tv PBS News Hour PBS March 28, 2016 6:00pm-7:01pm PDT
6:00 pm
captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> ifill: good evening, i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: on the newshour tonight: the pakistani government announces a crackdown after an easter massacre targeting christians leaves 70 dead and hundreds wounded. >> woodruff: also ahead, bernie sanders sweeps the weekend's primaries by huge margins in alaska, washington, and hawaii. we get analysis on that and other campaign news from our politics monday duo. >> ifill: plus, a report from the front lines against isis, where iraqi troops are beginning an offensive to take back the city of mosul. >> civilians are running from their homes where the fresh fighting has broken out. these people came from the villages recently re-taken from isis, seizing the chance to escape the fighting. >> woodruff: all that and more
6:01 pm
on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> fathom travel. carnival corporation's small ship line. offering seven day cruises to three cities in cuba. exploring the culture, cuisine re at fathom.org.s through its
6:02 pm
>> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your financial future. >> and the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. >> supported by the rockefeller foundation. promoting the well-being of humanity around the world by building resilience and inclusive economies. more at rockefellerfoundation.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.
6:03 pm
>> woodruff: shooting erupted inside the u.s. capitol visitors center this afternoon. police say a man was going through security screening when he pulled a gun and pointed it at officers. they shot and wounded him and took him into custody. a female bystander was injured, but not seriously. the capitol police chief said it appears to be an isolated incident. >> i want to stress that while this is preliminary, based on the initial investigation, we believe this is an act of a single person who has frequented the capitol grounds before and there is no reason to believe that this is anything more than a criminal act. >> woodruff: the shooting prompted the entire u.s. capitol complex and nearby white house to go on lockdown for a time. congress is currently in recess so most lawmakers were traveling or back home in their districts. >> ifill: the governor of
6:04 pm
georgia today vetoed a bill to let religious groups deny services to homosexual, bisexual and transgender people. republican nathan deal said there's no need to discriminate in order to protect religious liberties. meanwhile, in north carolina, gay and trans-gender groups filed suit against a new state ban on local laws providing for trans-gender bathrooms and other protections. >> this is not about a bathroom, this is not about a cake, and this is not about flowers at a wedding. this is about discrimination. this is about being afraid of where this world has gone and where we will continue to go. >> ifill: republican governor pat mccrory signed the ban into law last week. it overturned a charlotte ordinance allowing trans-gender people to use the bathroom that matches their identity. >> woodruff: in belgium, the death toll rose to 35 in last week's terror attacks in brussels.
6:05 pm
and, police called for the public to help identify a key suspect. emma murphy of independent television news reports from brussels. >> reporter: the man in the hat is believed to be the surviving bomber from the brussels airport attack. who he is and where he is still unknown. today belgian authorities released this video of him walking through the airport with the other two attackers. moments later they blew themselves up. but when his bomb failed to detonate, he fled. police are now appealing for those who may know the most wanted man to get in touch. as that footage was released, prosecutors confirmed that more people had died in the attacks than first thought. >> we know now that four people have died in a hospital after the attack. and 31 died in the crime scene. 28 of the 31 people were identified formally. and we are still trying to give
6:06 pm
the three families of the three victims news about their relatives. >> reporter: three more people following days of raids: yassine a, mohammed b, and aboubaker o, all accused of participating in terrorist activites. meanwhile, a man arrested at this apartment named as faycal c when he was charged with terrorist offenses has been released. police say they didn't have enough evidence to hold him. almost a week after najim laachraoui and brahim el- bakraoui attacked airport, the memorials to those they killed remained outside. there is a wish to get this place open again soon but with additional security. tomorrow 800 airport staff will be asked to check in as if they were passengers in order to test the efficiency of the new system. >> woodruff: this evening, an all-faith service was held at the brussels cathedral in tribute to the victims of the attacks. >> ifill: and in syria, government forces began combing palmyra for mines and bombs left
6:07 pm
by islamic state militants. the army captured the ancient city yesterday, clearing the way to advance toward militant strongholds in the east. but during their 10-month occupation, isis fighters destroyed some of the ancient city's most revered treasures. they include temples dating back more than 1,800 years. >> woodruff: former cuban leader fidel castro spoke out today on president obama's historic visit, and rejected his appeal for warmer ties. in a long letter to state media, castro catalogued u.s. actions against his regime, and he dismissed mr. obama's call to, "leave the past behind." but in washington, white house spokesman josh earnest brushed aside the castro criticism. >> the fact that the former president felt compelled to respond so forcefully to the president's visit i think is an indication of the significant impact of president obama's
6:08 pm
visit to cuba. >> woodruff: mr. obama did not meet with fidel castro last week. he did have several meetings with his younger brother raul castro, cuba's current president. >> ifill: chicago's police got a new, interim boss today, in the face of a federal investigation over the use of deadly force. veteran officer eddie johnson was appointed by mayor rahm emanuel. johnson's predecessor was forced out last fall, over the killing of 17-year-old laquan mcdonald, by a white officer. >> woodruff: california governor jerry brown has formally unveiled a plan to raise the state's minimum wage to $15 an hour. brown says it's a landmark deal to increase the current minimum from $10 an hour, in stages, by 2022. if approved by the legislature, it will be the highest statewide rate in the country. i it's widely reported apple the dropping effort to unlock the iefng yods which a intrerndo
6:09 pm
shooter. the associated press says the f.b.i. used decrypt the data. >> ifill: wall street had a quiet easter monday. the dow jones industrial average gained 19 points to close at 17,535. the nasdaq dropped six points. the s&p 500 added one point. >> woodruff: and, president and mrs. obama hosted their final white house easter egg roll today. thousands of children turned out to take part in a tradition that goes back to 1878. the president also read the children's classic, "where the wild things are." and there was basketball, tennis and a run hosted by the first lady. >> ifill: still to come on the newshour: the group and the motives behind the deadly easter sunday bombing in pakistan. a fight to push back isis in northern iraq. our politics monday team on the week ahead on the campaign trail, and much more.
6:10 pm
>> woodruff: in pakistan, the mosul was overrun nearly two years ago and has become a vital hub for the group's operations in iraq. but whether iraq's military is up to the challenge is an open question. even as the potential grows for deeper american involvement. special correspondent jane ferguson reports from special correspondent jane ferguson reports from the frontlines, near makhmour, iraq. >> reporter: in an effort to soften isis positions, iraqi forces bombard them repeatedly. they are trying to push forward from this sandbank, up the hill to a village islamic state fighters are dug into. last week, the iraqi army suddenly announced the launch of the long-awaited battle for mosul city.
6:11 pm
in reality, so far just several villages have been re-taken in the makhmour area, well south of mosul. this is as far as the front line comes for these iraqi troops. they are mortaring the village in that direction that is just on that hill. that's where isis positions are. that village is called al nasr. they plan to then move in and try to occupy the village but they have been trying to do that for three days. far beyond that village is the city of mosul, and bit-by-bit, inch-by-inch, they plan to re- take it. so far, progress is slow. iraqi forces swiftly abandoned their positions here in 2014, when isis swept across the country. morale in the military has yet to fully recover. so, when iraq's commander of ground forces, major general riyadh jalal tawfig, showed up near the front lines in an unexpected visit, there was great fanfare.
6:12 pm
but he didn't wish to talk about past mistakes. when isis took mosul iraqi forces quickly withdrew from the city when isis were moving quickly. how do you feel you can prevent that from happening again? >> ( translated ): these issues depend on the timeframes and plans designed for them. after that, for every incident there will be a response, if god wills it. we will re-take mosul. >> reporter: the battle lines in iraq are as complex as the country's woven identities. iraqi forces are holding this ground alongside kurdish fighters called peshmerga. they are a skilled fighting force, protecting the semi- autonomous kurdish region, which borders mosul. they are holding the line on both ends of the iraqi army. peshmerga fighters are supported by u.s. air strikes when they confront isis, but are not given the extensive military equipment the official iraqi army receives from america. this peshmerga commander,
6:13 pm
colonel naji bedaroni, wandered over to inspect their progress. he was not impressed: >> ( translated ): the operation is very weak. it's not strong enough. i believe that if the peshmerga had the equipment they have we could liberate this village in 3 to 4 hours. not 3 to 4 days. >> reporter: kurdish forces have pushed isis out of most of their areas. an agreement for them to take part in the battle for mosul, a mostly arab city, has yet to be reached. but without the peshmerga, the iraqi army will struggle to retake the city alone. are the peshmerga taking part in this fight? >> ( translated ): for this we need a political decision. that area that is being targeted for this operation is not a kurdish area. we are just guarding our bunkers. if we get orders, for sure we can do that but until now we have no gotten any orders. >> reporter: how is the relationship between the kurdish peshmerga fighters and the iraqi army? >> ( translated ): we are coordinating with them, we are helping them.
6:14 pm
but they are weak, they don't believe strongly in the cause. >> reporter: soon we are on the move, to another part of the battle field. unseen on this frontline, but still playing a major role, are u.s. forces, providing advise and assist support for iraqi and kurdish forces. an american marine was killed earlier this month just a few days after arriving at a base in here in makhmour. only after his death did the u.s. military announce the presence of the marines. the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, general dunford, admitted last week there will be more u.s. boots on the ground soon. >> we have a series of recommendations that we will be discussing with the president in the coming weeks to further enable our support for the iraqi security forces. the secretary and i both believe there will be an increase to the u.s. forces in iraq in the coming weeks but that decision hasn't been made. >> reporter: the u.s. military
6:15 pm
in makhmour declined requests from pbs for an interview. fighting between isis and the iraqi army and kurdish forces has flattened village after village here. the scenes are of complete devastation. civilians are running from their homes where the fresh fighting has broken out. these people came from the villages recently re-taken from isis, seizing the chance to escape the fighting. we've just come upon this scene here of civilians fleeing the frontline. further back there, as far as the eye can see, where cars are coming from, there are several villages where isis have either retreated or have been pushed out by iraqi forces. civilians are fleeing while they can, anticipating perhaps more maneuvers. not everyone is jubilant. traumatized and exhausted, these women and children arrived at another frontline position while we were filming. they ran from their village as isis retreated. a girl was killed. we are told isis shot her as she ran away.
6:16 pm
this elderly woman said they were being held as human shields: "they were wearing explosive belts and we couldn't leave because of them," she cries. where are the men? where are your men? >> ( translated ): they took seven from my family. >> reporter: this outpost is manned by another group involved in this offensive, hashd al shaabi, or popular resistance committees. they are militia, and quickly descend into fighting with the official army commanders accompanying us. we are told to leave. on this battlefield, it's not always clear who's in
6:17 pm
on this battlefield, it is not always clear who is in charge. the fight to take back mosul from isis will be the toughest yet. loosing the city could be a deadly blow for the terror group. given the chaos of this battle's earliest stages, a quick victory seems out of reach. for the pbs newshour, i'm jane ferguson in makhmour, iraq. >> woodruff: in pakistan, the government and people were reeling from yesterday's terrorist attack in lahore, the country's cultural capital. the crime scene was strung with police tape and emptied of visitors this morning, while investigators searched for evidence. sunday's suicide bomber targeted christians at an easter celebration.
6:18 pm
but most of the dead were muslims who'd been enjoying the park on a weekend. >> ( translated ): i was standing there near the seesaw when the blast occurred. the explosion was very loud. as we rushed over here we saw a pool of blood and people lying here and there. >> woodruff: a breakaway taliban faction claimed responsibility, its fifth attack since december. in a challenge to the government, the militants said in a statement: "we have entered lahore." the eastern city in punjab province, the country's richest and most populous, is a power base of prime minister nawaz sharif. his government launched a paramilitary crackdown in punjab today. and, after visiting the wounded, sharif returned to islamabad, vowing to defeat what he called the "extremist mindset." >> ( translated ): we will not let them raise their heads again, we will not allow them to play the lives of the people of pakistan.
6:19 pm
this is my resolve, this is my government's resolve and this is >> woodruff: but in the capital, islamabad, muslim extremists rioted outside parliament for a second day. they chanted "death to nawaz" and demanded authorities impose islamic sharia law. back in lahore, funerals played out all day as victims, including some of the children, were laid to rest. >> ( translated ): these people were innocent. they had no idea when they left their homes what was going to happen to them, terrorists killed these innocent people. we demand strict punishment for >> woodruff: and at the vatican, pope francis called the attacks "vile and senseless." we explore the situation in pakistan now with husain haqqani, who was pakistan's ambassador to washington from 2008 to 2011. he's now director for south and central asia at the hudson institute. he's also the author of "pakistan: between mosque and military."
6:20 pm
and pamela constable, who has covered pakistan for the "washington post," and is the author of "playing with fire: pakistan at war with itself." and we welcome both of you back to the program. mr. ambassador, let me start with you. this group, who are they ant where do they come from? >> it's a group part of the pakistani taliban, the t.t.p., an affiliation with al quaida. they are an offshoot of the t.t.p., they have flirted with supporting i.s.i.s. recently aúd have been responsible for other actions including a kidnappings for ransom and terrorist acts in the past. >> reporter: when you say they flirted with i.s.i.s., what do you mean. >> they issued a statement saying we agree with i.s.i.s.'s objectives but did go to far as to disassociated with al quaida and affiliate with i.s.i.s. >> woodruff: pamela constable, what would you add to that? help us figure out how they fit into what we already know about the taliban and i.s.i.s. in this part of the world. >> it's interesting because, of
6:21 pm
course, the pakistani taliban has always been ferocious and anti-western and very anti-state, but this group seems to have been even more hard line. they split off from the pakistan taliban because it wasn't hard enough on sharia law and fundamentalist values and the leader of this group is from the border tribal area up in the northwest, but the fact that they're focusing on punjab is extremely interesting and a major challenge for this government, unlike anything before. >> woodruff: why is that significant they went after punjab and significant lahore? >> partly because as the tape mentioned, this is the power base of the government, but it's also because punjab has always been a little bit offlimits in terms of the anti-terror fight. there are some groups based in punjab that have government support, whether it's acknowledged or not, they've gone very lightly on them, they've tried to appease them and now it really is coming back
6:22 pm
to haunt them because you have much more radical groups coming in and building on that foundation. >> woodruff: so why is punjab and lahore such a target? >> lahore is only a target yesterday, but the fact remains that the rest of the country has been a target for much longer. the real problem lies in that attitude of the government of trying to protect the punjab while going to after terrorists in other parts of the country but not punjab and that's come bag to bite them. the fact is the pakistani military and civil leadership easily gets distracted by dilution of fighting india and influence in afghanistan and allowing synergy hadi groups to pursueñr those objectives not realizing they can end up having offshoots like the pakistani taliban came out of the after gan taliban and became a separate group and mu jab has broken away from the pakistani
6:23 pm
taliban. pakistan has to make a decision to go after all terrorists and the mindset that breeds the terrorists and pakistan has not been able to make that decision. every few years, in fact i can recall being in this studio at least six times saying somebody is staying in the studio pakistan is going after these people now. it hasn't, and 16 years have gone by. >> woodruff: how do you explain, pamela constable, how much the government appears to have taken its eye off the ball and what is it this group wants? just to destroy anything that doesn't agree with them? why specifically children? this was a playground. there were children, women, and ended up mostly killing muslims. >> well, they want power. they want religious power. they want their vision of the religion to prevail in what has been historically at least in theoryñi a multireligious democracy which islam dominates, but this country has always been very not open to christianity
6:24 pm
only but benefited enormously, some of the best schools and colleges in pakistan have been christian, so it's always been a popular group, a group that's fit in and benefited greatly with society. i think it's important to point out these extremists don't only go after christians. they go after shiite muslims and amity muslims which is an ostracized muslim authority, they have been very badly attacked by groups like this. so this really is sort of the sword arm of extreme sunni islam acting viciously without regard for any human life, simply to make a point. easter, a park, children, mothers, playground, notably very few guards there. >> and they justify killing muslims as well on the grounds this is necessary for advancing their cause. two things are at play here -- one, pakistan's informant for
6:25 pm
jihadi groups initially was primarily a strategic investment which was supposed to bring them benefits through influence in afghanistan and the liberation from india. that has backfired. even though it backfired, pakistan has been selective in going after these jihadi groups and has the reason why the jihadi groups pick up specific targets like shias or amadis or christians as a means of improving their recruitment, playing on polarization and taking advantage of that advance in society further. >> woodruff: pamela constable, how much do we look at this as an extension of what i.s.i.s. is doing in other parts of the world especially in the middle east and how much of this is internal to pakistan? >> i think it's mostly internal, but i think this group even said so. groups like this are taking a leaf, taking an inspiration, if you will, from i.s.i.s. and saying we can go farther and do
6:26 pm
more. let's get up to the plate here. but it's been going on a very long time within pakistan, sort of creeping up bomb abomb and attack by attack. it's not new news. it's the pace and the fe ferociy that increased and i believe because they're emboldened by i.s.i.s. >> and the state has not taken steps to isolate them, and there are groups which attack india and once spared it's very possible some of their members will actually join splinter groups which will attack pakistan. >> woodruff: just quickly, in less than a minute, to both of you, when prime minister sharif says we're going after the people responsible and do something about this, how realistic is that? >> people like me say i hope you can, but pakistan has had eight prime ministers since 9/11, each one who said the same thing. it hasn't happened. we need to exam why it hasn't
6:27 pm
happened and chi to change that the government said unofficially it will send in paramilitary rangers in punjab. let's see if they can do it. i have serious doubts but let's see if they can do it. maybe it will be a turning point. one can always hope. >> woodruff: pamela constable, ambassador husain haqqani, we thank you both. >> you're you'r welcome. >> ifill: stay with us, coming up on the newshour: waste to wattage: creating energy from livestock manure. a chronicle of the 14-year manhunt for balkan war criminals. and, remembering an author with a love for the great outdoors. but first, from bernie sanders' saturday sweep, to the continued war of words between the two g.o.p. frontrunners, there's lots to talk about this politics
6:28 pm
monday with tamara keith of npr, and joining us from phoenix, arizona tonight, amy walter of the "cook political report." tam, three states for bernie sanders this weekend. does that mean he has momentum? >> he's definitely claiming momentum but still has something of a math problem. going into saturday, he needed to win 58% offall the remaining delegates to clinch the nomination pledge delegates. after what huge, huge series of wins by larger margins than his campaign expected, he needs 57% of all the remaining delegates and not all the states that are coming up are as favorable to sanders. there aren't very many caucuses left and there are several closed primaries coming up, including in new york state where sanders is planning to contest it, but a state where hillary clinton was elected senator twice. >> ifill: so hawaii, alaska and washington state were fine victories but don't actually close the gap that much?
6:29 pm
>> they close the gap a bit. he did cut into hillary clinton's delegate lead but it doesn't change the math fundamentally. he still has a lot of work to do, and his campaign today and conference call said that they're going to keep fighting this all the way and they think that neither candidate will get a majority of the legend delegates needed to actually clinch it with just pledged delegates, so they're going for superdelegates which are the party establishment people, and sanders' campaign announced it's got one super delegate to support him, collin peterson from minnesota. that's not a tidal wave. >> ifill: so, amy, there is still on the clinton side an enthusiasm gap which the sanders people say will make all the difference. is there anything to that? >> well, i think the real challenge for hillary clinton has been the fact that bernie sanders, to his credit, has really driven the terms of this campaign and this debate.
6:30 pm
it has been on the terrain he wants to be playing on. the talk now is about issues that bernie sanders has been talking about really since he first got into politics, the talk about income inequality, the rigged economy, this is where the debate has been, trade, et cetera, and this may or may not have been where with hillary clinton wanted to have the debate but it's where she beans forced to go. at the end of the day, though, completely agree with tamara where it becomes a math problem. not only has she secured more delegates, pledged delegates, the people you get when you win primaries, she's won more votes as well, so she has more people who have turned out and voted for her, but i think you're right, gwen, that we're seeing an enthusiasm gap with a group of voters critical in november and that's younger voters. we know it was critical for president obama and his victories in 2008 and 2012. what hillary clinton will have to do is prove to the younger voters who keep turning out for bernie sanders even though they
6:31 pm
probably intellectually know he may not be the no, ma'am neerks but they keep turning out for him because there is something about him that strikes them, and that she has not figured out how to crack. >> ifill: there has been something of a war of words between the sanders camp and the hillary camp today on the republican side. the war of words has been a little less elevated, shall we say. let's listens to ted cruz today. >> when it comes to civility, there have been other candidates who have demonstrated a willingness to go to the gutter, to make personal attacks, to make sleazy attacks. i think the american people are sick of that. that has no place in politics. no candidate should be doing what donald trump did last week which is attacking p my wife and attacking my family. >> ifill: it's been well-documented everywhere how much of these attacks and counterattacks have been going on between trump and ted cruz,
6:32 pm
and john kasich said, please, let's leave the family out of it. how far can they go, tam? >> that's question i ask a lot again and again. it's not clear. there is the old saying and i don't know who gets full credit for it, i think john mccain is one of the people who gets credit for it, is when you wrestle with a pig, you both get dirty and the pig enjoys it. in this analogy, and i'm not calling donald trump a pig -- >> ifill: no. -- but people who wrestle with donald trump end up worse for wear. >> ifill: what do you think about that, amy? >> absolutely, it does not do anybody any good. if you're the republican party right now, the architects or the establishment of the republican party are desperate to figure out how to bring the party together. this party has been now
6:33 pm
fracturing and the divisiveness is significant, and this is not helping at all. in fact, if you want to look at the trajectory for the republican party and approval ratings over the course of this campaign, it's only gone like. this this is not helping the overall whoever the nominee ends up being, this is not helping the image of the republican party, this isn't helping republicans in congress, and this is going to be the major challenge for republicans going forward which is how do they unify these disparate parts of themselves when the candidates can't even have a civil conversation, nonetheless agree on the direction forward? >> ifill: let me ask you about the story in the "new york times" about the fact the republican establishment finds itself in such a big corner because the big donors and people who go to the cocktail parties didn't see the trump train coming? >> it's a challenge. there is this thought that the
6:34 pm
chamber of commerce republican party is not the republican party of people who went through a wrenching recession, who feel like their lives are not back, even if the jobs report says they are. their wages are stagnant. you know, they don't know how they feel about trade deals, and there is donald trump, and he is sort of emoding in the very way -- he's saying things people want to hear. >> ifill: amy, seems we're not just talking about blue-collar, underemployed and unemployed people, we're talking white-collar business people, too. >> that's right. donald trump has tapped into the anger and angst with blue-collar, working-class americans, but he's also doing well enough with the so-called establishment, chamber of commerce types in. people says, yes, he says things that are outrageous, no, i don't
6:35 pm
believe he's going to follow through on a lot of things he says he'll do, but i believe he's a good businessman and negotiate and they say we just simply need to shake things up. so he's able to win because he has a group of voters who believe he's a hard liner who won't negotiate or iompensate in any way, shape or form, and then he's able to get another group of voters who believe his success is based on the fact he's such a good negotiator, that's why it's been a challenge for the nontrump folks to stop him. >> ifill: the gap on the democratic side works in his favor and the republican side. amy walter, tamera keith, it's monday. thank you both. >> you're welcome. >> woodruff: now a unique look at a completely different kind of power: the potential of
6:36 pm
organic waste as a renewable energy source. a fair warning of sorts for those of you either preparing or eating dinner, given the subject matter. public media's inside energy and rocky mountain pbs, dan boyce explains. >> reporter: john slutsky has been milking cows since the early 1980s. his professional life rising and falling with what his livestock excrete. and not just from their udders. >> it's like a buffet for the manure connoisseur. >> reporter: manure. the dirty dark side of working with these adorable holsteins is the enormous logistical challenge of dealing with waste. slutsky considers himself an environmentally conscious guy so he worries about all the methane produced as that manure breaks down. >> the whole methane thing and greenhouse gases. all of that is becoming more
6:37 pm
important to many in our industry. >> reporter: if only he lived about 50 miles southeast. this is heartland biogas, a new facility bringing in truckload after truckload of manure from nearby dairies. all of the buildings and pools here add up to what's called a "digester." >> you can think of the digester as the same as your own guts, if you can. >> reporter: so this is where the cow poop goes? >> this is it. this is where the cow poop ends up right here. >> reporter: bob yost is showing me around heartland. what's brought in gets liquefied, cooked up and mixed together, speeding up the production of methane. and here, they actually want methane. with a little more refining, that methane becomes chemically identical to the natural gas drilled from underground. the gas produced here goes straight into a pipeline on site just like any other natural gas. >> it's injected into the pipeline and then it's delivered
6:38 pm
to anywhere in the country. >> reporter: destructive greenhouse gases that would be escaping into the atmosphere anyway, going to good use. dairy farms have been building digesters for years, but the technology is advancing, and diversifying. it turns out, the way to get the most methane from your digester is to have a mixture of manure and food scraps. >> i got the turkey bacon guac burger. >> reporter: that's where restaurants like denver's park burger come in. >> we do have gray recycling bins as well as bins with no bag which is our composting setup. >> reporter: general manager t.j. mcreynolds pays a little bit more for composting services on top of his trash bill. he thought it would end up as mulch somewhere. >> never once did i consider it being used for natural gas. >> reporter: hundreds of colorado restaurants, schools and groceries have begun sending their scraps to heartland. >> there could be 25 to 30 semi
6:39 pm
loads per day of food waste coming in and then the manure is added to that. the company yost works with, a1 organics, coordinates the delivery of all that food waste. it comes in all types, a lot of it still in packaging. >> well, this had sweet tea in it. >> reporter: luckily this machine at the digester can tear all that apart to get to the valuable organics inside. unfortunately, all of this is a prospect tantalizingly out of reach for slutsky. his farm is too far from the heartland facility, and too small to build his own primitive digester, which really only makes financial sense for operations with 2,000 cows or more. slutsky has 1,500. >> we have a business to run, it's not gonna do us any good if we build a digester and go out of business. >> reporter: it's a tough position to be in: big enough to
6:40 pm
have to deal with mounds and mounds of manure, too small to make any money off it. it's where most american dairies find themselves-- their methane remaining wasted. but there is another source of biogas, sitting right under our noses. >> well, this is what eight million gallons of sewage a day looks like. >> reporter: yes, human waste can also be turned into power. we're at the wastewater treatment plant in grand junction, colorado. and that distinctive smell of sewage is starting to smell like money to manager dan tonello. the plant has had a digester for decades, but most of the methane used to be flared off into the air. >> not good for the environment and a waste of a wonderful resource. >> reporter: so the city spent just under $3 million for the natural gas refining equipment. and, rather than just putting it into a pipeline or generating electricity with it, tonello had another idea. >> in the evening, when the trucks are done with their routes, they hook up, fill up.
6:41 pm
>> reporter: grand junction has been replacing an aging fleet of garbage trucks and buses, with natural gas vehicles-- fueled mostly by the human-sourced gas from the treatment plant. tonello says grand junction is the first city in the nation to do that. >> we're looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars a year being saved by implementing this process. >> that's a model for small wastewater treatment plants anywhere in the country. >> reporter: joanna underwood works with energy vision, an environmental group which promotes the use of this renewable natural gas. she says using bio-gas to run a fleet of vehicles-- is the most efficient way to use a digester. >> every time you convert a bus fleet or a refuse fleet or a produce delivery fleet to renewable natural gas you've had a huge impact. >> reporter: because more often than not, those natural gas vehicles are replacing older, more polluting diesel trucks. underwood says if all the
6:42 pm
organic waste in the country were gathered, from dairies, food producers and sewage plants, current technologies could produce enough natural gas to replace about half of the diesel fuel used in the u.s. transportation sector. and wastewater treatment plants could provide as much as 12% of the nation's electricity, turning waste into a serious powerhouse. for the pbs newshour, i'm dan boyce reporting from grand junction, colorado. >> ifill: last thursday, a u.n. tribunal convicted former bosnian serb leader radovan karadzic of war crimes and genocide in the 1990's balkan wars.
6:43 pm
a look at how tough it was to hunt down those indicted is the focus of the newest addition to the newshour bookshelf margaret warner has that. the servian president was served. the u.n. set up an international tribunal to investigate and indicted some 161 people it found most responsible. the challenge was to actually apprehend them. how they did so is captured in a gripping new book by julian borger, long-time correspondent and editor at the guardian newspaper titled the butcher's trail how the search for ball can war criminals became the most >> warner: julian borger, welcome. you open this book with a really vivid account of the capture of
6:44 pm
the last of these criminals in a forest in serbia. who was he and what had he done? >> he was goran hadzic and he used to run a serb statelet inside croatia which had been carved out of croatia by what was called ethnic cleansing, a euphemism for mass killing of other ethnicities. so he had overseen that killing on a large scale. >> warner: and you had a particularly horrible example. i mean 260 men and boys taken to the forest and just executed. >> yeah, that was the vukovar massacre and that was the first large scale massacre since the nazi era, so it came as a complete shock to europe. >> warner: so you cover these wars-- how typical was hadzic in terms of the perpetrator? in another war, what did you discover about what drove these people into the most grotesque, most savage brutality? >> a lot of them, a lot of the
6:45 pm
people who rose to prominence and ended up indicted war criminals, as war criminals, came from very ordinary backgrounds. and i think the lesson that i learned by going through their life stories is that there are these people all around us. and when a permissive atmosphere is created in which they can rule the roost, then they create the conditions for which these mass murderers can take part. >> warner: and how much of it was driven by ethnic hatreds? i mean you had christians, serbs and croats against bosnian muslims but also against each other, versus just being perpetrated by outright psychopaths? >> it was perpetrated by political leaders. as political leaders who had the aim of expanding their territory and consolidating their own power set one ethnic group against the other and brought nationalism to the fore as a
6:46 pm
replacement for communism, which was in collapse. so they offered something that seemed visceral and certain and they drove this largely for their own political motives. >> warner: what's really truly groundbreaking about this book is what it took to apprehend them. the international tribunal headed by a canadian judge, louise arbour, didn't get much help apprehending them from this nato stabilization force - the u.s., the brits, etcetera. why is that? >> well, when the nato went in, initially as a peacekeeping force, all it wanted to do was keep the peace. it didn't want to do any other task that might be risky, that might risk upsetting the peace-- they called it 'mission creep,' and it's really hard now to look at that time before 9/11 and remember how casualty-averse, how risk-averse these u.s. military, these british military, were. it was said if you were a general officer at that time, you were unlikely to get another
6:47 pm
star if you had casualties under your watch. >> warner: you managed to get those that did hunt these men down to talk you for the first time really that they really had. if you could sum it up, who were they? >> it was a shifting cast of characters involved. diplomats, special forces from six nations altogether, intelligence agencies from others, but the first one is an interesting arrest. the first arrest specifically for the war crimes tribunal in the hague, was kind of an international pick up team, working for the u.n. that involved an american diplomat general, an american prosecutor, a british police man, a czech homicide detective and a newly formed, a polish special forces unit that had been only a few years ago the opposite side of the iron curtain. and together, they did something that nato at that time was afraid of doing. they took a risk to carry out
6:48 pm
the u.n. mandate to make an arrest and that really broke opened the floodgates. >> warner: but what did it take to get these guys? some of them were hiding in plain sight, as reported in the press at that time. >> it was very different in different circumstances. in the early days, they knew where they were and it was just a question of getting them to a place where there was unlikely to be collateral damage, where passersby to be hurt. so it was a question of following them often in their cars, stopping their cars, ripping them out-- scenes that have since become familiar after bosnia in the form of renditions. these were the kind of early forms of renditions. the important difference is they were underpinned by the security council resolutions and a body of international law. >> warner: so, jumping forward, did this have any deterrent effect, the success of these apprehensions and so many of them brought to justice? i mean, we see mass atrocities of civilians now in syria and other parts of the middle east and the perpetrators don't seem at all afraid of being prosecuted.
6:49 pm
>> i think this manhunt represented the high watermark in terms of enforcement of international humanitarian law and i think it pushed back the boundaries of impunity for these kinds of mass crimes. but, i think since that manhunt, that achievement has been allowed to unravel. the hague international tribunal had international support. its permanent successor, the international criminal court, hasn't had that support from the big powers from the u.s., russia, china and india and because of that, it doesn't have that clout. it hasn't beenble to enforce its judgements and i think the consequence of that is the return of impunity. i think we see the results of that now in the middle east, in syria, in iraq where terrorism has had its roots in mass crimes committed by regimes. >> warner: well, a very disappointing result. julian borger, author of "the butcher's trail." thank you.
6:50 pm
>> thank you. >> woodruff: finally tonight, remembering one of the nation's most versatile writers. jeffrey brown has the story. >> brown: jim harrison was a prolific writer of fiction and etry, most often of men and women in the drama of rural america and the natural world. among his best known works are "legends of the fall," "dalva," and the more recent "brown dog." a new novel, "the ancient minstrel" came out just this month, and a new volume of poetry, "dead man's float," earlier this year. he'd been a hollywood screenwriter, a food writer for "esquire" magazine. a man of many pursuits who lived large and died this weekend at age 78. in 2009 i visited harrison at his home in montana. here's a look back. >> out there fishing and a little bird hunting. >> brown: harrison is a determined outsider in all senses.
6:51 pm
>> you really get a hang of the country rather than be stuck in what i call the geopiety of the eastern seaboard. >> brown: careful, because that's where i am. >> i know it, but you deserve it, too. but it does happen. (laughter) >> brown: now 71, jim harrison is blind in his left eye from a childhood accident, chain smoking his american spirit cigarettes, part wild man, part cultivated literary lion who peppers his speech with birds and great poets of the past. it's poetry, in fact, that has remained harrison's first love. his new collection is called in search of small gods. >> your son's spirit in remote places, whether the spirit of animals, the spirit of trees. those are the small gods. >> brown: and they appear
6:52 pm
throughout the poetry, so sounds like they're coming from your walks. >> i think that's true, you know, because sometimes you have little breakthroughs. i've known this group of ravens for 19 years, for instance, chihuahua ravens, mexican ravens, and last year several times they began to take walks with me. >> brown: but then you put them into poetry. >> yes, then you do, you know. what is it that blake said -- how do we know but that every bird who cuts the airy way is an immense world of delight close to our senses five, that perception, what is possible in the natural world. i have been inordinately productive in the last five or six years, and i think it was
6:53 pm
boiling down your life. 14th century philosopher talked about cooking down your life. you cook down your life and then the sauce is just right so you can let go. >> brown: there is, in fact, much about loss and grief in harrison's writing these days. his brother and a number of friends have died in recent years, and on our walk near antelope butte, he told me of a talk he had with one of them, a native american, just before his death. i was really falling apart. he said, don't be upset, these things happen to people. isn't that an incredible thing to say? >> brown: yeah. of course, a lot of characters in your books are like that. >> are like that. >> brown: these things happen. well, native americans, you know, they tend to see the whole
6:54 pm
arc. moving higher my thumping chest recites the names of a dozen friends who have died in recent years, names now incomprehensible as the mountains across the river far behind me. ant lope butte, perhaps their names are taken from us by divine, and a flutter here and there been the bodies of the birds. i'll be a simple crow who can reach the top of antelope butte. >> woodruff: you can watch jeff's full profile of jim harrison on our homepage, pbs.org/newshour. >> ifill: on the newshour online, the weather phenomenon known as el nino has a new cousin. atmospheric scientists have identified an ocean temperature
6:55 pm
anomaly that can predict droughts on the east coast up to two months before they hit. read how the team plans to build an alert system based on these findings. that's on our home page, pbs.org/newshour. >> woodruff: and that's the newshour for tonight. on tuesday our series on foster care continues, with the inspiring story of a track star who beat the odds. i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. join us online, and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your financial future.
6:56 pm
>> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org
7:00 pm
this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and sue herera. stocks stalled. staggering run higher is quickly losing steam and there are reasons why things could start to get rocky. took too much. a number of fed officials are speaking. will that bring clarity or confuse things more. >> all that and more tonight on "nightly business report" for monday, march 28th. good evening. welcome. recent rally in stocks appears to have stalled. those double digit gains since the mid-february lows have take an breather and that shift in the market coincides with the winding downth
304 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
KQED (PBS) Television Archive The Chin Grimes TV News Archive Television Archive News Search ServiceUploaded by TV Archive on