USS Gerald R. Ford arrives in Croatia as US prepares for ground war in Iran

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A strongly worded sermon from the Pope this poem Sunday condemning the prayers of leaders who

wage war. To convene a mistake the Pope is talking about and part at least his homeland.

I'm Carolyn Bealer and I'm Marco Wurman today.

An American Pope and the international role he plays in wartime.

Also locals in Croatia are a little nervous about an advanced US aircraft carrier

in their backyard when it's supposed to be in the Red Sea.

We're a little bit scared because it comes from the area of the war.

Plus this is a recording from Greenland of a certain sea creature.

You're not going to tell us which one?

Nope, you're going to have to wait to find out.

All right, patience please people. That's all ahead today here on the world.

This is the world I'm Marco Wurman and I'm Carolyn Bealer.

It's good to be with you.

It took a month but it finally happened.

The Houthis in Yemen have entered the war in the Middle East.

They are backed by Iran and got into the fray on Saturday claiming two missiles launched

at Israel.

Their involvement further threatens shipping which could disrupt global markets even more.

A less disgusting development over the weekend was the arrival of the world's largest

aircraft carrier off the coast of Croatia.

The USS Gerald R. Ford was pulled from combat operations in the Red Sea.

Despite its reputation as the US Navy's most technologically advanced carrier,

it's been dealing with some pretty basic problems.

The world's Josh Coe is in Croatia reporting on what's taken this carrier out of action

and what it might tell us about future US military operations against Iran.

Well, the USS Gerald R. Ford has been operating as essentially a mobile airbase.

I mean, that's what an aircraft carrier is.

And so previously it was based and deployed to the Red Sea.

And it's been key in this region where allies have been reluctant to host US strike operations.

I spoke to Nick Childs of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

He told me that it was acting as a deterrent in the Red Sea.

She'd been deployed into the Red Sea in order to be ready to respond to,

but perhaps hopefully deter the Houthis getting involved again.

Her absence now may or may not encourage the Houthis to take a hand

more than they might otherwise.

Yeah, and so the Houthis that he's talking about right now really has territory

right along the coast of the Red Sea there.

And crucially, at a straight that is really a choke point for a lot of international

commercial traffic, ships heading to the Mediterranean to bring oil to Europe.

So now they've said that they are joining in in fighting the US and Israel alongside their

allies Iran. As Childs was saying, there's a lot of concern about the implications of another

front being opened up in the conflict.

Right. And this weekend the Houthis started sending missiles into Israel.

So the USS Ford was in the Red Sea as a deterrence.

Why did it end up in this pretty seaside city in Croatia?

Split.

Well, it's undergoing repairs.

And Split is one of the nearest deep water ports that can handle a ship of this size.

You know, in Croatia is also a NATO ally.

It's a good location for shore leave, as you mentioned.

And after nearly nine months deployment, this is kind of a morale boost for the troops as well.

It's also important to note.

I mean, the US has access to local shipyards here.

There's contracts with people here who can take care of some of the damage that the ship has

in dealing with and being in split, being in the Mediterranean here also keeps the carrier

closer to the region than returning to Norfolk, Virginia, where it's traditionally based.

Speaking to Brian Clark of the Hudson Institute in Washington, he said that having it positioned

in split might be because of the next potential phase in the war.

And that this may be an effort to keep it in theater as an option to support

in if there is a ground operation.

For example, they're going to want a fighter aircraft from the Ford to contribute to close

air support and protection of troops on the ground.

As he was saying there, this could potentially be about this next phase.

So, Josh, you mentioned repairs as well.

What exactly are these repairs?

The repairs, according to reports, center on a fire in a laundry area

earlier this month inside the ship.

This happened well.

The ship was deployed in the Red Sea.

It seems that it was quite significant.

I mean, it took hours to extinguish.

Some crew were injured and more than 200 sailors reportedly had been treated for smoke inhalation.

And then another crucial aspect of this is that over 100 bunks were damaged.

Each of these bunks could sleep about two to three sailors.

Then there's also the toilet issue aboard.

Yeah, tell us about that, the toilet trouble.

What's going on there?

Brian Clark was also telling me about this.

So, essentially, this ship uses a vacuum sewage system that's not unlike cruise ships.

And unfortunately, that also means that it can clog very easily.

It requires some very specific cleaning strategies.

Since 2023, it's required at least 10 acid cleanings.

And each of these costs $400,000 for this $13 billion ship.

Wow.

It needs these regularly.

So, alongside combat duties, it's dealing with very basic operational problems.

And I think it's important to note because it is the most advanced carrier the US Navy has.

That also means that it has new systems that are being tested, including the sewage system.

What's it been like to see this ship there and what is really a tourist city?

That's what split looks like.

Right.

I mean, split is a major tourist destination.

It's built around the ruins of Diocletian's palace.

Diocletian was this Roman emperor.

It's beautiful.

I mean, Venetian architecture, palm trees, beautiful weather.

And it's this harbor city.

So, it has these beautiful whitehold yachts and ferries and cruise ships.

And right smack dab in the middle of this bay, you have this huge gray aircraft carrier.

Josh, I'm really curious.

What has been local reaction there in split to seeing the USS Gerald R Ford in their harbor?

I mean, it's the talk of the town, right?

I mean, like I said, it sticks out like a sore thumb in the middle of the bay.

You know, everyone's kind of sitting out along the waterfront here looking out at it

to give you an example of kind of how people are talking about it.

This is a headline from Slobodina Dalmatia, the local paper of record.

They said, quote, split is under siege by the dollar bearers.

So the dollar bearers being the sailors.

And then they went on to say, Americans arrived eager for everything.

On the first evening, boutiques ran out of bread and alcohol.

So you get a sense that people welcome this for the local economy.

As I said, it's not tourism season yet.

So this is nice for local businesses.

But at the same time, you know, as I was talking to locals,

some like 30-year-old Taya Acasa, a nursing split,

find that the ship is a little unsettling.

We're a little bit scared because it comes from the area of the war.

Great for the local economy in the short term to have the sailors ashore here.

But she's also worried about the war's impact on the cost of living.

Oil prices here, like everywhere, are going up.

The world's Josh Coe reporting from split to Croatia.

The world reached out to the U.S. as Gerald R. Ford's public affairs officer yesterday.

So far, we have not gotten a response.

To a different conflict now, Russia now spends nearly half of its national budget on the war in Ukraine.

A lot of that spending has boosted Russia's economy.

But after four years of fighting, it's created a country of winners and losers.

On the winning side, Russia's military industrial complex.

But for the many people outside that sphere, we asked reporter Levi Bridges to dig in on how they survive

in an economy transformed by war.

The easternmost edge of Russia is a vast peninsula, known as Chukotka,

that extends out into the frigid seas at the Bering Strait.

The indigenous people who live here still hunt whales with harpoons.

In YouTube videos, locals drag the whales by boat back to rocky beaches.

Unsure people divvy up the meat while gulps and furry dogs snap up the scraps.

Alaska is only about 80 miles away.

But even here, 10 time zones away from Ukraine, the war is having an impact.

Back in 2021, a Russian businessman named Maxim Krupenya set up a hotel here for adventure tourists.

At the time, the market seemed promising.

It was relatively close to wealthy countries in North America and Asia.

But after Russia invaded Ukraine, he says foreign tourists stopped coming.

Business is always a risk, but you just have to soldier on.

He's now looking for investors to help him launch a new business of modular,

eco-friendly hotels closer to cities, hoping to tap into a larger domestic market.

After more than four years of war, Russians all over the country are also pivoting and adapting

to a wartime economy. After Russia invaded Ukraine, the West slapped Moscow with heavy sanctions

to hurt Russia's financial system.

However, the Russian economy did not collapse.

It proved to be more robust and adaptable than the West had anticipated.

Peter Rutland is a professor of government at Wesleyan University,

who studies Russia. He says Russia is a petrol state, enriched by oil revenue.

Going into the war, the country had a rainy day fund worth about $180 billion.

They partially funded the war with this cash.

On the Russian internet, I find videos showing military factories pumping out tanks and weaponry.

Rutland says that military spending created lots of jobs.

And so living standards were going up, wages were going up.

But in the past year or so, we've seen that eroding, and the government is running out of money.

The rapid economic growth during the war is now slowing, but inflation is still rising.

One Russian posted a video on YouTube of a supermarket checkout line to show the rising

food prices. The barcode scanner beep says bored children fool around.

One commenter wrote, watching the cash register is giving me a panic attack.

To stop inflation, the government has raised interest rates.

That's made it impossible for many Russians to buy homes.

I talked to a young woman south of Moscow who says more people are renting now,

which has created a housing shortage.

Like others in this story, we're withholding her name, because Russians can receive retaliation

for talking about the war's effects.

She says, rants in her city have doubled or tripled recently.

She used to go away on vacations each year, but not anymore.

Others have had the safety net fall out completely.

A documentary film shows Russians lining up outside of soup kitchen.

A woman who helps Russia's homeless tells me more people are losing their homes now,

just because they can't pay rent.

Meanwhile, Russian soldiers qualify for specially designated rock bottom mortgage rates.

The Russian independent news outlet, iStories,

interviewed the wife of a Russian soldier inside a gleaming brand new apartment.

She says, without support from the military,

it would have taken them a long time to get into a new home.

But not everyone who supports the war benefits financially from it.

I talked to a young woman from a village outside Moscow, whose father is a big fan of President Putin.

Even though he himself is struggling in this economy,

she says her father believes state media that blames all of Russia's economic problems on sanctions and the West.

She says, unlike Dad, just think how much money Russia is spending on this unnecessary war.

And then my father tells me we need to protect our motherland,

and that I'm the one who is telling him propaganda, she says.

The Russian government has tried to amplify their messaging by blocking Western social media apps,

like Instagram.

A marketing professional in Siberia tells me that also affects people's livelihood.

That is, it's very strong, it's very strong.

She says we use Instagram for advertising, so losing social media really affects sales.

The Ukraine war is hurting parts of Russia's economy,

but there is one war that's become an economic boon that's the U.S. Israeli war, Nuran.

The blockage on oil shipments is driving up fuel prices globally,

and this month the Trump administration lifted sanctions on Russian oil to lower costs.

Again, Peter Rutland.

The spike in the oil price has really eased the pressure on the Russian budget,

so the economy will probably stagger on.

The U.S. is now reportedly thinking about diverting military equipment worth

billions from Ukraine to the Middle East, a move that would offer Russia a strategic and

economic advantage on the battlefield.

For the world, I'm Levi Bridges.

This is The World, I'm Carolyn Beeler.

Deep under an iconic bay on the west coast of Greenland,

an underwater microphone is recording whale songs, icebergs, cruise ships passing by,

and streaming it all online.

It's called Disco Alive.

Scientists launched the live stream as part of a larger research project

to learn how climate change is affecting Disco Bay.

OT, Tervo, is the project's lead scientist.

She told us the Bay is a biodiversity hotspot.

Below the ice, there are bohet whales, there are beluca whales, there are now

whales, there are different kinds of seals.

So lots of life that we can't see, but we can hear thanks to the hydrofoam.

So it sounds like a beautiful place to be working, but I know you're there to learn

something specifically.

What are you trying to learn by recording underwater there?

Well, it's basically what two things.

We are very interested in following the changes in the anthropogenic

noise sources here in the area, because of climate change, ice coverage is decreasing

very rapidly in this area, and we see a lot more ship traffic.

And we are interested to try to follow that.

Because we know that underwater noise can really be a serious problem for marine mammals.

Right, that are very dependent on sounds.

So are those cruise ships and shipping and fishing vessels?

All those things are increasing?

Yes, all those things are increasing.

And I think you said there was another reason, there are two reasons.

Yes, so the other reason is that this could be sort of lies at the border of

high Arctic and the low Arctic, and during winter time we have the Arctic species,

so bohet whales now will beluca visiting the area, and in the summertime we have more

Atlantic species.

And then because the area is getting warmer, we think that there will be a change in the

species composition, and because all the species, they make their species specific sounds,

we can use this passive acoustic monitoring to follow, which species are present in the bay.

Maybe there will be new species, more southern species coming up, and maybe also some of the

more Arctic species will be disappearing from in time when this area is changing.

So if warmer water species, Atlantic species, start moving farther north,

as the waters warm, you might be able to record more of their calls and then understand

kind of as a census who is where and when.

Exactly, exactly.

Interesting.

We have a couple of samples of what you have recorded.

I'm going to play them and then ask you to tell us what we are listening to.

Let's start with this one.

So that sounds almost like a siren to me.

What are we listening to?

What's making that noise?

That was a bowhead whale singing, and actually we call this song type as the police are in sound.

Yes, exactly.

How it sounds like, and the bowhead whales, they are super interesting species in that way,

because we hear new songs every year in the bay.

So that particular example was back from 2005 or 20 years ago,

and then if you go and listen to the livestream right now,

you won't be hearing that song, but you will be hearing it.

Do you feel so?

Do you know why?

No, we don't know why.

We do think that singing in the police ways is something similar than singing in birds.

They are probably like a reproduction signal in some ways.

Maybe they have a territory that they're defending or maybe they are competing,

but they're still very little we know about the specific meaning of the song at the function of it.

And a bowhead whale, I'm not familiar with that type of work.

Can you describe it for me?

So bowhead whale is quite remarkable in very many ways.

It's the mammals species that grow oldest.

The oldest individuals have been found to be over 200 years old.

Wow.

Yeah.

So they've seen a lot.

They don't have a dorsal fin, for example.

They can break up to one meter thick sea ice.

They have the longest baleen plates of all the baleen whales,

and they live with the smallest plankton.

So they don't even eat fish, but they eat plankton.

Interesting.

We have another recording that I love for you to describe for us as well.

Let's give it a listen.

So that to me sounds like a very, very large cow or something.

Is it another type of whale?

Yeah, that was a humpback whale also, singing humpback whale.

An humpback whale is one of those more Atlantic species

that visit the Disco Bay area and the Arctic in general during summertime.

So they come in the summertime to feed in the fish-rich waters here

around the Arctic and sub-arctic.

And then they spend the winters in the warmer waters.

Have you already noticed the species distribution

changing in Disco Bay?

Because of these changes we've been talking about

with Atlantic and Antarctic species?

We can already see that there are more dolphin species,

sort of Atlantic dolphin species that come and visit the Disco Bay area.

We can also see that the novels and beluchas and the bohet

where they are ice-affiliated species.

So those years when we have less ice,

there are less of these Arctic species.

So they tend to sort of follow the cold water and the ice.

So I am picturing where you are.

And you're talking about sea ice.

I'm imagining the Disco Bay has frozen over for much of the year

and full of icebergs, almost the rest of the time.

How on earth do you maintain an underwater microphone in those conditions?

Well, it is difficult.

We have lost really, really many hydrophones to the ice and to the sea.

So it is difficult.

But we have a fantastic spot just outside the town of Agdasuak,

called Aggaliak, which is sort of a protruding,

like a little cape in the southern part of the town.

And where there are 70 meter high cliffs,

and the sea also goes really deep down from there.

So there we are able to put out our capable hydrophone.

But we do have some breaks in our streaming every now and then,

just because an iceberg has scraped our hydrophone with it or something.

So as you mentioned, you're not just recording these sounds.

You are also live streaming them online.

I imagine that adds some technical complications.

Why was it a priority to make these sounds public?

We just really wanted to share the underwater world.

We feel very privileged to be able to work here and visit the Arctic

and also to enjoy this quite remarkable soundscape.

And I just felt that it was really important to share that

with anybody who was interested.

It's a perfect thing just to have on in the background

when you're working or something, not too distracting.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You also work closely with the local community there.

Can you tell us about what role these local experts play

and what insight they've been able to provide us?

You go about your work.

So the project is a collaboration with the Arctic Municipality here

and as well as the Museum in Krataswak

and also Visi Greenland,

which is a sort of umbrella organization for tourism.

This community Krataswak tradition is a hunting community.

So hunting and harvesting of marine mammals is very important.

This spot was actually pointed by some of the hunters in town

where to put the hydrofoam.

So that was a favorite spot for them.

To spot the ways that were super, super helpful.

But then there's also an interest to develop tourism

and nature-based tourism.

So we wanted to sort of join up with the community in order to also enhance

sort of options to enjoy the world or enjoy the nature in a different way.

OT, Tervo, is a senior scientist at the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources.

She leads the acoustic monitoring station, Disco Live.

More global stories are coming your way.

You're listening to the world.

This is the world I'm Carolyn Beeler.

As the conflict with Iran crossed the one-month mark,

Pope Leo XIV delivered a sharp reprimand to meters who wage war.

At yesterday's Palm Sunday Mass at the Vatican,

at yesterday's Palm Sunday Mass at the Vatican,

the leader of the Catholic Church described Jesus as a king of peace,

a God who rejects war,

whom no one can use to justify war.

Pope Leo went on to say that God, quote,

does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war,

quoting a line of scripture that tells them your hands are full of blood.

To put those comments into context,

we reached out to veteran Vatican correspondent Christopher White.

He is the author of Pope Leo XIV inside the conclave and the dawn of a new papacy.

For him to specifically condemn leaders who wage wars,

it's very clear that this is the issue that keeps them up at night.

But it's in continuity with what he's been saying over the last year

since his election as Pope.

And is it clear which leaders in conflict the Pope is talking about here?

I don't think he said directly in that address.

Pope's in general, and this Pope in particular,

has avoided speaking about specific world leaders.

But he's also been very direct about those who are waging war.

And in this particular contact, those who are waging war,

it's quite clear that it's the US and Israel.

And he's called for a ceasefire, which President Trump has rejected.

And it was specifically asked about the Pope's comments less than two weeks ago.

Some US leaders have been using Christian language to talk about the war in Iran.

Here's Secretary of Defense Pete Higgs said that a prayer service at the Pentagon last week.

May the Lord grant unyielding strength and refuge to our warriors,

unbreakable protection to them in our homeland,

and total victory over those who seek to harm them.

Higgs has also prayed that God would kill the enemies,

quote, who deserve no mercy, and who should be, quote,

delivered to the eternal damnation prepared for them.

Has Pope Leo addressed these sorts of statements

by US officials in the past?

In general, Pope Leo has really rejected this sort of rhetoric of war.

In an address earlier this year to diplomats accredited to the Vatican,

he said, war seems to be back in vogue.

And he said, we have to reject this appetite for war.

He didn't name specific countries or individuals.

But this is a Pope from the United States.

And when he's speaking, he's speaking with particular clarity

about what's happening in his homeland.

Christopher, I want to take a step back and think about history here.

What kind of a stance has the Vatican taken historically on wars?

And I know that's a big question because the Vatican has been around for a while.

Yes, we're talking about 2000 years of church history.

But I think for this conversation,

let's focus on the modern era, and particularly after the Second World War,

the Vatican has been very instrumental and committed to multilateralism

and sees itself as sort of a peacemaking institution.

Pope Paul VI came to the United States to speak to the UN in 1965,

where he uttered the phrase, never again war.

And that phrase has been repeated by every Pope since then, never again war.

And in fact, in Pope Leo's first Sunday address after his election last May,

he repeated those words of Pope Paul VI and made them his own.

And I think he sees himself in the line of a tradition of several popes

who have seen their responsibility on the world stage to be that of peacemakers.

What about the more recent past?

Would have Pope said or actually done concerning, for example,

the war in Iraq or the war in Afghanistan?

On the eve of the war in Iraq, Pope John Paul II was deeply concerned,

warning against it, he sent his own emissaries,

one to Iraq and one to the United States, urging them not to go into this war.

He warned that it could have catastrophic impacts and could leave the country and

shambles for decades to come.

And I think most observers would say what he warned about in the early 2000s has come to pass.

Are there other examples you can think of of when the Vatican actually

went directly to world leaders or tried to intervene in some other more direct way

than speaking from the pulpit?

Yes, certainly Pope John the 23rd who wrote his most famous document,

Potserman Terrace, Peace on Earth, was written at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

That document was sent sort of back channeled to the White House,

particularly trying to influence the Kennedy administration.

And the Vatican was later thanked for its efforts there.

So the Vatican has a global network of diplomats around the world who work very

discreetly, particularly on matters of justice and peace.

When it's quite sensitive, most of their work is done behind the scenes out of the public's

spotlight and then we find out about it years later.

Is there any evidence that these interventions have had any effect on the ground

at stopping or shortening conflict?

In recent memory, I would point to in 2014, Pope Francis made a direct appeal

to avoid the conflict in Syria.

And we of course saw the Obama administration step away from the sort of the famous red line.

That was largely attributed to by many people to the influence of Pope Francis's direct

appeal in that moment.

So the U.S. did not enter that war, but of course Syria did undergo a bloody civil war

for many years still, yeah.

I understand that there is something called the just war theory in Catholic teaching.

Can you tell me what that is and how that relates to this conversation?

Just war theory is something in Catholic teaching that has developed over centuries,

where the church is trying to help define and redefine the parameters in which

countries can engage in conflict and if it enters war as a last resort,

what sort of conduct can be justified in war.

And across the board, religious leaders have largely condemned this current war in Iran

as an unjust war saying it fails to meet the criteria of just war.

I'm curious if you have any insight into how other nations might interpret or respond to Pope

Leo's remarks over the weekend.

I think many world leaders are grateful for Pope Leo using his megaphone that he has.

I mean the Vatican does not have any economic power, it does not have an army,

but it does have the ability to speak to 1.4 billion Catholics around the world

and many others listen to what the Pope has to say.

And so they see the Pope's voice as one of moral persuasion in a moment that is deeply fraught,

where the world seems very much on edge.

I'm curious what you'll be watching for in the weeks and months ahead

to understand if Pope Leo does have any impact on the conflict in Iran.

The Catholic Church is adding into its busiest week of the year,

Holy Week, and of course, you know, the Pope is in the public spotlight.

So I can imagine over the course of this week, we will hear

Pope Leo continuing to make appeals for peace.

It will be very interesting to hear if the Secretary of State was a Catholic, Marco Rubio,

the Vice President of this Catholic, if there's any engagement directly with Vatican officials

as the U.S. tries to find an off-ramp from this war

if they try to seek counsel from the Vatican in any capacity.

veteran Vatican correspondent Christopher White is the author of Pope Leo the 14th

inside the Conclave and the dawn of a new papacy.

And now let's catch you up on a few things you might have missed.

The CEO of Air Canada, Michael Russo, has announced his retiring at the end of this year.

He came under heavy criticism for his response to last week's crash at La Guardia airport

between an Air Canada plane and a fire truck.

After the collision, which killed two pilots, Russo issued a message of condolence,

but only in English.

Air Canada is based on the French-speaking province of Quebec and one of the two pilots

killed in the accident was himself a French-speaking Quebecer.

Prime Minister Mark Carney was among many say that the English-only message showed a lack

of compassion and judgment.

Another development in air travel, China just resumed direct flights to the North Korean

capital of Pyongyang. Chinese tourists used to make up about 90 percent of all visitors to North

Korea, but at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, the country closed its borders to foreign tourists

and did not begin reopening until 2024. That reopening has been slow.

China is North Korea's ally and biggest trading partner, but like so many relationships,

it is complicated. According to Chinese state media, the first air China flight to land was

welcomed in Pyongyang by the Chinese ambassador and other diplomats.

Finally news from the art world about a museum heist,

thieves broke into a museum on the outskirts of Parma Italy last weekend.

They took three paintings, a Renoir, a sezon, and a third one by Matisse.

I'd already say it took the thieves all of three minutes to make up with the works.

Those are a few headlines you might have missed.

It has been five months since Hurricane Melissa ripped through Jamaica.

The Category 5 storm was the strongest to ever make landfall on the island.

45 people died in the immediate storm. Roughly 150,000 homes were destroyed.

Since then, people on the island have been working steadily to recover.

Ian Stein is the Jamaica representative for the World Health Organization's Pan-American group.

Speaking to us from Kingston, he told us that the big picture of life in Jamaica today is uneven.

It's actually a tale of two cities, in one might say. In this case, it's a tale of two parts of

the island. In the eastern part of the island where Kingston is, the capital city, the main

economic city of the country. It's largely business as usual as it would have been before the hurricane.

However, when you venture west where the path of Melissa was, then you see a completely other

picture. While the physical landscape, the trees have, you know, make their miraculous

rebirth and the trees come back, that type of thing, the greenness of the island comes back,

around the infrastructure is where you see things are really challenged.

You see a lot of homes, especially a lot of infrastructure, schools, etc.

These are all still struggling to recover from the enormous impact that Melissa brought.

So that's what it looks like on the western side of the island. What does it mean in terms of

day-to-day life for people? Well, let's imagine you and I in our normal routine.

If my house was affected, well, the question is, do I have access to doing the repairs in my own

on my own home? If I have children and sending them to school, the schools are still affected.

There's no doubt about that. And then if unfortunately something should go wrong and I need to

consult a primary health care center, something that's near my home, the services are there.

However, the infrastructure is badly damaged in many places. There are recovered centers,

but because the scale of Melissa of the health system has really been compromised.

So your specialty, Ian, is the health care system? What kind of impact do the storm have on the

health sector in Jamaica? And how has that specific recovery gone so far?

So there are about 325 health care infrastructures in the whole island of Jamaica. That includes

primary health care centers. Then on top of that, you have several community hospitals and then

you have some higher-level tertiary hospital system as well in the country. Of the 325 institutions,

the Minister of Health and Wellness had shared that in excess of 100 of those infrastructures that

were severely affected. So you had a large swath of primary health care centers and then five

hospitals that I had mentioned. And so I think that we have to recognize the first thing is to try

to get things back as best as possible, the emergency things to make sure that people have access

to health services. And then you also have to plan how to deal with these issues in the longer term,

because when you repair roofs and an emergency, the immediate repair is not always going to be

the permanent repair. One of the lessons that was revealed from Melissa was that in those health

centers where we had done renovations over the past years, for those health centers that were really

on the path of the worst part of the storm, they fared very well. And within the immediate days,

they were back up providing services to their communities and to people. And why is that?

What did they have that made them able to get back up and running so fast?

So this program does assessments of the infrastructure and makes them climate resilient to make

sure that the roofs stay on the health center, that the water systems are there immediately after

a storm that we have electricity and backup systems ready to go. And so these types of things

prove to be exceptionally useful. And what we see in the future is that the Ministry of

Peltharmonis and the government of Jamaica has adopted this approach, because they see the future

that we know that unfortunately storms like Melissa are not going to be exceptional. They're

going to be increasing over time. Yeah, I was going to ask you for the clinics in Jamaica

that got severely compromised by Melissa. What is the range of repairs we're talking about?

Well, it's from A to Z in this respect. In some respects, it's minor, depending on how

close a center was to the path of the hurricane. And then in other cases, it's your starting over

from zero. There's three hospitals in particular that were not well placed to be able to deal with

a storm. They were too close to the coast. And so the government working with us and other partners

are looking to consider actually moving those to a different locations, a more suitable location

where they can be more resilient to this kind of wind and flooding.

So your organization, Bajo, works with the Jamaican government doing a lot of disease surveillance.

Armageddon born diseases growing as a result of the storm five months ago.

We don't see that at this time. I have to say it was a bit of a surprise because the flooding

was extensive. And when you have extensive flooding and sometimes your system to control

mosquito populations is not at its best right after a storm, you would see a lot of mosquitoes

in the normal cycle that mosquitoes have within about two weeks after some extensive flooding.

And I think that we were all very relieved to see that we didn't see a spike in the numbers

as it relates to mosquito-borne disease, which is an excellent situation to be in.

Just briefly, in terms of health system recovery from Melissa, what are the long term

projections? Are you optimistic? When you see something like Melissa, and this is a conversation

I've had with many people over the past months, one of the important things to keep in mind is the

scale of the impact of Melissa. In any country around the world, if you saw five hospitals

running into infrastructural problems, it would be very difficult to overcome quickly.

But we know that the support from the international community, but also the resilience of the

government of Jamaica and the people of Jamaica in particular, we see where this is going,

and time will heal this wound. It's just going to take a lot of time.

Ian Stein is a Jamaica representative for the World Health Organization's Pan American Group.

We reached him today in Kingston, the capital.

And now a quick musical hit with the latest from musician and composer, Semi Yusuf.

Like his music, Yusuf's background is global and complex, so I'll stick with the basics.

He was born in Tehran, raised in London, and was educated in both Western and Middle Eastern classical music.

This is his composition, Amada from Yusuf's new album, Ecstasy Voice of the Earth.

You can hear some tango and flamenco influence on this one.

And as evidence of his international outlook, Yusuf opted to write lyrics and sing in Spanish.

Yusuf's music has been featured in films like The Kite Runner. He's been on stage at the UNESCO World Congress,

and he is a go-to collaborator for musicians all over the world. Ecstasy Voice of the Earth,

his latest recording, came out Friday.

This is The World, I'm Carolyn Beeler. It is a mystery that continues to baffle.

Seventy-eight years ago, this month, when Czechoslovakia was still a country,

the body of its foreign minister, Jan Mausiric, was found beneath his bathroom window.

This was just two weeks after the communists had seized control of the country.

Questions have long swirled about whether the KGB or its counterpart in Czechoslovakia were involved.

As Inside Europe's Rob Cameron reports, police are now examining fresh evidence.

A tour of Jan Mausiric's apartment in Churnin Palace, headquarters of the Czech foreign ministry.

The bathroom in particular has been preserved almost exactly as Mausiric left it 78 years ago.

On the early morning of March 10, 1948, Mausiric's pyjama-clad body was discovered by maintenance workers

in the courtyard beneath his bathroom window, a short distance from the wall.

And that is one of the few things we know for certain. Everything else is subject to interpretation.

So it happens somewhere here between these bedrooms.

My guide to the apartment is Ivan Dubovitsky, a diplomat who serves as the head of the

Ministry's Unit for International Cooperation. Ivan is now the custodian of these rooms.

He is, in a sense, the guardian of Jan Mausiric's ghost.

My people, as you know, were ready to die for an ideal.

Murder, suicide, or accidental death, almost 80 years on.

It's a case that still grips Czech society.

A society that elevates the figure of Tomasz Garyg Mausiric, the founding father and first

president of Czechoslovakia, and his son Jan almost to the status of secular saints. Ivan Dubovitsky again.

For many people still today, especially generation of my parents, grandparents,

Mausiric, the name Mausiric, was the symbol of humanity, democracy,

moral, very high moral standard.

And Jan Mausiric was in a way his successor.

And after the Second World War, he was probably even more popular than president Benesch.

Thanks to his BBC broadcastings from London, from exile,

thanks to his lectures and speeches in United States, in London, and so on and so on.

You will be seeing things happening in my little country,

diametrically opposite to everything my father stood for,

and I am blue but proudly stand for today. And I beg of you.

He was one of the last symbol of democracy in Czechoslovakia.

We know that the democracy was undermined even before,

but with his death, the last symbol disappeared and the democracy finally disappeared.

Detectives from the UDV, a special police unit set up after 1989,

to examine the crimes of communism, are now sifting through the Mausiric files once again.

Those files, police protocols, witness testimony, autopsy reports,

analysis by biomechanics experts, video and audio interviews,

have been bolstered by 150 pages of newly discovered documents from British,

French and American diplomatic archives.

They will present their findings to the state prosecutor in six months.

Researcher Vatslava Yandečková has pushed police to examine the new foreign material

and also claims a previously ignored fact about Mausiric's body has been overlooked.

I didn't believe it before, but now I am convinced that the Mausiric sustained head injuries

not only on his temple, but also behind his ear, whether it was from a pistol or a cattle gun.

I gave to police an excerpt from a 1968 report from Czechoslovak television featuring testimony

from a woman who was one of only two people who touched Mausiric's body.

She says she felt a strange hole behind his ear, with a dried blood around it,

and if we have this direct evidence, I don't understand why the state prosecutor still has the

greed to open the grave and examine the bone remains. Because today, with the modern technology

we have, the remains wouldn't even need to be moved. They would be examined on site,

so I don't understand why the police don't do it.

But even if an exhumation proves Mausiric was stunned as part of an operation to

defenestrate him, the question is, by whom? Vatslava says the finger points towards Moscow,

rather than homegrown Czechoslovak communist agents. But there's a problem with both theories.

The nascent communist government needed Mausiric to stay in the cabinet as the only democratic

minister. He was a fig leaf. And as for the KGB theory, where's the proof?

Beyond one drunk KGB officer claiming it's a party, he'd thrown Mausiric out of the window.

Veteran researcher Yaroslav Tranchada has a completely different theory.

I differentiate between two Jan Mausirics. There was the Jan Mausiric we know and love.

We tea, an orator, educated. A man who did so much for the rebirth of Czechoslovakia during

the war. He could speak not only to our troops, but to the British in their own language.

But then something happened. During the war, the Soviet Union began emerging as a superpower.

A Mausiric began defending President Beneshe's increasingly pro-Soviet line. After the war,

he initially tried to play both sides. But he soon understood how the Soviet Union was growing

in strength. How even the Americans were yielding to Stalin. So from 1947 or so,

Mausiric began pursuing an even more pro-Soviet policy than Beneshe. When he read his articles

from that time, he's even more Soviet than the Soviets.

Today in the capital, communist premier Kyrgyzstanov believes Mausiric's overtures to Stalin

and refusal to resign, something that would have forced President Beneshe to call new elections

proved fateful. He says it was a trio of ultra-patriotic Czechoslovak military and intelligence figures,

virulent anti-communists, war heroes who fought with Mausiric to preserve the Czechoslovak state,

who visited him that evening. One of them later confessed, Yaroslav says spontaneously

to the crime. But again, beyond the confession, there's no proof. If Mausiric was thrown out of the

window, why did he land on his heels facing the building? If he had decided to take his own life,

why was he making arrangements to join his fiancee in London the following week? If he did have

visitors that night, why were they never identified by witnesses? Perhaps, maybe we should accept

we'll probably never know the answer. This is Rob Cameron, in Prague.

That report from DW's Inside Europe podcast.

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 Marco Wurman.

And I'm Carolyn Beeler, join us 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 carnagy.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 Salmonese LLC. The world's theme music is composed by

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