captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> brown: good evening. i'm jeffrey brown. administration officials and senators surveyed damage to the gulf coast today, and stepped up pressure on b.p. to stop the leak and clean up the spill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, heavy crude has now fouled 150 miles of fragile marshlands. tom bearden reports on how locals are fed up with both the government and the company.

>> grand isle has the unhappy distinction of being the first island to close its beaches, a lot of its residents are pretty upset about that. >> brown: and we follow with an interview with president obama's point person on the disaster, coast guard commandant thad allen. >> woodruff: then we look at rising tensions on the korean peninsula, after south korea halted trade with the north as punishment for a torpedo attack on a warship. >> brown: ray suarez gets an update on today's decisions from our supreme court watcher marcia coyle. one ruling denied the national football league broad anti-trust protection. >> woodruff: and we talk with author isabel allende about her latest historical novel, set in haiti in the 1800s. >> how did people live, how did they meet, what was 9 code black, the black code. all that is interesting. >> brown: that's all ahead on

tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

the national science foundation. supporting education and research across all fields of science and engineering. 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. >> brown: the obama administration insisted today that b.p. must do more to stop the gulf of mexico oil spill.

the oil company insisted it's already trying as hard as it can. and all the while, the damage spread. >> brown: more and more of the month long oil spill blackened the gulf coast as the anger with b.p. heated up there and in washington. the oil giant's chief operating officer doug suttles acknowledged as much as he may the rounds of network talk shows this morning. >> they clearly are expecting us to get this flow stopped and to get this cleanup done as quickly and as quickly as possible to do. and they've been that way since the very beginning. but as you can imagine, that's no different than our own view. we're putting everything we know how to do at this. we've got the best people, the best scientists whether it is from our own company or across the industry or from government. so i think everyone is frustrated. >> brown: the company says it has spent $760 million and counting on the spill. but on sunday in houston

interior secretary ken salazar said he's not completely confident b.p. knows what it's doing. >> we find that they are not doing what they are supposed to be doing, we will push them out of the way appropriately. and we'll move forward to make sure that everything is being done to protect the people of the gulf coast. >> brown: today salazar and homeland security secretary janet napolitano pursued that theme, this time in louisiana. they joined a senate delegation in a fly-over of the region. >> we are going to stay on this and stay on b.p. until this gets done and it gets done the right way. >> we will keep our boot on their neck until the job gets done, and as i said yesterday, we will make sure that all of their responsibilities are fulfilled to the people of the gulf coast and to the united states government. the accountability here as the investigations unfold will hold them accountably both civilly and in whatever way is necessary. >> brown: salazar insisted federal officials are not just, quote, standing on the

sidelines an letting b.p. do whatever it wants. but louisiana governor bobby jindal who has toured the coast by boat also criticized the federal response. he says the state is tired of waiting for approval to build sand barriers. >> every day we do not fight this oil on a barrier, every day we are not dredging sand means one pore day this oil has a chance to company into our ecosystem, into our wetlands that are home to some the nation's most important fisheries. >> brown: in fact, the oily sludge is already reached shore along 150 mile stretch from grand isle-- grand aisle, louisiana to dolphin island alabama. brown pelicans and their nesting areas were among the first victims. volunteers worked to clean birds and feed them a rehydration solution. >> what they do is fly over and plunge in for fish but they don't recognize oil as being anything other than sea foam or of what ever. and she got really heavily oiled. they captured her and brought her in, she was driping with oil. >> brown: b.p. announced today it will spend up to

500 million dollars over ten years to research the effects of the oil on the marine and shoreline environment. but the immediate challenge remains, to stop the spill. b.p. acknowledged its siphoned much less of the oil over the weekend than in previous days. a company news release said the mile deep operation remains a new technology and both its continued operation and its effectiveness in capturing the oil & gas remain uncertain. at the same time b.p. delayed by another day an attempt to plug the blown well by injecting it with cement and mud. it will now be at least wednesday before the so-called top kill maneuver is tried. as we heard one of the places where the spill's impact is being most directly felt, and where anger is building: la grand isle, louisiana. newshour correspondent tom bearden has an on-the-ground report on the reaction and the

response. >> it finally happened over the weekend when everybody in grand aisle feared, oil on the beaches. and oil in the bay home to the shrimp, crab and fish the town's economy depends on. now both the beaches and the fishing grounds are closed. deno, chief of the homeland security department for jefferson parish decided enough was enough. he says when sheriff's officers and helicopters first saw the oil coming they tried to get b.p. to act. >> last week we picked up oil about 20 miles off our coast an gave b.p. the cord nationals and said skim it, start attacking it before it gets here, nothing. 14 miles the next day, same thing, nothing. 10 miles, 5 files, e6 ree day, closer and closer. they took no action. 2 days ago it started coming on our beaches, still no action. the problem is b.p. is a company run by petroleum engineers, administrators, et cetera. and they're trying to run an emergency operation with people who aren't trained for emergency management or emergency response. we quickly realized

yesterday if we are going save the coast we have to take over. >> reporter: and take over they did using a state law that allows local officials to assume control in a crisis. >> i informed them yesterday we are come and earring their access, they a fleet of boats anchored doing nothing because they said they couldn't communicate with them, they were having problem getting fuel, ice. bottom line within an hour our fire and policeman had it organized and the boats on the move and were attacking the oil coming on shore. >> reporter: so yesterday there were 50 fishing boats offshore trailing booms to corral surface oil, soak it up and take it back to shore. >> we spent the entire day cleaning the inside of the bay. itsee still not done. today the oil is a lot lighter than yesterday. yesterday it was really heavy oil. so we were able to catch up a little bit today but the sense of the damage is done. >> bonano says repeated appeals to federal officials have gone unanswered. >> definitely silence. our governor is screaming at the top of his lungs for the federal government to act and they are not acting. >> are you surprised they're not acting. >> yes, we're very surprised. it's almost as if they are

more on b.p.'s side than our side. how do you let the company who caused the damage, in charge of cleaning up and responding to that damage it is like putting the chicken-- the fox in charge of the hen house. the goal is to convince the federal government you need to take it out of b.p. hands this is an emergency response t should be in the hands of emergency management, not a company. >> don't look good. >> reporter: grand isle mayor says the town's entire economic future is at risk. he says there ought to be 400 fishing boats out there harvesting shrimp, not towing booms. >> i'm scared. how much taxes i'm going to lose for the city hall, how much the residents, the fisherman, knowing my businessmen people can't make a nickel and my shrimpers, nobody is making money on this island. and this is the prime time of our season. tourist season, shrimp season, this is it. the shrimpers spent all their money to get their boats ready.

you make it four months, five months out of the year, no matter if you are a shrimper, a businessperson here. you really got to put it around the clock 24 hours . >> his friend terry has been shrimping for 42 years. >> we just getting in the prime time of our season. everybody spend most of their money getting the boats ready, dry dock or nets or ropes, everything you can imagine. and none of that is cheap. none of that is cheap. i spent 1,000 dollars a year just on dry -- dorb dch dch 12,000 a year. >> it's terrible, just terrible. when you can't go out and get no shrimp. bills just pileup. never would dream it would end like this. never in a hundred years. i'm 60 years old and i don't think i'm going to be able to live long enough to go back in, i don't think. if you go like the alaskan oil spill, 20 years later they are still not fishing. >> reporter: and it's not just about the money.

for sportsman like paul ruggo it is a way of life. he runs a swimming pool business for a living but his passion is catching fish. he spent the weekend fishing in the deep water areas that are still open. >> there is a potential threat that i will never be able to do this again if my life. i understand that. so but that's why we've been going every weekend and. >> reporter: he's been all up and down the coast and is very skeptical of those booms that are supposed to protect the shore. >> it's not doing anything. >> reporter: why do you say that? >> because on the backside of the boons there's still looks like you spilled gasoline in the water. >> reporter: these docks are normally packed with charter fishing boats. this captain says ordinarily he would be booked seven days a week this time of year by clients from all over the world. >> people have been calling for quite a while wondering what is going on. we really don't know what to tell them. because one day you can fish. the next day you can't fish. one day they started opening

the shrimp season, they open it one day, they closed it the next day so nobody knew what was going on. i cancelled my next week's charters just to start. and that's just to start. >> reporter: you think the whole season is ruined? >> i think if it keep doing the way it's going, yes, it's going to be ruined. >> reporter: all of this ripples through the town's economy. effecting all of the 1500 people who live here. with the beaches closed indefinitely, and the fishing grounds shut down, many rental properties are vacant. and nearly everyone we talked to complained about a lack of urgency. they pointed to the absorbent boom material stacked up near the marina and guarded by the national guard. the mayor says b.p. trained a lot of local fisherman on how to deploy it but then never hired any of them to actually do the job. and now he's afraid it may be too late. >> brown: so the persistent question and growing criticism. >> brown: the persistent question and growing criticism:

is the government giving b.p. too much leeway and should it take more control of the situation? this afternoon, a top b.p. official said, "it is clearly within the government's power to take over operations if it wants to." a short time ago i talked about that and more with coast guard admiral thad allen, national incident commander for the oil spill. admiral allen, thanks for joining us again. there seems to be mixed messages from the government in recent days. secretary salazar said the government would, quote, keep its boot on b.p.'s neck for results. and if necessary, we would push them out of the way. now what does that mean? what would it take to push b.p. out of the way? >> first of all, let me tell you i have the highest regard for secretary salazar, we're great friends and he is a great mentor to me. as far as stepping on the neck, obviously that is a met o for moving forward. there probably is a legal precedence to remove b.p. from this operation. but as a federal on scene coordinator and national incident commander i would not recommend it. >> brown: why not? >> well, first of all, what is unique about this problem on the ocean floor is that all the capability and capacity to bring to bear on

the solution is owned by the private sector. there is a role for government here in terms of oversight and making sure they do what they have promised to do. and we ask really tough questions regarding critical thresholds on safety and things like that. but b.p. has is a responsible party. they have the means to do this. we just need to make sure they do it. >> brown: but i think what is confusing to people is to, you use the term like b.p. is the responsible party. and then we hear the tough talk about pushing them aside. so can you just clarify, who is, in fact, in charge of all this? >> the response is being run by the federal on-scene coordinate ir, currenty mary landry headquartered in robert, lust louis. she works directly for me as the national incident commander. i'm reporterable and accountable to secretary napolitano and the president. i understand secretary salazar's frustration. we talk all the time about this. there is no difference between us on keeping pressure on b.p.. we can, we probably could legally do something else about the status of b.p.. all i'm saying is the national incident commander

i wouldn't contemplate making that recommendation at this time. >> brown: is the federal government in fact dependent on b.p. because of the technical requirements and the resources? >> i'm not sure dependent is the right word. the private sector is involved in this drilling and the government has an oversight responsible. but those capacities, those technologies are not replicated inside the federal government. if you equate that to dependency i suppose you could but what it really is, is the fact that b.p. has the means to fix this problem and they need to be held accountable to do it but with procedure oversight and that's our job. >> brown: at the press briefing you gave a little earlier today you said that the question of taking over from b.p. would raise the question as you put it to replace them with what? what did you mean by that? >> well, i talked to other chief executive officers of oil industry companies. and i tried to get a sense whether or not the lines of operation and effort that b.p. is proposing and carrying out are different than anybody else would do. the fact of the mat certificate many of these interventions are exactly what happened with wells on

dry land. what is a no allous is this is happening 5,000 feet below the surface of the open there is no human access to the spill site and the technology needed to do that are in the hands of the private sector. >> brown: so also at that press briefing you said, quote, some of the sessions with b.p. have been inquestions toreial in nature. what does that mean. can you give us an example of where you have pushed b.p. to do something? >> well, the big discussion a week ago last sunday was the final discussion on the go-ahead with the top kill option which is proceeding as we speak. that discussion centered around whether or not there was enough information about the condition of the blowout preventer concerning the pressures at the bottom and the top and the implications of pushing mud at very high pressures and weights down into that well to seal the hydrocarbons in advance of pluging it with cement. the type of questions that were raised by dr. chu from the department of energy, john holdren of the science and technology policy in the white house were how did you come up with those calculations.

show us the math, what are the thresholds of the casing might be put at risk by the pressure. so you could create a greater problem and what are your margin for error and that was a two hour conversation and it was exhaustive. >> brown: and are you satisfy when you do push, b.p. has been responsive? >> yes. >> brown: as you know, louisiana governor bobby jindal has been critical of the federal. today specifically he was talking about the need for more boom equipment and for permission to build sand barriers what is your response there? >> well, in the booming strategy i think he has got a point this is one of those case where i have gone to b.p. and raised a concern and they have been responsive. i had a really long talk with tony hayward over the weekend about what i call the retail end of this response. and that last mile where oil is impacting the shore, we need to move, cleanup teams there very, very quickly. and the ability and the agility for not only british petroleum and our our entire team to do that needs to improve. he was down there today working on that regarding the barrier islands and the berms, the korps of

engineers is looking at this. i understand the idea. i understand how they perceive the effectiveness of these berms would be against stopping the oil but we also understand it will take six to nine months, maybe a year to build some of these. a lot of issues related to the environmental im-- impacts. corps of engineers has to review the permit with. reworking in parallel so there weren't won't be something that has to be done when they are down. we are only a couple days out from that. >> brown: you are not clear how realistic it is to build such barriers at this point. >> that's correct. now that doesn't mean that i don't believe they could work. what i mean is how effect sieve that right now in regards to the spill response. there is nobody that values barrier islands more than i do after having been involved in katina response. >> brown: our correspondent tom bearden was down there in louisiana. he talked to the homeland security department for jefferson parrish who said, quote, we realize that if we're going to save our coast we have to take over. you've talked about this frustration that everybody is feeling. what do you say to local officials now who just don't

see enough happening? >> well, i think in general the state and local authorities or b.p. or the coast guard, the entire unified command down there headquartered in homeland, louisiana that is commanding the operations in that area, we need to tighten up the formation, we need to have quicker responses, more people out there. and we need to have a quicker reaction when oil is sighted on the beaches. in fact, that was the basis of my conversation with tony hayward this weekend. >> brown: but again, to go back to the comments from secretary salazar, are you concerned about the rhetoric about the differences in the style of rhetoric and the forcefulness of it and what message that sends to the public and to local officials. >> well, everybody feels very strongly about this. everybody is frustrated. some people are even completely frustrated beyond console ability. my goal as the national incident command certificate trying to keep my wits about me and make sure we have a conversation to move this forward as best we can. this is an undesirable situation for everybody but i think the more we focus on

the results we're trying to achieve and collaboration on how we do that the better off we will be. >> brown: the add mir said it would call on b.p. to significantly scale back its use of chemical disperseants, what you can tell us about that. >> first of all i think we need to understand that the toxicity of disperseants is far less than the toxicity of the oil what we are dealing with here is an anomalous situation where we have is used disperseants far beyond the scale known in the history of u.s. spill response, upwards of 600,000 gallons on the surface. and i think legitimate questions are being raised about what the effects of those are even if they are less toxic than the oil. the question that has been asked of b.p. is within the range of approved epa disperseants are some less toxic than others and given the amount we are starting to use right now should we reassess the one being used and if there is another that is available, what are the implication for logistic supply and what is the feasibility of doing that. b.p. has answered those questions and they are under revah. >> brown: it sounds like the epa has decided that these

particular disperseants have potential damages. >> well, all of them are toxic to some extent. the question is are they more or less toxic relative to the oil. and are they available and what are the logistic supply chains that can get them there versus the need to have them right now. that is what the epa is reviewing. >> brown: finally you did refer to the top kill maneuver which has now been delayed at least one more day, until later this week. do you have a experience that-- sense that real progress is being made at this point or is at hand? >> it is. one of the things that is very difficult to understand and is another source of frustration are the delays in the top kill effort. what we are trying to do is reestablish connections to lines that were run down the riser pipe to that well prior to the accident. to be able to reestablish the ability to put drilling mud in there to kill the well and hiss hydraulic fluid. that all had to be rebuilt and tested as we slowly bring pressures on-line. every once in a while there is a valve that needs to be repaired or replaced and

that is what we are running into. >> brown: admiraled that allen, thanks for talking to us. >> still to come >> woodruff: still to come on the newshour, retaliation and blame for the torpedo attack on a south korean ship; a day of decisions at the supreme court; and a conversation with isabel allende about her latest novel. but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan in our newsroom. >> sreenivasan: wall street shuddered again today amid uncertainty over europe's economy and financial reform in the u.s. the dow jones industrial average lost more than 126 points to close at 10,066. the nasdaq fell 15 points to close at 2213. for the first time since 2003, u.s. military forces in afghanistan are now larger than those in iraq. the u.s. military announced today 94,000 americans are serving in afghanistan and 92,000 in iraq. there was also word that another u.s. soldier was killed in iraq today. that makes 4,400 since the war began seven years ago. a state of emergency was in force today in parts of jamaica.

heavily armed police patrolled, a day after battling gunmen from an alleged drug gang. >> sporadic gunfire echoed today in the barricaded slums of west kingston as more government forces deployed. security troops spent sunday in fire fights with gunmen who shot at police and set a police station on fire. at least two officers were killed and six wounded. >> it is really rep ri hence i believe when these policemen put their lives on the line to protect all lives and all property and are gunned down as they were yesterday. >> reporter: the shooters were holed up in the tivoli gardens neighborhood, the stronghold of alleged drug lord christopher coke. the violence erupted after jamaican officials agreeed to extradite coke to the u.s. on charges in trafficing in marijuana, crack cocaine and guns. the prime minister declared a state of emergency. >> this decision was based on information provided by

the security forces that actions were being taken which pose significant threat to law and order in the corporate area. >> reporter: the gang is linged to the governing labor board but golding aagreeed to arrest him last week in the face of growing pressure. in washington today state department spokesman pj crowley underviewed the u.s. view of coke as one of the world's most dangerous drug lords. >> we have been working with the government of jamaica for a number of months on this extradition request and we seek the removal of mr. coke to 9 united states as soon as possible. >> reporter: in the ninl jamaican police warned other drug gangs have now joined the fighting. u.s. officials offered a travel alert. the jamaican government said >> sreenivasan: u.s. officials issued a travel alert, and warned that roads to the kingston airport could be blocked. the jamaican government said today flights were departing and arriving on schedule. human error may have caused the air india disaster that killed

158 people over the weekend. the country's civil aviation minister said today other factors looked "absolutely normal" at the time. the boeing 737 overshot the hilltop runway as it tried to land early saturday morning in mangalore. the plane crashed and then plunged into a ravine. only eight people survived the crash. a doctor who first suggested a childhood vaccine could cause autism was banned from practicing in britain today. a british oversight body found doctor andrew wakefield committed serious misconduct. his 1998 study connecting the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine to autism has been widely discredited. still, it led to major declines in vaccination rates worldwide. wakefield now has an autism center in texas. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to judy. >> woodruff: now, to the korean peninsula where rhetoric escalated and the south threatened retaliation against the north for an attack on a military vessel. >> reporter: tensions mountsed today over the sinking of this warship, the south korean "cheonan" some two months ago. last week a team of

international investigators concluded the vessel, now raised from where it sank in the yellow sea, was split in two by a torpedo fired by a north korean submarine. today south korean president myung-bak announced his country will suspend all trade with the communist north. >> we have always tolerated north korea's brutality, time and again. we did so because we've always had a genuine longing for peace on the korean peninsula. but now things are different. north korea will pay a price that corresponds to its provocative acts. i will continue to take stern measures to hold the north accountable. >> reporter: the move could cause the improverished north $200 million a year. but lee said this is a critical turning point for the two countries. still technically at war. and he layed out his demands. >> apologise immediately to the republic of korea and

the international community, immediately punish those who were responsible for the incident and those who were involved in the incident. these are basic measures that the north is to take before anything else. >> reporter: the north's government has repeatedly denied it attacked the south korean ship and it condemned the announcement in seoul . >> this is an open breach of the interkorean military agreement, a grave military provocation to the dprk. and a serious incident driving the interkorean relations to the worst phase. >> reporter: the u.s. has more than 28,000 troops in south korea. in a statement, president obama instructed american military commanders to coordinate closely with their south korean counterparts to ensure readiness and deter aggression. and secretary of state hillary clinton said the u.s. fully backs south korea's response. she was in beijing for

economic and security talks. >> we are working hard to avoid an escalation of belligerence and provocation. this is a highly precarious situation that the north koreans have caused in the region. >> rooney: for his part chinese president called for greater cooperation with the u.s. without mentioning north korea directly. >> we are facing the same issue and share common responsibilities for both pushing for a quick recovery and sustainable development of world economy. and for managing regional hot spots and safeguarding world peace and security. >> reporter: in the meantime south korean president lee vowed to press the u.n. security council to punish the north. in new york u.n. secretary-general

predicted action. >> in the joint international investigation report is overwhelming and deeply troubling. i fully share the widest spread condemnation of the incident. >> reporter: and the u.s. military announced joint naval exercises with the south koreans in the near future. the focus will be on anti-submarine warfare. for more on all this we for more on all this, we get two views. selig harrison is the director of the asia program at the center for international policy. and balbina hwang was a state department adviser on the korean nuclear negotiations during the george w. bush administration. she now teaches at the national defense university. thank you both for beings with us, selig harrison to you first what do you make of south korea's response today. is it the right fit? >> no, i don't think so. i think that the problem is that south korea abrogated agreement that-- an

agreement that was made between north korea an south korea in june 2000 when the former president went and had a summit with kim jung il and they made an agreement that the two countries would coexist and that south korea-- what north korea considered south korea's past objective of trying to bring about the collapse and the absorption of north korea by the south, would end with a new period that has been called the sunshine policy of. now what happened was when when-- became myung-bak became president, the current president came into office and repudiated what had been done by his two predecessors which had created the peaceful situation where there was no no-- nothing to pay attention at all for eight years, violence in north

korea last year, this is the one thing they kept saying, south korea has gone back to its own tricks of the military dictatorship in the past where their objective is to bring about the collapse of north korea and absorption by the south. >> woodruff: so you are saying what the south has done in effect brought on what happened? >> i'm not excusing what the north did, which is-- if they did do this, with 46 casualties it is a dreadful episode. what i am saying is you have to look at this in the context of what has been going on for. this is not something that just came out of the blue. this is the climax of two years of a completely different policy on the part of south korea which is really-- north korea. >> woodruff: balbina wang was had the right response. >> this was absolutely the correct response. and not surprisingly i disagree quite a bit with selig's analysis. first of all it is to the true that there was absolutely no military provocations in the eight years of the sunshine policy. actually ten years. the 2002 there was a very distressing fav all incident

in which i believe 12 south korean sailors were killed and maimed. the problem was not that president myung-bak has repute yated the sunshine policy. in fact, he actually has in the done so. when he came into office he was very careful about not doing so. the reality is it is correct that the dynamics have been existing for decades. but the military provocations, it's very clear who instigated this. this was a surprise attack. and frankly a violation of the arm i cities agreement. is. >> woodruff: so balbina hwang when the south says we are demanding the north immediately apologise and punish those responsible s that going to happen? >> well, it may or may not. what is very interesting about president myung-bak's statement here is that he is actually giving the north koreans a face-saving way out. actually providing a way to de-escalate. what he did not do was declare that this was the personal responsibility of the leader.

what he said was the north korean regime should find those responsible and punish them. that actually allows the regime then to scapegoat or to actually pinpoint exactly who was responsible and does provide a way out. >> woodruff: provides a way out, face -saving response. >> i think what is called for now is diplomacy involving the united states and the six parties. i don't think that this can be solved through north-south diplomacy except in one important area. which is the negotiations on the sea boundary in the yellow sea which is disputed. and which was involved in the episode that you referred to before. and is involved in this episode. and you know, the u.n. ordained a certain boundary between north and south korea in the yellow-- yellow sea which north korea never accepted. you need diplomacy on the sea boundary between north and south korea. you need return to the six party talks where this whole

issue could be brought up. but where denuclearization should also be brought up. >> but i was just going to say, in the meantime what the south is also saying to the north is that we are not going to trade with you any more. and balbina hwang, this is a north that now has a population suffering , had a food shortage, is this the kind of retaliation that is going to have the desired effect? >> well, first of all, i don't necessarily view this as retaliation. look, the limited trade that south korea did have with the north is not, was not-- was not responsible or providing all of the goods and benefits of a free and market open economy for north korea. in fact,. >> woodruff: you are saying it is to the going to make that much different. >> no, it isn't. and i don't think it should be viewed as retaliation. south korea has very few levers. i agree with you that this is, in fact, should be handled diplomatically. in fact, we should return to talks between north and south to settle the nll line whh is the northern limit

line in dispute. by the way this was not in contention here in this particular incident we are referring to. >> let me stay with you, my understanding is you believe what north korea has done is a violation of the armistace agreement. >> that's correct. >> woodruff: and therefore what. >> well, the armistace which has been effect since 195 has very specific protocols and convention under which it is maintained by an international body. i completely disagree that we should return to the six party talks. they were designed specifically for the nuclear issue which has now been pushed even further back. we should return to a diplomatic effort to revisit the armistace. if this act is a violation of that, then there are measures taken under the u.n. command to address those violations. >> what we should do is get into negotiations on a peace treaty ending the korean war. most americans don't realize that we are still in a state of war with north korea, all these years, 57 is it, since the korean war.

and north korea is ready now for trilateral negotiations on a peace treaty with south korea would be a part which it wasn't before so that's where they have been pushing the u.s. we have been balking at this for various reasons. south korea doesn't want it and the american military doesn't want it. but in terms of getting out of this present crisis we need to concentrate on the need for negotiations on the peace treaty. that will then bring into play the question of the armistace. >> woodruff: help us understand the distinction between the armistace. >> i think sig has out the cart before the hours. the armi stace is the prelude to the peace treaty. the reason the korean war was never concluded of a formal peace treaty this reason. they were never able to get past many of the disagreements that lead to areas of endless talk and fighting. therefore an armi stace was put in place to at least stop the conflict. it was successful. look how prosperous south

korea has been. everybody wants a peace treaty but we want one that all sides can agree to. and north korea's materials terms are not companyable. >> woodruff: we are very far from that. >> this is a very dangerous situation. secretary clinton used the word precarious it is dangerous because i don't know whether north korea did this. i wouldn't be surprised if they did it. because i think that-- . >> woodruff: you don't know whether north korea. >> i don't feel we have this evidence laid out but it is, after all, evidence that south korean investigation. >> it was actually international effort. >> they brought in international people but this wasn't conducted by an international-- i'm not saying that they didn't do it, what i am trying to say is this is a very dangerous situation because in north korea you have a group in the military, young officers group which is very militant, very nationalistic. and we've got to be very careful how we handle the situation. it could escalate very easily. and we've got to get into diplomacy and not go into naval exercises. we're going go into joint naval exercises which is a

great mistake. >> woodruff: i want to give the last word in what should be done. >> i think myung-bak's statement was frankly brilliant because what it does is provides a way for this entire tension to be de-escalated. i think it actually puts a hold on a pattern, unless north korea decides to cross that line again. and i frankly don't think that they will. i think north korea understands what the costs are. i think they miscalculated this time. and his statement allows a way for the north koreans out of this. >> lee myung-bak has to say he accepts the june 2000 summit decollaration. >> woodruff: an we're going to leave it there with some pretty clear disagreements between the two of you. thank you both. we appreciate it. >> brown: next, decisions and orders at the supreme court, and to ray suarez.

>> suarez: in two separate rulinged today the high court paved the way for an anti-trust lawsuit against the nfl to go forward and said that a lawsuit against chicago for racial discrimination in the hiring of firefighters was not time limited. justices also agreed to hear a case on a death row inmate's access to new dna evidence. here to walk us through it as always marcia coyle of the national law journal. now, mars ya, the first case involved the nfl. contracts to provide hats, t-shirts, jersey, that kind of thing. what kind of relief was american needel looking for. what did they argue in their original case? >> well, american needle had sued the nfl and its 32 teams claiming that they violated the federal anti-trust laws when they granted an exclusive licence to reebok to manufacture and sell trademarked head quarter-- head ware for the nfl teams. so american needle was asking the supreme court, because it had lost in the lower court, to find that the nfl did not have immunity from the federal

anti-trust laws. >> suarez: so american needle wanted the nfl to act like 32 separate companies instead of one company. >> that's right. american needle had been selling trademarked headwear for something, i think, close to 40 years as were other vendors. so it was saying, basically, this was a very anti-competitive arrangement that the nfl had come up with reebok. >> suarez: so what did the justices desaid and how did they explain what they decided. >> okay, justice stevens wrote for the court and he said that the nfl and its teams had many common interests but they actually operated as independent, profit maximizing entities. they weren't a single entity. he said what you really have to look at here is there a restrain of trade such that there is no real competition or potential competition in the marketplace. if what happened here was a restraint of trade a lower court has to decide whether it was reasonable or unreasonable under our

anti-trust laws. so the case is going to go back to the lower court where reebok, the nfl and american needle will have to battle out over whether this exclusive licence agreement was an unreasonable restraint of trade. >> suarez: this has been called a closely watched case. who was watching closely? and what was at stake? >> well, i think probably the group that had the strongest interests in this case was the national players association. the unions for players. they did not want the nfl to get anti-trust immunity because they felt that this gave the nfl great leverage in union negotiations with players. >> suarez: well, the court has cleared the way for 6,000 african-american firefighters in chicago to move ahead with their suit against the city. what was at stake here? >> these african-american applicants challenged the

city of chicago's test for hiring firefighters. these 6,000 had been deemed qualified under the test. the city said it was going to hire from those who were well qualified, those who had earned scores of 89 and above out of 100 points. the firefighter-- the africans here, the african-americans said that this had a discriminatory or disparate impact on their-- on the minority applicants for firefighter jobs. and they sued the city because of that. its lower court, the district court here actually ruled in favor of these applicants. the city conceded that its practice was discriminatory and had a discriminatory impact. but the city had argued that these applicants had filed their discrimination charges too late, that the time to do it was 300 days after the city announced it was going to use these test scores. >> suarez: now the court has

ruled in the past on cases involving a time line and ongoing discrimination, most notably in the lily ledbetter case. this time they said that the ability to sue wasn't time limited. how do they explain that? >> first of all this case involves discriminatory or disparate impact cases. and there you do not have to prove intentional discrimination. those other cases like the ledbetter case did involve that. but justice scalia who wrote this opinion, he looked at the language of the statute, what congress had written and it spoke specifically to when an employer uses a practice that has a disparate impact on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. and uses, he said, means that an employer's practice if used down the road not the very first time but even down the road can still give rise to a discrimination lawsuit. and that's what he said

happened here. >> the aspiring firefighters maintain that the test itself was discriminatory by ruling away. did the supreme court agree? >> the supreme court didn't address the merits of this suit. which by the way the lower trial court found in favor of these applicants. the supreme court only faced the issue of whether their lawsuit was brought on a timely basis. and it said that it was. >> suarez: the supreme court has already decided there's no right to dna evidence among death row inmates yet today they allowed a case to proceed from texas that will at least slow down the march toward execution of one mr. skinner, what is going on there? >> henry skinner has tried for about a decade now to get certain evidence tested with dna evidence related to his conviction for the murder of his lufer-in girlfriend and her two adult mentally retarded sons. what he is asking the court

is a little different. the court last term i brief it was ruled that there was no federal constitutional right to dna testing. he's saying look, i have exhausted all the state avenues of getting this dna testing. texas says no. i want to know if i can use a civil rights lawsuit under federal civil rights laws in order to get the dna testing. and that's an issue that the court did not decide in the last dna case it had and what it agreed to decide this time. a case that will be argued next term. >> marcia coyle, thanks for joining us. >> my pleasure, ray. >> brown: finally tonight , a new novel about the new world from a veteran story teller. recently i had a chance to talk with writer isabel allende. here's our conversation. >> brown: in the early 19th

century amid colonial powers and slavery, in a chaotic period of caribbean history t also involves two places very much in the news in our own time, haiti and new orlean author isobel allende has been an international best selling writer since the publication of the house of spirits. welcome to you. >> thank you for having me. >> brown: why did you want to return to historical fiction in this particular story? >> i like historical fiction. i fell in love with new orleans the first time i visited it and i wanted to place a story in new orleans. never imagined that half of the book would happen in what is today haiti. the slave,-- the flavor, the french flavor of new orleans comes from 10,000 refugees that escaped from the slave revolt and went to new orleans. and so the two places are joined historically. >> brown: and when you start something like this, how much research goes into it, how long does that take? what is the process.

>> four years of research but before i have the voice of the protagonist in my head i can't write the book. and the idea of writing historical novel is to have the research and don't show it. >> brown: you don't want people just reading this as though it is historical. >> you don't want to show them up. >> brown: how do you that. >> i'm interested in how people lived. because the historical events are in the history books. everybody knows about -- but how did people live in the plantations. what did they eat. how many slaves were there. how were they treated. what was the code black, the black code. all that is interesting. >> brown: so then you take the research and you create these vibrant characters, in particular in this one most of all is zarite, called tete. >> uh-huh. >> brown: tell us about her. >> i think she existed because i had a dream about her. i think i saw her. i can describe her to you exactly, this tall african woman with very short hair.

>> brown: and you in a dream. >> she came in a dream, longhands, elongated eyelids, beautiful, self-contained. i just know who she is. she came with a voice. and a name. and i googled it to see, doesn't exist so she came with a name. >> brown: but where was this in the-- now i'm really curious of the process, was this after you started the research for the period. >> i had the research but i didn't have her. without her i couldn't write the book. >> brown: and then what happens,. >> as soon as she appeared. then she started talking. coy hear her voice, i could see her story and the story just went, flowing.rown: and shs in this book fit into something you've long done which is sort of put women into a more central place than they usually have in history books. >> i'm interested in people who have to overcome obstacles. people who are not sheltered by the umbrella of the establishment, marginals. women are usually in that position. they are the poorest of the

poor, the ones that suffer the most in terms of war, of poverty. and so they interest me. and they are much more interesting then men in general. >> brown: well, i won't go there. but now of course you have this residence with what happened in haiti, something you clearly couldn't have known about when you started. >> it's an erie coincidence because really the book was published a year ago in other languages, so now that it's coming out in english haiti is in the news because of this earthquake, this catastrophe. and now new orleans is in the news because of the oil spill. >> brown: so what layers does that add for you to the story that you set out to tell, of history. >> it gives me a bad feeling because maybe it's bad luck that i bring to the places, who knows. >> brown: but what does it tell you about, i mean we look at what happened in haiti. we have a general sense of

the centurys that are behind it. but you actually did the research and looked hard at that place. >> yes, so i know more of the past but i can't explain how poor hate sytoday. it was the richest colony that france had, one-third of the income of france came from haiti at a certain point. it was a rich land. and now it's erosion has taken care of it, it's poor. it has no infrastructure and yet it's the same people. wonderful, creative, resilient, courage ous people so what happens in a place, i can't explain it. >> brown: you were also telling me before we started about this theme of slavery which is where you are starting here and exploring. is very much alive today as well. >> yeah, but nobody talks about it because no country admits that there is slavery in the country. and there is slavery everywhere, including in the united states. and i'm not talking about sex slaves in trafficking in

southeast asia. i'm talking about whole villages that liver in dead bondage. for example, a million people in pakistan that live like slaves, they don't call it slaferry but it is the same thing. children that are sold in haiti today there are 300,000 children that are domestic slaves. given by the families or sold by the families. because they cannot feed them. and these children five, six years old do all the domestic work. treated terribly. >> brown: someone listening to you talk about these current issues reminded me you started as a journalist. >> yeah, like you. >> brown: yes. now is it true, and i read this and it seems incredible to me, pablo naruta, you were interviewing him and he told you you would make a better novelist. >> no, he said you are a lousy journalist because you make up things. you lie all the time. you can never be objective. why don't you switch to literature where all these

things are assets. >> brown: really? opinions yeah. >> brown: and the rest is history. >> yes. >> brown: wow, and quite a history. iosobel allende's new book is island beneath the sea. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day. the obama administration pressed b.p. again to do more to stop the oil spill in the gulf of mexico. on the newshour, coast guard admiral thad allen said b.p. is still best equipped to handle the operation. they declared a fishing disaster in alabama, louisiana and mississippi. and south korea halted all trade with north korea over the sinking of a south korean warship. the newshour is always online. hari sreenivasan, in our newsroom, previews what's there.

hari? >> sreenivasan: we've updated our gulf oil tracker widget. now you can watch a live video feed of the underwater gusher, as well as explore different estimates for the size of the spill. in our newshr plus science series, we check in with miles o'brien of "this week in space" for insights into the current "atlantis" space shuttle mission. on our making sense page, paul solman and boston university economist larry kotlikoff debate our economic future. are we headed for prosperity or more debt? all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. >> brown: and again, to our >> brown: and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm jeffrey brown. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. thank you and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

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 macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org