Oil depot fires in Iran impacting people's health

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will vary not available in all states or situations. War in Iran has disrupted

oil shittiness. Sending ripple effects around the world from cooking in India.

Buriani might take longer time to cook so they might cut down on that. To gas prices

in Japan. It becomes a very visible reminder that the conflict is affecting

all journey life here as well. I'm Marco Wormen and I'm Carolyn Bealer. Today

those conversations and how recent bombings in Tehran could affect people's

health there for years to come. Also a new law in China forces all ethnic

groups to speak Mandarin. Languages like the DNA of a culture it is key to

your ability to identify as a group. Plus missing grandma and go to Vienna for

your granny fix. Today you're on the world.

This is the world I'm Marco Wormen and I'm Carolyn Bealer. Thank you for being

here. Iran's new Ayatollah Moshe Tabakh Khamenei has issued what Iranian

officials are calling his first public statement as supreme leader. He has

vowed to quote avenge the blood of martyrs. They include 165 people who were killed

including many children when a school in Minab was bombed on the first day of

airstrikes. The latest reports find the US responsible for that school bombing

though the attack is still under investigation. Meanwhile Iran-backed

Hezbollah has been using its positions in southern Lebanon to attack Israel

making Beirut and other Lebanese cities targets for the Israeli military. The

heavy bombardment has uprooted more than 800,000 Lebanese. Many of those

displaced are now sleeping on beaches in hotels anywhere they can take shelter

from the winter weather and the attacks. Over the course of this war the

United Nations has condemned its impact repeatedly. The UN has called what's

happening in Lebanon a humanitarian crisis and warned that Israeli and US

strikes on oil depots in Iran will result in black rain which has already fallen

over Tehran. The conditions are toxic for these some 10 million people living

there. We begin today with the world's Sherman Jaffari. She's been looking into

the impact of fires like these on human health. It was another sleepless night

for many residents of Tehran as fighter jets roared in the sky and dropped

bombs on the city. That's been the case for almost two weeks now. The bombings

are relentless they say. But as the sun rose this morning a layer of snow

blanketed the city. This woman in Tehran who doesn't want to be identified

says despite the snow she can still smell the smoke, compounder and lead. I

promise you this is not a eye says this man who is filming the huge plume of

smoke from a bombing near his home. In the days following the strikes on the

fuel depots people described Tehran as a toxic chamber. They reported burning

eyes difficulty breathing and skin irritation. The Iranian government hasn't

confirmed yet whether the fires have been completely put out officials told

people to stay home and to close all windows. Doug Weir is the director of the

conflict and environment observatory and NGO based in the UK. He says it's not

unusual for oil facilities to be targets during conflicts that happened in

Ukraine and Sudan for example. I think what's been particularly shocking in the

case of Tehran is that these sites are usually away from population centers and

they are never in the middle of cities of 9 million people. Tehran's geography

also makes the clearing of smoke and toxic particles even more difficult. The city

is surrounded by high mountains giving it the shape of a ball. Tehran is also

densely populated with high rises which makes air flow difficult. Another factor

which we see as well is this question of the boundary layer and this is kind of

when the air pushes pollutants down to street level and down to city level and

it's something which in the case of Tehran is something that quite often happens.

So we get pollution trapped like a blanket over the city and kind of pushed

down during night. The fires at the fuel depots happened overnight and that

means millions of people who had nowhere else to escape were exposed to intense

fumes he says. The typical pollutants in oil fires include carbon mummax

site, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide. Among other things we are ads. This

toxic soup is particularly dangerous for those with asthma, the elderly and

children he says. Even before the war Tehran was a polluted city. We are

says studies showed that people who live in such environments are more

vulnerable to high exposure to toxins. It's quite concerning the degree of

pollution which people have been exposed to because of these targeting and it's

something which should have fed in to the assessments about the acceptability of

these strikes but it's clear that Israel was more concerned about destroying these

sites than the potential civilian impact. It's not just the smoke from these

players that people are being exposed to he says. There's also a mixture of

pulverized building material and residue left from the explosive material.

There's also a lot of small particles in the atmosphere and they can end up

deep into the lungs. Anna Hansa is a professor of environmental epidemiology at the

University of Lester in the UK. She says there's a body of research that shows

long-term impacts of exposure to compounds similar to what's in the fires in

Tehran. For example in the Gulf war from veterans who were exposed to what they

called burn pits. They were burning rubbish in an uncontrolled way. A big fire

going up toxic black smoke and people have been followed up over time from

that so we know that there's an increase risk not just a cancer of the

respiratory tract but of other organs as well. Blood cancers, urinary tract

cancers, thyroid and prostate cancers are some examples of what has been

reported. Hansa says the health impact will depend on the intensity and

duration of the exposure to these chemicals. Besides the air they can enter

the waterways and soil and be resuspended into the air weeks, months or even

years later. The key step right now to minimize the impact she says is for the

bombings to stop. I think it's really important to try and get some

monitoring data on what people are being exposed to and think about doing

health studies and I know it's awfully hard to do those types of studies in a

war situation but people have managed to do those and they can be very valuable

you know not just immediately but several years down the line. This week the

World Health Organization spokesperson Christian Lennemire warned about the

health risks from the black rain. That's the mixture of rainfall and the toxic

material in the air. He said the organization is in touch with the hospitals and

the Iranian authorities about the fires at the fuel depots. For the world I'm

ashamed of worry. This war has cut off oil too much of the world. Later in the

show we'll hear how people living in three very different places are experiencing

that disruption.

There is no singular Chinese language. People from 55 different ethnic groups

speak several hundred different languages and while Mandarin is the official

language the Chinese constitution says each ethnicity has a right to use its

own language but a newly approved law makes Mandarin compulsory in education

government work and beyond. Lattin Tetong is the director of the Tibetan

Action Institute in Boston. She says this new ethnic unity law fits a pattern.

Under Xi Jinping this is all about forced assimilation of all of the so-called

minority groups in the People's Republic of China and really it's about

ensuring there's no well ensuring long-term stability and ensuring there's no

resistance to central government rule because that's what Tibetans and Uyghurs

and southern Mongolians have been engaging in for generations now is resistance

to Beijing's rule. So assimilation it's not a new goal the Chinese government

authorities have cracked down on ethnic minorities for years and specifically have

persecuted the country's weaker population for more than a decade. So why was

this law passed now? Yeah you're right in practice there has been you know the

crackdown under Xi Jinping has been quite intense for you know well over a decade

now and this is just codifying it if you can say that in China today I feel like

they they now believe it's it's okay to do so because there really haven't been

any costs for them globally for what they've been doing in practice so in Tibet

for example three out of every four Tibetan children is now coerced forced into

residential boarding schools and that's as young as age four and they are they

don't they don't get to learn Tibetan language or learn in their mother tongue

they get Tibetan language taught to them like a second language. Let and you've

mentioned at various points wiger Tibetan Mongolian languages in China I mean

Mandarin is the main language as I said in my intro but what are some of the

other languages spoken by the countries 1.4 billion people who will be who

will be targets of this law? Well I mean one of the ones that's huge and that

people don't quite understand is even Cantonese right so the whole of southern

China Hong Kong I mean Cantonese is not Mandarin and even you know this the

spoken Cantonese and the rights of Cantonese speakers you know to speak and

practice live go about life using their mother tongue that's also been targeted

and that I think speaks to just how serious and dangerous this Xi Jinping in

his role and is in terms of threatening to you know exterminate the the unique

minority so-called minority cultures of the PRC and there are many other sort of

smaller languages ethnic groups but I think the key for the Chinese government

is really the big groups and you know the the lands that are occupied lands with

the distinct and independent history or history of you know de facto

independence or autonomy and that obviously is is very clear with the

wiggers to buttons and southern Mongolians so even though this new law is

contradictory to China's constitution you say Xi Jinping is taking this

hard line push on a simulation but why is Beijing focusing on language in this

ethnic unity law like what's the overtext? Well language is I mean it's like

the DNA of a culture it is sort of key to being who you are as a people how

you see the world and also your ability to identify as a group it's one of the

you know it's it is if you think of the transmission of mother tongue right from

the mother to the child it is it's the first way we we learn to live in our

world and for especially a minority group or a group that you know is in our

case to that into a population living under military occupation this is the

source of strength it's a source of community critical that a step further if

you would laden because the law makes Mandarin compulsory in very specific

context education government work and this other nebulous category public

facing interaction so I'm guessing like things like menus and restaurants what

is the ultimate goal? Yeah the ultimate goal is to make sure that no one speaks

that language within a generation or two and we've seen other nations and

empires do this and that's the certainly the intent of the Chinese government

you wouldn't take children away from their parents so young and put them in

boarding school no one does that unless you have some other goals and in this

case the goals are to alienate them from separate them from what makes them

different and distinct and then ultimately sever those bonds and and the

relationship with cultural heritage and this identity that then makes you

different and for Tibetans certainly sees the Chinese state as other or

separate and the goal is ultimately turn them into Chinese so they identify

with the state and not with their own ancient culture religion and they won't

be able to speak their own language that's the idea for for all of the so-called

ethnic minority groups so as this law takes effect laden what will you be

watching for? Well I mean in practice it's happening already happening I think

what I'm what I'm what will be watching for is the resistance that will

certainly come and you know people think the Chinese state in Xi Jinping it's

just there's not anything possible there but actually you know Tibetans and

Uyghurs and others have to fight the odds Chinese people themselves time and

time again and I think these these laws will certainly

foment discontent and I we've had Tibetans inside say essentially these laws

with even with government officials who Tibetans who work within the system

makes them resentful and makes them angry and the the denigration of Tibet

in this way turns even these people who should be friends of the Communist

Party because there's in some way benefiting and a part of the system turns

them against it and I think that's that's what we'll be looking for is the

protest and the resistance that's sure to come Laden Tetong is the director of

the Tibetan Action Institute and Boston

you're with the world

this is the world I'm Carolyn Beeler the war in Sudan has been overshadowed in

turn by conflicts in Ukraine then Gaza and now the wider Middle East but it

rages on brutally since fighting erupted almost three years ago between

the Sudanese military and a militia called the rapid support forces it has

devastated one of Africa's largest countries the conflict has deep ties to

Gulf nations and drone warfare has dramatically altered the battlefield that's

according to Navi Boulos the Middle East bureau chief for the LA Times he has

just returned from Sudan and gave us a snapshot of the conflict as it

currently stands the war had initially begun around Khartoum the capital and

to this day you see so much destruction there but the center of the conflict has

now shifted to an area called Kordafan which is more in central Sudan and

that's where you're seeing a lot of the attacks happening now with the RSF

you know the rapid support forces and they're trying to take over a bunch of cities

there with the intention of then using them to stage new offensives against the

capital Khartoum and eventually it ports Sudan now all this is to say that the

war is still very much ongoing so one of the Sudanese towns you visited is called

El Obaid it is the capital of North Kordafan which is as you said a contested

region it straddles the front line the city is held by government forces but

I but I understand that that hold is quite tenuous can you drop us down in

that town and tell us what it was like to be there the front line is still

only about you know maybe 50 kilometers away not even yeah and it's quite

unstable so basically I mean although there's no active fighting within the city

itself you every day are getting drones I mean in many ways I like it and it

sort of like a miniature blitz I suppose well wasn't over to you know in London

where you just sort of sit there at night and around 3 a.m. you suddenly have

just this like opening up of machine guns and rocket launchers right to try to

drop this drone by drop you mean intercept yes intercept them exactly and how

was that impacting regular folks just trying to live in the city well as you

can imagine of course it big things I mean it makes things quite unstable now

at the same time people are getting used to it which is sad to say of course

but you know I mean I guess what option do they have now of course what this

means is that you can only travel at certain times of the day right you might

not be traveling at night of course and including electricity is going to be

I guess at a lower level because there have been attacks on energy

infrastructure there as well of course education has been also a problem because

recently the University of of Kordavon that area was was attacked by multiple

drones in fact I actually went to a lecture hall that had been hit by three

drones and that part just seemed like one-ton destruction where do these drones

that the RSF the Rapid Support Forces use where they coming from so there has

been a fair amount of documentation that they have been funded by the United

Arab Emirates now the Arab Emirates has consistently denied this and says that

it is working towards a peaceful solution in Sudan that it supports no

sides whatsoever but as I said there has been quite a lot of documentation

saying that the UAE has essentially constructed a resilient pipeline stretching

from Libya and all the way to Yemen and obviously passes through Sudan and it

involves a whole bunch of different countries whether that's Somalia, Chad, Ethiopia

et cetera and we're talking about the use of roads but also bases, ports and as

I said it's quite a dynamic and resilient pipeline in a sense that when one

node falls another one can take its stead I mean all this to say is that the

Sudan lies at the center of a whole bunch of networks that involve smuggling in

a whole bunch of things not just drones but also gold oil and other resources

yeah it's striking that we've heard so much about how there is such a need for

humanitarian aid in Sudan and that is hard to get in due to logistics but can

always find a way to get the weapons in huh well for sure but the logistics I

should say are daunting either way this pipeline is is impressive for the

sheer fact that it managed to basically I mean sort of mount the large

distances in Sudan now at the same time yes for humanitarian aid it's quite

problematic because you also have to contend with a conflict that is going around

so for example recently the UN managed to bring in some aid into an area called

Qadubli which is a bit south of where I was but now that's not possible because

there were new attacks on the road so speaking of the roads and traveling you

traveled to another town in South Central Sudan called al-Ubiad which is even

closer to militia held territory if I'm understanding the map correctly what

was that journey like every trip takes about two days just because the

distances are so vast and the roads are so bad so I'm actually managed to

break the control arm of the Toyota Hilux which I must tell you is an easy thing

to do at all it's basically a part of the suspension so basically if you break

it right you can't steer the car and in fact I broke it in the middle of

drone territory so it was quite harrowing I suppose but we managed to get back

on the road within six hours so in Dubai the idea was we left at about 3am we

arrived at 7pm and you know as we sit there that night right a whole bunch of

drones came in as well you know I mean you're sitting there and then suddenly

you're hearing just these machine guns opening up you hear the Sam missiles

rising up to intercept the drone it's quite harrowing as you could imagine so

in the capital Khartoum you were able to see up close kind of a way in which

this war is being funded in the city's gold market or sook what is the line

between that market that you saw in the war there used to be a central gold

sook in Khartoum right but that building was totally destroyed in the fighting the

gold market has now moved wholesale to one of the few okay parts of town right

I mean all these shops that were in this one building are now in this one

thoroughfare and they are all selling gold the gold actually fuels the war on

both sides right the RSF has gold mines but the government also has gold mines

and they are selling the gold to the AE the gold goes to the AE it's melted there

and turned into jewelry that is then sold in the very same stores that sold the

gold in the first place it's got a strange circle and the result is of course

that the money for the war continues to pour in you are now speaking to us

back at your home base in Beirut where things also are far from calm is there

any way to tell what impact the US Israel war with Iran is likely to have on

the conflict in Sudan as we have said there are ties to Gulf countries in this

conflict I mean there is potential that this new war between the US and Iran is

going to actually push I suppose Saudi Arabia and the we may be closer and so

they'll start maybe working towards a solution of the war in Sudan although at

the same time I mean I want to argue that's unlikely why not well because I mean

the fact is their goals are very different the AECs in Sudan and Islamist

massaging and Saudi Arabia cares about the stability of the country as it is

right and so yeah it's actually unclear to me if they can actually manage to I

guess have a well had a report for small I can't see that happening but the same

time who knows things are changing we've talked about the striking ways that

things are bad in Sudan you have described them well what can also be

striking in periods of conflict or catastrophe is how people step up to help

one another did you see any examples of that when there have been various

efforts of doing so right you of course have a have a very powerful doctor

syndicate that is trying to help people you have various initiatives but the

fact is that I mean it should be said just the needs are so vast right I mean I

have seen of course instances of people doing great work documenting what's

happening of people who have been continuing to come back to work despite

everything I mean even even a national museum people are even now cataloging

all the stuff that was lost trying to recover everything that was

looted so you see these pockets of effort to make things better at the same

time I mean the situation is just simply so dire that it would take much more than

those efforts it needs I suppose true will right on the part of national

governments to try to push this war to an end. Navi Boulos is the Middle East

Bureau chief for the LA Times he has just returned from Sudan thank you so

much for speaking with us thank you for having me I appreciate it we know that

oil shortages are shocking markets but what does that actually look like on

the ground across the globe three people in three places way in that's coming up

you're with the world

this is the world I'm Marco Wormen and I'm Carolyn Bealer let's talk now about oil

prices have remained stubbornly high even after 32 countries agreed yesterday to

release a whopping 400 million barrels of oil from their emergency reserves that

move was coordinated by the international energy agency it will be the biggest

release from emergency oil reserves in history more than double what was

announced after Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 it is meant to

alleviate high oil prices and oil shortages brought on by the effective

closure of the Strait of Hormuz a key passageway for oil and gas from the

Persian Gulf the sudden cutoff to global markets has disrupted daily life and

commercial operations in all kinds of ways this wide-ranging impact is what

we're going to look at now zooming in on three different places India Japan and

South Africa we begin with India Ruchita Shaw is an energy analyst with the

energy think tank Ember when we reached her in New Delhi earlier today she

explained that people in India use cylinders of fuel to run their stoves for

cooking for that they rely on liquefied petroleum gas or LPG which because of

the war in Iran is not flowing in like it used to and that led to a panic

situation initially for example cooking gas is crucial for domestic usage but at

the same time for all the commercial purposes such as restaurants and

government started prioritizing the domestic supply of LPG cylinders but the

commercial side of it got hit for example I would want to quote from restaurants

with started talking about we have two to four days of supply available only so

we will cut down our menus the cost of food might go up at the same time the

schools which also provide meals to our students many schools do that and they

have started saying that we will not be able to supply or provide lunch for

the students so the liquefied petroleum gas component of this is really

important in the Indian context I mean you mentioned cutting down on menus what

does this look like at homes and schools and restaurants when it comes to what

is actually served on a plate so right now I would say there is a very evident

or stark difference what is happening say in an urban city set up and a rural

area so urban or city setup is largely dependent on LPG cylinders or piped

gas so the difference or the impact is very much visible whereas in rural

India people still go back to using firewood as a fuel supply which is not the

best form of fuel supply because it does a lot of air pollution as well as

impacts the health of the person who's cooking but in urban area for example

induction cooktop which is run by electricity the demand has increased because

traditional Indian cooking right now is not very well supported with electric

induction cooktops it is more like gas based flame based cooking style so at

the moment whatever cooking requires lesser gas would be preferred for example

biryani it might take longer time to cook so they might cut down on that

which gets cooked will become a go-to option because it will use lesser amount

of gas I was going to ask you I mean with this big dependency in India on LPG

what is the conversation like right now around the impact on oil from the

war in Iran what are you hearing so there is no announcement for change in

oil prices at the moment I do not see people panicking immediately and government

is also sending messages that they have diversified and they are trying to

procure from all the other sources available so the procurement strategy is

being built around how to just to keep everyone like confident that okay there

will be no shortage and anyway 74 days takes you to like two months and by

that time the diversification will need to enough oil sources hopefully but it's

just that the gas production was very much dependent on sourcing from the

Middle East so that was becoming a challenge so Ruchita you said that India has

a reserve of almost two months of oil what is the contingency though if the

shortages continue and prices spike beyond that one number that I would like to

quote here is 70% import are coming from other roots at the moment comparing to

what 55% was earlier so they're trying to diversify their sources of

procurement of crude oil at the moment I know Prime Minister Modi has made the

expansion of the electric grid a national priority are you worried that the

efforts in India to shift to renewables will be compromised no I think this

situation actually strengthened and actually pushes us forward for example the

states which have more electric vehicle running at the moment will be less

cared of petrol and diesel shortages versus the states which are largely

dependent on petrol and diesel run vehicle so you think this oil crisis

could actually be beneficial for the transition to renewables in some sectors

definitely so this brings us to the situation where we keep saying that we

want to become self-reliant we want to become energy secure we would want to

become secure as possible so that the economy doesn't come to a standstill or

the day-to-day life doesn't get impacted the way it got impacted at the moment

Ruchita Shah is an energy analyst with the energy think tank Ember she spoke

with us from New Delhi so India has been seeing panic about the ability to

cook and eat in Japan the picture is a little different a whopping 90% of

Japan's oil comes through the Strait of Hormuz

DCK Kauai is director of the Economic Security and Policy Innovation Program at

the University of Tokyo when I asked him how serious the impact of this blockade

has been there he did not mince words it's quite significant problem for Japan

Japan's actually energy security so I would say Japan's response has been

very swift and the pragmatic the government has decided to release oil from

both private sector at the state level and beginning with 15 days of a

worst of private reserves and then about one bounce of national reserves from

late March at the part of the wider international energy agencies

coordinate the release so it is also capping gasoline prices at the

Lafli 170 yen per liter through subsidies and has said it is ready to take

additional physical measures so you said that the government has already

announced a cap on gas prices in some cities yes so is this already impacting

people on the ground there I mean has has gas shot up already to some extent it

hasn't been affected yet I would say gas prices specifically yeah gas and

the oil prices so Japan is actually better prepared than many people assume I

would say but according to Japanese government Japan's own official

explanation as well it holds that oil reserve equivalent to about 254 days of

consumption and import cover in total that's a significant cushion it could

survive for almost a year if oil was cut off entirely indeed so when will

Japan start feeling this impact despite its big reserves that's good

questions as we discussed the straight of a home is one of the words the most

important energy choke points for us so I would say if it continues to have a

kind of same situation for another month I think Japanese people feel serious

challenges you've mentioned the government responses how is the public

responding you say there is worry yeah so what I can say from daily life in

Japan is that people are starting to notice it everyone is more cautious of

gas prices and once a national average moves up above around 160

yen per liter that's around four dollars a gallon yeah yeah it becomes a very

visible reminder that the conflict is affecting audience life here as well I

know that you have a car have you been to the gas pumps since this conflict

started yes so you can see the rise of oil prices in Tokyo particularly so some

gasoline stand shows the price which is almost a double price of the normal

days so double price for gas already yeah and so have you filled up or have you

been trying to wait you know I tried to go to local area to find the cheaper

gas or instant how long did you have to drive around to find that cheaper gas

I would say 40 minutes yeah oh wow our people starting to stock up on on

anything stock up on fuel or panic buying anything else no no not at all

there's no panic buying yeah we have a kind of a lessons learned such as

a tsunami incident during that time where we had a big earthquake but many

people tried to stay calm and all panic buying try to listen to governmental

guidance so that's one of the strings in Japan people may have

Daisuke Kawai is director of the Economic Security and Policy Innovation

Program at the University of Tokyo one last spot for us to check out today with

this looming oil crisis for that we go to Nick Headley in Johannesburg he's an

energy researcher and told me about the impact in South Africa and in other

African countries we are already seeing fears of fuel shortages in South Africa as

well I think they it's maybe a little extreme and too soon to be worrying about

fuel shortages just yet but we are bracing for some pretty big fuel price

increases so in South Africa where our fuel prices are regulated they are

increased or decreased once a month adjusted once a month and the upcoming

change is a nearly 20% increase overnight which is going to have pretty

substantial effects throughout the economy so the second sort of side order

effect of that is to strengthen the value of local currencies which have been

sold off as investors flee to safe haven assets like the US dollar central

banks are probably going to have to increase interest rates as well so it's

kind of a double whammy high inflation and high interest rates on the horizon

you're based in South Africa Nick and kind of talking at an economic level but

what is this scuttle but on the street about how things could worsen at this

point and the impact on all those daily needs you just mentioned we are

facing a very difficult kind of economic crisis ahead as is much of the world

for the average person it will be felt through much higher food prices which

is a big share of people's disposable income in a lot of Africa so people spend

a much higher share of their salaries and disposable income on food and

transport in this part of the world then they do in the US so when prices for

food and travel go up that's really a big hit I'm curious where does South

Africa get most of its oil we don't have local crude oil production but we do

have and this is actually an older part aid error strange kind of quirk and

your part aid days when we had sanctions on South Africa and we struggled to

import oil we developed industries that convert coal into fuel it's

exceptionally dirty and very environmentally damaging but we do produce

fuel through coal so we partly shielded from that partly shielded from getting

about two-thirds of our oil from West Africa but regardless prices are

climbing very fast oil from West Africa like Nigeria possibly Angola as

well correct exactly those countries like Nigerian Angola are there oil

contracts immutable I mean is there any way the Nigerian or the Angolan

governments can impose on oil companies to hold back some of the supply so

there's a kind of interesting dynamic in Nigeria this is not directly answering

your question it's something that I've seen recently is there's basically just a

single monopoly extremely large oil refinery in Nigeria that supplies now

pretty much all of Nigeria's needs for fuel and because it's a monopoly and it's

kind of wrangled the government into holding imports of fuel products it has

total control over the market so kind of taking advantage of this period of

very inflated prices to raise domestic prices so even in countries where there

is local production local crude oil extraction and refinery prices are

climbing very fast and could maybe a need for governments to kind of step in

where possible to neutralize things Nick this is not the first war that has

caused the African continent in terms of energy imports are there any

examples of lessons taken from the impact of the war in Ukraine which also had

impact yeah so a direct one from Russia Ukraine was as oil prices sparked

Ethiopia's import bill really skyrocketed and in direct response to that

Ethiopia banned imports of combustion engine vehicles and has basically kind

of had an EV mandate and it's curbed their reliance on imported oil which

has shielded them a lot in this current crisis and I think it's a lesson for

the rest of the continent and this new crisis we're in Nick Headley is an energy

researcher based in Johannesburg South Africa

two different sounds West African percussion and Celtic fiddles and flutes it is a

musical combination that sounds like it could feel contrived but in practice it

works pretty well Minnesota Public Radio's Jacob Aloy has more on the twin

city's group behind the mashup the idea to combine West African percussion

and Celtic instruments started when musician Sean Egan was at a performance of

West African music and dance many years ago it struck me that those rhythms

would be very compatible with the rhythms of Irish dance music that thought

led him to create Khanakri spelled C-A-N-A-D-H-C-R-O-I

when assembling the group Egan reached out to fellow Celtic musicians and

after some internet sleuthing and a recommendation from a neighbor he also

connected with some West African percussionists one of them is Foti Bungera

who was originally from Guinea so in the Africa culture this is not just

a guinea the whole Africa continent you know it's a battle you know how do

people unite they are people together so the drumming and dance a bring

everybody together it's very communities very powerful you know spiritually

everything Khanakri's spiritual power can now be heard by people outside of

Minnesota the group released its first album Badania earlier this year

funded by a state arts grant the album boasts strong beats from instruments

like the Gembe a hand drum and melodies from the flute and fiddle give it a

light feeling plus there's a great deep quality that's added by Egan's

clarinet and bass clarinet it's definitely not like part of the tradition

that's Danny Diamond the group's fiddler commenting on the clarinet but it

works really well the instrument is just so beautiful it's so rich and it

fills space so nicely but it can still carry melody

while there are challenges to making the two distinct musical traditions work

there is also a commonality as both are folk music and historically speaking

Ireland and West Africa are both regions that have suffered under colonialism

Diamond who is from Ireland shares that his family had to leave Belfast during

the conflict known as the troubles colonialism is impacted and the music

but it's impacted me personally within an Irish context like Guinea has

it much harder than Ireland it would be bogus to try and frame it as exactly

equivalent but it hits really hard at the moment because of the context in

Minnesota the project was like abstract and fun and like like quirky six months

ago but it's been brought to a point where I feel like it's very vital and

meaningful by by the the circumstances around us the beauty of Connacry's

music is in its ability to have two cultures speak to one another in a musical

language that theme is captured in the group's name once again founder Sean

Egan Connacry is the capital city of Guinea and two of our drummers are from

Connacry but in the Irish language Connacry is an expression which roughly

translates to singing of the heart

for the world I'm Jacob Aloy in St. Paul

this is the world I'm Carolyn Beeler Vienna's or Nate coffee houses are an

institution but one coffee shop in the Austrian capital is different from its

grand neighbors for starters many of its workers are well over 65 and the

cakes they bake come from their own family recipes the world's Europe

correspondent Orla Berry reports from Vienna the first thing that hits you when

you walk through the doors of full fancy on coffee shop is the smell a warm

chocolate cake has just come out of the oven and one of the bakers is

placing it carefully on a wire tray next to a selection of other freshly baked

goods

and banana cakes for some lemon cakes the Pablo Vasa are in in oven if she's

cake is hot now Elizabeth is from Poland she's just 68 she tells me just

because she's one of the younger staff members here my name is Mariana Hoffman

she's 8 to 1 years old and she won your old Mariana has been working in the

cafe for more than 10 years she used to work in a low office she says but at the

age of 69 she decided it was time to retire a year later bored and a little

lonely she says she spotted an article about a coffee shop looking for

grammars and grandpas to bake cakes and chat with customers and she decided to

check it out Mariana doesn't actually bake though when I was young and with my

children I've ever cooked and baked and now it's not mine you've had enough

of baking better enough of baking and cooking all your life I like to cook for

me alone it's so not good so rather than cook her job is to chat to the

customers the coffee shop is the brainchild of Moritz Piffel Perchowicz he's

one of the cafe's co-founders and the idea came to him he says almost 15

years ago a friend of mine and me we went for a coffee not one of our favorite

coffee shops in Vienna and he ordered a piece of cake and then he had it and I

tried it and then we said oh well it's not that good actually and then we ended

up having a conversation why cake is always so much better from your auntie your

mom or your grandmother Piffel Perchowicz decided to try opening a pop-up cafe

where actual grandmothers and grandfathers would bake their own cakes and it was

a huge hit so in 2015 he opened the doors of full pension cafe full pension can

mean two things in German full board or retirement Piffel Perchowicz says he

wanted the cafe to be a place where different generations the young and the

retired couldn't miss and talk when I left home went to another city I ended up

spending most of the time with people of my age and when the idea of

full pension revolved I was at the point in life where I already had

realized that I was missing this living under one roof with three different

generations AC one-year-old Mariana goes to talk to a family who've just sat

down with the place of warm warm up brownies come from Germany so up a

Ryan Valley we are living definitely in the black forest on a very end of the

black forest. Klaus from Germany says he's in Vienna for work his wife and

daughter have joined him for a short visit a friend of theirs who lives in

Vienna recommended the cafe he says Klaus says he reminds him of his own

grandmother's house it's a very lovely atmosphere very heartful it's a

kitchen like a home grandmother's home so it's a little bit of feeling very

very tiny again it's like a children's feeling because they're a real grand

mother. Klaus is sitting on a colorful slightly lumpy armchair most of the

furniture is second hand and mismatched and the exposed brick walls are

covered with old photos lots of pictures of dogs and some kitch tapestries

there are some men working here but Piffel Part of it the co-founder says there's

a reason why so many of the older staff members are women. We do have a

tremendous pension pay gap in Austria so the female pensions are a lot smaller

than male pensions and if you are retired woman living alone don't own a home

then money can be very short. The coffee shop let some of the workers have a

social life again he says. What I did not know before we started is that

financial poverty is the number one driver for social poverty so once you cannot

afford to go to the movies or to the theater or to go to a restaurant it's

very hard to meet new people. Elizabeth the Polish Baker says she started

working here partly because her husband could never finish off all the cake

she baked at home and also she really likes the company. You know you live home

so you go out and you have social contact nearly the same in talking this

baking so to meet another people just go out. I asked 81 year old Mariana how

long she thinks she'll keep working here. I don't know I hope I cannot save the

contract is minimum for another 10 years Mariana. I don't know I'm healthy and I'm

so grateful I can do this and she's I'm happy every day. As I leave Elizabeth

gives me a small cardboard box inside is a large slice of creamy carrot cake

it's one for the road she says. For the world I'm Ornibari Vienna.

Before we let you go today some old sounds on a new compilation of music from an

influential band from Zimbabwe in the 1980s zigzag band was huge there.

zigzag band came to define chigillo music a style unique to Zimbabwe it makes

this reggae guitar lines inspired by the traditional thumb piano the empera brass

arrangements and electronic dance beats. The lyrics are in the language spoken by

the largest ethnic group in Zimbabwe the show now.

Throughout the 80s and into the 90s zigzag band was a household name in Zimbabwe their

goal was never a big commercial pop sound or global fame they were committed to the style of

music they helped create. Chigillo music was replaced by other sounds as zigzag bands slowly

broke apart with its players dying of the 90s in early 2000s. This new compilation celebrates

the under-appreciated musical legacy the group left behind. We leave you with a tune from

zigzag band chigillo music kings 1987 to 1998. It's called Mungangai or an English glittering.

The world is produced by GBH and PRX broadcasting weekdays from the NAN and Bill Harris studio

in Boston and from the Department of Communication at UC San Diego. I'm Carolyn Beeler

and I'm Marco Wormand join us right back here tomorrow.

The world is supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York working to reduce political

polarization through philanthropic support for education democracy and peace. More information

at carnady.org by the Lumina Foundation committed to a fair universal system for learning

beyond high school that offers every American the chance for a better life. Luminafoundation.org

By the PRX Ambassador Council whose members include Judy Piggitt, the Gruber Family Foundation,

the Schmidt Family Foundation, and Gavin Salmanese LLC. The world's theme music is composed by

Net Porter. The world is a co-production of GVH Boston and PRX.

PRX

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