captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> lehrer: good evening. i'm jim lehrer. forecasters said pakistan's floodwaters won't recede until the end of the month. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. on the "newshour" tonight, we get an update from special correspondent saima mohsin in karachi. and examine how pakistan's government is coping with the crisis. >> lehrer: then, we talk to law professor valerie hans about the dynamics of a jury's deliberations, after former illinois governor rod blagojevich was found guilty on one of 24 charges. >> to give credit to the entire jury-- there wasn't any animosity; there wasn't any yelling or name-calling. they were very professional, they were very thoughtful. >> ifill: judy woodruff explores the latest research on detecting and treating alzheimer's disease. >> lehrer: we have an encore report from fred de sam lazaro about the shortage of clean

drinking water in ethiopia. >> ifill: and jeffrey brown gets the views of columnists eugene robinson and ross douthat on the proposal to build an islamic center two blocks from ground zero. >> lehrer: that's all ahead on tonight's "newshour." major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. 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. >> ifill: three weeks since the flooding began in pakistan, tens of thousands of villages remain under water. more flooding could be on the way, adding to a disaster which now stretches almost the length of the country from often inaccessible parts of the swat valley in the north, through punjab and on into sindh province in the south, an area the size of the state of florida.

12% of the population has been displaced-- as many as 20 million people-- and the death toll stands at more than 1,500. special correspondent saima mohsin is on the ground in karachi. i spoke with her earlier today. welcome back to the program. you've been out and about covering these floods. any time that the waters are receding. >> reporter: not at all, gwen. that's the sad news that we have to give you, that that water is nod receding. in fact, it's absolutely rising. there was fresh rainfall over the last few days, and as we said on monday, there was a fear that some of the rivers and some of the banks that have broken would actually merge together, and those waters are now starting to rise. once again, we're seeing people moving out of those areas. there is a mass exodus right now across pakistan day and night as people try and get

away from those floodwaters, get to higher grounds and get to some kind of safety. >> ifill: how about aid? is any of the international aid we keep hearing about, or domestic aid, is it arriving? >> reporter: well, apparently, it is, and we do see that there are aid fleets arriving at various airports across pakistan, but, gwen, the fact is there isn't enough of it to go around. i can't emphasize that enough. we keep saying that. we've been out across sinoh and traveling around karachi at all the camps that i've seen. we're simply not seeing enough food, drunking water, anything of that sort. and not anything on the kind of level we saw during the earthquake, for example, or the haiti quake or the tsunami where you saw the road teaming with aid agencies trying to give aid to people desperate for it and they really are, gwen. i saw an aid delivery on the road a couple of days ago.

people were fighting over this one bottle of water. there were whole families that were sharing it. it was absolutely something to see. >> ifill: in fact, your reporting was quite remarkable, your special report that we saw earlier this week. you have seen, in addition to the fights over just getting supplies, you have seen any evidence of violence, of other kinds of violence, not only because of lack of supplies but just lack of everything? >> reporter: yes. i mean, desperation is the only word that can really explain what people are going through right now, and you can't really blame them. they've had to suffer terrible losses in their homes. some of them have lost loved ones. i met a man last night-- he had lost his wife and daughter to the floodwaters. he arrived at a camp. there was absolutely nothing there for him to eat or drink. and it really is desperation. we have seen pockets of violence across pakistan in various parts, in islamabad ,

and here as with the in where people have simply come out on to the streets. they've tried to block traffic, not because they want to riot or crete any kind of trouble, but because they want to raise awareness for their plight. they want to say, "please help us." local people are doing the best they can, but as we said, that international aid really needs on come in now. >> ifill: whenever we cover one of these sdaefrtz the first question we ask is what has the government response been, whether katrina here in the united states or haiti, and now in pakistan. is there evidence of government action or inaction in responding to this disaster? >> well, the pakistani government has set up the national disaster management authority. it's a very comprehensive one. it's spread out right across pakistan in every province. but pakistan is not wealthy in terms of infrastructure or financially right now, which means that

they simply don't have enough boots on the ground to actually get across the country to get to everyone. we saw the navy helicopters over the weekend. i've seen military trying to deliver and get to those hard-to-reach areas, but there simply aren't enough people to get around, 20 million or so. as we keep saying, this is a worst disaster than haiti, tsunami and the south asian quake put together. just to read a few facts and figures for you that i came across today, gwen. in the first week of pakistan's appeal for these flooding, 7.5 million dollars of aid was pledged. compare that with $100 million for the tsunami, $38 million for haiti, and $15 million for the south asian quake. the pakistani government simply cannot cope with this alone. it needs international help. and that isn't coming through fast enough.

>> ifill: saima mohsin reporting for us in pakistan tonight, thank you very much. >> reporter: thank you. >> ifill: as the humanitarian crisis worsens, new questions are being raised about whether the government of pakistan is equipped to handle both this and ongoing regional security concerns. for more on that we turn to: shuja nawaz, director of the south asia center at the atlantic council. and moeed yusuf, director of the pakistan program at the u.s. institute of peace. mr. nawaz, as we hear about whose happening on the ground here and the magnitude of it , to what degree is there beginning to be worry that this is contributing to preexisting instability, not only in the government, but in pakistan at large? >> i think the worst is yet to come, even in terms of the flood, because the big wave has not yet reached. and clearly this is such a vast area affected as your reporter indicated, that even with the government

doing a lot , it has not been seen as having done a lot. the government faces a huge mountain of negative perceptions, being inept and being corrupt, and it needs to show the people in a very transparent manner that it is actually doing something with what it has. and the aid is still not coming . a lot of it is pledged. it hasn't hit the ground yet. >> ifill: mr. yusuf, is pakistan's government, as perceived, a weak civilian government in terms of running itself, let alone disaster. >> i think the perception is true, to a large except, but i think perceptions are greater than reality in this case. i think there is a lot being done. the problem is, i've just come back, the damage is colossal, and i would argue even a developed country would have really found it hard to cope with this kind of challenge. so, i mean, given the inefficiencies and given the weakness in the system, you would expect this. now, on

the front line it's really the pakistani army that is going out, that is better equipped to deal with these kinds of situation. they've traditionally been very active in relief. i saw more of them than civilian government and civilian authorities out there. >> ifill: prior to this, the pakistani army, mr. nawaz, was very much involved in the counter-insurgency that was supposed to be under way, especially in the swat valley, and that the united states had special interest in. now that's being replaced by relief work. does one preclude the other? >> over time it will have an effect. for the time being, the army is saying it will carry on its counter-insurgency efforts in the northwest frontier in the border region with afghanistan, in particular. but, clearly, with the infrastructure destroyed, with communications damaged , their own lines of communication will be affected and their ability to supply and rotate those troops will be hindered. >> ifill: and our ability to rely on them and help with the war in safg also

compromised? >> over time, yes, it will be, and this is going to be a long-term situation in pakistan. this is not something that will have a quick fix. there will be the three "rs"-- relief, reconstruction, rehabilitation. all three have to take place, and the economic effects of this are going to be around for many years to come. >> ifill: mr. yusuf, there have been many questions raised to the degree the taliban, the pakistani taliban have basically beat the government to the punch here, and, therefore, have strengthened their role to the detriment, i guess, of the anti-terror effort that the u.s. and pakistan have been working on. >> these people were always prey on misery of the average citizen. any time there is state failure, those who are most organized will come forward. you saw this in the earthquake in 2005. islamic charities in pakistan have traditionally been better organized than

the government. all of them are not associated with militant organization. some of them, unfortunately , are, and there you have a vacuum which may be filled and you can find more recruits out of the helplessness that people are face at this point. so that's always a worry, quite frankly. in pakistan, the discourse always becomes one of despondence very, very quickly, and you may get some people going in the other direction out of this. >> ifill: that's the question-- aienation. how much of a risk is it that this response, or the government's seemingly lack of response, increase alienation among people who were alienated in the first place? >> i think first on the militant groups and their social services arms, these are the punjabby militant groups, not the taliban at work, and they are a small minority among the char itz operating in pakistan. so we should put it in perspective. but you're right. the possibility of civil unrest and protests growing of the kind that your reporter also talked about

exists, particularly -- we expect this tragedy to linger for quite a while, and if the supplies do not reach people, if their homes are not rebuilt efficient infrastructure isn't there, then there's a huge danger. one other thing i do want to mention-- i think there's always a temptation on the part of the government, when you're getting aid, you postpone some of the other tougher economic decisions that you need to make to restructure the economy. now, this government is actually in the process of trying to restructure its economy, and with those structural adjustments looming, particularly in the conversations with the i.m.f., it's critical that they not postpone though if aid comes in. >> ifill: we heard saima mohsin comparing this to other disasters. let's compare it to the 2008 earthquake. we know it's much bigger but how would you gage the response? how would you compare it?

>> quite frankly, i'm a bit struck by the lack of enthusiasm in the international community when it really comes to going out and helping pakistan this time around. there could be a number of factors. i don't know, there's the financial meltdown that's taken place. there's a perception problem pakistan sfrfrz, its government at least, in terms of its image, the corruption, the inefficiencies there. there could be an issue of the wikileak stories coming out, and people already-- i was somewhere this morning where there was a lot of resentment towards pakistan for having not supported the u.s. , difficulty for people to sort of go out and help pakistan. there could be a number of factors. the fact of the matter is, this is the best opportunity the u.s. and the international community could have if you really wanted to turn the tide of anti-u.s. perception in that country. this is the chance to go out, put a big number to aid, and present to the pakistani people that the u.s. and other international actors are coming in and doing what

is required in this hour of need. >> ifill: do you agree with that? >> i think it is a good opportunity, but it's not just for the united states. i think it's very important that the europeans and pakistan's neighbors and the muslim world also contribute. but to date, they really haven't. we know the saudi arabia has surpassed the u.s. as the leading aid giver for this particular flood relief. but china has only given a few million. iran has given $800,000. the u.a.e. has not given anything. there is an n.g.o. from the u.a.e. working in pakistan. so there needs to be much broader effort sfwlen. >> ifill: i have to ask you both about president zaidary, who was kind of missing inarchs not in the country at the time this happened, has made brief visits to the flood region and is now, i suppose, out of the country again. i read today he is in russia. how is he perceived in this, especially by the international community? >> it's interesting. i have seen this firsthand, and i have not seen the

average pakistani citizen on the street more bitter than-- there was-- there has been some damage control. the chief minister of punjab has been out. but, frankly, i think the bitterness is going to be there because the damage is so much, just the scale of is so huge, that people are not going to accept the fact that the government is not doing anything and everything that they can. >> i think the president has an opportunity to try and redeem himself and the government needs to show people exactly what it is doing and what it is capable of doing . if they lose this opportunity, they won't get another one . >> ifill: shuja nawaz and european community thank you both very much. >> a pleasure. >> thank you. >> lehrer: still to come on the "newshour": the jury's deliberations; the latest on alzheimer's disease; ethiopia's clean water crisis and two columnists on the mosque debate. but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan in our

newsroom. >> sreenivasan: new disasters struck at several points around the world today. in china, there were fresh landslides. at least 67 people were missing after heavy rain sent a torrent of mud into a mountain village. 25 others were reported hurt. another mudslide demolished a school building in northern india. at least 18 children were killed. eleven children and two teachers were missing. and in the northern philippines, 41 people died when a passenger bus plunged off a mountain highway into a ravine. nine survivors were taken to local hospitals. in southern afghanistan, a suicide car bomber slammed into a police car, killing a district police chief, two other policemen and a civilian. the attack in kandahar province was the latest to target those linked to the afghan government or international forces. meanwhile, in helmand province, afghan and coalition troops freed 27 people from a compound that the taliban used as a prison. and in the east, hundreds of protesters blocked a main

highway over a nato raid that killed two men overnight. nato said the men were insurgents. president obama made his case on the economy in a backyard in columbus, ohio today. the setting was an informal gathering with a small group of families. the president acknowledged public concerns about the slow pace of recovery, but he argued things are on the right track. >> what we're trying to do is create sort of a virtuous cycle where people start feeling better and better about the economy. and a lot of it's sort of like recovering from an illness. you get a little bit stronger each day and you take a few more steps each day. and that's where our economy's at right now. >> sreenivasan: the president has tried to boost support for his policies as he campaigned for democrats in the last several days. but a new associated press poll today found his approval rating on the economy has fallen to just 41%. stocks made slight gains on wall street today. the dow jones industrial average gained more than nine points to close at 10,415. the nasdaq rose six points to

close at 2,215. another round of primary elections has set the match-ups for november in several states. on tuesday, voters in washington state re-nominated democratic senator patty murray and they chose republican dino rossi to run against her. in wyoming, former u.s. attorney matt mead narrowly beat rita meyer in the republican gubernatorial primary. meyer had the backing of former vice presidential candidate sarah palin. and in california, republicans held a key state senate seat in a special election. democrats had hoped to get within one vote of a two-thirds majority in the senate. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to jim. >> lehrer: now, the ways and means of juries reaching a verdict. case in point-- the blagojevich jury came one vote shy of convicting him on some of the more serious charges.

some of the jurors talked about their two-week deliberation and blagojevich talked about them. >> let me also express my appreciation to the men and women who served on the jury. >> lehrer: a defiant rod blagojevich spoke in the lobby of chicago's federal court house yesterday. he'd been convicted on just one count of lying to the fbi with no verdict on 23 other counts. the former illinois governor commended the jury that heard the case. >> this jury just showed you, notwithstanding, that the government threw everything but the kitchen sink at me that on every count except for one and every charge except for one, they could not prove that i did anything wrong, that i did break any laws except for one nebulous charge from five years ago. >> lehrer: but this jury, as it turned out, very nearly convicted blagojevich on many, if not all of the counts. they included charges that he tried to sell the u.s. senate seat vacated when barack obama won the white house. one unidentified woman on the

jury held out on that charge and the other 23 counts. on a.b.c. television this morning, another juror, erik sarnello, said the hold-out would not be convinced otherwise. >> i think what we came to realize was that there were just major, fundamental different ideas and views on what we were seeing in the evidence. she wanted to see that clear-cut evidence that we knew just wasn't there for her. so to me it was kind of obvious where we were going to end up. >> lehrer: jury foreman james matsu-moto said the two weeks of deliberations were a frustrating exercise, but he said the arguments were never angry. >> to give credit to the entire jury, there wasn't any animosity; there wasn't any yelling or name-calling. they were very professional, they were very thoughtful. >> lehrer: the prosecutor, u.s. attorney patrick fitzgerald, had said the charges against blagojevich would make abraham lincoln "roll over in his grave."

yesterday, he quickly pledged to re-try the case, and even praised the jury. >> one of the hallmarks of our legal system is we require guilt to be determined by a jury and that jurors have to make unanimous findings as to whether or not a case has been proved, whether to convict or to acquit. i think we just need to step back and recognize how important jury service is and how much we owe a debt of gratitude to those jurors. and that's it. >> we'll have more to say later, right now we've got to get annie to camp. >> lehrer: by this morning, the normally-talkative blagojevich had no further comment on the outcome or the holdout juror. >> what about the juror... >> lehrer: the former governor now prepares for a hearing next week to set the date for a re- trial. and to valerie hans, professor of law at cornell university law school and co-author of the book, "american juries: the verdict." professor hans, welcome.

first,-- >> it's great to be here. >> ed: thank you. do you agree with u.s. attorney fitzgerald , that no matter the verdict, those jurors deserve to be credited with a debt that they paid. >> well, i do have very high regard for the jury system. i've studied it for many decades and what i see again and again in research and even in challenging cases like this one is grumz of citizens who come together and try to do their best. sometimes they disagree. it's rare, but they do. >> lehrer: let's go through some of the basics here, as a matter of fact, what percentage of the adult american population actually has a jury experience? >> well, about a quarter right now. it's much more than it used to be. it used to be that jury service was very rarely engaged in by the broad range of people in the population. but states and the federal government have worked really hard over the last several decades to try to make juries more representative. and even though they're not

perfectly a reflection of our community , they're certainly a lot more representative than they used to be. >> lehrer: are their deliberations usually-- as the blagojevich jury foreman said-- are their deliberations without animosity and as professional and thoughtful as he said these particular jurors were? >> well, i have heard some great jury stories of shouting, excitement, but for the most part, i think the foreman describes the typical jury, people who, in a way, through deliberation, become, you know, better than they usually are. they are thoughtful. they look at the evidence. they engage with each other. and in fact, juries are an unusual type of entity. i mean, there's no other place, really, where we're forced to be in a room, locked behind a door, with people who we usually wouldn't be encountering in regular daily life.

so it's an unusual institution but for the most part it seems to work well. >> lehrer: how unusual are hung juries along the lines of the blagojevich jury? >> yeah, well, they're very rare. i think the wonderful movie "12 angry men" has given people the idea that hung juries are really common. but that's more just art than life. in the federal cases, leekt ones in this court, about 2% to 3% hang. in state court cases theviate a little bit higher, between 5% and 6%. in federal cases it's rare fair jury to hang. usually the jury comes together, knows about its mission, has a sense of duty that they have the responsibility of the community to decide cases as best they can , and they forge ahead. and sometimes they agree to disagree, as happened in this case.

>> lehrer: is there a natural momentum that once they close the door and the 12 jurors sit down, a natural momentum to do everything they possibly can to reach a unanims verdict? >> actually, we who study juries are identifying a couple of different approaches juries typically take. one is the so-called evidence-driven jury, they sit dourng slakt foreman or forewoman and discuss all the evidence generally. as part of this general discussion of evidence, preferences start to emerge. but people aren't forced to take a stand early on. those cases are much more likely to result in verdicts. in the so-called verdict-driven deliberation, people sit down, take a vote right away, and then start asking each other to justify their opinions and decisions, and what we found in research is that those kinds of verdict-driven juries are

more likely to hang in the end. it may be it's hard, once you've expressed your opinion, to change your mind later on. >> lehrer: is there-- they don't give you a little guide book, most judges, and whatever, to say, "okay, take the first system or go the second system," at least the juries i've been in. it's up to the people. they close the door and figure it out. sometimes it goes the first way and sometimes it goes the second way. is there a preference people give? >> well, exactly. i mean, i guess it's a testament to human ingenuity that jurors do manage to get there without specific guidance. but that's actually one of the things people in the research and practitioner fields have talked about is who we should have guide books for sdwroorz help them along the way. i guess if i had to pick one, i'd say try to discuss the evidence , and see as you proceed through the evidence if a strong preference one way or the

other emerges. >> lehrer: my reading of the news story-- you can correct me if i am wrong-- in the blagojevich jury they did do the evidence route, right? they started talking about the evidence before they took some votes, right? >> yeah-- well, i guess we don't know. but that's what it seems to me. it wasn't so much interpersonal dynamics that seem to really make it difficult for this jury but instead one of the other things we found say major problem in hung juries which is the evidence itself. it's ambiguous to some people. it's evidence that is capable of being interpreted multiple ways. that seems to have happened here. and, also, evidence that the jurors at least, is very complicated and complex. so if the prosecution is going to try for-- going to engage in a retrial, i think one of the big lisons of this hung jury is to try to simplify the case the next time around. >> lehrer: how rare is it for a hung jury to be hung

11-1, in other words, for one holdout to decide it the way this happened? >> well, actually, you know, i'm amazed because most of the stories do talk about the one holdout. i heard the foreman, though, say something that reinforced what i've learned from research , which is when you have one holdout at the end, it's usually the sign of more significant descent earlier. and he talked about some of the counts having much closer verdict-- splits, like 7-5 , and 9-3. and even though the final vote is 11-1, i think that is really significant that there was more disagreement initially, number one, because that suggests that more than one individual had some problems with some of the evidence on some of the counts. but number two, there's the kind of psychological phenomenon. it'sadeser to hold out at the very end if husome

support along the way. >> lehrer: i gotcha. all right, professor hans, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> ifill: now, the latest on the search for treating alzheimer's disease. judy woodruff has the story. >> woodruff: the effort to develop a treatment for alzheimer's suffered a blow yesterday when a clinical trial was halted after finding that a new drug did more harm than good. manufacturer eli lilly called off the studies after data showed the drug led to a greater risk of skin cancer and more memory loss. the setback comes on the heels of some promising news about early diagnosis of alzheimer's. last week, samples of spinal fluid were found to be highly accurate at predicting a patient's likelihood of eventually developing the disease. researchers also believe brain scans may lead to diagnosis before symptoms develop. to help explain the findings, we turn to a leading researcher, doctor paul aisen of the university of california, san

diego school of medicine. for the record, doctor aisen was involved in the early stages of the eli lilly trial and has consulted for lilly and several other pharmaceutical companies. dr. aisen, thank you for being with us. >> thank you. >> woodruff: first of all, tell us a little bit more about that drug involved in these clinical trials. what was it designed to do? >> well, we think that the cause of alzheimer's disease is a -- the accumulation of a toxic fragment called amyloid peptide, and this drug was designed to prevent that fragment from being released and from accumulating. >> woodruff: what went wrong? >> well, this was a large treatment study with thousands of participants , and in such a program, you follow the data. you have an independent group monitor the trial and monitoring the data, both for safety and for impact of

drug on memory. and this monitoring led to the conclusion that the drug was carrying a risk , a risk of skin cancer and was not improving memory. so that means this dose of this particular drug is not effective at this stage of disease. >> woodruff: you said not improving memory. is it also the case that it was making memory and other symptoms worse? >> yes. the interim analysis, the data suggested people taking the drug had more difficulty with memory than the people on placebo. >> woodruff: as i understand it, this trial was at least a decade in the making. how much of a setback is that? >> it's a big setback because there are only a few drugs that are at this pivotal stage, this final stage of drug development. so having one of the major trials fail is a significant setback for the field. but i think the good news is that there are dozens of other drugs

at early phases of development, and that the tools available to study and prove efficacy for these drugs are improve ago that is, the field has developed new methods that should increase the likelihood that some of these drug programs will succeed. >> woodruff: then those other trials are continuing. meantime, as we reported a moment ago, there are promising new developments with regard to diagnosing alzheimer's. tell us a little bit more about that. >> sure. the basic abnormality in the alzheimer's disease brain is, as i said, the accumulationave toxic fragment called amyloid. and we've always been able to be sure alzheimer's is present after death when we can examine brain tissue and see the amloi in brain. now, for the first time, we can very accurately track the accumulation of amyloid in living people.

we have two tests, pet scan, a form of brain scanning, and a sampling of spinal fluid that now give an accurate indication of amyloid buildup in brain. this is a major step forward. it allows us to identify people well before dementia has occurred, even before memory impairment has occurred. >> woodruff: so earlier diagnosis, but the question is if you don't have a treatment yet, what good does that do? >> well, the major benefit of these advances is that it gives us a tool for drug development. right now, these are research tools primarily. they will allow investigators to identify people before symptoms have occurred or before symptoms are bad, at the early stage, at which the disease is likely to be treatable , identify people at this stage, and test their drugs at this stage. so the trial that was just

stopped was conducted in the dementia stage. it may well be that the dementia stage is too late for such a drug to work. we now know that amyloid accumulates 10 or 15 years before dementia, and we think that for anti-amyloid drugs to be effective, the earlier the better we intervene. these tools give us a way of testing the drugs at the earliest stage and ultimately can be used when we prove that these drugs work, they can be used to guide therapy in people before the onset of symptoms. >> woodruff : having said, that alzheimer's was identified, i was reading today, in 1906, so it's been over a century. why is this such a tough disease to make progress on? >> well, first, this was a disease that can't be directly observed. so if you're testing a drug for blood pressure, you can measure blood pressure, get a quick answer. if you're treating a rash, you can watch the benefits of the drug. in alzheimer's disease, this is

is not-- it's not a condition that's apparent. we have to use indirect measures of the disease and that creates a lot of noirkz a lot of measurement difficulty. up until now, we have relied on memory tests and similar assessments, but they're not very accurate. memory fluctuates from day to day. it's not a very precise gage of disease progression or the impact of drug treatment. now, we have new, much more precise measures of disease that allow us to identify people at the very early stages, as we said, but also to much more precisely measure the impact of treatment. so i think that clinical trial methodology has advanced , and that's going to help us demonstrate effective treatments. >> woodruff: dr. paul aisen, we're going to leave it there. thank you very much for talking with us. >> thank you. >> lehrer: next, an encore report on a water crisis in the horn of africa.

it's the work of our partnership with the pulitzer center on crisis reporting and national geographic. the story comes from ethiopia via special correspondent fred de sam lazaro. >> reporter: farming may be the main occupation in remote ethiopian villages like this, but fetching water is the main pre-occupation. these puddles, courtesy of an overnight downpour, saved these women hours of back-breaking work, walking miles to a clean water source, even though they say they know it isn't good to drink. >> ( translated ): we have no choice. this is the only option we have. we're really desperate, we don't have strength and we don't have donkeys. yes, my children are always getting ill. stomach aches, stomach aches, stomach aches. >> reporter: keria salo must balance concerns about her kids health against the perils of walking to what is called a community water point or well.

>> ( translated ): we go to usually the town to get water, but even there, we always have to fight for a place in line. if you're not from that area, you don't get first preference. when you go further out you always run into conflicts, the people with access to water are stronger. >> reporter: perhaps three quarters of ethiopia's population does not have access to clean drinking water. ( singing ) that causes ripples throughout society. at a nearby school, the principal says trying to getting water means his girl students often come late or not at all. >> ( translated ): it causes severe problems like dropouts, coming late, repeating classes, just regressing in terms of education. plus, when they go further in the summer when there's less water, they get beaten up or abducted for marriage, which is another problem. >> reporter: for years, development experts thought if

they just put in enough water points, the problem would be solved. problem is it didn't take long for many of those they did install to stop functioning, says meselich seyoum, who works for a britain-based non government organization called water aid. >> in most cases, those failures happen because there was no involvement of community from the beginning. there was this feeling of we know what's good for the people and then we just go in, put the system and leave and there was no capacity of the community not knowing how to even manage the system, so that it can last for a longer period of time. >> reporter: she says her agency now works in partnership with groups based in the country and with local communities. in the village of falka, this well-used facility was designed by an ethiopian non-government group, water action. because it's arid here, the well

is more than a thousand feet deep and the water pumped up has to be treated for excessive fluoride. the aid groups provided the engineering and scientific expertise. but it was villagers who chipped in with labor and who help maintain it. every household pays about 50 cents a week, a rate set by local leaders. so far the user fees have generated a fund balance of almost $1000. >> ( translated ): we have seven committee members who collect the money. they also educate on health issues. they bring it in once a week. so far we've not had any complaints. >> reporter: abarrash munati is on a committee set up to manage the water point. she lacks much formal education but she knows about her community's system and what it has accomplished. >> ( translated ): the white tank takes water from down below, the blue one treats this thing they call fluoride, which

we hear is bad for people. our kids used to suffer from diarrhea, tummy ache, typhoid. it was also difficult for us to keep clean because we couldn't get water and we couldn't afford it. plus also pregnant women would have to go a long way to get water, we had a lot of miscarriages. >> reporter: the fact that aburrash munati does not have to spend hours every day fetching water allows her time to be productive in other ways. and her family's relative affluence is immediately visible in this home when you see these bags, stockpiles of cereals good for months for her family. her husband muhammad haji agrees. he admits he and his five children do better when his wife is at home. >> ( translated ): when they are away we have to tend farm as well as the household. when the kids want their mommy, we have to tend to them. also when they are late, we have to leave the home and go in search of them. now with water closer by, we don't have to worry about such things.

>> reporter: some day the village of falka plans to install another water point. the key question is: why are villages like this so rare? adame kassa, head of water action, says its not just a money problem. >> fund scarcity on one hand is a problem but in reality fund absorption is also a problem. this is because of a lack of capacity. capacity in terms of manpower and skills . >> reporter: that shows up in the report card from regions like halaba, where the village of falka is located, says a regional government executive.

>> ( translated ): so far we have 16 dug wells. in addition, with help of government and other donors we'll have 34 next year. but this only reaches one third of population, two thirds remain without clean water access. >> reporter: at the rate they're going, he says, it will take 40 years to get a source of clean water into every village in his jurisdiction. so mud puddles and risky treks will continue to be a way of life. >> ifill: finally tonight, the debate continues about a planned islamic site in lower manhattan. jeffrey brown has that. >> brown: it is a mosque or a community center. it's on hallowed ground or several blocks away amid a busy city. it's a matter of constitutional rights or a question of the right thing to do. as the national debate continues, the governor of new york signaled today he may

propose a swap of state-owned land to move the proposed building to a new site. groups for and against announced marches to be held in downtown manhattan. and president obama said he had no regrets over comments he made on two occasions last weekend, weighing into the controversy. in the past week, on this program, we've heard pro and con views from family members of 9/11 victims, activists, politicians and other interested parties. tonight, we hear from two columnists who've taken a wider view of the issues raised: eugene robinson of the "washington post" and ross douthat of the "new york times." ross, you wrote the other day that this whole thing revealed yet again a tension between what you call two americas , one constitutional, one cultural. explain. >> well, i think what you see happening in this debate is much like what you mentioned in the opening just now. there are people who frame it exclusively through the lens of constitutional rights, where what we have here is the free exercise of religion . muslims have as much a right

to exercise their religion as anyone else and that's the only debate that matters, the constitutional debate. and then i think on the other side you have people who instinctively or, you know, intuitively or intellectually conceive of america in cultural as well as constitutional terms. and so, in a sense, in that america , it isn't clear that islam has completely arrived yet. there's a sense of suspicion, uncertainty that you have seen in the past where wreligious grouped like my own church, the catholic church in the 19th century, even with home-grown faiths like the mormons in the same period where groups are sort of asked to prove their american bona fide. and i think the negative reaction to the mosque is this is kind of presumptious by a religion that's new to the american scene and is sort of stepping on what's considered american hallowed ground. >> brown:

eugene robinson, do you accept the idea of two americas? how do you respond to that? >> i think that's true, but i'm not sure that really explains what's going on here. i think if, for example, it were , you know, hari krishnas or someone who wants to build a temple at that site there wouldn't be this sort of reaction. so i think the question, the dichotomy swe're at war against terrorism. is it war against terrorism or war against islam? and i think that specific question is the important dividing line in this debate. and george w. bush, when he was president, and barack obama now that he is president, both have tried to make as clear as possible that our war against terrorism is not a war against islam. i think there are people in the country who don't buy

that, who are suspicious of islam specifically, not just suspicious of the new. >> brown: well, ross-- >> i mean, i think that's absolutely true. i think that it is-- it's a combination of the fact that islam is new seeming and alien seeming and so on, and, obviously, the particular association of this spot with islamist terrorism. >> brown: right, but you're suggesting and you're-- the brunt of your argument leads you to believe, i guess, that this should be moved to a different site. >> i think it's a case where the location of the project is defeating the purpose of the project, right. when this project was announced, it was announced as a kind of outreach, a kind of bridge-building effort between muslim americans and the very americans who are most likely to be suspicious of islam. >> brown: but to get back to your-- to move that into your argument, you're suggesting that america that seeks a more coherent, assimilated culture

, may produce xenophobia of the kin'd kind that eugene is talking about, but also produces, you think, something positive. >> where i think it is-- i mean, if you look back to the 19th search rear, the catholic experience. catholic immigrants came to the u.s. and faced terrible xenophobia and terrible nativism, and so on, but they also faced, i think, reasonable questions about the 19th century's catholic view on liberalism. this was when the vatican was railing against liberalism and democracy as terrible errors, and i think islam in the u.s. is in a similar position today. you see this in the debate about the imam heading this mosque and the things he said, positions he's taken, people he's met with, where there is a kind of burden on muslim leaders to disentangle themselves from anything rezem ling sympathy for extremism, terrorism, and so on, that i think was

similar to the burdens faced by the catholics in the 19th century. to that extent, i do think some of the demands that this sense of american cultural identity to new arrivals can be reasonable. >> brown: eugene robinson, you said there is the possibility this will be moved if governor paterson comes through with a plan that all could agree to. would that in principle be a bad thing? would the constitution lose in that sense? is that the argument that you want to make? >> oh, i think it would be really bad thing if it were moved at this point, actually. i mean, look, the imam faisal abdue raul as was written about in the paper is a follower, a practitioner of the soufey strain of islam. these are like the flower children of islam. this is as if he were a unitarian or something. compared to the rest of kristendom.

if this imam who has written for the "washington post" on faith blog and has been consulted by the f.b.i. and the state department to help them try to -- try to explain to muslims around the world what america is about . if this man cannot build this project , then i think that sends a terrible signal to muslims in the united states and around the world, and i think it reinforces the poisonous narrative that is the number one recruiting tool of terrorists, and that is the united states is, in fact, at war against islam. that it hates islam. that it is trying to destroy islam, and that what we say about really-- that al qaeda is really our enemy and not

the great religion of islam, that's all smoke, that we're blowing smoke, that we're not telling the truth. i think this tend to reinforce a very poisonous narrative that is -- that has been used very successfully by terrorists . >> brown: ross, starting with you, is there a way forward that you see when you put together all of this? >> i mean, look, i don't honestly think that moving this project -- i don't know 30 blocks north in new york city and having it go forward-- is exactly the biggest blow to religious freedom in the history of the united states. projects like this, religious projects in particular, run into protests and zoning issues all the time, even when they aren't being built in and around a site where 3,000 americans lost their lives. i don't think when we look back on the history of u.s.-islamic relations over the last 25 years that having a mosque-- having a mosque built in new york city but not right in this spot is a deep blow to america's image in the

muslim world. and i would also say, eugene is absolutely right about the place that soufies hold in the islamic landscape. on the other hand, if you look at what the imam has done, historically, the bridges that he's tried to build-- and i believe he's done this with the best possible intentions-- they've often been bridges to factions within the muslim world who whose values he may not share that i think a lot of americans would rightly consider beyond the pale. if you look at the comment he made about the violence surrounding the iranian election the advice he gave to obama was to give a speech where he recognized the foundation ruled by islamic jurists in iran. again, these are not the worst things in the world to say. arguably, you can see the geopolitical picture but at the same time you can see why people would raise an eyebrow. >> brown: brief last word from you, eugene robinson. do you see it? do you see any way forward out of this?

>> i don't see any really good way forward out of this. i don't see any way out of it that won't leave some people terribly disappointed and angry. i don't know, i hope -- i hope in the end we learn something from it, and maybe we learn something about islam. we remember, for example, that there are hundreds of muslims , innocent muslims who died in the attacks on 9/11. >> brown: all right eugene robinson of the "washington post" lross douthat of the "new york times". thank you both very much. >> lehrer: again, the major developments of the day: forecasters in pakistan warned catastrophic flooding will not recede until the end of the month. and president obama pressed his case on the economy at a backyard event in columbus, ohio. he said things are getting better slowly but surely. the "newshour" is always online. hari sreenivasan, in our newsroom, previews what's there. hari?

>> sreenivasan: margaret warner checks in from iraq on "the rundown" news blog. she reports on the country's problems with its electricity grid. spencer michels follows up on his cybersecurity series with a story about the debate over radio frequency identification technology. does it infringe on digital privacy? plus on "art beat," watch a profile of popular singer- songwriter ray lamontagne. he reflects on the challenges of being both writer and producer on his newest album. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. gwen? >> ifill: and that's the "newshour" for tonight. on thursday, we'll look at the latest science on how much oil is still in the gulf of mexico. i'm gwen ifill. and i'm jim lehrer. >> lehrer: and i'm jim lehrer. we'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening. thank you and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

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