captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> looking back it would have >> i thought using one device would be simpler and obviously it hasn't worked out that way. >> woodruff: calling it an act of convenience, hillary clinton addresses her use of private email while secretary of state. good evening, i'm judy woodruff. gwen ifill is away. also ahead this tuesday, a standoff over iran, two leading senators on the widening political rift over a nuclear deal. plus, banned in india, we talk with the filmmaker behind a powerful new documentary on a gang attack of a woman in delhi.

>> this is a society that treats girls as unequal from the day they are born. >> woodruff: and saving the famed manuscripts of timbuktu from the threats >> woodruff: and, saving the famed manuscripts of timbuktu from the threats of war, scholars work to revive a nation's pursuit of knowledge. >> mali is definitely a poor country when it comes to the budget, but when it comes to civilization, culture and dignity mali is a very rich country. >> woodruff: those are some of the stories we're covering on tonight's "pbs newshour." >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> it doesn't matter what kind of weather. it doesn't matter what time of day or night. when mother nature's done her worst, the only thing that matters to us, is keeping the lights on for you. we're the men and women of the international brotherhood of electrical workers. keeping the power on in communities like yours, all across the country. because when bad weather strikes, we'll be there for you.

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>> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: wall street was hit hard today by new worries that interest rates are headed higher. last month's strong jobs report has fueled fears that the federal reserve will act sooner rather than later to raise rates. the dow jones industrial average lost 332 points to close well below 17,700. the nasdaq fell 82 points, and the s-and-p 500 dropped 35. the university of oklahoma has expelled two students over a racist chant at a fraternity event. school president david boren said today they were identified as leading the chant. he did not make their names public but did say others may face discipline as well.

the university has also shut down its chapter of "sigma alpha epsilon." members have until midnight to remove their belongings. president obama called today for better treatment of americans burdened with student debt. he laid out a series of changes during a speech at georgia tech in atlanta. they call for loan services to better inform borrowers about re-payment options and to notify them when they're delinquent, among other things. the president said the system has to work better. >> higher education has never been more important. but it's also never been more expensive. i believe that america is not a place where higher education is a privilege that is reserved for the few. america needs to be a place where higher education has to be available for every single person who's willing to strive for it, who's willing to work for it. ( applause ) more than 40 million americans currently carry student loan debt. in myanmar, hundreds of riot police cracked down today on

student protesters. officers swinging batons charged into the crowds, beating people and arresting more than 120. the confrontation put a sudden end to a stand-off, about 90 miles north of yangon, the former capital. the protesters were targeting a new education law. they say it gives the government too much control over schools and curbs their academic freedom. the u.s. ambassador to south korea was discharged from a seoul hospital today, five days after being slashed on the face and arm. mark lippert needed 80 stitches to close the deep knife wounds. despite that close call, he sounded upbeat today as cameras flashed at a hospital news conference. >> i feel pretty darn good, all things considered. i mean it was obviously a scary incident. but i'm walking, talking, holding my baby, hugging my wife, so i just feel really good.

>> woodruff: lippert's attacker turned out to be an anti-u.s. activist. north korea denied any involvement, but it did call the attack "a deserved punishment" for joint u.s. and south korea military drills. and, there's word today that the central intelligence agency spent nearly a decade trying to crack the coding in apple i-phones and i-pads. "the intercept," an investigative news site, cites documents obtained by edward snowden at the national security agency. they indicate the c.i.a. tried to break into apple products as early as 2006. it's unclear if the agency was ever successful in its attempts. still to come on the newshour: secretary clinton speaks out on her private emails while at the state department; a senate showdown with the white house over iran; why india banned a documentary about a gang rape; and protecting ancient

manuscripts in timbuktu from the elements and the threats of war. >> woodruff: today, for the first time, hillary clinton responded publicly to growing questions over why she used a private internet server and personal e-mail address when she was secretary of state. a quick reminder of the events leading to this: in january of 2009 an aide to former president clinton set up a private internet server at or near the clinton's new york home. secretary clinton used that server and a private email address during her time at the state department. this year, clinton's staff has handed over to the department 55,000 pages of emails that they say are the only ones related to her government work. today clinton insisted her use of a private account was above board and only for convenience. >> when i got to work as

secretary of state, i opted for convenience to use my personal email account, which was allowed by the state department, because i thought it would be easier to carry just one device for my work and for my personal emails instead of two. looking back, it would've been better if i'd simply used a second email account and carried a second phone, but at the time this didn't seem like an issue. >> woodruff: clinton took a dozen questions from reporters. one asked if she deleted any government-related e-mails and how far she went to make sure all work-related material survived. >> my direction to conduct the thorough investigation was to err on the side of providing anything that could be possibly viewed as work related.

and i think that we have more than met the requests from the state department. the server contains personal communications from my husband and me, and i believe i have met all of my responsibilities and the server will remain private. >> woodruff: for reaction to secretary clinton's press conference and a look at how this could affect a potential presidential campaign, we are joined now by two political strategists: hilary rosen, a democratic consultant and managing director of the public relations firm s.k.d. knickerbocker. and matthew dowd, a republican consultant, who has worked on a number of political campaigns including george w bush's re- election bid in 2004. we welcome you both to the program. matthew dowd, what did you make of secretary clinton's explanation that this was done out of convenience and she feels confident that she's turned over more than any email that might

have been interpreted as having to do with her government work? >> well, judy, first of all she answered some questions but i don't think she put a lid on the controversy. i think this will only expand and grow based on the course of this. part of the problem is it's not that the american public cares ant the e-mails, it's that they have an unbelievable amount of need for trusted officials officials and potential trust to the united states. i think hillary clinton did not resolve that to the satisfaction of most people out there. maybe to democrats who will defend her regardless but she has questions yesterday to be answered and asked of her directly. i think convenience is never a good excuse for an elected official to say i did it out of convenience, that's never a good excuse for an elected official to say why they did a certain behavior. >> woodruff: hilary rosen a lot more questions to be answered? >> i think she had something to be accomplished today which was she was never going to satisfy

everybody, but could she achieve a reasonable explanation that most people would be saturdays fade with? and i think she achieved that. it was -- you know, if i had to do it over again, i would do it differently. you know, that is a big thing for somebody to say. and secondly, the state department really now has 30,000 e-mails to release to the public that we'll see what's in those e-mails. i think the ball is kind of in their court. i don't think anybody in the american public actually believes that all of their e-mails should be, you know open and accessible to everyone. >> woodruff: what about that, matthew dowd? and hillary clinton's explanation that this personal server she and president clinton has is secure and what she did was above board even if she, in retrospect, thinks maybe she should have done ate different way? >> well, the problem she has, which is the whole part of the public that comes in with a lack of trust, is she's basically

saying, trust me, i did the right thing. trust me, we did it in a secure manner. trust me, we released all the e-mails you need to actually see. trust me on this. so there's no evidence anybody's seen that the computer and the server was housed in a secure manner. there's no evidence that we can trust the fact that here are the e-mails you can see and can't see. i think, in the end the problem she has and it's part of the problem with her candidacy of president if she runs is is this a throwback to the '90s? are we going to back to the '90s where we constantly have to ask and re-ask questions and are we getting information that we're expected to get, or is this a campaign about the 21st 21st century? that's the problem of this issue with her is it makes voters feel like we're going back again to the '90s and a time we would rather leave behind. >> woodruff: i'm see ago report that says jeb bush when she was governor of florida use the add personal server and still has it. >> and he self-selected the

e-mails he released to the public. so when we talk about this in a campaign context people will see this as politics. for the most part, what hillary clinton needs to convince people of is as secretary of state she did an enormous amount of good and is trustworthy. i think matthew is right to that degree. having said that, i don't think anybody will will have a different standard for everybody that comes out of public life. >> woodruff: one other excerpt from secretary clinton, this was in answer to a question that how can the public trust that she didn't delete e-mails that were professional but unflattering to her? here's how she answered that. >> you would have to ask that question to every single federal employee because the way the system works, the federal employee, the individual, whether they have one device, two devices three devices, how many addresses, they make the decision. so even if you have a work-related device with a

work-related .gov account you choose what goes on that. that is the way our system works. so we trust and count on the judgment of thousands maybe millions of people to make those decisions. >> woodruff: matthew dowd, what about that? >> well, i think she's right in that federal employees have to be held to a certain standard on how they conduct personal internet, but thousands of employees aren't the likely candidate for president to have the united states, so i'm hope sheg sees herself as holding her self to a high standard in the midst of this in the course of what office she's potentially trying to seek first. secondly, the idea that wedge point fingers and say, well, if i did what everybody else does jeb bush and thousands of federal employees, i am hoping the standard we hold to a leader that we'll elect to the

president of the united states is a much higher standard than just the bare bones, just the basic things i did what everybody else did. >> reporter: does that mean that all presidential candidates should be expected, hilary rosen, to release all their emeals? is that the point we've reached? >> i don't know, and i think the point that matthew is making is a good one in that we want our elected officials to be above reproach. but now we have a situation where we can't undo the past and, so, the only thing that will satisfy some people -- and it won't satisfy everybody -- is if her server were released. if all of her personal e-mails were released. you know what? then everybody -- the republicans would start saying oh, i'm sure she deleted a bunch before she released them to the public. this will never end and i think what we need to do is see what the state department releases the onus is on them. there will be an enormous amount of information about her term as

secretary of state and when the campaign starts, let's listen to hillary clinton and her sense of accountability to the public on a broad of things as ewell as other candidates. >> woodruff: no matter what she releases and the state department puts out, there are still going to be questions of secretary clinton? >> well, i think, yeah, that is true to a degree, but she's also put herself in a box to a degree, she's created this problem. part of the reason why she's in this situation where people have a hair trigger reaction to stuff like this is because there has been a tendency on the part of the clintons to not always be transparent to not always be open to not always answer directly the question to, not always reveal the information people are asking for. so part of this is self-created. i would think from an elected official who understands the baggage she comes to the potential office with she understands it and would overregulate or be overtransparent. the problem i think people have

is it does not -- transparency and openness does not feel as if it's an authentic part of hillary clinton's dna. >> yeah, i think most people don't feel that way. i think most people see a woman who is working her heart out who for the last week when everybody was talking about e-mails, she was talking about the plight of women and girls around the world and whether we've made enough progress and what else needs to be done including in this country and i think what we really have is a fairly serious kind of pollsy mock in some respects that sees in as extra noise and i think this will be somewhat of a challenge for her in a campaign can she separate legitimate questions from the public and reportsers from what will continue to be a republican witch hunt for her. >> woodruff: one thing that came up today was a question about money the clinton foundation has taken from

foreign countries who have treated women badly h and in some cases abused women, saudi arabia, secretary clinton said she and the foundation have been very open about what they do. where do you see that issue. >> i think that issue you're bringing up is a bigger issue than the email issue. one, i'm an independent so this isn't a republican witch hunt. secondly, the "new york times," no republican news room broke this about the e-mails. the idea that she walks around the world and claims i'm for women's empowerment and want women's rights and she is doing a lot, but simultaneous the countries with the worst records on women's rights are giving large contributions to a foundation she and her husband are a part of is a huge problem. >> woodruff: hilary rosen, one final comment. >> one quick thing. first of all, the reason we can even judge the countries is the total transparency of the clinton foundation unlike other foundations, they've listed their donors. secondly, saudi arabia is a good

example. when hillary clinton was secretary of state, she issued the most scathing report on scraibd's treatment of women that had ever been issued by the united states government ever, and saudi arabia was a contribute tore the clinton foundation. what she said today is they know where i stand, it won't change me, it never has or will. if they want to give money to save people's lives in africa or haiti, that's okay with me. >> woodruff: hilary rosen and matthew dowd, thank you both. >> thanks. you. >> woodruff: we turn now to the letter that's widening the gap between the white house and congressional republicans over the iran nuclear talks. the war of words only heated up today.

>> woodruff: senate majority leader mitch mcconnell showed no sign of backing down today. instead, he defended the letter drafted by freshman republican tom cotton, of arkansas, and signed by mcconnell and 45 other g.o.p. colleagues. it declared any nuclear deal with iran that lacks congressional approval would be solely an "executive agreement" between the president and ayatollah khamenei iran's supreme leader. and, it went on to warn: "the next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time." cotton elaborated in an interview with a.b.c. news. >> i'm trying to stop iran from getting a nuclear weapon, today, ten years from now, twenty years from now, and the leadership of iran needs to know if the congress doesn't approve the deal, congress is not going to accept the deal. >> woodruff: the move got a double-barreled response from the white house and democrats on capitol hill. vice president biden, a former

long-time senator, denounced the letter in a lengthy statement last night. he said it was: "beneath the dignity of an institution i revere." and, he continued: "this letter ignores two centuries of precedent and threatens to undermine the ability of any future american president whether democrat or republican to negotiate with other nations on behalf of the united states." this morning, illinois democrat dick durbin picked up where biden left off. >> we don't have an agreement! we're days away from understanding whether there's a possibility of an agreement. and yet, these 47 senators have basically said don't waste your time. we're not going to accept it. >> woodruff: and the iranian foreign minister, javad zarif charged the letter was part of a campaign to undermine the negotiations. >> it is a propaganda ploy and has no legal value. it shows how concerned they are.

>> woodruff: the latest deadline >> woodruff: as the verbal battle lines are drawn, a new tv ad looks to conjure fear of a potential iranian nuclear attack in the united states. the group behind the ad run by three former senators aims to torpedo the deal with the latest deadline for the iran nuclear talks now just three weeks away. we turn now to both a senate republican and democrat starting with john thune of south dakota who's chairman of the senate republican conference. senator thune, thank you for joining us. let me first ask you about what vice president biden said in his statement that this ignores -- this letter ignores two centuries of precedent and threatens the ability of any american president in the future to negotiate with a foreign pow sphwher. >> well, i think that's a very

different place than the vice president was when he was a senator when she was serving with us in the senate and chairing the foreign relations committee, he had a very different view of that issue. he was profoundly interested in making sure the senate preserved it's constitutional role when it comes to important treaties and agreements. what he's saying today is markedly different from anything he said when he was serving as united states senator and obviously i think he has a different point of view today, but we believe that congress as a co-equal bran. of the government that has traditionally with the senate dealt with ratification off the treaties be heard in this process and have a voice and i would hope the president and vice president would agree with that. >> woodruff: he points out the vast majority of intersectional agreements take effect without congressional approval and we've looked at it and it's something like 95%. so this is really not different at all, is it, from what's normal? >> well it's pretty different. if you look at most

consequential agreement i'm talking nuclear arms, and this is a nuclear arms deal that has tremendous ramification for the united states and the world this has huge impacts and consequences all of which i think need to be carefully contemplated and the concern many of us as members of congress has is the administration may be entering into a bad deal and we think it's important that there be the voice of the senate be heard in that process. now, there is a bill introduced here that i think has 65 co-sponsors that would require a vote by the senate if any deal is entered into by the administration. so there's democrats' support for that as well. i think it's important as a constitutioning prerogative if you look at major deals in history -- i'm talking 22, sometimes we've had nuclear arms agreements, sometimes subject to senate raftfication. >> woodruff: let me ask you about a comment from fellow republican susan collins and

others including bob corker declined to sign the letter. senator collins said she didn't think the ayatollah would pay attention to a letter from senators and thinks it's more appropriate to say this to the president directly. >> and we have colleagues in slightly different places on this. senator corker is negotiating with democrats on the legislation which by the way the president has threatened to veto the legislation that require this be subjected to a vote in the congress. but i think the important thing in all this is tha administration is not disputing the facts of the letter. nobody is saying the letter is factually wrong. the point that it makes is that this deal isn't binding on future administrations and there are laws that congress impose the sanction and congress would have to lift the sanction also. that takes congressional action. if you don't have the congressional action, you've got a deal basically that is agreed to for as long as this president is in office and i think that's the point that people across the negotiating table probably need

to understand. >> woodruff: just quickly, the other point we're hearing from senators is that this deal -- or if they are able to negotiate it, this deal is the best chance to work something out with iran and to torpedo this deal means iran can build up its nuclear program. >> well, i don't take that has a premise. frankly, i think that the deal -- a bad deal allows them to continue to enrich and it's just a question of when. it's not a matter of if. and i think what we're trying to prevent is a deal that would allow them to have a nuclear capability in the first place and certainly one that has a sun set on it which this deal does. so, you know we think we're headed in the wrong direction, we're headed toward a bad deal and frankly i think a lot of people and the president himself said no deal is a bad deal. >> woodruff: senator john thune of south dakota, thank you for talking with us. >> thank you, judy. >> woodruff: now connecticut senator chris murphy.

senator, thank you for talking with us. what we heard from senator thune is the reason it's so important to have congressional approval for this nuclear deal is it is nuclear weapons and has ramification force an entire, important region of the world. >> well, this is an important as it gets. we're talking about preventing iran from obtain ago nuclear weapon and perhaps stopping the entire middle east from becoming a nuclear region. so all of us are taking this very seriously. that's why many of us are so concerned about these ongoing efforts to undermine the negotiations which many of us believe will ultimately get to where we all want to get to which is an iran that is divorced from any nuclear ambitions. there will be a time and a place for congress to weigh in. but that time and place is after a deal is agreed upon. congress will always have the ability to defund that deal, to cancel it out through legislation, but let's not undermine negotiations because all of us agree that the better

path to stop iran from getting a nuclear weapon is a negotiated settlement wrath than a military option which would be perhaps our only option should these negotiations fail. >> woodruff: as you know, they make the point that we're talking about a country that has a state-sponsored terrorism, a country that has been a direct threat to the united states, all the more reason they say, why it shouldn't be just an executive agreement between the president and another country. >> well, we have a long history of this presidency of ours being able to enter into executive agreements, literally hundreds and hundreds of them over the course of our country's history. congress always has the ability to weigh in on that agreement. so, again, i think the point that they're making is not lost on many of us, that congress should have a say, but what the republicans are doing here are trying to undermine the negotiations and stop them in their tracks before a final product is even completed. that is largely unprecedented in

the history of this country, and i just think about what would have been said of democrats if in the leadup to the iraq war we had sent a letter to saddam hussein drawing an issue in which our president was conducted negotiations over the friewch of their weapons of mass destruction programs. this would be hugely divisive. there will be a time and place for us to talk about this agreement but why undermine negotiations when you will have a chance as the united states congress to weigh in on the steel once the negotiations are finished. >> woodruff: senator that goes to the other point they're make wig is since a deal that doesn't have congressional approval can be undone by the next president can be changed by the next congress, it doesn't have the force of a treaty of something that is approved by the congress. >> well, i think it's important to note, although we don't know what the confines of this agreement are that it's going to look very different than

treaties, treaties binding two nations to substantially similar sets of obligations. this is very different in that the vast majority of obligations in this treaty are going to be on iran. our obligation will simply be to resend the outset temporarily the set of sanctions we've imposed. it doesn't rise to the level of a treaty obligation. the idea that the next president would walk away from an agreement that tops iran from getting a nuclear weapon in a verifiable way is ridiculous. no president republican or democrat will walk away from that agreement if it's working and it is not true that executive agreements just automatically expire at the end of that president's term. they continue on, and i think you would be compromising literally hundreds of executive agreements that we live by today by the suggestion that as soon as one president is out of office they just disappear into thin air. >> woodruff: senator chris

murphy of connecticut, thank you for talking with us. >> thanks, judy. >> woodruff: for a different take on iran, tomorrow night on the newshour, special correspondent jane arraf's interview with a key ally of the united states against the islamic state group, the president of iraqi kurdistan, marzoud barzani. the leader tells arraf he's not getting enough weapons from the u.s. and welcomes iran's help. >> ( translated ): we have a principle, wherever we can strike the islamic state we are not going to hold back and whoever will take part and help us attack the islamic state we will thank them. right now, i don't share that concern if you are asking me about helping to fight and defeat i.s. what happens after that we can't predict. >> woodruff: now to india, and a documentary about a horrific event in the country's recent past.

the government there doesn't want citizens to watch the film, and has banned its airing. jeffrey brown reports. >> we want justice! we want justice! >> brown: it's a now infamous incident that generated mass protests and stained india's international image. a 23-year-old medical student jyoti singh, was gang-raped on this bus in south delhi in 2012. she died days later, and now her story is the subject of a b.b.c. documentary, "india's daughter." >> according to the latest government figures, a woman is raped in india every 20 minutes. but most rapes are unreported. this rape led to unprecedented protests erupting across india. the silence has been broken. >> brown: the documentary had its u.s. premiere in new york

last night, and is already airing in britain, but not in india. the indian government has banned the film, saying the producers never got permission to interview one of the suspects in prison, and that his statements are "an affront to the dignity of women." the suspect, mukesh singh, was driving the bus, and is one of four men currently on death row for the crime. in the documentary, he appears unrepentant, and unaffected. >> ( translated ): a decent girl won't roam around at 9:00 at night. a girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy. the defendants' defense lawyers voice similar opinions. >> in our society, we never allow girls to come out from the house after 6:30 or 7:30 or 8:30 in the evening with any unknown person. >> brown: but jyoti singh's mother is indignant at such talk, and says it symbolizes the injustice that so many indian women face.

>> ( translated ): whenever there's a crime, the girl is blamed, "she should not go out, she shouldn't roam around so late or wear such clothes." it's the boys who should be accused and asked why they do this! they shouldn't do this! >> brown: that kind of anger and frustration sparked mass protests after the singh rape aimed at the government's perceived tolerance of violence against women. three years later, occasional protests continue, and the documentary's debut has put the singh case back in the spotlight. joining me now to discuss her documentary, is filmmaker leslie odwin. thanks for joining us. given the high rates of rape in india i wonder why do you think this was the incident that so galvanized people? well, i think that a dam will bust at a certain point and many

in india ask that question even today, why that particular gang rape. there have been so many violent ones. there was one only four weeks ago which was arguably as if not more violent. i think that, literally, the anger in people at knowing how much the issue is suppressed in india, how much girls are made to bear a sense of shame when they're raped to the o degree that they don't even report the rapes a sense of complete frustration at the length of time it seems to be taking, not just in india but around the world really to deal with the issue of gender inequality and the frustration just boiled over and people came out on to the streets to start expressing their anger and it built momentum and went on for over a month. >> brown: we just heard in

short clips from the film. were you surprised when you heard the words coming from the defendant and from the lawyers, their attitudes? >> i'm rather sad to say i wasn't surprised and it's rather a surprise to me that, you know, the government seems to be so concerned about the incendiary nature to have the things that the rape -- nature of the things that the rapist says in this documentary because politicians in india have been saying things equally as inflammatory and misogynistic. it's a real reflection of what society thinks and, you know, in a sense, there's nothing surprising about those comments. this is a society that treats girls as unequal from the day they are born, it treats them as unwell come when they are -- unwelcome when they are born.

sweets are distributed at the celebration of a boil only, and a girl is a disappointment and, from that moment in her life onward, he continues to be discriminated against, her value is far, far less than that of a boy, and, of course, you will end up with a society in which men think they can do what they like with women because they have no worth. >> brown: well, let me is ask you and the ban. yaind's home minister told parliament that the government would not allow any organization to leverage sump an incident and use it for commercial purposes. there's also been pushback in india even from some women's group about the notion of an outsider, a foreigner telling the story that they say they already know. what do you think is behind the ban? >> first of all, as far as commercial use, this is an absolute nonsense. i made this film as a work of

passion, a labor of love because i care greatly about this issue and i want to move the debate and the conversation forward. i want to help civil society demand at long last, that we deal with this i believe the greatest unfinished business of our time the inequality of women. so this is not a commercial enterprise. i am still today carrying a massive arsenal of debt in making this film. the other thing you asked was why women's groups seem to be coming out and saying that a foreigner should not be making this film. i would say it's very, very hard the frustration that women's groups feel when they have been working for generations, for decades trying to move this issue forward it's kind of tough to suddenly see a documentary come and be massively in the public eye, in

the spotlight, it's hard to embrace that and say, you know, we may have wished it was an indian filmmaker making this, but what she's saying is exactly what we have been saying for decades and we should nonetheless join hands, join forces, that's what i would have hoped to have seen. but i can understand that there will be factions that there will be some people who think i ought to have featured them more in the documentary i think that's what's at the base of this, but i have to say athas a filmmaker i cannot be an ambassador for women's rights groups, i'm not there to actually tell the history of the women's struggle in india. >> brown: the film "india's daughter," leslie odwin, thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> woodruff: stay with us, we'll be back with a look at one of the most important written records in the world. but first, it's pledge week on

p.b.s. this break allows your public television station to ask for your suppo

>> woodruff: it's an enormous and hugely important written record of african and islamic history, threatened repeatedly by war, time and the elements. in the second of his reports about "culture at risk" from the african nation of mali, jeffrey brown looks at the effort to save the famed manuscripts of timbuktu. >> brown: an historic mosque in timbuktu on the ever sahara

desert in mali, north africa. timbuktu remains traumatized after an operation in 2012 of islamic militants tied to al quaida. they were driven out but the jihadists continue to threaten the area, the latest twist of the story idea history of this city. for a long time, timbuktu was thought to be the ends to have earth, a fabled city of gold made wealthy from caravans. less well known is this was long a place of scholarship and learning. but that legacy now lives in mali's capital of bamako. these manuscripts between the 13th and 15th centuries, arabic writings, collectively a

priceless record of islamic and african history from the time timbuktu was home to a major university and a center of learning. >> me, i'm the guardian of the manmanuscripts. i love them all. >> like children. >> brown: timbuktu native doctor whose family has owned them for generations is now the cozcustodian of the entire collection. >> they are very important and could help the world solve a lot of problems. >> brown: when jihadists set about to at destroy many timbuktu treasures he smuggled the majority of manuscripts 400 miles by land and boat to safety in bamako. this was dangerous right? >> at the time, it was dangerous because in the north, there were

problems. there were jihadists, rebels and in the south a crew deta. so it was very dangerous throughout mali at the time. >> brown: 10,000 manuscripts remained in a large library built in 2009 who housed and stued them. some burned by the rebels in a final act of barbarism and two years later the charred pages remain. luckily, though, the jihadists never looked in the basement where the most valuable manuscripts were hidden. >> you have more than 10,000 manuscripts inside. >> so 10,000 and they didn't touch them? >> they didn't touch them. >> brown: written on parchment, the manuscripts are fragile. the worst enemy now is the humidity. the process to restore iniolves careful cleaning and placement in as id-free specially-crafted box. page by page the team is also

creating a digital inventory, the goal to save the manuscripts and allow eager scholars around the world to study this wealth of material. jurisprudence. a 19th century of work was cited about religious tolerance as an example of something that could have an impact today. >> today we have a lot of problems, a lot. so, in my opinion if we take out these manuscripts, the ones about good governance and translate them, develop them publicize them, i think that would help us with today's reality. >> brown: the manuscript project, in fact, is just part of larger effort to revive timbuktu and its people. >> some people say everywhere you go in the world, when you are a native of timbuktu you always come back. >> brown: h he is a blogger

and journalists who stayed in his hometown and says timbuktu for him is a beginning, one that can have a vibrant future. >> a melting pot where you can find all different ethnic living together. >> brown: timbuktu might become a crossroads again. the u.n.'s cultural agency is reconstructing sacred toombs smashed to pieces by jihadists. and, as unlikely as it seems now, there are plans to build a new university in the desert and an international initiative called the timbuktu renaissance is raising awareness of the city's plight through music and cultural events. this is mali's cultural minister. >> all maliens are counting on culture to be an important role

in the peace process. mali is poor when it comes to the budget but when it comes to culture and dignity mali is a very rich country. (singing) >> brown: the nightingale of the desert is a musician who faced death threats in timbuktu and fled to bamako with her family. she hopes the return soon, she told us. from now from her rooftop she sang a traditional timbuktu song both a lament for and a celebration of her homeland. from mallee i'm jeffrey brown from the pbs "newshour". >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day. hillary clinton conceded she should have used official e-mail as secretary of state. she also acknowledged destroying

thousands of personal e-mails but insisted she did nothing wrong. the dow industrials fell 330 points over worries that interest rates are going up. senate republicans defended their warning to iran that any nuclear deal needs congressional approval. and a los angeles jury found musicians robin thicke and pharrell williams copied the late marvin gaye's music for the 2013 hit "blurred lines." they awarded gaye's heirs $7.4 million. on the newshour online, we've collected all of science correspondent miles o'brien's reports on cutting edge technology for robotic arms. tonight, cnn will air a one hour special on miles, chronicling the year following the accident that led to the amputation of his left arm. find the powerful stories he did for us, on our homepage. that's at pbs.org/newshour.

and that's the newshour for tonight. on wednesday, we'll look at the latest fight over common core, and why a growing number of students are opting out of the required tests. i'm judy woodruff we'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us.

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this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and sue herera. wall street wallops. stocks turn negative for the year as the dollar soars and investors grow concerns about when the federal reserve will make its next move. dollar drama. the fast and furious rise in the greenback is jarring markets across the globe hitting energy and potentially pressuring profits of u.s. companies. we examine the consequences. game changer? could hbo's new service potentially shake up the television industry as we know it? all that and more tonight on "nightly business report" for tuesday, march 10th. good evening, everyone and welcome. send your children to another room. cover the ears of the impressionable. it was an x-rated day on wall street.