Transcripts For WETA Worldfocus 20091124 : vimarsana.com

tonight on worldfocus the white house sials it s made the lon awaited decision onow many new u.s. troops to send to afghanistan. will it be eugh to change the course of the war? it is my intention to nish the job. britain launes a sweeping investigation to its role in e iraq war. it just mht answer the question, was the war en legal? > our signature sry takes to denmark where they have to muchind generated electricity, and with no battery b enoh to store it, what you do th danes just may ha the answer. and from belgium, a mdical story both amazing and troubling. a man deemed to be in a coma for more tn twoecades was actuly awake. now he s speing out. om the world s leading reporterand analysts, here s what s happeningrom around the world. this is wldfocus. major support has been proded by rosalind p. walter and the peter g.eterson foundation, dedicated promoting fisc responsibility anaddressing key economic challengesacing america s fure. and adtional funding is provided by the followin supporters good evening. i m martin savidge. thank you for joining us. by ely nexteek after months of deliberatio it appears wewill kw just h president obamintends to move forward with the war afghanistan. ready the outlines of h plan are emeing. at we are lrning is that e president ll call for just over ,000 additional american troops, which would bring the tol to about 100,000. but the commitment will not be open ended, as white house press secretary rert gibbs put it. is not just how we get people there, bs what the strategy for getting them out. in night s ad focus we ll discuss that rategy. we beginith the details that are coming out about the president s plan. today at a news conference with the prime minisr of india, prident obama confirmed he s made hisecision on afghanistan. after eigyears, some of those years in which we did not ve, i think, eher the resourceor thetrategy to get the job done, it is my intention to fish the job. reporr: last night president ama held what was described as a rigorous final meeting with his national security team to put the finishing touches on his new plan for afghanistan. acrding to mcatchy newspapers, the president has decided toend an additional 34,000 tros to afghanistan. he s expectedonnounce that decision next tuesday. according tohe mcclaty ticle, the administration s plan would include a series of so-called off ramps, those off ramps would points at which e president could coinue sending the adtional troops, stop sendg them begin removing u.s. forces from afghanista altogether. off ramps would depend on the military and polical progress in afghanistan. afghan president hamid karzai is under intense pssure from the s. to clean up the rampant corruption plaguing his government cretary of state hillary clinton adopted more conciliato tone towds karzai. in an interew with radio free europe, radio liber, she seemed to give karzai some ggle room in establishing a gornment that wouldbe seen legitimate. if there i a new cabet, will the united states suort stil the new government. well, there are warlos and there arewarlords. there are people w are called that who fought against al eda and the talib and their alli. and there are people who had very serious beaches of human rights and mistrement of people during war, which is always difficulto, you know, lo back on and figure ouhow to judge. reporter: a decisn to send 34,0 additional troopsto afghanistan would bepposed by many demrats in congress. secretary of state clinton secretary of defense robert gates, chaman ofthe joint chiefs mik mullen and general mcchrystal are expecte to visit capitohill in an effort to sell thelan. for moren the plan we re joined by juan caos zarate, at the cnter for strategic and international studies in washington. he alsoerved as depu national securit adviser for mbating terrorism during the bush admintration. welcome back. thanks, marn. reports suggest tat president obama will sd an ditional 30,000 troops to afghanistan. homight these aed forces change the waythe u.s. and nato are conductg the war? well, the number fits with what wwere nticipating. we know that general cchrystal s set of options that he presented to the president rangfrom the low teens up to 80-some thound troops. it appearsthat, give the reports we re hearing, the president is picking theiddle grou. what these tros are intended to do is tollow general mcchrystal and the commanders on the ground to coest space where we have n coested the taliban the pat. in articular, in the east and the south. and so these troops in the first instance wl allow us to actually conont taban where they have controld territory. then, importantly, to kep the territor because in the pt what has happened is we fght the taliban,xpel them from villagesnd territory but not been ae to hold the tertory. so theseroops will help do th. and imptantly, i expect the mber of trainersrobably upwards of 6,000, 7,000to be part of that grouphat will then be part of imbeddg with the police and the afghan military s you build the capacity ofhe local authorities to aually take over security eventually. so that s the plan. and roughly by doing the math, the number of tops in afghanistawould co up around 100,000. faless than was used in iraq. so do you think tt this will cceed in afghanistan? well, i think the hope is th we can change the momentum on the ground. and i think montum here is obviously importt becauset s not only what is happeni on the ground, but the perception of what s happeninon the ground. there s en a lot of doomsday talkbout what s happening in afghanistan. and think part of the challenge heres changing the momentum gaining ground, lding the ground and showing progress in terms of working wi local authorities. keep in mind as well w not only have u.s. troop which would number cse to 100,000, but also upwds of 42,000 to 43,0 nato tros, andhat nmber cod increase pending on what theatoorces decide do. not liely, though. but overall, ihink it s important th theroops get into battle, get on the grou, and th we start to s a shift in momentum, which is what general mcchrystal has been hoping for. the president also talking about these st of exit ints, if the plan is not woing. is thaa realistic way to conduct a war? well, don t think you necessary have commanders the grou worrying about ex ramp but i dothink the department of dense, the military, and our diplots and politicians ed to havein mind end states and goals in mind and poin at which we nd to evaluate whether or not we r succding and whether or not we need to adjust. i think the present is very worried,ot only aboutthe question of troop number, but the question of how longe re actual going to b in afghanistan. is is perhapsthe tckiest question for the president, and part of the reason i thinke asked s visers to come back with information about what those ex ramps might look like an at whatpoint we could start to adjust to allow the afghans to takereater control their security. it also, by t way, gives him a political t so thate can letimately say in, let s say, six mons time thati m viewing the strateg again, reviewing wher we re going without getng hit politically as he was this time. jn arate, thank you very much for jning us. my pleasure. we also want t know what you think about t pland troop surge in afghanistan. tonight s question, you think the united states should be sending 30,000 additional toops to afghanistan? you can give us your opinion b going to the how you see it ction of our website, worldfocus.org. with u.s. involvement deepening infghanistan, it impoant to remember that tis country stillas 120,000 troops in iraq. the withdrawa of significant numbers them is supposed to start next spring. meanwhile, with britis force already gone from iraq, a governmentppointed panel today began the mostcomprehensive instigation of britain s involvement in that war. includg whether, asritics claim, there was deception in the builp to the fighng. gs martel of itn reports. good morng, ladies and gentlemen. and welcome to the iraq inquiry s first da of public heargs. reporter: formal start to proceengs. outsidanti-war demonstrators with fa blood. eight years o controversial history will be scrutinized re over the coming weeks and months, looking at how andhy britain went to war in iraq in 2003. attention will focus whether it was legaln terms of ternational law. 179 british service personnel were killed ithe conflict. among them fusilier gordon ntd gentle. his mother hoping for understanding her son death. o see the mistakeshat we made. reporter: searchi for the truth, the fe members of th inquiry team, all appointed downing stre. but they insist they ll be objective and fair. they w t establish guil or innocence, but,s they put it, to lrn lessons. no o s on trial here. we cannot termine guilt or innocence, onlcourts can do th. but i make a commitme here that once we ge to ourfinal report, we will not shy aay from making criticisms ther of institutions or processes or dividuals where ey re trul warranted. the issues of weans of mass destruction and iraq is a issue we have to deal with. reporter: the sta witness wi be ton blair, the prime nister who gave the order t go to war. he ll apar in front of the ininquire ne the newyear. but none of the policians, civil servants and military officers will appear underoath. and there are complaints th inquiry panel is laing legal expertise. you need to ask the government, it seems to methat if t government had really wanted the inquiry to be effecte, they would haveiven it the legal pport that ey desperately need reporter: the inquiryill have access to thousands of governmentdocumen, all secretlystored in these safes the inquiry wille broadcast with a one-minute delay to protect sensitiv information, but the inquiry s findings will never be too potically maging. nothinwill be published until after the general electi. that electio will be held early ne june. > it s been a year since ten guen attacked india s financl capitalmumbai, killing 166 people. todaythe wall street journal report that lashkar-e-taiba the pakistan gup behind the attack remains a potent force still determined to strik india and the west. it repor that at least six new plots against muai have been disrupted in the last2 months. and it says the oup s long ties to pakistas powerf security establishment and e deep rots it has put down in towns and villages tough its arity arm leave the government with a dficult challenge. many pakistanis still ubt shkar s role inthe attack. official privately say they fear a popular backlash if they move foo forcefully against group. > the mumbai attack an other secuty concerns were on the mind of ime minister singh hayes met today with president obama. yesterday he told the cocil on foreign relation india is still haunted by the attac and said that pakistan should be pressured byhe world to bring to justice all those responsie. he also de it clear that india has a big stake in t war in afghanisn. tre s no doubt in my mind that if e taliban and the al qaeda group of pele succeed in afghanian, that would have catastrophic rults for the security and stability not only of pakistan b for the surity anthe stability o all of sout asi and please don t forget we r talking of nely 1.8 billion people living south asia. tonight we want to take you beyond theheadlines and gve you a firsand account o life in anotherountry dealing with a growing muslim surgency. that country somalia in east rica. and for th viewpoint we are joined by one ofhe few independent journalts working there. he is mustafa haji abdinur he s a radio journalisand a reporter f therench news agcy afp. he s also being awarded the ternational press freedom award presented by t committee to protect journalists. congratulaons on the award. thank u for being with us. thank you for having m we hve this impression in this country that li in somaa is total chaos and killing andblooded. and i m wondering i there a daillife that still goeson despite allof this? yes, there is life going on in the other y. ople do liveheir own life just like you arliving here in amica. but we still have the curse. the life is dferent. so they get up in the morning, thego to work the children go to hool, people g to market. of course theydo. so are these just ba parts of townou try t avoi or tell us h the violence erupts. we haveo one part or particular par in theown that we can say is safer than the other part. it depen on how things are happeng. when clashes bke out, you have to say - you he to stay safe. if y are in your house, y will remain. ifou are out, y have toook for a place youan get protected. people have trained themselves? of crse, of cours just like military what abo families leaving? have a lot of people left, fled, thcity? in the pst years there has been people in omalia, particularly in the capita mogadishu. most of the families left the town and they live in displacement camps outside the city. wehave heard about various terrorist organizations, those that might wt to do harm against the united state using the lawlessness of somia as a place tostablish themselves. in other words, tey don t fr being hunted down. have you seen evidence ofthat? really, we have, you ow, escalating vlence in omalia. so we get some at there might be feign fighters whoare lping theopposition. thefft. the national governmen of somalia. so we have some goups who are helping the opposition,ut theye fighting, t we cannot say actually who is fighting in a way. you don t see, y, terrorist organizations estaishing bases? no. what is life like for a journast there? ho easily can you operate a do your job? it s truly vy difficult to work as a joualist in somali particarly this time. because this yr alone, weost around six journalists in mogadishu. so it s ju like you sacrifice. if you like to do journalism in malia, because something bad is going to happ to youor to your colleag or maybeome other journalists no the city. is there conol? are yo carefully edited as to what is said? e have, you kw, around 11 radio stations in the capital mogadishu, independent radio stations. and also two tevisions sofar, ations in the capital. so we ha our own editoal policy. but you always keep away fom sothing that you thing migh bring trble toyou. it s juslike you are being overseen by e polical leers of the untry. stafa haji abdinur, thank you very much for yur rorting and thank you for talking us. you re weome. tonight s sgnature story, the third part of o series on the green revolutn in denmark ading up to t inrnational climate summi in copenhagen next month. we ve already shown you w denmark is aeader in the producon of wind power. but there s challen. how to sto that powe when th wind isn tblowing, or i the case of solar power, when the sun isn t shining. denmark s srching for answers includinbuilding europe s first hydrogen neighbhood. mes that are powered and heated with theelp of hydrogen fuel cells. when the project is omplete, 40 homes will run on fuel cells. john larn took a look on his visit to denmark thisummer. repter: just inside a llage marke the g local news is therrival of the season s first potatoes. saturday they came in. reporter: and they re good? very go. reporter: you wouldn guess it, but an internationaltory is growing here as well. the first hint just outse rustli in those plas you see on the rack. the second hint up in thos trees on the waynto town. the wind is so constant here in veenkov, they have a problem and an opportunity. like much of denmark, t viage began putting up windmills 20 year ago. wi fvorable government res for power, the mills wer productive and profitable. but now they are sotimes too much oa good thing. denmark generates hu amounts of clean energy fromts wind. sometimes it has too mucof it. and it can t store it, so it winds up dumping it selli it to other countries for next to nothing or even payg them to take the excess ergy off their has. jensjakobsen is from the local power utility. sometimes we sell it to germany d sometime thes ha too much power in germany therefore actually pay them. rorter: in that case, it s try wasted energy. you could put it th way. eporter: pure, clean wind energy, but no batte big enough to sa it for when the townspeoe need it. then the though is ife could ore that power someh, electrical power, that would be betterhan doing nothing. reporter: so his utility along wi private companies and the danishgovernment cided to try something. you have to go up there. reporter: using technology you with find in the space shuttle or space ation, they but one of the wor s only residentl hydrogen fuel cell progra. what do we gothere? what you see here is two generator generators wit water and turn it intoxygen and hydrogen. eporter: using power from the wind, the rst step electrolysis takeslain old tap ter.here s the water right here. and splits thatater into its components, hyogen and oxygen. ure oxygen pure hydrogen d a little bit of pure wate reporter: ithe second step, the hydrogen ga is pumped directly tpeople s hes. in thi case, thehansen family. just next to the family garden hose, you can see where the hydrogen enters the house. it comes in through the pes. it goes up into this box where the pressure is meased and related. then it enters the housend the hydrogen fl cell. kurt hansen some is powered by a hydrogen fuel cell this st it, yes. reporter: his is one of ten homes in t area being used to see if this may be one way to store wd powe using the hydrogen like a batte. it shat simple. reporter: the project is consered so important the queen of denmk came tosee kurt s home me online. although hisnglish is limit, kurt can explain how he used to heat his home in o word. l. reporter: and what was wron in three vy, very expensive. reporter: and what motivates everne here to find a solution. i think aut 40, 50 years when the oil will stop and we have to think what we have to use. reporter: in the third st, is fuel cell in kurt s hoe brea the hydrogenas molule apart, creating heat an eltricity. all witht burning any fossil fuel or releasing any carbon. just pure water, oxygennd hydrogen are the only byroducts. so wheres the catch? if a purely engy standpoint, this isn t necessarily very effient right now. t is indeed nonefficient. reporter: meaning y have to use twice a much energy what you get out of it. but remember, his area has limitless ean renewable power. behind one of the projecs demonstration eces, you can see the acal stacks of hydrog fuelcells. as well ashe reflected abundae making tis project possible. a projt that suggests that one solution to complex ener problems may lay inhe earth most simple abdant elements, hydrogen, water, and wd. for worldfocus, john larson, in vestenkov, denmark. final tonight we wt to ta you to belgium foran unusual sty about a life put on hold. least that s how appeared to someof thosearing for a young man wh fell into a coma after a car crash years ago. but now his doctors s he is actually able to understand what s being said and to communicate his own thoughts. and that raises the queson, ju how much do people thought to be in comas actually comprehe? our storyis from clayton swisher of al jazeera engli. reporter: a priner in his own body, paralyzed and unable to communicateith those arnd him, a carccident did this to rom houben wh he was just 20 years old. but wi a mother instin and son s determination, the car accident tt claimed souch of this belgian man s abilities did not defeat him completel ranslator: when you asked him to turn his head or to lax, he was doing what he could. but because he was in a coma state, it wasn t muh. reporr: over the past 23 years, rom sother never lost hope. transtor: i was convied after the cident that he did understand lot. rorter: doctors hadll but given on r, concling he would spend the rest ofis life in a vegative state. that was uil three years ago when docto tried new batc ofests on his brain. thresults adiscovery that his mind was working perfectly normal. using a pron technology, doctors were le to te om s abilitto commucate. and aft teaching him how to manipulate this keyboard, his family discovered r had endured years of dafening silence by enging in quiet coemplation. in onef his first msages, he wrote iake the most of my life. i have toe optimisti i m tryg to understandthe purpose of ings. everhing is worthy. reporter: rom s ability t channel his thoughts via couter has since improved tremendoly. there s no dbt today the man has pnty on his mind. it a great relief to me thate can no say what he wants or dsn t want. he can now make his own decisions. he s not deessed at all. he thinks s life isrtwhile. he oen says, i am soeone. i am someone. i not a plant. i amomeone. reporte rom can t count the number of discussions he missed out on over the past two decades, but wth his mily s help, that s n longer an issue. the 43-year-old man spen his days now working on abook, one he hopes might givea voice to those w, on the surfacemay t have one. clayton swisher, al jazeera. that is worldfocus for a tuesday evening. for much more gbal news and analysis, you can go to worldfocus.o. i m martin savge in new york. we thank youor joinings us. we lk rward toou tomorrow and any time on the web. we lk rward toou tomorrow and any time on the web. until then, have a goonight. captions by vitac www.vitac.com major support fo worldfocus has been ovided by rosalind p.alter and thpeter g. peterson foundationdedicated to promoting fiscalesponsibility and adessing key economic challenges facing americs future. and addional funding is provided by e following suppters