midian Is it doable in Kabul Afghanistan. I don't know this is not a universal formula that will do these and then you will get this the formula actually understand people's dignity opened up the opportunities door and then maybe there may be many ways to do that. Well Sergio for harder thank you so much for speaking with us. Thank you for giving me these opportunities we have a major Dean and our State in Columbia of course. So if you're for hard o is the governor of Antiochian province in Colombia and the former mayor of Medellin he helped with the city's near miraculous transformation from drug trafficking capital to award winning urban space. And speaking of a miracle did you see an African musician made Google's daily doodle. You know that picture Google rotates on its home page. The late South African singer Miriam McCabe would have been her eighty first birthday. I always remember and dance to

her this way. 1967 the Potter the first African song that cracked the top 20 in the U.S.. The. Day's top news stories are coming up next here on PR. Marco Werman I had tango on the bagpipes the Spanish musician thought it was a crazy

idea to when a composer first suggested it and I start laughing like crazy because he thought he was joking. I mean corm I did laugh also because I play rock pipes. And later President Lincoln's cure opportunist and why he's kind of a celebrity now. BBC News with Marion Marshall counting is underway in Kenya following the first general elections to be held there since the bitterly contested poll of 2007 the country's electoral commission estimates that the turnout was more than 70 percent. With about 10 percent of the vote counted the tally indicates that the deputy prime minister who Kenyatta has taken a lead over his main rival the prime minister. Right. Iraqi officials say at least 40 Syrians and seven Iraqis have been killed by an unknown gunman in the Iraqi province of Anbar. The Syrian victims were government soldiers and employees who were being escorted back to the Syrian border. They've crossed into Iraq on Friday fleeing from Syrian rebel attacks. Syrian opposition activists say

rebel fighters have driven government forces out of most parts of the northern city of Raka. They say cheering people have torn down a bronze statue of the Syrian president's late father which stood in the city. The upper house of the Czech parliament has voted to charge President Vaclav Klaus with high treason over his controversial decision to pardon several thousand prisoners. He announced the amnesty in January to mark 20 years of independence. Queen Elizabeth has left hospital after spending one night there because of a stomach infection. The queen's day had been described as a precautionary measure but all her public engagements for the week have been cancelled. The main security services building in the Egyptian city of Port saïd has been set on fire amid fresh fighting between police and protesters. It's the latest on rest in the city since a group of football fans was handed death sentences earlier this year. For their part in violence that left dozens of people dead. The Mexican telecommunications magnate Carlos Slim has topped the Forbes magazine's list of the

world's richest people. For the fourth year running Bill Gates the chairman of Microsoft came second followed by a man from the Spanish retailer Zahara. BBC News. JA Ries the world is brought to you by the Medtronic foundation searching for runners who benefit from medical technology to run in the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon or a 10 mile run. Medtronic global heroes application and information available at Medtronic dot com slash global heroes. I'm Marco Werman this is The World a co-production of the BBC World Service PR and WGBH in Boston. If you can believe it the civil war in Syria appears to be getting messier. According to the Reuters news agency volunteers from Iraq and Lebanon have formed a militia brigade and are fighting to protect a Shiite holy place near Damascus the Syrian capital.

That's pitting them against Syria's predominantly Sunni rebels. So now the sectarian fighting in Syria has echoes of the Sunni Shiite violence that dominated the middle years of the war in Iraq. And it comes at a time when Shiites from Lebanon to Pakistan are feeling under siege. Vali Nasr wrote the book on the Shia Revival he's dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. First Vali Nasr is this call to defend the shrine for real or is it just a symbol to rally opinion in the world and to maybe attract more volunteers. It is for real. There have been attacks on Shiite shrines the most famous being on the shrine in Samarra in Iraq which caused a sectarian war in that country there have been attacks on other Shiite shrines and mosques in Pakistan and in other locations as well and therefore the Shi'ites believe that that shrine is actually endangered. Now these Iraqi and Lebanese fighters seem to be siding with the government of Syria with President Bashar al-Assad. Why would they do that.

Largely the Iraqis and Lebanese think that if there is a change in the dynamics of power in Syria it would impact their own struggles in their own home countries. So in Lebanon on the Hezbollah and the Shiites are in a struggle for power with the Sunnis and in Iraq the sectarian competition for power has never ended. So a Sunni dominated Syria will change the balance of power in Iraq and it will change the balance of power in Lebanon. It would be a blow to the major supporter of the Shiites in the region Iran and also story would give rise to particularly harder line militant brand of Sunnis and which they've seen in their own countries to be much more sharply anti Shia so they're really in Syria fighting to protect their own interests rather than really defend the Assad government for the sake of defending as a government. And given how much is at stake for other countries in the region how convinced are you that these men are real volunteers and can they be proxies sent by Hezbollah. Government of Iraq.

It's quite possible the proxies are sent actually into the battlefield to fight the proxies that are not necessarily sent to protect the shrine shrines really matter to Shiites in their everyday faith. And that's what attaches them. You know very passionate way to their fate. So it's quite likely that if there is a call to defend the shrine it would be plenty of aren't lolling tears were willing to do so. Governments are probably going to be sending their proxies into the battlefield in the various towns and villages of Syria to fight the opposition. I mean it's already been well reported how there are numerous foreigners fighting alongside the rebels mostly jihadi sympathetic to al-Qaeda. Now this news of Iraqi and Lebanese Shiites defending this holy shrine outside Damascus is it bad news in your view that the conflict in Syria seems to be getting more and more internationalist. And he was International to begin with. It's just that we didn't recognize that this conflict had immediate regional ramifications because the outcome would change the balance of power between the Shiites and Sunnies regionally. So even from the get go everybody

understood that this conflict was about their own sets of issues and was never limited to Syria. And there and as the stakes have got higher people are investing more and more in trying to protect their interest in trying to decide the outcome. You've also just written a fairly damning article in Foreign Policy on Obama's handling of Afghanistan and Pakistan. What's wrong with the way this administration is tackling foreign policy and does your prognosis kind of also have something to say about what's happening in Syria. Well I think I think generally our approach to the Middle East has been rather disengaged and hands off that we've only reacted when there has been an imminent crisis and we haven't clearly articulated what our national security interests are in the region and we have not been sufficiently alert to try to get ahead of the events as they unfold understand when they're going on try to intervene to push them in a direction that would protect our interests and be beneficial to the region itself. In the case of Syria I think we allowed the conflict to just continue to

a point where it's now very clearly has regional dimensions and it's much more difficult to bring to some kind of a peaceful conclusion. And that would would in some ways not only put the region stability at danger but also will pose certain risks for the United States in the coming years. Vali Nasr author of The Shia Revival and the upcoming Dispensable Nation American Foreign Policy in Retreat. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Secretary of State John Kerry is keeping a close eye on the situation in Syria. Today he discussed it with officials in Riyadh Saudi Arabia. But he also made time for a meeting with the president of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas. They talked about ways to resurrect the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process. It's an understatement to say that it won't be easy. There is so much that divides the two sides. It's difficult to see a way forward like the status of Jerusalem. Israel views the Holy City as its eternal capital. Palestinians who make up about a third of Jerusalem's population feel very differently.

They think of the city as the capital of a future Palestinian state. So you can understand how a new highway under construction there could stir deep passions The World's Matthew Bell has that story. Heavy construction machinery cuts a wide swath of dirt alongside groves of olive trees in your row of upscale homes south of Jerusalem. It's the path for a planned multilane highway that would cut through the sleepy village of Bates Afaf its home to more than 9000 people. And they're not very happy about the project known as road food. A few hundred Bateson FoFA residents along with a couple of dozen Jewish Israeli supporters held a demonstration against road for last week. This is bait Safaga. They chant it's Arabic it's Palestinian. But this is not just a story about a neighborhood fighting city hall. As one activist put it in Jerusalem planning issues are never just planning

issues. Road four is designed to link up a large block of Jewish settlements 25 minutes south of Jerusalem to a major highway leading to Israel's north. For Palestinians it's all part of an Israeli plan to strengthen Jewish control over Jerusalem by putting facts on the ground. A prominent Arab member of Israel's parliament at a recent protest he told me the project is an example of Jewish discrimination against Palestinians in Jerusalem. It is a dance of its a citizens of the city and they are in the connected. They have basic rights to being a good I just buy that when its ability and by the government has been divided before. After the war in one thousand forty eight part of the village ended up in Israel. The other part on the Jordanian controlled West Bank. The entire village came under Israeli control after the Six-Day War in 1967. That legacy means some of the residents are Israeli citizens. Others are Jerusalem residents but not full

fledged citizens. Still activists leading the fight against road four are using some very Israeli tactics a la Solomon is one of 16 residents who filed a court petition to change the construction plan. He says people in a Jewish area nearby did the exact same thing a few years ago. They throw them in a spot at the oh must stop the arc the same Vettriano they go to the high courts and they win. So mom's group has led one protest at the Israeli prime minister's residence in the same spot where Jewish protests are routinely held. The activists are sure to chant in both Arabic and Hebrew they welcome Jewish supporters and they've encouraged protestors not to play up connections between Bates Afaf fight and the larger Palestinian cause. The rallies have been mostly peaceful but things got ugly at a demonstration near the village on Friday. That's a little over the

video posted online shows. Israeli police on horseback confronting demonstrators along with officers using batons and what appears to be tear gas. The tragedy for Israel says city council member may year mark elite is that this episode is radicalizing bitsa FoFA a village that used to be demolished quiet village in these euro zone and some of my friends say that the most Zionist village in these euro zone and become a place and explosion can happen in any moment. Village activists say the city's disdain for them is obvious. They claim officials have skirted Israeli laws time and again and they say the highway plan itself is flawed. It dates back to 1990 and a lot has changed since then in terms of the layout of the neighborhood. A statement from the Jerusalem mayor's office says it did consult village residents and that it will work to provide optimal services to bits of FOFA. It also points to a lower court

decision that ruled in the city's favor last month. Meanwhile construction on road 4 continues while residents of Bates Afaf await a decision from the Supreme Court for the world I'm Matthew Bell in Jerusalem. You can see how residents of that Palestinian village are protesting the new Israeli highway Matthys slideshow is at the World dot org. Of course it doesn't always take a village to get attention. Former NBA star Dennis Rodman did fine on his own last week with his visit to North Korea. It got Rodman lots of media attention and a new friend for life apparently a North Korean leader Kim Jong moon. Rodman's trip was not approved by the State Department but it did have the backing of Vice Media. The company itself has been the focus of media coverage for what some would call its stunt journalism. Brian Stelter writes about media for The New York Times he says Vice never expected its latest and to be quite as successful. They didn't know when they went to North Korea that the leader of the country would show up. They tempted him by setting up this basketball game and in some ways they were thinking like

diplomats trying to get the leader of North Korea to show up which is kind of odd because it sounds from what I've read like Vice magazine doesn't really generally think like diplomats and when you spoke with Shane Smith I'm just wondering did he give you any idea why Vice decided to take Rodman to North Korea in the first place what was the aim. Vice is an interesting brand because it's got a bunch of identities one identity is first person essays about wild youthful topics another identity is music and culture but they also like to take these wild trips into foreign countries. They've had reporters go to Afghanistan and Iraq in Liberia and they like having that world wide angle to them. For them North Korea was an obvious target shall we say because Shane Smith the cofounder of bin twice before and he thought that Vice could go again by setting up this exhibition basketball game. And of course they're filming the show now for HBO. So they've kind of got to impress HBO with crazy trips with eye opening

exposé. Let me ask you this and I mean in the New York Times documentary Page One A Year Inside the New York Times Shane Smith vice told journalist David Carr that he was not a journalist talking about a travel guide he made of Liberia. He said I wasn't there to report I'm just talking about look what I saw. So if this is not journalism then what are the dangers of making it look journalistic. And they like to call it immersion. I would call it maybe stunt journalism or just just a plain old stunt. The risk in this case is that it appears to be propaganda for North Korea. The risk in this case is that by having Dennis Rodman show up it gives the North Korean regime some semblance of celebrity some some suggestion that it's OK for an American to come and bless the regime despite all of the human rights abuses that are known to happen there. Dennis Rodman came out and he said this man is a friend of mine now and and he's a great guy and he's not like his father. You know clearly I don't think a lot of people want Dennis Rodman to be their

spokes. And I'm not suggesting there's Rahman even is a spokesman for Korea. But when he comes out and talks that way and when he doesn't talk about the human rights abuses you can come across as rather strange. Perhaps it's not OK for them to do this or maybe it is but when you spoke with Shane Smith I mean what did he tell you what was the surprise that it got this far. I think Vice was pleasantly surprised. They did get an audience with Kim Jong un. They said they were not doing propaganda for the Korea nor would they try. When I said that to Shane Smith he said listen I would make a very good propagandas I'd be a bad propagandist. But the images may speak louder than the words. When we see the photographs that come out and when we see Dennis Rodman say they've always got a friend in me he's a great guy. It's something that can seem very strange and can send maybe the wrong signal the change Smith when you spoke with him express any concern for what this trip meant for relations between the U.S. and North Korea. I was struck by two sentences that Shane Smith said back to back the first was 50 years of diplomatic relations diplomacy between the U.S. and North Korea have

failed. I believe in dialogue but then he turned around immediately said Well but but we're not here to save the world. We're just here to show people something they've never seen before. You might take that as meaning that he's trying to have it both ways. Now that he's that he's saying that he's trying to provide a dialogue between an American and North Korean but at the same time oh no we're not there to save the world we're just there to produce good TV. What was Dennis Rodman paid by HBO and vice or either for his participation. He was paid by Vice as were the three members of the Harlem Globe Trotters who went on the trip vice is not saying how much they were paid. HBO is an interesting part of all this because they are financing the TV show. But Vice went for Vice that may or may not appear on the HBO TV show. You know I guess if President Obama calls Kim Jong Il like Dennis Rodman suggested and some kind of ball starts rolling towards peace all of this will be reassessed. So I guess I shouldn't laugh it just seems like an awfully unlikely thing.

Brian Stelter writes about media for The New York Times Brian thank you. Thank you. Today's Geo Quiz takes us to north London and the famous Highgate Cemetery notables buried there ran from Karl Marx to Malcolm McLaren the original manager of the Sex Pistols. Oh and is Akers Zachary Zachary wasn't exactly a celebrity when he was laid to rest at Highgate more than a century ago but is now thanks to all the cinematic attention President Lincoln is getting lately. He sees Acker he was Lincoln's corroborative stories the Brits say. Sure Robert just. We'll hear more on that in just a bit. First we want you to guess what part of Lincoln's body was the focus of Dr. Zachary's treatment. Answers coming up after the break. This is PR.

I'm Marco Werman this is the world. So let's review a bit doctor as occurred as

Zachary was a Caracas who treated President Lincoln during the Civil War which means he was the president's foot doctor and that's the answer to our Geo Quiz today. The good doctor Zachary was buried in London's Highgate Cemetery in 1900 but he's only now being added to the cemeteries guide of notable burials. Reporter Russell Newlove explains from London. It's a first run Supreme Ruler of the Masonic altar of the secret monitor within the British Empire. It looks good on paper or in this case a tombstone but does Zachary have a claim to fame that's a little more concise. What turns out he was dropping us to President Abraham Lincoln in don't give a will is the managing executive at Highgate Cemetery. But also he treated the feats of the Union Army and after the war he submitted a bill for forty five thousand dollars and I think this is also his downfall as well because we don't hear so much about him after that Bill was submitted. So it's a mite gotten a bit too big for his boots. But why is it taken

so long to give the president your opposition. He's fought doctor due credit in Highgate. We've got 170000 people buried here in Highgate Cemetery. And so people become interesting at different periods of time. If I come to you a year ago and said I've got Abraham Lincoln show up at us here you might not have been so interested but now everyone's excited with Daniel Day-Lewis and the Oscars of course he's very topical and it's a complete coincidence that this turned up at the same time. So everybody's going to see Zachary now right. What brings you to Highgate Cemetery today to see Karl Marx. Oh I can see Karl Marx. Yeah well Karl Marx what she call mocks agree with. Anybody else. Douglas Adams well. OK Karl Marx in the author of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy are pretty hard to beat but surely being Abraham Lincoln's foot doctor counts for something. Do you intend to spend any time. At the monument of its workers accurate. I wasn't planning to know Have you ever heard of a ship is accurate. You know what if I would tell you that he was Abraham

Lincoln's foot doctor. I would say that it's quite interesting. Do you intend to visit the monuments of today. I don't even know who that is. I'm sorry. What if I told you. He was Abraham Lincoln's doctor. Oh that is interesting. Well yes I will certainly go there. But it's not about the amount of visitors a monument gets in says it's about the lives being remembered at Highgate. What were about her celebrating the achievements of people who were buried here whether they're actually very famous like Karl Marx or whether they're rather unknown. This is a place to reflect on the achievements of people who have gone before us and I'm very pleased that we've got a famous protest amongst those people. So there we have it. Highgate Cemetery not just a resting place for famous souls but also those who cared for the souls of the fairness for the world. I'm Russell new love in London. You say Sure opera's Russell. We secure opportunist and who knows how Lincoln's would Doctor wound up in London in the first place. Well have to say that story for another day. But here's a story

about how a Spanish bagpiper from Galicia wound up in New York hope that'll do and the crazy musical journey she took her instrument on. Well that Betto Arcos take it from here from an early age Christina. But there has been playing two instruments classical piano and the guy the Galician backbite. She always figured the path of these instruments would never cross and she'd have to choose one or the other. So to me trying to find that or our language group it stands with me and my instincts and my traditions and only things that I really love to listen to or play that was a challenge probably like 10 years of my career. Wow. In 2005 Cristina Pato moved to New York. She says she planned to leave the back by Since pain and focus on classical piano and then I meet

a hoe who is an amazing composer from Argentina who fall in love with the fact that when I met him at the university while I was playing piano and he opened the door to me do include the back pipes in the classic award through she met Yo-Yo Ma and started working with his Silk Road Ensemble and that's when she started to discover the world of jazz improvisation and applied it to the back pipes. Jazz is this off calling us and our language and of course that our just need this place in which everybody comes from another place. We all bring a where were we on being our traditions. Meadows roots most of the show's roots a gang are born again

with a different band with a different color and we differ and multi-racial. The. Butler invited the Argentinian pianist to produce her record one day he called to tell her he composed the piece for her called guy dangle. Dangle played on the back. Pipes. And I was laughing like crazy because he thought he was joking and I mean who am I to laugh also because I play right by so no matter what I do is going to be out of context. But you know he hear these bees which is very easy for people because he knew you were writing songs and because we were we were already working together that. I don't have all the notes in the history and I don't even have more than a knocked

out of what he was writing all of these come at these seasons and he was chanting You mean like oh yeah you can get that and you can get them. The boa at. The end. As a pianist Christina but two can play anything from Mozart to John H to the Beatles. Now immersed in the jazz and world music scene in New York she says she's found the freedom to play any kind of music on the back but primarily for me right now after almost eight years living in New York. I working with these musicians from all around the world. I feel more confident about taking my instrument out of it's going for a song I think I have an amazing instrument I think we can missions have an amazing instrument readings they can use him back I think

I did that the end. Of the world. With a lot of. The Arab. Amazing I suddenly love bagpipes. See Christina Pato on stage and in studio playing the Galician bagpipe at the World dot org. From the Nana Bill Harris studios of WGBH in Boston. I'm Marco Werman. Thank you for listening. The world is a co-production of the BBC World Service PR Rai and WGBH supported in part by Nan and Bill Harris committed to supporting objective unbiased reporting on national and international issues by the Scole

foundation supporting social entrepreneurs and their innovations to solve the world's most pressing problems at s k o l l dot org. The loose foundations Henry R. Luce initiative on religion and international affairs by the Annenberg Foundation and by the PR I trust for innovation which enables informed risk taking in the creation of new content for public radio donors to the trust include Marguerite steed Hoffman the tag me Jones family fund and the Rose family fund. Are on. Public radio. International. Neil era may I grew up in New Zealand's marginalised Pacific Island community. You would have expected him to quit his job at the bank. I told my parents that I wanted to go to

school. My mother cried and my father simply just shook his head and walked away from me. Now he directs New Zealand's top modern dance troupe and his parents are solidly behind him. His story next time on the world.