Underreported from WNYC's The Leonard Lopate Show

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Underreported Update: The Democratic Republic of Congo Apr 22, 2010

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Earlier this month, eight International Red Cross workers were kidnapped and later released in the Democratic Republic of Congo. On this week’s second Underreported, Jon Elliott, Africa Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch describes the situation in the DRC and why violence there continues.

Underreported Update: Refugees In Pakistan Apr 22, 2010

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It has been nearly a year since fighting in north-west Pakistan displaced more than 3 million people. Today, there are still an estimated 1.3 million refugees in the country. We’ll get an update on the situation from Michael Young, International Rescue Committee’s Asia Regional Director, who until recently was director of Pakistan programs for the International Rescue Committee.

Undereported: Brazil, Biofuels, and Deforrestation Apr 15, 2010

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Plant-derived ethanol has long been touted as a green alternative to regular gasoline for cars. Since the 1970s, Brazil has embraced ethanol derived from sugar cane and lavished the sugar industry with government subsidies, making the biofuel cheap and plentiful. Today, 90% of new cars sold in Brazil can run on ethanol, and the country has avoided emitting hundreds of millions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere. But the explosion of sugar cane production for ethanol threatens the rainforest and could end up exacerbating global warming. We’ll talk to writer Nikolas Kozloff for today’s Underreported segment. He’s written about this issue for Foreign Policy Magazine and is also the author of No Rain in the Amazon.

Underreported: The Massive Obama 2011 Defense Budget Apr 08, 2010

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President Obama’s Nuclear Posture Review was released this week and has been hailed in some arms control circles for its limits on the first-use of nuclear weapons by the United States. But, the Obama Administration’s FY 2011 defense budget—even when adjusted for inflation—is larger than any Pentagon budget since World War II. We’ll talk to Slate’s "War Stories" columnist Fred Kaplan about the Obama defense budget on today’s Underreported segment. Mr. Kaplan is also the author of the book 1959: The Year Everything Changed, you can hear his last interview with Leonard here.

Underreported: Food Fraud Apr 01, 2010

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As much as 7 percent of the nation’s food is mislabeled to fool consumers into paying more. On today’s Underreported, Lyndsey Layton, National Political Reporter for the Washington Post, explains why food fraud is on the rise and why both large corporations and small-scale producers are looking to the FDA to crack down on these ersatz products. Read her latest article here.

Underreported: Oyster Poaching in Chesapeake Bay Mar 25, 2010

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On today’s Underreported segment, Jeffrey Levinton, distinguished professor of Ecology and Evolution at Stony Brook University, and Ken Paynter, associate professor and director of Marine Estuarine Environmental Sciences Program at University of Maryland, discusses the damage oyster poachers are wreaking in Chesapeake Bay and efforts to restore the bivalves to the bay and New York Harbor.

Burma’s Never-Ending War Mar 18, 2010

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For today’s Underreported, Mac McClelland talks about the Burmese government’s secret ethnic cleansing campaign, and her experience living with associates of a US-designated terrorist organization battling Burma's. She’s the author of For Us Surrender Is Out of the Question: A Story of Burma’s Never-Ending War.

Underreported: Linking Cancer to the Permian Extinction Mar 11, 2010

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For decades women in Xuan Wei, a county in southern China, have suffered from an astronomically high rate of lung cancer and the reason why has remained largely a mystery. Now, researchers think they have solved the case: the coal that is burned in Chinese kitchens is to blame, but this is not just any coal. Over 200 million years ago a particularly toxic kind of coal formed right around the time of the great Permian Extinction and it seems that the toxic chemicals from that event are still killing to this day. We’ll speak with Bob Finkelman, a geologist at the University of Texas at Dallas for today’s first Underreported segment.

Underreported: Accelerated Tree Growth and Climate Change Mar 11, 2010

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Geoffrey Parker, a forest ecologist at the Smithsonian Institution has been measuring the size and rate of growth of tree trunks for 22 years. After looking at his data, he determined that many of the trees he was surveying were growing at rate two to four times faster than expected and climate change may be to blame. We’ll speak to Mr. Parker for our second Underreported segment.

Underreported: Zimbabwe's Blood Diamonds Mar 04, 2010

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Despite international bans, Zimbabwe continues to mine “blood diamonds” from fields in Marange. On today’s second Underreported, Rona Peligal, the deputy director of the Africa division for Human Rights Watch, describes the human rights abuses there and why they continue.
You can read the HRW's report on Zimbabwe's Marange mine here.