captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> lehrer: good evening. i'm jim lehrer. the latest effort to contain the oil spill resumed late today after robots freed a saw that was stuck in a pipe on the damaged well. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. on the newshour tonight, as evidence of oil spill spreads throughout the gulf state, we get an update from the head of noaa. >> lehreh: and spencer michels reports from a louisiana town where the spill threatens the oyster industry.

>> reporter: while fishermen in plaquimines parish say they've worked through the anger, the anger lies just below the surface. >> ifill: then wood examines the issues of israel's efforts to maintain the blockade of the gaza strip. >> lehrer: ray suarez reports on china on the largest-ever world's fair. >> reporter: nearly $60 billion later, shanghai has thrown its doors open to the world. >> ifill: and jeffrey brown closes with a conversation with two authors married to each other, both writing about happiness. >> lehrer: and that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

>> i want to know what the universe... >> looks like. >> feels like. >> from deep space. >> to a microbe. >> i can contribute to the world by pursuing my passion for science. >> it really is the key to the future. >> i want to design... >> a better solar cell. >> i want to know what's really possible. >> i want to be the first to cure cancer. >> people don't really understand why things work. >> i want to be that person that finds out why. >> innovative young minds taking on tomorrow's toughest challenges.

>> and by the bill and melinda gates foundation. dedicated to the idea that all people deserve the chance to live a healthy productive life. 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. >> lehrer: on this day 44 of the oil spill disaster, there was new trouble a mile deep in the gulf of mexico , and on the surface along the coast. it began with yet another snag on the sea bed at the site of the blown well. a diamond-edged saw got stuck as it tried to cut through the main oil gushing pipe. that halted the latest attempt to contain the geyser of

petroleum. >> anybody that's ever used a saw knows every once in a while it will bind up. >> lehr: national incident commander thad allen briefed reporters this morning. >> the goal is later on today to finish that cut and to be able to put a containment device over the top of the welled head and contain the oil, bring it to the surface, and flare off the gas and produce product moving forward. >> lehrer: hours later there was word that the remote-controlled sub had freed the saw, but still a giant cloud of raw crude kept spewing from the well and it will likely get worse before it gets better. >> we don't anticipate the flow of oil to increase until the second cut is done. our florate technical group estimated the potential for a 20% increase once that cut is made. it has not been made yet. in the meantime , the it is being treated with subsea dispersants. >> lehrer: it's been more than six weeks since "deepwater horizon" exploded and slank. by official estimates, more than

40 million gallons of oil may have spilled already. 127 miles of louisiana coast is now fouled, and the sea-born sludge is now making its way father east. oil was reported tuesday on petit bois island mississippi. mayor jeff collier... >> there's plenty of response teams that are here. we've got a lot of personal in place air, lot of equipment in place. and they're here and have been here and ready to go. >> lehrer: the alabama national guard is now flying surveillance missions along the coast. checking for oil. >> we constantly reevaluate. you assess daily, assess daily, hook to the future, and plan what's tomorrow, what's the next day, the next day down the road. and then each day, you have to readjust your plan based on what's happening on the ground. it's just like on the battlefield. >> lehrer: and in florida, governor charlie crist said the leading edge of the oil slick could arrive at pensacola's beach before the day is out. >> our state resours have

determined that the oil sheen , with it are thousand of tarballs. skimers have been deployed near pensacola. the goal is to remove that oil from near-shore waters and prevent and minimize any potential impacts to our state. will be. >> lehrer: as the oil spread, the federal government again expanded its closure of fishing grounds. more than one-third of federal waters in the gulf are now off limits. more than 75,000 square miles of ocean stretching nearly to cuba. at an afternoon speech in pittsburgh, president obama refocused on possible criminal wrongdoing, leading up to the spill. >> the catastrophe unfolding in the gulf right now may prove to be a result of human error. or of corporations taking dangerous shorted cuts to compromise safety. but we have to conditional that-- acknowledge that there are inherent risks to drilling

four miles beneath the surface of the earth. >> lehrer: today, federal officials approved a permit for a new offshore well in the gulf in shallow water about 50 miles off louisiana. a moratorium on deep water drilling remains in effect. >> ifill: jit zeit and anger is spreading along with the oil. the coastal beachs and marshes of louisiana, mississippi, alabama and florida. joining frus new orleans with an update on the situation is the head of the national occasionic and atmospheric administration. welcome jane lubchenco. you were with us about two weeks ago and you said you thought the oil was nine to 12 days away. 14 or more days away. is what we're seeing come ashore on all these other coastal states, is that what you were talking about then? >> we, as you know, we issue a trajectory every day based on the current weather information

and occasion graphic models and can predict 72 hours out where the oil is likely to go. what we're seeing play out is, unfortunately, what we have expected in part because of weather and the currents. it is a very serious tragedy. the president has expressed his grave concern, as have the american people, and he has made it very clear that we are to do everything possible to not only stop the flow but mitigate the impact for that oil that may come ashore. >> lehrer: so the wind direction that's coming from the south and the west, is that what's causing the spread that we're seeing now? >> that's correct. the oil that's on the surface is moved around primarily by wind, and as the wind shifts around, as it does quite frequently here in the gulf, it pushes the oil in different directions. there's

predominantly southerly flow now and that is pushing the oil to the north, as well as to the east. >> ifill: i want to ask you about a couple of other things. you said perhaps this was not as scary as people thought. and now that a couple of more weeks have passed and we see that the spill has not been capped, and we see that it's beginning to show up on beaches as far away as pence coal ado you think it's scaryer now? >> i believe this is a national tragedy. the president has said as much. i believe that it is an issue that is likely to continue to play out for quite some time. but it's one that we are throwing our best effort at , and informed by science to try to get the best possible understanding that we can of where the oil might be and what its short-term and long-term sbraktz going to be. >> ifill: you're telling us tonight one of the things for sure

is that you don't know for sure what happens next. so what advice do you give to the governments along the coast who see this coming at them? what do they do? >> the response by the federal family, i think, has been very clear from the outset-- to do everything possible to attack it very aggressively , and that's what we are working with our state partners to do. we are presenting them with the best information about what's likely in helping to do everything possible to lay boom, to prepare... for oil coming ashore, and, also, to deploy teams that know and are trained into how to handle the oil should it come ashore. >> ifill: there's been a lot of talk about the so-called oil plume, the underwater-- i think you called it a submerged oil fields, which are spill growing or spreading, depending how you define them. there has been a ship out doing some testing on the patches of oil, the gordon gunter, which is from noaa. can you tell whaus they found or what the

tests on the samples they've taken have shown? >> the noaa ship has been out at the well site doing a variety of sampling to identify previously things characterized previously as anomalies to try to understand exactly what they are and where they are. obviously, it's more than -- more likely than not that there is oil in the water column in the general vicinity of the well. the "gunter" is identifying where that might be and getting good images of that. clear identification of what those anomalys are, though, will require sampling of the water and whatever is in it, and then analyses of those in the laboratory. i was just on another noaa ship today, the "thomas jefferson," that is leaving port tonight from new orleans going out and is going to be doing

complementary sampling to the "gunther" and it, too, will be deploying a variety of instruments to image anomalys and to take samples. >> ifill: but none of the samples, none of the testing has happened yet? it's been six weeks? >> we've had a lot of instruments telling us that there are signal s, that there's something beneath the surface at various depths in different places. what we have yet to have confirmation of is what that is. there are a lot of possibilities there are -- there's a lot of biological activity out there. there is zoplank and fish, and one of the things the slips doing is imaging during the day as well as at night because many of the species that are there migrate to the surface or closer to the surface during the night time and then back down to depths during the day. so by taking will be the same kind of acoustic images, for

example, night and day, you can eliminate the possibility that that is oil. it's really only by sampling the water directly and then taking it back to a lab that we can confirm definitively that it is the oil and that those are the results that we are awaiting. >> ifill: if the oil is now in what we have been calling the "loop current" and that is what is driving it, along with these winds, towards these far-off states, what are you doing to prepare for what is now-- we are now in officially hurricane season? how are you preparing for what that might do to the path of this oil? >> the oil that was originally identified as being a small amount in the loop current , that current has actually pinched off and is no longer headed towards the florida strait. it's actually recirculating within the gulf. it is possible at some point that the loop current may reform

and that oil may become entrained, and i tnk it is wise for the state of florida to prepare in the outside chance that oil may be reaching its shores, and that, in fact, is the information that we have provided to them. >> ifill: and the hurricane season issue? >> i'm sorry. the hurricane-- we have issued an outlook for the upcoming hurricane season, based on various factors that give us an idea of whether it's likely to be an abnormal or normal year. our conclusion was that this hurricane season in the atlantic is likely to be above normal, and if that in fact is the case, then the entire population on the eastern third of the country should be making preparations now for the possibility of hurricane. the oil interaction with hurricane is one that is worth considering. if oil

is on the surface, and a hurricane comes through, it's quite likely that the hurricane could push that oil father up, on to the shore, than would otherwise be the case. and so , shoreline crews need to be prepared for that. and, of course, fema, who coordinates with states to do response to events like hurricanes, is well prepared to deal with oil because that often happens during hurricanes, oil from fuel tanks, whatever, being spilled. >> ifill: obviously, we'll be watching for that next. jane lubchenco of noaa thank you very much. >> thanks, gwen. >> lehrer: the fall-out from longtime industries and many lifldhoods on the gulf coast is mounting. tonight, newshour correspondent spencer michael reports on how this is playing out in a small town on the louisiana coast.

>> reporter: to get to point a la hache you have to cross the mississippi river on a ferryboat. the economy of this predominantly african american enclave depends on boats that harvest oysters from the coastal waters. because of fears that oil will soon hit the area , the government opened the season early , and these lucky fishermen came back with a huge load. most of the deck hands, like edwardo mendez, come from mexico. so these have just been caught. they're oysters, right? >> yeah. >> reporter: what about the oil? is there any oil in the oyst jeerz no. no oil. they're good ones, good, no oil. >> reporter: but since they can't bank on the oil staying away, and they're scared that any hurricane could wreak havoc on the oyster bed, oyster men

are working at a feverish pace. claude duplessis has been harvesting oysters for all of his adult life. he was among a group of residents who gathered at the st. thomas catholic church to talk about how the oil spill has been affecting business. >> if the oil comes in, they're destroyed, not just temporarily, but for a long, long time. >> reporter: really? >> yes, yes, sir. oil has a really adverse effect on the oyster reefs. the oyster and reproduction stage, the oysters put out a mick, we call is spat. and this spat swims around in the water until it find a clean, hard surface to attach itself to and it grows from there. now, if the oil coats of shell then the spat can't stick, and this can continue for years.

>> reporter : byron encalade is president of the louisiana oysts, or association. he testified before the house judiciary committee last thursday and said the oil disaster, much like katrina, has been decadees in the making. >> once again we find ourselves crippled by a disaster we did not create. >> reporter: of the residents in plaquiminess parish are pushing hard for the government to quickly construct barrier sand islands to buffer louisiana's wetlands against storms and oil spills and to replace islands that were already disappearing at an alarming rate. >> without those islands out there, we're not protected from the hurricanes. instead of wasting all these money on the projects the corps is doing, we'd be in better shape now. we could have protected the inner marsh land. from you've destroyed millions and millions of dollars worth of oysters that this community survived on for many-- a hundred

years. >> reporter: but these fishermen have other concerns as well, though their rhetoric has calmed down in the 44 days since the b.p. well exploded. i'm not hearing real serious anger from anybody here. you sound like you sort of understand the situation , is that wrong? >> we could show serious ache anger. we kuld use vulgarity. we could show hostility but it's not going to solve the problem. >> reporter: some fishermen have received lump-sum payments from b.p. but they say it isn't enough and they have met with attorneys and are planning to sue for lost income. gary barthelemy is another concerned fisherman. >> they're supposed to send us for time we couldn't work, and so far we've only gotten one check so far. and they've all been out here 40-something days, you know. and $5,000 is not enough for a

man to feed his family or live off of. >> reporter: while the fishermen worry over how to get compensation for their own losses, the federal government is investigating possible criminal violations of the endangered species, the clean water, and the oil pollution acts. meanwhile, in plaquimines parish along the mississippi, what is at stake is a way of life. leander young has spent his life on the banks of the mississippi river. he now works as an engineer on the ferryboat. >> i've been working on the boat pretty much all my life. >> reporter: what do you think is going to happen because of this oil spill? >> it's really going to affect marsh land, the fishing industry the shrimp, the crab, the oysters. that's mostly the people down here, that's their lifldhood, and it's going to affect them for some years to come. >> reporter: so far there has been no oil directly in the mississippi, but that is scant

encouragement for the folks in plaquiminess parish, point a la hache. people are wrestling with a problem that goes far beyond their local concerns. >> ifill: still to come on the newshour , a legal debate about the the high seas raid and the gaza blockade. the world trade expo in shanghai and a conversation about happiness. but first, with the other news of the day, here is hari sreenivasan in our newsroom. >> sreenivasan: gunmen rampaged across northwest england today killing 12 people and wounding 25. the shootings happened at 30 separate locations. it was the worst such incident in britain since 1996. the gunmen are 52-year-old taxi driver derrick bird who was found dead later. police said he shot himself but his motive remained a mystery. >> we are at the early stage of this investigation. we're not able to understand at this stage the real motivation behind it or establish whether this was a premeditated

or a random attack. >> sreenivasan: multiple shooting incidents are rare in britain where gun control laws are strict and handguns are banned. witnesses said today's attacker used shotguns. the stock market rebounded sharply today. energy stocks recouped some of tuesday's losses. the dow gained 225 point to close above 10,249. the nasdaq closed at 2281. u.s. auto sales jumped by double digits last month for most companies. chrysler led the way with a gain of 33%. ford sales were up 22%, and g.m. rose 17%. at the same time, ford announced it will stop making mercurys by the end of this year. the brand has been around for 72 years. in afghanistan today, a national conference a "peace jirga" opened and militants carried out a suicide attack nearby. none of the 16 delegates were hurt but at least two of the

attackers were killed. hahmid karzai spoke with rockets and gurch in the background and told his audience, we have heard this kind of thing before and appealed directly to the militants. >> ( translated ): my, dear taliban, you are welcome on your own soil. do not hurt this country or destroy or kill yourself. whoever is killed in this country is the son ofy this country. it is, you are from this country if it is, me, i am all from this country. we are brothers. let's free ourselves s from killing each other and build this country. >> sreenivasan: taliban representatives were not invited to attend the conference. the prime minister of japan yukio hatoyama has stepped down. he was in office just eight months but his support plunged after he failed to live up to a campaign promise to move a u.s. marine base off oek nowa. the current finance minister emerged as a potential successor. japan has had four prime ministers in four years. an international team began

final preparations today for a simulated mission to mars. the six volunteers and one backup are from russia, china, france, and italy. they'll be locked inside a windowless capsule for 520 days, the time needed for a round trip to mars and they'll follow a strict regimen of experiments and exercise. scientists and doctors will monitor the men to see how an actual space voyage would affect a crew. >> ( translated ): some people have a fear of being locked in. some people enjoy the change of scenery, circumstances and people. but when everybody interacts with the same people in the same space, habits and behavior become apparent very quickly. these habits may irritate and cause indignation and even fits of aggression. >> sreenivasan: the mars 500 experiment is set to launch on thursday. >> lehrer: international law and politics on day three of the gaza story. judy woodruff has our report . >> woodruff: the procession

began at dawn, and throughout the day, israeli buses carried hundreds of detained, pro-palestinian activists to ben gurion airport and to the border with jordan. nearly 700 people were captured. commandos raided six ships trying to break a blockade and ferry aid to gaza. nine people were killed in fighting on one of the ships. israel's military released video that showed activists attacking the soldiers. but the group sponsoring the convoy insisted the israelis fired first. initial leash the israelis planned to hold 50 activists with alleged ties to al qaeda or similar groups, but today, government spokesman mark regev announced the change of plan. >> we have no desire whatsoever to see these activists lingering in an israeli detention center. and we're asking now for their immediate return to their

countries of origin. >> woodruff: that decision came after days of mounting criminal , culminateing in an order from the israeli attorney general. it said of the detainees, keeping them here would do more damage to the country's vital interest than good. ( applause ) as the deportations proceeded, 120 of the detainees were bused to jordan and greated with applause and shoudz of "allahu akbar", god is great. one freed, they gave their own accounts of what happened during monday's raid. >> ( translated ): i saw four martyrs. i saw them all shot in the head. they used snipers to kill them. >> woodruff: others accuse of israelis of mistreatment. >> they shoot, they killed people, and they never give us medical aid. they brutally behaved. they handcuffed everybody. they never let them move to toilet.

they never let them do anything. >> woodruff: half of the detainees and four of those killed were turkish citizens. and late today, a flight carrying the dead and some of the injured arrived in istanbul. turkey has been israel's closest muslim majority ally. but for a third day, hundreds of turks protested outside the israeli ambassador's residence in ankara. today, turkey's foreign minister demanded israel lift its blockade of gaza as a condition of restoring full ties. in london, british prime minister david cameron also urged israel to lift the blockade. but in new york, while expressing concern for the polite -- plight of palestinians, joe biden voiced support for israel. he spoke with pbs's charlie rose. >> you can argue whether israel should have dropped people on to that ship or not. but the truth of the matter is, israel has a right to know.

they're at war with hamas. has a right to know whether or not arms are being smuggled in. >> woodruff: meantime, international mideast envoy tony blair said the blockade of hamas-ruled gaza has been counter-productive. >> my view is the blockade of gaza has to change, to stop. we need a better policy for gaza. but we needed that even before this incident occurred. >> woodruff: in jerusalem, israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu insists lifting the blockade would open the door to illicit arms shipments to hamas. >> ( translated ) : now the rockets and missiles that iran is trying to get into gaza-- and some are already there-- at aimed at tel aviv, and jerusalem. it is our responsibility and our right, accordinging to international law and common sense, it is our duty to prevent these weapons from entering via airways, the sea, and the ground into gaza. >> woodruff: the blockade will

be tested again in the coming days. an irish cargo ship may try to break through the israeli cordon as early as tomorrow. for more on the legality of israel's actions on monday and its ongoing blockade of gaza, we get the views of two international law scholars. anthony d'amato is a professor at the northwestern university school of law. and ruth wedgwood is a professor at the school of advanced international studies at the johns hopkins university. thank you both for being with us. let me turn to you, professor d'amato. was israel within rights on monday to board these ships and to redirect them away from gaza? >> no, i don't think so. but i think it's very lawyer clear , one of the clearest rules of international law is that there's freedom of the seas. this flotilla had a right to do what they were doing, and israel had no right to intercept them or call it a blockade or stop

them or board the ships or anything like that. it's a very clear principle. >> anthony d'amato is a good friend of mine but i have to disagree with him. under ordinary law of armed conflict, you have a right to prevent, even neutrals, from shipping arms to your opposing bellig rantds--. >> ruth? >> tony, let me finish. the u.s. itself has been neutral throughout the 1800, "had the duty to submit to inspection when shipping on the high seas, to make sure cargos weren't fueling any of the bars in europe. >> who's fighting whom? >> woodruff: we're going to ask you to hold on, professor d'amato. as soon as she's done. we'll come right back to you. >> it's a debate. >> a moderated debate, tony. but i think the real structural dilemma here has been that the u.n. itself has proven very ineffective in keeping arms from infiltrating.

the hope had been that this time would be different. it's not. so the-- any confidence that in fact either self-restraint or some kind of u.n. maritime patrol would prevent this i think is wishful. >> woodruff: professor d'amato what i heard ruth wedgwood say initially is when you have a condition of armed conflict , one party does have the right under international law to do what israel did. >> now, what armed conflict are we talking about? there's no armed conflict here. these people aren't fighting israel. israel isn't in a war against this flotilla. these are citizens. what war are we talking about, the war between israel and hamas? there's no war there. israel has conquered and is running the whole territory. hamas doesn't have any -- they're a concord country. so this business

that ruth is telling us about is 200 years old. that's in the old days when one country was at war with another and neutrals tried to ship arms to one of those two countries. under those old laws of block eds-- and ruth knows this as well as anybody-- the belligerantsad a right to stop the blockade, to stop the shipment. but that hasn't-- no application now. it's dragging in something that is long gone from international law. it's an old regime of blockades , neutrality, contraband, and all the things that people don't study anymore. maybe that's why they're bringing it up. >> woodruff: all right, let's come back to professor wedgwood. >> blockades have been more recent than that, and i would distinguish blockade from everything from blockade of arp if you take, for example, the wars in yugoslavia, the u.n. itself, and nato thu operation sharp guard enforced this, had a

blockade on shipments to yugoslavia. >> woodruff: is the real conflict whether israel had the right to establish the blockade in the first place? >> i think the ambition of the peace flotilla, so-called, is to basically denude israel of what it thinks it was guaranteeed in the 1993 oslow accords, the control of the external borders of gaza, and west bank. and their desires to have this gaza become an open port. the problem with that, again, is you could easily have a rearming of hamas, which caused a terrible conflict. tony, whom i love dearly, can call it what he wants, but the rockets that went into israel and the response of invasion of garza was not armed conflict. >> woodruff: professor d'amato, what about this question of whether the blockade is the principal barrier irritant here. >> well, first of all, i don't think-- i don't defend hamas' rockets against israel. in fact, i'm as opposed to that

scenario as ruth is. as for the balkans. yes, there was a u.n.-sponsored blockade, but it was the most permal blockade you've ever seen. nations were at liberty to ship all kinds of arms into that country during the 90s. as for the blockade now, it's a word. it doesn't have any meaning. i can't set up a blockade around my house and keep miswedgwood out of it. who can go on the high seas and stop ships from doing what? the israelis had a right to wait on the beaches-- as they first tried to do, actually-- wait for those ships to come in and then they could say we now want to search you because you might be carrying conraband. but the notion of going way out into the hey seas, or even the territorial seas-- which israel does not own because they're an occupying country-- to do that is to escalate a situation

-- israel's detriment. i think they've made a horrible mistake here. the country is too much on the defensive. they should have let those people land and deliver their good and then leave. i mean you don't need--. >> woodruff: let's come back to professor wedgwood. is this even something that can be settled by discussing the legal questions involved? >> well, i think, you also now have conflicts that are different than traditional conflicts. we have conflicts that haveab international elements even if they're not classical state-to-state conflict. we have the worry about the effect of terror groups on conflicts. i think, again, the role of iran as a spoiler in the region, which is really prevent anything settlement of israeli-arab issues, is a very serious issue. i worry, frankly, that the u.n. itself is losing its focus. it should be worried about the iranian nuclear program. it should be worried

about being effect 95 countering that. it should be worried about how to actually work out a monitored piece. but to say that israel itself has to be helpless in the face of the attempt to bring in unmonitored ocean traffic-- the right of visit and search under the law of the sea, under the law of armed conflict, can be conducted on the high sea. >> woodruff: you're referring to what the u.n. position is. >> i agree with ruth's assessment of the u.n.. i agree with her statement about iran. we're on the same side on that issue. but i don't think that the principle of freedom of the seas should be placed in jeopardy for something that israel could very well do in a more reasonable way wait for those boats to come in and check them out. it doesn't set up that kind of a situation of endangerment to israel. they already knew what was on the boats. and when they don't , they can wait and check them out and arrest people if they're

bringing in armaments and materiel and things like that. this is an over-reaction, and to defend it means that we are losing one of the basic principles of international law that go back thousands of years that there is freedom of the high seas, that nobody can set up blockades on the high seas because they're afraid of both embarrassed or any other reason. >> woodruff: very quick response >> the worry about how the violence started might well have occurred in the port as well as on the high seas. and under traditional law of the sea, you can do visit and search before a boat gets to port. >> woodruff: we're gog leave it there. ruth wedgwood, anthony d'amato. we thank you both. >> ifill: now the third of our reports from china. ray suarez visits the 2010 shanghai world expo.

>> reporter: it's china's latest big thing. like the olympics, only twice as expensive. 150 nations, 70 million fair-goers, held in the biggest city in the world . it's the expo in shanghai, the latest world's fair. mingzheng shi is the director of new york university in shanghai. >> china wants to show off, show off to the world that china is now in the league of the family of nations because in the past, expo was only held in developed countries. this is the first time that a developing country is doing it. so for the great mission of getting china up there in the world of families, is a big, big deal for china. >> reporter: $4 billion spent directly on the fair. more than $50 billion spent to

improve the city's infrastructure. shanghai has bet big on the fair but it's not alone. china's trading partners have built elaborate pavilions, going to great lengths to boost their image in china. ted fishman is an author specializing on the chinese economy. he says by creating expensive exhibits, countries wishing to court china's strong export economy and huge consumer market have followed the long-standing tradition of bringing gifts and bowing to the emperor. why did countries feel like they had to be here? >> they had to be here both because china wants them here and if they're not here, it's an insult to china but they also feel they need to be here because they have an international demand. china is buying more of everything at every company in the expo . so you need to be there to show your own country that you're

engaged in china, and you need to be there to show china that you're endpajed at the very highest level with the superpower has to come. >> reporter: the spokesperson for the expo said it's not just about trade relations. >> ( translated ): the expo will serve as an important platform for cultural change extinction, which help chinese gain a better understanding of other countries. >> reporter: the united kingdom created one of the stand-out paviltions. its thouz abandon of leucite rods contain seeds and let light into the interior, flocked by curious visitors. australia showcased its history, its art, and its ties to china in creating a $70 million pavilion. lindall sachs is commissioner general for the australian pavisionion. >> the relationship between

australia and china is australia's biggest. with two-way trade being between $80 billion between 2008 and 2009, and this is a growing market. australia would have been really remiss not to be here. >> reporter: now one of the symbols of the fair and the biggest pavilion on the fairground, the chinese pavilion is meant to invoke the shape of an imperial ground crown, but it also remind the fair-goers just what they are government can do for them. >> people here love great themes great powers. there were great powers in the past. as a historian, i know china was in the 18th century, and then something happened. the woft came to dominate and then they had what they call 150 years of humiliation. and that humiliation is still on people's minds, and now they talk about reviving china, making china great again by launching, for example, events

like the expo or the olympics. >> reporter: shi says it's a nationalistic gesture for china's middle class eager to catch up with the western lifestyle. it's also struggling with soaring housing costs. >> it's all part of nationalism because the government has many, many problems to worry about-- politically, economically-- and this is an event that dprauz people's attention away from those problems. >> reporter: by contrast, the united states pavilion had little support from washington. that's because congress restrekt public funding of weird fairs. as of last spring, the money to build the paveilion hadn't been raised and its future was in doubt. >> it is my great pleasure to welcome you on behalf of the american people to the u.s.a. pavilion at expo 2010.

>> reporter: secretary of state hillary clinton, who made a visit to the expo last week, it credited from pulling the project from the brink by cajoling major corporations to chip in and putting on top -notch fund raisers at the helm. he put word out that the u.s. could simply not be absent and at the 11th hour found that funds were raised. >> over the curious of the 180 days that this will run, this pavilion will see more chinese visitors than the entire u.s. mission in china will see over 20 years. and they will do it in the context of not-- you know, of just sort of ordinary, fun kind of activities so it's an unbelievable opportunity. >> reporter: the $60 million u.s. pavilion afrz 4-d movie

that tells the story of american opportunity, diversity, and innovation. >> you have to keep on going on your dream to make a change. >> reporter: paned in the u.s. media as unimaginative and a missed opportunity, the pavilion has had some of the longest lines at the expo , and according to the chinese we spoke with, worth the long wait. he was moved by the 4-d movie. >> my view of america changed a little bit. from what i saw america seemed more sincere and friendly. >> reporter: what did you think before? >> before i thought america liked to bully others. right now, america and china, they are good friends, not like before. america always looked down on china, but now, we are friends. >> reporter: u.s. corporate sponsors like general electric created a 3-dwill be body

scanner for visitors, and those hoping to draw customers and an even higher profile built their own pavilions. general motors unveiled its line of concept electric cars. it says it will fit into china's current massive migration from rural areas to urban areas. over the next 20 years, there will be 200 million pooem more people moving into urban areas. these cars only take up about the fifth of a footprint of a normal car. will be there's much less room for parking and everything else. we think it's a perfect time and perfect solution to perhaps grow backwards. >> reporter: general motors is now selling more cars in china than the united states, and once again, it's china's young consumer they're after. >> it's sufa young industry and young consumer who can look at these things. will

be . >> reporter: while general morts has been successful here, other u.s.-based companies are concerned about protectionist moves they see afoot in china. the chinese government hopes venues like shanghai's world expo will lead to better relations with all its trading partners. >> lehrer: final he tonighty we end on a happy note, or at least a happiness note. jeffrey brown has our conversation. >> reporter: they seem happy in their cambridge, massachusetts, department. derek bok, the former president of harvard, and and sissela bok. sissela bok's

book comes out this fall, and as the title suggests, takes the long view. >> i felt it was so important to look at everything that's been done for millennia, really, in religion, and literature, in philosophy. and to bring that together with all the new research, and what's been done, really, in the last three decades with the social sciences and last 15 years in brain research to try to bring all those things together. >> brown: derek bok's book, "thhe politics of happiness: what government can learn from the new researchh of well-being". was published this spring. >> i'd always been interested in heapness research. i noticed the one thing that wasn't written about very much was what implication did this have for public policy. and since the great champion of happiness jeremy bentham that happiness should be the sole objective of government, it

seemed natural to take that forward and say now that we know something about happiness, what are the results for public policy makers? >> brown: happiness, or at least literature and research on happiness is everywhere these days with college courses and whole sections of your local bookstore devoted to everything from academic studies to how-tos of personal fulfillment. and both boks have taken into account the contradictions of what does and does not make us happy-- having more money, for example. >> when you get more money, very quickly, you become adapted to it, and the things you've always looked forward to buying now become commonplace, and the other thing happens is your aspirations begin to rise, so that if you survey the american people and you say, "how much money do you need to live a really completely happy life?" and then survey them 10 years later, you'll find that 10 years later, they want a lot more money than they did 10 years

before. so i think our aspirations are always leaping out in front of reality, leaving us about as satisfied and as frustrated as we were before. >> it's true that we can get used to money , all kinds of advantages . we can adapt to that , so to speak. but it's very much-- it's very good for human beings that they don't adapt in the same way to , for instance , cherished personal relationships, friendships, affection for children , feelings of beauty. >> brown: combing through the research, derek bok moves from personal to policy and asks whether government puts too much emphasis on economic yardsticks at the expense of other priorities. measuring a country's well-being through the gross national product rather than, say, a gross happiness index. >> only buton recognizes gross national happiness as its major objective.

but, yes, there's a lot of dispute in the research on happiness about whether economic growth really does produce lasting happiness. some people believe it does, and richer countries are uniformly happier than poorer countries. but there's also a lot of evidence that happiness in the united states is not increased. in the last 50 years, even though we're much more prosperous today than we used to be. >> brown: for her part, sissela bok takes a different tack, looking at the very idea of happiness through time and some of the moral questions it continues to raise. >>, so for instance, even if people get happier by something, let's say they get happier by living in a very prejudiced society or that-- you know, happy about their own family or their own particular social group so long as they can oppress the others, perhaps, or draw money from them.

is that happiness worth having? and how should we look at the moral issues that are raised? >> brown: in other words, for both boks, the study of what can make us happy can imluminate a great deal, but our values, our relationships to each other, our jobs , money, and so on. but it can also quickly become complicated. for derek, for example, the question becomes what exactly government do could do differently to make us happier. >> let me give you an example from health care, for example. if you look at the research, you find that remarkably, a number of the unhappy things that can happen to you from a health stand point don't have really long-lasting effects on your happiness very long. you get over the loss of an arm quite quickly but there are three health conditions that produce lasting unhappiness , of a very acute kind. one is clinical depression. millions of people suffer from that.

another one is chronic pain. more millions of people. and the third one, rather unexpected, is sleep disorders, and there are, again, millions of people who suffer from insomnia and re related disorders. now, the interesting thing from a policy point of view is that all of those three illnesss are comparatively underresourced and underemphasized by government policy. >> brown: you mean dpft could step in and help people with sleep disorders. >> absolutely. >> brown: and you're not worried about proposinging something like that at a time where there's, you know, people are out protesting over health care , government in this, government in that? >> not particularly because i think in the end , the research also tells us that the thing that matters most to people is happiness. so i think a government that tries systematically to relieve what causing lasting misery and emphasize what gives lasting

happiness will eventually win the support of the people. >> it's so interesting to look at the huge controversy from the beginning of time about what happiness really means, what it comes from, what it involves. people have always fought over that, so that there's always been disagreement about it. there still is. you can ask, for instance, a young person considering whether or not to be a suicide bomber. what will my happiness, perhaps, be if i do that? that's entirely different from lots of other people's views about happiness. so that's one thing i did want to explore. >> brown: does it require hopefulness to do right about happiness? >> that's an interesting questions because it seems to me some people right about happiness get very hopeful and quite cheery just as people who write about, let's say, child abuse and torture. that can be extremely depressing. so there, i think, that they

have-- everybody has to watch themselvess a bit and to say, you know, how is the research influencing me quite apart from how might i influence the research? >> brown: what about when you're a couple both writing books on happiness? >> i think that elevates the happiness even more. i recommend it to any couple. write different books, noncom petative books about the same subject, and you have guaranteed interesting dinner table conversations for months on end. >> brown: thank you for talking to us. >> thank you so much. thanks for having us. >> thank you. it was a pleasure to be here. >> lehrer: again the major developments-- b.p. treated a robot-guided saw that got stuck.

the newshour is always online of course-hari sreenivasan in ow newsroom previews what's there. >> on the oil spill, underwater footage from explorer jean-michel cousteau. we talked to him about his team's dives into the gulf last week. all that and much more is on our web sites. >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm gwen ifill. >> lehrer: and 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 provided by: >> this is the engine that connects zero emission technologies to breathing a little easier, while taking 4.6 million truckloads off the road every year. bnsf, the engine that connects us.

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