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Transcripts For CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20141003

>> >> if it comes to that and my opponent is not doing that and that is one of the important issues of this race. >> paul davis is ahead of brownback of 42% why is this so close? >> a very different dynamic with the senate race on national issues but the reason is built around competency or execution. and is of very aggressive program. and the effect is to blow a sizable hole in the state's budget without the boost he suggested. for that reason is because people are worried about education or transportation they have gotten a lot of traction out here. but the governor is also a fixture of kansas politics just like roberts known each other for a quarter century it would be a very republican state with a bill to the advantage but search of the unrest with some voters in kansas that you can see the types of campaigns we looked at that has a very dramatic effect on the futures. >> for the kansas city star from kansas city we appreciate you being with us give it great to be here this minute conversation on the outbreak of ebola and the first case in the u.s.. >> this cdc confirmed the first case of ebola in the u.s. this week. up next and dr. bill takes part of the discussion in the help break of the ebola virus. from milan to a council, this is 90 minutes. [inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon i am the director of the effort to center here at the land to the council. on behalf of the chairman it is my pleasure to welcome all of you and those joining us around the country including c-span about combating the ebola outbreak lessons learned from the international response. o i would like to welcome among those present several people who have links to the region that are most affected. most to his excellency from the the of republic of sierra leone who honors us. your excellency's our thoughts emperors' m. best wishes go to the people love your country as well as liberia and new guinea and i would think sierra leone from the beaches they'll have a special place in my history. also representative of the community here in town with the republic of south africa. we're also honored to be joined by the first u.s. ambassador following the civil war's for every u.s. ambassador to the african republic and rwanda at the embassy. before introducing our panel , and better deeply grateful let me say a word about the atlantic center. the african center established september 2009 with a mission to help transform u.s. and european approaches to africa by emphasizing strong geopolitical partnerships and strengthening the economic road to prosperity on the continent. engage with former -- formal policy makers throughout africa globally and americans and europeans in particular. within the context with the leadership and engagement international affairs with the authentic community meeting international challenges the africa center collaborates with public and private centers with a practical solution to the challenges and opportunities in africa and in spirit of this mandate i am pleased we're able to host this discussion. during this leaders' summit the largest and he has held with african heads of states organizing 11 high levels with cabinet ministers and business leaders as they celebrate the strengthening between the united states and the fastest growing regions. now to do our part to tackle the challenges of the ebola virus not just economic prospects but those as obama noted last week as a growing threat to regional and international security. much has already been done and i suspect there analyst will highlight the response for u.s. and international including the group's second been to earlier today in london but there's still a significant gap between where we are and where we need to be. i'd like the situations we found ourselves in the recent past including a response to haiti and the ongoing refugees from syria a number of issues related to the ability of national and international actors the complex fight in the shortcomings with respect as they continue to have contact. with epidemiology or public health to noted experts of both subjects are here but from what we need for what we need to learn so please join me to welcome our panel. biographies are available if you are present so apologies for the brevity for national discussion. first fidelity coordinator of people live response that the u.s. department of state most recently served as united states embassy in didn't new delhi and was appointed people love coordinator for the state department. he began his career in denver service as the peace corps volunteer in sierra leone. the deputy director for policy and communication at the cdc prevention and global whole center with extinguished the dash distinguished experience in the legislative branches. and the assistant secretary of defense for humanitarian affairs with the civilian they'd in the pentagon response. and the commission officer from the medical corps with military hiv research programs a leading authority on he epidemiology. to show the possibilities for the vaccine of the hiv virus. finally the managing director and chief executive officer wrote the current crisis of monrovia i it have known her as of personal privilege to has a personal commitment i can testify to the effort she undertook to take on too literally try to save one life. and we're delighted for you to partner with aspin. now let's turn it over to use the panel. >> ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. says many, many years served as peaceful volunteer i am no medical expert i don't have a military background i don't know much about ebola but i know the strength i have great confidence that we will get through this terrible epidemic and the rest of us can help. we will talk about the u.s. response with this crisis and i will talk about president obama when we spoke at the cdc headquarters said the ebola epidemic is a global crisis requiring a truly global response. since the first cases were identified in west africa pursuing a whole government approach focusing on five discrete areas. coordinating with other countries with support from the u.n. relief effort provide research to health care workers to encourage u.n. leadership of the ground abroad and well-informed. after the earthquake in haiti and the tsunami of the coast of indonesia the u.s. government shows the capability to react to the international crisis. in the same way the u.s. military and civilian funds and government on the ground but it is our belief that the rest of the international community would take increasing roles over time for u.s. secretary general has greeted the un commission for a response which includes a command center that will provide logistics' and overall coordination for the efforts with the individual special representatives and last week that obamacare participated with this true coalition. the white house or the state department with usaid has worked tirelessly to sign countries that for the global coalition. we are at 35 countries with the fight against the bullet and five international institutions. with bilateral and multilateral has increased significantly. two day seem more than 200 million. in terms of the international financial response with over $400 million to the effort the imf is the assistance of millions of dollars and add to that private-sector response from the gates foundation the paul allen foundation and others. we will also see a lot of progress in terms of commitments to build. the critical list is from these far-flung corners get built quickly. the british government has committed to building 700 including the hospital specifically for the health care workers that are infected. that the military will build a system for all ebola patients and forest regions and the german government treatments contribute to a heavy cargo aircraft plane to build the air bridge with supplies of personnel. even contributing $1 million to find ways to contribute. with the international health care workers to provide peace and care but also to train workers. to prevent them to step up in greater numbers is the need that should they become infected they receive a high level of medical care. with the state department it has entered into several partner countries to provide medivac coverage for other people working on this crisis. to date united states and several european countries out of west africa in retry to ramp up that capability united states working together. but those people being evacuated the cost is paid for by the sponsoring organization. those with financial support health care workers and strategic airlift into west africa. but as the president has said where we are today a to head off a crisis. thank you. >>. >> thank you for the state department leadership on this issue. with our own employees i know you called yesterday with the global community and that confidence makes a different. so now i turn to west africa and a few comments about global whole security. but it is unprecedented rapid scalable is essential to reverse course. i would also say we have the unprecedented opportunity to control future infectious disease threats to implement the agenda that president obama so just briefly as many of you know, , along with texas health officials the conference as started at 1:00 today for those questions that you have and i am not directly involved in the domestic response and could not respond to inquiries you have about that but with the involvement of the united states we have 10 people dispatched to work with texas health officials contact tracing and infection control. more broadly working with public health and officials from around the country on preparedness and guidance from managing ebola patients. with those issues related to screening with airlines and other federal partners. but may turn out to west africa. for more than 7,000 reported cases in west africa but is in liberia alone 3700 reported cases health care workers have been disproportionately impacted with significant consequences what was already a week -- and need to recoup health care workers. right now the epidemic is doubling in scope every three weeks and the exponential increase is not slowing. the epidemic is likely to get worse before it gets better. despite the efforts by the global community. and there will be large consequences including economic and social. but there is news that together we put in place a response that can occur most importantly of the isolation and control practices with this epidemic. the one to say a few words about what cdc's specifically is doing and i have been with the cdc almost 20 years and watching them respond to the hiv epidemic to natural disasters to the flu and liz has a unique flavor. cdc has more than 130 staff deployed to west africa. but watching heliports they come to volunteer but we also have several hundred people around the world supporting staff to provide services. everything we do to be clear is in service to response of the home countries we are not working separately it is critical the country is charged it is essential that we support all the. includes laboratory and diagnostic or epidemiology which means to really understanding and characterizing effectively and smartly respond. with the communication that means to get culturally appropriate messages out to people protested messenger. and their infection control it is the area that is neglected and the highlights the importance. also there is the clear structure to manage the outbreak. them perhaps most importantly to work are mannar with the u.n., ed who comment world bank and private sector all have come forward with extraordinary commitment. with the role these entities have played and how important to the medium and long term with rebuilding. the collaboration has been excellent. with the usaid and in hhs all of whom have critical roles. despite the bleak news and potential of the crisis to get worse this hope and i want to mention a few of them. one is the in country leadership is committed to action and open to input and eager to assess. more than 90 percent of responders and health care workers and local staff. this really has been deeply appreciated at all levels with pockets of resistance they can readily overcome with better communication. ebola is not bred easily we can stop the spread with the burial practices and the ways in which the virus spreads. but it will require not just commitment scale of isolation and treatment capacity. but just a word about global health security the current ebola epidemic is a tragic illustration of the important improving global health security and the necessity to an advance the agenda. meeting with the global leaders last week the agenda aims to put every country in a position to stop before they become emergencies with better infection control and safety practices. now with the use of disease detectives to respond rapidly when they rise it is that management systems. as the cdc director has stated as components of this agenda in place already had read detected earlier to control. in closing i want to reiterate that rapid scallop is essential to bend the curb we do have an unprecedented opportunity to implement the measures from last week. thank you. >> ladies and gentlemen, figure for the opportunity to be at the atlantic center panel with interagency colleagues. we at department of defense are now working so closely from dallas reinforcement this epidemic is not something from which the united states will be able to isolate itself to support what we knew already the need for a coordinated government and private-sector response has become all the more urgent. those exposure not new but the interconnected world they are intensifying. i would like to take a few moments to share the idea for its with a epidemic in the context of the whole of government under way i would emphasize the department of defense undertakes its efforts of the civilian agencies with the accord meet the response of the epidemic in the field as well was closely with the department of state. and identifying the epidemic as a national priority for the united states. the department of defense is engage because it has unique capabilities to provide interim solutions but it can have more international efforts to have terrible human suffering that we see in west africa. it deploys u.s. troops in the unique capabilities including command-and-control in addition the program has unique resources and expertise for surveillance in the region. secretary hagel has approved activity and let me take you through these. the first line is command and control on september 15 secretary hagel wanted united assistance that efforts to the ebola outbreak. the commander of u.s. army africa u.s. africa command is the official commander. and to be in monrovia approximately two weeks coordinating with u.s. embassy team and end working closely with officials on the ground and the government. on tuesday the department and now secretary hagel will have to plan a 700 soldiers from the first airborne division from kentucky to become headquarters staff from the joint forces command in monrovia. and for those of various engineering units of the ebola treatment units by that expertise in those deployed to the region as a joint task force was formed with said dot element of the overall response to to the outbreak. close coronation with the usaid disaster assistance and with the usaid response management team. recording of the international level for the emergency response and partner countries that contribute to the response. the second line of beverages logistic support the department has initiated assistance with the commitment of the 25 bet hospital providing a local treatment facility for health care providers should they become ill or injured last weekend it is being prepared for construction. in respect the results in the coming weeks it will be manned by a health care professionals the public health service team is on the ground in bavaria. more than the ebola patients that have come out with protective equipment and other medical supplies. in concert with other international partners up possible establishment to support u.s. government and efforts that will include the development of their chance rotation and capabilities and the further provision of other supplies planning up 2/6 months for those facilities maintained by the region and the third line of beverages engineering support we have the joint force headquarters in monrovia so to support the construction of that et you to deliver care. as you may have seen already in liberia to view the etu and the construction military engineers are working with engineers of the armed forces of liberia who are committing their efforts to etu construction as well. the first will be0nk >> >> we are working hard but we cannot do this overnight and responding as quickly as we can but it will take time to get people on the ground to support this mission. with that i will yield to the next speaker and be more than happy to take your questions. >> no return to colonel michael. >> ladies and gentlemen, i am speaking to today someone who has spent his entire professional life those of stigmatizing disease and i will tell you that in my experience there is always room for hope there are epidemics of disease but ebola and hiv are epidemics of the year ended is time to concentrate hard on what we can do with public health responses and to look at things as newsworthy and infection control to understand this disease has struck east africa multiple times. there is a public-health response that i think we will get there again. ultimately to bring of pandemic to with neece to be effected a preventative vaccine. something that we have achieved partial success who was sitting in the second row is our person in thailand who made the trial work over 16,000 individuals in thailand and i would get back to that at the end of my discussion because amateurs like to talk about tactics but professionals talk about logistics'. at the end of the data's statistics to make the public-health response and counter measure efficient. so i will talk briefly about what is being done in the context of developing vaccines. for well over 10 years there has spent an effort in the field with many stakeholders that has brought us to the point where we are today. because of the nature of the central african and epidemic the pace of development has been steady but not accelerated. because of the nature of the public health emergency you have heard. the two vaccines and want to tell you about that gives you the impression fuel from monday and tuesday and was in geneva where there was of world health organization consult on the ebola vaccine where the consensus summary is sorted posted on the duration a website so there are two vaccines that are the farthest forward in development. one has come from the public health agency of canada working with stakeholders that include academic groups from all around the world the u.s. national to -- nestle institutes of health. this particular factor has been modified to a produces a portion of the ebola fiber is that the vaccine itself cannot give the individual ebola a that is an easy concept to accept then don't underestimate how difficult it is to get to that message. they do not cause the disease but contained a portion of the virus that we hope will provide effective immunity. the other vaccine developed largely by the national institutes of health and most specifically by my very good khaled colleagues that the vaccine research center working with that group since 2008 because my program is all over africa and we tested earlier generations of the vaccine and uganda. there is now a new prototype we expect to start testing again in uganda in march of next year now we will start that steady and about four weeks. once again the pace of this development which was steady has been accelerated. now choose to tell you about each of those vaccines the most important thing i can tell you is they have not yet been tested to be shown they are safe and effective in humans. both vaccines have been shown to be effective in what we call the animal models when you test these vaccines in monkeys were their vaccinated, and then exposed to very high amounts of ebola virus, even giving very large doses could be shown in animal groups of six to be 100 percent protected. but the question is whether or not whether wave vaccinate ourselves of that goes to a national exposure. i can tell you that the initial studies began initially at the vaccine research center at the nih and i refer you to their web site for full description. additional studies in the united states as well as around the world. and the steady that we would be doing in a few weeks in uganda but the idea to get to understanding the vaccine first and foremost, is safe. i will remind you of the hiv vaccine natalie shows it did not work but it increased the chances you to become hiv infected. but as a note of caution how does one do these kinds of studies overseas? have they do days ago kinds of trials with the placebo or others to see how that works in some individuals. i will tell you that the end of the day to be absolutely certain to get the quickest results the a who continues to explore what we call a randomized controlled trial. so that kind of environment where all kinds of ways to test the vaccine and not give it to others. many issues of bioethics. this is critical input from our partners the safest way to understanding is to do these studies in africa. i will tell you there is a very large pharmaceutical company in belgium working closely with the research center and a company called new links genetics in ames i was also working on this. billing back to the comedy of interagency efforts to be ready looking to get -- working together people forgetting which uniform there where or who pays the paycheck both our government and outside of the united states these our position sarah the most involved with the control efforts in the country. but let me get back to two critical issues. and speaking powerfully to this logistics' with the epidemics of fear. in order to do these controlled studies rekeyed to get to places where people are at risk and secure the integrity of the vaccine and kept at a very low temperature and areas of the world to collect quality information and to bring people back including colonel kim the came down to fixing those logistics' those unheard done on a very large number of people for the quality for a good logistics' not just for the discipline countries i think that we have to think very hard about. the last thing i want to leave you with is the issues of epidemics of fear we have learned over a generation that it is not just a platitude publishing a document of a good bridge is the tory guideline practice to look at the 89 days document shows a way forward those that tested with complete immunity involvement during the entire life cycle from sitting on the study teams to make sure when the volunteers are given informed consent the best of the understanding a compact and transparency with these individuals and the volunteers. to do the studies despite how well you think you can do community engagement you cannot do enough and that is incredibly helpful to go forward to say i got the vaccine from the westerners now i had a bullet it did not work for us. maybe they gave it to me these are critical questions working continuously so i would discourage all of us to take a deep breath going forward to develop countermeasures we need to be extremely diligent about community engagement. thank you. >> finally christie rogers. >> i do want to thank peter and atlantic center to show such great readership to commend this panel while the crisis is ongoing and the international aid effort continues to unfold. talking about a coordinated effort and lessons learned that for everybody in the audience to highlight what we're doing to identify those areas to make improvement and what we have not focused on yet while the effort is unfolding you need to be commended. thank you. i am here today to offer a unique perspective i want to thank my colleagues and friends for their ongoing efforts in response we have been on the ground in liberia since june. we enter the country working to improve with they were getting. we ended up to take over and rescue a clinic and to the strength of the team able to stabilize the clinic and improve services and upgrade the equipment and keep the doors open. i would not recommend this in terms of a business model to takeover of clinic while the ebola crisis is unfolding. but because we have such a dedicated group of professionals and intensive care paramedics we were able to do it because of commitment. just call little a bet -- a little bit about our company with a growing footprint in africa we provide a whole range of medical and health services to companies companies, governments and ngos working with the communities so the full range of health care services ranges from delivery to training of specialized staff training of the first-aid responders or to staffing and managing and operating any size clinic whether merger care or special care to provide indoor services and aeromedical evacuation which i will highlight momentarily. while that ebola crisis has unfolded for the countries affected it is also the economic crisis that will go beyond the public health crisis once ebola is contained we will have these impact on the local economy to be deep and long-lasting. one of the things that i think the international aid effort which is very generous has overlooked, the involvement of companies who are operating their. x pats' or those that employ local nationals that have a unique skill sets to be rapidly mobilized. once we're on the ground if you recall ebola was not on the front page of every paper we did contact of all the local and international organizations operating their. we knocked on every door to say we are here we have western trained doctors and nurses and we continue to say that we currently served 900 individuals now offering care right now to ebola victims focusing on an urgent care and general health care. that is critically important as well because right now most of the public health care facilities in monrovia and are shutting down. focus 100 percent of the overwhelming crisis. what happens to those individuals who have appendicitis or those mothers giving birth in the st.? that is a problem and a travesty we can quickly mobilize with our current capacity. we can mobilize with those letters similar and remote medical facilities to focus on the remainder of the population and also to ensure public awareness is increasing and those individuals who work to try to keep the company's open to try to stop the exodus of those that are there to give them workers a you are fine don't leave now they need you now more than ever. and we say we're there to help. i see my colleagues in the audience. we are their. we have people on the ground as well but we also understand it is even more of a travesty. we can rapidly mobilize. death from today was convened to talk about and highlight the coordination and a effort but also lessons learned. i have been involved almost two decades the stabilization efforts in disaster relief efforts that we embarked upon in this country. one thing that is similar is what about the private sector? where they involved in the planning stages? not takeover but what can they do to be a force multiplier to mobilize? they do have a unique skill set and they are generous but to coordinate the corporate social responsibility programs. a lot of these companies have huge public social responsibility programs to give back and train health care workers and cancer screenings and increasing public awareness. without coordination a lot of companies don't know where to focus their efforts with the international aid efforts aside from just donations i think it is happening to an extent. but the choosing several highlight regarding the dedication, we are partnered with a local library and dr. , extraordinarily well trained and incredible human being. he was one of the first doctors to contract ebola while taking care of his very good friend working at jfk hospital. one of the first doctors to die. . . we do aromatic evacuations as well. one of the things that peter highlighted in the beginning was we had an extraordinarily unfortunate case early in august where we had a 24-year-old u.s. citizen who had an infected shunt in his head, had an ebola test and tested negative. he needed a neurologist. he didn't have one at the clinic and there was one available because the public facilities had shut down and library so we were trying to get it out. i had a plane ready and i had a pilot ready. i had everybody ready but because we couldn't secure landing rights in a neighboring country unfortunately our patient died. i have been an outspoken advocate on the coronation effort and working with the local neighboring companies and the state department and the department of defense to make certain that while we are taking care of folks -- that we are not forgetting about everybody else who may not have ebola to have another urgent case and to make certain in our effort we can continue to take care of them and provide for the avenues of success. with that i'm going to leave it open and thank you again very much for being here tonight. >> thank you christiane thank you to all our panelists. i will exercise the moderator's prerogative and throughout two related questions and invite any members of panel who want to comment. recently in the last 24 hours we have had a relatively senior prominent leader in one of the countries go on france 24 and denied and refute -- tried to refute the worst-case scenario of the cdc model of how the spread of the disease -- on the one hand and on the other side of that is the question of speed up ramping up our speakers have all highlighted the difficulties that are being overcome with still the effort is taking time and that is on one hand stepping back on what happens on the other hand we need to move if we are not going to get the worst-case scenario. if any of our panelists would like to comment both on the modeling of extreme cases perhaps our experts on epidemiology lightweight in on why that's a valid point that was raised in the study and simply -- is not the right thing are also balancing that with the question of timing as a response so open for anyone who wants to jump in on the scientific side or the implementation side. >> i will just say -- we are all looking at cdc. >> on the model the critical point in the model was the need for rapid action and what the costs are of moving slowly. it's less important whether the worst-case scenario is precisely right. it's a sufficiently concerning devastating number that if we get even close to that number it will be an awful outcome. i think the modelers are quite correct in their assumption that we need to move quickly and that every day, every week and every month that passes is an opportunity for the disease to spread in a way that it would require us to more than redouble her efforts that do things we are not prepared to do right now. >> i would just say addressing the issue of modeling is very difficult because small changes in a whole variety of parameters is a mathematics exercise. a very small change in assumption is going to be a huge outcome difference in models. if you look carefully at what models have published or the w.h.o. meeting you see a range and you have the best and worst case scenario. every week as you actually get real epidemiologic data and this is something that dr. shriber emphasized and i can't emphasize enough the ability to track the attack rates to really understand that the subnational level where the disease is, how bad is it is critical because it allows you to track where the logistics go and where the resources should go in designing a vaccine study where the best balance between where you can logistically do a study and where the attack rate is going to be high enough you can get the answer the most rapidly. therefore make a decision than about public health rollout of the vaccine. i think the issue to me isn't so much the modeling, it's the need for hard logistics and hard epidemiology. you can't separate the two. the last thing i would say something we have learned from the relatively small amount of epidemiologic data is actually a good news story. if this were respiratory disease something that may be a disease like sars those kinds of diseases or any one person has a disease you can in fact up to 17 people. and epidemiology they would call that the arc of zero. when that number gets to be less than one it means the epidemic is on the way out. that's all vexing people thing. the number from the hour zero number for ebola is around to so for every person that's infected that person usually can infect up to two. it doesn't mean it's the only way we'll go but on average. so this should be the kind of epidemic with the right public health responses in terms of putting in this basic prevention package as well as effective vaccines and therapies that should be an epidemic that would be easier to control than some others. it's less to me the issue of what anyone model data gives you any results but they need for having data to best inform the response. >> i want to open it up to questions. i would ask you to wait for the microphones to come to you and then to please identify yourself. i think it's only proper to give the first word to his excellency the ambassador of sierra leone. >> just to make a short contribution to this, the question one would want to ask and several people asked the question is -- for this kind of epidemic. one is it correct to assume that the. [inaudible] so the question was was it prepared? from what i know, from what i have been reading you weren't prepared for it. a year or two ago their budget was slashed especially in public health area and there's a lot of red tape from the time they are informed early on. the epidemic was discovered and the first thing they did was to inform the population. we think they were underresourced and not ready so maybe there's a paradigm shift to get the w.h.o. perhaps to be ready for these kinds of emergencies. one would have assumed that they were ready but what a surety is there? they didn't have the money to do it. that is when i started going to their various -- asking them for money and that's my contribution. >> thank you ambassador. the gentleman in the second row. please identify yourself. >> my name is peter connor and i'm from texas. i'm a national security consultant with a focus on science and health and cyber. my question is to dr. nelson michael. he talked a great deal about vaccines and i'm sitting next to your vaccine expert here but i didn't hear in the address by the panel much about therapies and i do represent a company that has a therapy that set the fda right now looking for an emergency exemption for it. what anybody on the council or dr. michael care to address that question about potential therapies? >> the reason i didn't speak to that specifically is because it's neither my field of expertise nor is it anything currently right now that the institutes i'm associated with in research is actually doing. i do know there have been developments obviously of a wide variety of therapeutics to include antibodies and in the field right now i know my colleague from liberia is testif taking plasma from individuals that survived which is rich and antibodies that might be protective and giving that individuals that become ill. there are more interesting and novel technologies come interesting from the standpoint of me as a scientist like small interfering rna's. that may drive some of you to wikipedia but there are small molecule inhibitors much like the drugs were used to treat other diseases especially hiv. there's a panoply of therapies being developed and i can tell you they are newsworthy but there is not a lot of information that i have seen yet that would lead us to quickly coalesce to go forward. this is usually the province of pharmaceutical companies that do this better than anyone and i would tell you that i know there are active efforts along those lines. again to reiterate specifically i did not speak to those because it isn't something i'm directly involved in. >> i think we have limited information about new modalities that we do know that basic treatment can make an enormous difference in survival rates, so these are basic things like hydrating a patient, balancing their electrolytes in treating infections as they occur. >> i think we are really hitting on a critical point. i would refer you to a "new england journal of medicine" article by jesse goodman, a physician who recently stepped down as the chief medical officer of the food and drug administration and he refers to another outbreak of a deadly disease that occurred in this country with anthrax in 2001. it carefully shows that we thought at the time that inhalation of anthrax in the 90% fatality ratio. you have a 90% chance of dying even with effective antibiotic therapy. in fact that rage was more like 45% because you could do good intensive care. with ebola you need to take care of the interop with the bit you get. body salts especially potassium and magnesium and oh by the way you can't fix potassium and lesson you have magnesium to replace it. there are things that intensive care nurses would know about that in stricken areas these are more difficult. as you improve the clinical care just the basic clinical care without some of these more novel therapeutics you will see the case fatality rate drop. why is that important? is important for the intrinsic reasons of protecting human beings but it's also important to recognize when you're testing therapeutic's if you assume the case fatality ratio for anthrax was actually 90% and it was 45% giving the time you feel that the therapy actually kill 20% of the people you end up with a 65% mortality you would have thought you were doing a great job unless you had an active contr control. i think it's important as we talk about countermeasures being therapeutics or countermeasures helping otherwise healthy people using vaccines. we need to be very careful going forward. >> my name is robert griffin and i'm a retired ambassador. i was most recently the surgeon of affairs in sierra leone in august and part of september. i would first like to say a word about embassies. it embassies or the u.s. platform out there and we focus our efforts on relocating families. we focused on our mission. we have become an essential platform for the cdc and usaid activities and presumably for the military. i had to ask where has africom been for the last six months? this should be something they were focusing on and there was no military focus until two weeks ago and i they think it's a johnny-come-lately and something of a shame for the policymakers to have neglected getting involved earlier on. but on sierra leone itself there is no question that the population is traumatized. they are scared that they are also very accepting. their societies collapsing. there are no schools. the health infrastructure is close. there's no place to go to have your appendix taken out or get a malaria pill. all of those things that close. the internal constraints, there is not food coming into the cities the way it used to because of roadblocks and other concerns. there has been a massive education effort on the part of the government with its international partners to teach people about ebola, about what to do. don't touch somebody that's sick. don't touch anybody that is dead. call the numbers. get the help and report the cases. people are quite aware i think of the immediacy of this and if not in sierra leone they had a national shutdown and everybody had to stay home and was visited by health workers to find out about this. i think the people are getting the message and that got the message. the rumors about who started it and why it started and what was causing it and who is responsible, have all pretty well faded away. people understand that this is a terrible disease and it's a tragedy that they have to face and work with. i have confidence in me government of sierra leone and the organization that is out there now is well-established and doing the right job. and the question as you mentioned is getting enough people there doing enough training. we have the money and all the equipment coming in so the question right now is really trying to get ahead of the cur curve. when dr. frieden was out there he used to say this is the rise of ebola in west africa. liberia is a peer in the top of this curve and sierra leone is only halfway up. it's time for sierra leone to hault that curve and i think the international community is bringing those resources into place. i think from the perspective of the field i think we are getting a better handle on what's going on. that was my comment. sorry there's not a question. >> thank you. >> i just have one comment. there's no room for complacency. we are all hungry for good news but at the first sign of good news it doesn't mean we can give up our efforts. it's absolutely essential that we pursue this with the same figure. >> that provides a good jumping off point for my question. i am judith kauffman formerly of the state department, now independent consultant working with lm pie which has robust medical supply chain and logistics practice which i work with. and i thank all of you for the work you are doing and for the passion. ms. rodgers you correctly pointed out to the effect this is going to have on the economy and we are all i think worried also about the impact on an already fragile health care system and the private sector can't make up the difference. so my question particularly to the government people is what are you doing now? how are you thinking, who is responsible for ensuring that this emergency response which is vital. he can't do without it but that it doesn't do further harm to existing systems and in fact works to build better and stronger systems against ebola. >> i can try a couple of words. there are four primary goals of the u.s. administration in terms of its efforts on ebola. one of them is trying to blunt the second order effects on economics, on the social fabric of these countries as well as on the political systems. what we are seeing already and you can read it in any paper the absolute collapse of almost every kind of infrastructure that you need to sustain life in these countries. the wftu has been a leader in trying to ensure that people are not going hungry, bringing en masse quantities of food. the world bank and imf have made enormous commitments to try to stabilize the economy's. it is not nearly enough. over and over you hear that message but whatever we are seeing on the ground and the ambassador spoke of his experience in sierra leone there are tremendous things in the pipeline heading towards this region. they haven't gotten there yet so the one thing i want to leave everyone with is the sense that for the u.s. government we believe it's absolutely essential the borders remain open, the ports remain open, the commercial airlines remain open. i was on the phone with john hoover our ambassador in sierra leone. he arrived last night. it's really hard to get to sierra leone right now. it was hard years ago when i was there but it's really hard now. it will get harder as the world shuts down to this part of the world. we need to flood this area with supplies, with people and with our systems and the only way to do that is to keep these channels open. >> there have been a couple of questions about the military response and this is an implied question as well. it's important to understand that what the department of defense is doing is first of all at the request of our civilian agencies so the questions about when we got there and what scale we are operating at relates to what we are being asked to do. we are asked to come and suppo support. we respond and we are responding with all due speed and we do have the joint force command setting up on the ground. we do have some 200 military personnel already in monrovia. we are engaged in this as intensively as we can be but as i said in my remarks this isn't an overnight process and this is going to take some time to get our personnel and equipment into place. in terms of the type of respon response, the dimensions of the response in which we are participating again responding to the question that we just got, again in support of usaid and at responding to what it is that we are being asked to do to create a kind of an interim solution if you will so that these other kinds of resources can come in behind and can help to shore up infrastructure and capacity which is so critical for the long-term. >> thank you. i want to thank you peter pham pham on atlantic council and each of the panels and also the obama administration. our country was the first to respond in this coordinated effort and that's something we should all be very proud of. i think you know colonel michael you talked about fear and how this spreads and i think akers in in terms of technology is very important. west africa is everything fro from -- to cape verde. two other countries senegal and nigeria where one or two cases have been reported and a half 11 others which leads to my question. this morning it was reported that "cnn" said that a member of congress is requesting that fights the banned from quote unquote west africa and you talk about economic growth that is taking place on the continent, this is just very unfortunate. so my question to all of you is, i think that isolation in this regard would also be completely decimating these three countries that are at the mall significantly impacted and i would like to know your views. thank you. >> i'm actually just going to jump in. i have been working very closely on my team in the ground closely with library in particular but also working in sierra leone. with the government of liberia and the ministries of health and customs by the customs agency i should say plus a u.s. embassy there to ensure that our supply-chain remains open and we can actually get equipment and health supplies into the country. one of the casualties and fatalities of closing the borders was a patient -- so we take it extraordinarily seriously. it's not just the economy but it's why you can't close the borders. i would say our contact into an indication of usaid in dod and the state department has been very helpful and as we are working hand-in-hand with ambassador headquarters to ensure the lines are open. >> i would just add to that, many of you know some of the training that's going on with health care workers from west africa is in the united states. it was in europe and in places beyond. then we'll have our full effect in terms of our ability to be successful in this crisis. i would add to that the u.s. customs and border patrols a set of protocols to protect the american people from the potential visitors to this country. we are refining this every day to make sure we keep ourselves safe. >> we are running short on time so i would like to maybe go in reverse on and invite members of panel to make final remarks or final comments or observations. >> i would just say in the closing remark again thank you for your attention on this. it's an every day in the headlines now so it's hard to avoid it. but i would say that there are individuals, there are companies outside of the international aid in geos and governments respond who are willing and ready to go. we have not, not been able to staff any for jobs with u.s. doctors, nurses, paramedics. it's important to remember and it's important to know that we can mobilize very quickly and the big giant way, the companies that are outside of aspen medical in aspen health care so thank you very much. >> i would like to thank the atlantic council -- atlantic council for fulfilling an important need for us to have open and transparent discussions that are data-driven so i think that is the ultimate antidote to get away from the distractions of the epidemics of fear and concentrate on infectious diseases. >> likewise. i think the atlantic council for allowing us to get the audience a better understanding of at least some dimensions of the u.s. government response and how it is and are playing with the private sector response. i think it's important as you just said to increase the level of understanding on what it is we are doing in the challenges we are facing and how it is we are working together to address the response. >> thanks also and it's been a pleasure to serve on this panel. a couple of quick points. first just personally i've been struck by the heroism of individuals and organizations. i think nsf has served as not just a force on the ground but a conscience for the world. jim kim at the world bank has shown vision and leadership and generosity beyond what any of us could ask and many front-line health care workers in the affected countries have also shown extraordinary courage. we have seen incredible resilience from people in affected countries. there was a brief comment about w.h.o.. i think one of the many lessons to learn from this is that with relatively modest investments we can prepare most countries around the world to prevent to prevent epidemics and manage those that they can prevent and we need to look carefully at moving quickly to do the things that are necessary to make that happen. >> we all learned if you meet someone on the street in a person greets you you often say in response, i fell down but i get up. i think our friends at sierra leone will pick themselves up after this but hopefully they will do it anyway with the support of friends from all over the world. >> i would like to conclude by thanking all the panelists for their valuable time especially during this. of crisis when there are so many demands on all of the responsibilities and the office for media me and others, taking the time to help inform our deliberations, our discussions here. i also saw a theme emerging. we were talking with panels about lessons learned or prospects. in many respects i can't promise when scheduling issues but i think we need to reconvene to talk about the longer-term impacts. the united states under the leadership of the president and others in the agencies represent an incredible as was the private sector incredibly generous and responding. what is good about us as americans we respond well and the sustainability of the long-term, not just the economic and health care for structure but i think the social fabric of these countries. i think there's a lot to do there and even the basic government shortfalls. the world bank came out a week ago with a percentage point they were shaving off economic growth in these countries and doing a budget shortfall of already restrained budgets and a vicious cycle and how we can sustain this not just this year but in the years ahead. please join me in thanking our panelists. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> naaqs, the head of the international monetary fund discusses the global economic outlook. christine lagarde also talks about the ebola virus and warns if it isn't contained it could pose a significant risk for the global economy. this event from georgetown university is an hour. [applause] >> well good morning. it's my pleasure to welcome all of you to gadsden hall. i want to thank you for joining us this morning. for more than a century this hall has served as one of the most important places for public discourse and discussion here in washington and today we deepen that history as we come together to engage in conversation on the most pressing issues facing our global economy. to provide insights we are to have with us interim director of the international monetary -- christine lagarde. madam lagarde a steward of the imf during a period of great challenge in our global financial environment. she is here today to talk about a way forward. and in the world the imf is playing to promote financial stability and growth around the world. there's great urgency to this work from how we respond to issues of poverty and inequality to our assumptions about growth and our economies. as a university it is our role to imagine anew how we can better care for one another and build our societies so they can be more inclusive and how together we can address the challenges that confront us whether through the formation of our students as women and men for others to the inquiry of our faculty and in the responsibility that we have been promoting the common good, it is the ethos, the characteristic spirit of the university to seek the betterment of humankind. you can see this work, life in settings like this and in the context of the global economy and the worker programs like our masters and global human development, our masters in applied economics and r. marquart school of public policy where we recently announced that the 2001 nobel prize winner in economic economics sciences currently senior resident scholar at the imf will be joining our faculty in november. in today's lecture we seek to gain a deeper understanding of the financial challenges and opportunities of this moment and to engage in conversation on the policies and approaches that contribute to global prosperity and economic opportunity for all people. an experienced government minister, an expert in antitrust and labor issues, the first woman to serve as finance minister of the g7 nation in and the first woman chairperson of the american law firm baker and mckenzie adam lagarde offers an unparalleled prescript -- perspective into the global system. she is held many posts including finance employment as minister of agriculture and fisheries in 2000 the financial times named her the best minister of finance in the eurozone. she also served as chair o of te two g20 one friends assumed his presidency for the year 2011 and in that world launched a wide-ranging agenda on the reform of the international monetary system. in her role as managing director of the imf oppose she has held since 2011 she has sought to bring stability to the global economy, dance economic opportunities for women, strength women, strengthen member state representation and promote inclusive and effective economic growth policies. her recent address in mexico at the international forum for financial inclusion she described the economic imperative of developing and inclusive economic system. she said in a quality is not just a moral issue, it is a macroeconomic issue. she continued, our research tells us that countries with higher inequality tend to have lower and less durable growth. inequality chokes the prospects for individuals to realize their full potential and could choubey to society. whether it's through personal experience or empirical evidence one thing is clear, growth has to be more inclusive and for this finance has to be more inclusive. we welcome madam lagarde to campus day today at the moment of significance frye as they approach their annual meetings here in washington. we are grateful for her presence and the insights that she will share with our community. ladies and gentlemen it's an honor for me to welcome to the podium, christine lagarde. [applause] >> good morning to all of you and president i would like to thank you very much for introduction i would like to especially thank you for having quoted the speech that i gave in mexico. it is definitely a country that epitomizes some of the points that i will try to make and they caused my remarks this morning as the country that tries to include particularly those that did not have access to finance, those that do not have access to the job market and i mean by that often the poorest and frequently women. madam ambassador, delighted to see you here. mr. dean i am pleased to look forward to you handing the questions from the many of you who are here today and it's very very nice to be here at georgetown university. i'm really honored to be hosted by one of the finest schools of foreign service. i looked at your mission statement and correct me if i get that wrong but i read that the mission is to contribute to global peace, prosperity and human well-being by educating future generations of world leaders. now the founders of the school back in a year that is very famous for me, 1789, the founders of this school had a very ambitious and sustainable vision. they were inspired by some of the writers and in what happened in france around the bus deal in 1789 but i'm sure they had no idea that only 70 years ago in 1944 the bretton woods institutions including the imf would be founded with pretty much the same purpose in the same mission only using of course different means. the focus of your institution is education. our focus is stability around the world using all the means that were then available and which i will tell you later on has evolved over time. so we are in the same boat. and as i look at the gray and blue colors of georgetown university, the colors that adorn your beautiful campus and the colors i have tried to replicate with my scarf -- [applause] i am actually reminded of the things that i would like to touch upon today. because essentially what i will focus on is the gray clouds that we have on the horizon and the blue skies that most populations around the world aspire to. we have that integrity at the moment between the aspirations of the blue sky and the gray clouds that are coming out. before i do that because those will be the topics addressed as you said mr. president next week by the 188 governors of central banks from around the world. that's the management of the imf. they will be focusing on data they will also discuss how the imf can could choubey to pushing out some of these gray clouds. let me just tell you a little bit about the imf on the occasion of that 17th anniversary are celebrating. it was founded as i said in 1944 as a world war ii was coming to a close in new hampshire bretton woods. and for the last 70 years we have been doing quite a few things. we have been fighting many crises around the world starting in europe moving over to asia focusing on latin america and then we have helped many developing countries integrating into the global economy. we have provided enormous technical assistance, capacity building around and historically we have are very much a referee of variation of currencies. that hasn't faded away as the monetary system has evolved which was predominantly a fixed exchange rate to predominantly a floating exchange rate. the surveillance activity in the monitoring and support, that is still with us. in the recent years, we have provided financial support through programs to many countries around the world predominantly in europe. in recent months we have extended support to countries like ukraine, countries in the middle east and most recently the three african countries that are the victim of ebola. we put together in next to no time literally a financial package of 130 million to give them additional budgetary support so that they can face the shortfall of revenue and additional spending that they have to engage. our main job is as i said earlier on is to try to push the clouds up because you will see numbers and you will hear about numbers. there is some economic recovery but as we all know and as we can feel it because we have family members, friends, relatives, people we know who are looking for a job who do not have the means that they would like to have. that growth is not enough to respond to the challenges that the world is facing. so what should be done? we believe that the clouds can be pushed provided that all policymakers actually aim high higher, try harder, do it together and country specific and i will touch on all of that. so what do i mean by that? aim higher, try harder, do it together. there has to be a new momentum. a new momentum that will consist of putting a set of bolt of policies together in order to overcome what i would call the new mediocre and that is a risk. if it stagnates as such, if we have this horizon of new mediocre. so what i will focus on his first of all the state of the global economy as we see it at the moment and the risk that the world gets stuck in that new mediocre. and second i would like to describe for you how all policymakers can generate the policy momentum that is needed to power up the global activity and overcome that new mediocre horizon. of course i will conclude really that comes back to us in to us and away what to us in a way what i regard as essentially leaning forward and this is the new multilateralism which requires increased cooperation amongst policymakers and amongst countries. so let's have a quick look at the state state of the global economy as it is at the moment. i'm going to give you very specific numbers because they will be released next week when we bring all the finance ministers and governors of central banks together but suffice it to say at this point the global economy is weaker than we had hoped only six months ago so there is recovery. don't get me wrong but it's weaker than what we had thought. and we forecast a modest pickup in 2015 and that's an important factor. the outlook for potential growth has been pared down. now as i said earlier its country specific and the prospects are different depending on where you sit or where you look out. among the advanced economies clearly the united states of america and in europe the united kingdom are leading the charge and expected to be strong. the recovery is much more modest in japan and its the weakest in the euro area where there are disparities with the same currencies. the emerging and developing economies, they have been doing all the heavy lifting in the last five years. they have contributed roughly 80% of global growth of the last five years and led by asia predominantly given the size on the growth particularly china they will continue to contribute but then too i would like to do that at a slightly slower pace because we are all interconnected. if some of the players are a bit slower they will be affected too mad. for the low income and developing countries including sub-saharan africa the economic prospects are rising. i will come to the risk in a minute but the economic prospects are rising and remain however because some of them have been borrowing quite extensively and issuing in the markets their debt level has increased so they should be watching. finally in the middle east the outlook is clouded by difficult economic transitions and of course by an intense tension and political strife. the bottom line of all that, six years after the financial crisis, we continue to see weakness in the global economy. countries are still dealing with the legacies of the crisis and what do i mean by that? a much higher debt level both in sovereign and quite often corporate and private sector levels in general and unemployment is still a major major difficulty in many of those crises. those are the legacies. in addition to the legacies that they are still struggling with and have difficulties addressing, there are those gray clouds on the horizon. now let's look at those clouds. we have different categories. we have the economic clouds, we have the financial clouds and we have the geopolitical clouds. i don't pretend the imf can push all the clouds. it will require collective effort and that's my final point. the first economic club that we see is that risk of low growth for a long time. now, how is that characterized? will if you expect growth to b be -- you are going to refrain from investing in new capital expenditure. you are going to refrain from consuming possibly in this dynamic seriously impede the recovery. so it's not sort of a vicious circle into which the economy could find itself and as i said this is the circumstances where you have a combination of low inflation and high unemployment. that is currently the case within a euro area and in some countries more than others. the second cloud is still economic although more monetary. the second cloud we see on the horizon is that of unsynchronized -- who has studied latin and greek hear? everybody. it means they are not going to be all synchronized together and it might apply to the same monetary policy with different moments of the cycle. the monetary policy normalization in advanced economies and the spillover effect that will have on other markets. and this bill back affects that it could have been the domestic market where the normalization is taking place. those impacts could be of three kinds, interest rates, variations which we haven't seen much of lately because they are all rock bottom and variations of exchange rates. the second category of clouds that we see, financial clouds. there is a concern that the financial sector excesses may be building up especially in advanced economies. asset valuations are at the highest. spreads and volatility in almost all sectors, not quite all but almost all are at their lowest. further worry is the migration of new markets and liquidity risks outside the banking sector in what we called the shadow banking sector. which is a nonregulated, non-bank sector which is growing rapidly in some countries. in the united states for instance the shadow banking sector isn't now considerably larger than the banking sector. in europe it is roughly half the size of the banking sector and in china about 25 to 35% of gdp, it is the fifth-largest in the world. so it's growing and it's not all bad. shadow banking can be just fine in some cases ended needed -- is needed in some economic space to actually finance economy growth but the problem about it is we don't know enough about it. when i say 25 to 35% it gives you the range of what we now but also what we don't know about it. so that requires particular attention and probably an expanded type of regulation that will embrace larger and broader than just the banking sector. it also emphasizes the fact that we need to complete the financial sector reform and he may have heard a lot about the financial sector reform over the last six years because it was described in the objectives of the g20 back in washington and then london. i was there, i remembered that there are still areas where we have not made the progress that we have to make. that's the case for the too two important they fail institutions and be regime that should apply. that is the case also for the derivative markets that need to be safer and more transparent and require exchange of information between those places that actually have a very active derivative market. so, we have talked about the economic clouds. we just talked about the financial clouds. i want to talk briefly about the geopolitical clouds. we have quite a few of those. we have to have them on our radar screen because they have an impact on economic and financial stability as well as prosperity. the first one that i would mention is any escalation that could take place in ukraine where it would cause disruption both in the immediate vicinity would also possibly disruption on commodity prices for instance and trade. the second area of possible disruption clearly the middle east. and also in some parts of asia. the third category that i would think of ukraine middle east in some parts of asia is obviously the development of the ebola virus. if it is not contained, if all the players that talk about it don't actually do something about it to try to stop it and contain it and help those three countries deal with it it might develop into something that would be a very serious concern and could cause significant risks. so all those risks, and some of them are materializing just a little bit. we have to be careful that they did not develop and we cannot put them on the back burner. we have to have them on our radar screen all the time. that is the reason why we must adopt collectively that new momentum that i told you about in order to avoid that raising of the new mediocre. i hope you have noted something. it's just for you to remember my speech. mediocre and momentum m, multilateralism and so i am on my second m which is momentum. that momentum is quite special because it requires a better balance in our policy toolkit using both the demand and supply-side of the economy. those of you who study the economy know about this confrontation, controversy, debates between those that up like supply-side measures and those that are in support of -- the canadian on one hand and many others on the other supply. what we are saying is it has to be a mix of both and we have to use all the tools that are available. you have a good basketball team here. it's about the same thing as la jolla is. you have to use all the players. it's not just about attack. it's about defense. it's about moving the ball around so all players have to play their part in order to score. and it's exactly the same with the economy. each policy instruments must play its part in order to achieve this momentum. i will start with the first one which is the one that is the most visible and has been most effectively lately and that's the monetary policy. it has provided important support to demand and that has been the case when the fed decided to start quantitative easing measures and it has proved efficient. it has done a lot to push recovery. the ecb has done quite a lot as well. there are different moments of the cycle. the bank of japan is doing a lot. the bank of england, so all the major central banks of advanced economies have pushed that tool. but monetary policy alone does not suffice. it's as if you had a great defense play but that's it. you don't score. plus the longer easy monetary policies continue the greater the risk of fueling financial excess so this needs to be monitored and managed. equally important as i mentioned earlier are the prospects of exiting from that new monetary policy. because it will have implications for other parts of the world. these implications, that's what they call the spillover effects and the peel back when in boo boos -- back to the domestic market that needs to be monitored, that needs to be managed. they need to cooperate and talk to each other extensively. ..

Transcripts For KQED PBS NewsHour 20140225

trouble. >> ifill: those are just some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> at bae systems, our pride and dedication show in everything we do; from electronics systems to intelligence analysis and cyber- operations; from combat vehicles and weapons to the maintenance and modernization of ships, aircraft, and critical infrastructure. knowing our work makes a difference inspires us everyday. that's bae systems. that's inspired work. >> i've been around long enough to recognize the people who are out there owning it. the ones getting involved, staying engaged. they are not afraid to question the path they're on. because the one question they never want to ask is, "how did i end up here?" i started schwab with those people. people who want to take ownership of their investments, like they do in every other aspect of their lives. >> and the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: a political firestorm in one state, a major court fight in another and strong words from the nation's chief law enforcement officer. it all served today to highlight the shifting political and legal landscape on gay rights. >> woodruff: the shift was evident this morning as u.s. attorney general eric holder told his state counterparts they are not obliged to defend bans on gay marriage. >> any decisions at any level not to defend individual laws must be exceedingly rare. but in general, i believe that we must be suspicious of legal classifications based solely on sexual orientation. and we must endeavor in all of our efforts to uphold and advance the values that once led our forebears to declare unequivocally that all are created equal and entitled to equal opportunity. >> woodruff: so far, 17 states and the district of columbia have legalized same-sex unions. and a trial opened in detroit today on a challenge to michigan's ban on gay marriage. meanwhile, arizona lawmakers have triggered a storm by passing senate bill 1062, allowing business owners to deny service to gays, on religious grounds. for instance, wedding photographers could refuse to work at a same-sex wedding if it goes against their faith. supporters insist it's not about being anti-gay, but pro- religious freedom. >> i think there's a lot of spotlight on it being an issue of gay and christian. and that's not the case. it's really a case of defending all people. this isn't an issue of discrimination. it's an issue of having people's values respected. >> woodruff: but the bill has sparked protests in phoenix and elsewhere by gay rights advocates who say it's discrimination pure and simple. business groups warn the furor is taking a toll on tourism. ben bethel says he's getting cancellations at his hotel and spa in phoenix. >> it's causing a lot of damage to arizona already. because anything arizona does that is bad for arizona only strengthens other cities. >> woodruff: as the pressure builds, three republican state senators who voted for the bill last week, have changed their minds. one of them, bob worsley, told the associated press: i was not comfortable with the vote. i feel very bad, and it was a mistake. had the three republicans voted no last week, the measure wouldn't have passed. in tweets arizona's u.s. senators, john mccain and jeff flake, have criticized the vote, and called for governor jan brewer to veto the bill. she has until saturday to act. if she signs the bill, arizona would become the first state to have such a law. >> woodruff: in uganda today, a tabloid newspaper printed a list of what it called the country's top 200 homosexuals. it came a day after the president signed a harsh, anti- gay law. at newstands around the capital of kampala people stopped to read the story and look at photos of some of those named. the list included gay rights activists who said they now fear for their safety. >> two boys walking together, we don't even know if they were a couple, but just two men walking together being attacked and one killed this morning is, makes me think more about my own security. how am i going to be able to keep speaking out? >> woodruff: uganda's president has rejected international condemnation of the new law, and accused the west of promoting homosexuality in africa. >> woodruff: in nigeria, islamist extremists staged a bloody new assault today, murdering at least 58 students at a government school. the militants set a locked dormitory ablaze, shooting and stabbing all who tried to escape. others were burned alive. we'll take a closer look at the worsening situation in nigeria later in the program. >> woodruff: lawmakers in ukraine have put off forming a new government until thursday, amid ongoing political tensions. they also voted today to send ousted president viktor yanukovych to the international criminal court, if he's ever caught. meanwhile, his temporary successor voiced concerns about signs of separatism in the mainly-russian speaking republic of crimea. james mates of independent television news is in crimea with this report. >> reporter: if ukraine's new leaders are worried about their country splitting in two nowhere is that danger greater than in its southernmost territory, the crimea. the flags you see at demonstrations here are russian. the demands, stop maidan. stop what is happening in kiev. "russia, russia" they shout and demand a referendum on rejoining what they call the motherland. >> crimea and russia is one, it's one nation. >> reporter: are you russian or ukrainian? >> my passport is ukrainian but i am russian it is in this atmosphere that the new acting president of ukraine told parliament today he was heading to a security council meeting to address the potential splintering of his country. the crimean city of sevastapool will have been top of his list of concerns. this man is the new mayor here. not elected but imposed by a crowd of 15,000 two days ago. his supporters now gather here every day, their message if kiev can overthrow a president we can overthrow a man. in this town there is no question of russia moving in. the russians are already here. their black sea fleet is based in sevastapool. it is widely believed that deposed president yanukovych is hiding somewhere in this space right now. there is no clear indication of just how well established the russians are in crimea than this the headquarters and command of the russian black sea fleet, right in the middle of sevastapool. russian officers and men coming and going as if it was their own territory. neither they nor the occasional armored vehicle are the making of a russian takeover and moscow insisted today it won't interfere. but the skyline here is dominated by lenin and the dome of a russian orthodox cathedral. its loyalties are not to ukraine and the leaders in kiev know it. >> woodruff: russia conquered crimea in the 18th century, but in 1954, soviet leader nikita khrushchev transferred the region to ukraine. since the soviet breakup in 1991, crimea has been part of an independent ukraine. >> woodruff: the prime minister of turkey is accusing his political rivals of launching a quote, "treacherous attack" on him, as he becomes the center of a corruption scandal. audio recordings released overnight appeared to show recep tayyip erdogan telling his son to get rid of large sums of cash before police raids. today, erdogan told parliament the recordings are fabricated: >> ( translated ): there aren't any allegations that i cannot answer. but neither members of ak party nor i will be lured by their traps to change the agenda and we will not surrender to this game. if we surrender to them and deal with their shameless montage and shameless traps, we cannot find time to serve our people. >> woodruff: opposition parties insisted the recordings are genuine, and they demanded erdogan resign. a thick veil of smog blanketed china's capital for a sixth straight day. the world health organization called it a crisis, as people wore masks to try to keep from breathing in the polluted air. chinese president xi jinping braved the smog, as seen in this mobile phone video. he took a rare, unannounced walk in a beijing alley-way, greeting residents. japan may re-start some of the nuclear reactors that were shut down after the fukushima disaster, almost three years ago. a draft energy policy, presented to the cabinet, made that recommendation today. the reactors would have to meet new standards set after a tsunami severely damaged the fukushima plant in march of 2011. all of japan's 48 commercial reactors have been off-line since then. one of the world's top exchanges for the digital currency bitcoin has gone off-line amid reports of catastrophic losses. the website for m.t. gox was blank today, and leaked documents showed losses roughly equal to $350 million. bitcoin trader kolin burgess, of britain, protested outside the exchange's headquarters in tokyo. >> i am both annoyed and worried. it seems that i have lost all of my money and i'm annoyed that the company has been stringing people along for so long, claiming everything has been okay. luckily, most people didn't believe them. >> woodruff: leading proponents of bitcoin argued the collapse of m.t. gox is an isolated case of mismanagement. combat jobs will soon open to women in the u.s. army, but only a few say they want those positions. the associated press reports that finding comes from an army survey of some 30,000 women in the ranks. only 7.5% responded they want a combat job. the military faces a january 2016 deadline to open infantry, armor, artillery and combat engineer slots to women. there was hopeful news today on childhood obesity in the u.s., from the centers for disease control and prevention. it reported the problem among pre-schoolers has fallen more than 40% in the past decade. health officials regard obesity as a national epidemic. young children who are substantially overweight are five times more likely to be heavy as adults. in economic news, home prices fell in december, for the second straight month. the dip in the standard-and- poor's case-shiller index partly reflects the effects of winter storms. and on wall street today,the dow jones industrial average lost 27 points to close at 16,179. the nasdaq fell five points to close at 4287. and the s-and-p 500 was down two points to finish at 1,845. still to come on the "newshour: political turmoil in venezuela; a fight over grounding a battle-tested u.s. war plane; islamist militants go on a killing spree in nigeria; plus, a bipartisan effort to get undocumented youth a college education. >> ifill: now, to the escalating tensions in the key oil state of venezuela. street protests against the socialist government show no sign of ending, and already- frayed relations between washington and caracas are growing even more strained. >> ifill: the latest diplomatic jab came today from state department spokeswoman jen psaki. >> in accordance with article nine of the vienna convention on diplomatic relations, the state department has declared three officials from the venezuelan embassy in washington, d.c., persona non-gratae. >> ifill: that was the u.s. response to venezuelan president nicolas maduro's decision to expel three american diplomats last week. he accused the u.s. of conspiring with the venezuelan opposition to overthrow him. on the streets, though, it's gone far beyond a war of words. protesters have barricaded major streets in caracas and other cities. and yesterday, one person was killed in a clash with police, raising the toll to 15 dead and 150 wounded in the last two weeks. at the same time, thousands of government supporters mounted motorcycles in the capital in a show of solidarity with maduro. the president himself has sent mixed messages to washington, lashing out last week, yet offering an olive branch this week. >> ( translated ): i have decided to name an ambassador to the united states to see what happens. i want to have a dialogue with the united states because i want peace, respect, a relationship as equals with the united states and i invite the opposition to accompany me in that. >> ifill: conspicuously absent from the leadership meeting in caracas was venezuela's most prominent opposition leader, two-time presidential candidate governor enrique capriles. >> ( translated ): i am not going to a meeting with the federal council to help him save face. i'm not going to be like the orchestra on the titanic. i am not the musician, the boat is sinking, and i am the one who is playing the music? no sir, nicolas, you are not going to use me. >> ifill: another prominent opposition leader, leopoldo lopez, remains jailed, after surrendering to face charges of instigating violence. from prison he passed his wife this hand-written letter, which was circulated on twitter. in it, lopez told his supporters: "i'm fine. i ask you not to give up, i won't." meanwhile, maduro has called for another national summit tomorrow. >> ifill: to get a closer read on what's happening on the ground, i spoke to girish gupta, venezuela correspondent for the reuters news agency, a short time ago. girish, thank you for joining us. why are we getting such mixed messages from nicolas maduro about his relationship with the u.s. >> when times get tough it's not new member in 206 when cesar chavez took the stand calling bush the devil a couple from that story and in september again -- diplomats from the u.s. when we look at relationship that the u.s. has with venezuela, it's better to look at the oil and the money that's trading hands as opposed to necessarily the politics. the u.s. remains one of the biggest part of vensian oil it's the biggest power to the united states and that really says it all. >> ifill: let's talk about what's happening internally. who are the protesters on the streets first of all. >> what we're seeing is this protest is much more organic than what we've necessarily seen before. i asked them who do you support, do you support the official leader or lopez the more radical official leader who is now in jail as you might know. some of them don't care. they don't care about the opposition leadership. they just want a change, they want an end to the problems this country places. the inflation, 6.3% inflation over last year. they are crying every single day in this country that's two and-a-half times more than last year with the same population. the president says now everyone's jumping in on this. there are a lot of people, business leaders who are not happy with the status quo. >> ifill: are they beginning to tie out or are they pretty much -- die out or are they pretty much continuing every day. >> they do seem to be continuing. that surprised myself and most people here are expecting things to die down. every morning we see barricades all over caracas with them on fire in the streets and blocking the roads. this seems to be continuing. i asked people why and how long it can go on for. they said keep going, why not. they've got nothing to lose they say. if that's true, most don't know because there are people who need to work and keep earning money and go to school. we're going to have to see. it's surprising how long it's lasted and just how wide it is here. >> ifill: let's talk about what's happening internally. who are the protesters on the streets, first avenue all. >> so what we're seeing right now is huge protests across the country. in caracas i've seen every night for the last couple week we've seen petro bombs and tear gas and occasionally rubber bullets. this is going on every night in caracas. it's mainly a wealthy area of town. they're getting this across the country. that's more important, more organic part of this process. it all began in a western state non-for being quite feisty for lack of a better word. now that's continuing even more. there's more violence and more passion than in caracas. what we're seeing is this protest is much more organic than we've necessarily seen before. protesters, and they tell me, i asked them who do you support, do you support the official leader or leopoldo lopez who is now in jail. some of them don't care. they don't care about the opposition leadership, they just want a change. they want a name to the problem this country faces. 6.3% year. they're crying, there are deaths in this country every single day. it's the same population they're not sure if they want their own, they're not sure, they want to change. >> ifill: is maduro himself allied with chavez, at the now in danger because of these protests or is he still on -- >> that's a big question. now, the protesters, like i said they don't necessarily have a leadership but they do want to get rid of maduro because they know he's not going to change his policy necessarily. is maduro in danger? it's very difficult to say. now he's not hugo chavez. you got to remember that hugo chavez -- holds thing together and had charisma which maduro doesn't have. that's why sometimes he's making more radical moves and using radical rhetoric. there are two ways this can go. it can either get more extreme and the protests can continue or it could be some between maduro and capriles. it got put on the back burner because the language they've been using towards each other. maduro called the protesters fascist nazis. capriles says the world sees maduro as committing genocide. that's very strong language and i can't see them sitting at a table to discuss. >> ifill: thank you so much. >> ifill: as defense secretary chuck hagel announced yesterday, the pentagon is grappling with what to keep and what to cut in a time of tight budgets and national security challenges. at the air force, leaders have set their sights on grounding a plane that's been a reliable standby for decades. but it's defenders won't give up without a fight. defense producer dan sagalyn, has been tracking the debate. kwame holman narrates this report. >> reporter: a typical day at martin state airport on maryland's eastern shore includes chemical weapons training with the a-10 warthog. the national guard base is one of the homes of an aircraft beloved by ground forces who see it as their guardian in the sky. its pilots view infantry on the ground as their primary customer, and responsibility. most combat aircraft shoot down other planes or drop bombs or both. but the warthog was designed specifically to come in low and attack enemy forces in a mission called close air support. >> north or south, west of the smoke, west of the smoke. okay copy, west of the smoke i'm looking at danger close now. >> reporter: often times the enemy is within yards of friendly forces. this video captures the exchange between a warthog pilot and a ground controller calling in a strike on taliban forces in 2006 in southern afghanistan. >> roger, keep your fire west of the smoke. okay copy that. >> reporter: major chris cisneros trains warthog pilots in the air force's hundred and fourth fighter squadron. >> close air support is kind of a pick-up game if you will, if a friendly convoy is out, a particular mission, and they come under fire unexpectedly, and sometimes the enemy is within 100 meters or even closer than that. >> reporter: the air force has about 350 warthogs. flying below cloud cover, its pilots can see with their own eyes what they're attacking. it can loiter over the battlefield, the cockpit protected by a titanium shell and bullet proof glass making it survivable even when hit by small arms fire. it's most lethal weapon is a 30- millimeter gattling gun that fires almost 4,000 rounds per minute. but top pentagon officials now say the warthog's days are over. they want to eliminate the entire fleet and save three and a half billion dollars over five years. defense secretary chuck hagel told reporters yesterday that money could be better spent on newer, more capable and survivable aircraft. >> the a-10 is a 40-year-old single-purpose airplane originally designed to kill enemy tanks on a cold war battlefield. it cannot survive or operate effectively where there are more advanced aircraft or air defenses. >> reporter: retired general norton schwartz agrees with the defense secretary. he closed down some warthog units when he was air force chief of staff from 2008 to 2012. he acknowledges the a-10 is beloved but says the air force has other planes that can protect troops on the ground just as well, those include the f-16, f-15e, the b-1 bomber and ac-130. and schwartz says the u.s. military's newest war plane, the multi-mission and long-delayed f-35 joint strike fighter also can handle close air support. the f-35 is designed to replace most of the u.s. strike aircraft fleet. >> what you want to do is to have platforms that can perform the mission, that mission and as many other as might be required in the future. but service personnel up and down the ranks told the newshour the a-10 is unique. >> i've sort of found a soul mate, so to speak, in the a10. >> reporter: marine corps major daniel o'hara who led a platoon in afghanistan says the warthog scared the taliban. >> the psychological effect it has on the enemy i think is pretty clear, and i also think it has an equally positive psychological effect on friendly forces. you see that aircraft come on station, you know what it's capable of, you know that the enemy on the other side probably doesn't want to mess with you while that's in the air. >> we are outraged at the air forces latest attempt to kill the a-10. >> reporter: pierre sprey helped design the warthog in the late 1960s and '70s. he says it was built to do more than destroy soviet tanks and that it's uniquely tough airframe made it more survivable and capable than alternative aircraft. he says those newer planes cost much more to fly. he and other a-1o supporters mobilized to save the plane at a recent conference in washington d.c. >> you are going to buy extremely expensive aircraft that cause you a much worse financial problem and you are canning the cheapest airplane you operate, and saving a trivial amount of money. >> reporter: general schwartz says improvements in cockpit cameras, radars, electronics and precision munitions mean the planes that would replace the a- 10 are much better at protecting ground forces even from far above. >> increasingly the technology has allowed us to enjoy the same protections for friendlies through other means. >> reporter: but a-10 advocates say technology has limits. >> technology is good but the problem with using that technology, especially the optical stuff, is that it's like looking through a soda straw. so imagine you hold a straw up to your eye, and that's how you have to view the whole battlefield. >> reporter: retired lt. col. bill smith flew warthogs over an 18 year career including combat missions in afghanistan. he also participated in the save the a-10 event. >> with looking with your eyeballs, i can turn my head around and i can see much more of the battlefield than i can with slewing that pod around. and i can see the bigger picture. i'm able to maybe catch some movement out of the corner of my eye and look down and go oh, there's a little bit of dust over there. >> reporter: a-10 advocates are getting support on capitol hill. senator kelly ayotte, a new hampshire republican wants to hold off on dumping the a-10 until the new joint strike fighter proves it can do close air support. ayotte, whose husband is a former a-10 pilot, says the air force should find other places to save money. >> the air force spent a billion dollars on an i.t. system, that they're not going to get anything out of and they just cancelled in 2012, so i think we should take a step back for a minute and make sure that there aren't any more of those billion dollar systems out there. >> reporter: but general schwartz says the days of such wasteful spending by the pentagon are over and that today's shrinking military budgets mean programs like the a-10 are a luxury. >> the dilemma is what else in the air force do we stop doing in order to keep the a-10? so what childcare center do we not keep open? what base do we compromise security? >> reporter: pierre sprey says the air force has mounted a campaign to retire the a-10 by making political and spending deals across the country. >> they have reached out to state governors, state adjutant generals of the national guard, to basically to bribe them to not complaining about losing their a-10s. they have done this in every state that has an a-10 base, promising them something, an f- 16 squadron, a kc-46 tanker squadron, whatever the pay off is state by state. and sadly its working. >> reporter: staff to several members of congress, who would speak only on background, told the newshour the air force had promised to station new aircraft in their member's state to replace the a-10s. they said as a result their lawmakers weren't complaining about the a-10s retirement. general schwartz said he doubts the air force is bartering like that. but if they are: >> the effort that secretary donnelly and i made ran into some headwind and that's the decision of the current serving leadership is that they want to choose to reduce some of that headwind after that painful experience, i offer no objection. >> reporter: whether congress goes along with the air forces plans to retire the warthog remains to be determed. pierre sprey says ground forces need the protection the a-10 provides. >> what is at stake is the lives of a lot of troops. troops, in the field, we owe them the ability to pull them out of trouble. and that takes the kind of airplane im talking about. general schwartz says that wont change, even without the a-10. >> our airmen, when they hear this call troops in contact need help now, you should have no doubt that air force airmen are going to speed to that point and take care of business. >> reporter: back at martin state airport, pilots and ground crew continue train on and maintain the a-10, the question is, for how long. >> ifill: we have more with "warthog" designer pierre sprey, who knows the plane inside and out. that's on our homepage. >> woodruff: we turn now to nigeria, where almost sixty teenage boys were brutally killed early this morning. it's believed to be the latest in a string of attacks by a re- emerging extremist group. >> woodruff: islamist militants from boko haram have attacked northeastern nigeria with a vengeance this month, murdering more than 300 people. they reportedly struck again before dawn today at a boarding school in yobe state, in a town near the capital city. gunmen torched a boys' dormitory, burning many alive, and cutting the throats of any who tried to escape. that came one day after nigeria's president, goodluck jonathan, rejected one regional governor's criticism of efforts to fight the militants. >> reporter: jonathan declared a state of emergency last may, and the military flushed the insurgents from cities, only to see them regroup in forests and caves. boko haram's fight for an islamic state in northern nigeria has terrorized the country for four and a half years, leaving thousands dead and forcing thousands more to leave for their own safety. the violence now threatens the stability of africa's largest oil-producing state. the u.s. is trying to help. in october, american special forces held a two-week training session with the nigerian military. >> woodruff: to tell us more about boko haram and what their recent attacks mean for nigeria and the region, i'm joined by peter pham, director of the africa program at the atlantic council. welcome to the program. tell us more about who and what boko haram is. >> boko haram started well over a decade ago, eccentric -- >> woodruff: meaning. >> islam and local beliefs. a couple hundred followers. in 2009, the nigerian government moved against them, killed most of them including an extra judicial killing of the leader of the group and thought it ended this group. instead what happened was the surviving several dozen align themselves closely with al-qaeda-linked militants in islamic -- as well as -- in somalia got training came back in 2011 as sort of boko haram version 20.0, more deadly, introducing for the first time vehicle bombs, suicide bombings into nigeria, attacking u.n. headquarters. and somali intervention. they came back to nigeria what i call 3.0 with more fighters and vert length etiology. >> woodruff: what is the etiology, what's the mission. >> to overturn the nigerian state with some sort that goes beyond shi'a law which is more than nigerian states now impose. >> woodruff: why do you say fantasy. >> it's not rooted in any history. it's certainly not supported by the vast majority of nigerian muslims. these are people whose very name, the name boko haram means literally book lording western education is sacrireligious. they reject it which is why there are all these attacks on schools and young people who want to learn some skills. this is an agricultural college that was attacked today they attacked for two reasons. both to show the government is incapable of protect citizens and secondly to attack even the rudiments of western modern science. >> woodruff: this brutality you described is typical for how they separate. >> increasingly so. it didn't start out that way but they are increasingly acting this way. regretly the my -- the my junir response is very brutal in its own and there are human rights concerns been raised by human rights groups as well as our department of state. >> woodruff: what about security. what kind of efforts are under way to protect against the attacks. and where are they operating inside nigeria. >> they're operating primarily in the northern part of the country and specifically in the north eastern part along the borders with -- and cameroon. the refuge go across the borders. nigeria has thrown its military against them but to fight this group, it's a counterinsurgency. they need to secure people. they need to provide security for ordinary nigerians, win hearts and minds. right now they are only pursuing a military strategy. >> woodruff: what about the population of the country. what's their view. are they completely against what they're doing, do they have sympathy among the people. >> well, the people in the north part of nigeria which is the audience that we're addressing are certainly marginal economically and politically. they have some legitimate grieves but not represented by this extremist group. a hand fist of government response relying only on brute force that this places more people doesn't win the government any applause or any support either. so many ways the poor people of nigeria are caught between these extremists that don't represent them and a government that's not responding to their needs for security in a holistic fashion. so they're really in a difficult place. >> woodruff: i think we reported, i know i saw a report that said that security forces at this particular school where the attack took place yesterday were believed to have left before the attack happened. i mean, is this a matter how far there's some sort of inside information being passed around. >> there's some allegations. in fact, nigeria's president goodluck jonathan has accused even members of parliament of including with boko haram. he's facing election and there are allegations of his politicizing a fight against this group or people using this group to make them look week. that enters the picture. it's a complicated picture. it requires a great deal of nuance and a broad-based strategy that so far i don't see any evidence of. >> woodruff: we also reported a moment ago that u.s. special forces training. does that training have anything to do with the boko haram problem. >> well i think it helps with the nigerians. the nigerians have been responding to this largely as a hard military, a conventional going in with tanks, armored personnel vehicles. and some of the lessons u.s. forces know of afghanistan and iraq that you have to secure the population, work with local leaders. i imagine what they're trying to impart. whether it takes, that's a whole other story. at least they're trying to pass on the best practices or to the nigerians and hopefully they pick up on that. >> woodruff: the question one has, we know nigeria is not the poorest country. they have revenues from oil. why aren't they able to put together a better security force or approach. >> it's certainly not for lack of resources as you point out, but just a week ago, nigeria's well respected central bank governor was suspended by the president because he had the audacity to point out there are at least $20 billion in oil revenues that had gone missing in the last few years. and so for his trouble, he was suspended from his job. so there's certainly corruption. there's a lack of political will and those are the key elements that need to be brought up. it's not a military answer. >> woodruff: so finally, peter pham, how much is the population, how much should they be fearing what boko haram does in the weeks and months to come. >> well, unfortunately with the politicized climate the lead up to election, one expects both more military action on the part of the government and increased active thity on the part of boko haram to make the government look weak. so the people are caught in between that. unfortunately it's going to be a difficult time for the people of nigeria for the next few months. >> woodruff: tough. peter pham, the atlanta council, we thank you. >> thank you. >> woodruff: we have more on the extremist group boko haram, who they are and what they believe. read a council of foreign relations backgrounder, on our homepage. >> woodruff: now to the domestic front, and a bipartisan effort to help undocumented young people attend college. jeffrey brown has our conversation. >> brown: every year some 65,000 students who entered the country illegally as children graduate from u.s. high schools. while 17 states now allow these students known as dreamers to pay in state tuition at public higher education institutions, they are not eligible for federal financial aid like pel grants or low interest government loans. now with the prospect for immigration reform stalled if not dead on capitol hill the private sector to help these students is under way. by washington post owner documented graham and our two guesses, carlos gutierrez, he now chairdz the political action groups republicans for imconversation reform. and henry munoz who serves as -- what is the idea behind this. what is the problem you're addressing. >> well it's as you said, kids who came to this country, no fault of their own undocumented and they find out very often when they graduate high school that they can't keep going. that they're not in the country legally. so that's it. their career has stalled so what we're doing is providing them the opportunity to keep studying as they want to do through these scholarships. >> brown: how is it supposed to work. is it relatively limited in scope in terms of numbers you're going to reach and the colleges that are participating. >> well it started out of a conversation a year ago really with the dreamer community. in many ways it's a scholarship initiative that was designed by dreamers for dreamers. we began by focusing on communities, the community of washington d.c., of miami, colleges in texas for example to try to get at community base response to the fact that these young people don't have access to programs. so in many ways, it's a modest yet national type of program to begin to provide private programs for dreamersbrown. >> immigration reform is very political and partisan. you sit here as a democrat. is there a larger message that that conveys as well. >> it's the way the country should be thinking about it and the way congress should be thinking about it. the divide between the two parties today is just absolutely wider than i have ever seen it. >> brown: do you feel on immigration in particular. >> i think on a lot of things. i think the extremes are dominating. immigration reform is good for our economy, it's good for our society. we can't grow without immigration. we just have to face up to that. even the senate bill recognizes that. there are 110,000 agricultural workers. our country needs a million. so we need to embrace the fact that we have to have immigration in order to grow. we all want to grow our economy. >> brown: are you getting much push back for this effort, criticism from fellow republicans. >> i haven't heard of it. the people with whom i speak, business people are terribly frustrated that members of congress, members of the house don't get it. they don't get that this is an economic issue that we should be embracing this and that we should be a party of immigration as a party of growth and prosperity. >> brown: of course henry munoz nothing seems to be happening politically. is this effort kind of substitute or where do you see the politics of it. >> it's a recognition that even without a piece of legislation to address, immigration reform. can have an impact on people's lives. people forget the dreamers are our neighbors. they're the people we pass when we're walking down the street. there's half a million young people who have filed for documents are capable of activating these scholarships. the more you invest in an individual the more you reinforce the value of the american dream. the more power that you give to people. hopefully will have an impact on the conversation happening in congress. >> brown: where is the money coming from. i see there are foundations, from yourselves and individuals. >> foundation money, individuals. henry was talking a little while ago about a grassroots effort to allow people to contribute $5, $10. we want to show there are a lot of people in the country who are in favor of this. what worries me is how history will judge us depending on how we treat these kids. and it will be a real shame to just cut off their progress. >> brown: this is personal for both of you, right. is that right. >> yes. it's personal but this also, there's policy here. i'm an immigrant myself and i've worked in mexico. i've worked throughout latin america. i know how hard these people work. i know how hard they are working. i know how much they dream. i know how much they want to achieve something. but i step back as a u.s. citizen and i realize that this is good policy for our country. and for our economy. >> brown: not everyone agrees still, right. >> i come from phoenix -- texas and i see it every day. every place i travel in the country i see dreamers and i understand the value of the american dream. in many ways, this is a process, a movement of people to educate our country about the economic benefits and the undeniable fact that the demographics in this country are shifting. and we really need to make sure that the future of our economy is solidified and one of the ways to do that is to make sure we have people who are educated and can be a part of that economic future. >> brown: what's the goal or hope immediately. how many people do you think you can reach. >> interesting, the dream dot u.s. was established around a decade of opportunity. educating at least 2000 dreamers over ten years that's got the support from everyone from bloomberg, philanthropies to the gates foundation and as carlos mentioned, many people who are only capable of giving $5 and $10 by going on-line to the dream dot u.s. >> brown: i want to ask you lastly because there is so much talk and concern about the role of money in politics these days. and the role of wealthy people and foundations putting money into particular causes. this is a cause. you're men of means and you're returning to others. what do you say to people who would be willing in some ways you're buying your way into what is a very political cause. >> well you know, this is not a super pac designed to elect than official. this is a private effort designed to help kids who need help. and i think it's a very noble cause. talking about the personal side, when i came to this country, i felt like people welcomed me. these kids don't feel welcomed and that's not good for our society. it's not good for them. we should be saying come on in and be successful. >> brown: what's your response. >> my father used to tell me no peso, no say-so. what better place to invest your money than in the future of our country and specifically with this very highly motivated generation of young people who want access to the american dream. and i think it's time that the latino community step up and involve itself around efforts like this. i feel good about it. >> all right. henry munoz, carlos gutierrez, thank you both very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: finally tonight, the secrets of the vatican, and the recent scandals that have rocked the papacy. that's the subject of tonight's episode of "frontline." it explores, among other things, stories of victims of childhood sexual abuse by clergy. a leak of private papal documents to the press and allegations of a clandestine sexual sub-culture within the holy see. here's an excerpt, looking at the italian government's inquiry into financial practices at the vatican bank. >> the vatican is a world on its own, an independent state. and this is the guarded frontier that separates it from italy. whose authorities have no powers here. >> the vatican is the last absolute monarchy in the world today. the pope when he's elected is answerable to no human power. he has absolute authority over the entire roman catholic church, director authority that reaches now to individual members. he is the supreme judge, the supreme legislature and director. >> he needed help and turned to cardinal. in charge of the vatican's government. >> the vatican curia which is the administrative body of the worldwide church is a collection of small thiefdoms of individuals vying against one another. >> and it is the curia that runs the city state with its own lowell system, tv channel and radio station and newspaper. it even has its own bank the institute of religious works housed in a medieval tower. >> the bank of italy, the highest authority in our banking system has described the vatican bank as a falling bank on our soil. we see the big walls of the vatican as a national border. we cannot intervene the vatican. >> he's a powerful figure in italy. he prosecutes the most difficult cases, the mafia, corrupt politicians and most recently the vatican bank, which has a long and dark reputation for financial corruption. >> politicians, businessmen were using the vatican bank as an offshore, to hide their money or money launder if you will or not pay taxes. >> for years the italian authorities could do nothing. but one when tough banking regulations were imposed across europe in the wake of the financial crises, only the vatican bank resisted. so the italian finance police put the bank under close surveillance, using all the tools at their disposal. they monitored transactions in and out of the vatican bank. they made their first break through in the summer of 2010. >> in that case, it happened that an italian bank received a request from the vatican bank to transfer 23 million euros. the bank of italy requested details for both payee and recipient in the transaction and the reason for the transfer. the vatican bank failed to provide adequate information so the bank of italy decided to freeze that money. the whole european banking community was up in arms. the account holders that included the iranian and iraqi embassies appears the money would be used for laundering. one bank after another refused to do business with the vatican bank until it cleaned up its act. >> woodruff: yesterday, pope francis announced the creation of a new oversight body to monitor the vatican's financial activities. frontline's "secrets of the vatican" airs tonight, at a special time of 9:00 p.m., on most p.b.s. stations. >> ifill: again, the major developments of the day. attorney general eric holder told state attorneys general they're under no obligation to defend bans on gay marriage. ukraine's new leaders raised growing concern that eastern parts of the country, especially crimea, might split off and join russia. and islamist insurgents in nigeria slaughtered at least 59 students at a government school, in the latest of a series of brutal attacks. >> woodruff: on the hewshour online right now, the nation's ailing honey bee population will be getting a much-needed boost from the u.s. department of agriculture. the agency will provide aid to farmers who rely on the insects to pollinate their fruits and vegetables. read that story on the rundown. and to get ready for sunday's oscar ceremony, we continue our look at the nominated documentaries. today: you know their voices, but never heard of their names. they're the backup singers whose pitch-perfect vocals made an indelible mark on the hits. listen to jeff's conversation with "twenty feet from stardom" director morgan neville, on art beat. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. on wednesday, the latest from ukraine, as they hunt for their ousted president and form an interim government. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> this is "bbc world news america." >> funding of this presentation is made possible by the freeman foundation, newman's own foundation, giving all profits to charity and pursuing the common good for over 30 years, and union bank. union bank, our relationship managers work hard offeringour business, specialized solutions and capital to help you meet your

Transcripts For KQED PBS NewsHour 20140226

>> ifill: those are just some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> at bae systems, our pride and dedication show in everything we do; from electronics systems to intelligence analysis and cyber- operations; from combat vehicles and weapons to the maintenance and modernization of ships, aircraft, and critical infrastructure. knowing our work makes a difference inspires us everyday. that's bae systems. that's inspired work. >> i've been around long enough to recognize the people who are out there owning it. the ones getting involved, staying engaged. they are not afraid to question the path they're on. because the one question they never want to ask is, "how did i end up here?" i started schwab with those people. people who want to take ownership of their investments, like they do in every other aspect of their lives. >> and the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: a political firestorm in one state, a major court fight in another and strong words from the nation's chief law enforcement officer. it all served today to highlight the shifting political and legal landscape on gay rights. >> woodruff: the shift was evident this morning as u.s. attorney general eric holder told his state counterparts they are not obliged to defend bans on gay marriage. >> any decisions at any level not to defend individual laws must be exceedingly rare. but in general, i believe that we must be suspicious of legal classifications based solely on sexual orientation. and we must endeavor in all of our efforts to uphold and advance the values that once led our forebears to declare unequivocally that all are created equal and entitled to equal opportunity. >> woodruff: so far, 17 states and the district of columbia have legalized same-sex unions. and a trial opened in detroit today on a challenge to michigan's ban on gay marriage. meanwhile, arizona lawmakers have triggered a storm by passing senate bill 1062, allowing business owners to deny service to gays, on religious grounds. for instance, wedding photographers could refuse to work at a same-sex wedding if it goes against their faith. supporters insist it's not about being anti-gay, but pro- religious freedom. >> i think there's a lot of spotlight on it being an issue of gay and christian. and that's not the case. it's really a case of defending all people. this isn't an issue of discrimination. it's an issue of having people's values respected. >> woodruff: but the bill has sparked protests in phoenix and elsewhere by gay rights advocates who say it's discrimination pure and simple. business groups warn the furor is taking a toll on tourism. ben bethel says he's getting cancellations at his hotel and spa in phoenix. >> it's causing a lot of damage to arizona already. because anything arizona does that is bad for arizona only strengthens other cities. >> woodruff: as the pressure builds, three republican state senators who voted for the bill last week, have changed their minds. one of them, bob worsley, told the associated press: i was not comfortable with the vote. i feel very bad, and it was a mistake. had the three republicans voted no last week, the measure wouldn't have passed. in tweets arizona's u.s. senators, john mccain and jeff flake, have criticized the vote, and called for governor jan brewer to veto the bill. she has until saturday to act. if she signs the bill, arizona would become the first state to have such a law. >> woodruff: in uganda today, a tabloid newspaper printed a list of what it called the country's top 200 homosexuals. it came a day after the president signed a harsh, anti- gay law. at newstands around the capital of kampala people stopped to read the story and look at photos of some of those named. the list included gay rights activists who said they now fear for their safety. >> two boys walking together, we don't even know if they were a couple, but just two men walking together being attacked and one killed this morning is, makes me think more about my own security. how am i going to be able to keep speaking out? >> woodruff: uganda's president has rejected international condemnation of the new law, and accused the west of promoting homosexuality in africa. >> woodruff: in nigeria, islamist extremists staged a bloody new assault today, murdering at least 58 students at a government school. the militants set a locked dormitory ablaze, shooting and stabbing all who tried to escape. others were burned alive. we'll take a closer look at the worsening situation in nigeria later in the program. >> woodruff: lawmakers in ukraine have put off forming a new government until thursday, amid ongoing political tensions. they also voted today to send ousted president viktor yanukovych to the international criminal court, if he's ever caught. meanwhile, his temporary successor voiced concerns about signs of separatism in the mainly-russian speaking republic of crimea. james mates of independent television news is in crimea with this report. >> reporter: if ukraine's new leaders are worried about their country splitting in two nowhere is that danger greater than in its southernmost territory, the crimea. the flags you see at demonstrations here are russian. the demands, stop maidan. stop what is happening in kiev. "russia, russia" they shout and demand a referendum on rejoining what they call the motherland. >> crimea and russia is one, it's one nation. >> reporter: are you russian or ukrainian? >> my passport is ukrainian but i am russian. it is in this atmosphere that the new acting president of ukraine told parliament today he was heading to a security council meeting to address the potential splintering of his country. the crimean city of sevastapool will have been top of his list of concerns. this man is the new mayor here. not elected but imposed by a crowd of 15,000 two days ago. his supporters now gather here every day, their message if kiev can overthrow a president we can overthrow a man. in this town there is no question of russia moving in. the russians are already here. their black sea fleet is based in sevastapool. it is widely believed that deposed president yanukovych is hiding somewhere in this space right now. there is no clear indication of just how well established the russians are in crimea than this the headquarters and command of the russian black sea fleet, right in the middle of sevastapool. russian officers and men coming and going as if it was their own territory. neither they nor the occasional armored vehicle are the making of a russian takeover and moscow insisted today it won't interfere. but the skyline here is dominated by lenin and the dome of a russian orthodox cathedral. its loyalties are not to ukraine and the leaders in kiev know it. >> woodruff: russia conquered crimea in the 18th century, but in 1954, soviet leader nikita khrushchev transferred the region to ukraine. since the soviet breakup in 1991, crimea has been part of an independent ukraine. >> woodruff: the prime minister of turkey is accusing his political rivals of launching a quote, "treacherous attack" on him, as he becomes the center of a corruption scandal. audio recordings released overnight appeared to show recep tayyip erdogan telling his son to get rid of large sums of cash before police raids. today, erdogan told parliament the recordings are fabricated: >> ( translated ): there aren't any allegations that i cannot answer. but neither members of ak party nor i will be lured by their traps to change the agenda and we will not surrender to this game. if we surrender to them and deal with their shameless montage and shameless traps, we cannot find time to serve our people. >> woodruff: opposition parties insisted the recordings are genuine, and they demanded erdogan resign. a thick veil of smog blanketed china's capital for a sixth straight day. the world health organization called it a crisis, as people wore masks to try to keep from breathing in the polluted air. chinese president xi jinping braved the smog, as seen in this mobile phone video. he took a rare, unannounced walk in a beijing alley-way, greeting residents. japan may re-start some of the nuclear reactors that were shut down after the fukushima disaster, almost three years ago. a draft energy policy, presented to the cabinet, made that recommendation today. the reactors would have to meet new standards set after a tsunami severely damaged the fukushima plant in march of 2011. all of japan's 48 commercial reactors have been off-line since then. one of the world's top exchanges for the digital currency bitcoin has gone off-line amid reports of catastrophic losses. the website for m.t. gox was blank today, and leaked documents showed losses roughly equal to $350 million. bitcoin trader kolin burgess, of britain, protested outside the exchange's headquarters in tokyo. >> i am both annoyed and worried. it seems that i have lost all of my money and i'm annoyed that the company has been stringing people along for so long, claiming everything has been okay. luckily, most people didn't believe them. >> woodruff: leading proponents of bitcoin argued the collapse of m.t. gox is an isolated case of mismanagement. combat jobs will soon open to women in the u.s. army, but only a few say they want those positions. the associated press reports that finding comes from an army survey of some 30,000 women in the ranks. only 7.5% responded they want a combat job. the military faces a january 2016 deadline to open infantry, armor, artillery and combat engineer slots to women. there was hopeful news today on childhood obesity in the u.s., from the centers for disease control and prevention. it reported the problem among pre-schoolers has fallen more than 40% in the past decade. health officials regard obesity as a national epidemic. young children who are substantially overweight are five times more likely to be heavy as adults. in economic news, home prices fell in december, for the second straight month. the dip in the standard-and- poor's case-shiller index partly reflects the effects of winter storms. and on wall street today, the dow jones industrial average lost 27 points to close at 16,179. the nasdaq fell five points to close at 4287. and the s-and-p 500 was down two points to finish at 1,845. still to come on the "newshour: political turmoil in venezuela; a fight over grounding a battle-tested u.s. war plane; islamist militants go on a killing spree in nigeria; plus, a bipartisan effort to get undocumented youth a college education. >> ifill: now, to the escalating tensions in the key oil state of venezuela. street protests against the socialist government show no sign of ending, and already- frayed relations between washington and caracas are growing even more strained. >> ifill: the latest diplomatic jab came today from state department spokeswoman jen psaki. >> in accordance with article nine of the vienna convention on diplomatic relations, the state department has declared three officials from the venezuelan embassy in washington, d.c., persona non-gratae. >> ifill: that was the u.s. response to venezuelan president nicolas maduro's decision to expel three american diplomats last week. he accused the u.s. of conspiring with the venezuelan opposition to overthrow him. on the streets, though, it's gone far beyond a war of words. protesters have barricaded major streets in caracas and other cities. and yesterday, one person was killed in a clash with police, raising the toll to 15 dead and 150 wounded in the last two weeks. at the same time, thousands of government supporters mounted motorcycles in the capital in a show of solidarity with maduro. the president himself has sent mixed messages to washington, lashing out last week, yet offering an olive branch this week. >> ( translated ): i have decided to name an ambassador to the united states to see what happens. i want to have a dialogue with the united states because i want peace, respect, a relationship as equals with the united states and i invite the opposition to accompany me in that. >> ifill: conspicuously absent from the leadership meeting in caracas was venezuela's most prominent opposition leader, two-time presidential candidate governor enrique capriles. >> ( translated ): i am not going to a meeting with the federal council to help him save face. i'm not going to be like the orchestra on the titanic. i am not the musician, the boat is sinking, and i am the one who is playing the music? no sir, nicolas, you are not going to use me. >> ifill: another prominent opposition leader, leopoldo lopez, remains jailed, after surrendering to face charges of instigating violence. from prison he passed his wife this hand-written letter, which was circulated on twitter. in it, lopez told his supporters: "i'm fine. i ask you not to give up, i won't." meanwhile, maduro has called for another national summit tomorrow. to get a closer read on what's happening on the ground, i spoke to girish gupta, venezuela correspondent for the reuters news agency a short time ago. girish, thank you for joining us. why are we getting such mixed messages from nicolas maduro about his relationship with the u.s. >> we are getting mixed messages as you say from maduro about his relationship with the states. now he has lost -- u.s. diplomats this week. we saw today washington internal at this time for at -- tat butt the same time maduro is saying he wants some dialogue with the u.s. he's also saying he wants to appoint an ambassador to washington. now this move, this idea of taking and blaming the u.s. when times get tough is not new. you might remember in 2006 when hugo chavez took the stand at the united nations he called george bush the devil -- just a few hours beforehand, nicolas maduro kicks out a couple from the story. in september again he kicked out some diplomats in the u.s. when you look at the relationship that the u.s. has with venezuela, it's better to look at the oil and the money that's changing hands as opposed to necessarily the rhetoric and the politics. the u.s. remains one the biggest part of venezuelan oil for the united states and that really says it all. >> ifill: that's talk about what's happening internally. who are the protesters on the streets, first of all. >> what we're seeing right now is huge protests across the country. we're seeing it in caracas is saying lots of every night for the last couple week we've seen stones and petro bombs and occasionally rubber bullets. this is going on every night in caracas. it's mainly a wealthy area of town. getting this across the country, that's more important, that's the more organic part of this process. it began in a western administrate known as being quite feisty for want of a better word. now that's more violence and even more passion than it is in caracas. what we're seeing is this protest is much more organic than we've necessarily seen before. protesters tell me, i asked them, who do you support. do you support the official leader or leopoldo perhaps who is now in jail as you might know. they told me they don't care. they don't care about the opposition leadership. they just want a change. they want an end a to the problems this country faces, the inflation 6.3% inflation over the last year. they're crying. there are deaths every single day in this country this year. that's two and-a-half times than last year with the same population. they are primarily shooting and nowrch's jumping in on this. there are a lot of people, business leaders, business people, the middle classes who are now happy with the status quo. >> ifill: are these protests beginning to die out or are they pretty much continuing every single day. >> they do seem to be continuing. that's surprised i think myself and most of the people here are expecting a week ago for things to die down. every morning we see barricades all over caracas with trash on fire in the streets and blocking the roads. and this seems to be continuing. i asked people why and how long it can go on for. keep going, why not they've got nothing to lose they say. if that's true or not i don't know because there are people who need to work and keep earning money, need to go to school. so we're going to have to see. it's surprisingly how long it has lasted and just how wide spread it is here. we'll see how it goes the next few weeks. >> ifill: is maduro himself, allied with chavez, at the now in danger because of these protests or is he still from them. >> that's a big question. now the protesters, they don't necessarily have a leadership but they do want to get rid of maduro at the end of the day. they know he's not going to change his policy necessarily. is maduro in danger, it's very difficult to say. now he's not hugo chavez. you got to remember that hugo chavez, with the problems there were in this country, he sort of held things together. he had this amazing charisma which maduro doesn't have. he needs to impress his own party which is sometimes he's making more radical rule and rhetoric. there are two ways it can go. can either get more extreme and the process can continue or there could be some between maduro and capriles. they did try to speak this week however that got put on the back burner because of the language they've been using towards each other. maduro called capriles a fascist nazi. capriles said yesterday that maduro is committing genocide. that's very strong language and i can't see those sitting at a table to discuss. >> ifill: girish gupta news agency in venezuela. thank you so much. >> ifill: as defense secretary chuck hagel announced yesterday, the pentagon is grappling with what to keep and what to cut in a time of tight budgets and national security challenges. at the air force, leaders have set their sights on grounding a plane that's been a reliable standby for decades. but it's defenders won't give up without a fight. defense producer dan sagalyn, has been tracking the debate. kwame holman narrates this report. >> reporter: a typical day at martin state airport on maryland's eastern shore includes chemical weapons training with the a-10 warthog. the national guard base is one of the homes of an aircraft beloved by ground forces who see it as their guardian in the sky. its pilots view infantry on the ground as their primary customer, and responsibility. most combat aircraft shoot down other planes or drop bombs or both. but the warthog was designed specifically to come in low and attack enemy forces in a mission called close air support. >> north or south, west of the smoke, west of the smoke. okay copy, west of the smoke i'm looking at danger close now. >> reporter: often times the enemy is within yards of friendly forces. this video captures the exchange between a warthog pilot and a ground controller calling in a strike on taliban forces in 2006 in southern afghanistan. >> roger, keep your fire west of the smoke. okay copy that. >> reporter: major chris cisneros trains warthog pilots in the air force's hundred and fourth fighter squadron. >> close air support is kind of a pick-up game if you will, if a friendly convoy is out, a particular mission, and they come under fire unexpectedly, and sometimes the enemy is within 100 meters or even closer than that. >> reporter: the air force has about 350 warthogs. flying below cloud cover, its pilots can see with their own eyes what they're attacking. it can loiter over the battlefield, the cockpit protected by a titanium shell and bullet proof glass making it survivable even when hit by small arms fire. it's most lethal weapon is a 30- millimeter gattling gun that fires almost 4,000 rounds per minute. but top pentagon officials now say the warthog's days are over. they want to eliminate the entire fleet and save three and a half billion dollars over five years. defense secretary chuck hagel told reporters yesterday that money could be better spent on newer, more capable and survivable aircraft. >> the a-10 is a 40-year-old single-purpose airplane originally designed to kill enemy tanks on a cold war battlefield. it cannot survive or operate effectively where there are more advanced aircraft or air defenses. >> reporter: retired general norton schwartz agrees with the defense secretary. he closed down some warthog units when he was air force chief of staff from 2008 to 2012. he acknowledges the a-10 is beloved but says the air force has other planes that can protect troops on the ground just as well, those include the f-16, f-15e, the b-1 bomber and ac-130. and schwartz says the u.s. military's newest war plane, the multi-mission and long-delayed f-35 joint strike fighter also can handle close air support. the f-35 is designed to replace most of the u.s. strike aircraft fleet. >> what you want to do is to have platforms that can perform the mission, that mission and as many other as might be required in the future. but service personnel up and down the ranks told the newshour the a-10 is unique. >> i've sort of found a soul mate, so to speak, in the a10. >> reporter: marine corps major daniel o'hara who led a platoon in afghanistan says the warthog scared the taliban. >> the psychological effect it has on the enemy i think is pretty clear, and i also think it has an equally positive psychological effect on friendly forces. you see that aircraft come on station, you know what it's capable of, you know that the enemy on the other side probably doesn't want to mess with you while that's in the air. >> we are outraged at the air forces latest attempt to kill the a-10. >> reporter: pierre sprey helped design the warthog in the late 1960s and '70s. he says it was built to do more than destroy soviet tanks and that it's uniquely tough airframe made it more survivable and capable than alternative aircraft. he says those newer planes cost much more to fly. he and other a-1o supporters mobilized to save the plane at a recent conference in washington d.c. >> you are going to buy extremely expensive aircraft that cause you a much worse financial problem and you are canning the cheapest airplane you operate, and saving a trivial amount of money. >> reporter: general schwartz says improvements in cockpit cameras, radars, electronics and precision munitions mean the planes that would replace the a- 10 are much better at protecting ground forces even from far above. >> increasingly the technology has allowed us to enjoy the same protections for friendlies through other means. >> reporter: but a-10 advocates say technology has limits. >> technology is good but the problem with using that technology, especially the optical stuff, is that it's like looking through a soda straw. so imagine you hold a straw up to your eye, and that's how you have to view the whole battlefield. >> reporter: retired lt. col. bill smith flew warthogs over an 18 year career including combat missions in afghanistan. he also participated in the save the a-10 event. >> with looking with your eyeballs, i can turn my head around and i can see much more of the battlefield than i can with slewing that pod around. and i can see the bigger picture. i'm able to maybe catch some movement out of the corner of my eye and look down and go oh, there's a little bit of dust over there. >> reporter: a-10 advocates are getting support on capitol hill. senator kelly ayotte, a new hampshire republican wants to hold off on dumping the a-10 until the new joint strike fighter proves it can do close air support. ayotte, whose husband is a former a-10 pilot, says the air force should find other places to save money. >> the air force spent a billion dollars on an i.t. system, that they're not going to get anything out of and they just cancelled in 2012, so i think we should take a step back for a minute and make sure that there aren't any more of those billion dollar systems out there. >> reporter: but general schwartz says the days of such wasteful spending by the pentagon are over and that today's shrinking military budgets mean programs like the a-10 are a luxury. >> the dilemma is what else in the air force do we stop doing in order to keep the a-10? so what childcare center do we not keep open? what base do we compromise security? >> reporter: pierre sprey says the air force has mounted a campaign to retire the a-10 by making political and spending deals across the country. >> they have reached out to state governors, state adjutant generals of the national guard, to basically to bribe them to not complaining about losing their a-10s. they have done this in every state that has an a-10 base, promising them something, an f- 16 squadron, a kc-46 tanker squadron, whatever the pay off is state by state. and sadly its working. >> reporter: staff to several members of congress, who would speak only on background, told the newshour the air force had promised to station new aircraft in their member's state to replace the a-10s. they said as a result their lawmakers weren't complaining about the a-10s retirement. general schwartz said he doubts the air force is bartering like that. but if they are: >> the effort that secretary donnelly and i made ran into some headwind and that's the decision of the current serving leadership is that they want to choose to reduce some of that headwind after that painful experience, i offer no objection. >> reporter: whether congress goes along with the air forces plans to retire the warthog remains to be determined. pierre sprey says ground forces need the protection the a-10 provides. >> what is at stake is the lives of a lot of troops. troops, in the field, we owe them the ability to pull them out of trouble. and that takes the kind of airplane im talking about. general schwartz says that wont change, even without the a-10. >> our airmen, when they hear this call troops in contact need help now, you should have no doubt that air force airmen are going to speed to that point and take care of business. >> reporter: back at martin state airport, pilots and ground crew continue train on and maintain the a-10, the question is, for how long. >> ifill: we have more with "warthog" designer pierre sprey, who knows the plane inside and out. that's on our homepage. >> woodruff: we turn now to nigeria, where almost sixty teenage boys were brutally killed early this morning. it's believed to be the latest in a string of attacks by a re- emerging extremist group. >> woodruff: islamist militants from boko haram have attacked northeastern nigeria with a vengeance this month, murdering more than 300 people. they reportedly struck again before dawn today at a boarding school in yobe state, in a town near the capital city. gunmen torched a boys' dormitory, burning many alive, and cutting the throats of any who tried to escape. that came one day after nigeria's president, goodluck jonathan, rejected one regional governor's criticism of efforts to fight the militants. >> reporter: jonathan declared a state of emergency last may, and the military flushed the insurgents from cities, only to see them regroup in forests and caves. boko haram's fight for an islamic state in northern nigeria has terrorized the country for four and a half years, leaving thousands dead and forcing thousands more to leave for their own safety. the violence now threatens the stability of africa's largest oil-producing state. the u.s. is trying to help. in october, american special forces held a two-week training session with the nigerian military. >> woodruff: to tell us more about boko haram and what their recent attacks mean for nigeria and the region, i'm joined by peter pham, director of the africa program at the atlantic council. welcome to the program. tell us more about who and what boko haram is. >> boko haram started well over a decade ago, eccentric -- >> woodruff: meaning. >> islam and local beliefs. a couple hundred followers. in 2009, the nigerian government moved against them, killed most of them including an extra judicial killing of the leader of the group and thought it ended this group. instead what happened was the surviving several dozen align themselves closely with al-qaeda-linked militants in islamic -- as well as -- in somalia got training came back in 2011 as sort of boko haram version 20.0, more deadly, introducing for the first time vehicle bombs, suicide bombings into nigeria, attacking u.n. headquarters. and somali intervention. they came back to nigeria what i call 3.0 with more fighters and vert length etiology. >> woodruff: what is the etiology, what's the mission. >> to overturn the nigerian state with some sort that goes beyond shi'a law which is more than nigerian states now impose. >> woodruff: why do you say fantasy. >> it's not rooted in any history. it's certainly not supported by the vast majority of nigerian muslims. these are people whose very name, the name boko haram means literally book lording western education is sacrireligious. they reject it which is why there are all these attacks on schools and young people who want to learn some skills. this is an agricultural college that was attacked today they attacked for two reasons. both to show the government is incapable of protect citizens and secondly to attack even the rudiments of western modern science. >> woodruff: this brutality you described is typical for how they separate. >> increasingly so. it didn't start out that way but they are increasingly acting this way. regretly the my -- the my junir response is very brutal in its own and there are human rights concerns been raised by human rights groups as well as our department of state. >> woodruff: what about security. what kind of efforts are under way to protect against the attacks. and where are they operating inside nigeria. >> they're operating primarily in the northern part of the country and specifically in the north eastern part along the borders with -- and cameroon. the refuge go across the borders. nigeria has thrown its military against them but to fight this group, it's a counterinsurgency. they need to secure people. they need to provide security for ordinary nigerians, win hearts and minds. right now they are only pursuing a military strategy. >> woodruff: what about the population of the country. what's their view. are they completely against what they're doing, do they have sympathy among the people. >> well, the people in the north part of nigeria which is the audience that we're addressing are certainly marginal economically and politically. they have some legitimate grieves but not represented by this extremist group. a hand fist of government response relying only on brute force that this places more people doesn't win the government any applause or any support either. so many ways the poor people of nigeria are caught between these extremists that don't represent them and a government that's not responding to their needs for security in a holistic fashion. so they're really in a difficult place. >> woodruff: i think we reported, i know i saw a report that said that security forces at this particular school where the attack took place yesterday were believed to have left before the attack happened. i mean, is this a matter how far there's some sort of inside information being passed around. >> there's some allegations. in fact, nigeria's president goodluck jonathan has accused even members of parliament of including with boko haram. he's facing election and there are allegations of his politicizing a fight against this group or people using this group to make them look week. that enters the picture. it's a complicated picture. it requires a great deal of nuance and a broad-based strategy that so far i don't see any evidence of. >> woodruff: we also reported a moment ago that u.s. special forces training. does that training have anything to do with the boko haram problem. >> well i think it helps with the nigerians. the nigerians have been responding to this largely as a hard military, a conventional going in with tanks, armored personnel vehicles. and some of the lessons u.s. forces know of afghanistan and iraq that you have to secure the population, work with local leaders. i imagine what they're trying to impart. whether it takes, that's a whole other story. at least they're trying to pass on the best practices or to the nigerians and hopefully they pick up on that. >> woodruff: the question one has, we know nigeria is not the poorest country. they have revenues from oil. why aren't they able to put together a better security force or approach. >> it's certainly not for lack of resources as you point out, but just a week ago, nigeria's well respected central bank governor was suspended by the president because he had the audacity to point out there are at least $20 billion in oil revenues that had gone missing in the last few years. and so for his trouble, he was suspended from his job. so there's certainly corruption. there's a lack of political will and those are the key elements that need to be brought up. it's not a military answer. >> woodruff: so finally, peter pham, how much is the population, how much should they be fearing what boko haram does in the weeks and months to come. >> well, unfortunately with the politicized climate the lead up to election, one expects both more military action on the part of the government and increased active thity on the part of boko haram to make the government look weak. so the people are caught in between that. unfortunately it's going to be a difficult time for the people of nigeria for the next few months. >> woodruff: tough. peter pham, the atlanta council, we thank you. >> thank you. >> woodruff: we have more on the extremist group boko haram, who they are and what they believe. read a council of foreign relations backgrounder, on our homepage. >> woodruff: now to the domestic front, and a bipartisan effort to help undocumented young people attend college. jeffrey brown has our conversation. >> brown: every year some 65,000 students who entered the country illegally as children graduate from u.s. high schools. while 17 states now allow these students known as dreamers to pay in state tuition at public higher education institutions, they are not eligible for federal financial aid like pel grants or low interest government loans. now with the prospect for immigration reform stalled if not dead on capitol hill the private sector to help these students is under way. by washington post owner documented graham and our two guesses, carlos gutierrez, he now chairdz the political action groups republicans for imconversation reform. and henry munoz who serves as -- what is the idea behind this. what is the problem you're addressing. >> well it's as you said, kids who came to this country, no fault of their own undocumented and they find out very often when they graduate high school that they can't keep going. that they're not in the country legally. so that's it. their career has stalled so what we're doing is providing them the opportunity to keep studying as they want to do through these scholarships. >> brown: how is it supposed to work. is it relatively limited in scope in terms of numbers you're going to reach and the colleges that are participating. >> well it started out of a conversation a year ago really with the dreamer community. in many ways it's a scholarship initiative that was designed by dreamers for dreamers. we began by focusing on communities, the community of washington d.c., of miami, colleges in texas for example to try to get at community base response to the fact that these young people don't have access to programs. so in many ways, it's a modest yet national type of program to begin to provide private programs for dreamersbrown. >> immigration reform is very political and partisan. you sit here as a democrat. is there a larger message that that conveys as well. >> it's the way the country should be thinking about it and the way congress should be thinking about it. the divide between the two parties today is just absolutely wider than i have ever seen it. >> brown: do you feel on immigration in particular. >> i think on a lot of things. i think the extremes are dominating. immigration reform is good for our economy, it's good for our society. we can't grow without immigration. we just have to face up to that. even the senate bill recognizes that. there are 110,000 agricultural workers. our country needs a million. so we need to embrace the fact that we have to have immigration in order to grow. we all want to grow our economy. >> brown: are you getting much push back for this effort, criticism from fellow republicans. >> i haven't heard of it. the people with whom i speak, business people are terribly frustrated that members of congress, members of the house don't get it. they don't get that this is an economic issue that we should be embracing this and that we should be a party of immigration as a party of growth and prosperity. >> brown: of course henry munoz nothing seems to be happening politically. is this effort kind of substitute or where do you see the politics of it. >> it's a recognition that even without a piece of legislation to address, immigration reform. can have an impact on people's lives. people forget the dreamers are our neighbors. they're the people we pass when we're walking down the street. there's half a million young people who have filed for documents are capable of activating these scholarships. the more you invest in an individual the more you reinforce the value of the american dream. the more power that you give to people. hopefully will have an impact on the conversation happening in congress. >> brown: where is the money coming from. i see there are foundations, from yourselves and individuals. >> foundation money, individuals. henry was talking a little while ago about a grassroots effort to allow people to contribute $5, $10. we want to show there are a lot of people in the country who are in favor of this. what worries me is how history will judge us depending on how we treat these kids. and it will be a real shame to just cut off their progress. >> brown: this is personal for both of you, right. is that right. >> yes. it's personal but this also, there's policy here. i'm an immigrant myself and i've worked in mexico. i've worked throughout latin america. i know how hard these people work. i know how hard they are working. i know how much they dream. i know how much they want to achieve something. but i step back as a u.s. citizen and i realize that this is good policy for our country. and for our economy. >> brown: not everyone agrees still, right. >> i come from phoenix -- texas and i see it every day. every place i travel in the country i see dreamers and i understand the value of the american dream. in many ways, this is a process, a movement of people to educate our country about the economic benefits and the undeniable fact that the demographics in this country are shifting. and we really need to make sure that the future of our economy is solidified and one of the ways to do that is to make sure we have people who are educated and can be a part of that economic future. >> brown: what's the goal or hope immediately. how many people do you think you can reach. >> interesting, the dream dot u.s. was established around a decade of opportunity. educating at least 2000 dreamers over ten years that's got the support from everyone from bloomberg, philanthropies to the gates foundation and as carlos mentioned, many people who are only capable of giving $5 and $10 by going on-line to the dream dot u.s. >> brown: i want to ask you lastly because there is so much talk and concern about the role of money in politics these days. and the role of wealthy people and foundations putting money into particular causes. this is a cause. you're men of means and you're returning to others. what do you say to people who would be willing in some ways you're buying your way into what is a very political cause. >> well you know, this is not a super pac designed to elect than official. this is a private effort designed to help kids who need help. and i think it's a very noble cause. talking about the personal side, when i came to this country, i felt like people welcomed me. these kids don't feel welcomed and that's not good for our society. it's not good for them. we should be saying come on in and be successful. >> brown: what's your response. >> my father used to tell me no peso, no say-so. what better place to invest your money than in the future of our country and specifically with this very highly motivated generation of young people who want access to the american dream. and i think it's time that the latino community step up and involve itself around efforts like this. i feel good about it. >> all right. henry munoz, carlos gutierrez, thank you both very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: finally tonight, the secrets of the vatican, and the recent scandals that have rocked the papacy. that's the subject of tonight's episode of "frontline." it explores, among other things, stories of victims of childhood sexual abuse by clergy. a leak of private papal documents to the press and allegations of a clandestine sexual sub-culture within the holy see. here's an excerpt, looking at the italian government's inquiry into financial practices at the vatican bank. >> the vatican is a world on its own, an independent state. and this is the guarded frontier that separates it from italy. whose authorities have no powers here. >> the vatican is the last absolute monarchy in the world today. the pope when he's elected is answerable to no human power. he has absolute authority over the entire roman catholic church, director authority that reaches now to individual members. he is the supreme judge, the supreme legislature and director. >> he needed help and turned to cardinal. in charge of the vatican's government. >> the vatican curia which is the administrative body of the worldwide church is a collection of small thiefdoms of individuals vying against one another. >> and it is the curia that runs the city state with its own lowell system, tv channel and radio station and newspaper. it even has its own bank the institute of religious works housed in a medieval tower. >> the bank of italy, the highest authority in our banking system has described the vatican bank as a falling bank on our soil. we see the big walls of the vatican as a national border. we cannot intervene the vatican. >> he's a powerful figure in italy. he prosecutes the most difficult cases, the mafia, corrupt politicians and most recently the vatican bank, which has a long and dark reputation for financial corruption. >> politicians, businessmen were using the vatican bank as an offshore, to hide their money or money launder if you will or not pay taxes. >> for years the italian authorities could do nothing. but one when tough banking regulations were imposed across europe in the wake of the financial crises, only the vatican bank resisted. so the italian finance police put the bank under close surveillance, using all the tools at their disposal. they monitored transactions in and out of the vatican bank. they made their first break through in the summer of 2010. >> in that case, it happened that an italian bank received a request from the vatican bank to transfer 23 million euros. the bank of italy requested details for both payee and recipient in the transaction and the reason for the transfer. the vatican bank failed to provide adequate information so the bank of italy decided to freeze that money. the whole european banking community was up in arms. the account holders that included the iranian and iraqi embassies appears the money would be used for laundering. one bank after another refused to do business with the vatican bank until it cleaned up its act. >> woodruff: yesterday, pope francis announced the creation of a new oversight body to monitor the vatican's financial activities. frontline's "secrets of the vatican" airs tonight, at a special time of 9:00 p.m., on most p.b.s. stations. >> ifill: again, the major developments of the day. attorney general eric holder told state attorneys general they're under no obligation to defend bans on gay marriage. ukraine's new leaders raised growing concern that eastern parts of the country, especially crimea, might split off and join russia. and islamist insurgents in nigeria slaughtered at least 59 students at a government school, in the latest of a series of brutal attacks. and late today, president said about four million people have now signed up for health insurance under the new health care law. the white house hopes to enroll seven million people by the end of march. >> woodruff: on the hewshour online right now, the nation's ailing honey bee population will be getting a much-needed boost from the u.s. department of agriculture. the agency will provide aid to farmers who rely on the insects to pollinate their fruits and vegetables. read that story on the rundown. and to get ready for sunday's oscar ceremony, we continue our look at the nominated documentaries. today: you know their voices, but never heard of their names. they're the backup singers whose pitch-perfect vocals made an indelible mark on the hits. listen to jeff's conversation with "twenty feet from stardom" director morgan neville, on art beat. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. on wednesday, the latest from ukraine, as they hunt for their ousted president and form an interim government. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org  report" with tyler mathisen and susie gharib. brought to you in part by -- >> the street.com. founded by jim cramer, the street.com is an independent source for stock market analysis. cramer's action alerts plus service is home to his multimillion dollar portfolio. you can learn more at the street.com/nbr. where do we stand? home depot and macy's say spring is the thing to look toward, but one survey on housing says the best of the recovery may be behind us. so is the economy in the winter doldrums or are there real problems ahead? grand canyon, a controversial bill in arizona has big business racheting up the pressure on the state's governor. and being nimble. in the second part of our health care

Transcripts For KQED PBS NewsHour 20140512

capitalism.ç >> his recent u.s. press tour was likened to beatlemania. nobel laureates on stage with him piled on the praise, especially ones who share concern for the global trend the 42-year-old parisian has definitively documented: growing economic inequality. >> woodruff: those are just some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> i've been around long enough to recognize the people who are out there owning it. the ones getting involved, staying engaged. they are not afraid to question the path they're on. because the one question they never want to ask is, "how did i end up here?" i started schwab with those people.ç people who want to take ownership of their investments, like they do in every other aspect of their lives. >> when i was pregnant, i got more advice than i knew what to do with.ç what i needed was information i could trust, on how to take care of me and my baby. united healthcare has a simple program that helps moms stay on track with their doctors and get care and guidance they can use before and after the baby is born. simple is what i need right now. >> that's health in numbers, united healthcare >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing supportç of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs thank you. >> ifill: parts of the west spent this day after mother's day digging out from a late winter snowstorm. the system dropped wet, slushy snow across wyoming and colorado on sunday, and continued into early today. accumulations of nearly three feet forced much of interstate 80 in southern wyoming to shut down. the storm also spawned minor tornadoes in nebraska and forced flash flood watches in oklahoma and arkansas. >> woodruff: the taliban launched a spring offensive in afghanistan today, as promised, killing at least 21 people. attacks were scattered from jalalabad, where taliban fighters stormed a governmentç building to a checkpoint in helmand province, where gunmen killed nine policemen. and to kabul itself, where rockets landed inside the perimeter of the international airport.ç the violence comes as fewer than 30,000 u.s. troops remain in the country, the lowest number since the 2001 invasion. >> ifill: new tragedy has struck migrants trying to sail from north africa to italy. in the past three days, two migrant boats sank in the mediterranean. at least 14 people died today, but the italian navy rescued more than 200 others. libyan police and health workers also recovered more than 40 bodies that washed ashore from another migrant vessel. it went down on saturday. >> woodruff: in south sudan the army claimed it now controls an oil town where troops battled rebels on sunday. each side blamed the other for violating a cease-fire announced friday. meanwhile, the country's president declared presidential elections scheduled for next year will be postponed. the rebel leader objected to the plan.ç >> ifill: this was the final day of voting in india's six-week general election. exit polls suggested hindu nationalist narendra modi is set to become the next prime minister. thousands of voters turned out in the hindu holy city of varanasi. it's considered a stronghold ofç modi's hindu nationalist party. official results are expected on friday. >> woodruff: one of washington's best known landmarks, the washington monument, reopened to the public today, almost three years after it was damaged in an earthquake. the moment was marked with pomp and pageantry on the national mall and an official ribbon cutting. it followed months of work to repair more than 150 cracks. bob vogel of the national park service welcomed visitors back to the 130-year-old obelisk this morning. >> national mall and memorial parks is proud to serve as caretaker of this historic structure by both preserving the building and helping visitors better understand its significance and we are thrilleç to be able to once again open its doors. >> woodruff: the refurbishment of the washington monument and its new exhibits cost anç estimated $15 million, half of which was paid for by philanthropist david rubenstein. >> ifill: wall street hit some record highs today. the dow jones industrial average gained 112 points to close at 16,695, an all-time best. the nasdaq rose 72 points to close above 4143. and the s-and-p 500 added 18 points to finish above 1896, also a new record. still to come on the newshour: new video purporting to show the abducted nigerian schoolgirls; fallout from the weekend secession votes in ukraine; one economist's controversial take on capitalism and inequality; scientists warn antarctic ice melt is unstoppable; plus, mapping los angeles' cultural history.ç >> woodruff: in nigeria today, a possible sign of life for the abducted school girls whose fate has captured the world's attention, and an offer from the leader of boko haram to swap th3 students for prisoners held by the government. we have a report from rageh ommar of independent television news. >> reporter: at the very least this latest video by the boko haram shows around 130 girls are alive. the christian girls amongst them have been forced to abandon their faith and wear islamic head scarves and gowns and recite verses of the koran. as far as one can tell, they are unharmed and well. but there is no mistake the tense and frightening atmosphere. the leader of boko haram abubakar shekau says he prepared to return them in exchange forç captured militant fighters. he's clearly been following the international concerns surrounding his hostages, expressing bemusement at the outcry of the plight.ç the streets of the capital of borno state are not safe. there have been suicide bombings and attacks by boko haram here and they've recently targeted the outskirts of the city. i've come to maiduguri to talk to this man, the governor of borno state who's been dealing with this crisis since day one. i asked him for his reaction to the latest video. >> reporter: the governor believes that as borno's levels of impoverishment, lack of by the central government that has allowed boko haram's violent radical ideology to find followers. i wanted to see if this crisis had damaged girls education and unannounced we dropped into a local school. the spontaneous reaction spoke volumes. the reaction here amongst these girls to a completely unannounced visit by the governor just shows you how important they feel their education is. >> we like to come to school because we want to be educated to help, to help our nation. >> reporter: the school girls of maiduguri are the lucky ones. but tonight the hunt for theç missing girls of chibok, taken from this school nearly a month ago, continues. >> woodruff: joining me to discuss the video and the latest efforts to free the girls isç j. peter pham, director of the africa program at the atlantic council. peter pham, welcome back to the program. >> thank you, a pleasure to be with you. >> woodruff: so you follow all this closely. what do you make of the video? >> well, the video is an attempt, i think, by boko haram's leaders, who, extremist as they are, have in the last few years shown their ability to engage strategically, and it's a strategic piece insofar as they recognize the international attention has focused tremendous pressure on the government and they're using the video and the attention the video generates to force the government to do something they have been unwilling to do which is negotiate for the release of prisoners and deal with them asç an equal party, so to speak. >> woodruff: do you seem the video is legi legitimate, is re? >> from all indications of what i've seen of the video, it seems to be a legitimate video. certainly, bokoç haram's histoy the last few years is they may put out propaganda but have not in their formal statements. this is not a group like other jihaddest groups who have all sorts of people putting out stuff that seems to be false. this tends to be accurate, despicable but accurate. >> woodruff: what would you say is the state of the search for these school girls? >> well, it's startling. the international community offered its help and finally after not just weeks but years of refusing help with this growing insurgency, the nigerian government has been shamed in accepting offers of help from the united states, the united kingdom, thein the european unid even china. they're just arriving on theç scene. they haven't developed a lot of the intelligence assets and the knowledge of the terrain the nigerians themselves haven't been building up in the last few years, so we're starting at ground zero. that will takeç time. a lot of time went by from the kidnappings on april 15 and when the nigerian government accepted help last week. >> woodruff: a lot of time was lost. >> a great deal was lost. >> woodruff: what is an example of the ways the countries will be cooperating with nigeria? >> i think what nigeria needs is building intelligence capability. nigeria has tried to confront boko haram over the last few years as a merely security challenge to be scwawtd out and crushed. they should have learned that the military solution is a blunt instrument and won't take care of everything. in 2009, nigeria tried to crush boko haram, killed several hundred people including the founder of the sect, and pronounced victory. they came back even more extreme andç virulent. they've tried for years unsuccessfully. there are hundreds if not thousands of casualties as a result of this ongoing war and, clearly there, needs to be better intelligence and broadly-based holistic approachç to this insurgence are. >> woodruff: is it your sense now that the nigerian government is committed to finding getting these school girls rescued? >> i think the government would like the problem to be over with. to be quite blunt, the government still makes rather inresponsible statements. last week, we had the president's wife making reprehensible statements about people who were simply protesting the lack of action to rescue these girls. so they have to get over the fact that this is somehow a plot by their enemies to discredit them. what's discrediting the nigerian government would be celebrating the g.d.p. recall brace, its roles as africa's most dynamic economy, that celebration has been turned upside down by its mishandling of the current crisis. >> woodruff:ç that's what makes it so hard for outsiders to understand is because nigeria is such a successful economy, certainly compared to the others on the african continent and, yet, you're saying they haven't had the apparatus to conduct any kind of rescue operation. >> and that's the result of a certain disconnect between the military and theç economy. the economy successes of nigeria are undoubtable. the political advances since civilian rule are also to be acknowledged. but, at the same time, the military has been starved of resources both because the government remembered the time when the military was too powerful in the '80s and '90s and also because there's a bit of corruption, corruption that creeps throughout nigeria including the military where resources that are allocated don't quite make their way down to the rank and file soldiers, which is why, unfortunately, we have the very credible reports of the soldiers who might have been able to intervene didn't go out of their barracks. >>ç woodruff: and while we're talking about the soldiers, there have been reports that bach wok has infiltrated the military in nigeria. what's your understanding of that? >> well, these are reports that have actually been validated byç president goodluck jonathan himself. he said high levels of security in government apparatus have been penetrated. part of that is a political point but the point is well taken. we have to ask ourselves whether it's merely corruption, people have been bought off, its political agenda is trying to discredit the property or a combination. that's going to hurt the search effort because the u.s. and other countries that were engaged have to be judicious about what information they share for fear that that information might actually fall into the wrong hands. >> woodruff: so boko haram is now talking about the swap, prisoners in exchange for the girls. you've said at the outsetç they're thinking strategically now. is it thought that this could work? that there are prisoners who could be released in exchange for these girls? >> the government is holding a number of boko haramç leaders d members, as well as people who were taken up in security sweeps of the country. but the big point is not so much the lib -- liberation of the prisoners. boko haram is trying to get the government to acknowledge and deal with them. that's a concession this government has not made, and if it makes it, it's a win-win for boko haram. they get their prisoners freed and people back. if the government even talks to them, the government is weakened, and that's where the quandary is the government finds it wasself in. >> woodruff: what do you think the chances are the girls can be found and rescued? >> well, certainly, it's my hope and prayer that as many of the girls as possible can be foundç and reunited with their families, but i have to be realistic. the area where the girls are held is heavily forested, and if you get behind the forest, there's the mountain range betweenç nigeria and cameroon which has end less series of caves. it is very hostile. finding someone there is looking for a needle many in a haystack and several weeks late, i'm not optimistic, unfortunately. >> reporter: peter pham with the atlantic council. thank you. >> we thank you. >> ifill: late today, the european union imposed sanctions on senior russian officials, including russian president vladimir putin's first deputy chief of staff and the commander of the country's paratroopers. the move is part of the e.u.'s efforts to punish moscow for its actions in ukraine. in washington, a state department spokeswoman saidç today the u.s. will not recognize sunday's secession referendum in the eastern regions of donetsk and luhansk. she called it illegitimate.ç >> it was illegal under ukrainian law and an attempt to create further division and disorder in the country. its methodology was also highly suspect, with reports of carousel voting, pre-marked ballots, children voting, voting for people who were absent, and even voting in moscow and st. petersburg. >> ifill: separatists in donetsk, however, declared they are ready to join neighboring russia. we have a report from alex thomson of independent television news. >> reporter: barricaded into the regional council building, bolstered by their referendum, for these people, today is day one of the world's newest capital of the peoples republic of donetsk.ç and ten floors up, separatist chairman denis pushilin says it's war. your own key officials say that this area is now at war with kiev, do you agree with that?ç >> ( translated ): every day in fact people are dying in our territory at the hands of those sent by the illegal kiev junta. this is civil war in its purest form. inside the compromising message we are in a civil war, outside the marshall music. they now feel they have a large mandate from their independence referendum. so the simple question is, do they push forward politically or with fighting? >> reporter: hours later he announced he'd asked russia to absorb the people's republic just one day after the referendum. >> ( translated ): based on will of people of donetsk republic and in order to restore an historic injustice we ask ru[shan federation to consider the absorption of the donetsk people's republic into the russian federation. ( applause )ç >> reporter: silence so far from vladimir putin but the kremlin is welcoming the referendum >> ( translated ): we respect the expression of the will of the population in the donetsk and luhansk region. >> reporter: russia is calling again for talks but on the ground it is not happening. instead the funerals of those from both sides killed in recent days. flowers laid where they died. and kiev's forces told you're illegal get out of our country in 48 hours. in lukhansk separatist militias outside, referendum ballots inside and guns here too. furious, kiev says only a third of people ever voted in this referendum anyway.ç >> ( translated ): that farce the separatists call a referendum is nothing more than propaganda. hiding behind those crimes, killing torture and kidnapping they are carrying out.ç >> reporter: separatists counted that, saying the turnout was 80 with almost 78 saying "yes" to breaking away from kiev. >> ifill: for more on sunday's voting and what it means for the future of ukraine, i'm joined by steven pifer, former u.s. ambassador to ukraine. he's now a senior fellow at the brookings institution. and nadia diuk, vice president of the national endowment for democracy. steven pifer, what happened in ukraine and eastern ukraine this weekend. was it legal? >> certainly not by ukrainian law and the referendum is not recognized by anybody other than perhaps the russian government. first of all, the basic question is asked, was very ambiguous. independence to join russia? > >> ifill: that was the question. >> does it mean you ton my within ukraine?ç it's not sure what people knew they were voting for. >> ifill: whas what was your impression the people thought they were voting for? >> somewhat a separate state, but what that separate state is was not clear. in general, the people who voted, by no means the figure given by the people in control there, the people were voting their unhappiness with not having -- being heard by the authorities and also showing they have been very much influenced by the paint of the kiev authorities as somehow illegitimate. >> ifill: we've hatched elections and judged turnout or by international observers who come in and make sure that it's fair and free. do we have any way of measuring that in this case?ç >> well, by all appearances, this was organized by the separatists. the separatists ran the vote. there were no credible observes. lots of reports ofç multiple voting. the central commission in ukraine refused to give them voters lists so they were not working off any voters lists, so there were lots of questions. there's a biggish issue here -- i suspect a lot of people who turned out voted yes but the biggest question is the turnout figure because several polls in the last two months showed even eastern ukraine, 70% of the population does not want to leave ukraine. >> ifill: i saw a new poll by pugh which said as much. but we don't know who they're polling either. do we know if the voter fraud is proving there is multiple voting, and does it make a difference? nadia diuk. >> well, it does make a difference because i thinkç tht the polls have shown that there are about 30% of the people in the two regions that are possibly in support of some kind of separation, but the 70% of the people who probably did not turn out to vote, who could have been tooç afraid to turn out to vote because keep in mind, as well, there are a lotto armed people around those polling stations and, also, there have been a lot of mysterious kidnappings, beatings, so i think fear has been injected into this process in a way that probably is likely to keep people away. those people haven't spoken out yet. also, the local elites are not very much in favor of what the separatists are doing. today, there was the party of regions which is the party of the former president who was ousted denounced the poll and denounced the separatists and were goingç to be strong withia strong ukraine. so how that plays out remains to be seen. >> ifill: steven pifer, does this mean ukraine itself is tearingç apart irrevocably? >> unfortunately what we've seen in moscow over the last two months is not to diffuse the crisis but to escalate it. for example, you've seen economic pressure on ukraine, banning of ukrainian imports into russia, you've seen a huge raise in the price russia charges ukraine for natural gas. for seven weeks, there have been military maneuvers and forces, russian forces on ukraine's border, and over the past month, you've seen the armed seizers in eastern ukraine instigated and planned by the russians. so they're not trying to calm the situation down. >> ifill: except we heard russian president putin say he didn't think the referendum should go ahead and today they didn't fully recognize the#çcj& results of it. is that not calming things down? >> remember a few weeks ago president putin was saying this whole swath of land up to the mull doven borderç was at one point called a different name. so you could call it that project. the voting that took place yesterday doesn't bring it anywhere close to joining with russia or even separating from ukraine, because all of the other areas, there was no vote there. >> ifill: the next task appears to be the may 25 presidential election, which the e.u. and u.s. said we don't want to see russia get involved or we will step up sanctions. do we think that can still happen with these two regions having pulled themselves out? >> i think there is evidence the acting ukrainian government will go ahead with the election. you will probably have aç good election process in western and central ukraine. the big question mark is will the separatists and russians allow the vote in donetsk and luhansk, and my guess is there will be a disruption. in the pollç stations, 70% of e population who want to vote, do they have the opportunity, or are they denied and then you have a situation on may 26 where the russians are saying, well, people didn't vote in the eastern ukraine, it cast out on the election and really denies the ukrainians to have a more stable and legitimized democratic president. >> ifill: is there leading up to the may 25 vote a broker situation that can bring everybody back to the table or is that moment passed? >> i think that was what president putin was announcing yesterday was one of his aims was the key of government to recognize separatists as equal negotiating partners. however, if they are sittingç around the table, who else should be representing the 70% of people who are not in favor of the local elites who are clearly sort of trending towards kiev? it makes it a very contusedç situation and, as well, one has to ask, where did the separatists get their legitimacy from because they have not actually had elections for people. they just had a vote on the question no one seemed to understand. >> ifill: is there any more pressure to be brought by additional sanctions? >> well, i think it's useful that the european union provided additional sanctions, but i think we're still in the area where the sanctions are too cautious, both in europe and the united states. i think there's evidence to suggest the sanctions are having an impact. everybody seems to be lowering suggestion. the sanctions have not yet succeeded in the primary political goal which is toç get vladimir putin's political course changed. >> ifill: do you thinkç sanctions -- additional sanctions are necessary? >> well, salad has his domestic constituency to take into account with the level of rhetoric ramped up in the last few weeks, he may be being pushed by his domestic -- a lot of this is for people in russia as well to show that if they try anything like happened on the madame, maihem and violence will ensue. >> ifill: steven pifer and nadia diuk, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: questions about the scope and causes of income inequality have resonated loudly in the u.s. in recent years.ç now, a new economics book about these issues is making a big, and surprising, splash of its own among experts and the public. we're going to spend the next couple of nights looking at it, and the debate around it. tonight, our economicsç correspondent, paul solman, has a look at what's in the book that's capturing so much attention. it's part of his ongoing reporting: "making sense of financial news." >> reporter: perhaps the most unlikely bestseller in america: the english translation of french economist thomas piketty's 577-page tome, "capital." his recent u.s. press tour was likened to beatlemania, with standing room only events. nobel laureates on stage with him piled on the praise, especially ones tilting left who share concern for the global trend the 42-year-old parisian has definitively documented: growing economic inequality.ç so our first question, when we sat down with piketty, was about his political slant. capital, capitale, the name of karl marx's famous work, so areç you a french marxist? >> not at all. no, i am not a marxist. i turned 18 when the berlin wall fell and i traveled to eastern europe to see the fall of the communist dictatorship and you know i had never had any temptation for communism or you know, marxism. >> reporter: piketty has long been known for demonstrating, with colleagues, that inequality of wealth has reverted to a lofty level last seen in 19th century europe. here he was at harvard's kennedy school of government, recapping the share of u.s. national income going to the top 10%. and according to the very latest data: >> in 2012 the share going to the top 10% would be slightly over 50%, you know, it's notç clear this is a good deal for the rest of the population. >> reporter: it's a great deal, of course, for the kings of theç economic hill, and the closer you get to the summit, the greater the distance from everyone else. it reminds piketty, among others, of america's "gilded age," which was seen back then as a harbinger of a very un- american drift toward aristocracy. >> many people in america, in 1900, were shocked by the possibilities that their country would become as unequal as old europe. >> reporter: an "old europe" in which land was wealth and thus inherited land guaranteed you the life of riley, or jane austen's mr. darcy. >> who is this mr. darcy? >> he's one of the darcys of pembley. >> oh! mr. darcy of pembley! >> the pembley estates alone are worth a clear ten thousand a year. >> reporter: 10,000 pounds of income, that is, generated by darcy's land holdings.ç for centuries, even well into the industrial revolution, inherited land, the main wealth or "capital" of civilization, guaranteed a predictable income: about 4-5% of that wealth, year in, year out.ç >> everybody knew what the rate of return was and that it was four or five and not two or three or six or seven. these numbers are important. >> reporter: they're of particular importance to piketty because his book's new contribution to economics is said to be this very simple and, to him, ominous equation: r is greater than g. r is for the return on capital, and g stands for economic growth. historically, r= 4 or 5% a year. and for most of human history, g was less than .1% a year, almost zero, because population grew slowly and agricultural productivity more slowly still. and there just wasn't anything so as you can see, if r is growing year after year by 4-5 % in economies that are barely growing at all, it's pretty obvious that those who have the capital, the rich, will keep getting richer and inequality will grow.ç and this is, i believe, the force that explains the very large concentration of wealth that we had up until world war i. >> reporter: now, early in the 20th century, things did begin to change. inequality fell, for so many decades that economists imagined a new law: after a certain stage of development, increasing equality would become the norm. but piketty has a different explanation of what's called the great compression in wages and wealth: it was a fluke of history. >> world war i, the great depression, world war ii, which of course reduced the return to capital to very low level because of capital destruction,ç because of inflation, because of taxation to finance the war. and so the rate of return to capital, fell to 1% or very close to 0%.ç then the growth rate themself after world war ii increased enormously. >> reporter: the great post war boom in babies, buggies, bungalows. >> this lasted for so long that at some point we thought this was a new permanent regime. >> reporter: and when you say the new permanent regime, you mean greater and greater income and wealth equality? >> right. >> reporter: but of course, the great compression didn't last. >> so we are sort of back to the initial situation that we had prior to world war i and this tends to push toward rising concentration of wealth. >> reporter: in other words, he thinks we're back to r being greater than g, and with capitaç returns growing and growth slowing inequality will just get worse and worse. there is a strong feeling in this country, that people deserve what they earn and theç inequality is a function of how hard people have worked or how cleverly they have put their skills to use. >> yeah but there are also dozens of millions of people who are working hard in their daily jobs. >> reporter: and back to another forbes list for another point of piketty's: that the richest aren't just self-made entrepreneurs. >> what you see actually in the data is not only entrepreneur, you also see a growing part of inherited wealth, which uh you know grows almost as fast as entrepreneurial wealth. right now, in this country, the bottom 50% of the population owns 2% of national wealth. even if you don't want to go to all the way to socialism you know maybe it's possible to do a bit better than that. >> reporter: better than the current inequality and, says come. >> there's no natural force that guarantees that this will stop somewhere that is, you know acceptable and compatible with our democratic institution. >> reporter: so what do we do about this?ç >> we need to return to the type of uh progressive income taxations that we've had in the past. between 1930 and 1980, the top marginal rate was 82% in the u.s., and during this period, you have some of the best growth that you know there's ever been in this country. >> reporter: but look at the 1920's when they dropped the top marginal rate to 25% i believe and you had the roaring 20's. so we have a counter example. >> yes, but there's a much longer counter example with the roaring 50's, 60's 70's. >> reporter: piketty also favors an internationally coordinated tax on wealth, and a higher minimum wage. all uphill battles, given the current sharp political divide. >> i hear of course, lots of people say that this will never happen. >> reporter: but piketty dismisses such skepticism with a gallic shrug. ou know, sometis happen. >> reporter: aren't you at all surprised that a 577 page book, gets standing room only audiences? >> i'm surprised that this is uh so successful, but certainly i was hoping that it would, you know it will be.ç you know i tried to, to write it, so that this, this would happen. >> reporter: and happen it has. to the point that capital is now back at the printer. it's publisher, harvard university press failed to anticipate the demand for the most ballyhooed book of economics in years. >> ifill: online, you can find more of paul's interview with piketty about his diagnosis and prescriptions. tomorrow we will debate the issues raised by the book. >> woodruff: scientists have long been warning of the risks posed by melting ice sheets. but a new study released today offers the most definitive word yet from nasa, and other researchers, that parts of theç ice sheet in the west antarctica are melting and that it's part of a pattern that's now irreversible. eventually, scientists say, it will lead to rising sea levels. the study finds that a series of glaciers in the amundsen sea near west antartica have "passed the point of no return" and areç draining into the water, with faster-melting levels shown in red. one is shown here in time-lapse footage. and some of these glaciers have been retreating more than a mile a year between 1996 and 2011. the collapse of the ice sheet will take more than a century to play out, but the new estimates captured international attention today. nasa's tom wagner is one of the lead members of the team. he's here with me now. tom, welcome to the program. >> thank you. >> woodruff: why should one pay attention to what's going on in antarctic, this ice sheet? >> it's one of the most important maces on earth for understanding sea levelç rise. around the world, sea level is rising by 3 millimeters a year. >> woodruff: it's been expected there will be melting, going to be sea levelç rise, what's different in what you've reported today? >> we think of the ice as going into the ocean in a stead way. now we have evidence of a jump and we're seeing the ice retreat off the points it was grounded on into a deeper interior that can allow it to really speed up. >> woodruff: do you know why this is happening? >> we know why in that we know it's warm water coming from deep parts of antarctic and blown up on to the continental shelf and the ice and causing et to melt. >> woodruff: what's causing the water to be warm and move in the direction it is? >> around antarctica, the deep water is warmer than the surface water and generally the idea is winds that have changed their patterns because of global warming coupled also with the ozone hole inç antarctic head o wind patterns around antarctica. >> woodruff: how confident are scientists that's the cause? >> pretty confident. one thing you have to understanç is, in two studies that came out, this idea has been talked about since the '70s and the whole scientific community has been working on this a long time, not just satellites but ships that have gone and measured the water temperatures and made a hole with the national science foundation in one of the ice shells. >> woodruff: you said you found out certain things happened and are happening at a faster rate. give us sort of a tangible example about it. help us understand what exactly is going on. >> sure. if you went to antarctica and pulled the ice off, in the region of west antarctica we looked at, you wouldn't see land. you would see ocean and a few islands popped up. that's what makes this ice at risk for rapid loss. the ice is;hzo thick it displas the water and sits on the bedrock. what's happened is that it's retreated away from it's coastal area and, as it retreats and thins, it floats on the water and thatç allows it to speed up and flow more rapidly into the ocean. >> woodruff: so consequences, what do you project? what do you see? >> so the modeling study that came out today in science actually says that we could, within the next century, jump from, say, a quarter millimeter a year out of this one glacier to over a millimeter a year. that's one of five glaciers just in this area and this is just one small area of antarctica. >> woodruff: that sounds like not much, from a quarter of a millimeter to a millimeter. >> but when you ask someone to model, in 100 years from now. in the new york area in the last 100 years we've seen over a foot of seaç level rise, which is damaging things up and down the east coast. the next century, we're looking at maybe 3 feet plus. when we include these kinds of factors, we might have to revise that estimate upward, maybe four or five or more, and that's kinç of the cutting edge of the research now. >> woodruff: can you say what populations, what cities, what parts of the world we're talking about that's affected? >> bangladesh, 1.5-foot sea level rise displaces 11 million people. it's that serious. around the world, most our cities are built on ports which are at sea level. you don't think about it, well, my house is 4 feet above sea level. the problem is during a storm surge or something else, you get additional problems. so small amounts are really impactful. >> woodruff: and when the report says this is irreversible, what does that mean? >> this was is fascinating part of thisç research. typically, we think of a continent, you think about the united states. the ocean is here and the continent goes up like this. in antarctica, the continent is below sea level and the ice is really thick on it. as the ice retreats, it begins to float because there'sç no continent for it to pull up on. that's what makes this so risky and why it can flow into the ocean and collapse so rapidly. >> woodruff: does that literally mean there's nothing humans can do to slow this down at this point? >> tough call and, again, that does kind of get to the cutting edge. what we know is, based on the basic physics and is geometry, the shape of the bed in that area, this should continue to retreat unless there is a wildly different thing, such as warm water entering this part of antarctica. >> woodruff: why do you say that's a wild thing? >> you have to fundamentally change oceanic and atmospheric circulation. >> woodruff: you're not saying that'sç what humans are incapae of? >> i'm not saying you should run screaming from the beach because of this. what i'm saying is we're doing vull at closing the sea level budget and projecting into the future about how things are going to change. i feel like sometimes when people hear about climate change and sea level rise, they think it's based on the computer models with big uncertainties. one of the key studies that came out today, this is based on observation, actually look at how the glacierers are changing and speeding up. >> woodruff: it's not a mathematical model. >> no, this is, like, aircraft have flown over and put radar signals down that measured the rock underneath the ice and where it is. >> woodruff: tom wagner, you've left us unsettled. thank you very much. >> thank you for having me. >> ifill: finally tonight, mapping out an american city's history, one block at a time. jeffrey brown has our story, part of his series, "culture at risk." >> looks like this one is another duplex.ç >> reporter: a fine walk on a beautiful morning in los angeles, part of a very long walk through all of this city, including some 880,000 parcels of land to survey its rich heritage. >> this one's 1927. there's a related feature, a tennis court in back. >> reporter: on this day mary ringhoff and evanne st. charles, contracted by the city, were in the hancock park neighborhood, first settled in the 1920's by immigrants from poland and russia. along the way, they took photographs, made notes, and logged information into an electronic tablet. when you walk up to these houses, what are you looking at? >> we look at the style. this is a spanish revival.ç the next one is a tudor revival. then we look at the alterations, whether they've put additions on. whether they've put in new windows. >> reporter: los angeles is, of course, constantly changing, constantly reinvpgting itself. but there's an effort underway now to document its history, its neighborhoods, its buildings, its people, its cultural heritage all that makes the city what it is. but the story starts far away in quite a different setting. with the u.s. invasion of iraq, many archeological sites and buildings were damaged by bomb blasts and gunfire. other sites, most famously the national museum, were looted. when international teams arrived to assess the losses, they were often stymied by a lack of basic information. susan macdonald is with the getty conservation institute. >> what we realized very quickly was there were issues associated with the looting of the museum, but they didn't actually have a comprehensive inventory of theiç extraordinary archaeological sites. >> reporter: you mean they just didn't even know what they had? >> they didn't really know what they had and where they were. so these issues catalyzed the idea of having an inventory, creating an inventory inç electronic form that they could access and that could be web- based and properly used to identify and know about their heritage so they could manage the risks associated with it. >> reporter: it's a simple, though time-consuming and expensive idea: to identify, catalogue and map the national treasures of a country or region. the getty, for the record an underwriter of the newshour's cultural reporting, developed a database called "arches." >> the government of jordan was the first to use it. >> so this is the citadel in amman, for example. >> reporter: the getty's alison dalgity gave us a demonstration. >> you can get reports on the significance of each site. 4-hphistoric, social, aesthetic, spiritual. in addition to cataloguing each object or site, the inventory describes existing and potential threats. >> so this starts as an international project but it turns out to have applications here in l.a.? >> that's right.ç it is an international issue. it's the same whether working in iraq or jordan or los angeles. >> reporter: it may sound counter-intuitive: preserving ancient treasures in the middle east is one thing, but how do you apply that idea to a relatively new city like los angeles? in fact, this city has become the largest test case for the new computer program in a project called "survey l.a." iconic symbols are included, of course: the hollywood sign, the walk of fame, the capitol records building, historic movie theaters. but there are also lesser-known places. >> this is the sugar hill neighborhood that was known as west adams.ç >> reporter: it was here in the 1940's, says ken bernstein, who heads the city's historic resources department, that local and national racial history was made. when several prominent africanç americans, bought houses in the neighborhood. one was hattie mcdaniel, the first black actor to win an academy award, for her portrayal of mammy in "gone with the wind." at the time the local homeowners association barred blacks from living here. >> this was the jim crow era of los angeles, an era of strict racial separation and there were a number of high end neighborhoods in los angeles that had very explicit racial covenants preventing african americans or in other cases jews, from buying into some of these prestigious neighborhoods. >> reporter: so she and others wanted to move in. what did they do? >> ultimately they were able, they prevailed in court and were able to stay.ç this was in an era just a few years before the u.s. supreme court issued its first decisions striking down racial covenants. >> reporter: many neighborhoods, says bernstein, have their own stories to tell.ç in filipino town, a park where immigrants first gathered in the city now features a large mural that showcases the 250 year history of filipinos in this country. >> it covers the importance of filipinos during the farm labor movement. farm workers on mural, and then it goes all the way to manny pacquiao >> reporter: manny pacquiao the boxer? >> yes. >> reporter: michelle magalong is a preservationist and community activist who helped organize neighborhood outreach meetings for survey l.a. >> we'd have folks bring in photographs, we'd interview them for oral histories, any kind of material they might have. >> reporter: what do you say to them? bring in your history? >> yeah. we'd say bring what you've got. sometimes people have boxes that their parents or grandparents just kept.ç survey l.a. allows us to really honor the everyday vernacular of different and diverse communities: the residents, the business owners, the community organizations, the churches here in the neighborhood. it's great because they feel like our story matters and it's worth preserving.ç >> reporter: there are also important economic factors at play, of course. tourism, for one. and, says ken bernstein, effective city planning that aids both local officials and developers, who'd rather know about historic preservation sites up front, rather than be surprised well into a project. >> los angeles always has significant development pressures and there is heritage at risk as a result. so we want to be able to use this survey information to make better planning decisions. >> reporter: there's also one other factor. this is california, where there are earthquakes. >> we will need to know comprehensively vxen we're looking at thousands or potentially tens of thousands of buildings in the aftermath of a disaster. what's significant, which buildings might we want to be more careful with as we make investment decisions about how to rebuild. >> i bet that was originally a neon sign too. >> reporter: survey l.a. hopesç to finish gathering its field data and make the information available to the public next year. not iraq, then, threatened by war and looting, but a great american city, filled with it's own history and heritage, wanting to know itself a little better. >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day. video evidence of what's believed to be some of the abducted nigerian schoolgirls surfaced along with a demand from boko haram's leader to free his captured fighters in exchange for the girls. pro-russian rebel leaders in eastern ukraine called for their region to become part of russia, while ukraine's leaders denounced sunday's referendum as a "farce." and two new studies show the massive west antarctic ice sheet is collapsing and melting muchç faster than scientists had predicted. >> ifill: on the newshour online right now, some of the best ideas come out of solving a garden variety nuisance.ç for two high school students in liberty, missouri, it was that watery ketchup that comes out of the squeeze bottle first. their solution: design a better bottle cap. using a 3-d printer, the pair came up with a device that allows for the perfect squirt. see how they did it, on our science page. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. >> woodruff: and that's the newshour for tonight. on tuesday, we'll look at what limits should be placed on u.s. spying, with the man who recently stepped down as head of the national security agency. i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. we'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening.ç for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:ç ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> support also comes from carnegie corporation of new york. a foundation created to do whatç andrew carnegie called "real and permanent good." celebrating 100 years of philanthropy at carnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org ♪ >> this is "bbc world news." >> funding of this presentation is made possible by the freeman foundation, newman's own foundation, giving all profits to charity and pursuing the common good for over 30 years, kovler foundation, charles schwab, and union bank. >> at union bank, our relationship managers work hard to know your business, offering specialized solutions and capital to help you meet your growth objectives. we offer expertise and tailored solutions for small businesses and major corporations. what can we do for you? ♪

Transcripts For KQED PBS NewsHour 20140513

>> his recent u.s. press tour was likened to beatlemania. nobel laureates on stage with him piled on the praise, especially ones who share concern for the global trend the 42-year-old parisian has definitively documented: growing economic inequality. >> woodruff: those are just some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> i've been around long enough to recognize the people who are out there owning it. the ones getting involved, staying engaged. they are not afraid to question the path they're on. because the one question they never want to ask is, "how did i end up here?" i started schwab with those people.ç people who want to take ownership of their investments, like they do in every other aspect of their lives. >> when i was pregnant, i got more advice than i knew what to do with.ç what i needed was information i could trust, on how to take care of me and my baby. united healthcare has a simple program that helps moms stay on track with their doctors and get care and guidance they can use before and after the baby is born. simple is what i need right now. >> that's health in numbers, united healthcare >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing supportç of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs thank you. >> ifill: parts of the west spent this day after mother's day digging out from a late winter snowstorm. the system dropped wet, slushy snow across wyoming and colorado on sunday, and continued into early today. accumulations of nearly three feet forced much of interstate 80 in southern wyoming to shut down. the storm also spawned minor tornadoes in nebraska and forced flash flood watches in oklahoma and arkansas. >> woodruff: the taliban launched a spring offensive in afghanistan today, as promised, killing at least 21 people. attacks were scattered from jalalabad, where taliban fighters stormed a governmentç building to a checkpoint in helmand province, where gunmen killed nine policemen. and to kabul itself, where rockets landed inside the perimeter of the international airport.ç the violence comes as fewer than 30,000 u.s. troops remain in the country, the lowest number since the 2001 invasion. >> ifill: new tragedy has struck migrants trying to sail from north africa to italy. in the past three days, two migrant boats sank in the mediterranean. at least 14 people died today, but the italian navy rescued more than 200 others. libyan police and health workers also recovered more than 40 bodies that washed ashore from another migrant vessel. it went down on saturday. >> woodruff: in south sudan the army claimed it now controls an oil town where troops battled rebels on sunday. each side blamed the other for violating a cease-fire announced friday. meanwhile, the country's president declared presidential elections scheduled for next year will be postponed. the rebel leader objected to the plan.ç >> ifill: this was the final day of voting in india's six-week general election. exit polls suggested hindu nationalist narendra modi is set to become the next prime minister. thousands of voters turned out in the hindu holy city of varanasi. it's considered a stronghold ofç modi's hindu nationalist party. official results are expected on friday. >> woodruff: one of washington's best known landmarks, the washington monument, reopened to the public today, almost three years after it was damaged in an earthquake. the moment was marked with pomp and pageantry on the national mall and an official ribbon cutting. it followed months of work to repair more than 150 cracks. bob vogel of the national park service welcomed visitors back to the 130-year-old obelisk this morning. >> national mall and memorial parks is proud to serve as caretaker of this historic structure by both preserving the building and helping visitors better understand its significance and we are thrilleç to be able to once again open its doors. >> woodruff: the refurbishment of the washington monument and its new exhibits cost anç estimated $15 million, half of which was paid for by philanthropist david rubenstein. >> ifill: wall street hit some record highs today. the dow jones industrial average gained 112 points to close at 16,695, an all-time best. the nasdaq rose 72 points to close above 4143. and the s-and-p 500 added 18 points to finish above 1896, also a new record. still to come on the newshour: new video purporting to show the abducted nigerian schoolgirls; fallout from the weekend secession votes in ukraine; one economist's controversial take on capitalism and inequality; scientists warn antarctic ice melt is unstoppable; plus, mapping los angeles' cultural history.ç >> woodruff: in nigeria today, a possible sign of life for the abducted school girls whose fate has captured the world's attention, and an offer from the leader of boko haram to swap th3 students for prisoners held by the government. we have a report from rageh ommar of independent television news. >> reporter: at the very least this latest video by the boko haram shows around 130 girls are alive. the christian girls amongst them have been forced to abandon their faith and wear islamic head scarves and gowns and recite verses of the koran. as far as one can tell, they are unharmed and well. but there is no mistake the tense and frightening atmosphere. the leader of boko haram abubakar shekau says he prepared to return them in exchange forç captured militant fighters. he's clearly been following the international concerns surrounding his hostages, expressing bemusement at the outcry of the plight.ç the streets of the capital of borno state are not safe. there have been suicide bombings and attacks by boko haram here and they've recently targeted the outskirts of the city. i've come to maiduguri to talk to this man, the governor of borno state who's been dealing with this crisis since day one. i asked him for his reaction to the latest video. >> reporter: the governor believes that as borno's levels of impoverishment, lack of by the central government that has allowed boko haram's violent radical ideology to find followers. i wanted to see if this crisis had damaged girls education and unannounced we dropped into a local school. the spontaneous reaction spoke volumes. the reaction here amongst these girls to a completely unannounced visit by the governor just shows you how important they feel their education is. >> we like to come to school because we want to be educated to help, to help our nation. >> reporter: the school girls of maiduguri are the lucky ones. but tonight the hunt for theç missing girls of chibok, taken from this school nearly a month ago, continues. >> woodruff: joining me to discuss the video and the latest efforts to free the girls isç j. peter pham, director of the africa program at the atlantic council. peter pham, welcome back to the program. >> thank you, a pleasure to be with you. >> woodruff: so you follow all this closely. what do you make of the video? >> well, the video is an attempt, i think, by boko haram's leaders, who, extremist as they are, have in the last few years shown their ability to engage strategically, and it's a strategic piece insofar as they recognize the international attention has focused tremendous pressure on the government and they're using the video and the attention the video generates to force the government to do something they have been unwilling to do which is negotiate for the release of prisoners and deal with them asç an equal party, so to speak. >> woodruff: do you seem the video is legi legitimate, is re? >> from all indications of what i've seen of the video, it seems to be a legitimate video. certainly, bokoç haram's histoy the last few years is they may put out propaganda but have not in their formal statements. this is not a group like other jihaddest groups who have all sorts of people putting out stuff that seems to be false. this tends to be accurate, despicable but accurate. >> woodruff: what would you say is the state of the search for these school girls? >> well, it's startling. the international community offered its help and finally after not just weeks but years of refusing help with this growing insurgency, the nigerian government has been shamed in accepting offers of help from the united states, the united kingdom, thein the european unid even china. they're just arriving on theç scene. they haven't developed a lot of the intelligence assets and the knowledge of the terrain the nigerians themselves haven't been building up in the last few years, so we're starting at ground zero. that will takeç time. a lot of time went by from the kidnappings on april 15 and when the nigerian government accepted help last week. >> woodruff: a lot of time was lost. >> a great deal was lost. >> woodruff: what is an example of the ways the countries will be cooperating with nigeria? >> i think what nigeria needs is building intelligence capability. nigeria has tried to confront boko haram over the last few years as a merely security challenge to be scwawtd out and crushed. they should have learned that the military solution is a blunt instrument and won't take care of everything. in 2009, nigeria tried to crush boko haram, killed several hundred people including the founder of the sect, and pronounced victory. they came back even more extreme andç virulent. they've tried for years unsuccessfully. there are hundreds if not thousands of casualties as a result of this ongoing war and, clearly there, needs to be better intelligence and broadly-based holistic approachç to this insurgence are. >> woodruff: is it your sense now that the nigerian government is committed to finding getting these school girls rescued? >> i think the government would like the problem to be over with. to be quite blunt, the government still makes rather inresponsible statements. last week, we had the president's wife making reprehensible statements about people who were simply protesting the lack of action to rescue these girls. so they have to get over the fact that this is somehow a plot by their enemies to discredit them. what's discrediting the nigerian government would be celebrating the g.d.p. recall brace, its roles as africa's most dynamic economy, that celebration has been turned upside down by its mishandling of the current crisis. >> woodruff:ç that's what makes it so hard for outsiders to understand is because nigeria is such a successful economy, certainly compared to the others on the african continent and, yet, you're saying they haven't had the apparatus to conduct any kind of rescue operation. >> and that's the result of a certain disconnect between the military and theç economy. the economy successes of nigeria are undoubtable. the political advances since civilian rule are also to be acknowledged. but, at the same time, the military has been starved of resources both because the government remembered the time when the military was too powerful in the '80s and '90s and also because there's a bit of corruption, corruption that creeps throughout nigeria including the military where resources that are allocated don't quite make their way down to the rank and file soldiers, which is why, unfortunately, we have the very credible reports of the soldiers who might have been able to intervene didn't go out of their barracks. >>ç woodruff: and while we're talking about the soldiers, there have been reports that bach wok has infiltrated the military in nigeria. what's your understanding of that? >> well, these are reports that have actually been validated byç president goodluck jonathan himself. he said high levels of security in government apparatus have been penetrated. part of that is a political point but the point is well taken. we have to ask ourselves whether it's merely corruption, people have been bought off, its political agenda is trying to discredit the property or a combination. that's going to hurt the search effort because the u.s. and other countries that were engaged have to be judicious about what information they share for fear that that information might actually fall into the wrong hands. >> woodruff: so boko haram is now talking about the swap, prisoners in exchange for the girls. you've said at the outsetç they're thinking strategically now. is it thought that this could work? that there are prisoners who could be released in exchange for these girls? >> the government is holding a number of boko haramç leaders d members, as well as people who were taken up in security sweeps of the country. but the big point is not so much the lib -- liberation of the prisoners. boko haram is trying to get the government to acknowledge and deal with them. that's a concession this government has not made, and if it makes it, it's a win-win for boko haram. they get their prisoners freed and people back. if the government even talks to them, the government is weakened, and that's where the quandary is the government finds it wasself in. >> woodruff: what do you think the chances are the girls can be found and rescued? >> well, certainly, it's my hope and prayer that as many of the girls as possible can be foundç and reunited with their families, but i have to be realistic. the area where the girls are held is heavily forested, and if you get behind the forest, there's the mountain range betweenç nigeria and cameroon which has end less series of caves. it is very hostile. finding someone there is looking for a needle many in a haystack and several weeks late, i'm not optimistic, unfortunately. >> reporter: peter pham with the atlantic council. thank you. >> we thank you. >> ifill: late today, the european union imposed sanctions on senior russian officials, including russian president vladimir putin's first deputy chief of staff and the commander of the country's paratroopers. the move is part of the e.u.'s efforts to punish moscow for its actions in ukraine. in washington, a state department spokeswoman saidç today the u.s. will not recognize sunday's secession referendum in the eastern regions of donetsk and luhansk. she called it illegitimate.ç >> it was illegal under ukrainian law and an attempt to create further division and disorder in the country. its methodology was also highly suspect, with reports of carousel voting, pre-marked ballots, children voting, voting for people who were absent, and even voting in moscow and st. petersburg. >> ifill: separatists in donetsk, however, declared they are ready to join neighboring russia. we have a report from alex thomson of independent television news. >> reporter: barricaded into the regional council building, bolstered by their referendum, for these people, today is day one of the world's newest capital of the peoples republic of donetsk.ç and ten floors up, separatist chairman denis pushilin says it's war. your own key officials say that this area is now at war with kiev, do you agree with that?ç >> ( translated ): every day in fact people are dying in our territory at the hands of those sent by the illegal kiev junta. this is civil war in its purest form. inside the compromising message we are in a civil war, outside the marshall music. they now feel they have a large mandate from their independence referendum. so the simple question is, do they push forward politically or with fighting? >> reporter: hours later he announced he'd asked russia to absorb the people's republic just one day after the referendum. >> ( translated ): based on will of people of donetsk republic and in order to restore an historic injustice we ask ru[shan federation to consider the absorption of the donetsk people's republic into the russian federation. ( applause )ç >> reporter: silence so far from vladimir putin but the kremlin is welcoming the referendum >> ( translated ): we respect the expression of the will of the population in the donetsk and luhansk region. >> reporter: russia is calling again for talks but on the ground it is not happening. instead the funerals of those from both sides killed in recent days. flowers laid where they died. and kiev's forces told you're illegal get out of our country in 48 hours. in lukhansk separatist militias outside, referendum ballots inside and guns here too. furious, kiev says only a third of people ever voted in this referendum anyway.ç >> ( translated ): that farce the separatists call a referendum is nothing more than propaganda. hiding behind those crimes, killing torture and kidnapping they are carrying out.ç >> reporter: separatists counted that, saying the turnout was 80 with almost 78 saying "yes" to breaking away from kiev. >> ifill: for more on sunday's voting and what it means for the future of ukraine, i'm joined by steven pifer, former u.s. ambassador to ukraine. he's now a senior fellow at the brookings institution. and nadia diuk, vice president of the national endowment for democracy. steven pifer, what happened in ukraine and eastern ukraine this weekend. was it legal? >> certainly not by ukrainian law and the referendum is not recognized by anybody other than perhaps the russian government. first of all, the basic question is asked, was very ambiguous. independence to join russia? > >> ifill: that was the question. >> does it mean you ton my within ukraine?ç it's not sure what people knew they were voting for. >> ifill: whas what was your impression the people thought they were voting for? >> somewhat a separate state, but what that separate state is was not clear. in general, the people who voted, by no means the figure given by the people in control there, the people were voting their unhappiness with not having -- being heard by the authorities and also showing they have been very much influenced by the paint of the kiev authorities as somehow illegitimate. >> ifill: we've hatched elections and judged turnout or by international observers who come in and make sure that it's fair and free. do we have any way of measuring that in this case?ç >> well, by all appearances, this was organized by the separatists. the separatists ran the vote. there were no credible observes. lots of reports ofç multiple voting. the central commission in ukraine refused to give them voters lists so they were not working off any voters lists, so there were lots of questions. there's a biggish issue here -- i suspect a lot of people who turned out voted yes but the biggest question is the turnout figure because several polls in the last two months showed even eastern ukraine, 70% of the population does not want to leave ukraine. >> ifill: i saw a new poll by pugh which said as much. but we don't know who they're polling either. do we know if the voter fraud is proving there is multiple voting, and does it make a difference? nadia diuk. >> well, it does make a difference because i thinkç tht the polls have shown that there are about 30% of the people in the two regions that are possibly in support of some kind of separation, but the 70% of the people who probably did not turn out to vote, who could have been tooç afraid to turn out to vote because keep in mind, as well, there are a lotto armed people around those polling stations and, also, there have been a lot of mysterious kidnappings, beatings, so i think fear has been injected into this process in a way that probably is likely to keep people away. those people haven't spoken out yet. also, the local elites are not very much in favor of what the separatists are doing. today, there was the party of regions which is the party of the former president who was ousted denounced the poll and denounced the separatists and were goingç to be strong withia strong ukraine. so how that plays out remains to be seen. >> ifill: steven pifer, does this mean ukraine itself is tearingç apart irrevocably? >> unfortunately what we've seen in moscow over the last two months is not to diffuse the crisis but to escalate it. for example, you've seen economic pressure on ukraine, banning of ukrainian imports into russia, you've seen a huge raise in the price russia charges ukraine for natural gas. for seven weeks, there have been military maneuvers and forces, russian forces on ukraine's border, and over the past month, you've seen the armed seizers in eastern ukraine instigated and planned by the russians. so they're not trying to calm the situation down. >> ifill: except we heard russian president putin say he didn't think the referendum should go ahead and today they didn't fully recognize the#çcj& results of it. is that not calming things down? >> remember a few weeks ago president putin was saying this whole swath of land up to the mull doven borderç was at one point called a different name. so you could call it that project. the voting that took place yesterday doesn't bring it anywhere close to joining with russia or even separating from ukraine, because all of the other areas, there was no vote there. >> ifill: the next task appears to be the may 25 presidential election, which the e.u. and u.s. said we don't want to see russia get involved or we will step up sanctions. do we think that can still happen with these two regions having pulled themselves out? >> i think there is evidence the acting ukrainian government will go ahead with the election. you will probably have aç good election process in western and central ukraine. the big question mark is will the separatists and russians allow the vote in donetsk and luhansk, and my guess is there will be a disruption. in the pollç stations, 70% of e population who want to vote, do they have the opportunity, or are they denied and then you have a situation on may 26 where the russians are saying, well, people didn't vote in the eastern ukraine, it cast out on the election and really denies the ukrainians to have a more stable and legitimized democratic president. >> ifill: is there leading up to the may 25 vote a broker situation that can bring everybody back to the table or is that moment passed? >> i think that was what president putin was announcing yesterday was one of his aims was the key of government to recognize separatists as equal negotiating partners. however, if they are sittingç around the table, who else should be representing the 70% of people who are not in favor of the local elites who are clearly sort of trending towards kiev? it makes it a very contusedç situation and, as well, one has to ask, where did the separatists get their legitimacy from because they have not actually had elections for people. they just had a vote on the question no one seemed to understand. >> ifill: is there any more pressure to be brought by additional sanctions? >> well, i think it's useful that the european union provided additional sanctions, but i think we're still in the area where the sanctions are too cautious, both in europe and the united states. i think there's evidence to suggest the sanctions are having an impact. everybody seems to be lowering suggestion. the sanctions have not yet succeeded in the primary political goal which is toç get vladimir putin's political course changed. >> ifill: do you thinkç sanctions -- additional sanctions are necessary? >> well, salad has his domestic constituency to take into account with the level of rhetoric ramped up in the last few weeks, he may be being pushed by his domestic -- a lot of this is for people in russia as well to show that if they try anything like happened on the madame, maihem and violence will ensue. >> ifill: steven pifer and nadia diuk, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: questions about the scope and causes of income inequality have resonated loudly in the u.s. in recent years.ç now, a new economics book about these issues is making a big, and surprising, splash of its own among experts and the public. we're going to spend the next couple of nights looking at it, and the debate around it. tonight, our economicsç correspondent, paul solman, has a look at what's in the book that's capturing so much attention. it's part of his ongoing reporting: "making sense of financial news." >> reporter: perhaps the most unlikely bestseller in america: the english translation of french economist thomas piketty's 577-page tome, "capital." his recent u.s. press tour was likened to beatlemania, with standing room only events. nobel laureates on stage with him piled on the praise, especially ones tilting left who share concern for the global trend the 42-year-old parisian has definitively documented: growing economic inequality.ç so our first question, when we sat down with piketty, was about his political slant. capital, capitale, the name of karl marx's famous work, so areç you a french marxist? >> not at all. no, i am not a marxist. i turned 18 when the berlin wall fell and i traveled to eastern europe to see the fall of the communist dictatorship and you know i had never had any temptation for communism or you know, marxism. >> reporter: piketty has long been known for demonstrating, with colleagues, that inequality of wealth has reverted to a lofty level last seen in 19th century europe. here he was at harvard's kennedy school of government, recapping the share of u.s. national income goin the top 10%. and according to the very latest data: >> in 2012 the share going to the top 10% would be slightly over 50%, you know, it's notç clear this is a good deal for the rest of the population. >> reporter: it's a great deal, of course, for the kings of theç economic hill, and the closer you get to the summit, the greater the distance from everyone else. it reminds piketty, among others, of america's "gilded age," which was seen back then as a harbinger of a very un- american drift toward aristocracy. >> many people in america, in 1900, were shocked by the possibilities that their country would become as unequal as old europe. >> reporter: an "old europe" in which land was wealth and thus inherited land guaranteed you the life of riley, or jane austen's mr. darcy. >> who is this mr. darcy? >> he's one of the darcys of pembley. >> oh! mr. darcy of pembley! >> the pembley estates alone are worth a clear ten thousand a year. >> reporter: 10,000 pounds of income, that is, generated by darcy's land holdings.ç for centuries, even well into the industrial revolution, inherited land, the main wealth or "capital" of civilization, guaranteed a predictable income: about 4-5% of that wealth, year in, year out.ç >> everybody knew what the rate of return was and that it was four or five and not two or three or six or seven. these numbers are important. >> reporter: they're of particular importance to piketty because his book's new contribution to economics is said to be this very simple and, to him, ominous equation: r is greater than g. r is for the return on capital, and g stands for economic growth. historically, r= 4 or 5% a year. and for most of human history, g was less than .1% a year, almost zero, because population grew slowly and agricultural productivity more slowly still. and there just wasn't anything so as you can see, if r is growing year after year by 4-5 % in economies that are barely growing at all, it's pretty obvious that those who have the capital, the rich, will keep getting richer and inequality will grow.ç and this is, i believe, the force that explains the very large concentration of wealth that we had up until world war i. >> reporter: now, early in the 20th century, things did begin to change. inequality fell, for so many decades that economists imagined a new law: after a certain stage of development, increasing equality would become the norm. but piketty has a different explanation of what's called the great compression in wages and wealth: it was a fluke of history. >> world war i, the great depression, world war ii, which of course reduced the return to capital to very low level because of capital destruction,ç because of inflation, because of taxation to finance the war. and so the rate of return to capital, fell to 1% or very close to 0%.ç then the growth rate themself after world war ii increased enormously. >> reporter: the great post war boom in babies, buggies, bungalows. >> this lasted for so long that at some point we thought this was a new permanent regime. >> reporter: and when you say the new permanent regime, you mean greater and greater income and wealth equality? >> right. >> reporter: but of course, the great compression didn't last. >> so we are sort of back to the initial situation that we had prior to world war i and this tends to push toward rising concentration of wealth. >> reporter: in other words, he thinks we're back to r being greater than g, and with capitaç returns growing and growth slowing inequality will just get worse and worse. there is a strong feeling in this country, that people deserve what they earn and theç inequality is a function of how hard people have worked or how cleverly they have put their skills to use. >> yeah but there are also dozens of millions of people who are working hard in their daily jobs. >> reporter: and back to another forbes list for another point of piketty's: that the richest aren't just self-made entrepreneurs. >> what you see actually in the data is not only entrepreneur, you also see a growing part of inherited wealth, which uh you know grows almost as fast as entrepreneurial wealth. right now, in this country, the bottom 50% of the population owns 2% of national wealth. even if you don't want to go to all the way to socialism you know maybe it's possible to do a bit better than that. >> reporter: better than the current inequality and, says come. >> there's no natural force that guarantees that this will stop somewhere that is, you know acceptable and compatible with our democratic institution. >> reporter: so what do we do about this?ç >> we need to return to the type of uh progressive income taxations that we've had in the past. between 1930 and 1980, the top marginal rate was 82% in the u.s., and during this period, you have some of the best growth that you know there's ever been in this country. >> reporter: but look at the 1920's when they dropped the top marginal rate to 25% i believe and you had the roaring 20's. so we have a counter example. >> yes, but there's a much longer counter exple with the roaring 50's, 60's 70's. >> reporter: piketty also favors an internationally coordinated tax on wealth, and a higher minimum wage. all uphill battles, given the current sharp political divide. >> i hear of course, lots of people say that this will never happen. >> reporter: but piketty dismisses such skepticism with a gallic shrug. ou know, sometis happen. >> reporter: aren't you at all surprised that a 577 page book, gets standing room only audiences? >> i'm surprised that this is uh so successful, but certainly i was hoping that it would, you know it will be.ç you know i tried to, to write it, so that this, this would happen. >> reporter: and happen it has. to the point that capital is now back at the printer. it's publisher, harvard university press failed to anticipate the demand for the most ballyhooed book of economics in years. >> ifill: online, you can find more of paul's interview with piketty about his diagnosis and prescriptions. tomorrow we will debate the issues raised by the book. >> woodruff: scientists have long been warning of the risks posed by melting ice sheets. but a new study released today offers the most definitive word yet from nasa, and other researchers, that parts of theç ice sheet in the west antarctica are melting and that it's part of a pattern that's now irreversible. eventually, scientists say, it will lead to rising sea levels. the study finds that a series of glaciers in the amundsen sea near west antartica have "passed the point of no return" and areç draining into the water, with faster-melting levels shown in red. one is shown here in time-lapse footage. and some of these glaciers have been retreating more than a mile a year between 1996 and 2011. the collapse of the ice sheet will take more than a century to play out, but the new estimates captured international attention today. nasa's tom wagner is one of the lead members of the team. he's here with me now. tom, welcome to the program. >> thank you. >> woodruff: why should one pay attention to what's going on in antarctic, this ice sheet? >> it's one of the most important maces on earth for understanding sea levelç rise. around the world, sea level is rising by 3 millimeters a year. >> woodruff: it's been expected there will be melting, going to be sea levelç rise, what's different in what you've reported today? >> we think of the ice as going into the ocean in a stead way. now we have evidence of a jump and we're seeing the ice retreat off the points it was grounded on into a deeper interior that can allow it to really speed up. >> woodruff: do you know why this is happening? >> we know why in that we know it's warm water coming from deep parts of antarctic and blown up on to the continental shelf and the ice and causing et to melt. >> woodruff: what's causing the water to be warm and move in the direction it is? >> around antarctica, the deep water is warmer than the surface water and generally the idea is winds that have changed their patterns because of global warming coupled also with the ozone hole inç antarctic head o wind patterns around antarctica. >> woodruff: how confident are scientists that's the cause? >> pretty confident. one thing you have to understanç is, in two studies that came out, this idea has been talked about since the '70s and the whole scientific community has been working on this a long time, not just satellites but ships that have gone and measured the water temperatures and made a hole with the national science foundation in one of the ice shells. >> woodruff: you said you found out certain things happened and are happening at a faster rate. give us sort of a tangible example about it. help us understand what exactly is going on. >> sure. if you went to antarctica and pulled the ice off, in the region of west antarctica we looked at, you wouldn't see land. you would see ocean and a few islands popped up. that's what makes this ice at risk for rapid loss. the ice is;hzo thick it displas the water and sits on the bedrock. what's happened is that it's retreated away from it's coastal area and, as it retreats and thins, it floats on the water and thatç allows it to speed up and flow more rapidly into the ocean. >> woodruff: so consequences, what do you project? what do you see? >> so the modeling study that came out today in science actually says that we could, within the next century, jump from, say, a quarter millimeter a year out of this one glacier to over a millimeter a year. that's one of five glaciers just in this area and this is just one small area of antarctica. >> woodruff: that sounds like not much, from a quarter of a millimeter to a millimeter. >> but when you ask someone to model, in 100 years from now. in the new york area in the last 100 years we've seen over a foot of seaç level rise, which is damaging things up and down the east coast. the next century, we're looking at maybe 3 feet plus. when we include these kinds of factors, we might have to revise that estimate upward, maybe four or five or more, and that's kinç of the cutting edge of the research now. >> woodruff: can you say what populations, what cities, what parts of the world we're talking about that's affected? >> bangladesh, 1.5-foot sea level rise displaces 11 million people. it's that serious. around the world, most our cities are built on ports which are at sea level. you don't think about it, well, my house is 4 feet above sea level. the problem is during a storm surge or something else, you get additional problems. so small amounts are really impactful. >> woodruff: and when the report says this is irreversible, what does that mean? >> this was is fascinating part of thisç research. typically, we think of a continent, you think about the united states. the ocean is here and the continent goes up like this. in antarctica, the continent is below sea level and the ice is really thick on it. as the ice retreats, it begins to float because there'sç no continent for it to pull up on. that's what makes this so risky and why it can flow into the ocean and collapse so rapidly. >> woodruff: does that literally mean there's nothing humans can do to slow this down at this point? >> tough call and, again, that does kind of get to the cutting edge. what we know is, based on the basic physics and is geometry, the shape of the bed in that area, this should continue to retreat unless there is a wildly different thing, such as warm water entering this part of antarctica. >> woodruff: why do you say that's a wild thing? >> you have to fundamentally change oceanic and atmospheric circulation. >> woodruff: you're not saying that'sç what humans are incapae of? >> i'm not saying you should run screaming from the beach because of this. what i'm saying is we're doing vull at closing the sea level budget and projecting into the future about how things are going to change. i feel like sometimes when people hear about climate change and sea level rise, they think it's based on the computer models with big uncertainties. one of the key studies that came out today, this is based on observation, actually look at how the glacierers are changing and speeding up. >> woodruff: it's not a mathematical model. >> no, this is, like, aircraft have flown over and put radar signals down that measured the rock underneath the ice and where it is. >> woodruff: tom wagner, you've left us unsettled. thank you very much. >> thank you for having me. >> ifill: finally tonight, mapping out an american city's history, one block at a time. jeffrey brown has our story, part of his series, "culture at risk." >> looks like this one is another duplex.ç >> reporter: a fine walk on a beautiful morning in los angeles, part of a very long walk through all of this city, including some 880,000 parcels of land to survey its rich heritage. >> this one's 1927. there's a related feature, a tennis court in back. >> reporter: on this day mary ringhoff and evanne st. charles, contracted by the city, were in the hancock park neighborhood, first settled in the 1920's by immigrants from poland and russia. along the way, they took photographs, made notes, and logged information into an electronic tablet. when you walk up to these houses, what are you looking at? >> we look at the style. this is a spanish revival.ç the next one is a tudor revival. then we look at the alterations, whether they've put additions on. whether they've put in new windows. >> reporter: los angeles is, of course, constantly changing, constantly reinvpgting itself. but there's an effort underway now to document its history, its neighborhoods, its buildings, its people, its cultural heritage all that makes the city what it is. but the story starts far away in quite a different setting. with the u.s. invasion of iraq, many archeological sites and buildings were damaged by bomb blasts and gunfire. other sites, most famously the national museum, were looted. when international teams arrived to assess the losses, they were often stymied by a lack of basic information. susan macdonald is with the getty conservation institute. >> what we realized very quickly was there were issues associated with the looting of the museum, but they didn't actually have a comprehensive inventory of theiç extraordinary archaeological sites. >> reporter: you mean they just didn't even know what they had? >> they didn't really know what they had and where they were. so these issues catalyzed the idea of having an inventory, creating an inventory inç electronic form that they could access and that could be web- based and properly used to identify and know about their heritage so they could manage the risks associated with it. >> reporter: it's a simple, though time-consuming and expensive idea: to identify, catalogue and map the national treasures of a country or region. the getty, for the record an underwriter of the newshour's cultural reporting, developed a database called "arches." >> the government of jordan was the first to use it. >> so this is the citadel in amman, for example. >> reporter: the getty's alison dalgity gave us a demonstration. >> you can get reports on the significance of each site. 4-hphistoric, social, aesthetic, spiritual. in addition to cataloguing each object or site, the inventory describes existing and potential threats. >> so this starts as an international project but it turns out to have applications here in l.a.? >> that's right.ç it is an international issue. it's the same whether working in iraq or jordan or los angeles. >> reporter: it may sound counter-intuitive: preserving ancient treasures in the middle east is one thing, but how do you apply that idea to a relatively new city like los angeles? in fact, this city has become the largest test case for the new computer program in a project called "survey l.a." iconic symbols are included, of course: the hollywood sign, the walk of fame, the capitol records building, historic movie theaters. but there are also lesser-known places. >> this is the sugar hill neighborhood that was known as west adams.ç >> reporter: it was here in the 1940's, says ken bernstein, who heads the city's historic resources department, that local and national racial history was made. when several prominent africanç americans, bought houses in the neighborhood. one was hattie mcdaniel, the first black actor to win an academy award, for her portrayal of mammy in "gone with the wind." at the time the local homeowners association barred blacks from living here. >> this was the jim crow era of los angeles, an era of strict racial separation and there were a number of high end neighborhoods in los angeles that had very explicit racial covenants preventing african americans or in other cases jews, from buying into some of these prestigious neighborhoods. >> reporter: so she and others wanted to move in. what did they do? >> ultimately they were able, they prevailed in court and were able to stay.ç this was in an era just a few years before the u.s. supreme court issued its first decisions striking down racial covenants. >> reporter: many neighborhoods, says bernstein, have their own stories to tell.ç in filipino town, a park where immigrants first gathered in the city now features a large mural that showcases the 250 year history of filipinos in this country. >> it covers the importance of filipinos during the farm labor movement. farm workers on mural, and then it goes all the way to manny pacquiao >> reporter: manny pacquiao the boxer? >> yes. >> reporter: michelle magalong is a preservationist and community activist who helped organize neighborhood outreach meetings for survey l.a. >> we'd have folks bring in photographs, we'd interview them for oral histories, any kind of material they might have. >> reporter: what do you say to them? bring in your history? >> yeah. we'd say bring what you've got. sometimes people have boxes that their parents or grandparents just kept.ç survey l.a. allows us to really honor the everyday vernacular of different and diverse communities: the residents, the business owners, the community organizations, the churches here in the neighborhood. it's great because they feel like our story matters and it's worth preserving.ç >> reporter: there are also important economic factors at play, of course. tourism, for one. and, says ken bernstein, effective city planning that aids both local officials and developers, who'd rather know about historic preservation sites up front, rather than be surprised well into a project. >> los angeles always has significant development pressures and there is heritage at risk as a result. so we want to be able to use this survey information to make better planning decisions. >> reporter: there's also one other factor. this is california, where there are earthquakes. >> we will need to know comprehensively vxen we're looking at thousands or potentially tens of thousands of buildings in the aftermath of a disaster. what's significant, which buildings might we want to be more careful with as we make investment decisions about how to rebuild. >> i bet that was originally a neon sign too. >> reporter: survey l.a. hopesç to finish gathering its field data and make the information available to the public next year. not iraq, then, threatened by war and looting, but a great american city, filled with it's own history and heritage, wanting to know itself a little better. >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day. video evidence of what's believed to be some of the abducted nigerian schoolgirls surfaced along with a demand from boko haram's leader to free his captured fighters in exchange for the girls. pro-russian rebel leaders in eastern ukraine called for their region to become part of russia, while ukraine's leaders denounced sunday's referendum as a "farce." and two new studies show the massive west antarctic ice sheet is collapsing and melting muchç faster than scientists had predicted. >> ifill: on the newshour online right now, some of the best ideas come out of solving a garden variety nuisance.ç for two high school students in liberty, missouri, it was that watery ketchup that comes out of the squeeze bottle first. their solution: design a better bottle cap. using a 3-d printer, the pair came up with a device that allows for the perfect squirt. see how they did it, on our science page. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. >> woodruff: and that's the newshour for tonight. on tuesday, we'll look at what limits should be placed on u.s. spying, with the man who recently stepped down as head of the national security agency. i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. we'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening.ç for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:ç ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> support also comes from carnegie corporation of new york. a foundation created to do whatç andrew carnegie called "real and permanent good." celebrating 100 years of philanthropy at carnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org  report" with tyler mathisen and susie gharib. brought to you in part by -- >> thestreet.com featuring herb green who reminds investors risks is reality. researching stocks in terms of risk. you can learn more at thestreet.com/reality check. >> record setting day. dow and s&p catapult to new highs. how solid are the gains. can this rally really be trusted? >> he was one of the most pivotal and controversial figures during the financial crisis. tonight former treasure secretary timothy geithner defends his actions and reveals what he would do over if company. love a sale? not everybody does. the big promotions could pinch

Transcripts For CSPAN U 20140612

Transcripts For KQED PBS NewsHour 20140723

>> if we could understand how those actually work, we would know something important about how everything works. >> woodruff: plus, an update on efforts to bring back the abducted nigerian school girls, 100 days after they went missing. those are just some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: the first of the victims from the malaysian airliner shot down over ukraine arrived back in the netherlands today. life in the grieving nation largely came to a halt, as the day's somber events played out. jonathan rugman of independent television news has our report. >> reporter: at eindhoven military airport this afternoon. two aircraft, one dutch and one australian, ferried the first of mh-17's passengers and crew back to the country which lost the most. 193 of the 298 were dutch. 32 australian, and 10 from the u.k. 40 hearses for 40 coffins. and before they were taken away for forensic investigation, the dutch gave the bodies a heroes welcome, with the sounding of the last post. the country's new king willem alexander, and queen maxima, led a day of national mourning. the ceremony here, meticulous in bright sunshine, and performed in front of about 1,000 relatives of the dead. and what was most striking, the determination to give them a dignity in death that they never received in the fields of eastern ukraine. at the crash sight itself, separatist rebels gave access to officials from the organization for security and cooperation in europe. but not to dutch investigators, who said their safety was not guaranteed. the plane's flight recorders have been taken to the u.k. for an examination which could take weeks. but six days on, there has been no professional investigation permitted here. on monday, the u.k. said it had imposed an absolute arms embargo on russia. but today, it emerged that more than 200 export licenses, including for missile launching equipment, are still in place. >> we have an arms embargo in place. we set out the terms of it, and we need to make sure that everything that's happened since is consistent with the terms of that embargo. i believe that's the case, but we'll want to go through each one of these individually to very much make sure that it is the case and if it isn't, of course we'll act very swiftly. >> reporter: and amid disagreement among world leaders as to how to respond, pro- russian separatists are continuing to shoot down aircraft. today, it was two ukrainian military jets. this just 25 miles from the mh- 17 sight. the ukrainians claiming the rockets were fired from russia itself. on the other side of europe though, the peeling of bells, and then a minute's silence. not a corner of the netherlands have been untouched by this disaster. and the scenes this evening have been unprecedented. many thousands lining the streets to watch the hearses pass by. the first bodies from 11 nations in all, though none of them have yet been identified. yet all of them, honored here by the country, which less than one fateful week ago, had sent them on their way. >> woodruff: european monitors said today there are body parts still at the site in eastern ukraine where the plane was shot down. and australia's prime minister warned it's increasingly likely that some of the remains will never be recovered. >> ifill: and in other news today, in taiwan a trans-asia airways plane crashed in stormy weather as it was trying to land on the small island of penghu. at least 47 people were trapped and feared dead. rescue workers used flashlights to comb through the wreckage in the darkness. 58 passengers and crew members were on board. >> woodruff: republicans and democrats in congress offered up competing bills today, on the flood of migrant children across the southern u.s. border. but there was no sign that either side can win over the other. house republicans said their bill would cost $1.5 billion, far less than president obama's request of $3.7 billion. speaker john boehner: >> what the president is asking for is a blank check. he wants us to just throw more money at the problem without doing anything to solve the problem. the administration ought to get their act together. without trying to fix the problem, i don't know how we actually are in a position to give the president any more money. >> woodruff: republicans also insist on speeding up deportations by changing a 2008 law that lays out a lengthy hearing process. in the senate, democrat barbara mikulski proposed legislation to cut the president's funding request by $1 billion. but it would not change the 2008 law on deportations. homeland security department officials warn border and immigration agencies will run out of money in the next two months, unless congress acts. >> ifill: lawmakers in iraq have again delayed voting on a new president. they agreed today to put off a decision until tomorrow, after the kurdish political bloc asked for more time. at least 95 candidates are running. meanwhile, the islamic state group claimed responsibility for an overnight suicide bombing that killed 31 people at a checkpoint in baghdad. >> woodruff: in indonesia, a former general who lost the presidential election now plans to challenge the results in the nation's highest court. his campaign alleges widespread fraud in the voting, although election observers have said it was generally free and fair. election officials declared jakarta governor joko widodo the winner, yesterday. >> ifill: the costa concordia cruise liner began it's final voyage today, more than two years after it capsized off an italian island. two tugboats pulled the ship away from the port of giglio. it will make a slow, four-day journey to the northwestern port of genoa, home to the company that owns the vessel. >> it is difficult to describe the feeling without being too emotional. the ship is heading north at 2 knots: expected rival time following between saturday night and sunday morning. >> ifill: 32 people died when the concordia steered too close to land and struck a reef. the captain is now on trial on charges of causing the wreck and abandoning his passengers, and for multiple counts of manslaughter. >> woodruff: back in this country, general motors has issued six more safety recalls, covering another 700,000 vehicles. this time, the problems range from faulty seats to turn signal failures, to problems with power steering. all told, g.m. has issued a record 60 recalls this year, for nearly 30 million cars and trucks. >> ifill: congressional investigators told house members today how they repeatedly qualified for subsidized health coverage using fake i.d.'s. the government accountability office said investigators succeeded in 11 out of 18 attempts; they said they got around an online identity checking system by dialing government call centers instead; also today, a study by the department of health and human services estimated more than ten million adults have gained coverage under the affordable care act. >> woodruff: the anthrax incident at a government lab has cost the lab director his job. michael farrell submitted his resignation today from the centers for disease control and prevention. he'd already been reassigned from a c.d.c. facility in atlanta that handles bio- terrorism agents. last month, that lab accidentally sent anthrax samples that were still alive, to two other labs. dozens of c.d.c. workers were potentially exposed, but no one got sick. >> ifill: wall street had a mixed day after some mixed reports on corporate earnings. the dow jones industrial average lost nearly 27 points to close at 17,086. the nasdaq rose 17 points to close at 4,473. and the s-an-p 500 added three, to end at 1,987. >> woodruff: still to come on the newshour: the humanitarian crisis on the ground in gaza; how a georgia race will help decide control of the u.s. senate; what a fly's brain tells us about our own minds; stricter rules for trains carrying crude oil; and, what's happened to the abducted nigerian school girls, now missing for 100 days. >> ifill: the fighting between hamas and israel continued today as america's top diplomat shuttled between israeli and palestinian leaders, attempting to broker a cease fire. more than 680 palestinians and 34 israelis have been killed since the fighting began july 8. >> ifill: secretary of state john kerry landed in tel aviv, his air force jet exempt from the f.a.a. ban shutting down u.s. flights there. he met first with u.n. secretary general ban ki-moon, and suggested there's been some progress toward a cease-fire. >> we're working hard and i'm not going to get into the characterizing, but we have certainly made some steps forward. >> ifill: from there, he headed to the west bank, and talks with palestinian authority president mahmoud abbas. >> we're doing this for one simple reason. the people in the palestinian territories, the people in israel are all living under the threat or reality of immediate violence. and this needs to end for everybody. >> ifill: and then, back to tel aviv, for a meeting with israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu. amid all the shuttling, even russian president vladimir putin spoke with netanyahu by phone today, hundreds of palestinians were also on the move, pouring out of the southern gaza town of khan younis. they were fleeing heavy israeli air and artillery strikes, and there were reports of many people still trapped. >> ( translated ): they were firing from tanks next to our house. we were stuck in the house, we called the ambulance and the fire-fighters, none came to help us. >> ifill: in rafah, hundreds took part in a funeral procession for five palestinians killed by overnight air strikes. and in jerusalem, thousands attended the funeral of israeli soldier max steinberg. the 24-year-old man from california was killed in fighting on sunday. violence also spread to the west bank, where a palestinian man was killed in fighting with israeli soldiers in bethlehem. meanwhile, hamas rocket fire killed a foreign worker near ashkelon, in southern israel. the rocket threat prompted more airlines to call off flights into israel's ben gurion international airport. president shimon peres urged them to reconsider. >> may i say i regret that airlines have suspended flights. the real answer to the danger of flying is not to stop the flights, but to stop the rockets which are endangering the flight. >> ifill: but the u.n. high commissioner for human rights navi pillay held both sides responsible for the rapidly rising death toll. >> i unequivocally reiterate to all actors in this conflict that civilians must not be targeted. not abiding by these principles may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. >> ifill: israeli justice minister tzipi livni answered the allegation with two words on her facebook page, "get lost." late today, hamas leader khaled meshaal called for the world to force an end to the israeli offensive, and to the economic blockade of gaza. pernille ironside, of the u.n. children's agency unicef, has been on the ground in gaza since the conflict began. i spoke with her via skype earlier today. pernille ironside, as you travel around in gaza, tell us, what are you seeing? >> well, the conflict has been getting steadily worse by the day, and we're now into our 15th day here, and with each one the civilian casualty rate has only mounted. amongst those, children are bearing the greatest brunt of this terrible conflict at the moment. there's over 168 children who have died already and we're now over 1,100 children who have been seriously injured, maimed and even terribly burned. the physical and psychological toll is undescribable. i've met with, for example, the three surviving baka boys who were on the beach playing with cousins and the next moment saw pieces of four of their friends and cousins strewn around them. these are lasting emotional and physical scars that children are bearing across the gaza strip. i also met 4-year-old shima in the hospital the other day and she was longing for her mother and her siblings, all of whom died as they were seeking shelter, leaving their home in search of a safer place, and only shima and her father survived. the fact of the matter is there is no safe place here, even in the public schools and compounds and in shelters, there are no guarantees for safety. >> ifill: that's what i wanted to ask you is where do people go when they seek shelter? >> well, gathering around the main emergency hospital in gaza, they're gathering in mosques, in the orthodox church here in gaza, and they're also gathering in school compounds, both u.n. schools and now, as those have basically reached their capacity is over 120,000 people in them, people are also pouring into public school compounds. i visited two of the public schools today just to see how people were coping. the vast majority of nearly 1,400 people in each compound were children. i woul would say, in one alone,2 children were under the age of 2. this is an enormous civilian impact and upheaval in terms of all these lives who have literally had to flee, not knowing if they're going to survive or not. in fact, one grandmother today said to me, 40 of them, all they could do was pray at that moment because they did not know, as their 5-story building came crashing down around them, they did not know if they would live. >> ifill: what is the condition of the infrastructure, whether water, electricity, even the roofs over people's heads? what is your sense of how damaged that all is? >> i have been visiting a number of the most critical water and sanitation installations around gaza. i can say that 70% of the population is now without access to safe water. the main sewage pumping station has been hit directly. 40% of gaza sewage is flowing directly into the mediterranean now. just down the road from there the primary sewage treatment plant was also directly hit and the sewage flowed down the street into the neighborhoods and fields, contaminating a huge amount of area. water wells have been directly hit. there is at least 50% of all the water and sanitation infrastructure is no longer functioning at this moment and even when some urgent repairs could be made to reestablish some of the connections, it's been rendered impossible because there is no safe humanitarian access for the municipal workers to be able to make these repairs and, already, three of them have been killed while on duty. beyond water and hygiene, the emotional toll, we have the emergency psycho-social teams who are reaching out to all the families who have lost loved ones in order to provide some immediate coping skills, and this is really just the first step of a very long process of healing and recovery that gaza will need to undergo. >> ifill: sounds like a long process in every possible case, pernille ironside, the u.n. children's agency unreceive, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: now to politics: yesterday in georgia, voters chose the republican nominee for the u.s. senate in what turned out to be a tight primary election. it sets the stage for what will be one of the closest watched races of the year, a contest that could help decide control of the senate. with us to talk about this race and the broader senate landscape is our political editor, domenico montanaro. so welcome back. >> thank you. >> woodruff: domenico, the republicans, it was a tight race, a runoff, but they have candidate now, his name is david perdue, who is he? >> former c.e.o. of dollar general and the sneaker company reebok, which everybody knows. jack kingston is who he defeated 51-49. kingston, a member of congress. it shouldn't be lost that david perdue in this race was the only person who ran in this primary who was not either a member of congress or a former elected official, so he really played that outsider card. he ran this ad depicting babies on the lawn in front of congress crying, depicting all the lawmakers are cry babies, essentially, so he really tried to play that card, hit kingston with being on the insider status, and that's what probably did help him. he also pulled in about $3 million of his own money which didn't hurt. >> woodruff: now perdue faces a well-organized democrat and normally deep south is not fertile territory for democrats but in this case she is the daughter of a well-known former senator. >> that's right, and democrats have hope that michelle nunn, daughter of sam nunn, will do well because of her legacy and name but also because to have the changing demographics of the state. so i think this is a state that democrats are starting to feel a little bit better about and, given the fact perdue is a political novice, never run before, nunn is in a similar situation, but she also has tried to play the outsider card. now you will see republicans -- we've already seen republicans take strong aim at michelle nunn. we know the democrats are already picking apart david perdue's business experience, trying to reopen the mitt romney playbook to say this is someone who cost jobs and shipped jobs overseas. the the real question will be over the next two months, can michelle nunn withstand the barrage that comes her way? if we look two weeks after labor day and the race is still tied, this will be an actual potential pickup for democrats. >> woodruff: and this race is especially important to democrats because the overall national senate landscape is not very friendly. >> that's right and that's why we care about this race. there are 12 races in the country we should all be looking at now but you can see from our map that 10 of the states are seats held by democrats. well -- or are republican targets. only two of the races are in places that are held by republicans -- kentucky with mitch mcconnell, minority leader who could become majority leader, and this race in georgia. if georgia is on the board for democrats, then the ability for republicans to take back the senate and net the seats they need out of this landscape makes it more difficult. only three states on this map we've seen are likely heading toward republicans in montana, west virginia and one other, and you see that because of that, if republicans aren't able to hold georgia, then the landscape becomes much more difficult for them. >> woodruff: democrats start out with a disadvantage and it's just tough. >> well, it is. but right now in alaska and arkansas, mark pryor and mark begch are doing well and probably better than most republicans thought, and they might be gum in the dam because if they can hold, democrats will likely hold a one or two seat majority, if they lose you could see a much broader way come the republicans way. >> woodruff: i like that metaphor, gum in the dam. this report came out yesterday from the respected organization saying the turnout in this year's primaries so far is not only down but, in most of the states where there have been primaries, a historic low. >> 25 of the 50 states are at an historic low. in the 1950s there was a primary of mid 30s of eligible population turning out from the study of the center of american electorate. and now only 13 to 14% is turned out. people are upset. pessimism reins. they are upset with president, congress for blocking the president, upset at the president for using too much executive authority, and it goes back and forth. people aren't feeling much better about the economy despite the headline economic numbers and what it all leads to is a large disinterest, frankly, in what we're seeing in politics, but it does have consequence. elections have consequences as we're talking about whether or not who holds control of the senate a. >> woodruff: pretty depressing and maybe people watching and all over the country, well, you know, take notice and pay more attention. >> in favor of more engagement. >> woodruff: domenico montanaro, thank you. >> thank you. >> ifill: next, trying to better understand what's happening in the brain of a fruitfly, a dragonfly, or a zebrafish. all part of a bigger puzzle to learn more about how our own minds work. newshour science correspondent miles o'brien has the first in our three-part series on the science of the brain. >> reporter: oh, to be a fly on the wall at the basic research facility scientist consider nirvana. you might see a nobel prize in the making or be sub geeked to the fruitfly version of a scary november where, a rapidly growing shadow of a predator coming in for the kill. >> interested on how they make decision. >> reporter: glen runs a laboratory near washington, d.c. and films fruitflies at 6,000 frames per second to see what they do and eventually she hopes understand how their brains issue commands and their bodies turn that into life saving action. >> one of the interesting things we've discovered is that if you show a fly a scary movie, they actually don't do one particular thing, they actually do a whole sequence of behaviors that are quite flexible and varied. >> reporter: this is the kind of question bugs and neuroscience in another lab here, jerry ruben, spent his entire career studying fruitflies. >> fruitflys have a very distinguished, long career in biomedical research because they breed like flies. >> reporter: the bugs are more than rapidly prolific. they can do interesting things and compared to humans are much easier neuroscience test subjects. >> these are complicated calculations and small biological computations. we feel if we could understand how those actually work, then we would know something important about how every brain works including our own brains. >> reporter: ruben not only runs a lab here but the overall facility as well. in fact, it's his baby. he hatched the idea in 2002, the doors opened in 2006, and right now it houses 350 scientists working in 42 labs and on five collaborative teams. it is a well-oiled machine, to be sure. robotic efficienty. they feed, breed, bar code and house more than a million insects here hoping they might hold answers to some of the most challenging problems in basic biomedical research. it is funded by the howard hughes medical institute. for the record, also a "newshour" underwriter. h.h.m.i. plans to spend $50 million to $100 million a year for at least 20 years here, giving the best and brightest scientists what amounts to a blank check to do their work as they see fit. >> we could bring an unusual group of people. protect them from the real world, give them a place to work on their science, encourage them to work together on challenging problems and give them the freedom to do it and see what happens. >> reporter: ruben, after a workplace on his resume. the bell laboratories founded by at&t and western electric in 1925, it attracted the best scientists from virtually every discipline, encouraged them to collaborate and gave them the freedom and funding to conduct basic research, even if there was no obvious profit-making application evident. over the years, bell researchers made big strides in the realm of basic science. discovered cosmic background radiation and thus the big bang theory, and also invented game changers in the marketplace including the transistor, laser and charge couple device. the lab garnered seven nobel prizes in all. in recent years corporate funding of fundamental science with long-term goals has all but vanished and federal funding for basic science dropped precipitously. >> i think there's a broad recognition there is a way the federal government chooses projects to fund, the way it supports them tends to cut out the most creative work. >> reporter: to pursue a greater understanding of neuroscience, scientists and engineers work in close collaboration to build new tools of discovery. developmental biologists and neuroscientists phillip keller showed me his amazing light sheet microscope. >> this is designed to main malley interfere with the normal development and function of the biological sample. >> reporter: living samples bathed in laser light and recorded by two fast digital cameras to generate 3-dimensional movies of biological processes. this is an embryo from 3 hours after fertilization till hatching 24 hours later. >> we have tens of thousands of cells in development. you cannot see these rapid movements. these are multiple contractions. >> reporter: this is one embryo from different angles. >> exactly. >> reporter: something zebrafishy in the lab as well, zebrafish, waiting for an extreme closeup. the ground breaking movie shows a zebra zebrafish larva brain in action. each blip is a brain lighting up. >> these experiments are aimed at trying to find out what exactly is going on. >> reporter: he's thinking about something good or bad? one or the other, right? >> we try our best to see that he's not thinking something bad. (laughter) >> reporter: it's done. true professional. >> true professional. >> reporter: neuroscientist anthony leonardo uses a collaborative approach as he studies another insect, the dragonfly. he captures them capturing flutt flies, focused on 28 muscles controlled by fury neurons, what day do in the span of 14 wing strokes. >> gets better with practice but they understand how to do it from the start. >> reporter: what's amazing is he starts with his back to the fruitfly. >> exactly. >> reporter: leonardo is focused on how our brains coordinate complex behaviors in split-second real time like catching a ball. to get a better look at the problem, he and an engineer have outfitted some dragonflies with 60-milligram backpacks. they capture and transmit signals from ten neurons linked to four muscles. >> we look at all these things together and slowly build up a model of how the nervous system will solve this problem. >> reporter: leonardo says the tiny backpack is a good example of how collaboration can streamline scientific research, but there's a big catch. no such thing as tenure here. even though long-term funding is not a worry, the scientists themselves work on five-year contracts and can be asked to leave if they don't measure up. as we spoke, anthony leonardo's contract was up for renewal. >> the way this was put to me when i was interviewing that resonated with me that we don't see is the ethos of the place is we will bet these massive resources on you and your ideas and you bet your exreer in exchange -- you bet your career in exchange. that was the gamble. >> reporter: researchers here are keeping long-term basic research afloat at a time when it finds very few safe harbors. >> not every avenue of research works out. you don't know exactly where it's going or exactly what you're going to learn. we don't know what the truth is or we wouldn't feed to pursue it. sometimes it turns out as you expect and sometimes it doesn't. >> reporter: there are hopes the research will pay off with new nobel class discoveries. that's the idea. the sure thing need not apply. > tomorrow, judy explores new findings on genetics and schizophrenia. >> woodruff: the obama administration proposed new and tougher safety rules today for railway trains carrying oil, trains sometimes referred to as a pipeline on wheels. they come after some tragic derailments and at a time when more than a million barrels of oil a day are traveling across the country by rail. jeffrey brown has the story >> brown: on july 6th of last year, at 1:15 in the morning, the small canadian town of lac megantic was rocked by a powerful explosion. a runaway train carrying 72 cars of crude oil had careened into the community and derailed. the blast and ensuing fire destroyed dozens of buildings and killed 47 people. the train carried bakken oil, a highly flammable crude from western north dakota, where production has surged, along with rail shipments. overall, the number of tanker cars carrying oil in the u.s. soared from 10,000 in 2008 to more than 400,00 last year. >> they didn't look down the road to figure out how are we going to get this to market in a safe way. >> brown: don morrison of the dakota resource council, in a may interview with the newshour. >> going through people, right next to people's houses and businesses. it's dangerous. and they've got to be careful. >> ifill: now, the department of transportation is proposing new regulations for oil trains. they would include: the phase out or retrofit of thousands of older tank cars within two years; improved braking systems; and testing corn-based ethanol and crude oil for flammability prior to transportation. the goal is to prevent the kinds of accidents seen from lynchburg, virginia to casselton, north dakota, over the last 18 months, though none was as deadly or destructive as lac megantic. for the record, the casselton incident involve the rail company b.n.s.f., a major carrier of oil and an underwriter of the newshour. still, industry representatives, like ron ness of the north dakota petroleum council, insist the transportation of oil by rail is sound. >> safety is certainly the number one aspect that i think all aspects of the transportation industry are focused on. and at 99.7% of the time, you know, rail movements get to their destinations safely. >> brown: supporters of the long-delayed keystone pipeline project, to carry canadian oil to the gulf of mexico, say it would ease the need for oil trains. environmental groups say it poses it's own threats. >> brown: the secretary of transportation, anthony foxx, announced the proposed rules today, and he joins me now. welcome to you. >> thank you, jeff. >> brown: first, help people understand the situation as you see it. how serious a health and public safety issue is it especially in towns where trains run through? >> we have to remember that oil production in this country is growing exponentially and crude in russia increased fromo 80s from 900,000 car loads to a 4% increase. we don't see that abating soon. the production lynn crease, safety standards have to increase with it and that's why we proposed the rule today. >> brown: the criticism that came immediately is you're moving in the right direction but too slow. we have to put up a graphic from earth justice, one of the activist groups, that says your proposal showed extreme unacceptable risk posed by outdated and accident-prone type of railcar, the d.o.t. 111. the department's proposal, they raise reducing the risk of keeping these accident prone cars off the rails for three to six years. why wait so long if they're so dangerous? >> we're trying to push the rule out as quickly as possible. we have a 60-day comment period. folks with criticisms or exrovlts they'd like to see to the rule, we invite them to use the comment period. but to the particular question you asked, the reality is we have a market that has as best a third of new tank cars in it today. so to transition the market, it will take time from a practical standpoint. we want to have a right standard set pore the new tank car and that's what we're proposing is to have alternatives to improve the tank car standard but this is also a comprehensive rule, it goes with speed and other aspects so we can ensure the safety of the other people. >> brown: you're getting pressure from the industry not to move too fast. >> we use the comment period to hear from industry but we're not going to be bound by what we hear from industry. we're going to do the right thing for safety in america and whatever that is where our final word will be. >> brown: one interesting issue is the particular oil involved. sounds as though your department decided the bakken oil is actually particularly volatile and less safe and more combustible than other oils. >> yes, one of the things we're noticing in this situation is that, in the bakken region, there is rud rude meantiary separation occurring before it goes into the tank cars. in the bakken, the tank cars are moving the materials out to the refining areas on the east and west coast so the challenge is we have a relatively unstable substance moving long distances and sometimes hundreds of cars at a time. >> brown: here you're pushed back from the oil industry. a graphic from the american petroleum institute "the best science and data tonight support recent speculation that crude oil from the bakken friends a greater than normal risk." they're calling on you to get your science right. do you feel you have it right? >> yes, i do. some folks say we're moving too slow, some say too fast. we're probably in the right place. we look forward to the comment period and listen to what folks have to say. >> brown: what about the the issue of speed? are there's a question of 40-mile-per-hour speed limit which i gather now the railroads have accepted within urban areas but the question is whether you should expand that countrywide. >> yeah, the question is do we have a 40-mile limit totally, everywhere, do we have a 40-mile limit around certain parts, given population differences? do we have it just in urban areas. that type of challenge is not just a challenge inherent to this issue of crude by rail. there is an issue of what it does to other commodities, grains, rail, corn products moved by rail. so, again, this is a place where we'll listen to input from a variety of stakeholders and work to craft the rule accordingly. >> brown: how do you decide something like that? is it based on the new cars or -- they always will be tied together. >> that's right. >> brown: they're also calling for a new braking system or looking at it. >> it is very complex and we need a comprehensive approach which is why our rule takes into account all the factors. as we get comments in, we'll take a look at the comments but i believe you will see a rule that's going to have several components to it, the tank car standard, the speed standard, and other pieces including breaking and other things that you mentioned before. >> brown: the larger issue is where you started. we saw the huge increase in production. the balance is out of order. the balance in the increase in production versus maintaining the safety, the ability to transport this. >> the reality is things have changed. this increased production, these trains are now moving, as i said before, in some cases 100 unit trains at a time, and it's unit cars at a time, and we're going to have to deal with this new reality by stepping up our state osafety standards and this rule is going to be promulgated to focus on where we will be in the future as well as where we are. we want to hit the target with the rule. >> brown: especially in the local communities, there has been a lot of protest and worry. >> well aware of. this we've heard from members of congress, mayors, community members all over the country and even into canada. we understand the importance of this issue. that's why we worked to get the rule out and have a public comment period and we'll move it as quickly as we can. >> brown: while i have you here, i want to ask you about another transportation issue on people's minds and that's air transportation. we had what happened in the ukraine. we have u.s. flights not going into israel. jet travel nowadays, should people be worried in a new way? >> i think what people should be reassured by is the fact our f.a.a. is working very closely with our intelligence community and with the international community to understand the risks of traveling, and when we believe the risks are substantial enough, we have issues rules to prohibit u.s. carriers from flying into certain territories. we'll monitor situations as they occur and hopefully folks will feel safe as they fly. >> brown: you believe that's the situation in israel, even though the israeli government says that's not the case? >> we are using the intelligence we have. again we're working with all our international partners in situations where we have active no tems, and will monitor the situation elsewhere. >> brown: anthony foxx, secretary of transportation, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> ifill: finally tonight, we return to a story that captivated the worlds attention for a time, but has faded from the public eye, the fate of those kidnapped school girls in nigeria. chief foreign affairs correspondent margaret warner has this update on what has become of them, and of the campaign to bring them home. >> all we are saying is bring back our girls, now and alive. >> warner: a small, but vocal, protest marked the somber anniversary in nigeria's capital, abuja. it's been 100 days since nearly 300 young schoolgirls were abducted by islamist militants from a town in northeastern nigeria, chibok >> we call on to the nigerian military to facilitate a decisive military operation. >> warner: no one is sure of the exact number being held today, some seen here in a video from mid-may. nearly 60 escaped their captors, a strict fundamentalist islamist group called boko haram. it's leader, abubakar shekau. >> ( translated ): we are against western education and i say stop western education. i repeat, i took the girls, and i will sell them off, there is a market for selling girls. >> warner: yesterday, for the first time since the april 14 abductions, nigerian president goodluck jonathan met with many parents of the kidnapped girls, and some who escaped. he and his government have come under withering criticism for their handling of the incident, and of boko haram. >> the government was wildly slow to respond to this particular abduction, and the government's security forces have been wildly ineffective at both dealing with boko haram and protecting the local population. >> warner: sarah margon is the washington director of human rights watch. >> warner: why is it that the nigerian government, after 100 days, with some outside help, has not been able to locate and rescue these missing girls? >> it's our understanding that they actually do know where they are, but because the girls have been broken up into smaller groups, and it's basically a hostage negotiation, it's a very dangerous situation. >> warner: this morning by phone, i asked nigerian government spokesman in abuja, mike omeri, about that. >> the effort, the energy, the resources, the mobilizing and standing together is towards rescuing these girls. so, repeatedly, officers and ground forces and security services have indicated knowledge of where, knowledge of where these girls might be held. >> warner: but we were told that you know where they are, but it is too risky to try to rescue them, because it's basically a hostage situation. is that right? >> warner: the kidnappings inspired a global campaign, #bring back our girls, which raised awareness, but in a video released last week, boko haram chief shekau brazenly mocked the effort while taunting the president and his military. >> bring back our girls? bring back our army. bring back our army. jonathan! jonathan! girl, girl, girl, girl, girl! bring back our army! >> warner: standup the kidnappings are but a symptom of the government's impotence as boko haram, which wants to establish an islamist caliphate in nigeria, has advanced across the predominantly-muslim northeast of africa's most- populous nation. late last week, it's fighters planted their flag the strategic town of damboa. and today, it's believed to be behind bomb blasts in the city of kaduna, that killed at least 39 followers of a muslim cleric who doesn't embrace boko haram's hard-line ideology. all of this emblematic, says peter pham of the atlantic council, of an organization that has grown in strength and ambition: >> the group has metastasized very rapidly in the last two to three years, it's gone from a violent militant group that did drive-by shootings and lobbed grenades at people it didn't like, to a terrorist group that carried out the first suicide bombings and truck bombings in nigeria's history, to now, in the last 12 months, to a group that occupies territory. >> warner: so what explains its ability to expand its area of control? >> i think several factors contributed to it. one is better training. increasingly, also, the weakness of the nigerian military. the nigerian military has been unable or unwilling to fight back, and then, finally, the fear that boko haram has managed to stoke in villagers and others leads people to flee before them, rather than putting up resistance. >> warner: and, says sarah margon, where the military has fought back, it has done as much to create fertile ground for boko haram as deny it. >> in part, they've been emboldened by the heavy hand of nigerian security forces. in part, the local community has been pushed towards them because of the heavy hand, and so they have been strengthened. the heavy hand includes extra- judicial killings, rounding up suspects, arresting them, not charging them, sometimes killing them, burning residential structures, looting homes, abusing people. >> warner: so your saying that actually has helped boko haram? >> absolutely. >> warner: while government spokesman omeri says there was initial resentment of the army by local populations, he refutes the charge of abuse. >> warner: but peter pham says such assurances fall on deaf ears among many nigerians, who've grown cynical after decades of corruption and economic disparity in this oil- rich country. >> boko haram wouldn't be in the strong position that it is and have the sympathies or at least the tacit acquiescence of considerable segments of the population were it not for the social, political, and economic marginalization that many nigerians feel, not only because of corruption but also for lack of inclusion. >> warner: this has bred a regional threat potent enough to prompt the u.s. to designate boko haram a terrorist organization, and the united nations to enforce sanctions against it as an al qaida- associated group. its expanding reach is a threat the u.s. should be worried about, says pham. >> boko haram forms part of an archipelago of extremist groups stretching from north africa through the ungoverned spaces of the sahel and then onward and eastward to unstable areas of east africa, as well as a linkage to some of the militants fighting in syria. >> warner: another reason that the u.s. hopes the nigerian government, even while trying to get back the kidnapped girls, also presses on every front against the surging threat boko haram represents. >> ifill: again, the major developments of the day. the first 40 bodies from a malaysian airliner arrived back in the netherlands. the plane was shot down over eastern ukraine last week. secretary of state john kerry shuttled between israeli and palestinian leaders, trying to arrange a cease-fire in gaza. but the fighting raged on, with more than 700 palestinians and 34 israelis killed so far. and the obama administration proposed phasing out thousands of older railroad tank cars that increasingly carry crude oil. >> woodruff: on the newshour online right now, batman turns 75 this year and we wanted to know why he remains so popular after three-quarters of a century. so we talked to a real batman scholar dwight blocker bowers of the smithsonian national museum of american history in washington, d.c. he showed us part of the smithsonian's collection of batman artifacts. i think batman remained popular in american culture because he represents the power in good and he represents a superhero who can save us from ourselves. first of all, i think it goes back to the statement that he has sustained himself since 1939 when he premiered, in american culture. he represented a figure who can fight for the might for good as opposed to evil. i remember as a child a television joe, the adam west version of that man. i loved the sense of comedy it brought to the series because that man is a very serious figure, and i think that show introduced humor to the character that i found embracing. >> woodruff: we also talked to several of the writers and artists who've had a hand in the superhero's evolution over the years. you can find those interviews, plus a lot more, on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff, we'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> this is "bbc world news america." >> funding of this presentation is made possible by the freeman foundation. newman's own foundation, giving all profits to charity and pursuing the common good for over 30 years. kovler foundation. and union bank. >> at union bank, our relationship managers work hard to understand the industry you operate in, working to nurture new ventures and

Transcripts For KQED PBS NewsHour 20140724

>> if we could understand how those actually work, we would know something important about how everything works. >> woodruff: plus, an update on efforts to bring back the abducted nigerian school girls, 100 days after they went missing. those are just some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: the first of the victims from the malaysian airliner shot down over ukraine arrived back in the netherlands today. life in the grieving nation largely came to a halt, as the day's somber events played out. jonathan rugman of independent television news has our report. >> reporter: at eindhoven military airport this afternoon. two aircraft, one dutch and one australian, ferried the first of mh-17's passengers and crew back to the country which lost the most. 193 of the 298 were dutch. 32 australian, and 10 from the u.k. 40 hearses for 40 coffins. and before they were taken away for forensic investigation, the dutch gave the bodies a heroes welcome, with the sounding of the last post. the country's new king willem alexander, and queen maxima, led a day of national mourning. the ceremony here, meticulous in bright sunshine, and performed in front of about 1,000 relatives of the dead. and what was most striking, the determination to give them a dignity in death that they never received in the fields of eastern ukraine. at the crash sight itself, separatist rebels gave access to officials from the organization for security and cooperation in europe. but not to dutch investigators, who said their safety was not guaranteed. the plane's flight recorders have been taken to the u.k. for an examination which could take weeks. but six days on, there has been no professional investigation permitted here. on monday, the u.k. said it had imposed an absolute arms embargo on russia. but today, it emerged that more than 200 export licenses, including for missile launching equipment, are still in place. >> we have an arms embargo in place. we set out the terms of it, and we need to make sure that everything that's happened since is consistent with the terms of that embargo. i believe that's the case, but we'll want to go through each one of these individually to very much make sure that it is the case and if it isn't, of course we'll act very swiftly. >> reporter: and amid disagreement among world leaders as to how to respond, pro- russian separatists are continuing to shoot down aircraft. today, it was two ukrainian military jets. this just 25 miles from the mh- 17 sight. the ukrainians claiming the rockets were fired from russia itself. on the other side of europe though, the peeling of bells, and then a minute's silence. not a corner of the netherlands have been untouched by this disaster. and the scenes this evening have been unprecedented. many thousands lining the streets to watch the hearses pass by. the first bodies from 11 nations in all, though none of them have yet been identified. yet all of them, honored here by the country, which less than one fateful week ago, had sent them on their way. >> woodruff: european monitors said today there are body parts still at the site in eastern ukraine where the plane was shot down. and australia's prime minister warned it's increasingly likely that some of the remains will never be recovered. >> ifill: and in other news today, in taiwan a trans-asia airways plane crashed in stormy weather as it was trying to land on the small island of penghu. at least 47 people were trapped and feared dead. rescue workers used flashlights to comb through the wreckage in the darkness. 58 passengers and crew members were on board. >> woodruff: republicans and democrats in congress offered up competing bills today, on the flood of migrant children across the southern u.s. border. but there was no sign that either side can win over the other. house republicans said their bill would cost $1.5 billion, far less than president obama's request of $3.7 billion. speaker john boehner: >> what the president is asking for is a blank check. he wants us to just throw more money at the problem without doing anything to solve the problem. the administration ought to get their act together. without trying to fix the problem, i don't know how we actually are in a position to give the president any more money. >> woodruff: republicans also insist on speeding up deportations by changing a 2008 law that lays out a lengthy hearing process. in the senate, democrat barbara mikulski proposed legislation to cut the president's funding request by $1 billion. but it would not change the 2008 law on deportations. homeland security department officials warn border and immigration agencies will run out of money in the next two months, unless congress acts. >> ifill: lawmakers in iraq have again delayed voting on a new president. they agreed today to put off a decision until tomorrow, after the kurdish political bloc asked for more time. at least 95 candidates are running. meanwhile, the islamic state group claimed responsibility for an overnight suicide bombing that killed 31 people at a checkpoint in baghdad. >> woodruff: in indonesia, a former general who lost the presidential election now plans to challenge the results in the nation's highest court. his campaign alleges widespread fraud in the voting, although election observers have said it was generally free and fair. election officials declared jakarta governor joko widodo the winner, yesterday. >> ifill: the costa concordia cruise liner began it's final voyage today, more than two years after it capsized off an italian island. two tugboats pulled the ship away from the port of giglio. it will make a slow, four-day journey to the northwestern port of genoa, home to the company that owns the vessel. >> it is difficult to describe the feeling without being too emotional. the ship is heading north at 2 knots: expected rival time following between saturday night and sunday morning. >> ifill: 32 people died when the concordia steered too close to land and struck a reef. the captain is now on trial on charges of causing the wreck and abandoning his passengers, and for multiple counts of manslaughter. >> woodruff: back in this country, general motors has issued six more safety recalls, covering another 700,000 vehicles. this time, the problems range from faulty seats to turn signal failures, to problems with power steering. all told, g.m. has issued a record 60 recalls this year, for nearly 30 million cars and trucks. >> ifill: congressional investigators told house members today how they repeatedly qualified for subsidized health coverage using fake i.d.'s. the government accountability office said investigators succeeded in 11 out of 18 attempts; they said they got around an online identity checking system by dialing government call centers instead; also today, a study by the department of health and human services estimated more than ten million adults have gained coverage under the affordable care act. >> woodruff: the anthrax incident at a government lab has cost the lab director his job. michael farrell submitted his resignation today from the centers for disease control and prevention. he'd already been reassigned from a c.d.c. facility in atlanta that handles bio- terrorism agents. last month, that lab accidentally sent anthrax samples that were still alive, to two other labs. dozens of c.d.c. workers were potentially exposed, but no one got sick. >> ifill: wall street had a mixed day after some mixed reports on corporate earnings. the dow jones industrial average lost nearly 27 points to close at 17,086. the nasdaq rose 17 points to close at 4,473. and the s-an-p 500 added three, to end at 1,987. >> woodruff: still to come on the newshour: the humanitarian crisis on the ground in gaza; how a georgia race will help decide control of the u.s. senate; what a fly's brain tells us about our own minds; stricter rules for trains carrying crude oil; and, what's happened to the abducted nigerian school girls, now missing for 100 days. >> ifill: the fighting between hamas and israel continued today as america's top diplomat shuttled between israeli and palestinian leaders, attempting to broker a cease fire. more than 680 palestinians and 34 israelis have been killed since the fighting began july 8. >> ifill: secretary of state john kerry landed in tel aviv, his air force jet exempt from the f.a.a. ban shutting down u.s. flights there. he met first with u.n. secretary general ban ki-moon, and suggested there's been some progress toward a cease-fire. >> we're working hard and i'm not going to get into the characterizing, but we have certainly made some steps forward. >> ifill: from there, he headed to the west bank, and talks with palestinian authority president mahmoud abbas. >> we're doing this for one simple reason. the people in the palestinian territories, the people in israel are all living under the threat or reality of immediate violence. and this needs to end for everybody. >> ifill: and then, back to tel aviv, for a meeting with israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu. amid all the shuttling, even russian president vladimir putin spoke with netanyahu by phone today, hundreds of palestinians were also on the move, pouring out of the southern gaza town of khan younis. they were fleeing heavy israeli air and artillery strikes, and there were reports of many people still trapped. >> ( translated ): they were firing from tanks next to our house. we were stuck in the house, we called the ambulance and the fire-fighters, none came to help us. >> ifill: in rafah, hundreds took part in a funeral procession for five palestinians killed by overnight air strikes. and in jerusalem, thousands attended the funeral of israeli soldier max steinberg. the 24-year-old man from california was killed in fighting on sunday. violence also spread to the west bank, where a palestinian man was killed in fighting with israeli soldiers in bethlehem. meanwhile, hamas rocket fire killed a foreign worker near ashkelon, in southern israel. the rocket threat prompted more airlines to call off flights into israel's ben gurion international airport. president shimon peres urged them to reconsider. >> may i say i regret that airlines have suspended flights. the real answer to the danger of flying is not to stop the flights, but to stop the rockets which are endangering the flight. >> ifill: but the u.n. high commissioner for human rights navi pillay held both sides responsible for the rapidly rising death toll. >> i unequivocally reiterate to all actors in this conflict that civilians must not be targeted. not abiding by these principles may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. >> ifill: israeli justice minister tzipi livni answered the allegation with two words on her facebook page, "get lost." late today, hamas leader khaled meshaal called for the world to force an end to the israeli offensive, and to the economic blockade of gaza. pernille ironside, of the u.n. children's agency unicef, has been on the ground in gaza since the conflict began. i spoke with her via skype earlier today. pernille ironside, as you travel around in gaza, tell us, what are you seeing? >> well, the conflict has been getting steadily worse by the day, and we're now into our 15th day here, and with each one the civilian casualty rate has only mounted. amongst those, children are bearing the greatest brunt of this terrible conflict at the moment. there's over 168 children who have died already and we're now over 1,100 children who have been seriously injured, maimed and even terribly burned. the physical and psychological toll is undescribable. i've met with, for example, the three surviving baka boys who were on the beach playing with cousins and the next moment saw pieces of four of their friends and cousins strewn around them. these are lasting emotional and physical scars that children are bearing across the gaza strip. i also met 4-year-old shima in the hospital the other day and she was longing for her mother and her siblings, all of whom died as they were seeking shelter, leaving their home in search of a safer place, and only shima and her father survived. the fact of the matter is there is no safe place here, even in the public schools and compounds and in shelters, there are no guarantees for safety. >> ifill: that's what i wanted to ask you is where do people go when they seek shelter? >> well, gathering around the main emergency hospital in gaza, they're gathering in mosques, in the orthodox church here in gaza, and they're also gathering in school compounds, both u.n. schools and now, as those have basically reached their capacity is over 120,000 people in them, people are also pouring into public school compounds. i visited two of the public schools today just to see how people were coping. the vast majority of nearly 1,400 people in each compound were children. i woul would say, in one alone,2 children were under the age of 2. this is an enormous civilian impact and upheaval in terms of all these lives who have literally had to flee, not knowing if they're going to survive or not. in fact, one grandmother today said to me, 40 of them, all they could do was pray at that moment because they did not know, as their 5-story building came crashing down around them, they did not know if they would live. >> ifill: what is the condition of the infrastructure, whether water, electricity, even the roofs over people's heads? what is your sense of how damaged that all is? >> i have been visiting a number of the most critical water and sanitation installations around gaza. i can say that 70% of the population is now without access to safe water. the main sewage pumping station has been hit directly. 40% of gaza sewage is flowing directly into the mediterranean now. just down the road from there the primary sewage treatment plant was also directly hit and the sewage flowed down the street into the neighborhoods and fields, contaminating a huge amount of area. water wells have been directly hit. there is at least 50% of all the water and sanitation infrastructure is no longer functioning at this moment and even when some urgent repairs could be made to reestablish some of the connections, it's been rendered impossible because there is no safe humanitarian access for the municipal workers to be able to make these repairs and, already, three of them have been killed while on duty. beyond water and hygiene, the emotional toll, we have the emergency psycho-social teams who are reaching out to all the families who have lost loved ones in order to provide some immediate coping skills, and this is really just the first step of a very long process of healing and recovery that gaza will need to undergo. >> ifill: sounds like a long process in every possible case, pernille ironside, the u.n. children's agency unreceive, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: now to politics: yesterday in georgia, voters chose the republican nominee for the u.s. senate in what turned out to be a tight primary election. it sets the stage for what will be one of the closest watched races of the year, a contest that could help decide control of the senate. with us to talk about this race and the broader senate landscape is our political editor, domenico montanaro. so welcome back. >> thank you. >> woodruff: domenico, the republicans, it was a tight race, a runoff, but they have candidate now, his name is david perdue, who is he? >> former c.e.o. of dollar general and the sneaker company reebok, which everybody knows. jack kingston is who he defeated 51-49. kingston, a member of congress. it shouldn't be lost that david perdue in this race was the only person who ran in this primary who was not either a member of congress or a former elected official, so he really played that outsider card. he ran this ad depicting babies on the lawn in front of congress crying, depicting all the lawmakers are cry babies, essentially, so he really tried to play that card, hit kingston with being on the insider status, and that's what probably did help him. he also pulled in about $3 million of his own money which didn't hurt. >> woodruff: now perdue faces a well-organized democrat and normally deep south is not fertile territory for democrats but in this case she is the daughter of a well-known former senator. >> that's right, and democrats have hope that michelle nunn, daughter of sam nunn, will do well because of her legacy and name but also because to have the changing demographics of the state. so i think this is a state that democrats are starting to feel a little bit better about and, given the fact perdue is a political novice, never run before, nunn is in a similar situation, but she also has tried to play the outsider card. now you will see republicans -- we've already seen republicans take strong aim at michelle nunn. we know the democrats are already picking apart david perdue's business experience, trying to reopen the mitt romney playbook to say this is someone who cost jobs and shipped jobs overseas. the the real question will be over the next two months, can michelle nunn withstand the barrage that comes her way? if we look two weeks after labor day and the race is still tied, this will be an actual potential pickup for democrats. >> woodruff: and this race is especially important to democrats because the overall national senate landscape is not very friendly. >> that's right and that's why we care about this race. there are 12 races in the country we should all be looking at now but you can see from our map that 10 of the states are seats held by democrats. well -- or are republican targets. only two of the races are in places that are held by republicans -- kentucky with mitch mcconnell, minority leader who could become majority leader, and this race in georgia. if georgia is on the board for democrats, then the ability for republicans to take back the senate and net the seats they need out of this landscape makes it more difficult. only three states on this map we've seen are likely heading toward republicans in montana, west virginia and one other, and you see that because of that, if republicans aren't able to hold georgia, then the landscape becomes much more difficult for them. >> woodruff: democrats start out with a disadvantage and it's just tough. >> well, it is. but right now in alaska and arkansas, mark pryor and mark begch are doing well and probably better than most republicans thought, and they might be gum in the dam because if they can hold, democrats will likely hold a one or two seat majority, if they lose you could see a much broader way come the republicans way. >> woodruff: i like that metaphor, gum in the dam. this report came out yesterday from the respected organization saying the turnout in this year's primaries so far is not only down but, in most of the states where there have been primaries, a historic low. >> 25 of the 50 states are at an historic low. in the 1950s there was a primary of mid 30s of eligible population turning out from the study of the center of american electorate. and now only 13 to 14% is turned out. people are upset. pessimism reins. they are upset with president, congress for blocking the president, upset at the president for using too much executive authority, and it goes back and forth. people aren't feeling much better about the economy despite the headline economic numbers and what it all leads to is a large disinterest, frankly, in what we're seeing in politics, but it does have consequence. elections have consequences as we're talking about whether or not who holds control of the senate a. >> woodruff: pretty depressing and maybe people watching and all over the country, well, you know, take notice and pay more attention. >> in favor of more engagement. >> woodruff: domenico montanaro, thank you. >> thank you. >> ifill: next, trying to better understand what's happening in the brain of a fruitfly, a dragonfly, or a zebrafish. all part of a bigger puzzle to learn more about how our own minds work. newshour science correspondent miles o'brien has the first in our three-part series on the science of the brain. >> reporter: oh, to be a fly on the wall at the basic research facility scientist consider nirvana. you might see a nobel prize in the making or be sub geeked to the fruitfly version of a scary november where, a rapidly growing shadow of a predator coming in for the kill. >> interested on how they make decision. >> reporter: glen runs a laboratory near washington, d.c. and films fruitflies at 6,000 frames per second to see what they do and eventually she hopes understand how their brains issue commands and their bodies turn that into life saving action. >> one of the interesting things we've discovered is that if you show a fly a scary movie, they actually don't do one particular thing, they actually do a whole sequence of behaviors that are quite flexible and varied. >> reporter: this is the kind of question bugs and neuroscience in another lab here, jerry ruben, spent his entire career studying fruitflies. >> fruitflys have a very distinguished, long career in biomedical research because they breed like flies. >> reporter: the bugs are more than rapidly prolific. they can do interesting things and compared to humans are much easier neuroscience test subjects. >> these are complicated calculations and small biological computations. we feel if we could understand how those actually work, then we would know something important about how every brain works including our own brains. >> reporter: ruben not only runs a lab here but the overall facility as well. in fact, it's his baby. he hatched the idea in 2002, the doors opened in 2006, and right now it houses 350 scientists working in 42 labs and on five collaborative teams. it is a well-oiled machine, to be sure. robotic efficienty. they feed, breed, bar code and house more than a million insects here hoping they might hold answers to some of the most challenging problems in basic biomedical research. it is funded by the howard hughes medical institute. for the record, also a "newshour" underwriter. h.h.m.i. plans to spend $50 million to $100 million a year for at least 20 years here, giving the best and brightest scientists what amounts to a blank check to do their work as they see fit. >> we could bring an unusual group of people. protect them from the real world, give them a place to work on their science, encourage them to work together on challenging problems and give them the freedom to do it and see what happens. >> reporter: ruben, after a workplace on his resume. the bell laboratories founded by at&t and western electric in 1925, it attracted the best scientists from virtually every discipline, encouraged them to collaborate and gave them the freedom and funding to conduct basic research, even if there was no obvious profit-making application evident. over the years, bell researchers made big strides in the realm of basic science. discovered cosmic background radiation and thus the big bang theory, and also invented game changers in the marketplace including the transistor, laser and charge couple device. the lab garnered seven nobel prizes in all. in recent years corporate funding of fundamental science with long-term goals has all but vanished and federal funding for basic science dropped precipitously. >> i think there's a broad recognition there is a way the federal government chooses projects to fund, the way it supports them tends to cut out the most creative work. >> reporter: to pursue a greater understanding of neuroscience, scientists and engineers work in close collaboration to build new tools of discovery. developmental biologists and neuroscientists phillip keller showed me his amazing light sheet microscope. >> this is designed to main malley interfere with the normal development and function of the biological sample. >> reporter: living samples bathed in laser light and recorded by two fast digital cameras to generate 3-dimensional movies of biological processes. this is an embryo from 3 hours after fertilization till hatching 24 hours later. >> we have tens of thousands of cells in development. you cannot see these rapid movements. these are multiple contractions. >> reporter: this is one embryo from different angles. >> exactly. >> reporter: something zebrafishy in the lab as well, zebrafish, waiting for an extreme closeup. the ground breaking movie shows a zebra zebrafish larva brain in action. each blip is a brain lighting up. >> these experiments are aimed at trying to find out what exactly is going on. >> reporter: he's thinking about something good or bad? one or the other, right? >> we try our best to see that he's not thinking something bad. (laughter) >> reporter: it's done. true professional. >> true professional. >> reporter: neuroscientist anthony leonardo uses a collaborative approach as he studies another insect, the dragonfly. he captures them capturing flutt flies, focused on 28 muscles controlled by fury neurons, what day do in the span of 14 wing strokes. >> gets better with practice but they understand how to do it from the start. >> reporter: what's amazing is he starts with his back to the fruitfly. >> exactly. >> reporter: leonardo is focused on how our brains coordinate complex behaviors in split-second real time like catching a ball. to get a better look at the problem, he and an engineer have outfitted some dragonflies with 60-milligram backpacks. they capture and transmit signals from ten neurons linked to four muscles. >> we look at all these things together and slowly build up a model of how the nervous system will solve this problem. >> reporter: leonardo says the tiny backpack is a good example of how collaboration can streamline scientific research, but there's a big catch. no such thing as tenure here. even though long-term funding is not a worry, the scientists themselves work on five-year contracts and can be asked to leave if they don't measure up. as we spoke, anthony leonardo's contract was up for renewal. >> the way this was put to me when i was interviewing that resonated with me that we don't see is the ethos of the place is we will bet these massive resources on you and your ideas and you bet your exreer in exchange -- you bet your career in exchange. that was the gamble. >> reporter: researchers here are keeping long-term basic research afloat at a time when it finds very few safe harbors. >> not every avenue of research works out. you don't know exactly where it's going or exactly what you're going to learn. we don't know what the truth is or we wouldn't feed to pursue it. sometimes it turns out as you expect and sometimes it doesn't. >> reporter: there are hopes the research will pay off with new nobel class discoveries. that's the idea. the sure thing need not apply. > tomorrow, judy explores new findings on genetics and schizophrenia. >> woodruff: the obama administration proposed new and tougher safety rules today for railway trains carrying oil, trains sometimes referred to as a pipeline on wheels. they come after some tragic derailments and at a time when more than a million barrels of oil a day are traveling across the country by rail. jeffrey brown has the story >> brown: on july 6th of last year, at 1:15 in the morning, the small canadian town of lac megantic was rocked by a powerful explosion. a runaway train carrying 72 cars of crude oil had careened into the community and derailed. the blast and ensuing fire destroyed dozens of buildings and killed 47 people. the train carried bakken oil, a highly flammable crude from western north dakota, where production has surged, along with rail shipments. overall, the number of tanker cars carrying oil in the u.s. soared from 10,000 in 2008 to more than 400,00 last year. >> they didn't look down the road to figure out how are we going to get this to market in a safe way. >> brown: don morrison of the dakota resource council, in a may interview with the newshour. >> going through people, right next to people's houses and businesses. it's dangerous. and they've got to be careful. >> ifill: now, the department of transportation is proposing new regulations for oil trains. they would include: the phase out or retrofit of thousands of older tank cars within two years; improved braking systems; and testing corn-based ethanol and crude oil for flammability prior to transportation. the goal is to prevent the kinds of accidents seen from lynchburg, virginia to casselton, north dakota, over the last 18 months, though none was as deadly or destructive as lac megantic. for the record, the casselton incident involve the rail company b.n.s.f., a major carrier of oil and an underwriter of the newshour. still, industry representatives, like ron ness of the north dakota petroleum council, insist the transportation of oil by rail is sound. >> safety is certainly the number one aspect that i think all aspects of the transportation industry are focused on. and at 99.7% of the time, you know, rail movements get to their destinations safely. >> brown: supporters of the long-delayed keystone pipeline project, to carry canadian oil to the gulf of mexico, say it would ease the need for oil trains. environmental groups say it poses it's own threats. >> brown: the secretary of transportation, anthony foxx, announced the proposed rules today, and he joins me now. welcome to you. >> thank you, jeff. >> brown: first, help people understand the situation as you see it. how serious a health and public safety issue is it especially in towns where trains run through? >> we have to remember that oil production in this country is growing exponentially and crude in russia increased fromo 80s from 900,000 car loads to a 4% increase. we don't see that abating soon. the production lynn crease, safety standards have to increase with it and that's why we proposed the rule today. >> brown: the criticism that came immediately is you're moving in the right direction but too slow. we have to put up a graphic from earth justice, one of the activist groups, that says your proposal showed extreme unacceptable risk posed by outdated and accident-prone type of railcar, the d.o.t. 111. the department's proposal, they raise reducing the risk of keeping these accident prone cars off the rails for three to six years. why wait so long if they're so dangerous? >> we're trying to push the rule out as quickly as possible. we have a 60-day comment period. folks with criticisms or exrovlts they'd like to see to the rule, we invite them to use the comment period. but to the particular question you asked, the reality is we have a market that has as best a third of new tank cars in it today. so to transition the market, it will take time from a practical standpoint. we want to have a right standard set pore the new tank car and that's what we're proposing is to have alternatives to improve the tank car standard but this is also a comprehensive rule, it goes with speed and other aspects so we can ensure the safety of the other people. >> brown: you're getting pressure from the industry not to move too fast. >> we use the comment period to hear from industry but we're not going to be bound by what we hear from industry. we're going to do the right thing for safety in america and whatever that is where our final word will be. >> brown: one interesting issue is the particular oil involved. sounds as though your department decided the bakken oil is actually particularly volatile and less safe and more combustible than other oils. >> yes, one of the things we're noticing in this situation is that, in the bakken region, there is rud rude meantiary separation occurring before it goes into the tank cars. in the bakken, the tank cars are moving the materials out to the refining areas on the east and west coast so the challenge is we have a relatively unstable substance moving long distances and sometimes hundreds of cars at a time. >> brown: here you're pushed back from the oil industry. a graphic from the american petroleum institute "the best science and data tonight support recent speculation that crude oil from the bakken friends a greater than normal risk." they're calling on you to get your science right. do you feel you have it right? >> yes, i do. some folks say we're moving too slow, some say too fast. we're probably in the right place. we look forward to the comment period and listen to what folks have to say. >> brown: what about the the issue of speed? are there's a question of 40-mile-per-hour speed limit which i gather now the railroads have accepted within urban areas but the question is whether you should expand that countrywide. >> yeah, the question is do we have a 40-mile limit totally, everywhere, do we have a 40-mile limit around certain parts, given population differences? do we have it just in urban areas. that type of challenge is not just a challenge inherent to this issue of crude by rail. there is an issue of what it does to other commodities, grains, rail, corn products moved by rail. so, again, this is a place where we'll listen to input from a variety of stakeholders and work to craft the rule accordingly. >> brown: how do you decide something like that? is it based on the new cars or -- they always will be tied together. >> that's right. >> brown: they're also calling for a new braking system or looking at it. >> it is very complex and we need a comprehensive approach which is why our rule takes into account all the factors. as we get comments in, we'll take a look at the comments but i believe you will see a rule that's going to have several components to it, the tank car standard, the speed standard, and other pieces including breaking and other things that you mentioned before. >> brown: the larger issue is where you started. we saw the huge increase in production. the balance is out of order. the balance in the increase in production versus maintaining the safety, the ability to transport this. >> the reality is things have changed. this increased production, these trains are now moving, as i said before, in some cases 100 unit trains at a time, and it's unit cars at a time, and we're going to have to deal with this new reality by stepping up our state osafety standards and this rule is going to be promulgated to focus on where we will be in the future as well as where we are. we want to hit the target with the rule. >> brown: especially in the local communities, there has been a lot of protest and worry. >> well aware of. this we've heard from members of congress, mayors, community members all over the country and even into canada. we understand the importance of this issue. that's why we worked to get the rule out and have a public comment period and we'll move it as quickly as we can. >> brown: while i have you here, i want to ask you about another transportation issue on people's minds and that's air transportation. we had what happened in the ukraine. we have u.s. flights not going into israel. jet travel nowadays, should people be worried in a new way? >> i think what people should be reassured by is the fact our f.a.a. is working very closely with our intelligence community and with the international community to understand the risks of traveling, and when we believe the risks are substantial enough, we have issues rules to prohibit u.s. carriers from flying into certain territories. we'll monitor situations as they occur and hopefully folks will feel safe as they fly. >> brown: you believe that's the situation in israel, even though the israeli government says that's not the case? >> we are using the intelligence we have. again we're working with all our international partners in situations where we have active no tems, and will monitor the situation elsewhere. >> brown: anthony foxx, secretary of transportation, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> ifill: finally tonight, we return to a story that captivated the worlds attention for a time, but has faded from the public eye, the fate of those kidnapped school girls in nigeria. chief foreign affairs correspondent margaret warner has this update on what has become of them, and of the campaign to bring them home. >> all we are saying is bring back our girls, now and alive. >> warner: a small, but vocal, protest marked the somber anniversary in nigeria's capital, abuja. it's been 100 days since nearly 300 young schoolgirls were abducted by islamist militants from a town in northeastern nigeria, chibok >> we call on to the nigerian military to facilitate a decisive military operation. >> warner: no one is sure of the exact number being held today, some seen here in a video from mid-may. nearly 60 escaped their captors, a strict fundamentalist islamist group called boko haram. it's leader, abubakar shekau. >> ( translated ): we are against western education and i say stop western education. i repeat, i took the girls, and i will sell them off, there is a market for selling girls. >> warner: yesterday, for the first time since the april 14 abductions, nigerian president goodluck jonathan met with many parents of the kidnapped girls, and some who escaped. he and his government have come under withering criticism for their handling of the incident, and of boko haram. >> the government was wildly slow to respond to this particular abduction, and the government's security forces have been wildly ineffective at both dealing with boko haram and protecting the local population. >> warner: sarah margon is the washington director of human rights watch. >> warner: why is it that the nigerian government, after 100 days, with some outside help, has not been able to locate and rescue these missing girls? >> it's our understanding that they actually do know where they are, but because the girls have been broken up into smaller groups, and it's basically a hostage negotiation, it's a very dangerous situation. >> warner: this morning by phone, i asked nigerian government spokesman in abuja, mike omeri, about that. >> the effort, the energy, the resources, the mobilizing and standing together is towards rescuing these girls. so, repeatedly, officers and ground forces and security services have indicated knowledge of where, knowledge of where these girls might be held. >> warner: but we were told that you know where they are, but it is too risky to try to rescue them, because it's basically a hostage situation. is that right? >> warner: the kidnappings inspired a global campaign, #bring back our girls, which raised awareness, but in a video released last week, boko haram chief shekau brazenly mocked the effort while taunting the president and his military. >> bring back our girls? bring back our army. bring back our army. jonathan! jonathan! girl, girl, girl, girl, girl! bring back our army! >> warner: standup the kidnappings are but a symptom of the government's impotence as boko haram, which wants to establish an islamist caliphate in nigeria, has advanced across the predominantly-muslim northeast of africa's most- populous nation. late last week, it's fighters planted their flag the strategic town of damboa. and today, it's believed to be behind bomb blasts in the city of kaduna, that killed at least 39 followers of a muslim cleric who doesn't embrace boko haram's hard-line ideology. all of this emblematic, says peter pham of the atlantic council, of an organization that has grown in strength and ambition: >> the group has metastasized very rapidly in the last two to three years, it's gone from a violent militant group that did drive-by shootings and lobbed grenades at people it didn't like, to a terrorist group that carried out the first suicide bombings and truck bombings in nigeria's history, to now, in the last 12 months, to a group that occupies territory. >> warner: so what explains its ability to expand its area of control? >> i think several factors contributed to it. one is better training. increasingly, also, the weakness of the nigerian military. the nigerian military has been unable or unwilling to fight back, and then, finally, the fear that boko haram has managed to stoke in villagers and others leads people to flee before them, rather than putting up resistance. >> warner: and, says sarah margon, where the military has fought back, it has done as much to create fertile ground for boko haram as deny it. >> in part, they've been emboldened by the heavy hand of nigerian security forces. in part, the local community has been pushed towards them because of the heavy hand, and so they have been strengthened. the heavy hand includes extra- judicial killings, rounding up suspects, arresting them, not charging them, sometimes killing them, burning residential structures, looting homes, abusing people. >> warner: so your saying that actually has helped boko haram? >> absolutely. >> warner: while government spokesman omeri says there was initial resentment of the army by local populations, he refutes the charge of abuse. >> warner: but peter pham says such assurances fall on deaf ears among many nigerians, who've grown cynical after decades of corruption and economic disparity in this oil- rich country. >> boko haram wouldn't be in the strong position that it is and have the sympathies or at least the tacit acquiescence of considerable segments of the population were it not for the social, political, and economic marginalization that many nigerians feel, not only because of corruption but also for lack of inclusion. >> warner: this has bred a regional threat potent enough to prompt the u.s. to designate boko haram a terrorist organization, and the united nations to enforce sanctions against it as an al qaida- associated group. its expanding reach is a threat the u.s. should be worried about, says pham. >> boko haram forms part of an archipelago of extremist groups stretching from north africa through the ungoverned spaces of the sahel and then onward and eastward to unstable areas of east africa, as well as a linkage to some of the militants fighting in syria. >> warner: another reason that the u.s. hopes the nigerian government, even while trying to get back the kidnapped girls, also presses on every front against the surging threat boko haram represents. >> ifill: again, the major developments of the day. the first 40 bodies from a malaysian airliner arrived back in the netherlands. the plane was shot down over eastern ukraine last week. secretary of state john kerry shuttled between israeli and palestinian leaders, trying to arrange a cease-fire in gaza. but the fighting raged on, with more than 700 palestinians and 34 israelis killed so far. and the obama administration proposed phasing out thousands of older railroad tank cars that increasingly carry crude oil. >> woodruff: on the newshour online right now, batman turns 75 this year and we wanted to know why he remains so popular after three-quarters of a century. so we talked to a real batman scholar dwight blocker bowers of the smithsonian national museum of american history in washington, d.c. he showed us part of the smithsonian's collection of batman artifacts. i think batman remained popular in american culture because he represents the power in good and he represents a superhero who can save us from ourselves. first of all, i think it goes back to the statement that he has sustained himself since 1939 when he premiered, in american culture. he represented a figure who can fight for the might for good as opposed to evil. i remember as a child a television joe, the adam west version of that man. i loved the sense of comedy it brought to the series because that man is a very serious figure, and i think that show introduced humor to the character that i found embracing. >> woodruff: we also talked to several of the writers and artists who've had a hand in the superhero's evolution over the years. you can find those interviews, plus a lot more, on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff, we'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org  . this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and susie gharib. >> 300% gain, shares of puma biotech blast off nearly

Transcripts For WHYY PBS NewsHour 20140723

>> if we could understand how those actually work, we would know something important about how everything works. >> woodruff: plus, an update on efforts to bring back the abducted nigerian school girls, 100 days after they went missing. those are just some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: the first of the victims from the malaysian airliner shot down over ukraine arrived back in the netherlands today. life in the grieving nation largely came to a halt, as the day's somber events played out. jonathan rugman of independent television news has our report. >> reporter: at eindhoven military airport this afternoon. two aircraft, one dutch and one australian, ferried the first of mh-17's passengers and crew back to the country which lost the most. 193 of the 298 were dutch. 32 australian, and 10 from the u.k. 40 hearses for 40 coffins. and before they were taken away for forensic investigation, the dutch gave the bodies a heroes welcome, with the sounding of the last post. the country's new king willem alexander, and queen maxima, led a day of national mourning. the ceremony here, meticulous in bright sunshine, and performed in front of about 1,000 relatives of the dead. and what was most striking, the determination to give them a dignity in death that they never received in the fields of eastern ukraine. at the crash sight itself, separatist rebels gave access to officials from the organization for security and cooperation in europe. but not to dutch investigators, who said their safety was not guaranteed. the plane's flight recorders have been taken to the u.k. for an examination which could take weeks. but six days on, there has been no professional investigation permitted here. on monday, the u.k. said it had imposed an absolute arms embargo on russia. but today, it emerged that more than 200 export licenses, including for missile launching equipment, are still in place. >> we have an arms embargo in place. we set out the terms of it, and we need to make sure that everything that's happened since is consistent with the terms of that embargo. i believe that's the case, but we'll want to go through each one of these individually to very much make sure that it is the case and if it isn't, of course we'll act very swiftly. >> reporter: and amid disagreement among world leaders as to how to respond, pro- russian separatists are continuing to shoot down aircraft. today, it was two ukrainian military jets. this just 25 miles from the mh- 17 sight. the ukrainians claiming the rockets were fired from russia itself. on the other side of europe though, the peeling of bells, and then a minute's silence. not a corner of the netherlands have been untouched by this disaster. and the scenes this evening have been unprecedented. many thousands lining the streets to watch the hearses pass by. the first bodies from 11 nations in all, though none of them have yet been identified. yet all of them, honored here by the country, which less than one fateful week ago, had sent them on their way. >> woodruff: european monitors said today there are body parts still at the site in eastern ukraine where the plane was shot down. and australia's prime minister warned it's increasingly likely that some of the remains will never be recovered. >> ifill: and in other news today, in taiwan a trans-asia airways plane crashed in stormy weather as it was trying to land on the small island of penghu. at least 47 people were trapped and feared dead. rescue workers used flashlights to comb through the wreckage in the darkness. 58 passengers and crew members were on board. >> woodruff: republicans and democrats in congress offered up competing bills today, on the flood of migrant children across the southern u.s. border. but there was no sign that either side can win over the other. house republicans said their bill would cost $1.5 billion, far less than president obama's request of $3.7 billion. speaker john boehner: >> what the president is asking for is a blank check. he wants us to just throw more money at the problem without doing anything to solve the problem. the administration ought to get their act together. without trying to fix the problem, i don't know how we actually are in a position to give the president any more money. >> woodruff: republicans also insist on speeding up deportations by changing a 2008 law that lays out a lengthy hearing process. in the senate, democrat barbara mikulski proposed legislation to cut the president's funding request by $1 billion. but it would not change the 2008 law on deportations. homeland security department officials warn border and immigration agencies will run out of money in the next two months, unless congress acts. >> ifill: lawmakers in iraq have again delayed voting on a new president. they agreed today to put off a decision until tomorrow, after the kurdish political bloc asked for more time. at least 95 candidates are running. meanwhile, the islamic state group claimed responsibility for an overnight suicide bombing that killed 31 people at a checkpoint in baghdad. >> woodruff: in indonesia, a former general who lost the presidential election now plans to challenge the results in the nation's highest court. his campaign alleges widespread fraud in the voting, although election observers have said it was generally free and fair. election officials declared jakarta governor joko widodo the winner, yesterday. >> ifill: the costa concordia cruise liner began it's final voyage today, more than two years after it capsized off an italian island. two tugboats pulled the ship away from the port of giglio. it will make a slow, four-day journey to the northwestern port of genoa, home to the company that owns the vessel. >> it is difficult to describe the feeling without being too emotional. the ship is heading north at 2 knots: expected rival time following between saturday night and sunday morning. >> ifill: 32 people died when the concordia steered too close to land and struck a reef. the captain is now on trial on charges of causing the wreck and abandoning his passengers, and for multiple counts of manslaughter. >> woodruff: back in this country, general motors has issued six more safety recalls, covering another 700,000 vehicles. this time, the problems range from faulty seats to turn signal failures, to problems with power steering. all told, g.m. has issued a record 60 recalls this year, for nearly 30 million cars and trucks. >> ifill: congressional investigators told house members today how they repeatedly qualified for subsidized health coverage using fake i.d.'s. the government accountability office said investigators succeeded in 11 out of 18 attempts; they said they got around an online identity checking system by dialing government call centers instead; also today, a study by the department of health and human services estimated more than ten million adults have gained coverage under the affordable care act. >> woodruff: the anthrax incident at a government lab has cost the lab director his job. michael farrell submitted his resignation today from the centers for disease control and prevention. he'd already been reassigned from a c.d.c. facility in atlanta that handles bio- terrorism agents. last month, that lab accidentally sent anthrax samples that were still alive, to two other labs. dozens of c.d.c. workers were potentially exposed, but no one got sick. >> ifill: wall street had a mixed day after some mixed reports on corporate earnings. the dow jones industrial average lost nearly 27 points to close at 17,086. the nasdaq rose 17 points to close at 4,473. and the s-an-p 500 added three, to end at 1,987. >> woodruff: still to come on the newshour: the humanitarian crisis on the ground in gaza; how a georgia race will help decide control of the u.s. senate; what a fly's brain tells us about our own minds; stricter rules for trains carrying crude oil; and, what's happened to the abducted nigerian school girls, now missing for 100 days. >> ifill: the fighting between hamas and israel continued today as america's top diplomat shuttled between israeli and palestinian leaders, attempting to broker a cease fire. more than 680 palestinians and 34 israelis have been killed since the fighting began july 8. >> ifill: secretary of state john kerry landed in tel aviv, his air force jet exempt from the f.a.a. ban shutting down u.s. flights there. he met first with u.n. secretary general ban ki-moon, and suggested there's been some progress toward a cease-fire. >> we're working hard and i'm not going to get into the characterizing, but we have certainly made some steps forward. >> ifill: from there, he headed to the west bank, and talks with palestinian authority president mahmoud abbas. >> we're doing this for one simple reason. the people in the palestinian territories, the people in israel are all living under the threat or reality of immediate violence. and this needs to end for everybody. >> ifill: and then, back to tel aviv, for a meeting with israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu. amid all the shuttling, even russian president vladimir putin spoke with netanyahu by phone today, hundreds of palestinians were also on the move, pouring out of the southern gaza town of khan younis. they were fleeing heavy israeli air and artillery strikes, and there were reports of many people still trapped. >> ( translated ): they were firing from tanks next to our house. we were stuck in the house, we called the ambulance and the fire-fighters, none came to help us. >> ifill: in rafah, hundreds took part in a funeral procession for five palestinians killed by overnight air strikes. and in jerusalem, thousands attended the funeral of israeli soldier max steinberg. the 24-year-old man from california was killed in fighting on sunday. violence also spread to the west bank, where a palestinian man was killed in fighting with israeli soldiers in bethlehem. meanwhile, hamas rocket fire killed a foreign worker near ashkelon, in southern israel. the rocket threat prompted more airlines to call off flights into israel's ben gurion international airport. president shimon peres urged them to reconsider. >> may i say i regret that airlines have suspended flights. the real answer to the danger of flying is not to stop the flights, but to stop the rockets which are endangering the flight. >> ifill: but the u.n. high commissioner for human rights navi pillay held both sides responsible for the rapidly rising death toll. >> i unequivocally reiterate to all actors in this conflict that civilians must not be targeted. not abiding by these principles may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. >> ifill: israeli justice minister tzipi livni answered the allegation with two words on her facebook page, "get lost." late today, hamas leader khaled meshaal called for the world to force an end to the israeli offensive, and to the economic blockade of gaza. pernille ironside, of the u.n. children's agency unicef, has been on the ground in gaza since the conflict began. i spoke with her via skype earlier today. pernille ironside, as you travel around in gaza, tell us, what are you seeing? >> well, the conflict has been getting steadily worse by the day, and we're now into our 15th day here, and with each one the civilian casualty rate has only mounted. amongst those, children are bearing the greatest brunt of this terrible conflict at the moment. there's over 168 children who have died already and we're now over 1,100 children who have been seriously injured, maimed and even terribly burned. the physical and psychological toll is undescribable. i've met with, for example, the three surviving baka boys who were on the beach playing with cousins and the next moment saw pieces of four of their friends and cousins strewn around them. these are lasting emotional and physical scars that children are bearing across the gaza strip. i also met 4-year-old shima in the hospital the other day and she was longing for her mother and her siblings, all of whom died as they were seeking shelter, leaving their home in search of a safer place, and only shima and her father survived. the fact of the matter is there is no safe place here, even in the public schools and compounds and in shelters, there are no guarantees for safety. >> ifill: that's what i wanted to ask you is where do people go when they seek shelter? >> well, gathering around the main emergency hospital in gaza, they're gathering in mosques, in the orthodox church here in gaza, and they're also gathering in school compounds, both u.n. schools and now, as those have basically reached their capacity is over 120,000 people in them, people are also pouring into public school compounds. i visited two of the public schools today just to see how people were coping. the vast majority of nearly 1,400 people in each compound were children. i woul would say, in one alone,2 children were under the age of 2. this is an enormous civilian impact and upheaval in terms of all these lives who have literally had to flee, not knowing if they're going to survive or not. in fact, one grandmother today said to me, 40 of them, all they could do was pray at that moment because they did not know, as their 5-story building came crashing down around them, they did not know if they would live. >> ifill: what is the condition of the infrastructure, whether water, electricity, even the roofs over people's heads? what is your sense of how damaged that all is? >> i have been visiting a number of the most critical water and sanitation installations around gaza. i can say that 70% of the population is now without access to safe water. the main sewage pumping station has been hit directly. 40% of gaza sewage is flowing directly into the mediterranean now. just down the road from there the primary sewage treatment plant was also directly hit and the sewage flowed down the street into the neighborhoods and fields, contaminating a huge amount of area. water wells have been directly hit. there is at least 50% of all the water and sanitation infrastructure is no longer functioning at this moment and even when some urgent repairs could be made to reestablish some of the connections, it's been rendered impossible because there is no safe humanitarian access for the municipal workers to be able to make these repairs and, already, three of them have been killed while on duty. beyond water and hygiene, the emotional toll, we have the emergency psycho-social teams who are reaching out to all the families who have lost loved ones in order to provide some immediate coping skills, and this is really just the first step of a very long process of healing and recovery that gaza will need to undergo. >> ifill: sounds like a long process in every possible case, pernille ironside, the u.n. children's agency unreceive, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: now to politics: yesterday in georgia, voters chose the republican nominee for the u.s. senate in what turned out to be a tight primary election. it sets the stage for what will be one of the closest watched races of the year, a contest that could help decide control of the senate. with us to talk about this race and the broader senate landscape is our political editor, domenico montanaro. so welcome back. >> thank you. >> woodruff: domenico, the republicans, it was a tight race, a runoff, but they have candidate now, his name is david perdue, who is he? >> former c.e.o. of dollar general and the sneaker company reebok, which everybody knows. jack kingston is who he defeated 51-49. kingston, a member of congress. it shouldn't be lost that david perdue in this race was the only person who ran in this primary who was not either a member of congress or a former elected official, so he really played that outsider card. he ran this ad depicting babies on the lawn in front of congress crying, depicting all the lawmakers are cry babies, essentially, so he really tried to play that card, hit kingston with being on the insider status, and that's what probably did help him. he also pulled in about $3 million of his own money which didn't hurt. >> woodruff: now perdue faces a well-organized democrat and normally deep south is not fertile territory for democrats but in this case she is the daughter of a well-known former senator. >> that's right, and democrats have hope that michelle nunn, daughter of sam nunn, will do well because of her legacy and name but also because to have the changing demographics of the state. so i think this is a state that democrats are starting to feel a little bit better about and, given the fact perdue is a political novice, never run before, nunn is in a similar situation, but she also has tried to play the outsider card. now you will see republicans -- we've already seen republicans take strong aim at michelle nunn. we know the democrats are already picking apart david perdue's business experience, trying to reopen the mitt romney playbook to say this is someone who cost jobs and shipped jobs overseas. the the real question will be over the next two months, can michelle nunn withstand the barrage that comes her way? if we look two weeks after labor day and the race is still tied, this will be an actual potential pickup for democrats. >> woodruff: and this race is especially important to democrats because the overall national senate landscape is not very friendly. >> that's right and that's why we care about this race. there are 12 races in the country we should all be looking at now but you can see from our map that 10 of the states are seats held by democrats. well -- or are republican targets. only two of the races are in places that are held by republicans -- kentucky with mitch mcconnell, minority leader who could become majority leader, and this race in georgia. if georgia is on the board for democrats, then the ability for republicans to take back the senate and net the seats they need out of this landscape makes it more difficult. only three states on this map we've seen are likely heading toward republicans in montana, west virginia and one other, and you see that because of that, if republicans aren't able to hold georgia, then the landscape becomes much more difficult for them. >> woodruff: democrats start out with a disadvantage and it's just tough. >> well, it is. but right now in alaska and arkansas, mark pryor and mark begch are doing well and probably better than most republicans thought, and they might be gum in the dam because if they can hold, democrats will likely hold a one or two seat majority, if they lose you could see a much broader way come the republicans way. >> woodruff: i like that metaphor, gum in the dam. this report came out yesterday from the respected organization saying the turnout in this year's primaries so far is not only down but, in most of the states where there have been primaries, a historic low. >> 25 of the 50 states are at an historic low. in the 1950s there was a primary of mid 30s of eligible population turning out from the study of the center of american electorate. and now only 13 to 14% is turned out. people are upset. pessimism reins. they are upset with president, congress for blocking the president, upset at the president for using too much executive authority, and it goes back and forth. people aren't feeling much better about the economy despite the headline economic numbers and what it all leads to is a large disinterest, frankly, in what we're seeing in politics, but it does have consequence. elections have consequences as we're talking about whether or not who holds control of the senate a. >> woodruff: pretty depressing and maybe people watching and all over the country, well, you know, take notice and pay more attention. >> in favor of more engagement. >> woodruff: domenico montanaro, thank you. >> thank you. >> ifill: next, trying to better understand what's happening in the brain of a fruitfly, a dragonfly, or a zebrafish. all part of a bigger puzzle to learn more about how our own minds work. newshour science correspondent miles o'brien has the first in our three-part series on the science of the brain. >> reporter: oh, to be a fly on the wall at the basic research facility scientist consider nirvana. you might see a nobel prize in the making or be sub geeked to the fruitfly version of a scary november where, a rapidly growing shadow of a predator coming in for the kill. >> interested on how they make decision. >> reporter: glen runs a laboratory near washington, d.c. and films fruitflies at 6,000 frames per second to see what they do and eventually she hopes understand how their brains issue commands and their bodies turn that into life saving action. >> one of the interesting things we've discovered is that if you show a fly a scary movie, they actually don't do one particular thing, they actually do a whole sequence of behaviors that are quite flexible and varied. >> reporter: this is the kind of question bugs and neuroscience in another lab here, jerry ruben, spent his entire career studying fruitflies. >> fruitflys have a very distinguished, long career in biomedical research because they breed like flies. >> reporter: the bugs are more than rapidly prolific. they can do interesting things and compared to humans are much easier neuroscience test subjects. >> these are complicated calculations and small biological computations. we feel if we could understand how those actually work, then we would know something important about how every brain works including our own brains. >> reporter: ruben not only runs a lab here but the overall facility as well. in fact, it's his baby. he hatched the idea in 2002, the doors opened in 2006, and right now it houses 350 scientists working in 42 labs and on five collaborative teams. it is a well-oiled machine, to be sure. robotic efficienty. they feed, breed, bar code and house more than a million insects here hoping they might hold answers to some of the most challenging problems in basic biomedical research. it is funded by the howard hughes medical institute. for the record, also a "newshour" underwriter. h.h.m.i. plans to spend $50 million to $100 million a year for at least 20 years here, giving the best and brightest scientists what amounts to a blank check to do their work as they see fit. >> we could bring an unusual group of people. protect them from the real world, give them a place to work on their science, encourage them to work together on challenging problems and give them the freedom to do it and see what happens. >> reporter: ruben, after a workplace on his resume. the bell laboratories founded by at&t and western electric in 1925, it attracted the best scientists from virtually every discipline, encouraged them to collaborate and gave them the freedom and funding to conduct basic research, even if there was no obvious profit-making application evident. over the years, bell researchers made big strides in the realm of basic science. discovered cosmic background radiation and thus the big bang theory, and also invented game changers in the marketplace including the transistor, laser and charge couple device. the lab garnered seven nobel prizes in all. in recent years corporate funding of fundamental science with long-term goals has all but vanished and federal funding for basic science dropped precipitously. >> i think there's a broad recognition there is a way the federal government chooses projects to fund, the way it supports them tends to cut out the most creative work. >> reporter: to pursue a greater understanding of neuroscience, scientists and engineers work in close collaboration to build new tools of discovery. developmental biologists and neuroscientists phillip keller showed me his amazing light sheet microscope. >> this is desned to main malley interfere with the normal development and function of the biological sample. >> reporter: living samples bathed in laser light and recorded by two fast digital cameras to generate 3-dimensional movies of biological processes. this is an embryo from 3 hours after fertilization till hatching 24 hours later. >> we have tens of thousands of cells in development. you cannot see these rapid movements. these are multiple contractions. >> reporter: this is one embryo from different angles. >> exactly. >> reporter: something zebrafishy in the lab as well, zebrafish, waiting for an extreme closeup. the ground breaking movie shows a zebra zebrafish larva brain in action. each blip is a brain lighting up. >> these experiments are aimed at trying to find out what exactly is going on. >> reporter: he's thinking about something good or bad? one or the other, right? >> we try our best to see that he's not thinking something bad. (laughter) >> reporter: it's done. true professional. >> true professional. >> reporter: neuroscientist anthony leonardo uses a collaborative approach as he studies another insect, the dragonfly. he captures them capturing flutt flies, focused on 28 muscles controlled by fury neurons, what day do in the span of 14 wing strokes. >> gets better with practice but they understand how to do it from the start. >> reporter: what's amazing is he starts with his back to the fruitfly. >> exactly. >> reporter: leonardo is focused on how our brains coordinate complex behaviors in split-second real time like catching a ball. to get a better look at the problem, he and an engineer have outfitted some dragonflies with 60-milligram backpacks. they capture and transmit signals from ten neurons linked to four muscles. >> we look at all these things together and slowly build up a model of how the nervous system will solve this problem. >> reporter: leonardo says the tiny backpack is a good example of how collaboration can streamline scientific research, but there's a big catch. no such thing as tenure here. even though long-term funding is not a worry, the scientists themselves work on five-year contracts and can be asked to leave if they don't measure up. as we spoke, anthony leonardo's contract was up for renewal. >> the way this was put to me when i was interviewing that resonated with me that we don't see is the ethos of the place is we will bet these massive resources on you and your ideas and you bet your exreer in exchange -- you bet your career in exchange. that was the gamble. >> reporter: researchers here are keeping long-term basic research afloat at a time when it finds very few safe harbors. >> not every avenue of research works out. you don't know exactly where it's going or exactly what you're going to learn. we don't know what the truth is or we wouldn't feed to pursue it. sometimes it turns out as you expect and sometimes it doesn't. >> reporter: there are hopes the research will pay off with new nobel class discoveries. that's the idea. the sure thing need not apply. > tomorrow, judy explores new findings on genetics and schizophrenia. >> woodruff: the obama administration proposed new and tougher safety rules today for railway trains carrying oil, trains sometimes referred to as a pipeline on wheels. they come after some tragic derailments and at a time when more than a million barrels of oil a day are traveling across the country by rail. jeffrey brown has the story >> brown: on july 6th of last year, at 1:15 in the morning, the small canadian town of lac megantic was rocked by a powerful explosion. a runaway train carrying 72 cars of crude oil had careened into the community and derailed. the blast and ensuing fire destroyed dozens of buildings and killed 47 people. the train carried bakken oil, a highly flammable crude from western north dakota, where production has surged, along with rail shipments. overall, the number of tanker cars carrying oil in the u.s. soared from 10,000 in 2008 to more than 400,00 last year. >> they didn't look down the road to figure out how are we going to get this to market in a safe way. >> brown: don morrison of the dakota resource council, in a may interview with the newshour. >> going through people, right next to people's houses and businesses. it's dangerous. and they've got to be careful. >> ifill: now, the department of transportation is proposing new regulations for oil trains. they would include: the phase out or retrofit of thousands of older tank cars within two years; improved braking systems; and testing corn-based ethanol and crude oil for flammability prior to transportation. the goal is to prevent the kinds of accidents seen from lynchburg, virginia to casselton, north dakota, over the last 18 months, though none was as deadly or destructive as lac megantic. for the record, the casselton incident involve the rail company b.n.s.f., a major carrier of oil and an underwriter of the newshour. still, industry representatives, like ron ness of the north dakota petroleum council, insist the transportation of oil by rail is sound. >> safety is certainly the number one aspect that i think all aspects of the transportation industry are focused on. and at 99.7% of the time, you know, rail movements get to their destinations safely. >> brown: supporters of the long-delayed keystone pipeline project, to carry canadian oil to the gulf of mexico, say it would ease the need for oil trains. environmental groups say it poses it's own threats. >> brown: the secretary of transportation, anthony foxx, announced the proposed rules today, and he joins me now. welcome to you. >> thank you, jeff. >> brown: first, help people understand the situation as you see it. how serious a health and public safety issue is it especially in towns where trains run through? >> we have to remember that oil production in this country is growing exponentially and crude in russia increased fromo 80s from 900,000 car loads to a 4% increase. we don't see that abating soon. the production lynn crease, safety standards have to increase with it and that's why we proposed the rule today. >> brown: the criticism that came immediately is you're moving in the right direction but too slow. we have to put up a graphic from earth justice, one of the activist groups, that says your proposal showed extreme unacceptable risk posed by outdated and accident-prone type of railcar, the d.o.t. 111. the department's proposal, they raise reducing the risk of keeping these accident prone cars off the rails for three to six years. why wait so long if they're so dangerous? >> we're trying to push the rule out as quickly as possible. we have a 60-day comment period. folks with criticisms or exrovlts they'd like to see to the rule, we invite them to use the comment period. but to the particular question you asked, the reality is we have a market that has as best a third of new tank cars in it today. so to transition the market, it will take time from a practical standpoint. we want to have a right standard set pore the new tank car and that's what we're proposing is to have alternatives to improve the tank car standard but this is also a comprehensive rule, it goes with speed and other aspects so we can ensure the safety of the other people. >> brown: you're getting pressure from the industry not to move too fast. >> we use the comment period to hear from industry but we're not going to be bound by what we hear from industry. we're going to do the right thing for safety in america and whatever that is where our final word will be. >> brown: one interesting issue is the particular oil involved. sounds as though your department decided the bakken oil is actually particularly volatile and less safe and more combustible than other oils. >> yes, one of the things we're noticing in this situation is that, in the bakken region, there is rud rude meantiary separation occurring before it goes into the tank cars. in the bakken, the tank cars are moving the materls out to the refining areas on the east and west coast so the challenge is we have a relatively unstable substance moving long distances and sometimes hundreds of cars at a time. >> brown: here you're pushed back from the oil industry. a graphic from the american petroleum institute "the best science and data tonight support recent speculation that crude oil from the bakken friends a greater than normal risk." they're calling on you to get your science right. do you feel you have it right? >> yes, i do. some folks say we're moving too slow, some say too fast. we're probably in the right place. we look forward to the comment period and listen to what folks have to say. >> brown: what about the the issue of speed? are there's a question of 40-mile-per-hour speed limit which i gather now the railroads have accepted within urban areas but the question is whether you should expand that countrywide. >> yeah, the question is do we have a 40-mile limit totally, everywhere, do we have a 40-mile limit around certain parts, given population differences? do we have it just in urban areas. that type of challenge is not just a challenge inherent to this issue of crude by rail. there is an issue of what it does to other commodities, grains, rail, corn products moved by rail. so, again, this is a place where we'll listen to input from a variety of stakeholders and work to craft the rule accordingly. >> brown: how do you decide something like that? is it based on the new cars or -- they always will be tied together. >> that's right. >> brown: they're also calling for a new braking system or looking at it. >> it is very complex and we need a comprehensive approach which is why our rule takes into account all the factors. as we get comments in, we'll take a look at the comments but i believe you will see a rule that's going to have several components to it, the tank car standard, the speed standard, and other pieces including breaking and other things that you mentioned before. >> brown: the larger issue is where you started. we saw the huge increase in production. the balance is out of order. the balance in the increase in production versus maintaining the safety, the ability to transport this. >> the reality is things have changed. this increased production, these trains are now moving, as i said before, in some cases 100 unit trains at a time, and it's unit cars at a time, and we're going to have to deal with this new reality by stepping up our state osafety standards and this rule is going to be promulgated to focus on where we will be in the future as well as where we are. we want to hit the target with the rule. >> brown: especially in the local communities, there has been a lot of protest and worry. >> well aware of. this we've heard from members of congress, mayors, community members all over the country and even into canada. we understand the importance of this issue. that's why we worked to get the rule out and have a public comment period and we'll move it as quickly as we can. >> brown: while i have you here, i want to ask you about another transportation issue on people's minds and that's air transportation. we had what happened in the ukraine. we have u.s. flights not going into israel. jet travel nowadays, should people be worried in a new way? >> i think what people should be reassured by is the fact our f.a.a. is working very closely with our intelligence community and with the international community to understand the risks of traveling, and when we believe the risks are substantial enough, we have issues rules to prohibit u.s. carriers from flying into certain territories. we'll monitor situations as they occur and hopefully folks will feel safe as they fly. >> brown: you believe that's the situation in israel, even though the israeli government says that's not the case? >> we are using the intelligence we have. again we're working with all our international partners in situations where we have active no tems, and will monitor the situation elsewhere. >> brown: anthony foxx, secretary of transportation, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> ifill: finally tonight, we return to a story that captivated the worlds attention for a time, but has faded from the public eye, the fate of those kidnapped school girls in nigeria. chief foreign affairs correspondent margaret warner has this update on what has become of them, and of the campaign to bring them home. >> all we are saying is bring back our girls, now and alive. >> warner: a small, but vocal, protest marked the somber anniversary in nigeria's capital, abuja. it's been 100 days since nearly 300 young schoolgirls were abducted by islamist militants from a town in northeastern nigeria, chibok >> we call on to the nigerian military to facilitate a decisive military operation. >> warner: no one is sure of the exact number being held today, some seen here in a video from mid-may. nearly 60 escaped their captors, a strict fundamentalist islamist group called boko haram. it's leader, abubakar shekau. >> ( translated ): we are against western education and i say stop western education. i repeat, i took the girls, and i will sell them off, there is a market for selling girls. >> warner: yesterday, for the first time since the april 14 abductions, nigerian president goodluck jonathan met with many parents of the kidnapped girls, and some who escaped. he and his government have come under withering criticism for their handling of the incident, and of boko haram. >> the government was wildly slow to respond to this particular abduction, and the government's security forces have been wildly ineffective at both dealing with boko haram and protecting the local population. >> warner: sarah margon is the washington director of human rights watch. >> warner: why is it that the nigerian government, after 100 days, with some outside help, has not been able to locate and rescue these missing girls? >> it's our understanding that they actually do know where they are, but because the girls have been broken up into smaller groups, and it's basically a hostage negotiation, it's a very dangerous situation. >> warner: this morning by phone, i asked nigerian government spokesman in abuja, mike omeri, about that. >> the effort, the energy, the resources, the mobilizing and standing together is towards rescuing these girls. so, repeatedly, officers and ground forces and security services have indicated knowledge of where, knowledge of where these girls might be held. >> warner: but we were told that you know where they are, but it is too risky to try to rescue them, because it's basically a hostage situation. is that right? >> warner: the kidnappings inspired a global campaign, #bring back our girls, which raised awareness, but in a video released last week, boko haram chief shekau brazenly mocked the effort while taunting the president and his military. >> bring back our girls? bring back our army. bring back our army. jonathan! jonathan! girl, girl, girl, girl, girl! bring back our army! >> warner: standup the kidnappings are but a symptom of the government's impotence as boko haram, which wants to establish an islamist caliphate in nigeria, has advanced across the predominantly-muslim northeast of africa's most- populous nation. late last week, it's fighters planted their flag the strategic town of damboa. and today, it's believed to be behind bomb blasts in the city of kaduna, that killed at least 39 followers of a muslim cleric who doesn't embrace boko haram's hard-line ideology. all of this emblematic, says peter pham of the atlantic council, of an organization that has grown in strength and ambition: >> the group has metastasized very rapidly in the last two to three years, it's gone from a violent militant group that did drive-by shootings and lobbed grenades at people it didn't like, to a terrorist group that carried out the first suicide bombings and truck bombings in nigeria's history, to now, in the last 12 months, to a group that occupies territory. >> warner: so what explains its ability to expand its area of control? >> i think several factors contributed to it. one is better training. increasingly, also, the weakness of the nigerian military. the nigerian military has been unable or unwilling to fight back, and then, finally, the fear that boko haram has managed to stoke in villagers and others leads people to flee before them, rather than putting up resistance. >> warner: and, says sarah margon, where the military has fought back, it has done as much to create fertile ground for boko haram as deny it. >> in part, they've been emboldened by the heavy hand of nigerian security forces. in part, the local community has been pushed towards them because of the heavy hand, and so they have been strengthened. the heavy hand includes extra- judicial killings, rounding up suspects, arresting them, not charging them, sometimes killing them, burning residential structures, looting homes, abusing people. >> warner: so your saying that actually has helped boko haram? >> absolutely. >> warr: while government spokesman omeri says there was initial resentment of the army by local populations, he refutes the charge of abuse. >> warner: but peter pham says such assurances fall on deaf ears among many nigerians, who've grown cynical after decades of corruption and economic disparity in this oil- rich country. >> boko haram wouldn't be in the strong position that it is and have the sympathies or at least the tacit acquiescence of considerable segments of the population were it not for the social, political, and economic marginalization that many nigerians feel, not only because of corruption but also for lack of inclusion. >> warner: this has bred a regional threat potent enough to prompt the u.s. to designate boko haram a terrorist organization, and the united nations to enforce sanctions against it as an al qaida- associated group. its expanding reach is a threat the u.s. should be worried about, says pham. >> boko haram forms part of an archipelago of extremist groups stretching from north africa through the ungoverned spaces of the sahel and then onward and eastward to unstable areas of east africa, as well as a linkage to some of the militants fighting in syria. >> warner: another reason that the u.s. hopes the nigerian government, even while trying to get back the kidnapped girls, also presses on every front against the surging threat boko haram represents. >> ifill: again, the major developments of the day. the first 40 bodies from a malaysian airliner arrived back in the netherlands. the plane was shot down over eastern ukraine last week. secretary of state john kerry shuttled between israeli and palestinian leaders, trying to arrange a cease-fire in gaza. but the fighting raged on, with more than 700 palestinians and 34 israelis killed so far. and the obama administration proposed phasing out thousands of older railroad tank cars that increasingly carry crude oil. >> woodruff: on the newshour online right now, batman turns 75 this year and we wanted to know why he remains so popular after three-quarters of a century. so we talked to a real batman scholar dwight blocker bowers of the smithsonian national museum of american history in washington, d.c. he showed us part of the smithsonian's collection of batman artifacts. i think batman remained popular in american culture because he represents the power in good and he represents a superhero who can save us from ourselves. first of all, i think it goes back to the statement that he has sustained himself since 1939 when he premiered, in american culture. he represented a figure who can fight for the might for good as opposed to evil. i remember as a child a television joe, the adam west version of that man. i loved the sense of comedy it brought to the series because that man is a very serious figure, and i think that show introduced humor to the character that i found embracing. >> woodruff: we also talked to several of the writers and artists who've had a hand in the superhero's evolution over the years. you can find those interviews, plus a lot more, on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff, we'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org er . this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and susie gharib. >> 300% gain, shares of puma biotech blast off nearly quadrupling after an

Transcripts For ALJAZAM News 20130923

it's rescued most of the hostages at the westgate shopping mall in nairobi. a two day standoff that killed more than 68 and wounded more than 150. the initial attack happened saturday. the somali militant group al shabaab has claimed responsibility. >> i have to be honest with you, we haven't seen a great deal of movement within the building or on the side streets. personnel carriers moving in and out and it has been very, very quiet from the building itself. it's very difficult to get any kind of confirmed information about what's taking place inside. but clearly the headline is the kenyan military believes that they have secured most of the building and released most of the hostages although again i really want to stress that this is not yet over. there are still clearly hostages in there, and there are still clearly some of the governments, some of the attackers. it is surprising i think that we don't know precise number of the government. -- gunmen. and one of the things the kenyan security services have been criticized for, is not debriefing the victims, some were simply allowed to leave so it really took a long time for authorities to understand what it was that they were dealing with. but once they're inside it was always going to be very difficult to get a clear picture. this is, i mean, a big complex shopping center. there is cctv, closed circuit television around there but it took authorities quite some time to get access to those cameras and even then it would have been very difficult to know just how many in order to count exactly all of the attackers. >> so joining us now to discuss this group, claiming responsibility for the attack at westgate is dr. peter pham, director of the council, thank you for being with us. >> thank you jonathan. >> what does this say about the power and sophistication of this group al shabaab? >> it says all the people that counted al shabaab out as a defeated organization were clearly wrong. what happened was al shabaab lost territory in somalia but it transformed itself from being an insurgent group, into a pure transnational terrorist group and this is its calling card and this is announcement that it has completed this transformation and is now posing a threat to not only somalia but indeed the east africa region. >> how does this compare to other groups launched within somalia? >> well, in somalia it's launched a number of suicide attacks, road side bombings relatively low tech endeavors. it's mrs. over the years fought a number of -- it's also over the years fought a number of african american peace keepers. but this operation's different. it required a lot of tactical planning to scope out the westgate center and to carry out the action we have seen to such deadly attack. clearly the group that is been being increased since a year ago. >> why target a mall and not a military installation? >> i think the group wanted to do two things. one, last year in february, al shabaab leadership form formally joined al qaeda and pledged allegiance. now this is a demonstration that it is if you will a contributing member of that coalition of extremist terrorist organizations. it's also, because it occurred in such a shocking manner in a place that attracted targets from around the world, members of the kenyan elite as well as westerners, this brought the type of attention that shabaab has been craving, so that attention is going to translate into recruits and at least they're hoping financing from al qaeda extremists and other individuals. >> the united states has warned about al shabaab's ability to attract westerners for a while. how strong is its recruitment and how big of a concern should that be for us? >> it should be a significant concern. although other al qaeda entities have targeted western interests, al qaeda in the asian peninsula has tried to carry out attacks against u.s. home land, isolated individuals in america who have self-radicalized and proclaimed adherence to al qaeda or tried ocontact it, but al shabaab has indeed recrueltied recruit from -- recruited recruits from united states, a young man recruited by al shabaab and carried out an attack several years ago in the northern region of somaliland. al shabaab has also recruited individuals in the individualsing, in the united states, has its reach from somali diaspora and into the united states. one of its more articulate spokesman was omar homami, omar the american, the public face on youtube of al shabaab. >> we've yet to see exactly who is behind this attack, whether americans were or were not involved. thank you dr. pham. >> thank you. >> inging president obama joined military brass and victims family members for a memorial service for the victims in the navy shooting. >> now lord god speak to us. >> a somber tribute to lives lost in the navy yard shooting. president obama and first lady met with victims' families and president obama offered words of comfort. >> we come together as a grateful nation to honor your loved ones. to grieve with you and to offer as best we can some solace. >> all 12 victims were civilians working at the navy yard. when 34 yeerd aaron ---year-old aaron many laffey walked in and opened fire. >> these members of our navy family were killed in the line of dood. they died i -- duties. they died in the line of service to our navy. in service they were just as committed to as any of us in uniform. >> residents of our city lost friends and neighbors. mothers and fathers. colleagues and fellow church members. >> secretary of defense chuck hagel commended the work these men and women did for the military and the days that lie ahead for their loved ones. >> today we come together at this historic post to begin a road of healing and recovery, it is a path we walk together. >> bringing gun violence back in the spotlight. >> fence a backdrop of daily tragedies. as an epidemic of tragedies across america. >> but today the focus was not on politics and the political divide. instead it was a moment to take together to honor the men and women who died. juan carlos molina, al jazeera. >> typhoon usagi is now a tropical storm, the typhoon hit early sun morning in quandong province in china. this typhoon was the strongest storm to hit the western pacific this year, rain and strong winds. craig gleason has more. >> the streets of hong kong have been pretty much desserted for - deserted most of the day. the typhoon moved around the outskirts of hong kong some 50 miles away but nonetheless have brought torrential rain and wind speeds of 100 miles an hour. that has caused chaos in hong kong. 350 flights were cancelled. cathay pacific being says it will remain closed, stock exchange is closed until it moves further into china where it is expected there it will cause many problems. due mainly because of the rain. this storm is moving 15 miles an hour, which means potential for landslides and areas within the quanchou province. >> and with more on weather around the world, let's go to rebecca stevenson. >> that rain is circling around it. china has had more than its share of rainfall this year. in fact we were looking at potential flooding in northeast china. when we look at the total storms this year we have had 20 this year and three of them have been typhoons. they have brought in an excessive amount of rainfall. moving across china. this particular storm is going to continue its track right across that southern portion of china. when we look at rainfall totals we had amounts coming up to about two inches at our observation stations. some of those observation stations could very well have just been blown over and giving us poor reports. ing -- look looking at the satellite picture that noaa gave us, the storm well inland and still maintaining a circulation of moderate to heavy rainfall. we do expect some heavy flooding and landslides too in the southern portion of china. that's typhoons will continue. we already watch another tropical storm developing, brushing past taiwan. here in the u.s. we are talking about a little bit of snow. i'll show you where that's happening, coming up. jonathan. >> thanks rebecca. in wash, a shut down looms large again. raylynn johnson has more. >> house republicans who passed a budget friday that removes funding for the affordable care act have set up a fiscal showdown with the white house that could lead to a government showdown on october 1st. the democratic controlled senate says the house bill is dead on arrival. the president warned congress. >> we are running out of time fix it but we could fix it tomorrow. both houses of congress could make a simple vote to pas pay or bills on time and pass a budget on time. >> as the affordable care act is known, took stage on the sunday talk shows. >> a vote for cloture, listening to the people and stopping this train wreck that is obamacare. >> the last thing that the american people want right now is people playing political games, putting in poison pills and threatening to shut the government down or default on our debt. >> the government has closed its doors before. there were six shut downs between 1977 and 1980, the last was in the clinton administration, and that one lasted 21 days. failing to fund the budget that begins on october 1st will be felt quickly. social payments to individuals will be delayed, government workers will be forced to take an unpaid vacation. the house bill without obamacare is a stopgap bill that will keep the governmental open until december 15th. >> american people don't want obamacare. >> politics is driving this battle. the president will veto any such bill and democrats in the senate say they won't let that happen. so expect an a hike stakes poker game. raylynn johnson al jazeera. >> a pair of suicide bombers hit an historic church in pakistan. still ahead, the group taking credit for the violence and who survivors are blaming letting it happen. plus a group of americans making a difference in the lives of some afghan farmers. on inside story, we bring together unexpected voices closest to the story, invite hard-hitting debate and desenting views and always explore issues relevant to you. request >> president obama will travel to new york tomorrow for a series of meetings ahead of the u.n. general assembly debates. hassan rouhani will also speak. break through in negotiations over iran's nuclear program. it's been 68 years since the united nations was founded. its creation was attempt to prevent war between nations. it's up to 193 and many of those new members say the system is broken and needs to be reformed. from the united nations, james bays reports. >> for 60 years this is where world leaders made their speeches. the words of figures like kennedy, crew kruschev, ghadafi. when the united nations was first set up in the immediate aftermath of world war ii, the main decisive power was given to the u.n. security council. it has 15 members and only five are permanent. only five have the veto. those five were the countries that were on the winning side of world war ii. >> the world should be dynamic. it should rise to that occasion the system that was developed at the time was a good one but over if years things have changed and those realities should be incorporated. >> the u.n. system works when the five major powers are in agreement. but when they disagree, there is deadlock. for two and a half years there's been no progress at all on syria while over 100,000 people have died. observers say it shows all the flaws that exist in the system. one of those voices is a former u.k. diplomat who now advises the syrian opposition. >> one thing that i experienced when i was on the council was the one group of people you would guarantee would not be consulted on what was being discussed in the security council were the people most affected. so you know whether it is iraqis coairaqiskosovo, syrians would e a say on what they thought the world should do. >> world leaders have been arriving here in new york. there will be much talk over the next week about reform of the whole u.n. system but there's little chance of concrete progress on what so many people say are much needed changes. james bays al jazeera, united nations. >> dozens of people were killed at a church in pakistan after leaving morning service. , an arm of the taliban have claimed responsibility. dominic kane reports. >> this is the all saints church in peshower moments after the service. member of the congregation had gathered for free rice as part of the service. when members went outside, the bombers debt maded. >> two of the victims were lying on this side. i permly rescued some 70 victims and with the help of others, put them in the ambulance. >> initial evidence suggests the bombs were killed with ball-bearings, so that those that weren't killed in the blast were badly wounded. >> we were praying in church and in the middle this blast took place. it killed mostly women and children. >> a following of around 4% of the population. in mainly muslim country many christians try okeep a low profile. churches have become targets in the recent past. but this incident is the worst to hit the christian community in many years. some of the survivors have blamed the security forces for not taking strong enough action to protect them. >> this was a lapse because during prayers they don't even let christians enter. how did the suicide bombers come in so freely? this attack took place after prayers. this attack happened because of the negligence of security officials. >> the bishop of peshower has announced three days of mourning for the victims. dominic kane, al jazeera. >> activates say 2013 could be a target year for poachers who target resig rhinos. >> the rhino is is h sedated. ,. >> what we are trying odo is contaminate the animal's horn with a mixture of medicinal hormone used on animals. we're removing the value of the horn and placing it back on the animal where it belongs. unfortunately, the dead rhino is worth more than a dead rhino, we want to change that. >> the dye can be detected even when the horn is ground. >> if any of this gets onto my skin it will make me very sick. that's because it's dangerous to humans. anyone who consumes it risks facing nausea stomachache and diarrhea. the warden says there is no chance anyone would die from it. almost 400 rhinos were killed in south africa. more could die before the end of the year. >> unfortunately it really is a change. this is too much money, and too much hype about what these horns do. and they clearly don't do anything but it's all a psychological thing. >> dyeing rhino horns is only a temporary solution to buy sometime and hopefully save some animals. the idea of it is if poachers in this part of the country have been contaminated they will most likely not poach here, but the horn will grow out. it's hoped that a better method will be found. al jazeera,ing game refuge south africa. >> all right, time now for a quick look at sports, meafs micl eaves joins us. >> john jones says it's his most difficult fight of the year, a unanimousing victory over andrew gustavson. two of the just only had jones ahead by a single point. fans already clamoring for a rematch but refused to make a commitment last night. in baseball, mariano rivera, new york retiring rivera's number, a first active member to be given a place in yankees parked. retired from the league in 1997. and one other note to pass along, from the nfl. we now know what led to the suspension of vaughn miller, he never tested positive for a test. but he did try to use a urine collector. his suspension was increased to six games from the usual four games. we'll have more news and sports highlights coming up later. >> look forward to it, thanks michael. the agriculturing system is better known for poppies then wine. but trying to change that. >> on the somali plane, roots of peace brought california grapes to afghanistan. >> part of what we do is get farmers to grow higher value crops and farmers will double their income to put these in, pretty good deal. >> when the group came here ten years ago, afghans were growing grains on the ground. they taught farmers how to build trellises. >> it's good for us. these trellises are safe from the rain, and rotting on the ground. >> the land had to be cleared of land mines. >> there used to be a giant bomb crater right here. it took weeks to demine this area so these vines could be planted. >> the brain child of i've had ddi-- hydey coon. >> we are turning swords into plowshares and aring spears into pruning looks. >> today with this market center and with a refrigerated containers our grapes and the farmers are able to export the grapes to karachi market. >> after coon's dollar collected 50 million u.s. pennys so afghan children didn't have to study under a tree. all of afghanistan's 34 provinces these people are the lucky ones. only about 1% of afghan farmers have access to cold storage. so much of their crop will be sold locally at low prices or rot before it gets to market. coon and 34 workers who work with her want the seeds to flourish and spread. jennifer glass, somali afghanistan. >> the most high profile communist member in that country. plus, the future of angela merkel in germany and the impact the elections will have on her and the relations with the united states. isç] >> and welcome back to al jazeera. i'm jonathan betz. here are the top stories tonight. kenyan army may have broken the standoff. rescued most of the hostages and taken hold of most of the mall. president obama appeared in the memorial service for the 12 people victims of the navy depot. tropical storm usagi, hit northeast of hong kong early sunday. expected to weaken as it moves north. this week started with another mass shooting in the you know, navy yard in washington, d.c. somali militants attack a mall in kenya. bill o'reilly and tara dowdell. thanks for joining us. lot to talk about. first off let's talk about the shooting at the navy yard. the president spoke at a memorial service later today and one of his quotes which i found was kind of interesting, was sometimes i fear that this is a creeping resignation that somehow this is the new normal, meaning the mass shootings. do you think he is, giving up on gun control? >> it's very effective on mental health issues, where do you determine if somebody is mentally ill and has a gun, you want to not dissuade them from getting help. >> it has been successful in some states, so why isn't it successful federally? >> it is successful in some states but some areas have made guns looser, and the problem is nra, i worked for the government and congressmen and the n ra is aggressive consistent and persistent. they push back so severely against any minor change in the system, their squeaky wheel gets the oil and they are very much a squeaky wheel. >> stand in support of gun legislation that is true. the next topic is congress, it's going to be a big week in washington. talk of a possible government shut down as early as next week. what needs to happen to avoid this? >> if you're taking your family onto a train and as you're heading down the tracks and you know there's a catastrophe ahead you should do something about it. the democrats are saying we've already got the tickets, we've already got the itinerary, but the democrats are saying, stop the train. the obama administration ising a accident waiting to happen. you're supposed to take money off the debt, it is a $6.2 trillion addition to the debt. >> democrats are going oask, why are republicans using the budget and the debt ceiling as leverage with obamacare, aren't they two separate issues? >> it's really all you can do. republicans want to be talking about debt, and obamacare because those are two issues they care very much about. obamacare is who is part of the debt. you have businesses cutting health care, every day you hear another business cutting health care. there are real problems here and i think ultimately what the republicans in conk are looking -- congress are looking to do is to get a delay for a year. i think that's the ultimate machination for these chess matches. >> put it off for a year? >> for a year. you talk about sausage making? it used to happen in the kitchen but now live on twitter. >> you're here shaking your head about this. >> jonathan as you probably can imagine, i disagree. i think the republicans as you stated earlier tying this to the debt limit is ridiculous. first of all the law has been upheld by the supreme court of the united states. if the tea party is all about the constitution, the ultimate arbiter is the united states supreme court. the president ran on the affordable care act and the voters elected him. they are very much aware that this is his signature legislation. you made a point bill about businesses laying people off. a lot of those businesses are laying people off because of what's left over from the recession. a lot of them are using health care reform as an excuse or cover for something they were already going to do. as we saw over the last decade, many businesses have reduced health care coverage that they have been affording to their actual glows. so that's a dynamic that was ongoing. what was their excuse last year or the year before that or the year before that? i think the bigger issue is we have tob responsible and tying -- to be responsible and tying this legislation to where you know the president is going to veto in your bill and the senate is not going to adhere to it, if this is about fiscal stewardship, why waste money, it was40 million for those votes. >> i'm glad you used the word responsible. the responsible thing is to delay obamacare. it's been done for unions and government workers. the responsible thing for to you do is stop the train going off the tracks and that's what they're trying to do now. >> i want to change to overseas. obviously the president is going to be here addressing the u.n. general assembly for the first time in his administration. >> i think iran has very good negotiators, they are masters at the delay tactic. they had a very sharp person with ahmadinejad. they have a leader with a smile now. meanwhile in the background they are working the centrifuges and going for the nuclear plan. they haven't seen the iranians in action. >> i'm a glass half full type of gal. i do think president rouhani has seen some positive side. the united states should go into potential negotiations with eyes wide open. i don't think we should close the door to a diplomatic solution. i think we are way to quick in this country to want to resolve everything with military action and congregation. where has it gotten? it has gotten us to places where we are resented. if we should resolve something diplomatically, we should do so. not knowing who the players are and what the background is and what the carrots and sticks are. >> let's talk about kenya really quickly before we leave tonight. obviously a horrible shooting in that mall tonight. do you think this is going to change the american conversation when it comes to the war on terror? >> for about 24 hours. i think americans have a short attention span. for 24 hours americans will say that's so easy we could do that in our malls. but i think the new cycle moves on. there's just a lot of things to cover now and sadly that's going to get lost behind. >> do you think this needs to be a focus for president obama now? >> i think we need to revisit our strategy as it relates to the war on terror. we are spending a lot of money prosecuting this war on terror and we need oget a return on investment that it is really keeping us safer. i'm concerned about what's happening in chicago, we have a lot of violence in this country. and to me whether someone is killed by a terrorist or a gang member, somebody still died. i think we need talk about this much differently than we have as a nation. >> thank you tara and bill, for coming in. we appreciate it. chancellor angela merkel has won a landslide victory in germany. >> what we know for sure is that angela merkel will continue in power. she addressed the headquarters earlier in the evening and said she will serve a four year term and since then the party has been going on here as it were late into the night. she told them tonight was the celebration, tomorrow was for going back to work. and she will lay out her plan, her approach in a press conference monday morning after she's looked at the final numbers of course, most likely she'll talk about coalition talks with her center left opponents in this campaign to try and come up with a grand governing coalition. difficult talks of course they will be. the spd, the social democrats have been here before with angela merkel. they came off rather the worse for wear in that coalition. now, this time, they will demand the minimum wage, the talks could go on for weeks. last sometime they went on for two months. likely they'll continue in germany over the makeup of a government not necessarily who will need that government. angela merkel will remain chancellor merkel. >> serving flood damage in colorado. the politician who wants to see the damage in person. sweden's top of golfer has done something no other european player has ever done. michael eaves joins us next with sports. >> every sunday night al jazeera america presents gripping films, from the worlds top documentary directors >> this is just the beginning of somthing much bigger... >> coming up next, the premier of... "do the math" >> these companies are a rogue force... >> one environmentalist says fossil fuels equal disaster... will his movement add up add up to change? >> we will fight it together... al jazeera america presents... "do the math" premiers next, >> and welcome back to al jazeera. i'm jonathan betz in new york. it is life in prison for disgraced chinese politician bo chi lai. the sentencing is the combination of a high chinese official. he was a member of the party's top leadership. tomorrow vice president biden and his wife dr. jill biden head to colorado. north central colorado is still reeling after days of flooding. biden plans to survey the situation. about 60 people are still unaccounted for. officials estimate it will cost more than $100 million to repair all the damage. it has been two weeks since torrential rain led to flash flooding in colorado's front range. while the debate in what course to take in syria has died down, there is still questions about u.s.'s military action. libby casey sits down with a retired general. >> syria says we have a limited objective,. >> there are a lot of people who want to use -- >> regime changes even. >> sure. and there's a lot of people who want him to use the chemical weapons weapon as a handle to unseat bashar al-assad. that doesn't work at this point. what does work is the threat of force to get diplomacy working in the region. and address the chemical weapons issue. that's the issue. for the other issue, i feel really badly for the people of syria because there doesn't seem to be an end to this. but there's no real political alternative to bashir assad right now. there's a lot of work done a lot of money going into the region. but who is the leader who can assure the people of syria that if he takes the place of bashar assad that he will protect sunni, shia, aloite, kurds, everyone in the region, and does that leader command the forces that are fighting? and the answer is no. and this makes syria a very, very difficult place niche to find an alternative to bashar assad. >> it's an interesting situation. you can see her complete conversation at 10:30 eastern, 7:30 pacific on talk to al jazeera. all right, michael eaves joins us on a look at sports. there was a reunion of sort. >> both in the nfl. when coach jim harbaugh, not only turn stanford into a national contendedder on the national level, but in the nfl. coach and player were reunited again. one yard out to give the colts aa 7-0 lead. kendall hunter right up the middle from 13 yards out, 7-7 ballgame. we're going ojump tall way to the fourth quarter, just four minutes left in the game and it's luck. on the bootleg to steal his victory over the niners, 20-7. jetstream hosting the bil b, e.j. manuel, finds steven hill, smith threw him for 331 yards in this game. score 20-2012, when manuel takes advantage of the new york blitz and finds for the touchdown pass, make it 20-all. on the next possession, smith delivering a beautiful pa pass to santonio homes. 27-20. the surprising dolphins hosting the atlanta falcons. the five yard touchdown run. matt ryan finds lavine toylolo. the dolphins prove that their start is no fluke. ryan tannehill, 43 seconds remaining dion sims hauls in the one yard pass from tannehill with a 27-20 victory. for seven years ed reed wreaked havoc on offenses, and he led the charge to the super bowl. he continued his career as a texan. the ravens jumped out early behind their defense. darryl smith picking up matt schaub. put baltimore up 10-6, houston's offense, knives his way down the sideline. 82 yards later he would reach the end zone for score and then the ravens would put the game away on the ground. bernard pierce takes it out on the ground and 39-9 win. home town team jumps out early, giovanni bernard, cincinnati would build a 14-0 lead but back came the pack. after three field goals and a fumble returned for a score, packers lead it, 23-14. and then aaron rogers gets in on the action with a seven yard pass to james jones making it 30-14 green bay. four minutes remaining, packers trying run down the clock, going forward fourth and inches, cawfs up the ball, before -- coughs up the ball, been gals stun the packers, 34-30. in charlotte, either the panthers or the giants were going away 0 and two. early 7-0 lead with touchdown run. then it became the cam newton show, first he connects from 17 yards out, then newton finding la fell again, from 20 yards out. rushing touchdown, as the panthers shut out the giants 38-0. leaving the giants 0-3 to start the season something that obviously doesn't set well with head coach tom caughlin. >> i thought we were in a position today to put power best foot forward. but we never gave ourselves competitively a chance to be in the game. we didn't give ourselves anything to build on. we didn't do a good job of protecting and giving owshz to be in a -- ourselves in a position to take advantage of the weaknesses that they supposedly had. now to golf where sweden's henrik stenson, giving him the first fedex cup title of the career and the $10 million that goes with it. stenson starting with a four stroke lead. that's well within striking distance of steve stricker. stricker made the turn 2 under, then added an eagle on the back as he carted a 5 under, finishing at 10 under par for the tournament. stenson, tried to be the first european to win the tournament since it began. his two under par 68 was his fourth straight round in the 60s on his way to a final tournament score of 13 under par and a three-stroke victory. with the win, the 37-year-old swee37-year-oldswede clinched t. tiger woods struggled all weekend, but still cinched a $3 million paycheck by coming in second. >> unreal. thanks michael. it's been three years this month that occupying wall street was born. the uprising has now fizzled out. it's struggling to connect with its grass roots. cath turner reports. >> from this to this. in two years the occupy wall street movement has gone from a global phenomenon to a few hundred people in a park trying to regain the magic. the music made a come back and so did the familiar catch phrases. >> we're here to talk about occupy truly reconnecting with the 99%. >> what was missing was the numbers. there were far more media and nypd officers on sight than protestors. organizers put on a brave face. they said it takes a while to have a meaningful aspect. >> the press talks to the politicians and nobody -- it's not funneling up. we need to kind of shift the tone of the conversation. >> but as the occupy movement proved, such conversations will only be heard if they involve many more places. zacany park was the perfect place for such a movement. it's right in the middle of the movement, and a place for people to share their ideas and their frustration. but after they lost the park it changed everything. the new york police department moved in and evicted all of them. it left occupy without a home without domestic and international attention and without momentum. one of the original occupiers said many of them have dispersed, fast food industry against low wages and the keystone pipeline. >> they saw their friends beaten up over and over and the frustration that that caused often resulted in them taking it out on each other and so the community has really been torn apart and that's why people have spread out into different projects. >> occupy wall street captured the nation' nation's attention,t without a workable structure or cohesive agenda, many in their organization wonder what could have been. cath turn he, al jazeera. a win would be a milestone in online entertainment and another possible first. carrie washington star of scandal could be the first african american woman to win as best actor in a drama. stay with us. my name is jonathan betz. >> tuolomne meadows, over 8500 feet high. snow is mostly going to coming down overnight tonight but this is a precursor of the fall. today was the first day. snow in the mountains and also frost and freeze warning and advisories, as you look into the southwest, nevada, higher elevations in nevada you are going to have temperatures in some places right at freezing but in others at 33, 36° so tender plants and pansies, you will want to bring them in overnight. bulk of the rainfall heading to the rockies and the central rockies where we've had the concerns of flooding around boulder, that's going to come down right around 9,000 feet. good news is the wet snow will come down in the higher elevations instead of the rain. very cold air coming in because when you look out over the pacific a lot of times it looks like popcorn, cumulus clouds. bus also the jetstream is pushing it right in. and as that happens, temperatures will drop quickly overnight. we did have reports of wind gusts over 60 miles per hour on the washington coast and then we saw these gusts coming up 35 to 40 even in the southwest. well, those winds are going to ease off and allow those temperatures to plummet tonight. now, the low lands near the valley floor it will be ton milder side but it will be chilly higher up. >> hello and welcome to al jazeera. i'm jonathan betz if new york. kenya's military says it's rescued most of the hostages at the westgate shopping mall in nairobi but some are still indecide, 68 dead and more than 150 wounded.the initial attack happened saturday. the somali group al shabaab has claimed responsibility. for the military actions in somalia. the skate assembly of the general assembly of the united nations begins monday.