Transcripts For ALJAZAM Consider This 20140705

Former president jimmy carter,ing advocate for the treatment of women and girls. Ive seen tangible examples of how horribly women and girls are treated. Gender violence, he brings an extremely important voice to the conversation. Studying and memorizing the gettysburg address. Gluten are free. Why do you enjoy it . It makes you fat. We begin with a call for action from former president jimmy carter. , the deprivation and abuse of women and girls. False interpretation of religious text almost exclusive by powerful male leaders, to proclaim the lower status of women and girls. Growing tolerance of violence and warfare following the example set by the u. S. Has also played a role as violence has encouraged more violence. For that im honored to welcome the 39th president of the United States and the 2002 noble peace prize winner. Good to have you with us. Delighted. You have redefined what its like to be a former president of the United States. You are the only one who won the Nobel Peace Prize after leaving the white house. You have traveled all over the world, doing humanitarian efforts from the Carter Center to habitat for humanity. You have written two does books. That . As a matter of fact, this is my 28th book. I apologize the Carter Center is active in 79 different countries. Since ive left the white house, thats what we have done, gotten to know people in all nations, in third world countries where women and girls are especially abused. People who can do something about it, i have 23 recommendations in the book that can solve some of these problems, particularly in the United States, a lot of the problems that occur in the poorest countries, the back countries of the world we might call them, also ex at extant in the United States. For instance, slavery, slavery is much greater than it was in the 19th century when black people were brought out of africa in europe and the United States. There is 32 billion of Human Trafficking in the world every year and the taint reported leas year owners t and the state department reported that 80 of those sold into slavery are imirls for sex purposes. And thousands of them into the United States. 100,000 in the United States. Not all of them were sold across borders. But the number one place in america for this human slavery traffic is in atlanta. Because we have the largest airport on earth. And also, because a lot of our passengers on the airplanes come from a third world, from the southern part of the world where the girls can be bought cheaper. So you can buy a pimp or brothel owner can buy a girl for about a thousand dollars if she comes from africa or southern asia or latin america. We got all sort of social media responses, a viewer named heather she asked, how can we fight trafficking in the u. S . Well, i think the United States has to take the basis. There is a im talking about girls and women because as i say girls comprise 80 of the people sold into slavery. There is an International Convention of the United States called a convention on the end of discrimination against women. Cedaw. And the United States has refused to ratify this treaty, this convention that exists because we dont want to have anything to do with the United Nations and the very conservative senate. There is another one called the law against violence against women and the International Version ever that requires that every country tabulate not only their own crimes but decrease the criminality of action against women and girls al and l prisoners or slaves recordless whether they are women. The worst places for sexual abuse in america are two of our greatest institutions, one is universities. Where were seeing an epidemic of Sexual Assault. One out of four girls enrolled in american universities are raped or have sexual abuse while shes in college. Only a fourth are reported, 1 6 as much in the civilian environment. And the other is the military. The military. You were a navy officer. What do you think a Commanding Officer doesnt want to admit in his chain of command in his company in his battalion that a lot of sexual abuse takes place. So he discourages the women from reporting it when they are taughted. Same thing happens to the College President s, to Emery University or hard o harvard orf chicago or so forth. Prosecution of Sexual Assault out of the chain of command im really disappointed. They made some slight improvements about how much you can harass a woman who is raped in court. There was a very horrible case of a midshipman in the Naval Academy where i attended, she was interrogated by the Football Players defender, lawyer, 21 hours in three days and she asked to be left off, that off for the next day, because she was tired. And the judge ruled against her and made her testify on saturday as well. And they asked her horrendous questions, like how many times have you kissed a boy, what kind of underwear were you wearing, have you ever had sex relations, before you came to the Naval Academy, how wide do you open your mouth when you give oral sex to a boy . Dont make a charge officially against your rapist that says. This is a horrible abuse across the world and you say its the biggest worldwide challenge we face. Its unaddressed. Its unaddressed. In a world where we are facing nuclear proliferation, why do you think that is the biggest challenge . Lets look at the number of people that die because of this. We know about 35 Million People were killed in the Second World War, right . And during the war between the states or the Second World War 600,000 people were killed. At this moment there are 160 Million Girls who are missing because they have been killed by their parents. Either at birth, they strangled the baby because its a girl and they need to have boys, or because they now have sonograms and they can detect the sex of a fetus when its still an embryo and they can selectively abort that child because its female. Almost a generation of girls are missing from the earth because they have been killed. The chapter of the book called genocide of girls. Possibly the most precise one because you address that very issue. For instance china and india limit the size of families. If the family doesnt have social security, they want to have boys. If they can only have a maximum of one or two children, they want to make sure they have boys. A movie coming out, its a girl, a very famous movie, a woman from yintd said with india said without shame that she strangled eight children when they were infants because they were girls. United states needs to take leadership role in stopping this mandatory prostitution and take action to correct these problems. You are deeply religious but you are critical in the role of religion to women and girls. Im a christian. There is nothing in the acts of jesus christ that women. As a matter of fact, jesus was a champion of womens rights and made women of a higher status than ever before him. The beebl, the old test the bible, the old testament, new testament, the writings of paul, whether you want woman inferior. It is men interpreting it. It is. As paul pointed out there were 25 leaders that he mentioned dismissal i think in 16th chapter of acts and about half those are women at very high levels. Nowadays, of course in the Catholic Church a woman cannot be a priest or a de deacon. And in the southern of the baptist convention, a woman cant teach boys in the classroom. You and mrs. Carter left the Southern Baptist convention because of their position on women. You have been hopeful of pope francis. I visited with Pope John Paul ii, an almost total inflexibility there, but i wrote pope francis a letter describing some of the issues in the book and helped him to prevent or minimize the position of women and girls. I didnt ask him to change the churchs position on women of course, but he wrote me a very nice letter back, the position of women in the church needed to be strengthened and would be. I know you said that president obama has not. My other predecessors, im not criticizing president obama because you know ive been out of office for 35 years. And its natural for a president to consult other president s if he wants to who have been more recently in the white house. So i think that george w. Bush and bill clinton have been there just before him and i dont think its reasonable to expect president obama to go back 35 years and recess recollect an old democrat who was there. What about the criticism that you are too independent, that you dont take guidance very well and dont play well with official washington . Im always protecting the integrity of the president. I havent been anywhere in the world that i didnt get at least tacit approval of the president before i went. A few president s have asked me not to go, president obama did, president clinton, and president george h. Wmplet bus w. Bush asked me not ogo because there were places that were dangerous. The Carter Center had a policy of going into areas that, we dont have redescraints or restrictions of whom we meet. We can meet with leaders with whom the u. S. Government has no relationships and the u. S. Government will call on me as i go into north korea, cuba, palestinian factions, nepal and meet with a maoist, they asked me to ask questions and to bring back some answers. A final question for you. You have been critical of edward snowden, you believe that he broke the law with some of the revelations he made. But at the same time you think it was important that some of this be brought to light. I do. You said youre concerned that your emails are being looked at by the nsa, and when you have sensitive topics, you do handwritten letters. The head of the nsa has said they are not looking at your emails. Thats a relief to know. I remember when the head of nsa one of them said that they didnt monitor american they didnt record american telephone calls. And it turned out later that he didnt tell the congress truth. But you know i havent really worried about it. I dont have anything to conceal but there are some times when i dont want some of my private messages to be read. Theres no doubt nsa has recorded every telephone call and every email message sent in the United States. They dont actually read the text but they know which message has occurred. They know which transmission has taken place and if they want to later on they can get permission from a very quiescent fisa court. I was concerned after watergate and that sort of thing that intelligence sometimes abused people. I know that the fbi did abuse Martin Luther king jr. And so forth. So we have a law passed called the fisa law in 1978 that absolutely prevented any American Intelligence Agency from spying on even one american communication unless they got a court order ahead of time certifying that it was a threat to american security. And that prevailed until after 9 11. And then that law was liberalized. And i think the law was changed quite a lot. And in my opinion when the congress changed it, the Intelligence Committee knew what was in the bill but the rest of the members of coming didnt have access to those secrets. So the laws were passed and i think fsa and others have exceeded the grant of freedom that the Congress Gave them and exceeded their intrusion into the private affairs of americans, yes. The book is a call to action, women, religion, violence and power. President carter, its an honor to have you with us. Best of luck on your book and on your humanitarian efforts. And i hope you visit us on the 29th book. Al Jazeera America presents the system with Joe Berlinger i think the prosecutor has the greatest power of anyone anybody in our Society Lawyers are entrusted to seek the truth. I didt shoot anybody, i dont have anything to do with nothin but some dont play by the rules the way the courts have treated him, made me sick and its society that pays the price prosecutors have unique power to take away your personal liberties i just want justice. The system with Joe Burlinger only on al Jazeera America to research the causes and possible cougars of gun violence in america. Some 70,000 people attended the National Rifle Associations Annual meeting this spring. On the agenda, passing a federal law that would allow gun owners with school carry permits to pack their guns in states where concealed care is banned. Loaded guns in some circumstances to be brought into bars, churches, school zones, government buildings even airport areas outside security checkpoints. We as georgians believe in the right of the people to defend themselves and therefore we believe in the second amendment. And today i will put into law a gun bill that heralds selfdefense, personal liberties and public safety. The Little Wonder then that georgia congressman Jack Kingston has chained his tune, now that hes campaigning for the senate. He now calls for banning the centers for Disease Control, will not be included in the appropriations bill. For more were joined by congresswoman caroline maloney. And with us from atlanta is dr. Mark rosenburg, president and director of the fasks for task force for human health, he led the gun Violent Research no. It was defunded in the 1990s. After newtown, about gun violence now hes completely changed his tune and as i just said, hes talking about the president wanting gun grabbing initiatives. What do you say to him . Whats so threatening about doing research . We research everything, as researchers can point out. Alone are we with Gun Safety Research in that they are initiatives to prohibit. I would say no area should be so wall off that we cant research and find cures and solutions. I thought after sandy hook that there would be a lot of progun safety, that the background checks would pass. But research, we need it in order to build a case. And the amount of gun violence in our world is staggering. 33,000 people a year die from gun violence. 32,000 people a year, 91,000 children under the able of 12 were killed by gun violence. Why not . Way to see if background checks work if safety locks work. Policy isnt set without research to back it up. You need data to progress, and without the data you are stopping the progress. We have a bill in to the center for Disease Control for gun research. Senator, i know youre a gun advocate, you like the shoot. Now gun violence is seen as a Public Health issue because as the congresswoman said, tens of thousands of people are killed every year by gun violence and its costing us tens of billions in medical cost. What can research for gun violence help . One, you mentioned 30,000 people a year are killed by guns. So we want to prevent some of those deaths. Especially suicides and many, many of those deaths that are very preefntable. But we have preventible. We have another problem at the same time. Our gun rights are threatened. The rights of legitimate gun owners are under threat. What we have got odo is find a way to reduce both firearm injuries and deaths and protect the rights of legitimate gun owners. If we probably only wanted to do one of those things, you wouldnt need research. Dont allow any discussion let alone any discussion about firemafirearm injuries and deat. If all you wanted to do was prevent firearm injuries and deaths then take guns away from civilians. The problem is we want to solve both problems at the same time, and there are ways to do it. But if you want to figure out what works to achieve both of these goals at the same time, you need to do research to find out the answer. And rye anonymity, we dont know right now, we dont know what works. We dont know that letting more people carry concealed weapons in public will save lives and security, we dont know if that will protect legitimate gun owners. Were asking politicians to sign bills when they dont know what the impact of those bills would be. Its not fair of us to ask them to pass on bills if we dont give them evidence on what works and what doesnt. Were flying blind in an area that affects health and safety. Congresswoman, youve mentioned a whole bunch of different are initiatives, including making gun ceag legal, to limit large capacity magazines, renew the assault weapons ban and require insurance for gug owners. Isnt it a forgone conclusion that in an Election Year none of that will move forward . Well you always try. I think his point you can do both is true. You can find common ground. Theres no reason you cant Research Ways to prevent gun deaths and absolutely ensure that law abiding rightful citizens can bear arms. It is in our constitution. So none of my bills would take guns away from a lawabiding person and one who can rightfully own one. But as we learned in webster, new york, many mentally ill people get illegal guns and this particular case right after sandy hook, a man got a straw purchaser to get him some illegal guns and set fire to his house and proceeded to kill fire officers and Police Officers who were coming to save him. Obviously a very ill person. We need to look at Mental Health and crack down on illegal gun trafficking. That should be like having a cup of water every day. Why in the world, it is not legal to traffic in guns. Most nra leaders i know say they absolutely support this bill, why cant we pass it . Even common sense measures that even the nra supports we cant pass. Dr. Rosenburg, the nras chief lobbyist chris cox said they were promoting an idea that gun are ownership is a disease that needs to be eradicated. Should the cdc not be the place where this research is conducted . First you need to realize when people dont like the results that theyre getting from honest scientific research, they try to discourage the researchers and the methods. The nra did not like the research that suggested that having a firearm at your home does not protect you but puts you at 300 more risk that someone in your family will be killed in a homicide and 500 more risk that someone in your family will be killed in a suicide. So the nra didnt like the fact that the research, very legitimate, highquality research, showed that putting a gun in your home did not protect you. Cdc is the only background and the epidemiologic skills to look at the picture, the picture of Mental Illness and what happens when the adjudicated mentally ill have firearms. The department of justice can look at what happens when convicted felons and criminals have firearms. But the cdc has the skill to check the impact on the population at as a whole. We fund them here there is research by other agencies. Absolutely and the ban is unique to gun safety. I dont know of any other area of research where youre literally banned from this type of research. Now president did an scuff order that said research could take place in this area and our legislation supports his executive order and makes it clear that the dick amendment did not research for gun safety. Dr. Rosenburg, the cdc has not been funded to do anything on gun safety since the 1990s. But you have written that we have spent billions of dollars since the 1970s on70s on prevention of traffic deaths. Could the same help in this situation . Obviously it could. Obviously, jay dickey has over the years become a friend and weve both influenced each other and we both agree that this research is so important. It is a matter of life and death and jay dickey would today say that was a mistake and we need to do everything we can to get the Research Going again. An important discussion considering how many people are dying, and i appreciate you two joining us today. Americans spend billions on health and diet products, how are we supposed to know what to buy and eat these days . Countless mixed messages about whats good for us, whats bad for us, certainly not more than in the last couple of weeks. Focusing on saturated fats, red wine or dark chocolate or gluten is a poison or gluten free is a positive fact. Andrew wile,ing university of Arizona Health sciences center, he is a columnist for prevention magazine and a best selling author, true food, seasonable, sustainable, and pure. Good to have you with us. Thank you. Lets start with saturated fats. The ones that effect most people, for centuries we have been told, dont eat high fat diets. The American Heart Association advocates for low fat diet. Now weve got dr. Oz, all sorts of papers and boorks that say maybe saturated fats arent that bad for you after all. It may be that saturated fats are not that bad for us. I dont think we circulate eat them with abandon. It may be that all saturated fats are not created equal. For example, the saturated fat in meat is not great for your heart or arteries. Whereas, the saturated are fat in Dairy Products may have a protective effect. The book that came out that said, the big fat surprise, saying butter is better for you than vegetable oils. I think olive oil is much better but keep in mind you have a saturated fat budget and decide how you want to spend it. Do you want to have ietion cream once in a while, steak once in a while . I choose to spend my budget on high quality cheese. Cheeses that come from cows that graze at high altitudes as in switzerland, italy and france which have a better high fat profile. I wouldnt say eat processed cheese with abandon. There was no increase, even for high senate intake people, in the risk of cancer or heart disease. The problem of these studies are metaanalyses, i dont think we know enough yet. Another problem is, when we look at saturated fat, the question is many what is it replaced with in the diet . Its replaced with carbohydrates, which is more of a problem. I found that years ago on larry king live, you said saturated fats may not be the problem, the problems may be carbs. Exactly. When these low fat diets came in a lot of people have gotten fatter. High glycemic carbohydrates, which are problematic. 30 of americans would like to cut back on gluten intake. Only 1. 8 million americans have celiac disease. A problem with gluten. Many people have the nonceliac gluten sensitivity. The problem is, we can test for celiac disease we cant test for gluten sensitivity. Somebody hears from a neighbor that gluten is a problem. I go to the doctor and ask is this the cause of my problem . We have very few directions if that could be a problem. But gluten has become a massive industry. You have to go out there massive industry. There are a lot of gluten free junk foods out there as well. Often when people go on a gluten free diet, they are not imbibing in gluten and that may make them are more gluten sensitivity is unknown in china and japan. What does that say . The real problem may be the microbiome, the gut are bacteria we carry. It looks like the organisms we have in our gut are major determinants of sensitivity, reactivity and allergy. Increase of increasing use of antibiotics, increasing use of industrialized food, a decrease in breast needing and a startling increase in i s c delivery in caesa caesarrian cloifer. Well be back with admonish of consider this. Khaled hosseini author of the best selling novel the kite runner talks about his hopes for his homeland. No change will come to afghanistan unless its initiated by the afghans themselves. And the inspiration for his latest novel. The idea for the book came from painful acts of sacrifice. Every saturday join us for exclusive, revealing, and surprising talks with the most interesting people of our time. Talk to al jazeera only on al Jazeera America hundreds of days in detention. Al jazeera rejects all the charges and demands immediate release. Thousands calling for their freedom. Its a clear violation of their human rights. We have strongly urged the government to release those journalists. Journalism is not a crime. Nature is wondrous but it can also be brutal and horrifying. Our next guest wrote a book about it, nature is trying to kill you. A tour through the dark side of the world. The host of monsters inside me on animal planet. Great to have you with us, dan. Great to be here. You start the book with the really disgusting thing that happened to you. Which i dont want to get into. The title of the book how is Mother Nature trying to kill me . Everybody has the idea that its a loving kind thing that wants to make us healthier, if things are balanced they must be good for you. Thats kind of true but Mother Nature is looking out for itself, and youre calories, and there are pret tors predators who would love to take you apart. Its the reason why breaking bad is more interesting to watch than cinderella. You never get to otherwise that are absolutely the best parts. Talking about dark side, you break up the book into different chapters, following seven deadly sins. And your main premise is what characterizes, is animals to pass on their own dna. They dont care about the specious, they dont care about the ecosystem, they just care about themselves. There are a bunch mice on this island and sea birds. But when the mice arrived there in 1810, they started eating eggs and then sea bird chicks a live and very quickly they started evolving and the last 200 years, they become two to three times the size of a normal mouse and they swarm a baby albatross and eat it alive. They themselves will die because they dont have any food left. They are thinking about themselves and not the ecosystem. You wrote your ph. D. Theses about how vampire bats move. You talk about bats being the ultimate buzz kill for some tungara fra. That are about to make love. One of the bats i really love is called a frog eating bat. One of the frogs that the bat eats is a tungara fra. And are are theyre stuck right . Males are either they got really like to you know pass on my dna and have a romantic time with you but i also dont want to been by a bat. You also have a rinella frog. Sometimes the female gets the upper hand like she does with this frog thats going to get eaten by the bat. Theres actually a male and the mating season is so intense that at the end of it many females have died from the onslaught of what went on in that pond. I wont get into that. Aafter theyve died, some males will squeeze the female, and glet are eggs out, and fertilize those eggs. Its functional necrophilia. Youre like what, why . Im the oldest about six kids, i thought i knew all about sibling rivalry. Lets start with one, sand tiger sharks. Just incredible. The ma pla is pregnant and they have babies inside of her thats of different ages. The older is going to break out of its egg sack, and swim around inside the mom and eat its siblings so it doesnt have to compete with them in the reeled world. And ver owes hatches,. Pecking and trying to kill its younger sibling and it usually succeeds out of 200 nests that were observed it worked 199 times. Only one younger sibling survived. 1569 pecks. Snowy owls are beautiful. They are beautiful but they dont know how much food there is going to be for their eggs so they have a strategy for their reproduction, where the oldest sibling gets all the the food at once. The younger siblings are going to die unless theres a lot of food. Finally emperor peg quin penguins are very selfish right . They each have an egg and its a beautiful story of them standing together to share heat. Any male on the outside of the huddle will push its way to the middle and stay there. Anyone in the middle will stay there too. You have penguins who are selfishly moving to the warm eggs place. The book is Mother Nature is trying to kill you. A lively tour through the natural world. Dan riskin. Well be real reporting that brings you the world. This is a pretty dangerous trip. Security in beirut is tight. More reporters. They dont have the resources to take the fight to al shabaab. More bureaus, more stories. This is where the typhoon came ashore. Giving you a real global perspective like no other can. Al jazeera, nairobi. On the turkeysyria border. Venezuela. Beijing. Kabul. Hong kong. Ukraine. The artic. Real reporting from around the world. This is what we do. Al Jazeera America. America mobile app, available for your apple and android mobile device. Download it now this. Did dracula have it right . The fictional vampire fed on the blood of others. And it kept him vibrant. Older mice could be kept young by infusions of blood from younger mice, improving memory and learning. Dr. Amy majorrers is a professor of stem sel cell and regenera tf biology. Could you explain the basis of the experiment with mice and what you found . Thank you, sure, i would be happy to. We were searching for substances in the bloodstream that might affect the ability of tissues to retain themselves or repair themselves after injury. We found a protein called gdf 11 abundant in the blood of younger animals but declines with age. Along with the emergence of several dysfunction muscle wasting and weakness, decreased activity in the brain and defects in the cardiac muscle as well. We found when we added this protein back to older animals we could actually reverse those signs of aging. Somehow the protein activists stem cells that exist in activates stem cells and thats somehow produces the effect . We found that when gdf 11 was added back to the blood streams, improved the schedule schedule tal system and the brain. That translated into a more robust capacity of the brain around the skeletal muscle to function. I saw one quote that i thought was particularly interesting. This not only slows the clock but reverses the clock . So it does look like in fact we are able by adding back this protein thats normally lost with age to restore some activity in the muscle and in the brain that normally would not be there. So it does seem that were restoring it. Its important to understand that we dont know for certain that this is actually a direct reversal of the processes that brought these cells to the aged state but it does restore function thats similar to what you would see in youth. This is obviously in its early stages but how translatable do you think these results could be in mice to humans . Were very excited about the possibility of translating this to humans. The gdf is identical between miez and humans. We want to understand more specifically its regulation in humans and how we might apply to it human aging related diseases. The fact that you have isolated it, could it be conceivably be taken in the form of a pill or would you actually have to have some sort of a blooz transfusion . It probably blood transfusion . We dont think we will go forward with blood transfusions in our work, we have this protein that were very interested in seeing how its regulated. I believe well be able to figure that out over the next few years and that will lead us with Better Options how to target this so we can for instance increase the bodys own production of this protein later in life or target the effects of in protein more specifically. What kind of time frame do you think youll need to figure this out for humans . So its always of course very difficult to predict these things. But i think its very reasonable to expect at least the first Clinical Trials that will build on the results weve reported here, within the next five years. Could it be, to use, you know, the most popular way of looking at it, i guess, a fountain of youth for humans . So i think of it more as understanding ways to maintain healthy function, and Healthy Aging later in life. And so were really focusing not so much on life span extension but really in extending the years that the body functions very well. Now are you concerned that in some way the protein could cause some sort of of sces excessive reaction . We dont see any increase in the incidence of cancer in the older animals that have been treated with that protein. So far weve only treated animals for 60 days and we would like to look longer and more extensively at this reaction. Its a fascinating study. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. Thank you very the show may be over but the conversation continues. You can find us on twitter ajconsiderthis. Well see you next time. Hello, everybody and welcome to jazz al Jazeera America. John siegenthaler has the night off. You are watching the only Live National newscast at this hour. Just ahead, showdown. Theres a new wave of protests in the California City where us about loads of immigrants were turned back. Watch out hurricane arthur has weakened but its packing a punch as it moves up the east coast. Yosemite, like you have never seen before