responsible is really all you're going to get at this point. >> woodruff: and geoffrey brown talks to jeffrey kay about his new book on what motivates millions around the globe to migrate from one country to another. >> lehrer: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by. >> this is the engine that

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century. >> and with the ongoing support of these institution 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. >> woodruff: with the situation in the gulf of mexico remaining grim and amid concerns that the oil spill may be getting worse, the white house announced today president obama will travel to the region on friday. at the same time, internal investigations by bp and by the government raised new questions. the latest sign of trouble came from live video of the oil spewing a mile below the surface. it appeared darker, suggesting less natural gas and more heavy oil may be escaping into the ocean.

that would signal even more difficult days for beaches and marshes already damaged. but bp played down the change in the oil flow, as only temporary. the company's latest map projections show the oil expanding its spread. a florida state researcher estimated it's now as large as maryland and delaware combined. and video from 20 miles off louisiana gave grave testimony to what's going on below the surface. photographer matt ferraro made a dive on monday. >> i was surrounded by oil. i thought there would be more fish and, you know, when you're traveling across the ocean on a boat you see all kinds of life: birds, dolphins, things like that. >> woodruff: bp said its siphoning operation is collecting much more oil now. after two days of falling totals. at the same time, use of the chemical

9500 to break up the oil was cut back. the environmental protection agency ordered bp to find something less toxic. but white house energy advisors carol browner said today there may not be many other good options. >> as it turns out, there are not as many being manufactured as people thought in the quantities that are needed. what epa did yesterday was direct bp to use less of this dispersant while they continue to steady what other alternatives may be available. >> woodruff: while that search is underway, engineers continued preparing the so- called top kill procedure to seal the blown-out well. bp said it could happen tomorrow or later. the oil giant also reported its findings on what went wrong back in april. when the oil rig deep water horizon exploded and sank and the spill began. the report pointed at the failure of the blow-out preventer, owned by transocean. and the cementing of the well

head, performed by halliburton. bp's chief executive tony hayward stopped short of directly assigning blame. instead he said, quote, a number of companies are involved including bp, and it is simply too early and not up to us to say who is at fault. separately the u.s. interior department reported numerous rule violations by staffers for the federal minerals management service in louisiana. interior secretary ken salazar called it deeply disturbing and, quote, further evidence of the cozy relationship between some in m.m.s., and the industry it regulates. ♪ they shook hands on the side ♪ ♪ tell the truth >> woodruff: on a somber note, family and friends held a memorial service in jackson, mississippi, for 11 oil workers killed on the deep water horizon.

>> lehrer: the dangers to the marshlands and the coast line have increased as higher levels of oil are reaching the wetlands around plaquemine's parish in louisiana. that's where tonight newshour correspondent tom beardon filed his latest report. >> reporter: this is one of the many small barrier islands off the louisiana coast that are threatened by the oil spilling into the gulf of mexico. brown pelicans crowd on to the tiny bit of land that stands only a few feet above sea level. the birds nearly went extinct in the early '70s because of ddt. their numbers surged after a restoration program, enough to take them off the endangered species list. but now their nesting ground is in danger. the booms that surround the island are supposed to keep the oil away but they haven't been entirely successful. >> a lot of pelicans lying over there. >> reporter: dave spent most of his life in these waters. he's working with the parish

as a consultant on the oil spill. >> looks like there's a lot of oil on shore. >> yes, yes. over there on the point. you can see on its white boom how it's collected. how it's become dirty. these booms all white cotton looking booms very clean and these booms were deployed yesterday morning. they've soaked up very well. the thing about it, how many more oil is coming? >> reporter: pelicans can't fly when covered in oil. they can drown or die from hypo thermia. eggs in nest that get fouled will never hatch. as we traveled across the bay, large stretches of water seemed to be oil-free. and then we would hit a big patch. >> the oil here looks like somebody poured paint. you've got that all the way around through here. >> all filled with a three- headed monster. you don't know where it's going or where it's coming from. >> you're going to get up in that marsh on that fragile environment. this is the nursery ground of

shrimp, fish, oysters. what happens is it will get up into the mud and the grass. it will cause it to deteriorate. not a pretty picture. >> reporter: the oil has also coated miles of shoreline where the grasses haven't died yet. that's a personal loss. he has a lease on the natural oyster beds that surround this island. >> look at fouled oysters here. there's probably a few months old. now is the time of the year for the spawning of the oysters. oyster attaches to the shell. these have died. >> reporter: by he said there's an even larger threat to the marshes that sustain all the animals and protect the mainland from the blunt force of hurricanes. they're eroding into the sea. we're in a bay, one of the most productive fisheries in the united states. that fish camp has been there about 50 years. it used to be surrounded by solid ground. now it's in the middle of the bay. the same thing is happening

all around here. these forlorn pilings sticking out of the water are all that's left of manila village, a large fishing camp that once even had a post office. it was abandoned in the 1950s. >> this is deteriorating, disappearing so fast. that's what i say. it just rips your heart out. you can see over there, you've got slivers of land. there's beach that has disappeared. if they don't do something quick, the louisiana that i remember is not going to be here much longer. >> reporter: the erosion has been happening for decades. partly because of pollution. partly because the levys on the mississippi river reduceded the amount of silt that was carried downstream and built the delta in the first place. as the marshes die off, salt water from the gulf intrudes further and further inland, killing even more of the grass. dave says the spill will just accelerate the process. >> you watch these islands disappear. coastal erosion taking its toll.

ultimately now with this oil getting saturated in the marsh, it's going to kill the grass. by killing the grass, the islands disappear. it hits you. i hope they can be saved but it's going fast. i'm 54 years old. i can show you maps when i was 20 years old, areas had marshland. now there's eight feet of water. >> how are you making out. >> reporter: louisiana officials who have been watching all this want to do something to protect their shores. they've long wanted to rebuild some of the eroded barrier islands to provide better protection from storms. in the wake of the bp oil spill, they've asked for federal permission to start dredging sand from off shore to lengthen and add height to the islands that remain. >> the sad part is governor jindal got a wonderful idea about pumping up this seashore. we have to stop the encroachment from the sea. >> that particular piece of vegetation could die. >> reporter: mary reed thinks the sand berm in front of the

islands might work. she's the director of the institute for environmental sciences as the university of new orleans. >> i think it's potentially a good idea. some of the concepts behind it are sound. keeping the oil out of the wetlands and putting it in a sandy environment where it's easier to clean up is probably a good thing. however, we have to be... we have to think really clearly about how we're going to place that material and what the effects of it are going to be. we have a very open shoreline that we have barrier islands at the moment and the gaps between them, we call them inlets, tidal inlets, those are really quite wide. that's held the oil with the water goes back and forth everyday and gets into places like this bay. if we start closing those down too much, we will change the natural exchange of water between the bay and the gulf. so we have to be careful here. we have to be careful not to cause too much other kind of damage to the

estuary by taking these actions and at the same time keeping out of the wettelandlands has to be a priority. >> reporter: the coast guard says it will make a decision on in a few days. even if approved it will take months to move that much sand. >> it has a lot of oil on the east side of that island. >> reporter: meanwhile, the back-breaking efforts to keep the oil out of the marshes continues. this parish has stationed three jack-up barges to act as staging platforms. local people are using smaller boats to deploy more absorbant booms in hopes of protecting both their livelihood and their lifestyle. >> woodruff: as we heard, there are growing questions about bp's role, the pace of the efforts, and the decisions being made. we've brought back unof bp's top executives tonight to answer more of these questions. bob dudley oversees the company's operations in the

americas and asia, and he joins us from houston. >> thank you for being with us. let me just ask you first. when you see these images of the pelicans and other animals coated in oil, the marshlands, the land there on the shore, what do you think? >> good evening, judy. i think those images are painful for everybody at bp. they're painful for what are now 24,000 people working hard to try to create the defenses to keep that oil off shore. we have been successful for a time. now it's come in. they're really hard to see. it is going to double our efforts to make sure we shut this well off and keep as much oil as we can off the shores and try to make sure that it doesn't spread beyond these areas of southeast louisiana. >> woodruff: the news from the oil itself was that it is darker, the oil coming out of the well at the bottom of the gulf, it's darker today. does this raise concerns that this may be much worse in terms of content than people

originally believed? >> i'm not sure. the well over the last three weeks has what we call cycling between gas and oil and mixtures and the concentrations go up and down. it's too early to say whether this is a continuing trend or whether or not it will cycle more gas again. it's too early to say, judy. >> woodruff: the content, you don't know yet what's in there? >> we don't. i mean, i think it is a mixture of gas. the well has had a very, very high concentration of gas. i haven't seen the photos that you talk about. those video feeds are a mixture of oil, the gas, and we've been injecting some of the dispersant in there as well. we may have cut that back. i think it's too early to draw any conclusions about what's happening on the plume. >> woodruff: what about the latest on this so-called top- kill effort. we have been told that the public has been told that you're going to try to attempt this tomorrow. now we are told that maybe later or it may be abandoned

altogether. what is your understanding of where that stands? >> well, within the last hour, engineering teams have begun what we call a series of diagnostic tests that will be done to check valves, check pressures, that will take 12 hours. if we get the information that gives us the confidence to go forward, we can begin that top- kill operation sometime tomorrow. that will begin a process that will be between half a day and two days to determine whether we can kill that well. if it's not successful, we have laid out on the sea bed a series of equipment and materials to be able to move in by the weekend. another containment dome over the top of the well. >> woodruff: is there a fear though as you continue to go through these options that if this doesn't work tomorrow or in the next few days that you may be looking at august before this well can be capped? >> august is the very end date of when we'll drill the relief wells and kill it. we have sort of a plan laid

out with a series of operations. top-kill, containment. that would allow us to go in and diagnose the thing and take on the further engineering work. august is the latest that we will have that well capped before august. >> woodruff: bob dudley, early on bp was saying 5,000 barrels a day. when you were on the newshour last week, you were saying these estimates of 70 to 100,000 barrels a day were just-- i think you used the term, were very alarming and not based on anything that you had seen. in the meantime we've learned, you know, educated guesss that it's at 25,000 well above that. how can the public believe what bp is saying about how much oil is coming out? >> well, the estimates of the well rates have never been bp's estimates. they've been the joint unified command working with government agencies and bp. they've been based on satellite pictures of the oil at the surface, visuals of the plume and then taking into account the high concentrations of gas.

it's a little been an imprecise figure but there's no reason of anything that has happened that would suggest those higher figures. i say they're alarming because i think they raise the specter of devastation all across the gulf all the way over to florida . that's very premature. i think those estimates are impacting the tourism industry in florida. that's unwarranted. it is devastating what we see in louisiana today. we're all very, very disturbed by that. it's redoubled the efforts of the people, the coast guard, remobilizing equipment from the alabama-florida side to the louisiana side to stem this tide. >> woodruff: you did also say on the program last week that it was an exaggeration to say that the spill could reach other states: alabama, mississippi, florida. but in the meantime it has reached part of alabama. so again what is the public to believe? could it reach these other states?

>> well, there have been tar balls, a small number of tar balls that have washed up in texas, florida, and mississippi and alabama. so far none of those tar balls have been identified with this spill. it's something different. the one in alabama as i understand it is under review. we're not seeing anything like what you see in louisiana in any of the other states. >> woodruff: yet. you're saying. >> i don't think that's going to happen, judy. i think we'll be able to contain this, shut the well off and this is the largest oil spill response effort ever in history anywhere. the coast guard has done a fantastic job of mobilizing people and equipment and laying out the logistics here. that well is near the coast of louisiana. i think that is where we're going to try to keep it all off shore, louisiana. it's unfortunate about the beaches and as of today there's about 15 acres of marsh in louisiana that has been hit by this. that's just not what any of us

ever want to see. >> woodruff: i want to ask you quickly about the chemical dispersants. the federal government has asked bp to use a less toxic type. they're talking about the serious trade-off we now know between certain kinds of these chemicals and the effect they have on the oil in the environment. how confident are you that the that using the chemicals to disperse the oil is not creating a worse danger than the oil itself? >> well, we've been working on the epa with looking at alternatives. some of them have been very difficult to source in low quantities from overseas. there's one that has some specific health concerns that we have. i think the epa has as well. what... the correct-sit has been used for many many years in the gulf of mexico on many spills and it's very effective at what it does. you're quite right. the amount of dispersant that has been used in this spill,

which is doing its job, is something that we don't know. the long-term effects of it. we're going to be studying it. we've issued today a program of 500 million dollars to study the effects of dispersant, the effects of it moving around the current and the marine life cycles. we'll be studying this for many many years to come. for now we need to limit that flow, keep it off the beaches and that would limit the dispersant we put in. >> woodruff: in the meantime how much do you worry about the public losing faith in off- shore drilling altogether? >> that's a tough choice that society will have to make. the energy demands of the future, the growth rates, we think by 2030 there will be 25% more energy demand worldwide. countries like china and india will double. one has got to make off-shore drilling completely safe for the entire industry. this will take a relook from top to bottom of what we're doing in deep water not only in the united states but

around the world. but that trade-off will have to be made of affordable energy and the trade-off i think the united states will have to make once you get the safety systems in place, do you want to move it by tan tankers and cargos from abroad and move the petro dollars off shore. this will be a very thoughtful debate that the country will have for quite a while i think. >> woodruff: bob dudley of bp, thank you very much for talking with us. >> thank you. >> lehrer: still to come on the newshour tonight, china and the u.s. talk strategy and economy. the search for justice over cambodia's killing fields. and a book conversation about immigration worldwide. but first the other news of the day and here is hari sreenivasan in our news room. >> sreenivasan: north korea announced today it will receiver all ties with south korea. this, a day after south korea cut off trade with the north. last week the south charged one of its warships was sunk

by a north korean torpedo in march. it was later raised from the sea. north korea's state media said today's announcement was, quote, the first phase, and it warned the south is courting larger trouble. >>. >> south korean puppet army gangs have been recently trespassing our territorial waters without restraint. should the south intrude more, the north will put into force practical military measures to defend its waters. the south side will be held fully accountable for all the consequences. >> sreenivasan: north korea also said its military is bracing for a sacred war but the south said it had no indication of any unusual activity along the border. some 28,000 american troops are deployed in south korea. the u.s. military commander for the middle east has authorized new covert operations across the region. the "new york times" reported today general david petraeus signed a secret order last fall. it called for missions in iran, yemen, and elsewhere. the report said the order covers surveillance and support for local forces.

it does not authorize any offensive action. in jay maim a today, thousands of police and soldiers assaulted gunmen loyal to a suspected drug lohr. it was a third day of violence in kingston that has killed at least 30 people. we have a report narrated by sarah smith of independent television news. >> these gangsters are for now in control of part of jamaica's capital. known as the shower because of the number of bullets they like to use in shooting, they're using their guns to protect their leader from extradition to america. heavily armed police officers need their body armor and helmets and their automatic weapons as they make their way through kingston's most violent slums searching the district for jamaica's most wanted man. (gun meyer) coming under fire from unseen gangsters who are determined to stop them from finding and arrests christopher.

a man the u.s. says is one of the world's most dangerous drug lords. but to many in kingston he's a local hero, a generous benefactor. the authorities here used to protect him, a man who has ties to the prime minister and his of go earning labor party. for months they rejected american requests to extradite him on charges of smuggling drugs and trafficking weapons. now soldiers patrolling the streets , and the prime minister changing his mind to allow the extradition. >> i wrestled with the potential conflict between the issues of noncompliance with the terms of the treaty and the unavoidable perception that because he is associated with my constituency the government's position was politically contrived. >> reporter: scores of by- standers have been injured and taken to hospital with no end in sight. but there are reports tonight the violence is is spreading

across kingston to other impoverished neighborhoods. >> sreenivasan: the u.s. will send 1200 national guard troops to help secure the border with mexico. president obama also asked congress today for another half a billion dollars for border security. that word came after the president lurched with senate republicans, including jon kyl of arizona. >> i tried to make the point that it wasn't a good idea to try to hold hostage the securing of the border in order to get comprehensive immigration reform passed. it's important to secure the border simply because of all of the reasons why that is important. and that ironically, securing the border will make it easier not more difficult to later on get comprehensive reform. >> sreenivasan: the national guard troops being deployed to the border will work on intelligence, surveillance and blocking drug traffic. wall street was whiz sawed today by everything from european debt to tensions in korea. stocks fell sharply at the opening bell and then staged a laith rally. the dow jones industrial

average was down 280 points early but ended with a loss of 22 points to close at 10,043. the nasdaq fell two points to close below 2211. those are some of the day's major stories. now back to jim. >> lehrer: next from economics to politics. the crowded u.s.-china agenda. ray suarez has that story. >> suarez: secretary of state hillary clinton took time out from talks in beijing to join her hosts for a bit of vintage chinese opera today. elsewhere in the chinese capital, there was relatively little harmony between the chinese and the high-level u.s. dell grags, some 200 strong. the second annual strategic dialogue talks were aimed at resolving long-standing economic and foreign policy issues. but the original agenda was overshadowed by the showdown between north and south korea over the sinking of a south korean ship. secretary clinton said it's in

chinese interests to help rein in the north koreans. >> china not only values but is very committed to regional stability and it shares with us the goal of a denuclearized korean peninsula. >> suarez: clinton's chinese counterpart barely mentioned the korean tensions in his statement. he called for all sides to avoid escalation. likewise, there was no visible progress on china's policy of peging its currency, formally known as the renmen b to the u.s. dollar. that makes chinese exports much cheaper and prices many american goods out of the chinese market. the president of china hinted yesterday at future cooperation but said nothing more. >> china will continue to steadily advance the reform of the formation of the money exchange rate mechanism under the principle of independent decision-making, controlability, and gradual progress. >> suarez: today treasury secretary timothy geithner

said the chinese did pledge action on other trade issues. >> just as china wants to face growing opportunities in the u.s. markets , american firms-- and we want to be able to demonstrate confidence that american firms are going to face a level playing field with expanding opportunities in the chinese market. >> suarez: on military matters. china held firm in its refusal to resume normal ties with the u.s. military. >> unfortunately our plan for the bilateral military exchanges could not be realized because the u.s. defense ministries's announce of weapons sales to taiwan has a bad impact on the plan. >> suarez: the u.s. announced last january it would go ahead with a $6.4 billion sale to taiwan including helicopters and missiles. a top american admiral who attended the beijing talks said the dialogue on that front lags behind other facets of the u.s.-china relationship. for more on that relationship,

we turn to kenneth lieberthal, a senior fellow at the brookings institutions and former national security council staff official dealing with china in the clinton administration. and ted fishman, a journalist, former trader and advisor to companies operating in china. he's the author of "china, inc. . how the rise of the next super power challenges america and the world." kenneth lieberthal, you saw it. a fleet of 50 cars, hauling the dell delegation from place to place, when you see a meeting like this, can you conclude for america, this is the most important bilateral relation in the world? >> i think effectively it is. china next year will have the world's second largest economy behind only ours. whatever global issue you think of-- whether it's nuclear proliferation, north korea and iran, whether it's global climate change where china is the largest greenhouse gas emiter in the world ahead only of us

or whether it's the major economic issues of our day-- the capacity of the u.s. and china to work reasonably well together is crucial to managing those problems reasonably effectively if we go at cross-purposes those problems become much more difficult. yes, i would say we have a number of very important relations but if there's one that stands out it's our relationship with china. >> suarez: ted fishman, do you agree? >> yeah, china is one of the three or four relationships which is our most important relationship. of course it changes over time. sometimes it's the strong player that we have to pay the most attention to. sometimes it's faultering players we have to pay the most attention to. and the united states is in the position of dealing with both kinds right now. china helps in some of those relationships. and it's all but irrelevant in some others. in most of our wars china is really not a factor but those are still very important relationships and also very important in the back drop of how china sees its growing power versus the struggles we have around the world.

>> suarez: ted, in the last two years you've heard increasing reference to the g-2. never mind the g-8 and the g-20. when it comes to issues large and small, korea to global to warming, it's really the united states and china that are the players that make the game. >> well, it's true. they make the game but playing two very, very different games. the partnership is fundamentally good. far better than our historic relationships with china have ever been. you know, there's a tendency to see every snapshot of difficulty with china as a problem. but if you look at the whole photo album it's getting better. and yet i think we're in danger of highlighting the relationship too much and not giving enough credit to the kind of partnership we can have with our other big partners: japan, western europe and the united states. sometimes countries tend to think that their interests are more aligned with china than they are with the u.s., but if

you look fundamentally at the relationships between the u.s. and our traditional allies, it's far more in our interest to work together and have that relationship with china than just the u.s.-china relationship on its own. >> suarez: ken lieberthal, what do you think of that formulation, the g-2, the two countries that really make things happen snen. >> i think frankly it's a terrible formulation. it's terrible for two reasons. one is that it's hard to think of of a major global issue where the u.s. and china can simply drive the outcome by itself. i agree very much with what ted just said that we need our partners to a greater or lesser extent on almost every issue. secondly, to the extent that the u.s. and china talk about a g-2, other countries will be less willing to cooperate with us on these issues because no other country will accept easily the notion that the u.s. and china should decide the big issues largely on their own. so to be effective we need to work well with the chinese. we absolutely need to work well with the other major players around the world.

>> suarez: ken, when you make a splash like this in a bilateral conference, send a large delegation studded with top names in the administration and come home with some assurances here but nothing really nailed down, no progress on korea, is it worth going ? should some of this stuff be done before anybody gets on a plane? >> well, actually a lot of it is done before anyone gets on a plane. the staffing for this kind of meeting is extraordinary. most of what you see come out of it is largely scripted. kind of unexpected element here clearly was north korea where the situation has changed very rapidly even over the past week. i don't think anyone expected major agreements , publicly announced at the end of this conference. this dialogue, unlike most u.s.-china meetings, is aimed at fundamentally at deepening mutual understanding. periodically making sure that

our relationship is moving in a more positive direction. i hope at least over time it will lead to long-term efforts to get at issues like protectionism in china , management of a nuclear issue, better cooperation among clean energy and climate change and so forth. so looking for what are called deliverables is not really the right measure for this particular dialogue. this strategic and economic dialogue. >> suarez: ted, treasury secretary geithner was especially interested in opening up the chinese market after hearing some recent noises about china favoring domestic industries. also very interested in getting some accommodation on the currency exchange rate between the american dollar and the chinese money. any progress? and why is it so important that these things get done? >> you know, i don't think there was any progress this is the kind of discussion we've been hearing for a long time. what's different right now is

that american industry particularly the large global multinationals that have bet so much on china to deliver them significant growth are getting frustrated because china really wants its domestic players to have a strong hand in china's market. china's doing what it should for its country. it's making its own domestic players as strong as they possibly can. that's what we would do. on the currency front, china is is giving the same kind of empty rhetoric it's given for a long time and playing its own game also to its own advantage. china is peg to go the u.s. dollar as a level lower than its market rate as part of china's industrial strategy. it promotes china's exports and gotten chin china to where it is today. they're willing to talk somewhat nicely but sometime very much to their play book as they have. >> suarez: finally, ken, to korea in the very short time we have, does the united states expect more than china's willing to give in

help to contain the north korea? >> i think we want more than china is willing to give. china is very, very cautious about dealing with north korea. cannot control it. it is irritated by it constantly but also is very, very uneasy about pushing the north koreans hard. we on the other hand want to see chinese leadership along with us and the south koreans and the japan he's to move this to a better place. so i think that we're going to have to do some hard work to get the chinese to step up on this issue the way we think they should. >> suarez: kenneth lieberthal, ted fishman, gentlemen, thank you both. >> thank you. >> my pleasure. >> woodruff: next a step to justice in the southeast. in the southeast asian nation of cambodia. we have a report from special correspondent fred de sam lazaro. a version of this story aired on the pbs program "religion

and ethics "newsweek"ly." >> reporter: for several months as many as two million cambodians tuned in to a weekly court drama on tv. >> hello and welcome to the 22nd program in our series "on trial." >> reporter: this is no fictional series. the genocide being described killed almost two million in the 1970s. however, most viewers know little about what is now distant history. two-thirds of today's cambodians weren't even born when the khmer rouge were in power. and few cambodians know much about the international tribunal that is trying a handful of prominent survivors of the khmer rouge regime for their role in the killings. the tv series is intended to change that. >> now we're going to see a selection of evidence given to the court about some of the crimes which with he has been charged. >> viewers should be aware

that some but not all the stories told here were denied. >> reporter: the first to trial was comrade doik now in his late 60s. >> we treated them as if they were already dead. i allowed four torture methods snrl the trite itself is taking place outside the capital, which is the sight of the prison that doik commanded where at least 14,000 men, women and children were photographered and documented in an administrative process and then tortured and killed. this person was one of only seven people who came out alive. today he paints and sells pictures of the painful memories. he talked about his imprisonment with eric stouffer, a human rights scholar and expert who is studying the impact of international courts on societies and individuals. >> how long were you held before you were asked to come and draw the portraits? >> one month and four days.

>> reporter: his life was spared so he could paint portraits of pol pot, the khmer rouge leader who went into hiding and died in 1998. >> six months, about 67 pictures of pol pot. >> reporter: testifying at the trial left him angry. at being cross-examined and at seeing how well the defendant seemed to be treated. >> it was just like a shock when i go there to the court and see him. when i told them the truth they doubt me. they ask me a lot of questions. i don't feel the trust when i tell them. that makes me feel bad. it seems like the accused person has more rights than the civil parties do. i'm really not satisfied with that. >> reporter: many also aren't satisfied with the slow pace of justice. it was delayed for years by cold war politics and the reluctance of the cambodian government which still has former members of the khmer rouge in it. stouffer says that tricky negotiations limited the scope of the court which was set up with two international and

three cambodian justices. >> the cambodian government itself was not that in favor of this court. even the negotiations to create it took a long period of time. we say that with evidence over time, evidence loses its value. you're 30 years later. people's memories have been ... people have forgotten and people have died. so going after those most responsible is really all you're going to get at this point. >> justice delayed may be justice denied for many victims, but this person who started a group called the victims association says despite the limited number of defendants, the court sends an important message. >> he becomes a bigger number. more people. it would be better. but it's better than nothing when you commit a crime there will be people who try to put you... to take you into account. this is one of the lessons that the young generation can learn.

>> reporter: eric stouffer says the court itself has had to learn how to teach some of those lessons. >> i don't think any court should be expected to be a social engineering institution. they're just not designed to do that but what we can expect from them is that they should have vigorous programs to try to go out into the population and describe what they're doing, why they're doing it. and what their limitations are. >> reporter: he says after a slow start, the court did launch outreach programs twice a week buses have brought in thousands of cambodians on field trips. i asked this group of visitors how many had ever heard of the court before coming here. the international community wanted the word spread even further. that's why the british government and the u.s.-based east-west center sponsored the television series. >> you think the trial has gone well? the process has been pretty impressive. i've supported it because i was one of the victims. i was in prison under the

regime. >> reporter: math rue robinson was hired to produce the court series. >> we had to devise a language and to base our understanding of what was going on in the court that would be intelligible to people who ... whose basic knowledge of legal proceedings indeed court proceedings is minimal indeed. >> reporter: the program has also urged viewers to engage in more dialogue about the trial and about the genocide. >> thanks to everyone here for this discussion of doik's trial. >> we hope that this will encourage you at home to talk together about this topic. so vital to cambodia's future well being and progress. >> reporter: those conversations aren't easy, says robinson. >> anybody from 25 down are not so much skeptical about it, but they lack knowledge. parents seem to be reluctant maybe even embarrassed to talk

about what happened to them. >> reporter: this person who survived the khmer rouge killing fields wants to make sure young people get the knowledge they need even if their parents won't talk about it. >> this is the textbook for grade 9-12. >> reporter: he's director of the cam pod i can't documentation stri center which has published a textbook that is now in the hands of one million cambodian students. >> start from the creation of the khmer rouge movement all the way to the fall of the khmer rouge in '79. >> reporter: most kids growing up in this country have never learned about this? >> they never learned about this but they heard about it. right now for the first time in 30 years from grades 9-12 and going to university allow to study the khmer rouge story. >> reporter: the verdict and sentencing are expected in early june. six months after final arguments ended and two years after the trial began. he hopes it will help the country move on. >> the court helped to put the

past behind. it gives us the direction we are to turn next for the future. and the court put the past into perspective so we can learn from it. >> reporter: survivors hope it brings justice. >> the verdict should be balancing what doik has done, how many people he killed and how many he caused suffering. for me, i can't forgive. >> reporter: eric stouffer says the court by example can be an important building block for the future of this country still recovering from years of war and genocide. >> people will have basic needs and need to be attended to but if you're going to have real progress, you also put in the infrastructure for democracy, infrastructure for the rule of law, infrastructure that will support human rights because without that, you will always be in an uphill battle. >> suarez: the tribunal's next case will be a joint trial for four elderly defendants.

that's expected to start in 2012. >> lehrer: fred's reporting is in partnership with the untold stories project at st. john's university in minnesota. >> woodruff: finally tonight, a conversation about migration, economics, and globalization. and to geoffrey brown. a note: this interview was taped before today's most recent developments. >> brown: the debate over immigration laws very much with us with arizona's recent actions but even when not dominating the national conversation it presents a huge series of problems and dilemmas that workers, families, employers and government officials face daily. here and around the world. that's the subject of a new book "moving millions. . how coyote capitalization fuels global immigration." jeffrey kay covered immigration and many other stories for the newshour from los angeles and points around

the globe for nearly 25 years. most of that time he's been a good friend of mine. >> absolutely. nice to be here, jeff. >> brown: what did you set out to do? why this subject among all the ones you cover for us? >> immigration was a constant theme and the coverage and the reporting i was doing for the newshour but there was a sense of frustration as in depth as i was able to get in most of the stories that there was something missing. what i set out to do was try to put it altogether, to try to understand what it is that motivates people to move, to migrate. it seemed to me that in all my travels that unless we actually got to the root causes, we would just recycling the same debate. >> brown: what jumps out at you? what themes emerge when you put all these pieces together? >> well, it's different in can different countries but mexico, for example, there's a long tradition of migration. the themes that started around the turn of the 20th century where mexicans were wanted in the united states.

their labor was required. and over time we have welcomed them in and sometimes deported them when the economy got bad. the themes that i saw often have to do with with this economic conditions in either the sending countries, the countries that export migrants and receiving countries. there's an inter-dependence that we often don't think about. we're focused or fixated almost on the legal status of migrants rather than some of the economic issues that motivate.... >> brown: as well as all the government policies play in the push and pull. >> absolutely. >> brown: and this somehow is not well understood, that somehow we have these very noisy debates without looking at the underlying causes. >> right. and i think that those are... those come often at times when people get anxious and nervous about the economy. often migrants are scapegoated and not just today. i'm talking back in history,

whether that's immigrants from south europe or eastern europe or china or wherever it might be. so we never really get to the more fundamental issues which are international in scope, not national. that's one of the frustrations i think is when you look at the debates rather than trying to treat immigration as an international issue, which of course it is-- it involves a border-- we try to keep with it and the rest of the developed world tries to deal with it on a purely national grounds. >> brown: you use the term coyote capitalism. >> yes, i do. >> brown: what does that mean? >> you know what a coyote is. it's a slang term for a human smuggler. it doesn't really matter the circumstances. the job is to get someone across the border, either driving or pulling the person across. as long as know person gets across, the coyote gets his or her money. don't really care about the welfare of the migrants.

if you expand that out to look at a global inter-connected system, if you will, i don't mean that in a conspiratorial sense but a mechanism that drives migration. you can see that often what fuels migration is not so much individual decisions about whether or not to migrate but a much larger, broader picture which is what i tried to get across. >> brown: it was also interesting to read the parts about the sender countries. one in particular was the philippines. >> yes. well the philippines high school a culture of immigration. there you're you can speced to grow up, go abroad and send money home. >> brown: part of their economy. >> it's a huge part of the culture and the people are raised essentially as cash crops. and the expectations are ... one family after another will tell you about how ... whether it's a construction in the middle east or nursing in the united states, canada or the u.k., there's a long tradition of migration too.

>> brown: here we are again as we mentioned with arizona, raising this again. put where we are now into these broader schemes. >> in terms of arizona. >> brown: what do you see going on? >> i think arizona is kind of a perfect illustration of some of the things i touch on in my book. we never really connect the dots. i think you can trace what happened in arizona back to the clinton administration fortifying the border in the '90s in response to the outcry, my grants had been coming over in california and in texas . the intention was to drive people, funnel people through arizona one of the most conservative states in the united states. with the hope with the expectation that people would be detered because of the inhospitable terrain, the desert there. that didn't turn out to be the case. simply because the conditions really didn't change in mexico that led people to migrate in the first place. and a booming economy and a

need for service workers in california and the southwest pulled people across. so without addressing the fundamental issues there, it didn't work. and so the result is what we see in arizona. >> brown: and people there, including the governor when she signed this law, talked a lot about how they were tired of waiting for federal action. it also raises this kind of local feeling versus federal action. >> right. >> brown: another aspect. you talked about international and national. there's also the local side. >> of course. janet napolitano, secretary of homeland security, when she was governor of arizona also said that she needed to sign bills which she did because of federal inaction. she also said show me a 50-foot fence and i'll show you a 51- foot ladder. really the circumstances haven't changed. now janet napolitano is in washington and may or may not be able to do something about it. i would suggest that washington acting by itself

can't really affect migration issues any more than arizona can or any of the thousands of municipalities that have passed laws. it takes an international approach. by its nature immigration involves borders and is international. >> brown: what does that mean? there's a way forward? >> there's a way forward. that means we have to rethink and reframe the debate in some way. we need to think of globalization, we need to think of immigration as an international issue rather than a national one. because people are pushed out and pulled in because of trade policies, because of all kinds of policies that really need to be ... we need to be thinking about. so the united states needs to engage at a minimum mexico and by national discussions and if we have a globalrganization that deals with trade, why can't we also look at global migration in the same way. >> brown: the book is "moving millions." jeffrey kay, nice to talk to you. >> thank you very much. it's been a pleasure. >> lehrer: the major

developments of this day. bp made ready to try to plug that gushing oil well in the gulf of mexico. on the newshour, company executive bod dudley said the process can begin tomorrow if testing looks good tonight. otherwise, he said crews will try again to place a containment dome on the well head by the weekend. and north korea cut ties with south korea amid tensions over the sinking of a south korean warship. the newshour is always online, of course. hari sreenivasan in our news room previews what's there. >> sreenivasan: on the oil spill, find photos from the gulf coast and stories from young people affected by the disaster. fred de sam lazaro they're rates a slide show from the prison museum in cambodia. on art beat another book conversation, jeff talks to the editor of steve larsen the girl with the dragon tattoo series. all that and more is on our website, newshour.pbs.org. >> woodruff: that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. >> lehrer: i'm jim lehrer. we'll see you online and again

here tomorrow evening. thank you and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been been provided by. chevron. this is the power of human energy. intel. sponsors of tomorrow. pacific life. the power to help you succeed.

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