captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for saturday, january 31: isis claims to behead another japanese captive; what's behind china's crackdown on internet access; and in our signature segment, it may be one of a kind in america-- a city that produces enough renewable energy to cover all its energy needs. >> it's not a lot windier here, or a lot sunnier here. it was just a bunch of decisions made over ten years or more. >> sreenivasan: next on pbs newshour weekend. >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by:

corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we are your retirement company. additional support is provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. from the tisch wnet studios in lincoln center in new york hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: good evening. thanks for joining us. after days of negotiations for a prisoner exchange apparently broke down, isis today reportedly executed a japanese journalist it had been holding hostage in syria. just last weekend, isis also beheaded another japanese citizen it had captured. there was no immediate word about the fate of the jordanian pilot isis is also holding. the islamic extremist group had been demanding that jordan set

free a woman implicated in a 2005 bombing attack in amman that killed 60 people in exchange for the hostages. for more about this, we are joined from washington by douglas ollivant. he is a senior national security fellow at the new america foundation and a partner at mantid international. so, douglas, what does this tell you? there was almost a moment of-- a window of opportunity there where there was a conversation going on with isis. there was some potential and some possibility. that seems over. >> it does-- it is obviously over, lamentably, for both of these japanese hostages. and, of course, our sthez are with these families but this does seem to be increasingly common place. once the negotiations become public, once someone appears in one of these videos, that seems to mean the negotiations have broken down. we know there have been other00s who have paid ransom and have been evacuated from the country, but it seems like once you come to this level of being in a video, we've not seen very many happy endings.

>> sreenivasan: so, doug, what happens next after this beheading or other beheadings like this? >> lamentably for the near future, there's not very much we can do about the islamic state and the territory it holds. the iraqi army is not yet ready to retake even the portion of terrain they hold on the iraqi side of the border and it's very well known that the plan for syria would have to be subsequent to that, and we still don't know exactly what that looks like. in the interim, if you're a hostage held by the islamic state or isis there's just not very much a western government can do for you right now. >> sreenivasan: okay, let's talk a little bit bigger picture about this war on isis that's continuing. there were another 27 air strikes today against different isis positions. are they having an impact? >> they are having an impact. we've had some good news in the past few wieks. the kurds seem to have decisively recaptured the town of kobani. although if we now look at the pictures that are coming out

there, this town is devastated. it looks like a stalingrad or i had roshia. it's decimated. it's ruins. but we have taken it back. we have seen a push from the south by want iraqi army in anbar, even, and certainly from the north with the kurds. we are seeing some movement towards mosul and the area surrounding mosul, and not the city itself yet. >> sreenivasan: this at the same time there were attacks by islamic state fighters on kirkuk, which was a little bit of a surprise. >> that's right. we saw push-back in kirkuk. no one has ever said these guys aren't smart. it appears they used some bad weather when they knew there wouldn't be surveillance and the u.s. air force couldn't strike them, to attack kirkuk had initial success, and the push back from the kurdish forces pushed them out of this town. i think we're going to see more of this. we should expect ebbs and flows

in this fight in northern iraq and elsewhere. >> sreenivasan: there were also reports in the last couple of days about isis fighters in mosul ransacking libraries, and really trying to decimate any history that existed in that area. i mean we're talking everything from ottoman empire maps to burning books and bonfires. >> that's right. this seems to have a dual purpose. in one sense, they are looting wholesale and selling artifacts on the tblak market to raise money. but where they seem to not have any value, we seeing destruction. we saw the destruction earlier of the tomb of jonah. we have seen tales of these books being burned. there is a historic wall evidently being torn down blown up, destroyed. there's an iconoclastic movement inside the islamic state that wants to destroy all history of not only pre-islamic but even islamic history in the area. they're just absolutely opposed to any type of monument or

cultural thing that isn't just reading the koran straight and living in a very primitive manner. >> sreenivasan: so there was also news this week about an iraqi that was killed and his connection to making chemical weapons. how significant or how real is that threat? >> well it's difficult to know. certainly, he's an interesting character. he's both a former ba'athist who worked for saddam hussain and moved over to work for first al qaeda and then isis, which really does show this unit they we're starting to see between the former regime and isis. but he's also a chemical weapons engineer. he had worked inside saddam hussain's chemical weapons program and was evidently trying to put together some equipment. now, i think most experts think the islamic state can't put together a comprehensive chemical weapons program as in launching shells or anything but they could certainly put precursor chemicals or industrial chemicals inside their explosive devices their i.e.d.s exprgs make life much more complicated for forces that

run into them in battle. >> sreenivasan: all right doug ollivant of mantid international joining us from washington. thanks so much,. >> thank you, hari. >> sreenivasan: african leaders have agreed to commit 7,500 troops to fight boko haram islamic extremists who now control portions of northern nigeria. the decision was made at a summit meeting in ethiopia of members of the 54-nation african union. attacks by boko haram have intensified in the weeks leading up to nigeria's presidential elections next month. boko haram is responsible for thousands of deaths, and the group is still holding hundreds of hostages, including the schoolgirls the militants abducted last april. german chancellor angela merkel today appeared to rule out any plan to forgive more of greece's debt. in an interview with a german newspaper, merkel was quoted as saying, "i don't see a further debt haircut." greece is scheduled to repay about $11.5 billion worth of debt this summer. greece's finance minister will meet with his french counterpart in paris. he has called germany's approach

to the crisis "fiscal waterboarding." meanwhile, in spain, there was a rally in support of an anti- austerity party, much like the one that just rose to power in greece. violence between pro-russian rebels and ukrainian government forces continues to escalate. there was heavy shelling today in eastern ukraine, near russia, and authorities there said 12 civilians were killed. ukrainian military officials say another 15 ukrainian soldiers died. all this as peace talks between the government and the rebels resumed in minsk. there had been a cease fire back in september. an open letter to the british government, published today in the "guardian," calls for the pardon of thousands of citizens who were prosecuted for being gay. some 49,000 men were convicted under britain's gross indecency law, which was overturned in 2003. the issue has gained more attention since the release of" the imitation game," a film about alan turing. he was the british mathematician credited with breaking nazi codes during world war ii but was later prosecuted in 1952 for" homosexual acts." he killed himself two years later.

american intelligence officials are for the first time acknowledging the c.i.a.'s role in the 2008 killing of a top hezbollah official. they told the "washington post" that american operatives helped build the bomb that israeli intelligence agents later planted inside the spare tire of a car driven by imad mughniyah. he was hezbollah's international operations chief and had allegedly been involved in a number of terror attacks including one against the u.s. embassy in beirut and another against the israeli embassy in argentina. some legal scholars question the legality of the operation, saying it might violate international laws prohibiting what is known as "killing by perfidy." the federal government has issued another massive recall because of faulty airbags. some of the two million cars recalled today by toyota, honda and fiat-chrysler had been recalled earlier. but even after the fix, airbags in the vehicles can deploy prematurely. the recall affects cars manufactured in the early 2000s. for a list of vehicles being

recalled, visit www.pbs.org/newshour. a new study found that more than 533,000 americans got organ transplants during the quarter century ending in 2012 and that, on average, the operations extended the lives of recipients by four years. but even more people on wait lists for new organs died without ever being operated on. researchers say there is still a critical shortage of donors. for the first time, the food and drug administration has approved a drug to treat binge eating. the drug, called vyvanse, has been on market since 2007, but it was only approved to treat a.d.h.d., attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. in two studies, the drug reportedly decreased binge- eating episodes from an average of five days a week to a single day. nearly three million american adults are said to be binge eaters. by definition, that means they overeat compulsively at least three days a week. and a record-setting, 7,000-mile journey in a helium-filled

balloon ended safely today. the pilots-- one from albuquerque, new mexico, and the other from russia-- landed four miles offshore, near baja california. the pair lifted off from japan on sunday morning and flew across the pacific ocean at about 15,000 feet. the flight was the longest ever in duration, and it covered the greatest distance. >> sreenivasan: and now to our signature segment, our original in-depth reports from around the nation and around the world. you often hear how difficult and expensive it might be to scale up renewable energy sources like wind and solar and hydro power. but in vermont, one city is now producing or getting enough renewable energy to cover all its energy needs every year. officials say they're actually saving money doing it, and consumers there have not seen rates rise on their electric bills for more than five years. the newshour's william brangham

reports from burlington, vermont. >> reporter: from the moment his alarm goes off early in the morning, to shaving with an electric razor for the day ahead, longtime burlington vermonter stephen conant, much like the rest of us, lives a life powered by electricity. it powers his toaster, his coffeemaker, the fridge. but electricity matters even more to him at work, where hundreds of light bulbs at his lighting and metal fabrication company pull power from the electrical grid. but just as his company strives to use reclaimed and renewable materials in its products and designs, some of which conant himself occasionally welds, that ethos has been embraced by his city, as well. burlington recently announced that it now produces or gets more power than its citizens use. and it's all coming from renewable sources of energy like wind and solar and hydroelectric. >> a business can't avoid consuming resources, and a

lighting business like mine uses a tremendous amount of electricity. it just feels right that the electricity we are using is coming from renewable resources. >> i think it's a big milestone for burlington. but, broader than that, it just shows that it can be done. >> reporter: taylor ricketts is a professor of environmental science at the university of vermont. he says burlington has shown that cities can play a role in addressing our dependence on burning fossil fuels, which is the principal driver of climate change. burlington, yes, it's the biggest city in the state, but it's still a very small city in this country. you guys don't use that much electricity. i mean, how much of a difference is this really going to make? >> yeah, that's a great point. but, you know, look, climate change is the biggest problem we face, maybe the biggest problem we've ever faced, but there's no silver bullet to fix it. it's going to be a million individual solutions from all over the place, and this is one of burlington's, right? >> reporter: ken nolan helps run burlington electric, the local utility company that supplies power to the city's 42,000 residents. >> we're producing as much

renewable energy as the city of burlington uses in that year. >> reporter: that seems like quite an accomplishment. >> it's been a long road to get here, and, as far as i know we're the only city in this country that's actually reached this goal. >> reporter: some might say, of course, this is happening in burlington, the town that's often cast as a liberal, progressive haven, birthplace of the socially-conscious ben and jerry's ice cream; the city once led by bernie sanders, who's the only self-declared socialist in the u.s. senate. but burlington-- and vermont at large-- has plenty of economic reasons to try and do their part to tackle climate change: vermont's iconic, multimillion - dollar industries, skiing and maple syrup, are as dependent on the climate as any industry in the u.s., and the state suffered hundreds of millions of dollars in damage from hurricane irene, the type of storm scientists say will grow in frequency unless we reduce our consumption of fossil fuels. >> the city is always looking at the environmental impact.

greenhouse gas reduction is a major thing that we're concerned about and we are always trying to improve on. but, in looking at whether to buy renewable power, we really were focused on an economic decision at the time. so, our financial analysis at that time indicated to our... actually to our surprise that the cheapest long term financial investment for us with the least amount of risk was to move in this direction. >> reporter: nolan says that switching from fossil fuel energy to renewable energy will likely save the city about $20 million over the next two decades. what's more, consumers haven't been hit with a big price increase. while residential customers across the u.s. have seen small but gradual increases in their utility bills over the years burlington's rates haven't increased since 2009. >> one of the big intriguing things about this is that sustainability has been a luxury, like, a niche market. to get it, whether it's in your food or your power, you have to

sort of seek it out, look for a label, often pay a premium. and what burlington's done is sort of do away with that on electricity. >> reporter: here's how they do it: about a third of burlington's renewable energy is produced at this biomass facility. biomass is just a fancy word for something that gets burned to produce energy-- in this case they haul in scrap wood from across vermont, use the heat to make steam, and thus generate electricity. that smokestack up top? that's just water vapor being emitted. so, that's about 35% of burlington's production. another 20% or so is sourced from wind turbines like these on the hills of a neighboring town, and solar arrays like this one at the airport add another small amount to their total. but the biggest portion of the city's renewable production comes from hydropower-- some they source from other places, like this older hydroelectric dam in maine; some they produce at their own plant on the winooski river. water pressure from the river spins big underground turbines, which, in turn, generates electricity.

all this is what accounts for the city's ability to produce as much energy from renewables as it uses in a year. but burlington's efforts have attracted some criticism. sandra levine is a senior attorney at the conservation law foundation. >> burlington is making claims that they're providing 100% renewable power to their customers, and that's not really accurate. >> reporter: levine is an environmental attorney, and while she commends burlington's renewable push, she says the city is taking some liberties with its accounting and with what kinds of renewable energy it employs-- like relying on that old maine hydro plant, which isn't considered as green as brand-new wind and solar facilities are. so, when you see burlington come out publicly and say "we've gone 100% renewable," what's your reaction? >> you're on the path, but you're not really there. and i really look to burlington electric to provide some stronger leadership, to really show how what they are doing is adding to the overall renewable

supply for the region. because that's where we need to be going. >> reporter: but ken nolan argues that they have to use those older renewable facilities for now, and by proving that renewables can work reliably and be profitable, burlington can help spur a growing market for new renewable energy in the whole region. >> some of our opponents, in my opinion, take a shortsighted view. they'd say they were purists about, well, the renewable energy should be brand new and it should be today. i want new england to be 100% renewable across new england. the way you get there is by giving the folks who are actually building the projects the money they need to build the projects. >> reporter: taylor ricketts says, what burlington's done could be replicated elsewhere; it's not some quirk of geography or weather that got the city to where it is now. >> there's nothing magic about burlington in terms of where it sits. it's not a lot windier here, or a lot more rivers here, and certainly not a lot sunnier here than lots of parts of the u.s. it was just a bunch of decisions

made over ten years or more, to get towards renewable energy. >> sreenivasan: which household products are most to blame for draining your power and your wallet? and what can you do to stop it? visit www.pbs.org/newshour for answers. >> sreenivasan: chinese authorities launched a crackdown this week on internet use. for more about how extensive it is and what it means, we are joined now by jonathan landreth. he is managing editor of "china file," the asia society's online magazine. so before we get to the great firewall, what does the arnlg chinese citizen or somebody living in china have access to on the internet? >> the internet in china which is viewed by 684 million people, is a wide web of information. however, if one wants to access web sites such as the "new york times" or facebook or twitter, for example one has to use a digital tool to leap over that great firewall, a digital barrier constructed by the

censors. >> sreenivasan: so what happened in the past week? those tools-- what happened to those tools. >> those tools, if you or i was sitting in beijing or shanghai and wanted to check our facebook account we would have to use a software called a virtual private network, which enables us to basically prop a ladder up against the great firewall and scale over to get out to the free internet. those tools were scrambled in last week more so than they have been before. when i lived in china for eight years, sometimes one v.p.n., as they're called, wouldn't work, so we'd switch to another one. now, they're more scrambled than they have ever been before so it's tougher for people to post to instagram accounts for academics to reach research institutes out in the west for people to follow hollywood gossip or gossip in the south korean pop scene. >> sreenivasan: so what are the reasons the chinese government still imposes and makes it more difficult?

>> in the past the chinese government has tightened control of the internet, what can be seen from within the great firewall. that tightening happens to coincide with a widespread crackdown on official corruption. there is a great deal of reporting that goes on from within china by news organizations based outside of china. so it's no accident that sites of the "new york times" and the bbc, for instance are now verboten within the country. >> sreenivasan: so besides the sort of censorship and ideological reason, is there an economic advantage? i also read somewhere that certain businesses weren't affected versus normal consumers. >> it's true that, for instance, smartphone manufacturers from this country and elsewhere are desperate to get into the chinese market.

some of the services and apps that are used on those smartphones require free and open internet access. there are, of course local chinese competitors whose smartphone devices would like very much to compete with the likes of apple microsoft, samsung, et cetera. >> sreenivasan: so is there an advantage then? are you essentially creating the firewall in part to protect chinese business from international competition? >> there is a phrase being bandied about right now, and it's to describe what the chinese government is doing, and that is to promote internet sovereignty or cyber sovereignty. basically, to control all information and business within the great firewall. and prevent the influence of western thought and, yes, indeed business. >> sreenivasan: jonathan landreth from china file thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you.

>> this is pbs newshour weekend saturday. >> sreenivasan: we turn now to "viewers like you," your comments about our recent work. this is some of what we heard after last saturday's signature segment describing employers doing background checks and the effect that has on people with a criminal record who struggle to find work. rematrav said: "let's let the people signing the paycheck decide whom they want to hire." bobthejanitor2 added: "if i'm the hiring manager and i have two applicants who are identical, except one has a record and one doesn't, i'm not going to flip a coin there; the one without the record will get the job." and there was this from hammerclaw: "an employer has to be able to put trust and faith in the activities of their employees and cannot afford to have someone who has a history of criminal misconduct slipping up on the job." there were also those who saw it from the perspective of people with a criminal record who are

trying to find work. richard stanford commented: "either you've paid your debt to society or you haven't. continuing to punish someone serves no purpose and actively works against the rehabilitation." from michael allard: "failing to integrate any offenders back into the system is, in effect, extending their punishment. by denying them their basic civil rights, we're denying them access to the opportunities to become productive citizens." adrianne fields hall said: "a criminal background doesn't make you unemployable. actually, ex-offenders are more reliable and grateful to have the job. unlike people who feel entitled, i am an honest, hard-working ex- criminal." and finally, this from dave wescott: "if you think that having a criminal record is tough, try being turned down for a job because of your credit score." as always, we welcome your feedback at www.pbs.org/newshour, on our facebook page, or tweet us @newshour.

>> sreenivasan: recapping today's lead story, isis has reportedly executed japanese journalist kenji goto, who was being held hostage in syria. he was the second japanese citizen beheaded by the extremist group. the united states and japan both strongly condemn the development. join us on air and online tomorrow. i'm hari sreenivasan. have a good captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we are your retirement company. additional support is provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

- this is independent lens and i'm your host, mary-louise parker. when you hear "civil rights movement," who comes to mind? rosa parks? dr. king? - daisy bates! - we will sit in until we can eat at any counter in the united states. - independent filmmaker sharon la cruise came across a name that wasn't in any history textbook she'd ever read: daisy bates. this ambitious black woman from the deep south was a pioneer, outspoken, unconventional. in 1957, when arkansas segregationists defied the supreme court she provided the backbone that got the president of the united states to integrate an all-white school. - she was the one soldier that was willing to put her life on the battlefield. - firestorms she ignited launched her to instant fame but it also brought a terrible price.