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The Two-Way
3:03 pm
Thu August 23, 2012

Ambassador To Afghanistan: 'Vast Majority' Of Afghans Support Coalition

Credit Corporal David R. Hernandez / 3rd Battalion 5th Marines-RCT 2
U.S. Marines with 1st Platoon, Company I, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines (3/5), Regimental Combat Team 2, in Afghanistan. (January 2010 file photo.)
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  • Amb. James Cunningham on who is attacking U.S. troops
  • Amb. James Cunningham on the Afghan people's support

With "green on blue" attacks by Afghans in uniform increasingly in the news, Americans officials are being asked whether the people of Afghanistan are turning against the coalition troops that have been in the Central Asian nation since late 2001.

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The Two-Way
1:48 pm
Thu August 23, 2012

Good Intention, Heartbreak: The Botched Restoration Of A 19th Century Fresco

Credit AFP/Getty Images
A combination of three documents provided by the Centre de Estudios Borjanos.
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Originally published on Thu August 23, 2012 8:32 pm

Cecilia Giménez, 81, thought she was doing a good thing. A 19th century fresco by painter Elias Garcia Martinez had slowly been battered by time. The masterpiece portrait of Jesus had faded. His tunic was splashed by bare wall and half his face had gone missing.

Giménez, a member of the church where the fresco is located, took it upon herself to restore it to its former glory. Except, well, her artistic skills weren't up to the task.

The pictures tell the story, so we'll just show you.

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World Cafe
1:42 pm
Thu August 23, 2012

Van Hunt On World Cafe

Credit Hannah Mattix
Van Hunt.
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Originally published on Thu August 23, 2012 3:27 pm

Van Hunt is something like a cross between Thelonious Monk and Prince: throaty and suave yet artistic, bold and a little weird. His inventive style speaks to his strong will, a trait that propelled the college dropout to move from his home in Ohio to the music hub of Atlanta.

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Asia
1:34 pm
Thu August 23, 2012

With A Girl Jailed, Pakistan Law Again Under Scrutiny

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Credit Lauren Frayer for NPR
Christians pray for Rimsha on the roof of their priest's compound. Hundreds of the girl's Christian neighbors have fled their homes, fearing attacks by Muslims.
Credit Faisal Mahmood / Reuters/Landov
A family rides past the house of Rimsha Masih, a Pakistani Christian girl arrested on blasphemy charges, on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan, on Thursday. Rimsha is accused of burning pages of Quranic verse — a crime punishable by death in Pakistan. Her case has reignited debate over the country's blasphemy law and the growing influence of Muslim extremists.
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Originally published on Thu August 23, 2012 4:47 pm

Until last week, Pakistani Christians and Muslims on the outskirts of Islamabad lived side-by-side in peace — and in the tight quarters that come with extreme poverty.

Then an Islamic cleric heard a rumor: A Christian girl named Rimsha Masih may have set fire to pages of Quranic verse.

The girl's priest, Father Boota, says a Muslim neighbor claims to have witnessed it.

"He was the one who raised the alarm, and then there was a shopkeeper — he also started shouting, and he also started making calls, 'Get the Christians! Wage a jihad against them!' " the priest says.

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Megafires: The New Normal In The Southwest
1:30 pm
Thu August 23, 2012

Why Forest-Killing Megafires Are The New Normal

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Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Jorge Castro, a visiting professor of ecology from Spain, sips water in the shade of a burnt tree in New Mexico's Bandelier Wilderness area, adjacent to the Bandelier National Monument. This site was devastated by last year's Las Conchas fire.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Driving along the Forest Service roads on the edge of the Bandelier National Monument, you can see the destruction wrought by the Las Conchas fire. The megafire burned more than 150,000 acres of forest — about twice the area of Manhattan.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Craig Allen, a research ecologist with the United States Geological Survey, points to the devastation in Bandelier's Cochiti Canyon, which was burned by the Las Conchas fire. According to Allen, these megafires are "the new normal."
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Wildflowers and weeds dot a once-forested landscape. The suppression of natural forest fires during the past century has set the stage for devastating megafires, setting new records in size and intensity.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Castro sits in a field that used to be forested by Ponderosa pine trees in the Dome Wilderness, an area adjacent to Bandelier.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
The skeleton of a lone tree torched in the Las Conchas fire
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Cochiti Canyon lies south of the Santa Fe National Forest, located near the Bandelier National Monument. The canyon was ravaged by a firestorm that spread out of the Las Conchas fire.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Allen (left) and Castro look across the wasteland of a plateau reduced to ashes during the Las Conchas fire. Because the fires stripped vegetation from hillsides, these areas are now vulnerable to flash floods during the summer rains.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
The skeletal remains of a tree are seen in front of a boulder in the Dome Wilderness area.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Allen surveys the moonscape of a plateau devastated by the Las Conchas fire.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Collin Haffey, a biotechnician with Bandelier National Monument (left), and Allen examine a tiny Ponderosa pine tree sprouting up in the burn zone in the Dome Wilderness. Indigenous species of trees have failed to return to the area since the Las Conchas fire.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
A budding Ponderosa pine tree sprouts up in the burn zone, a sliver of hope for potential forest regrowth.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Jorge Castro, a visiting professor of Ecology from Spain, sips water in the shade of a burnt tree in New Mexico's Bandelier Wilderness area. Last year's Las Conchas fire devastated the area burning over 150,000 acres of forest.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Craig Allen, a research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, walks up a bluff overlooking Cochiti Canyon, which was destroyed by last year's Las Conchas megafire.
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Originally published on Sun August 26, 2012 8:46 am

Second of a five-part series

Fire scientists are calling it "the new normal": a time of fires so big and hot that no one can remember anything like it.

One of the scientists who coined that term is Craig Allen. I drive with him to New Mexico's Bandelier National Monument, where he works for the U.S. Geological Survey. We take a dirt road up into the Jemez Mountains, into a landscape of black poles as far as you can see.

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