AP

class=”MuiTypography-root-142 MuiTypography-h1-147″>Blocking BBC documentary on Gujarat riots goes against India's democratic values, journalist says

A new BBC documentary looking at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's role in the 2002 Gujarat riots has sparked controversy in India. The government is trying to ban it while students and activists are finding ways to watch it in defiance. Rana Ayyub, author of the book "Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover Up," discussed the situation with The World's host Marco Werman.

The WorldJanuary 26, 2023 · 3:00 PM EST

• By Lex Weaver

A security personnel speaks to people from inside the main gate of Jamia Millia Islamia university in New Delhi, India, Jan. 25, 2023.

Manish Swarup/AP

A new BBC documentary has sparked controversy across India.

The Indian government has tried to block the film “India: The Modi Question,” which looks at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s role in the 2002 Hindu-Muslim riots in the state of Gujarat, where he was the chief minister at the time.

Several students at Jamia Millia Islamia University were arrested ahead of the planned screening. And Jawaharlal Nehru University locked its gates and cut electricity at its New Delhi campus as students gathered for another screening there. When they tried to watch it on laptops and cell phones in defiance, they were attacked by a group of masked men throwing stones at them.

Rana Ayyub, author of the book "Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover Up," and an opinion columnist with The Washington Post, discussed the documentary and the situation with The World's host Marco Werman.

Marco Werman: Rana, what has the Modi government said about this new BBC documentary and its reason for censoring it?Rana Ayyub: Well, the Foreign Office, when questioned about the revelations made by the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, on the Gujarat riots and his observations, has called the BBC documentary a propaganda by colonial minds, who are trying to discredit India and with the documentary. This is why the government of India has asked Twitter to remove Twitter accounts that have shared the link to the documentary. I have only seen the first part of the documentary. I have not been able to see the second part, because a couple of them have put out the links of the documentary, but each time they put out something, it is removed. The government has gone all out not just to censor the documentary, but stop, not just social media platforms, but any organization, any platform, any institution from publicly playing this documentary, and that goes against the very ethics of a democracy.For those of us who don't know much about what happened in Gujarat, take us back briefly to what did go on there in 2002, and what we know for sure about Modi's role during those riots.In 2002, Marco, about 60 Hindus were burned alive in a train, following which there was a decision made by the Modi government to take out the bodies in public. And over a week from that day, more than 1,000 Muslims were massacred. Mr. Modi was held responsible for, not just the lack of law and order, but the fact that the police did not act on time, that nothing was done to stop the attack on the Muslim community. Hate speeches were given in public by Hindu nationalists, and none of those hate speeches were stopped. The highest court in India, the Supreme Court, made an observation that Mr. Modi was like a modern day Nero, who looked the other way as innocent Muslims were massacred over a period of a week in Gujarat.Right. And at the time, Narendra Modi was chief minister of Gujarat, which is essentially the governor, right? So, the current battle over this documentary with the national government of Prime Minister Modi banning the film, they used a 2021 emergency law. Do you think the government's security concerns for not showing this film are legitimate?Why would a documentary done by BBC, or for that matter any publication, have to be censored? I think it is a right of every Indian to watch what it wants to. They are guaranteed that right by the constitution of this country, the right of every Indian to watch the documentary and decide for themselves what is right or what is wrong. The Indian government has used emergency powers to stop the screening of a documentary citing national security threats. So, I think this is a very exaggerated claim, especially vis-a-vis a documentary. And ironically, this is what normally happens when you censor something. It is broadly watched and discussed. This documentary is now being watched by almost every Indian who, initially, was indifferent or was not watching it.I would put to you, though, Rana Ayyub, and I know you haven't seen the second episode of this documentary, but it does have some shocking footage, people beaten and killed on camera. We have to ask, what is the purpose of that, if not to anger people. And if it has a potential to stoke tensions, doesn't the prime minister have a prerogative to try and maintain peace in his country?Very, very recently the Indian government actually sanctioned the release of a film called "The Kashmir Files," which has been called by many filmmakers as brazen propaganda of the Hindu right. Now, what happened in Kashmir, the attack on Hindus, was something that happened legitimately. But the movie, the way "The Kashmir Files" was made, was a very Islamophobic way that paints all Muslims as some kind of bloodthirsty villains. The prime minister of India, and this happened years ago, decades ago, but the prime minister of India and the home minister of India, not just endorsed the release of the film, but the prime minister went on record saying that no activist or no journalist should censor this film because it shows the reality of India. So, if it was really a law-and-order concern, then this is a pick-and-choose by the government of India, that it wants to show a certain documentary, but it does not want to show a certain [other] documentary.We need to point out as well that the battle over this documentary is just the latest incident of censorship in India. So, what does free speech and free press look like in your country right now?Well, in a country which calls itself the world's largest democracy, the prime minister of India has not taken a single press conference. One of the reasons why he did not give interviews was that he referred to journalists as "news traders." In a country where 220 million Muslims in the country are routinely under attack by Hindu nationalists; where Hindu nationalists are seen in the national capital taking violent calls for converting India into a Hindu nation; when the prime minister of the country, who is absolutely media savvy, who likes to tweet about everything, does not tweet to ask for an inclusive India, does not tweet for an end to violence, does not take a single press briefing, does not give interviews to mainstream media; when journalists in India are being silenced, I think press freedom, there is no such thing as press freedom in India.Rana, you are a fierce critic of Narendra Modi and how he sees democracy in India, but he's still extremely popular there. Swapan Dasgupta, an Indian politician who was in Modi's party and a former journalist, says in the documentary, "Our democracy may not be perfect, but it keeps on improving. And I think there's enough elbow room for everybody to have opinions, whether they are rational or otherwise." What is your reaction to that idea that India's democracy is improving and there's still room for lots of differing opinions?I really hope Mr. Dasgupta tries to see what's happening on the ground, because this is an idea of democracy that he believes is only on camera, but not otherwise. So, I need to understand what kind of a democracy it is when every day you see violence against the Muslim community in acts that are public? Hindu nationalists are on camera in the presence of police forces, giving hate speeches, asking for a genocide of Muslims. I am trying to understand what is the construct of this democracy when some of India's best-known student activists are behind bars for protesting the Citizenship Amendment Act, which is being brought by the Indian government, a discriminatory [law that] discriminates against Muslims in India. So, honestly, Marco, more than anybody else, I am looking for a semblance of democracy in this country, because I love this country more than I can ever speak about, because I have seen democratic values. And the reason why I, and many journalists like me and activists, are speaking about this, is because we are seeing an erosion of democratic values in a country, which is now heading toward what looks like a fascist state.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.AP contributed to this report.

Related: 'India is a tinderbox': Religious tensions come to a boiling point after brutal murder of Hindu tailor

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class=”MuiTypography-root-233 MuiTypography-h1-238″>'Libya's institutions are becoming weaker,' analyst says after suspected Lockerbie bomber arrest

A Libyan man suspected of involvement in the making of the bomb that destroyed Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, is now in US custody. To discuss the view from inside Libya, The World's host Marco Werman spoke with Jalel Harchaoui, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies in Paris.

The WorldDecember 12, 2022 · 4:00 PM EST

• By Omar Duwaji

Paul Hudson of Sarasota, Fla., holds up a photo of his daughter Melina who was killed at 16 years old, along with the photos of almost a hundred other victims of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, as he speaks to members of the media in front of the federal courthouse in Washington, Dec. 12, 2022.

Andrew Harnik/AP

The suspected bombmaker of the explosives that downed Pan Am flight 103 — en route from London to New York — over the town of Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, is now in US custody. The US Department of Justice said that Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir al-Marimi will make his initial appearance in the US District Court in Washington, DC, though no date is set yet.

For the view from inside Libya and how Mas’ud came to now be in the US, The World's host Marco Werman spoke with Jalel Harchaoui, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies in Paris, where he focuses on North Africa and Libya.

Marco Werman: Who had control of Mas'ud and why did they turn him over?Jalel Harchaoui: It was actually a series of armed groups, very personalized armed groups, working for the prime minister, [Abdul Hamid al-] Dbeibeh. So, it wasn't really the Libyan state. The attorney general actually called the entire process extrajudicial, or "illegal," actually, to use his word. So, what happened was really a personal initiative of the individual that happens to be the prime minister in Tripoli, Abdul Hamid al-Dbeibah, his nephew, Ibrahim, and a few armed groups that work for them.

This image shows Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, who is in custody at the Alexandria Adult Detention Center in Alexandria, Va., Dec. 12, 2022.

Credit:

Alexandria Sheriff's Office via AP

And what was their interest in handing him over now?Well, we are basically deep in a very quid pro quo kind of logic. This prime minister, as we were talking about, his term expired a year ago. And he's very much interested in staying in power. And he knows, apparently — that's his gamble, his wager — that if he gives a valued gift to a nation, a powerful nation by the name of the United States of America, he will be able to survive a little bit longer in power. That is the logic at play here.So, back up a bit and help us understand the political situation today in Libya under which [Abu Agila Mohammad] Mas'ud [Kheir al-Marimi] was handed over to the US. I mean, since 2012 and the death of longtime strongman Muammar Gaddafi, Libya has basically been in various states of upheaval. What is the current situation with the civil war and competing governments in Libya?Well, there's no hot war. There's no major exchange of fire. The situation is relatively calm and it has been for two and a half years, really. The issue right now is the political crisis, corruption, the absence of elections. As you said, the the elections that were slated to happen in December 2021 collapsed. And there's no real UN process. The UN is just trying to, kind of, revive this notion of elections, but you basically have two prime ministers. One in Tripoli, the one that we just mentioned, and another one, a rival aligned with Field Marshal [Khalifa] Haftar by the name of Fathi Bashagha in the city of Sirte. So, those two prime ministers are basically staring at each other and each one is interested in surviving, particularly Abdul Hamid al-Dbeibeh in Tripoli, because that's where the institutions are, that's where the bank is, that's where the money is, the ability to sign contracts. So, the stakes are quite high.And does the handing over of Mas'ud to US custody tell us anything about where things are headed politically in Libya?Well, I think the way I interpret it is that the institutions are becoming obviously weaker and weaker. The process that we have been discussing, you and I, is completely informal. It's completely outside of the justice system from a Libyan perspective. And so, this means that both the Libyan elites and foreign states, including the United States, accept a de facto situation where institutions don't really matter. It's just about who you speak to, you know, if you're friends with a particular armed group and the armed group happens to give you something useful, you accept the gift and you move on. So, this institutional weakening is very alarming in many regards.What does the handing over of Mas'ud to US officials mean for most Libyans?It means that it's going to be effectively two Libyas, right? Because the US also has partners in the East who happen to be the enemies of the prime minister in Tripoli. The US is happy to deal with both Libyas. So, this de facto partition is probably going to continue. Actually, I believe that it will continue deepening. And there's no real process to fix this whole thing and turn it back into a unitary state.

Unidentified crash investigators inspect the nose section of the crashed Pan Am flight 103 in a field near Lockerbie, Scotland, Dec. 23, 1988.

Credit:

Dave Caulkin/AP/File photo

Jalel, back up a bit. How did the Lockerbie bombing impact Libya?I would summarize it by saying that the sanctions imposed by the UN in 1992 really had a huge effect on Gaddafi. He actually stopped supporting a lot of the terror activities that he was known to support in the '70s, in the '80s. So, all of that kind of stopped in the '90s, and beginning in the late '90s, he was actually quite sincerely interested in coming back out from the cold and get into the Western world, be accepted among Western nations, which began happening in earnest in December 2003, when the George W. Bush administration struck a deal with Gaddafi on weapons of mass destruction. And he was able to kind of continue that momentum. And he really believed that he succeeded. By the late 2000s, he was actually part of the Western club. And that was just a few years before the intervention that toppled him in 2011. So, I would say that it's probably, like all Libyans have a strong opinion about the Lockerbie event and they all remember the consequences that it had on their lives.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.AP contributed to this report.

Related: New suspects in the Lockerbie bombing might actually want extradition

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class=”MuiTypography-root-225 MuiTypography-h1-230″>Handing over of Lockerbie suspect will 'effectively create two Libyas,' analyst says

A Libyan man suspected of involvement in the making of the bomb that destroyed Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, is now in US custody. To discuss the view from inside Libya, The World's host Marco Werman spoke with Jalel Harchaoui, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies in Paris.

The WorldDecember 12, 2022 · 4:00 PM EST

• By Omar Duwaji

Paul Hudson of Sarasota, Fla., holds up a photo of his daughter Melina who was killed at 16 years old, along with the photos of almost a hundred other victims of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, as he speaks to members of the media in front of the federal courthouse in Washington, Dec. 12, 2022.

Andrew Harnik/AP

The suspected bombmaker of the explosives that downed Pan Am flight 103 — en route from London to New York — over the town of Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, is now in US custody. The US Department of Justice said that Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir al-Marimi will make his initial appearance in the US District Court in Washington, DC, though no date is set yet.

For the view from inside Libya and how Mas’ud came to now be in the US, The World's host Marco Werman spoke with Jalel Harchaoui, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies in Paris, where he focuses on North Africa and Libya.

Marco Werman: Who had control of Mas'ud and why did they turn him over?Jalel Harchaoui: It was actually a series of armed groups, very personalized armed groups, working for the prime minister, [Abdul Hamid al-] Dbeibeh. So, it wasn't really the Libyan state. The attorney general actually called the entire process extrajudicial, or "illegal," actually, to use his word. So, what happened was really a personal initiative of the individual that happens to be the prime minister in Tripoli, Abdul Hamid al-Dbeibah, his nephew, Ibrahim, and a few armed groups that work for them.

This image shows Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, who is in custody at the Alexandria Adult Detention Center in Alexandria, Va., Dec. 12, 2022.

Credit:

Alexandria Sheriff's Office via AP

And what was their interest in handing him over now?Well, we are basically deep in a very quid pro quo kind of logic. This prime minister, as we were talking about, his term expired a year ago. And he's very much interested in staying in power. And he knows, apparently — that's his gamble, his wager — that if he gives a valued gift to a nation, a powerful nation by the name of the United States of America, he will be able to survive a little bit longer in power. That is the logic at play here.So, back up a bit and help us understand the political situation today in Libya under which [Abu Agila Mohammad] Mas'ud [Kheir al-Marimi] was handed over to the US. I mean, since 2012 and the death of longtime strongman Muammar Gaddafi, Libya has basically been in various states of upheaval. What is the current situation with the civil war and competing governments in Libya?Well, there's no hot war. There's no major exchange of fire. The situation is relatively calm and it has been for two and a half years, really. The issue right now is the political crisis, corruption, the absence of elections. As you said, the the elections that were slated to happen in December 2021 collapsed. And there's no real UN process. The UN is just trying to, kind of, revive this notion of elections, but you basically have two prime ministers. One in Tripoli, the one that we just mentioned, and another one, a rival aligned with Field Marshal [Khalifa] Haftar by the name of Fathi Bashagha in the city of Sirte. So, those two prime ministers are basically staring at each other and each one is interested in surviving, particularly Abdul Hamid al-Dbeibeh in Tripoli, because that's where the institutions are, that's where the bank is, that's where the money is, the ability to sign contracts. So, the stakes are quite high.And does the handing over of Mas'ud to US custody tell us anything about where things are headed politically in Libya?Well, I think the way I interpret it is that the institutions are becoming obviously weaker and weaker. The process that we have been discussing, you and I, is completely informal. It's completely outside of the justice system from a Libyan perspective. And so, this means that both the Libyan elites and foreign states, including the United States, accept a de facto situation where institutions don't really matter. It's just about who you speak to, you know, if you're friends with a particular armed group and the armed group happens to give you something useful, you accept the gift and you move on. So, this institutional weakening is very alarming in many regards.What does the handing over of Mas'ud to US officials mean for most Libyans?It means that it's going to be effectively two Libyas, right? Because the US also has partners in the East who happen to be the enemies of the prime minister in Tripoli. The US is happy to deal with both Libyas. So, this de facto partition is probably going to continue. Actually, I believe that it will continue deepening. And there's no real process to fix this whole thing and turn it back into a unitary state.

Unidentified crash investigators inspect the nose section of the crashed Pan Am flight 103 in a field near Lockerbie, Scotland, Dec. 23, 1988.

Credit:

Dave Caulkin/AP/File photo

Jalel, back up a bit. How did the Lockerbie bombing impact Libya?I would summarize it by saying that the sanctions imposed by the UN in 1992 really had a huge effect on Gaddafi. He actually stopped supporting a lot of the terror activities that he was known to support in the '70s, in the '80s. So, all of that kind of stopped in the '90s, and beginning in the late '90s, he was actually quite sincerely interested in coming back out from the cold and get into the Western world, be accepted among Western nations, which began happening in earnest in December 2003, when the George W. Bush administration struck a deal with Gaddafi on weapons of mass destruction. And he was able to kind of continue that momentum. And he really believed that he succeeded. By the late 2000s, he was actually part of the Western club. And that was just a few years before the intervention that toppled him in 2011. So, I would say that it's probably, like all Libyans have a strong opinion about the Lockerbie event and they all remember the consequences that it had on their lives.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.AP contributed to this report.

Related: New suspects in the Lockerbie bombing might actually want extradition

Will you support The World?

The story you just read is accessible and free to all because thousands of listeners and readers contribute to our nonprofit newsroom. Our team has one shared goal: bringing The World to you. We go deep to bring you the human-centered international reporting that you know you can trust. To do this work and to do it well, we rely on a mix of grants and donations from our listeners. 

If you appreciated our coverage this year, will you make a year-end gift to help sustain our work in 2023?

Count me in!Related ContentAs bombs fall, northern Syria braces for a potential Turkish invasionAl Jazeera wants the ICC to do a 'thorough and independent' investigation into Shireen Abu Akleh's killing Colombia’s govt launches peace talks with the nation’s largest-remaining rebel groupAfter 2 years of war, hope for peace in northern Ethiopia

class=”MuiTypography-root-225 MuiTypography-h1-230″>As Earth surpasses 8 billion people, 'the planet can feed and sustain billions more,' demographer says

It only took just over a decade for the world to add 1 billion more people. To break down what this growth means for societies around the globe, The World's host Carol Hills speaks to demographer and author Jennifer Sciubba.

The WorldNovember 15, 2022 · 3:00 PM EST

• By Lex Weaver

Pakistanis shops in a weekly pet market in Lahore, Pakistan, Nov. 13, 2022.

Fareed Khan/AP

Eight billion: That's the number of people now living on planet Earth, according to a UN report. And it took only 11 years for the world's population to grow from 7 billion to 8 billion.

In a symbolic move, a baby girl born today in the Philippines was welcomed as number 8 billion, especially since it's difficult to accurately calculate the number of people in the world, with sums possibly being off by a year or two.

Meanwhile, India is projected to become the world's most populous country by next year, surpassing China.

The World's host Carol Hills discussed the issue of population growth and what it means for society with Jennifer Sciubba. She is a demographer and author of the book, "8 Billion and Counting: How Sex, Death, and Migration Shape Our World," and joined the discussion from Washington, DC.

Carol Hills: Jennifer, you've said the focus should not just be on the number of babies being born — that that's the wrong way to frame things. I wonder why and what is the right way?Jennifer Sciubba: Well, if we were in the last century, it would make a lot of sense for us to think about numbers overall, because we started last century with only 1.6 billion people and ended it with 6.1 billion. It was a century of exponential population growth. This century, even though we've already added 2 billion people, that's not what will characterize this moment for us. Instead, it's a story of differential population trends. We've never been further apart around the world in terms of births, deaths and migration. And that's where we really need to keep our focus as we go through this century, toward a time when actually global population trends will be converging.

A graphic showing global human population milestones.

Credit:

Courtesy of Jennifer Sciubba

Living standards is a big issue on this topic. And living standards for Americans — we consume a tremendous amount of resources. If the whole world lived like us, would we just be totally sunk?I think we would be. I think that where we really need to focus our innovation and our attention over the next few decades is places in the world that have standards of living that are rising to meet those in America. It's not necessarily places that actually have high fertility. I think the really remarkable place to look at is India, for example. On average, for the whole country, the fertility rate is actually below replacement, below the number needed just to replace who's already born. But we know that this is one area of the world that is about to be the most populous country in the world, really, any day now will surpass China, and standards of living there are rising. So, how do we equip Indians to have a rising standard of living, a better quality of life, but in a way that will be sustainable for them and their environment?A lot of the future growth in population is projected for Africa. What specific countries have the highest birthrate there and what are the implications of that?We might look at Nigeria. Nigeria's population is looking to double between now and mid-century, and Nigeria will replace the United States as the third most-populous country. And the leadership in Nigeria has not shown quite the level of commitment needed to rights-based family planning and reproductive health, girls education, ending child marriage, those kinds of policy measures that would help lower fertility. They lower preferences for the number of children, and they also allow people to exercise those preferences.Isn't there an inherent tension between living standards and population, meaning the higher the living standard, the fewer kids people have? Is that correct?Yes. So, when we think about 'why do people start to have fewer children?' — it's not just one thing. So, we know that with more educational opportunities, people will delay the time when they have their first child. And of course, when you delay the time you have your first child, eventually, biologically for women, you end up running out of time. We know when there are other economic opportunities outside the home, and we also know that there are some real negative pressures on fertility. I think something for us to watch out for are places where total fertility rates are very low. We're talking in South Korea, for example, less than one child per woman on average. And South Korea is not alone. It may be the lowest, but I think that a lot of countries are really seeing that very low pressure on fertility.

A graphic breaking down the difference between healthy and overall life expectancy at birth.

Credit:

Courtesy of Jennifer Sciubba/Data from World Health Organization

I want to turn to climate change. Many people worry that global population growth is bad for the fight against global warming. Others say that's not necessarily the case. Break down those two camps and how do you see it?Two out of every three people on the planet live somewhere with the low replacement fertility, meaning the number needed to just replace who's already born. So, if we want to frame the issue of population as one of overpopulation, that doesn't work when you're talking about places where people are already having few children. So, to frame it as overpopulation can be really ethically a quagmire. Certainly, there are places in the world that still have high fertility, and those places, we need to double down on our efforts to have education and family planning.We've talked about regions where populations are growing fast and regions where birthrates are crashing. There's a third dynamic, too, which is regions where populations are physically moving. How does global migration factor into understanding how 8 billion people fit together on this planet?Migration is the third pillar of population change and it's just as important as trends in births or deaths. But the impact of it is uneven. If we look globally, over 96% of us stay put. We don't move. The effect globally is that, while there are millions, hundreds of millions of people who move, the proportion of the world population who lives outside the country in which they were born has actually been steady and been quite low — below 4% — over the last several decades. But where these people move, and where they move from, is uneven around the globe.Bottom line, how many people can the planet feed and sustain?The planet can feed and sustain billions more. It is a matter of whether or not we have the political will and the know-how and the innovation to do so.

 This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.AP contributed to this report. 

Related: China now allows 3 kids per family, but many couples say they can’t afford it

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class=”MuiTypography-root-134 MuiTypography-h1-139″>Alberta's diminishing bee colonies could have severe economic, environmental implications, expert says

Canada's Alberta province has seen a 50% loss in its bee colonies this year alone. Experts fear this could have a major impact on crops and honey production. Rod Scarlett, executive director of the Canadian Honey Council, spoke to The World's host Marco Werman about the situation.

The WorldJuly 21, 2022 · 2:45 PM EDT

• By Carol Hills

The hind legs or 'pollen basket' of a pollinating bee clings to a Salvia 'Mystic Spires Blue' sage flower at the United States Botanic Garden in Washington, Nov. 13, 2021.

Carolyn Kaster/AP/File photo

Bees commonly buzz around in the summertime, but their numbers have noticeably diminished in recently years. 

Bees are critical for pollinating crops and producing honey and the significant drop in global bee populations has experts worried. 

The European Parliament recently released figures showing that about 84% of crop species and 78% of wildflowers across the EU depend to some extent on pollination. Nearly $16.5 billion of the bloc’s annual agricultural output “is directly attributed to insect pollinators.”

The decline in bee numbers is also worsening in Canada. This year, Alberta province suffered a 50% loss of its bee colonies.

Rod Scarlett, the executive director of the Canadian Honey Council, spoke to The World's host Marco Werman from outside Edmonton, Alberta, about the crisis.

Marco Werman: So, a 50% loss of beehives for commercial beekeepers, Rod. What's behind that drop?Rod Scarlett: Most people say it's varroa, which is a mite, and it's kind of sucks on the bees guts. That mite, we've been trying to eradicate, or at least control as best as possible. And it appears, like last year, we just didn't do a very good job of it.And is the danger of that mite a new thing, or has that been going on for a few years?Oh, it's been going on for 25 years. It's just the products that we use to try to control the mite, the efficacy of those products seems to be going down and down. And so, we're trying to develop new techniques where you add in organic compounds and things like that to control the mite population over the course of the season. But last year, ultimately, it didn't work.So, I'm really curious how this affects commercial beekeepers in Alberta and what their options are to replace them?In Alberta, there's about 320,000 colonies and, each year, beekeepers lose probably 20% to 22% of those colonies. And that's a manageable number for beekeepers to handle. This past year, it was significantly higher — as you mentioned, 50%. So, to replace those colonies, beekeepers first have to either buy packaged bees, which is imported packages or imported colonies, mini-colonies from Australia, New Zealand or Chile, or they take their strongest colonies and split them in two, to get their numbers back. But that impacts the amount of honey that that colony could produce over the course of a year and the pollination capabilities of that colony. So, while they may get the numbers back, it has an economic impact both on the honey production side, so their financial well-being if they're strictly a honey producer, or they'll get paid less for pollination because they don't have strong enough colonies for the pollination contracts that they've signed. So again, it has an economic implication. If we experience the same thing next year, we are in a critically poor situation.Like how poor? What would you be facing?Certainly pollination problems. Also production problems, and production problems could impact things like seed canola. Commercial canola crops constitute 21 to 22 million acres in Canada. And the pollination that is done on seed canola feeds the commercial canola. If they can't meet the demands of contracts and sell honey or pollinate, it has some really severe economic implications. But there's the environmental side, too, of not having honeybees around to do pollination.So, the decline in the bee population has been going on for years. Where do the troubles in Canada right now fit into the overall decline around the globe?We've had regions and provinces in the past where there have been significant losses, but other provinces have been able to supply stock and help alleviate the pressures that the region that had that loss would have experienced. This year, it's pretty much Canada-wide, and so other provinces and other regions are unable to help. And that's what makes this issue in Canada this year so much different than in the past.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.AP contributed to this report.

Related: Mayan beekeepers launch legal battle to protect the environment

class=”MuiTypography-root-134 MuiTypography-h1-139″>Haitians face a ‘very dire climate’ one year after Moïse's assassination, journalist says

A year since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, Haiti has descended into further violence, and efforts to hold people accountable have proven to be fruitless. Widlore Merancourt, editor with news outlet AyiboPost in Port-au-Prince, discussed with The World's host Marco Werman what the anniversary means for Haitians.

The WorldJuly 8, 2022 · 1:45 PM EDT

• By Joyce Hackel

Supporters of slain Haitian President Jovenel Moïse protest to demand justice in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, July 7, 2022.

Odelyn Joseph/AP

Haiti marked one year since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse on Thursday.

Gunmen in the capital of Port-au-Prince broke down the door to Moïse's home in 2021, and then shot and killed him in his bedroom.

Today, Haitians are nowhere near closure. Efforts to find those responsible and hold them accountable have been fruitless, and Moïse's death has created a power vacuum.

Meanwhile, Haiti's acting president, Ariel Henry, has an ever-weakening grip on power. The US-backed government is facing political paralysis and an economic meltdown. And armed gangs still control much of everyday life in the country.

Widlore Merancourt, editor with the news outlet AyiboPost in Port-au-Prince, spoke with The World's host Marco Werman about what this somber anniversary means for Haitians.

Marco Werman: How has the country changed since the killing of President Jovenel Moïse?Widlore Merancourt: The country was already in deep trouble before the assassination of the president. He was a very unpopular president. He was trying to change the constitution in an unconstitutional manner. The country further plunged into insecurity during his term. So, when he's killed in this brutal fashion, it's a step further in the wrong direction for most Haitians.From your perspective, Widlore, have efforts to identify, locate and punish the assassins, has that made any progress?I'm not certain we've made any progress. Right after the assassination, dozens of people were arrested. We now have a fifth judge that is going to be in charge of the investigation. We had four judges consecutively having the case, then they dropped it for different reasons. One of them did not [even] receive the file for the case. So, [there are] a lot of questions, but not many answers one year later.Yeah. Well, now on to investigating judge number five. That speaks to the political gridlock you mentioned earlier. Who do Haitians blame for why the investigations have not gone further?There are accusations against the prime minister himself. Remember, he fired a prosecutor in the Ministry of Justice because they were trying to interview him regarding his role in the assassination.Widlore, you also mentioned the desperate lack of security in Haiti. Armed criminal gangs are becoming more prominent. Port-au-Prince alone has more than 200 gangs. In the course of your day, or your work, do you encounter the gangs? Do they impact your life?Just [last] Friday, I was going into a retreat with my team, a team of journalists, who spent some time as a group, [to] relax a little bit, because the past year has been very tough. But when we reached a slum very close to the capital, we encountered bandits fighting with the police. And we could not cross to go to the north of the country. And this is just one example of what Haitians have to go through. You have the north of the country increasingly cut off from the capital, and you have, effectively, the south of the country that you also cannot reach, because bandits close the roads and you have to pay fees to cross with your car. And sometimes the car is attacked. And regularly, we have kids being killed, pregnant women being killed. So, it's a very dire climate where you have thousands and thousands of people being displaced, because bandits are taking over more and more swaths of territory.So, what happens when Haitian police try to confront the gangs? Does that ever happen?There were allegations also that some police officers are corrupt. … And they [don't have enough arms]. And another problem is that some of these gangs have connections with powerful people in politics and in business.Yeah, our listeners might wonder how gangs can accumulate so much power. Tell us, if you would, about the group called "5 Secondes" or "5 Seconds." They took over one of the country's largest courthouses last month. What happened?The 5 Secondes guys are specialized in kidnapings, mass kidnapings in the south of the capital. The 5 Secondes gang is run by a young gentleman named Izo. He's a wannabe artist who is using social media to terrorize people and also to make fun of his victims. … Recently, his Instagram page was verified. … Recently, I was talking to a woman. She has one family member who was kidnaped and they gave $100,000. So, they kidnap poor people, they kidnap rich people. They use this money to buy more guns. Most of the guns that were retrieved by the police in Haiti come from the United States.You also said these gangs were using Instagram. There are other platforms I know, like TikTok and Twitter, to recruit, but also to scheme. Do you have any idea whether any of those platforms are aware of what's going on or have tried to shut down how the gangs that were using them?TikTok actually took down one of the most popular pages of Izo, this gang that we just talked about. But these gangs still have accounts on these platforms, and these gangs are speaking [Haitian] Creole. And it's unclear how many Creole-speaking moderators, for instance, a company like Meta or TikTok, would have. And it's very difficult for these companies to moderate in a language that they do not understand.Everyday life just sounds so on edge in Haiti, Widlore, and for a journalist who has to cover that insecurity, I'm just wondering, when do you find moments to exhale? I mean, you spoke about going to that retreat with some of your colleagues and that was scuppered.Yes, I mean, being a journalist in Haiti is learning to live with fear and to continue anyway, every day. I meditate, and we did not go to the north like we planned, but we went to another quiet base up in the capital to spend two days with the team. But, at the same time, we know, as leaders in these newsrooms, how hard it is for our teams to concentrate when, sometimes coming to work, they are encountering bodies in the streets or they have family members who were kidnaped. You have families, many are reporting a story that is not just a story for a foreigner to tell. It's your story and you are embedded in it. You have to be patient. You have to take time for yourself and reflect when you can. And sometimes, like most Haitians, especially living in the capital, you don't go out. You don't go to parties. You don't spend time outside in restaurants, etc., because you have to take precautions, especially when you have so many enemies in high and powerful positions.

Related: 'Haitians deserve a chance to determine their own future,' former US envoy says

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.AP contributed to this report.

class=”MuiTypography-root-134 MuiTypography-h1-139″>Uzbek govt needs 'more consultation with the population' amid unrest, expert says

Massive protests broke out after Uzbekistan's President Shavkat Mirziyoyev proposed constitutional changes that would have prevented the Karakalpakstan region from holding a referendum on secession. He has since backed away from the proposal, but imposed a monthlong curfew.

The WorldJuly 5, 2022 · 3:15 PM EDT

• By Daniel OfmanThe World staff

Uzbekistan's President Shavkat Mirziyoyev attends a meeting of Presidents of ex-Soviet nations which are members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, at Konstantin Palace in Strelna, outside St. Petersburg, Russia, Dec. 28, 2021.

Yevgeny Biyatov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP/File photo

Rare protests in Uzbekistan have left at least 14 civilians and four police officers dead in the northwestern province of Karakalpakstan. More than 200 others were also injured. Uzbek authorities say that it’s been the worst bout of violence the Central Asian nation has seen in nearly two decades.

Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev had recently proposed constitutional changes that would have prevented the Karakalpakstan region from holding a referendum on separating from the rest of the country, sparking the unrest in the region's capital, Nuku.

Officials say that demonstrators tried to seize government buildings and clashed with police.

Mirziyoyev has since backed away from the proposal, but he still imposed a nighttime curfew for the region until Aug. 2.

Uzbekistan is the most populous country in Central Asia, ruled by successive authoritarian governments.

Related: Some Afghan university students find refuge — and hope — in Kyrgyzstan

Karakalpakstan — a semi-autonomous republic that enjoys close ties with Russia — is home to the Karakalpaks, a distinct ethnic minority group whose language is related, but distinct, from Uzbek. The region also has a parliament and its own flag.

“Karakalpaks feel that [because of] some of the policies the government has promoted, it's meant that ethnic Uzbeks have moved more and more into this territory of Karakalpakstan to open up businesses, and that they've been neglected and, in many cases, forced to migrate to places like Russia and Kazakhstan,” said Steve Swerdlow, an associate human rights professor at the University of Southern California.

“There weren't out and out calls for independence, but simply for retaining autonomy.”

Steve Swerdlow, associate professor, University of Southern California

“There weren't out and out calls for independence, but simply for retaining autonomy,” he said.

“What we know is that the driving motivation for the constitutional reform process was to zero out the constitution and replace it with a new constitution, which would allow the current president to stand again for reelection and essentially continue his rule.”

Meanwhile, hundreds of people have been detained. Swerdlow explained that there are reports that “some of the journalists and bloggers who were active at the protests are already being charged with separatism and terrorism.”

He said that he hopes human rights organizations can do their job and to assess the number of people who died, and in what circumstances. “I do hope that the constitutional reform process will be put on hold and that there will be more consultation with the population as a whole.”

AP contributed to this report.

class=”MuiTypography-root-134 MuiTypography-h1-139″>MBS visits Ankara as Turkey attempts to repair relations with its regional rivals

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for talks in Ankara. The visit comes as Turkey seeks to repair ties with its regional rivals. Steven A. Cook at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington spoke with The World's host Carol Hills about the significance of the visit.

The WorldJune 23, 2022 · 3:30 PM EDT

• By Omar Duwaji

Turkish President Recep Tayyip  Erdoğan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman review a military honor guard during a welcome ceremony, in Ankara, Turkey, June 22, 2022.

Burhan Ozbilici/AP

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrived in Turkey for talks President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Wednesday. The visit is an attempt to normalize relations between the two countries.

Ankara and Riyadh fell out after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 by agents of the Saudi government at the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul. The two countries were also on opposing sides during the Qatar diplomatic crisis that began in 2017.

Related: Uyghurs in Saudi Arabia risk deportation to China

The visit by Crown Prince Mohammed also comes as Turkey seeks to improve ties with a number of its regional rivals — including Israel, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. Turkey has been struggling to contain its economic crisis and falling currency. Meanwhile, Erdoğan hopes to bring more stability to the country ahead of presidential elections next year.

Related: US sales of missiles to Saudis signal business as usual — almost

To discuss the rapprochement, Steven A. Cook, who follows the Turkey-Saudi relationship and is a senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, spoke with The World's host Carol Hills.

Carol Hills: Steven, this isn't the first visit between MBS, the crown prince, and Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. They visited in Saudi Arabia in April. Do you think this is the more significant of the two visits?Steven A. Cook: Well, it certainly is a more elaborate visit. President Erdoğan is hosting a state banquet for the Saudi crown prince. And I think the Turks are kind of pulling out the stops in order to court the crown prince. Of course, it's an extraordinary turnaround since President Erdoğan led the international effort to heap criticism on Mohammed bin Salman after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.It certainly is. What does Turkey get out of fully normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia?The Turkish economy is in pretty bad shape and President Erdoğan has been forced to make a number of foreign policy U-turns, particularly with countries in the Persian Gulf, seeking finance and investment from those countries, hoping that this will spur Turkish economic growth, help refloat the Turkish lira ahead of presidential elections coming just about a year from now.So, what specifically does Turkey want from Saudi Arabia?Well, they certainly want whatever investment and whatever selling off of state assets the Turks are willing to do. But most importantly, they're interested in a currency swap. This is something that the Turks have been going around the world, seeking to swap their currency, which has lost more than half of its value over the course of the last couple of years, for deposits in the Saudi currency. The Turks have a currency swap agreement with the United Arab Emirates, with China, with Qatar, and it would be beneficial to them if they could enter into such an agreement with the Saudis. It also would signal to international markets a certain amount of confidence in the Turkish economy and President Erdoğan's stewardship of the Turkish economy.So, does this visit by MBS to Turkey, does it basically say that the Khashoggi affair is now water under the bridge?Even before President Erdoğan went to Saudi Arabia, the issue of Jamal Khashoggi's brutal murder in Istanbul became water under the bridge when the Turkish authorities transferred the case against those suspected of killing Khashoggi to Saudi authorities, essentially burying it and ensuring that those responsible won't really be held responsible.And so, that's that. Are there any international repercussions for sweeping the Khashoggi case under the rug at this point?There don't seem to be any international repercussions. After all, President Biden is going to visit Saudi Arabia in mid-July and he'll also meet with the Saudi crown prince. So, essentially the memory of Jamal Khashoggi and the memory of his brutal murder will be kept alive by human rights activists, his friends and others. But there's likely to be very little geopolitical accountability for the crown prince.MBS has been on a tour of the region in the last week. He's been to Egypt, Jordan and now Turkey. As you mentioned, he's also set to receive a visit from President Biden. Do you think this signals the end of his pariah status?Undoubtedly, that's the case. But he was never a pariah in the Arab world. Saudi Arabia is an important player, and as the heir to the throne and the keeper of the two holy places, Mecca and Medina, he was never a pariah. Even in the United States, its European partners have inched closer and closer to Mohammed bin Salman. Essentially, President Biden is the last holdout, and I think that his visit will absolutely bring an end to this episode where people sought to avoid being seen with the Saudis at the very least, but the rehabilitation of Mohammed bin Salman is well underway.And that rehabilitation is because all these countries that are now kind of cozying up to him need what he has.That's exactly the case. In the case of the United States, the president is doing everything he can to mitigate the pain that Americans are feeling at the gas pump right now. And Saudi Arabia is really the only country with the spare capacity who can produce oil cheaply enough to moderate prices in the relative short term.A lot of the major players in the region, like Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, they seem to be resolving their issues at the moment in an effort to move things forward. What is happening here?Yeah, it's been rather extraordinary. In the Middle East, a year or so ago, people were wondering where the next war would come from and which conflict would produce the next actual shooting war. But countries have determined that they have been unable to impose their will on each other through proxy fights and trying to outmaneuver each other in Libya or Syria or Iraq, other places where there is actual fighting, and have determined that the best way to go about — actually the regional competition is to reduce those tensions. In the case of Turkey and Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, for example, where there were very significant differences, and actually a war of words among these governments, the Saudis and Emiratis haven't exactly fallen in love with the Turks, but they see Turkish vulnerability in the deterioration of the Turkish economy and have sought to gain some leverage with the Turks that way instead of on the battlefields of Libya or Syria.How should the Biden administration be viewing this meeting between MBS and Erdoğan?Well, I do think that the Biden administration is somewhat relieved that the president is not the only one who is letting bygones be bygones with Mohammed bin Salman. It is something that I think the administration welcomes. They certainly don't want to see lots of tension in the Middle East as the president focuses on the conflict in Ukraine. So, less regional tension in the Middle East is better for the United States. At the level of politics and optics, again, the more people who rehabilitate Mohammed bin Salman before the president arrives in Saudi Arabia is probably better for the White House.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.AP contributed to this report.

class=”MuiTypography-root-134 MuiTypography-h1-139″>‘It’s absolutely ludicrous’: Traveler up in arms after being forced to take Ryanair’s Afrikaans-language test to fly

Dinesh Joseph, who is a South African-born leadership and management trainer based in London, was recently on vacation and was one of the people forced to take the test before boarding his flight from the Canary Islands back to the UK. He described the experience to The World's host Marco Werman.

The WorldJune 9, 2022 · 1:00 PM EDT

• By Joshua Coe

A Ryanair plane parks at the airport in Weeze, Germany, Sept. 12, 2018.

Martin Meissner/AP/File photo

Budget airline Ryanair says it's forcing South African travelers to the UK to do a test in the Afrikaans language to prove their nationality in an apparent effort to weed out those with phony passports.

Dublin-based Ryanair, Europe's biggest airline, mainly operates routes around Europe and doesn't fly to or from South Africa. It confirmed Monday that it's administering the quiz after reports about the test circulated over the weekend, sparking anger among travelers.

Afrikaans is one of South Africa's 11 official languages and is the first language of about 13% of the country's population. It's a Dutch-based language developed by many of the country's white settlers who came from the Netherlands and is associated with South Africa's apartheid regime of white minority rule that ended in 1994.

Related: Remembering the life and legacy of the late FW de Klerk, South Africa's last apartheid president

Regardless, passengers who do not complete the language test will not be allowed to board their flights. Despite a public outcry calling the procedure racist, the airline has said that it plans to continue using the test.

Related: Immigrant students settle with govt over fake university

The World reached out to Ryanair for comment and the company responded with the following statement:

“The South African government has already warned passengers (and airlines) of the risk of syndicates selling fake SA passports, which has substantially increased cases of fraudulent South African passports being used to enter the UK. In order to minimise the risk of fake passport usage, Ryanair requires passengers on a South African passport to fill out a simple questionnaire in the Afrikaans language. If they are unable to complete this questionnaire, they will be refused travel and issued with a full refund instead. Airlines operating to the UK face Home Office fines of £2,000 [$2,502] per passenger for anyone who travel illegally to the UK on a fraudulent passport/visa. This is why Ryanair must ensure that all passengers (especially South African citizens) travel on a valid SA passport/visa as required by UK Immigration.”

Dinesh Joseph, who is a South African-born leadership and management trainer based in London, was recently on vacation and was one of the people forced to take the test before boarding his flight from the Canary Islands back to the UK. He described the experience to The World's host, Marco Werman.

Images of Afrikaans test required for Ryanair passengers from South Africa traveling to the UK.

Credit:

Courtesy of Dinesh Joseph

Marco Werman: Tell me how this all happened. How'd you find out you had to take a test? Where were you flying from and to?Dinesh Joseph: I was on vacation in Lanzarote, Canary Islands. A beautiful five days in the sun. I was asked to go to the baggage check-in and print my boarding pass. I wasn't allowed to check in online. Strangely enough, I was told to go to the Ryanair customer service desk. I just kind of made my way over to the service desk, gave my passport and gave the boarding pass in to get stamped. And in return, I was presented with this Afrikaans test.You're an English speaker, as you said. Do you have any Afrikaans under your belt?I mean, I grew up in apartheid South Africa, and Afrikaans was a mandatory language that we had to take at school. So, you know, I'm one of the people, but that was, what, 25 odd years ago? I just about passed it at school anyway. So, I had some basic understanding of the language, but I said to them quite clearly, "Look, I cannot complete this test or pass it without the use of Google Translate." You know, I have a very, very minimal basic standard of Afrikaans. And I think my face looked like I was about to go nuclear on them. So, they were like, "We don't really know what to say to you using Google Translate." So, I just picked up my phone and grabbed a pen and started translating and filling in the quiz as we went along.

Related: World leaders agree to help South Africa phase out coal

Wow. What were some of the questions?Crazy. Yeah. So, some of the questions were really basic ones, like who's the president of South Africa? What's the highest mountain? What is your international dialing code? What side of the road do you drive on?So, you wrote a letter, I understand, to Ryanair. What did you write?Yes, once I got on the plane and I processed all of this and I arrived back home, I spoke to a group of close friends and my family. And everybody is like, "No, you've got nothing to be worried about, but this is wrong. This is not right. What is going on?" So, I logged on to their official complaints portal and let them know exactly the experience I'd gone through and that I wasn't happy about it.Have you heard back from them?Absolutely not. Not a word. There has been zero communication.

Related: Belarus plane hijacking snarls Biden's hopes to repair strained US-Russia relationship

We know from Ryanair, they say this policy about taking this Afrikaans test was put in place because of the "prevalence of fraudulent South African passports." What do you make of that?I think it's absolutely ludicrous. I genuinely think it's ridiculous because if they're trying to prove that my passport is fraudulent or it's real to verify my identity, how will a general knowledge quiz about South Africa link to my passport? You know, on what planet does that happen? You've got to look at other evidence, like more rigorous evidence, like bank statements or my British residency card or my social security number — we call it a national insurance number here in the UK. There are a load of different other ways of verifying a person's identity. Getting them to fill in a test has absolutely no bearing or no relevance to my passport. If anything, it's going to prove how well I know my South African general knowledge and whether or not I can speak a foreign language.As a South African, what's your association with the Afrikaans language?Look, I'll be honest with you, I don't have a negative association with it personally. I've got nothing against the language of Afrikaans. However, it was the language of the white minority during apartheid times. It was something that you had to take when you were at school. It does bring back a lot of memories of things that have happened to me in the past, things that I can associate, basic racism, an unconscious kind of bias against you. It's quite triggering from that perspective. But you know what, for me, it's the ability to be able to make a choice — my choice of language is English. It's the language that I'm proficient in. I don't understand why they would want people to do it and why they chose that language. Who at Ryanair actually let this test out. And on top of it, Marco, if I can add on, the actual form itself looks like a grade two children's test. There are spelling mistakes, there are grammar mistakes in it. There's no Ryanair logo or administrative titles on it or anything of the sort. It's incredible.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.AP contributed to this report.

class=”MuiTypography-root-134 MuiTypography-h1-139″>'I know that he will not stop fighting,' wife of Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza says

Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara Murza was arrested earlier this week in Moscow. He was sentenced to 15 days in jail in Moscow Tuesday for "disobeying a police order." Kara-Murza is a Kremlin critic and has publicly spoken out against Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Host Marco Werman with Vladimir Kara-Murza's wife, Evgenia Kara-Murza.

The WorldApril 14, 2022 · 2:45 PM EDT

• By Daniel Ofman

Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP/File photo

Many activists, journalists and academics, among others, have fled Russia as the government's crackdown on dissent continues amid the war in Ukraine. Others have even been arrested.

Russian politician Vladimir Kara-Murza, an outspoken critic of the Kremlin, was also detained earlier this week, and given a 15-day prison sentence.

Related: Ukrainian seafarers stuck at US ports face tight restrictions, legal hurdles

He was an associate of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov — who was shot and killed in 2015 — and of oligarch-turned-dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Kara-Murza said he experienced two poisoning attempts. The first one wasn't confirmed, but his wife, Evgenia Kara-Murza, said that in 2017, doctors verified he had been poisoned.

Related: As the war rages in Ukraine, Radio Sputnik occupies the airwaves in American heartland

She spoke with The World's host Marco Werman from northern Virginia about her husband's current detention.

Marco Werman: Can you share with us the latest, what you know about your husband's case?Evgenia Kara-Murza: Well, I spoke to him this morning, and he asked everyone not to lose faith. He says, "We will prevail, even if the path to freedom is much longer, much more difficult and much bloodier than we would ever have imagined." He was sentenced to 15 days in jail for disobeying an order of a police officer, which is absolutely ridiculous, because Vladimir, as a peaceful opposition activist, knows very well how you should behave while being arrested. Then, he spent the night at the Khamovniki Police Department in Moscow. He was denied access to his lawyer. The lawyer could only join him the next morning before the court session actually started, and the court session was extremely short. Everything was done in half an hour to 45 minutes. In that time, all the requests by my husband and his lawyer to at least call in and question the police officers who had made the arrest were denied. All my husband's arguments in this case were denied, and he was sentenced to 15 days in jail.So, you spoke to him when he was in detention. Did he describe his surroundings?Well, he's, should I say, lucky. But he's at one of the better detention centers of Moscow. There are others that are much worse, where torture and humiliation and deprivation are common. In this particular detention center, they occur like everywhere else, but not on a regular basis. So, I guess, we could say that he is luckier than some. He's not the only one who has been arrested since the beginning of the war for speaking out against Putin's aggression in Ukraine. Over 15,000 Russians have been arrested since the beginning of the war. They went out in the streets to protest this war despite great personal risks because new restrictive measures and restrictive laws are being adopted every day. And under one of them, for example, you can get sentenced for up to 15 years in prison for just calling this war a "war," and for disseminating, as the Russian government calls it, "fake news," but actually objective, true information about Putin's army's atrocities in Ukraine. Criminal cases are being initiated every day against those who go out in the streets to oppose this war, despite everything.Why do you think your husband has been arrested at this moment?Well, it could have happened at any moment. This is not the first time he's been targeted. He already paid a high price for his advocating for the introduction of targeted sanctions against murderers and thieves in Putin's regime. He has been doing this work since 2010. And his close colleague and friend, who began this work with him, paid the ultimate price for that. He was murdered on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge in Moscow. Boris Nemtsov was just shot in the back — five bullets in the back. That was what he got for advocating for the introduction of targeted sanctions. As for Vladimir, he paid a high price, as well, because he was twice poisoned for this particular work of his. And he had to twice relearn to walk and hold a spoon in 2015 and 2017. So, compared to that, 15 days in jail seems sort of a milder persecution. However, we're not yet sure if that's it because it might well be that they will use this time, these 15 days, to come up with something else to charge him with. And, as it happened in other cases against opposition activists in Russia, for example, in Alexei Navalny's case, he wasn't even allowed to get out of prison, and the cases against him kept piling up. So, it's not unusual for Russia to pile up cases against opposition activists nowadays while they're already serving sentences.So, this arrest of your husband, Vladimir Kara-Murza, came right after an interview that CNN published with him, in which he called Vladimir Putin's government a "regime of murderers." Do you believe the arrest is connected to that?It could be. I mean, I told you of his charge, and the charge sounds absolutely absurd. But in calling this the regime of murderers, my husband just called a spade a spade. We have known for years what Putin's regime truly is. Putin didn't just become a dictator overnight. He has been persecuting. He has been imprisoning, poisoning and killing his own citizens for two decades.I mean, your husband, as you said, he's been the target of multiple poisoning attempts. He speaks out vocally against Putin, and he's in Russia. In your mind, why was it important for him to be in Russia, despite the risk?The fact is, Putin is not destroying just one country right now. He's destroying two. When he's finally in jail, somewhere when he is — and I believe this day will come, I have to believe that, otherwise, how can we go on — but when he's finally in jail and when all the murders in his regime are in jail, the country will be in ruins. Everything will be destroyed by him, by his actions. And the Russian people will have to rebuild everything from scratch. And I believe Vladimir, he believes he needs to be where the Russian people are fighting this regime. He has to be on the front lines because he believes that, as a Russian politician who wants to bring change to his country, he has to be with the country's people fighting the evil.Your husband has come on our show several times and I put that same question to him. He says the same thing, he's a Russian politician, and for that reason, he should be in Russia. But I'm wondering, today, do you agree with his position?I have deep respect and admiration for my husband. The things he believes in, his commitment, are exemplary, they are amazing. And I cannot not support him in his fight. I will always, always stand by his side and I will always do whatever it takes to make sure that he continues to fight and that he's — like after his two poisonings, I did everything I could to bring him back home safely, and I will do the same this time. But I know that he will not stop fighting. Even if I bring him back, he will continue his fight and he will probably go back and continue it there. He's an amazing person and a true Russian patriot. You know, he's the true Russian patriot because he believes that you cannot equate the country to its regime. Those are two different things. Regimes, governments can be different. Some, you can support. Others you will hate with all your might. But the country, it doesn't make the country better or worse. It's the same country. You love your country, you want the best for it and you fight for it. That's what my husband has been doing for all these years.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.AP contributed to this report.

class=”MuiTypography-root-134 MuiTypography-h1-139″>A Ukrainian nuclear plant survived Russian attack. But it raises security concerns over reactors in war zones, analyst says.

Atomic safety experts say that a war fought amid nuclear reactors represents an unprecedented and highly dangerous situation. Henry Sokolski, the executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, talked with The World's Carol Hills about the risks.

The WorldMarch 4, 2022 · 3:45 PM EST

• By Joshua CoeThe World staff

This image made from a video released by Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant shows bright flaring object landing in grounds of the nuclear plant in Enerhodar, Ukraine, March 4, 2022.

Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant/AP

Heavy fighting broke out near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine last night.

Located in northwestern Enerhodar, the plant is the largest in Europe.

Ukraine says the attack by Russian forces caused a fire to break out at the facility. Firefighters were able to put out the blaze several hours later. 

The attack briefly raised worldwide fears of a catastrophe in the most chilling turn yet in Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. 

Related: Russia's invasion in Ukraine ‘is far from done,’ retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman says

United Nations and Ukrainian officials confirmed that no radiation was released in the incident. 

Authorities said that Russian troops had taken control of the overall site but that the plant staff continued to run it. 

Atomic safety experts said a war fought amid nuclear reactors represents an unprecedented and highly dangerous situation.

To get a better understanding of the risks at nuclear power plants in war zones, The World's host Carol Hills spoke to Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center.

Related: Ukrainians abroad return to defend their homeland
 

Carol Hills: We know there was a fire at the plant. What are the risks?Henry Sokolski: The risks would be, instead of shooting at an auxiliary building, some young buck might aim the artillery or the missile out of a spent-fuel pond [pool] storage building, or the containment building for the reactor core, or the electrical lines coming in that supply the electricity to keep both of those facilities cool so that they don't melt down or produce spent-fuel fires. If any of that might have occurred, the hyperbole of many Chernobyl's isn't really far from the mark.Ukraine has said the power plant is now occupied by the Russian military, and we know that employees are still operating the plant. But how do we know the situation is under control?Well, I mean, the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] wants to get there. I don't know that that's a complete thought. You want to probably have some way to know without having physical visits that things are operating properly, particularly at facilities that might be subject to war operations. And we just don't have that. I mean, we have to go on the reports of the people operating that are in control of it. And I don't know that this is a big issue, because only one of the six plants is operating now. The others were all shut down for fear that the containment buildings would have been penetrated and that the big radiological release that I talked about might occur. What you do is you shut the thing down so that the pressures and heat aren't as great. And so, the emissions from penetration wouldn't be quite as dramatic. But you know, that means that most of these facilities are not operating right now.What are these plants built to withstand?Not as much as being advertised. What they're built primarily to withstand is pressures from the inside of the plant getting out. And so, some of the containment systems are as low as 15 or 20 pounds per square inch. They were not meant to prevent ballistic objects from penetrating from outside. The spent-fuel pond [pool] building is incredibly soft in comparison to the containment building.But are they routinely built to, say, withstand an earthquake?They are supposed to be sited to not have to experience the earthquakes. In Japan, they have not done well in earthquakes. I don't know whether the seismic issue is a big one in Ukraine. But I think we have oversold to ourselves how resistant these plants are to the kinds of military operation threats that are going on here in Ukraine and that could occur in the Middle East. We did a big study on what would happen if missiles hit various portions of reactors in the Middle East, and the radiological models and patterns were very disturbing. We didn't have the presence of mind to do it for Ukraine, but obviously, this should be a wake-up call. I don't know that these kinds of studies have been properly done within our own government. I say that as somebody who worked at the Defense Department, at a pretty senior level.There are a lot of nuclear power plants across Ukraine. I mean, what are the risks to them at this point?I think they're similar. The Russians have not promised anything but to operate, if they choose, militarily against those facilities in the future. I mean, they were asked not to and they said, "No, we reserve the right to attack them, as well." People should be probably relieved about this [outcome], but biting their nails about other plants.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.AP contributed to this report.

Photo: pixabay.com

Sounds of shooting are heard near the government quarter in Kiev, writes the Associated Press.

Details of the incident have not yet been reported.

It was previously reported that all Ukrainians who signed up for the Territorial Defense Forces will be able to receive weapons.

Recall that on the morning of February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on the start of a special military operation in the Donbass within the framework of agreements with the DPR and LPR. Putin named the goal: “Ukraine must demilitarize.”

MK.RU is broadcasting the developments around Donbass and Ukraine online.

Источник www.mk.ru

class=”MuiTypography-root-133 MuiTypography-h1-138″>Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai's retraction 'comes off as highly staged,' journalist says

After Peng Shuai backtracked from accusing a top official of sexual assault, Jeremy Goldkorn, editor-in-chief of SupChina and co-founder of the Sinica Podcast, tells The World’s host Marco Werman that her statement seems forced.

The WorldDecember 20, 2021 · 3:45 PM EST

China's Peng Shuai reacts during her first round singles match against Japan's Nao Hibino at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Jan. 21, 2020.

Andy Brownbill/AP/File photo

Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai has denied saying she was sexually assaulted by a former top Communist Party official, backpeddling from her previous allegations in a November social media post.

Related: What the Peng Shuai saga tells us about Beijing’s grip on power and desire to crush a #MeToo moment

“First of all, I want to emphasize something that is very important … I have never said that I wrote that anyone sexually assaulted me. I need to emphasize this point very clearly."

Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai

“First of all, I want to emphasize something that is very important,” Peng said in a video posted by the Singaporean Chinese-language newspaper Lianhe Zaobao, in her first media interview since the accusations. “I have never said that I wrote that anyone sexually assaulted me. I need to emphasize this point very clearly."

The paper said the video was taken on Sunday in Shanghai.

But many people are viewing the latest development with skepticism. 

Related: This teen's TikTok video takes on Malaysia's toxic culture of misogyny

“When you watch the video, it comes off as highly staged, so, it's not exactly a reassurance that everything is fine."

Jeremy Goldkorn, editor-in-chief, SupChina 

“When you watch the video, it comes off as highly staged,” Jeremy Goldkorn, editor-in-chief of SupChina and co-founder of the Sinica Podcast, told The World’s host Marco Werman. “So, it's not exactly a reassurance that everything is fine.

Related: France’s 2nd #MeToo movement reckons with incest, child rape 

Peng Shuai of China reacts after scoring a point against Monica Niculescu of Romania during their women's singles match of the China Open tennis tournament at the Diamond Court in Beijing, Oct. 4, 2017.

Credit:

Andy Wong/AP/File photo

Goldkorn said that social media has made bringing attention to these types of cases possible  — including retractions. 

“There have been many, many cases of people who have gotten into trouble with the government and then have been forced into television appearances where they say that everything is fine and there's no problem, and that whatever happened was a misunderstanding.”

Jeremy Goldkorn, editor-in-chief, SupChina 

“There have been many, many cases of people who have gotten into trouble with the government and then have been forced into television appearances where they say that everything is fine and there's no problem, and that whatever happened was a misunderstanding.”

He cited the story of Gui Minhai, a Swedish bookseller operating in Hong Kong, who had spoken out against Chinese government officials. He had appeared at one point in a video interview released by China in which he accused Sweden of "sensationalizing" his case.

The controversy over Peng’s case has contributed to protests against Beijing hosting the Winter Olympic games in February over the government's human rights abuse record.

AP contributed to this report.

class=”MuiTypography-root-133 MuiTypography-h1-138″>Cuban govt supporters resorted to tactics they haven't used in decades to suppress political dissidents, professor says

Lillian Guerra, a professor of Cuban history and the director of the Cuba Program at the University of Florida, described the culture of repudiation in the country to The World's host Marco Werman.

The WorldNovember 16, 2021 · 2:30 PM EST

Soldiers patrol along the Malecón seawall in Havana, Cuba, Nov. 15, 2021.

Ramon Espinosa/AP

In Cuba, the plan was for nationwide street protests on Monday and demands for more political freedoms. Basically, a repeat of this past summer's unprecedented demonstrations.

But instead, those who took to the streets were police officers, state security agents and government supporters.

Related: For the first time, 'children of the revolution are fighting the revolution' says former US rep

And they kept protesters from leaving their homes. Some organizers said government supporters had surrounded their homes, blocking them from leaving. Others said that Cuban police warned them that they'd be arrested if they took to the streets.

Related: 'Homeland and life': The chant to Cuba’s anti-government protests

The march was meant to demand the release of prisoners — especially those who were arrested in the July protests — and for an expansion of human rights and national dialogue.

Lillian Guerra, a professor of Cuban history and the director of the Cuba Program at the University of Florida, described the culture of repudiation in the country to The World's host Marco Werman.

Marco Werman: So, many of the government supporters in the streets on Monday were members of local neighborhood groups known as the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution. Explain what they are all about.Lillian Guerra: Well, Committees for the Defense of the Revolution began to exist around September of 1960 in the lead-up to the US invasion at the Bay of Pigs. They were in the minds of many Cubans supposed to be a temporary organization designed to prevent people who had sympathies for the counterrevolution from acting on their sympathies. However, after 1961, in fact, they became the backbone of surveillance for the government. They still exist on every block. You're supposed to register before the age of 6. You're supposed to pay a monthly quota to be a member. You're supposed to attend all their meetings. The reality is, since 1991, most people don't attend the meetings. A lot of people, if not the majority, don't pay their quotas. And yet, this network, which is comprised of millions of Cubans, is very active. Fidel called them 1 million "mouth-shutters." They were designed to shut people up, and they do that. They are supposed to call out those who publicly protest or publicly complain, in any way, shape or form, the existence of the state, the policies of the state, etc.

So, what evidence have you seen that members of these revolutionary defense committees were part of the very successful suppression of the protesters on Monday?Yeah, we saw the rehashing of tactics that really the CDRs have not used in decades. In particular, the use of the meeting of repudiation. This is where you get groups of activists from either your local CDR, or people from other CDRs to go to neighborhoods, stand in front of the house of a dissident or somebody who sympathizes with the dissidents, shout slogans, they intimidate, they taunt. This is a tactic that really was on display in 1980 when more than 120,000 Cubans registered to leave the country during the Mariel boatlift. What's different here is the reality that yesterday we saw meetings of repudiation taking place livestreamed on Facebook by their victims. And these people didn't want to leave the country. They wanted to stay. All they wanted to do was leave their home, so they could go out onto the street and march peacefully and protest for change.

Do CDR committee members carry weapons? I mean, did they ever have that kind of power?They never did have that kind of power. What they did have was a direct line to the police and to the Ministry of the Interior. CDRs have archives on every single person in their block. They issue political evaluations on that person from cradle to grave, in the past and in the present. In order to get anywhere in life, to get a promotion at your job, you actually have to have a recommendation from your CDR.

Are members of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution older? Or are they getting younger members now?Well, the interesting thing is that the activists, the people who are the president of the CDR and they hold these political offices, there's not a lot of turnover. I know some CDRs in Centro Habana, for instance, that have been headed by the same person for literally 60 years. It is perhaps difficult for us to understand, but that kind of symbolic form of power, where they get to be the deputies of the state and the surrogates for Fidel or Raúl, that is something that really is incomparable in our society, but it is really, really important in Cuba, where people generally live very poorly and where everybody is more equally poor than rich. And so much of people's prosperity and opportunities depend on loyalty to the state.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity. AP contributed to this report.

class=”MuiTypography-root-133 MuiTypography-h1-138″>Bosnia faces the most serious crisis since the Balkans War, analyst says

Jasmin Mujanović, a Bosnian political analyst and author, says leaders of Republika Srpska, a territory within Bosnia and Herzegovina, has intended to unravel peace established under the Dayton Accords for over 15 years.

The WorldNovember 8, 2021 · 3:45 PM EST

• Producer Omar Duwaji

Bosnian Serb member of the tripartite Presidency of Bosnia Milorad Dodik holds a speech during the 4th Budapest Demographic Summit in Budapest, Hungary, Sept. 23, 2021.

Laszlo Balogh/AP/File photo

The nation of Bosnia and Herzegovina has lived in relative peace for the past couple of decades, after ethnic conflict tore through the Balkans in the 1990s. Around 100,000 people were killed in a brutal war in the region. 

Related: Even if they lose, Bosnia-Herzegovina's national team has already won

Today, fresh tensions are bringing up painful reminders of Bosnia's not-so-distant past. High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina Christian Schmidt warned that the country could face the biggest “existential threat of the post-war period” if the international community doesn't curb separatist threats by Bosnian Serbs.

Related: Serbia lets people choose their COVID-19 vaccine. Some call it a ‘political ballot.’

Jasmin Mujanović, a Bosnian political analyst and the author of "Hunger and Fury: The Crisis of Democracy in the Balkans," joined The World's host Marco Werman from Los Angeles to break down the situation.

Marco Werman: Jasmin, the UN's high representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, is warning the country could soon break up. Can you explain what he's talking about?Jasmin Mujanović: Right. So, the high representative is responding to the fact that we're in the midst of a major secession push by Serb nationalist authorities in the smaller of the two main entities of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which is known as the Republika Srpska, or the RS. The leadership there has been engaging in threats of secession for many years, but over the last six months or so, they've begun taking very, very credible steps toward that end, including the creation of parallel institutions and threatening to use force to eject Bosnian government officials, including Bosnian state police, from the territory of the RS entity.Parallel institutions, I understand, including the Bosnian Serb army. Why is this happening?The fact of the matter is that the leadership in the RS entity team, headed by a gentleman by the name of Milorad Dodik, has for the better part of a decade and a half been making it very, very clear the fact that it wants to unravel the Dayton Peace Accords, that it wants to unravel the Bosnian state, that it wants to dismantle the country's constitutional order and that it wants to seek the formal secession of the RS entity, which was, of course, created during the Bosnian War and the Bosnian genocide by the then-Serb nationalist leadership. So, it's a real ideological push for what this regime's desired — kind of reorganizing of the Western Balkans state system.

So, the Dayton Peace Accords, of course, is the agreement that was hammered out to bring peace to the Balkans after the wars in the 1990s. Dodik — he's part of the country's three-person presidency. How is the rest of the government in Bosnia responding to these threats?So, it's really put, what in Bosnia are known as … pro-Bosnian political actors in a rough position, because the levers of the governmental system in Bosnia-Herzegovina are such that it's very, very difficult for state authorities to push back against the RS authorities, because they have so much autonomy. And indeed, they are obviously in the process of doing something that flies in the face of constitutional law and the country's legal order, more broadly. And obviously, they don't want to be seen to be the first ones to initiate any kind of coercive or violent response to the situation, although it's very clear that is what Mr. Dodik is trying to entice them to do.So, the Serbs are pushing for secession, the Croats are not pushing back. Does that leave the Bosnians pretty much isolated?Yeah, though I would be just a little bit careful about the language. I think it's very important to recognize that this is specifically coming from the Serb nationalist establishment, and it is backed by the Croat nationalist establishment. There are Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Serbs who are opposed to this, and they are supportive of a territorially integrated and sovereign Bosnian state, and they are part of the pro-Bosnian camp. So, it's not, strictly speaking, an ethnic conflict, although obviously people like Mr. Dodik would very much like to portray that — especially in the international media.

Jasmin, I'd like to rewind just a little bit. Bosnia experienced mass civil strife and war in the '90s. NATO and international peacekeepers intervened and brought stability, but ethnic tensions never really cooled down. How fragile is this stability today?I think it's very clearly the case, at this moment, that this particular political crisis is probably the most serious that the country has experienced since the war. And that is, again, largely rooted in the dysfunction of the Dayton Accords, which has allowed Mr. Dodik to engage in these kinds of activities and at the same time, to hobble and undermine the ability of the Bosnian state authorities to deal with him in any meaningful shape or form. I think people perhaps would be surprised to know that day-to-day life in Bosnia and Herzegovina is marked by tremendous amounts of ethnic co-mingling, for lack of a better term. But obviously, these kinds of situations and this kind of political adventurism has introduced a significant degree of fear and anxiety into Bosnian daily life.Jasmin, what are you looking for next, to see how things evolve?Well, we need a very serious international response. I would very specifically like to see a robust sanctions regime against Mr. Dodik and members of his government, including the coalition government. This is actually something that the previous high representative had formally requested of the European Union and the European Union never responded. The United States already has sanctions against Mr. Dodik. However, those tensions could be expanded and they could be strengthened and really fundamentally, it's well past time that we move to an international posture in Bosnia and the broader Western Balkans that is, you know, that imposes consequences and costs for this kind of adventurism in this kind of militancy.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity. AP contributed to this report.