The opening up of a southern pipeline for Turkmen gas through Afghanistan, to Pakistan, India and markets faraway represents a giant leap for the United States, as “ideologue” of a project that will roll back Moscow and Beijing’s influence. And in as much as it could unlock Afghanistan’s vast mineral resources, US President Barack Obama will see it as a harbinger for peace. - M K Bhadrakumar (Oct 29, ‘10)

After gaining momentum in August, the reconciliation process between the Taliban and the United States, shepherded by third parties, has broken down. A Taliban representative tells Asia Times Online that the process was a smokescreen for the US to intensify operations against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. For its part, al-Qaeda is regrouping to launch world-wide attacks. - Syed Saleem Shahzad (Oct 29, ‘10)

It has 16 intelligence agencies employing a million spooks at its disposal, along with the military muscle of the entire NATO alliance. And it’s been on the job for at least a decade. So why can’t the US find Osama bin Laden? Maybe someone should ask Pakistan’s spy agency. - Pepe Escobar (Oct 29, ‘10)

Caught “inadvertently” harvesting data with its roving Street View service, Google once again has its tail between its legs. The second infraction of trust in recent times was hardly smoothed over by a cutting comment by chief executive Eric Schmidt, who later was forced to make a dopey-eyed apology. Martin J Young surveys the week’s developments in computing, science, gaming and gizmos.

The man who tried to bomb Times Square in May was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday, bringing a quiet end to a case that dramatized what authorities say is a growing threat from domestic and global terrorists.

A gunman killed himself Monday after he fatally shot one man then drove through his Gainesville neighborhood and wounded five others, police said. The gunman shot himself in his red pickup truck, Gainesville police Cpl. Tscharna Senn said. Authorities reported that all those shot were men but refused to confirm the identity of the shooter, victims or give a motive.

This is the VOA Special English Agriculture
Report. Scientists have
discovered more details about how plants use water. Their findings could help to
engineer plants that grow better and more effectively in conditions with higher
levels of carbon dioxide. Plants
naturally take in carbon dioxide they need for photosynthesis, the process of
changing light energy to chemical energy. The carbon dioxide enters the plants
through tiny holes or pores on the surface of leaves. <!– IMAGE –>However, each time a plant takes in one molecule of
carbon dioxide gas, it loses hundreds of water molecules. Scientists say plants lose
ninety-five percent of the water they take in through these pores. Some plants' pores can tighten to save water during
conditions of high carbon dioxide. Other plants are not able to do this as
well. Now, scientists know how these tiny pores tighten in plants. Julian Schroeder is a professor of biology at the
University of California, San Diego. Mister Schroeder says that carbon dioxide
levels in the atmosphere are much higher now than they were in the past.
However, he says, many plants are not closing their pores in order to hold in
more water. He and his team
have identified proteins that control the tightening of a plant's pores. The
proteins are enzymes called carbonic anhydrases. The findings were published last month in the
journal Nature Cell Biology. Mister Schroeder believes the enzymes could be changed
in some plants to increase their ability to store water. The
researchers added carbonic anhydrase genes to plants that do not react to
higher levels of carbon dioxide. They observed
that for every molecule of carbon dioxide taken in by the plants, they lost
forty-four percent less water. The scientists say the photosynthesis process continued
normally in these plants. They say this suggests that changing plants to save
more water will not affect plant growth. This method might be used to help
engineer food crops that are resistant to extremely dry conditions. The
discovery could help farmers meet a growing demand for food as water supplies
decrease. However, the scientists say
more research is needed. And
that's the VOA Special English Agriculture report, written by Brianna Blake. For
transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our reports, visit us on the Web at voaspecialenglish.com.

HOST:<!– IMAGE –>This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS, in VOA Special English.  I'm Steve Ember.  This week our program is about a mystery as
old as time.  Bob Doughty and Sarah Long
tell about the mystery of time.(THEME)VOICE ONE:If you can read a clock, you can know the time of
day.  But no one knows what time itself
is.  We cannot see it.  We cannot touch it.  We cannot hear it.  We know it only by the way we mark its
passing.For all our success in measuring the smallest parts of
time, time remains one of the great mysteries of the universe.VOICE TWO:One
way to think about time is to imagine a world without time.  There could be no movement, because time and
movement cannot be separated.A world without time could exist only as long as there
were no changes.  For time and change are
linked.  We know that time has passed
when something changes.VOICE ONE:In
the real world — the world with time — changes never stop.  Some changes happen only once in a while,
like an eclipse of the moon.  Others
happen repeatedly, like the rising and setting of the sun.  Humans always have noted natural events that
repeat themselves.  When people began to
count such events, they began to measure time.In
early human history, the only changes that seemed to repeat themselves evenly
were the movements of objects in the sky.  
The most easily seen result of these movements was the difference
between light and darkness.The sun rises in the eastern sky, producing light.  It moves across the sky and sinks in the
west, causing darkness.  The appearance
and disappearance of the sun was even and unfailing.  The periods of light and darkness it created
were the first accepted periods of time. 
We have named each period of light and darkness — one day.VOICE TWO:People saw the sun rise higher in the sky during the
summer than in winter.  They counted the
days that passed from the sun's highest position until it returned to that
position.  They counted three hundred
sixty-five days.  We now know that is the
time Earth takes to move once around the sun. 
We call this period of time a year.VOICE ONE:Early humans also noted changes in the moon.  As it moved across the night sky, they must
have wondered.  Why did it look different
every night?  Why did it disappear?  Where did it go?Even
before they learned the answers to these questions, they developed a way to use
the changing faces of the moon to tell time.The
moon was “full” when its face was bright and round.  The early humans counted the number of times
the sun appeared between full moons. 
They learned that this number always remained the same — about
twenty-nine suns.  Twenty-nine suns
equaled one moon.  We now know this
period of time as one month.(MUSIC)VOICE TWO:Early
humans hunted animals and gathered wild plants. 
They moved in groups or tribes from place to place in search of
food.  Then, people learned to plant
seeds and grow crops.  They learned to
use animals to help them work, and for food.They found they no longer needed to move from one place
to another to survive.As
hunters, people did not need a way to measure time.  As farmers, however, they had to plant crops
in time to harvest them before winter. 
They had to know when the seasons would change.  So, they developed calendars.No
one knows when the first calendar was developed.  But it seems possible that it was based on
moons, or lunar months.When
people started farming, the wise men of the tribes became very important.  They studied the sky.  They gathered enough information so they
could know when the seasons would change. 
They announced when it was time to plant crops.(MUSIC)VOICE ONE:The divisions of time we use today were developed in
ancient Babylonia four thousand years ago. 
Babylonian astronomers believed the sun moved around the Earth every
three hundred sixty-five days.  They
divided the trip into twelve equal parts, or months.  Each month was thirty days.  Then, they divided each day into twenty-four
equal parts, or hours.  They divided each
hour into sixty minutes, and each minute into sixty seconds.VOICE TWO:<!– IMAGE –>Humans
have used many devices to measure time. 
The sundial was one of the earliest and simplest.A sundial measures the movement of the sun across the
sky each day.  It has a stick or other
object that rises above a flat surface. 
The stick, blocking sunlight, creates a shadow.  As the sun moves, so does the shadow of the
stick across the flat surface.  Marks on
the surface show the passing of hours, and perhaps, minutes.The
sundial works well only when the sun is shining.  So, other ways were invented to measure the
passing of time.VOICE ONE:One
device is the hourglass.  It uses a thin
stream of falling sand to measure time. 
The hourglass is shaped like the number eight — wide at the top and
bottom, but very thin in the middle.  In
a true “hour” glass, it takes exactly one hour for all the sand to
drop from the top to the bottom through a very small opening in the
middle.  When the hourglass is turned
with the upside down, it begins to mark the passing of another hour.By
the eighteenth century, people had developed mechanical clocks and
watches.  And today, many of our clocks
and watches are electronic.VOICE TWO:<!– IMAGE –>So, we have devices to mark the passing of time.  But what time is it now?  Clocks in different parts of the world do not
show the same time at the same time. 
This is because time on Earth is set by the sun's position in the sky
above.We
all have a twelve o'clock noon each day. 
Noon is the time the sun is highest in the sky.  But when it is twelve o'clock noon where I
am, it may be ten o'clock at night where you are.VOICE ONE:As
international communications and travel increased, it became clear that it
would be necessary to establish a common time for all parts of the world.In
eighteen eighty-four, an international conference divided the world into
twenty-four time areas, or zones.  Each
zone represents one hour.  The
astronomical observatory in Greenwich, England, was chosen as the starting
point for the time zones.  Twelve zones
are west of Greenwich.  Twelve are
east.The time
at Greenwich — as measured by the sun — is called Universal Time.  For many years it was called Greenwich Mean
Time.VOICE TWO:Some scientists say time is governed by the movement of
matter in our universe.  They say time
flows forward because the universe is expanding.  Some say it will stop expanding some day and
will begin to move in the opposite direction, to grow smaller.  Some believe time will also begin to flow in the
opposite direction — from the future to the past.  Can time move backward?Most
people have no trouble agreeing that time moves forward.  We see people born and then grow old.  We remember the past, but we do not know the
future.  We know a film is moving forward
if it shows a glass falling off a table and breaking into many pieces.  If the film were moving backward, the pieces
would re-join to form a glass and jump back up onto the table.  No one has ever seen this happen.  Except in a film.VOICE ONE:Some scientists believe there is one reason why time
only moves forward.  It is a well-known
scientific law — the second law of thermodynamics.  That law says disorder increases with
time.  In fact, there are more conditions
of disorder than of order.For example, there are many ways a glass can break into
pieces.  That is disorder.  But there is only one way the broken pieces
can be organized to make a glass.  That
is order.  If time moved backward, the
broken pieces could come together in a great many ways.  Only one of these many ways, however, would
re-form the glass.  It is almost
impossible to believe this would happen.VOICE TWO:Not
all scientists believe time is governed by the second law of
thermodynamics.  They do not agree that
time must always move forward.  The
debate will continue about the nature of time. 
And time will remain a mystery.(THEME)HOST:Our program was written by Marilyn Christiano and read
by Sarah Long and Bob Doughty.  I'm Steve
Ember.  Listen again next week for
Science in the News, in VOA Special English. 

VOICE ONE:
Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I’m Steve Ember.
VOICE TWO:
<!– IMAGE –>
And I’m Shirley Griffith. This week on our program, we find out how some people will be welcoming two thousand ten.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
So what do Americans do New Year’s Eve? Hillary Huesman is from South Carolina.
HILLARY HUESMAN: “I get dressed up. I look to go out. I’m usually single, and that is usually not a problem. This year I’m still making my plans. I haven’t quite confirmed them yet, but probably a hotel ballroom-type scenario, black-tie event.”
At a black-tie event, the men dress in tuxedos or dark suits and the women wear fancy dresses.
Hotels in many cities have special deals for New Year’s Eve: dinner, Champagne and a party. Then people get a room for the night. That way, no one has to worry about drinking and driving home.
VOICE TWO:
On New Year’s Eve, some communities in the United States hold what are called First Night celebrations. These are events where no alcohol is served. The celebrations include things like music performances, art displays and fireworks.
Boston, Massachusetts, held the first First Night celebration in nineteen seventy-six. Since then the idea has spread internationally.
VOICE ONE:
Some people might not have firm plans yet for New Year’s Eve, but others know exactly what they will be doing. Joe is a twenty-one year old student at the University of Virginia.
JOE: “I don’t really do a whole lot. I normally just spend time with family, go out to eat, hang out, wait for the ball to drop on TV.”
Joe is talking about America’s best known celebration on New Year’s Eve. Hundreds of thousands of people crowd into Times Square in New York. They count down the final seconds to midnight as they watch a brightly lit ball slide down a pole on top of a tall building.
(SOUND)
<!– IMAGE –>
The first New Year’s Eve ball drop in Times Square took place more than a century ago. The ball was made of iron and wood and it was lit with one hundred lights. Today the ball is larger and covered in more than two thousand crystals.
VOICE TWO:
Two other traditions for welcoming the New Year are a midnight kiss and an attempt to sing a song that almost no one knows.
“Auld Lang Syne,” by the eighteenth century Scottish poet Robert Burns, is a song about friends and remembering times long ago.
(MUSIC)
A new year is a good time to start fresh — and, for some people, a time to seek good fortune in the year ahead.
In the American South, for example, people might prepare a dish known as “Hoppin’ John.” They make it with black-eyed peas and ingredients like bacon, rice and vegetables. Eating it at the New Year is thought to bring good luck.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
On New Year’s Day, some families in the United States invite friends and relatives to an open house. Jill Cooper from Santa Fe, New Mexico, gave us a description.
JILL COOPER: “They’re family parties, big open house-y kind of parties with lots of cookies — too many cookies –and punch and eggnog. And houses are decorated, and you see your friends and you bop from party to party.”
But that is not all she and her family like to do to celebrate the New Year.
JILL COOPER: “We try to do something outside ’cause we live in Santa Fe and we live right in the mountains. Everybody wants to go for a wonderful hike and start off with fresh air and all the things we’re going to have in our lives the whole next year. And then we drop in on parties.”
VOICE TWO:
Some families like to take it easy on January first and enjoy a quiet day of rest. Twenty year old Malia is from Virginia.
MALIA: “I usually sleep in because we stay up late on New Year’s Eve. And my family, we usually eat the leftovers of the desserts that we make for New Year’s, or New Year’s Eve and stuff, so. But, just relax, mainly.”
But New Year’s Day is anything but a day of rest for John Worster (WOO-ster), who lives in Idaho.
JOHN WORSTER: “I offer Catholic Mass, ’cause I’m a Catholic priest by profession, and so it is actually the feast day of Mary, Mother of God. And so we begin our Catholic way of understanding new year by just thanking God for Jesus’ mother, Mary. On New Year’s Day, after church we’ll go out and sit in the goose pit and do some hunting for Canada geese and also ducks.”
VOICE ONE:
<!– IMAGE –>
On New Year’s morning, millions of television viewers watch the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California. The parade includes marching bands and horseback riders. But the parade is most famous for its motorized floats. They come in all shapes and sizes, but they are all covered with flowers.
In Southern California, the weather on New Year’s Day might be cold. But the skies are usually sunny and dry, even as other parts of the country might experience snowstorms.
A local group created the Tournament of Roses festival in Pasadena in eighteen ninety. The festival later expanded to include the parade and a big game in college football.
The champion teams from two college athletic conferences play in the Rose Bowl Stadium. This Friday, the Buckeyes of Ohio State University will play the University of Oregon Ducks.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
Will you be making any New Year’s resolutions? Hillary Huesman from South Carolina has a few in mind.
HILLARY HUESMAN: “I’d like to solidify my romantic relationship, lose twenty-eight pounds. I’d like to travel a lot more in twenty-ten. Two thousand nine was a long year — struggled financially, like most of America. So I’m looking for prosperity in twenty-ten.”
VOICE ONE:
Malia from Virginia does not make too many resolutions. She says she does not want to disappoint herself when she fails to keep them. Joe, the University of Virginia student, is of a similar mind.
JOE: “I’m not a believer in resolutions for New Year’s. I think that resolutions come when they need to throughout the year, when you decide that someone needs a change.”
VOICE TWO:
What about John Worster, the Catholic priest?
JOHN WORSTER: “I make a New Year’s resolution every year and usually by the third or fourth of January it’s already been broken, so…(Laughs).
REPORTER: “What kind of resolutions are those?”
JOHN WORSTER: “Oh, usually to lead a healthier lifestyle by eating better food and not drinking so much, so … (Laughs)”
VOICE ONE:
Jamar Negron, a high school student from New Jersey, has a few resolutions for two thousand ten:
JAMAR NEGRON: “I’m a fencer, so my New Year’s resolution is just to become better at fencing. And better in the general sense: become better in schoolwork, become a better person, become a better writer — become as best as I can be in all aspects of my life.”
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
Holiday planning can be difficult when business has to come before pleasure.
We did interviews near the Capitol building here in Washington. One of the people we met happened to be the wife of a newly elected senator. Jill Cooper is married to Tom Udall, a Democrat from New Mexico who entered the Senate this past January.
When we talked to her earlier this month, their plans for the New Year were still open.
JILL COOPER: “There was a chance that we would go on a trip to India and Afghanistan, but apparently we’re not doing that. Since he’s in the Senate and we don’t know what’s going to happen with the health care bill, he may not even be home. If we’re home, we’ll probably have dinner with friends.”
VOICE ONE:
We give the last word to Jamar, the high school student from New Jersey, and his hopes for two thousand ten.
JAMAR NEGRON: “Prosperity. Strength. Confidence. Equality. Good fortune. Goodwill. That everything will work out for the better. That I’ll leave no stone unturned, and that I’m able to go to sleep at night with no regrets at what I’ve done.”
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
Our program was written by Nancy Steinbach and Mario Ritter and produced by Caty Weaver. Tell us your resolutions and hopes for two thousand ten, and what you will be doing New Year’s Eve. Post your comments at voaspecialenglish.com — where you can also find transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our programs. I’m Shirley Griffith.
VOICE ONE:
And I’m Steve Ember. We wish you all happiness and good fortune in the New Year, and hope will join us again next time for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.

<!– IMAGE –>
Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION — American history in VOA Special English.
President Abraham Lincoln led the Union of northern states in four years of civil war against the southern Confederacy. But he did not live to see the end of the war. He did not live to see the nation re-united. He was assassinated in April of eighteen sixty-five.
This week in our series, Shep O’Neal and Maurice Joyce tell what happened after Lincoln died.
VOICE ONE:
<!– IMAGE –>
Almost immediately, officials began planning details of the president’s funeral. They asked Missus Lincoln where she wanted her husband buried. At first, she said Chicago. That was where the Lincolns were going to live after they left the White House.
Then she said the Capitol building in Washington. A tomb had been built there for America’s first President, George Washington. But it had never been used.
Finally, she remembered a country cemetery they had visited. At the time, her husband had said: “When I am gone, lay my remains in some quiet place like this.” So Missus Lincoln decided that the president’s final resting place would be in the quiet, beautiful Oak Ridge Cemetery outside their home town of Springfield, Illinois.
VOICE TWO:
<!– IMAGE –>
For several days after Lincoln’s assassination, his body lay in the East Room of the White House. The room was open to the public all day. Next, the body was taken to the Capitol building. Again, the public could come to say goodbye. Then the body was put on a special train for the trip back to Illinois.
Four years earlier, President-elect Lincoln had traveled by train from Illinois to Washington. He stopped to make speeches in cities along the way. Now, on this sad return trip, the train stopped at those same cities:  Baltimore. Philadelphia. New York. Cleveland. Indianapolis. Chicago.
VOICE ONE:
In every town, people lined the railroad. They stood silently, with tears in their eyes, as the train moved slowly past. Farmers working in the fields saw the train and dropped to their knees in prayer. For the wise man who had led the Union through four years of bloody civil war — Father Abraham — was dead.
Churches throughout the country held memorial services. Ministers told their people that God had taken Lincoln because the president had completed the job God had given him. He had brought peace to the Union, and freedom to all men.
VOICE TWO:
The final service was at the cemetery outside Springfield. It ended with the words from Lincoln’s second inaugural speech.
“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right — as God gives us to see the right — let us strive on to finish the work we are in. Let us heal the nation’s wounds. Let us do all possible to get and keep a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
VOICE ONE:
<!– IMAGE –>
While the nation mourned Lincoln’s death, federal officials investigated his assassination. The man who had shot Lincoln in Ford’s Theater was an actor, John Wilkes Booth. He had fled the theater after the murder. The government offered a reward of one hundred thousand dollars to anyone who captured Booth and his helpers.
The investigation produced the names of several people who were friends of Booth. One was John Surratt. Like Booth, he supported the southern Confederacy during the Civil War. Another was David Herold, a young man who worked in a store in Washington. Others were George Atzerodt, Lewis Paine, Sam Arnold, and Michael O’Laughlin.
Most of these men had stayed at a house owned by John Surratt’s mother, Mary.
VOICE TWO:
<!– IMAGE –>
One by one, in the days following Lincoln’s death, these people were arrested. Anyone else who might have had a part in the plot was seized. Soon, hundreds of suspects were being held in jails in and around Washington.
At the end of a week, only two of the plotters were still free: David Herold and John Wilkes Booth.
Booth broke his leg when he jumped from the presidential box to the stage at Ford’s Theater. A few hours later, he and Herold stopped at the home of a Doctor Samuel Mudd. They reportedly gave the doctor false names. They asked him to fix Booth’s broken leg.
Doctor Mudd agreed. And he let the two men sleep at his home. Federal troops chasing the assassins arrested the doctor. They accused him of being part of the plot.
VOICE ONE:
John Wilkes Booth and David Herold ran and hid for six days. They crossed the Potomac River from Maryland into Virginia. Finally, twelve days after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, soldiers found the two men. They were hiding in a tobacco barn near the town of Port Royal.
Herold agreed to surrender. He came out of the barn with his hands in the air. He shouted again and again that he was innocent.
Booth refused to come out. The soldiers set fire to the barn.
VOICE TWO:
The fire forced Booth to move close to the door. The soldiers could see him now. He was aiming a gun at them. The soldiers had been ordered to capture Booth alive. But one of them raised his gun and shot Booth in the neck.
The actor fell. Some of the soldiers ran to the burning barn and pulled him out. They carried him to a nearby house. He died two hours later.
VOICE ONE:
John Wilkes Booth carried a notebook. He wrote in it every day. On the day Lincoln was killed, he wrote: “For six months we had worked to kidnap Lincoln. But with the Confederacy being almost lost, something decisive and great must be done. I struck boldly.”
Booth described how and why he had shot the president. “Our country,” Booth wrote, “owed all her troubles to him. And God simply made me the instrument of his punishment.”
Booth’s body was returned to Washington. Men who knew him confirmed that it was the body of John Wilkes Booth. The body was buried under the stone floor of the Washington prison. A few years later, his family received permission to move the body to a cemetery in the city of Baltimore.
VOICE TWO:
Evidence showed that only a few people were actually involved in the plot against the president. Most had agreed to work with Booth because they believed he planned to kidnap Lincoln, not kill him.
Of the hundreds of persons arrested, only eight were brought to trial. The secretary of war decided that they would be tried by a military court. He argued that Lincoln had been commander-in-chief of all military forces and had been murdered during wartime.
VOICE ONE:
<!– IMAGE –>
The trial began almost two months after the assassination. The prisoners seemed in poor condition. All wore heavy chains on their arms and legs. And the men had been forced to wear thick cloths over their heads. Officials said the cloths were necessary to prevent them from talking to each other.
The secretary of war announced that the prisoners could not meet privately with their defense lawyers. They could meet only in the courtroom. Guards could hear everything they said.
One of the defense lawyers recognized that the job was hopeless. He said the trial was a contest between the defense lawyers and the whole United States. There was no question, he said, what the military court’s decision would be.
VOICE TWO:
The government tried to prove that Lincoln’s assassination was a Confederate plot. Witnesses told how Confederate supporters reportedly planned to cause trouble in the North. But none could prove that Confederate President Jefferson Davis — or any other southern leader — played a part in Booth’s plot to kill Lincoln.
Four hundred witnesses appeared. Many of the important ones had been arrested as suspects. They agreed to give evidence if the government dropped the charges against them.
For six weeks, the court heard evidence against the eight prisoners. The prisoners themselves could say nothing. They could only listen.
VOICE ONE:
<!– IMAGE –>
In late June, eighteen sixty-five, the trial of Abraham Lincoln’s assassins ended. The military officers serving as judges met secretly for two days. Then they announced their decision.
All eight prisoners were found guilty. One received a prison sentence of six years. Three were sentenced to life in prison. Four were sentenced to die.
Defense lawyers appealed for mercy. The appeal was rejected. On July seventh, David Herold, Lewis Paine, George Atzerodt and Mary Surratt were hanged for the murder of Abraham Lincoln.
(MUSIC)
ANNOUNCER:
Our program was written by Frank Beardsley. The narrators were Shep O’Neal and Maurice Joyce. You can find transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our programs, along with historical images, at voaspecialenglish.com. And you can follow us on Twitter at VOA Learning English. Join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION — an American history series in VOA Special English.
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This is program #118 of THE MAKING OF A NATION