WPRB News is going on summer vacation, but we still have a couple stories up our collective sleeve.  Check back in the coming weeks for fresh content, including our take on Chatroulette (yes, we’re jumping on the bandwagon, albeit late) and a look at how one holocaust survivor became an advocate for immigrant detainees in New Jersey.

For now, bide your time by listening to some of our favorite pieces.  We’ll be back in on the air in September.

Newark Airport (CC Flickr: _hlian)

In January 2010, a graduate student named Haisong Jiang crossed a Newark Liberty International Airport security line in order to say goodbye to his girlfriend one last time.  The breach (which came less than a month after the apprehension of the so-called “underwear bomber“) caused more than travel delays.  For Jiang, a Chinese national, it brought a personal introduction to the American justice system.  In March, he pleaded guilty to defiant trespass.  His punishment?  Community service and a $500 fine (plus court fees).  A bill to tighten airport security is now advancing through the New Jersey Legislature.

Although the incident was covered by a number of media outlets, Jiang has been shy about interviews.  We wanted the story straight from him.  Rosy Yang reports.

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Script by Aku Ammah Tagoe.  Flora Thomson-Deveaux and Nikki Leon contributed editing. Senior Producer was Aku Ammah Tagoe. Executive Producer was Nikki Leon. Special thanks to Ian Auzenne and Jon Solomon. Music from Chad Crouch and Evgeny Grinko.

You can also watch the video of what happened at Newark Airport here:

CC Flickr photo by Lisa Andres: The Atlantic City Boardwalk at Night

In New Jersey, the re-arrest (recidivism) rate for adult offenders is about 55%. We’ve got a lot of people ending up in jail more than once here—about 31% of all adult prisoners.

Who do these numbers represent? We sit down with one prisoner from Atlantic City to learn more. Tasnim Shamma reports.

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Naomi Nix contributed editing to this story.  Aku Ammah-Tagoe was Senior Producer.  Executive Producer was Nikki Leon.

Music from Chad Crouch.

photo credit: RonAlmog

We interview former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer on the Obama administration’s new approach to policy making in the Middle East, Israeli-Palestinian relations, and the future of the two-state solution. Recorded January 26.

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Professor Edward Felten

We discuss with Princeton Professor Edward Felten the recent hacking of American companies from within China, cyberattacks more broadly, and the United States’s cybersecurity capability. Recorded March 4.

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Princeton Professor of Chemical Engineering, Yueh-Lin Loo, joins us to talk about “conducting polymers,” the exciting field of “plastic electronics,” and the new technique she invented that allows scientists to shape plastics into a useful form while maintaining high conductivity.  Her breakthrough paves the way for plastics to replace metals in a wide range of electronic devices, including plastic solar panels.
Learn about polymers, find out how they can be made to conduct electricity, and imagine a world of plastic electronics.  Listen here: Professor Lynn Loo 4-18-10.

WASHINGTON - Mexican President Felipe Calderon announced that his country will convert their nuclear research reactor to using low enriched uranium as part of a global effort to secure weapons-grade nuclear materials.  The plan calls for a trilateral effort on the part of Mexico, Canada and the United States to carry out the conversion, along with the assistance of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).  President Obama is currently leading a 47-nation Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, pressuring world leaders to introduce new measures to secure vulnerable nuclear weapons.

The threat of nuclear terrorism has been the hallmark issue for the first day and a half of the Summit.  In his opening remarks, Obama called that threat one of the greatest threats to global security and said that the risk of a nuclear attack has risen.  In announcing his government’s decision, Calderon indicated his shared concern for the terrorist threat.

Mexico has a “strong commitment to prevent and suppress nuclear terrorism,” said Calderon in a statement.  ”With this kind of cooperation with the IAEA and our North American partners, we [will] definitely contribute to reducing the risks associated with illicit trafficking of nuclear materials.”

Both Obama and Canadian President Steven Harper have expressed their strong support for Mexico’s decision.  Highly enriched uranium, which Mexico currently uses in its reactor, can be used for the creation of nuclear weapons.  As part of his push to secure all vulnerable nuclear materials within four years, Obama has levied pressure on other nations to convert their reactors to using low enriched uranium, which cannot be used for weapons.

In other news, First Lady Michelle Obama and Second Lady Dr. Jill Biden made a surprise visit to Port-au-Prince, Haiti.  The First Lady is currently on her first solo trip abroad, on which she plans to visit Mexico.  Her visit to Haiti comes on the three-month anniversary of the devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake the destroyed much of the capital city.

The White House kept her planned visit secret, only releasing the information once she had landed.  During the visit, the First Lady took a helicopter tour of the capital.  A White House statement said that her visit was designed to underscore the US’s commitment to rebuilding Haiti.

President Obama greets Prime Minister John Key of New Zealand yesterday on the first day of the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, D.C. Photo by New Zealand National Party.

Walter Fick
White House Correspondent
WPRB News

WASHINGTON - After a profitable opening day at the Nuclear Security Summit, President Obama hopes for further gains in promoting an international cooperative effort to secure fissile materials.  Yesterday, Ukraine announced that it will remove its entire highly enriched uranium stockpile by 2012.  Canada also announced that it would be transferring highly enriched uranium back to the United States.

These announcements came amidst a long and strenuous push by the Obama administration to develop a global consensus on the need to take action to secure nuclear materials.  Both highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium can be used in nuclear weapons.  Obama has called the threat of nuclear terrorism the single greatest threat to US national security.

Last week, administration officials said that they hoped for nations to announce concrete steps that they would take to secure their nuclear materials.  This morning, Obama reiterated the need for these steps and the dangers of nuclear materials falling into the hands of terrorists.

“This is an unprecedented gathering to an unprecedented threat,” he said referring to the Summit.  ”The risk of a nuclear confrontation between nations has gone down, but the risk of nuclear attack has gone up.  The dangers of nuclear terrorism are one of the greatest threats to global security.”

Obama appeared encouraged yesterday by Ukraine and Canada’s announcements.  Prior to officially greeting the heads of delegation for the 46 other nations attending the Summit, he called the first day’s progress impressive.

“I think it’s an indication of how deeply concerned everybody should be with the possibilities of nuclear traffic,” he said.  ”I think at the end of this we’re going to see some very specific, concrete actions that each nation is taking that will make the world a little bit safer.”

In other important news from the Summit’s sidelines, China has apparently agreed to pursue a new round of sanctions against Iran.  This could be a major victory for the US and its allies, who have been pushing for months for new sanctions.  Western governments believe that Iran is enriching uranium in order to pursue nuclear weapons.  Tehran claims that their program is for strictly peaceful purposes.

This will be the fourth round of sanctions against Iran, which has continued for years to enrich uranium in violation of the 2006 UN Security Council Resolution 1737.  Iran recently heightened tensions by announcing the planned construction of several new underground reactors.  China, which has strong economic ties with Iran, has generally opposed sanctions against the regime.

“China always believes that dialogue and negotiation are the best way out for the issue,” Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Jiang Yu said.  ”Pressure and sanctions cannot fundamentally solve it.”

Nevertheless, the White House appears encouraged about the prospects of Chinese cooperation after yesterday’s bilateral meeting between Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao.  The US needs China’s support because of China’s veto ability within the UN Security Council.

“The discussion was as sign of international unity on Iran,” Obama aide Jeff Bader said.  ”The two Presidents agreed to instruct their delegations to work on a sanctions resolution.  The resolution will make clear to Iran the costs of pursuing a nuclear program that violates Iran’s obligations and responsibilities.”

The White House said that specifics were still being worked out but would be finalized in the coming days and weeks.  Obama has pushed for a resolution to be passed this spring.  His goal of banning investment in Iran’s energy sector, however, may face continued resistance from Beijing and Moscow.

Today, President Obama is holding two plenary sessions with delegates at the Nuclear Security Summit.  He will also continue bilateral meetings with the leaders of Turkey, Argentina and Germany.  Administration officials expect more concrete measures to secure nuclear materials to be announced later in the day.

WASHINGTON - President Obama met with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao for an hour and a half on Monday during the first day of the Nuclear Security Summit.  White House officials said that the two leaders spent much of their time discussing Iran’s nuclear belligerence.  Iran has for years been in violation of United Nations’ Security Council Resolution 1737, which requires Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment programs.

Western governments believe that Iran is developing its nuclear capabilities in order to create nuclear weapons.  Tehran disputes that and claims that its nuclear program is strictly for peaceful research and energy purposes.  Washington wants to start a new round of UN sanctions against Iran this spring.

In previous negotiations, China, which has close economic ties with Tehran, has consistently been Iran’s staunchest supporter of, often preventing Western nations from passing stricter measures.  After today’s meeting, however, China may be more willing to cooperate on sanctioning Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

“They are prepared to work with us,” White House official Jeff Bader said.  ”The two Presidents agreed [that] the two delegations should work together on sanctions.”

Bader is the National Security Council Senior Director for Asian Affairs.  In addition to discussing Iran, Bader confirmed that Hu and Obama talked about currency matters, though he did not disclose whether anything was agreed on relating to that topic.

The White House has recently been pressuring China to reform its monetary policy so that they no longer undervalue the yuan.  Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner recently visited Beijing to press the Chinese on their currency manipulation and the effect that has had on the US-Chinese trade imbalance.

In a gesture of kindness towards Hu Jintao, however, the White House agreed to delay its planned mid-April determination of whether the Chinese are manipulating their currency until after Hu returned from the Summit.  Persuading the Chinese to back down on both sanctions against Iran and its monetary policy will likely be extremely difficult.  White House officials expect, though, that China will at least be willing to compromise on Iran.

“We expect a resolution this spring, which would be a matter of weeks,” National Security Council adviser Ben Rhodes said.

The details of this resolution will likely still be highly contested.  Both Beijing and Moscow have opposed the US proposal to ban new investments on Iran’s energy sector, leaving much speculation about just how much Washington and its NATO allies can push through.

WASHINGTON - Ukraine agreed today to remove its entire highly enriched uranium stockpile by the time of the next Nuclear Security Summit in 2012.  The announcement came early on the first day of an unprecedented gathering of world leaders to discuss means of securing vulnerable nuclear materials.  This year’s Nuclear Security Summit includes 47 nations and is being held Monday and Tuesday in Washington, D.C.

Ukraine’s announcement came as a relief to the Obama administration, which has been pressuring participating nations to announce concrete measures to improve the security of weapons-grade nuclear materials.  Ukraine currently has enough highly enriched uranium to make several nuclear bombs.

The announcement came immediately after a bilateral meeting this afternoon between Obama and President Victor Yanukovich of the Ukraine.  White House officials hailed it as “a landmark decision” and praised the Ukraine’s “leadership” in securing nuclear materials.

“This is something that the United States has tried to make happen for more than ten years,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said.

In order to remove the highly enriched uranium, the Ukraine will convert its civil nuclear research facilities to using low enriched uranium, which cannot be used for weapons.  Plans for what to do with the removed uranium have not been finalized, but a likely outcome is that the United States will accept custody of the material.  Ukraine announced that it plans to begin removing “a substantial part of those stocks” by years end.

Princeton University Professor and long-time nuclear security expert Dr. Frank von Hippel called the announcement “very good news.”  ”The Ukrainians have been very ambivalent about letting go of this highly enriched uranium,” he said.  ”[This is] just the kind of fall-out from the Summit that was hoped for, but uncertain.”

Chile made a similar decision to remove its significantly smaller stockpile of highly enriched uranium earlier this year.  Last month it was successfully transferred in secret to the United States for secure storage.

Ukraine has a long history of pursuing nuclear non-proliferation.  The former Soviet republic, along with Kazakhstan and Belarus, agreed in 1994 to remove all the left over Soviet nuclear munitions from its territory.

“Ukraine has been an international leader on disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation and a valued partner in the implementation of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) since its historic 1994 decision,” a White House statement said.

Obama hopes for other nations to make similar announcements about steps they plan to take to secure vulnerable nuclear weapons.  Yesterday, the President called nuclear terrorism the single greatest threat to national security.

“If there was ever a detonation in New York City, or London, or Johannesburg, the ramifications economically, politically, and from a security perspective would be devastating,” he said.  ”We know that organizations like al Qaeda are in the process of trying to secure a nuclear weapon — a weapon of mass destruction that they have no compunction at using.”

Administration officials have stressed for the past week the need for an international consensus on the threat of nuclear terrorism.  Relatively small amounts of fissile material could allow terrorists to create either a dirty bomb — a device that could contaminate an area with radioactivity — or an outright nuclear bomb.  According to US intelligence sources, many terrorist organizations have been actively seeking these materials for years.

“The threat of nuclear terrorism is real, it is serious, [and] it is growing,” said John Brennan, the Assistant to the President for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security.  ”Over the past there has been indisputable evidence that dozens of terrorist groups have actively sought some type of weapon of mass effect.”

Whether other nations will listen to and take action to prevent this threat, however, remains to be seen.  Obama appeared Monday afternoon, however, to remain hopeful.

“I think it (the Summit) is an impressive indication of how deeply concerned everybody should be with the possibilities of nuclear traffic,” he said.  ”I think and the end of this we’re going to see some very specific, concrete actions that each nation is taking that will make the world a little bit safer.”

WASHINGTON - Ukraine has announced that it will remove all highly-enriched uranium by 2012.  The former Soviet republic has at least 90 kilograms of the material, which could be used to produce nuclear weapons.  The announcement comes in the midst of a 47-nation Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, D.C.

John Brennan, the Assistant to the President for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security, made the announcement during the White House Daily Press Briefing.  According to him and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, the material will most likely be held in the United States.  Details, however, are still being worked out.

At least 90 kilograms of highly-enriched uranium are currently held by the Ukraine in facilities like the Kiev Institute for Nuclear Research and the Sevastopol Institute of Nuclear Energy and Industry.  President Obama met with President Victor Yanukovich of the Ukraine earlier today to discuss the planned transfer.

Last month Chile moved its 18 kilograms of highly-enriched uranium to the United States under a top-secret transfer.  The agreement with Chile was part of a long-standing US offer to trade for highly-enriched uranium and plutonium.  Highly-enriched uranium and plutonium can be used to make nuclear weapons or so-called dirty bombs.

The Nuclear Security Summit is designed to head-start a global movement to secure vulnerable nuclear materials and prevent terrorist organizations from obtaining nuclear capabilities.  US intelligence sources report that al-Qaeda and other terrorists are actively seeking nuclear materials in order to create an improvised nuclear device.

“The single biggest threat to U.S. security, both short term, medium term and long term, would be the possibility of a terrorist organization obtaining a nuclear weapon,” President Obama said yesterday.  ”This is something that could change the security landscape of this country and around the world for years to come.  If there was ever a detonation in New York City, or London, or Johannesburg,  the ramifications economically, politically, and from a security perspective would be devastating.  And we know that organizations like al Qaeda are in the process of trying to secure a nuclear weapon — a weapon of mass destruction that they have no compunction at using.

Photo by Walter Fick

Today the Nuclear Security Summit gets under way.  President Obama already met with King Abdullah II of Jordan here at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.  No word on what they discussed, though a read-out should be available soon.  Security is tighter here than I’ve ever seen it.  The U.S. Army is out in force, though they appear to be unarmed.  Army trucks line most of the streets and intersections stretching out for many blocks away from the Convention Center.  Groups of soldiers can be seen on the street corners, along with scores of police and Secret Service.  Near the Convention Center the streets are blocked off with heavy-duty black riot fencing and concrete barriers.  Heavily armed Secret Service are everywhere and inside the Convention Center every area is heavily guarded.  As one reporter said in the official pool report this morning, “the city is basically a police state today with so many leaders to protect.”  A few protestors were seen outside the barriers, though I couldn’t make out what they were protesting because their signs were in Chinese.

Now for the real news.  President Obama is currently in a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Mohammed Najib Abdul Razak of Malaysia.  Later today he will also hold bilaterals with President Victor Yanukovich of Ukraine, President Serzh Sargsian of Armenia, and President Hu Jintao of China.  Yesterday he met with the leaders of India, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Pakistan and Nigeria.  Below are my summaries of what was discussed at each of those meetings.

India - global development, economic infrastructure, food security, poverty reduction, Afghanistan, the Nuclear Security Summit, counterterrorism, and nuclear non-proliferation

Kazakhstan - extensive talk on nuclear safety and non-proliferation, Afghanistan, investment and trade, democracy, civil contacts between the US and Kazakhstan, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe; for more details, check out the official joint statement from the meeting at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/joint-statement-meeting-between-president-obama-and-kazakhstan-president-nazarbayev

South Africa - nuclear security, South Africa’s dismantling of its nuclear weapons program, Iran, South Africa’s HIV/AIDS epidemic, climate change and clean energy, Zimbabwe, and the 2010 World Cup

Pakistan - the April 5 terrorist attack on the US Consulate and the simultaneous attack against a political event, the March 24-25 Strategic Dialogue between the US and Pakistan, increasing Pakistani popular support for the US-Pakistani relationship, US assistance to Pakistan, and energy-sector projects in Pakistan

Nigeria - global security, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, terrorism, democracy, fighting corruption, economic development and internal conflict

The biggest news of the day was right before Obama’s meeting with President Zuma of South Africa, when he spoke to the press and gave us the sound bites needed for the evening’s newscasts and this morning’s papers.  Notably, he said that “the single biggest threat to U.S. security, both short term, medium term and long term, would be the possibility of a terrorist organization obtaining a nuclear weapon.  This is something that could change the security landscape of this country and around the world for years to come.  If there was ever a detonation in New York City, or London, or Johannesburg,  the ramifications economically, politically, and from a security perspective would be devastating.  And we know that organizations like al Qaeda are in the process of trying to secure a nuclear weapon — a weapon of mass destruction that they have no compunction at using.”

That’s all for now.  Obama should be about ready to meet with President Yanukovich of the Ukraine.  In about an hour, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John Brennan will hold a press briefing here at the Convention Center.  I’ll update with a new post after that with the news of today.  Also, quickly, Vice President Biden has been in bilateral meetings this morning and will be hosting a lunch with several world leaders at the Naval Observatory.  More on that after the press briefing.

WASHINGTON - Tomorrow marks the first day of the Nuclear Security Summit, but meetings are already planned for today as President Obama tries to reach out to other world leaders.  Administration officials hail the summit as part of a global effort to prevent nuclear terrorism and secure vulnerable nuclear materials.

To kick off the Summit, Obama will hold four bilateral meetings at the Blair House today with the leaders of India, Kazakhstan, South Africa and Pakistan.  A previously scheduled meeting with President Medvedev of Russia has apparently been delayed or canceled, though the White House has not yet commented on the schedule change.

On Monday, Obama will continue with at least four bilateral meeting, before individually welcoming each delegation to the Summit.  Tuesday will include the main activities, such as two planner recessions with the delegations and a concluding press conference.

Obama’s officials have emphasized the need for this conference to make headway in global nuclear security.  Obama has called the threat of nuclear terrorism one of his highest priorities and in the last week made two key steps towards improved nuclear security.  Both the newly released Nuclear Posture Review and the new START treaty are designed to lower international tensions related to nuclear weapons.  This week’s summit will draw much more focused attention on securing vulnerable nuclear materials and preparing countries to deal with the threat of a nuclear-armed terrorist.

“A nuclear weapon in the hands of a terrorist is a danger to people everywhere — from Moscow to New York; from the cities of Europe to South Asia,” Obama said on Thursday.  ”Next week, 47 nations will come together in Washington to discuss concrete steps that can be taken to secure all vulnerable nuclear materials around the world in four years.”

The promise to secure nuclear materials in four years was first made by Obama last year when he visited Prague to outline his plan for the future of nuclear weapons.  Getting all nations on board with the plan, however, may be extremely difficult.

Past attempts to increase security around nuclear weapons have yielded minimal fruit.  Some progress has been made, by converting many highly-enriched uranium reactors to using non-weapons grade uranium, but countries have often balked at US advice on how to secure reactors and testing sites.

One potential difference will be the new role of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).  The IAEA recently had added to its mission the role of providing assistance and guidelines on what is adequate physical security for holding nuclear materials.  Dr. Amano, the head of the IAEA, will be among those in attendance at the Summit.  A head-of-delegation lunch on Tuesday will also focus on the role of the IAEA and how the agency can assist countries.

“It’s very important that we try to endorse and strengthen the role of the IAEA in this area,” Gary Samore, the White House Coordinator for WMDs, Counter-Terrorism and Arms Control, said.

Administration officials hope that the Summit will get countries to the point of making firm declarations of their intentions to strengthen the security surrounding their nuclear materials.  Experts, however, warn that any advances in this area will likely be modest.

For more, tune in to WPRB 103.3FM at 12:30PM today to listen to an interview with nuclear security expert and Princeton University Professor Dr. Frank von Hilden, and be sure to check out wprb.com/news for more updates.

Frank N. von Hippel

By: Walter Fick
White House Correspondent
WPRB News

WASHINGTON - President Obama signed the new START Treaty on Thursday with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Prague.  The agreement expands on the limits enforced by the original START Treaty, which expired in December.  The new agreement cuts the number of operationally deployable nuclear warheads down to 1,550, which is about a two-third reduction from previous levels.

The treaty also limits the number of deployable and non-deployable intercontinental ballistic missile launchers, submarine-launched ballistic missile launchers and heavy bombers to 800.  700 of these can be in a deployed status at any given time.

“When one surveys the many challenges that we face around the world, it is easy to grow complacent, or to abandon the notion that progress can be shared,” Obama said on Thursday.  ”But I want to repeat what I said last year in Prague: When nations and peoples allow themselves to be defined by their differences, the gulf between them widens.  When we fail to pursue peace, then it stays forever beyond our grasp.”

Last week President Obama also issued a new Nuclear Posture Review.  In it, he pledged for the first time that the United States would not use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state.  Exceptions were included, however, for rogue nations like Iran and North Korea that are in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

“Those nations that follow the rules will find greater security and opportunity,” Obama said.  ”Those nations that refuse to meet their obligations will be isolated, and denied the opportunity that comes with international integration.”

This week, Obama will continue with his nuclear security agenda by hosting the Nuclear Security Summit.  The Summit will include 47 nations.  It will be held Monday and Tuesday at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.  Administration officials say the primary focus will be the threat of nuclear terrorism and the need for securing vulnerable nuclear materials.

To gain further insight on these matters, WPRB News sat down with Dr. Frank von Hippel.  Von Hippel is a Professor at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Co-Director of the Program on Science and Global Security.  He has over thirty years experience specializing in nuclear security, nuclear arms control and nuclear nonproliferation.  A portion of his interview was broadcast as a Special Report on Sunday, April 11.

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west bank street // photo credit: phogel

Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s foreign minister, said in an interview today that attempts by Palestine to declare independence next year could lead Israel to revoke prior peace agreements and annex portions of the West Bank.  Though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has not released any official response to Lieberman’s comments, an official reportedly said that Israel’s long-standing policy is to respond unilaterally to any unilateral Palestinian actions.

Lieberman also emphasized that Israel will continue with plans to build settlements in the West Bank and lashed out at Turkey’s government.  Israel and Turkey, another key US partner in the region, have strong economic and military ties but have been at odds Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan censured Israeli military actions in Gaza.

Lieberman told an Israeli newspaper that Erdogan’s actions have damaged decades of “excellent” ties between the two nations and that the Prime Minister is “slowly turning into Gadhafi or Hugo Chavez (the leaders of Libya and Venezuala).”

This latest saber-rattling comes in the midst of a well-publicized dispute between Israel and the White House.  White House officials originally felt offended when Israel announced the construction of new settlements in Jerusalem during Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to the country last month.  Since then, relations between the two allies have reportedly been tense, although Netanyahu sat down with Obama for several hours during his visit to the United States.

Israeli newspapers report that Netanyahu will return to Washington next week to attend the Nuclear Security Summit.  No plans have been announced, however, for him to meet with either Obama or Erdogan during that time.  The White House has also not yet commented on Lieberman’s interview.

A conversation with Eden Full, the teenage inventor whose system of “dynamic photovoltaics” could change the way we harness solar energy and make solar power a more viable option in the developing world.  Learn about bimetallic strips, the power of bamboo, and the life of an inventor.  Listen now!

A conversation with Princeton Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Michael McAlpine, about his invention of piezorubber—the new hybrid smart material that could change the way we power tomorrow’s portable devices and more…

Learn how some materials can convert mechanical energy into useful electricity via the piezoelectric effect.  Discover how a quartz watch keeps accurate time.  Hear about the exciting future applications of piezorubber.  All here on wprb.com/news.  Listen now!

Photo: Sophie Moskop for WPRB News

This week, we talk with the commander of United States Central Command General David Petraeus about military issues in the Middle East, from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, to drones, to cybersecurity. Gen. Petraeus is the 2010 recipient of Princeton’s James Madison Medal, the highest honor conferred upon a Princeton graduate alumnus. Nick Tagher and Naomi Nix are the co-hosts for this episode. Nikki Leon is the executive producer. Andrew Saraf contributed research.

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Web Extra: Aaron Smargon interviews General Petraeus about his Princeton dissertation and ROTC.

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Thanks to our friends at Daily Princetonian Multimedia and The Prox for cross-posting this interview.

(Creative Commons Licensed Music from Learning Music and Chad Crouch; homepage photo credit: DVIDSHUB)

Recorded on February 20, 2010

CC photo credit: Thomas Beck (via flickr)

As part of WPRB’s educational outreach, on Sunday, February 7 and 14 from 12:00-1:00 PM, we will be airing a two part radio show created by Princeton University students enrolled in JRN 450: Audio Journalism. Their show, called Back Story, reveals the realities of student life at Princeton.

You can listen to segments from Back Story online at the Princeton Alumni Weekly’s website.

CC photo credit: schizoform (via flickr)

If you tuned in to WPRB in October, you may have caught an earlier version of Naomi Nix’s story about the first same-sex commitment ceremony performed in the Princeton University Chapel.  Here’s the final version, which is quite a bit different from the original.  Take a listen:

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(Reporting by Naomi Nix, Produced by Nikki Leon)

Correction:  Reverend Sue Anne Steffey Morrow was the Associate Dean of Religious Life in 1997 not the dean of the Princeton University Chapel. WPRB regrets the error.

photo credit: James Cridland

On December 8, 2009, Mr. C. H. Tung, former Chief Executive of Hong Kong gave a speech entitled “United States-China Relations: What’s Next?” at the nearby Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.  Here’s an audio archive of the speech.

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(Recorded by Rosy Yang)

Taking On: Interview with Bernard Haykel

Recorded on December 8, 2009

Interview with Alan Blinder (Full)

How did we get? How do we get out?

National Debt and Deficit

Compensation and Risk

Fed Reform

Trade Deficit and USD

Unemployment

Recorded on November 12, 2009

photo credit: Sarah G...

We’re taking a look at how mainstream media outlets are adjusting to generational and technological shifts.  Charles Gibson of ABC News shares thoughts on his retirement and the future of broadcast journalism.  Marc Fisher, Enterprise Editor at the Washington Post, gives a glimpse at how new media is revolutionizing his and others’ work.  Plus, we ask people on the street how they get their news: Paper, RSS, or Something Else?

[This show was hosted live by Nikki Leon and Connor Carreras.  Leon, Carreras and Sophie Jin contributed reporting and production.]

Interview with Charles Gibson (Nikki Leon):
Listen
Interview with Marc Fisher (Sophie Jin):
Listen
“How do you get your news?” (Connor Carreras):
Listen

photo credit: Frank Wojciechowski

This week on Discourse, Professor of Electrical Engineering Andrew Houck ‘00 joins us to discuss the latest in quantum computing.  Earlier this year, Professor Houck’s work in this exciting new field prompted the editors of Technology Review magazine to include him on their list of the top 35 young innovators for 2009. The TR35, as it is called, is described as an eclectic list of “technologists and scientists, all under the age of 35” whose work is changing the world.  In our interview, Professor Houck explains what distinguishes quantum computers from classical computers, describes the fundamental building block of quantum computers (the “qubit”), and touches upon the most important question of theoretical computer science–”does p = np?”  Listen here. 

Photo Credit: Center for American Progress

This week on Taking On, we sit down with Princeton Professor Alan Blinder to discuss the current economic turmoil, the reform of the financial system, and the role of the Federal Reserve. Part 1 airs on Sunday, November 15. Part 2 will air on Sunday, November 29. To listen to the interview in its entirety, please return to the WPRB News website after Part 2 has aired.

Recorded on November 12, 2009

photo credit: Abulic Monkey

Tune in now (12pm-1pm EST) to hear The Dispatch: Voices on Same Sex Marriage, Part II

This week, Naomi Nix takes a look at the first same-sex commitment ceremony performed in the University Chapel. Scholars Stephen Macedo and Robert George share their thoughts on the issue. And WPRB Contributor Connor Carreras sits down with lawyers on both sides of Perry v Schwarzenegger, a case challenging California’s voter-instituted ban on same-sex marriage that is set to go before a US District Court in January 2010.

Creative Commons Licensed music from Evgeny Grinko, The Family Simpson, and Learning Music.

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This week, WPRB News is airing a two-part series Oct 25 and Nov 1.  The Dispatch: Voices on Same Sex Marriage takes taking a look at how different groups have engaged the issue of gay unions.  This week, Leif Johnson explores what happens when a University is asked to take a political stance, Sophie Jin visits a march in Washington DC, and historian Neil J. Young explains how one particular religious denomination, the Church of Latter Day Saints, became involved in the passage of California Proposition 8 last year.

CC-Licensed music from Evgeny Grinko, Learning Music, Sagan, Bomba Estereo.

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Show segments:

Show Promo
Introduction
The Issue Comes to Campus
Scenes from a March

The show also included an interview with historian Neil J. Young, originally featured here on Discourse.

flickr CC licensed photo: carlosgomez

During this fall’s membership drive, WPRB News aired an interview with Charles Gibson, longtime ABC anchor and host of World News Tonight with Charles Gibson. Gibson, set to retire at the end of this year, shared some thoughts about the future of broadcast media. He also reminisced about his career and his beginnings in broadcast journalism as News Director at WPRB.

Listen here.

Produced by Nikki Leon.

photo credit: adrienneserra

Alfred Miller sits down with Princeton Electrical Engineering professor Paul Prucnal and Princeton PhD student John Suarez. Professor Prucnal is head of the Lightwave Communications Laboratory.  John Suarez is also a member of the laboratory. They’ll explain how they could make the Internet a thousand times faster using light.

Music from Evgeny Grinko and Sagan.
Listen to the promo and full show:
Promo
Full Show

Listen to the full program here.

Recorded on October 4, 2009

Music on this program: Night Lights (Learning Music), Four Little Blackberries (Thomas Mills), La Boquilla (Bomba Estereo)

Taking On is a new show, hosted by Aaron Smargon and Nicholas Tagher, that focuses on politics and economics. Their first guest is physician and former Republican Senate Majority leader Bill Frist.

Discourse, entering its fourth season, covers everything from economics to the arts. This week, Princeton Electrical Engineering Professor Paul Prucnal discusses how innovation in the field of fiber optics is shaping the future of digital communication.

Check back here on Sunday at 12pm to listen to both shows.

By Sebastian Jones

Several weeks ago I wrote an article for our sister publication, the Nassau Weekly, about Princeton’s corporate relationships, the potential problems they present and the fact it is extremely difficult for interested students and faculty to figure out what exactly is going on.

One of the examples I highlighted dealt with Alimta, a lifesaving cancer medicine manufactured by pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly under a license from Princeton University, who owns the patent for the drug’s key component. As I noted in the story, Alimta can be rather expensive– up to $11,000 a month– and while some patients are hoping for a cheaper alternative, they will have to wait longer because Eli Lilly and Princeton have filed a series of suits in federal court to prevent the production of a generic version. If these cheaper alternatives enter the market, Princeton and Eli Lilly claim they “will be substantially and irreparably damaged.”

Eli Lilly’s motivations and those of the generic drug companies involved are evident: they out to make a profit. But what is Princeton University, a non-profit institution of higher learning fond of saying it acts in the nation’s service, doing in the midst of the controversial fight over the price and accessibility of pharmaceuticals and the production of generics? Follow the money:

Eli Lilly has told the SEC their arrangement with Princeton ensures the university a “single-digit percentage” cut of the sales of the drug in exchange for exclusive license to produce Alimta. Net sales for the drug topped 1.15 billion in 2008, meaning Princeton scooped up somewhere between roughly $11 and $104 million from their partnership with Eli Lilly. Beyond the licensing agreement, Eli Lilly has given the University $500,000 for an endowed graduate fellowship.

Later in the piece I predicted that when University President Shirley Tilghman addressed my class last week, her speech would likely play down or neglect entirely Princeton’s corporate ties while calling upon graduating seniors to be active and informed citizens, drawing on the civic consciousness that Princeton helped each of us grow, challenging injustice, and so forth and so on. In other words, boilerplate graduation rhetoric mixed with reverential discussion of Princeton’s commitment to service and selflessness—the institutional ideals one reads about in the admissions brochures and that form the backbone of the speeches at opening and closing ceremonies.

Not only did Tilghman deliver that in her June 2nd speech, titled “In Pursuit of Purpose and Meaning”, she also outlined the ways “the University contributes to both social change and economic progress” as follows:

We are justly proud of the many contributions that Princeton faculty have made over the years — from Professors Steve Pacala and Rob Socolow’s “wedges” concept, which demonstrates that it is possible to substantially reduce carbon emissions today through the adoption of multiple existing technologies; to Emeritus Professor of Chemistry Ted Taylor’s development of Alimta, a drug that is now saving and extending lives of cancer patients; to the Center for African American Studies’ Toni Morrison Lecture that each year provides a national forum for a distinguished public figure to address the impact of race in America; to Professors John Ikenberry and Anne-Marie Slaughter’s Princeton Project on National Security that laid out a sustainable and effective national security strategy for the United States. These examples, and many, many more that I could name, reflect Princeton’s commitment to being “in the nation’s service and in the service of all nations.”

On one hand, Tilghman is correct: there can be no doubt Alimta has saved lives. However, that it could be saving additional lives if it were cheaper and more accessible– something Princeton is actively impeding through its litigation—is also beyond dispute.

If Princeton were a company accountable to shareholders, if it existed purely to generate profit—in other words, if it were Eli Lilly—its need to conduct itself in a socially responsible manner would be up for debate. As a non-profit that claims to be in the nation’s service and in the service of all nations (a particularly ironic set of words when considering the need for generics in the developing world), its decision to actively side with big pharmaceuticals on the issue of generics is puzzling. Perhaps that’s why we only heard half the Alimta story in Tilghman’s speech.

–

When The Nassau Weekly posts their May 29th issue online, I’ll put up a link to the article. For now, you can read my entire piece, “In Whose Service: Examining Princeton’s Troubling Corporate Ties”, here. Portions of it will be familiar to those who followed WPRB’s coverage of Princeton investments in BAE Systems and Zimbabwe.

(Front page image credit: Joe Shlabotnik)

In collaboration with the WPRB’s Publicity and Promotions department, News will be presenting an interview today and Sunday with poet and part-time rock star, Paul Muldoon.  Muldoon is the Howard G. B. Clark Professor and Chair of the Peter B. Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University.  His collections include New Weather (1973), Meeting the British (1987), Moy Sand and Gravel (2002, garnered a Pulitzer Prize) and, most recently, Horse Latitudes (2006).  He is also the Poetry editor of the New Yorker magazine.  Though best known for his own poetry, Muldoon writes lyrics and plays guitar in a band called Rackett.  Rackett is scheduled to perform Saturday May 2nd at the Performing Arts Center in  Princeton New Jersey and at the Bowery Poetry Club on May 16 and June 20.  A returning guest on Discourse, Muldoon focuses this time on the connections between his poetry and his music.  Tune in today at around 7:30 EST (subject to change) and Sunday, May 3rd at 12:00pm EST.  Or just listen here:

Part I

Part II

Web Extra:

This is Muldoon’s second appearance on Discourse.  During his first interview on the show, Muldoon read his poem “Wind and Tree” from New Weather (1973).

Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench

From Discourse, Sunday April 19 at 12:00 pm EST, produced by Nikki Leon.

A conversation with filmmaker Damien Chazelle, whose debut picture, Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, is being feaured in the “Discovery” category at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival.  Guy and Madeline is a musical, a gritty, vérité-style jazz flick, and, at its core, a love story.  Catch the world premier at Tribeca this April 23rd, or check out the festival website for following showtimes and tickets.

Promo:

Part I:

Part II:

Part III:

Photo credit: kaibara87

From Discourse, Sunday April 19 at 12:30 pm EST, produced by Sophie Jin and Yihe Dong.

In this episode we take a look at the life cycle of a cell, and a particular state called “quiescence,” which may hold the key to developments in cancer research. Dong sits down with Hilary Coller, a leading molecular biologist at Princeton University, to discuss her work.

Part I:

Part II:

Part III:

Sunday at 12:00 pm EST, join News Director Nikki Leon for a conversation with filmmaker Damien Chazelle, whose debut picture—Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench—is being featured at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival. Listen to the promo:

hereThen, at 12:30 pm EST Sophie Jin and Yihe Dong take a look at the latest in cell research. Jin explains how scientists are investigating “quiescence,” a specific state in the life cycle of the cell. Dong speaks with Princeton biologist Hilary Coller, a leader in the study of quiescence, about how her work may, among other things, be applied to cancer research.

If you miss the broadcast or want to hear it a second time, come back to WPRB News for both episodes.

Photo credit: Wonderlane

From Discourse, Sunday April 12 at 12:00 pm EST, produced by Nikki Leon and Alfred Miller.

In this episode, we take a look at a new technology, “nanoimprint lithography” developed by Princeton University scientist Stephen Chou. We explore how this method of building things on a “nano” scale can be used in a variety of areas, from building microchips to examining DNA. Chou reflects his work with Science correspondent Alfred Miller. MIT’s Technology Review has named nanoimprint lithography one of the “10 emerging technologies that will change the world” twice—first in 2003, and again this year, for its applications in DNA sequencing.

Part I

Part II

Part III

Photo credit: Cecilio M. Ricardo Jr.

From Discourse, Sunday April 12 at 12:00 pm EST, produced by Sophie Jin.

In this installment, Jin sits down with Jon Greenwald, Vice President of the International Crisis Group, to talk about about the repercussions of the US War on Terror in the Middle East and the role President Barack Obama has played in changing the diplomatic climate of the region.

Part I

Part II

Part III
Web Extra: More on Afghanistan

Photo credit: BotheredByBees

Sunday at 12:00 pm EST, join producer Sophie Jin for an interview with Jon Greenwald, Vice President of the International Crisis Group and former director of the U.S. Department of State Office of Counter-Terrorism.  Greenwald discusses the state of American involvement in the Middle East and how the Obama administration is shaping perspectives on America worldwide.

Then, at 12:30 pm EST, Nikki Leon and Alfred Miller take a look at a new technology, called “nanoimprint lithography,” developed by Princeton University scientist Stephen Chou.  Nanoimprint lithography allows scientists to build structures on the tiniest scale—including ever-smaller microchips and special molds used in DNA sequencing.  Miller speaks with Chou about his discoveries.

If you miss the broadcast or want to hear it a second time, come back here to listen to both episodes.

Here’s the e-mail, in its entirety:

April 6, 2009

Dear members of the Princeton University community,

I am writing to provide you with an update on the continued impact of the economic downturn on the University.  Since I wrote to you in January, I have been greatly heartened by the thoughtful response of the community to the goal we set for ourselves: protecting those commitments that are most central to our mission.  These include maintaining our historic leadership in financial aid for undergraduates and fellowship support for graduate students; preserving, and whenever possible, enhancing the quality of the faculty; and sustaining the quality of our dedicated staff.  We have sought to preserve our human capital by achieving vacancy savings on both the academic and administrative sides and by identifying categories of spending where we could conserve or do without.  Because of your willingness to make hard but strategic choices, we can say with confidence that we have been able to reduce our spending without compromising the quality of the education we provide or the research and scholarship we conduct.  We also continue to benefit from a long tradition of prudent management of the University’s resources, which puts us in a relatively strong position to weather the economic storm.  Finally, the loyalty and generosity of our alumni/ae, parents and friends remain a source of great strength.  As I have traveled around the country over the last three months, I have been continually struck by the larger than expected turnouts at Princeton events, and the interest in and concern for the impact of the downturn on the University expressed by everyone I meet.

Unhappily, the news from the financial markets has not improved since January.  Indeed the markets have continued to decline in value, and Andrew Golden, the President of the Princeton University Investment Company, has now advised us that we should be planning for a 30% decrease in the value of the endowment on June 30, 2009, the end of our fiscal year, rather than the 25% we have been using in our budget projections for next year.  This is, of course, a “best guess,” but it is one that we must take seriously.

As we respond to this more pessimistic outlook for endowment earnings, we have been forced to revisit the FY2010 budget that was approved by the Board of Trustees in January to identify additional savings.  That budget, you may recall, contained a very modest salary increase pool that directed the largest percentage increases to the University’s untenured faculty and lower-paid staff, and capped all increases at $2,000.  In a variety of settings over the last few months, we have heard from both faculty and staff that they would be willing to forego their increases to minimize the number of lay-offs that might affect their co-workers.  Given the new estimate of reduced endowment income, Provost Chris Eisgruber sought the advice of the members of both the Priorities Committee and the Committee on Appointments and Advancements (the Committee of Three) on a proposal to eliminate raises for tenured faculty and for staff with salaries exceeding $75,000, while continuing to provide increases for most untenured faculty and for staff with salaries under $75,000.  These representatives of the community who participate in setting salaries each year encouraged us to take this step, which will result in savings of approximately $4 million next year, and the Finance Committee of the Board of Trustees accepted this recommendation last weekend.  I deeply regret that this action will add to the financial challenges that many of you face.

It is also essential that we begin to plan beyond the coming academic year.  Over the last two months Provost Eisgruber and Executive Vice President Mark Burstein have described in a variety of campus meetings the impact of the market downturn on the financial status of the University, emphasizing that it will take multiple years to restore a decline of 25% in endowment value.  With the prospect of a 30% decline in value by June 30, 2009, followed by the likelihood that next year will see no rebound in earnings, we must begin detailed planning for that multi-year budget reduction process now.  Even with the substantial savings we anticipate in the 2009-10 academic year, we will be spending 6.7% of the endowment’s value next year, well outside our target range of 4-5.75%.  If we are to preserve the spending power of the endowment for future generations, we must begin to bring our spending closer to the policy that governs how much of the endowment we may prudently spend each year.

For the coming academic year each department has already been asked to prepare for a 5% reduction in its non-personnel administrative budget and an 8% decrease in its income from restricted endowment accounts.  These savings, when combined with actions taken centrally, will result in an overall reduction of $88 million in the FY2010 budget.  This represents a reduction in the operating budget of 6.8%, based on this year’s $1.3 billion budget.  We are now certain that a reduction of similar magnitude will be required in the 2010-11 academic year, which means another 8% cut in endowment spending on top of this year’s reduction.  Even with this further belt-tightening, we will not be in compliance with our policy for at least another year after that.

In the near future department managers will be receiving from the Provost a two-year savings target to be achieved by FY2011, which will include the savings they have already planned for in the coming year.  There is no question that this overall two-year target of $170 million in savings will be difficult to achieve, as the first round of cuts eliminated the majority of things that were relatively easy to forego.  The steady growth in both faculty and staff that we have enjoyed over the last 10 years will end, and the University will have to contract in size.  However, if we do this carefully and responsibly it is my conviction that the University will come through this difficult period stronger than ever.  This is a time that calls for us to be as thoughtful as possible about what is most important to the success of Princeton, and to preserve those qualities aggressively.

The revised estimate for the endowment’s performance will also affect the 10-year capital plan.  The slowdown in all new projects, which we put in place in January, remains in effect, and any decision to go forward with a renovation or new construction project will be made on a case-by-case basis, contingent on having 100% of the funding in hand.  The stimulus package that was just passed by the Congress contains some funding for infrastructure, and Dean for Research Stew Smith is actively seeking to attract some of those resources to Princeton.  In the meantime we will continue to move forward with designs and approvals for the highest priorities in the plan: the new home for the Lewis Center for the Arts, the Neuroscience Institute and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment.  It is our intention to be “shovel ready” at the moment when funding becomes available.

Let me conclude by thanking Provost Eisgruber, Executive Vice President Burstein, Dean of the Faculty David Dobkin, Vice President for Finance Carolyn Ainslie and Vice President for Human Resources Lianne Sullivan-Crowley, as well as the many members of their staffs, who have worked so tirelessly over the last several months to implement these painful but necessary budget cuts.  And I thank all members of the Princeton community who have worked in partnership with them, without complaint and with both inventiveness and determination, to execute the plan.  I am truly grateful that the sense of community we celebrate in good times is in such clear evidence when times get tough.

Sincerely,

Shirley M. Tilghman

Image credit: syvwich

From Discourse, Sunday April 5 at 12:30 pm EST, an interview with physicist and author Tony Rothman about his latest book, Sacred Mathematics. Rothman reads from his book and examines how Japanese mathematics flourished, along with other strains of national culture, during Japan’s pre-19th century period of isolation from the west.  Produced by Nikki Leon.

Part I

Part II

Part III

]]> http://www.wprb.com/news/2009/04/05/494/feed http://www.wprb.com/news/2009/04/05/487 http://www.wprb.com/news/2009/04/05/487#comments Sun, 05 Apr 2009 16:05:44 +0000 newsdirector http://www.wprb.com/news/?p=487

Image credit: Ted Percival

From Discourse, Sunday April 5 at 12:00 pm EST, Marriage and the Mormons, part one of the series Marriage, Law, and American Society, produced by Sophie Jin.

In this installment, Jin sits down with Slate contributor and Princeton University Historian Neil J. Young to discuss how Mormon political involvement in passing Proposition 8 is part of a long legacy of Mormon political involvement that includes action in the 1970’s against (and in some cases, for) the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.  Young also explains how Mormon theology and history set the conditions for this involvement.

Listen here:

Part I

Part II

Part III

Interview Extra (online only): Dissent within the Church of the Latter-Day Saints

After the broadcast, check back here to download the program and listen to web extras not included in the episode.

Then, at 12:30 pm EST catch a second episode of Discourse: a conversation with physicist and writer Tony Rothman on what Japanese traditions of geometry and spirituality can tell us about the relationship between East and West.  Rothman reads from his latest book on the subject, Sacred Mathematics.

The Harvard Crimson published a very interesting story a few days ago about Iris Mack, an analyst at the Harvard Management Company who brought attention to “frightening” trades involving derivatives via e-mails to the office of the university’s then-president, Larry Summers.  Like many other whistleblowers, Mack was promptly fired:

In an e-mail sent May 30, 2002 to Marne Levine, chief of staff for then-Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers, Mack detailed her concerns regarding what she deemed HMC’s “frightening” usage of derivatives and statistical modeling techniques, as well as the Company’s lack of a timely and portfolio-wide risk management system, high employee turnover rate, and low level of productivity in the workplace, specifically among managers…

Mack, a derivatives researcher for Enron before coming to HMC, says she was “shocked” by the mishandling and ignorance of derivatives at the HMC international equities division where she worked, led by Jeffrey B. Larson. At the time, Mack says, Larson’s group had only recently begun exploring more sophisticated financial instruments such as credit default swaps and capital structure arbitrage.

Larson left his job at Harvard in 2004 to start his own hedge fund, Sowood Capital Management, with $500 million worth of seed money courtesy of the university. What happened next?

Sowood collapsed in 2007 due to heavily leveraged investments in corporate debt—making national headlines as one of the first high-profile hedge fund implosions of the subprime mortgage crisis—costing Harvard $350 million.

Oops.

More broadly, that a university– not an investment bank or insurance giant– was fiddling around in credit default swaps up until very recently bears some serious consideration. Also worth thinking about: the $17,256,161 that Larson pulled in during FY2003 and the $35,099,300 that Maurice Samuels, a Senior Vice President for the Harvard Management Company, netted that same year, according to tax records. While salaries for HMC employees have dropped to less astronomical levels since 2004, some still rake in millions.  Here at Princeton, the three highest compensated employees all work for the Princeton Investment Company and a list of other educational institutions where the top earners are investment managers would be long.

A few years ago, when the money was pouring in, all of this might have been unsettling but excusable and perhaps that’s why Larry Summers apparently was not too interested in hearing about the trouble at HMC.  Today, however, with endowment losses at Harvard and Princeton both estimated to end up around 30%, it might be time to rethink how universities manage their billions while injecting a little transparency into the process.  Not that I’d get my hopes up.

–
TPMMuckraker has a post up on the Mack story.

At 12:00 pm, WPRB correspondent Yihe Dong speaks with philosopher Daniel Cloud about the links between human evolution and everything from crisis in Russia to America’s economic crisis. Cloud is the Cotsen Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton University.

Then, at 12:30 pm, News Director Nikki Leon sits down with Civil War historian James M. McPherson to discuss the life of Abraham Lincoln, McPherson’s latest biography of the late President, and the frenzy that has surrounded the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth. McPherson is George Henry Davis ‘86 Professor Emeritus of United States History at Princeton University, and has received the Pulitzer Prize for his Civil War history, Battle Cry of Freedom. (Originally aired Febrary 22, 2009)

Next week, from 12-12:30, WPRB News will debut the first in a two-part series on American Law, Marriage, and Proposition 8. Then, at 12:30, Tony Rothman will speak about his latest book, Sacred Mathematics, a history of Japanese mathematicians and Buddhist temples.

Guests to look forward to in the coming weeks:
-Science writer Tony Rothman speaks about his latest book Sacred Mathematics, Buddhist temples, and traveling Japanese mathematicians.
-Philosopher Daniel Cloud examines the links between Darwin and economic downfall.
-Biologist Hilary Coller watches cells divide.

Alfred Miller speaks with leading synthetic biologist Prof. Ron Weiss on “programming bacteria.”

Nikki Leon interviews Dr. Roberta Hotinski, of the Princeton Environmental Institute, about the ways in which scientists are educating business leaders and the greater public about climate change.

Discourse will not air this week, due to a Sports broadcast beginning at 12:40.

On The Dispatch, 12:00-12:30 PM:

Sophie Jin sits down with Princeton University Lecturer in Islamic Culture Michael Barry to discuss how U.S. policy towards Iran is shaping sectarian violence.

On Discourse, 12:30-1:00 PM:

Jun Koh speaks with physicist, bestselling author, and humanitarian activist Alan Lightman about the Harpswell Foundation—a group Lightman started ten years ago to serve young women in Cambodia.

The Dispatch, Sundays 12:00 to 12:30 PM

This week, Ashley Schoettle speaks with U.S. Ambassadors Barbara Bodine and Robert Finn about challenges faced in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Discourse, Sundays 12:30 to 1:00 PM

Nikki Leon interviews Pulitzer Prize winning Civil War historian James M. McPherson about his latest biography: Abraham Lincoln.

Universities around the country are bracing for massive cuts as states rethink their shrinking budgets. In preparation for expected budget cuts, many are asking their staffs to look for any way to save money. School officials say cutting a university budget is complicated by factors like tenure, which make it harder to lay people off.

Of course, the same problems apply here at Princeton University and the other Ivies– per The Wall Street Journal, earlier this month:

Princeton said its endowment supports 45% of its roughly $1.25 billion budget — far more than most universities, making budget cuts necessary. Dr. Tilghman said the best-compensated employees would have their raises capped at $2,000 and administrative budgets would be reduced by 5%. Princeton said it would scrutinize all new hiring, including new faculty searches and defer new capital projects to save more than $300 million over 10 years.

And it appears the worst is yet to come, with the Journal reporting that “none of the schools gave data on performance to date of their holdings of more exotic and illiquid investments, such as real estate, commodities and private equities. The expected losses in those categories have led to the bigger, full-year loss estimates.”

Question of the day: when will universities make the pilgrimage to Capitol Hill to request a bailout?

Following significant endowment losses in 2008, the University will be investing in a joint venture with Somali pirates, Princeton University Investment Company (PRINCO) president Andrew Golden said in an interview Friday.

However, they save the best for last. As seen in Tina Fey’s comedic approach to the Palin-Couric interviews, sometimes the true content requires very little manipulation. Do any of these faux-quotes sound familiar? You be the judge:

The University seems unfazed by what some have called the “questionable ethics” of the investment.

Golden explained that the University performs no regular ethical review of its investments and instead focuses only on maximizing financial returns.

“Fundamentally, the instructions we give to our investment managers is that they should invest with the goal of maximizing return over the long-term,” University Vice President and Secretary Bob Durkee ’69 said. “A strong presumption is that the University as an institution will not take a position or play an active role with respect to external issues of a political, social or moral character.”

Students should not really care about the ethics of the University’s investments, University spokeswoman Cass Cliatt ’96 said.

“Members of the campus community with interest in these issues typically would not need to know whether the University is invested in a Somali pirate band today to know whether they feel the University should be invested in such an organization,” Cliatt said. “If a group of people have a question or concern about something taking place in the world, that belief would exist regardless of whether the University is invested there.”

Golden agreed that interest in ethical investment practices should not stem from knowledge of how the University invests its money, but instead from a broader interest in the world at large. Examining a list of University holdings for the purpose of raising ethical questions would be “the tail wagging the dog,” he said.

“Why would you focus first on those companies we’re invested in as opposed to looking out and thinking ‘what do I care most about in the world?’ ” he explained. “I care more about the engagement of the entire community in social issues, in ways that go far beyond the investment portfolio, especially because the investment portfolio may be a particularly cost-ineffective way of making change.”

First, the very qualified Nikki Leon, who many of you will recognize as this year’s host and voice of Discourse will be taking over day-to-day operations. Her focus will be on bolstering our culture and arts content and she has some very good ideas for the general future of the department.

Second, the News department will be boosting its emphasis on online and multimedia news. My blog, Off The Air (which was sorely neglected for months on end) has moved off-site and will now focus on enterprise and accountability reporting on and off campus. It will have several contributors and the content will be available here most of the time too.

Overall, we always enjoy hearing from listeners and readers– if you have any suggestions on how we can better serve you in this new year, let us know: news@wprb.com

Best,
Sebastian Jones

This morning Shirley Tilghman, the President of Princeton University, sent an e-mail to students and staff with an “update on Princeton’s response to the economic downturn”, spelling out some of the losses the university’s endowment has suffered.

According to Tilghman, by late October, “the University’s endowment had declined by 11%, based upon our standard reporting protocols, using information that is the best available as of the reporting date.”

She added that this figure likely “understates the actual economic loss”:

And, of course, financial markets have continued to decline since then. Although we cannot know what the next six months will bring, we believe it is prudent for the University to plan for the possibility that its endowment will have declined by 25% at the end of the fiscal year.

Full e-mail below…

Subject: Update on Princeton’s Response to the Economic Downturn
From: “Shirley M. Tilghman”
Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2009 09:12:19 -0500

January 8, 2009

To the Princeton campus community:
The New Year is traditionally a time for reviewing the past and anticipating the future. As we begin 2009, our thoughts cannot help but turn to the impact of the world’s turbulent economy. Many of you have asked me how Princeton has been affected and what lies ahead for our University. I want to take advantage of the pause between semesters to provide you with some information about Princeton’s economic condition and share with you my perspective on the months and years ahead. I have also had an opportunity to discuss these matters at length with the Trustees, who have been very supportive of the actions we are taking.

Let me begin by observing that despite the turmoil outside the FitzRandolph Gates, the University is flourishing. Professor Paul Krugman of the Department of Economics and the Woodrow Wilson School received the Nobel Prize in economics, and members of the classes of 2008 and 2009 earned three Rhodes and one Marshall Scholarship to study in the United Kingdom. These widely reported achievements were only the tip of the iceberg: faculty members and students throughout the University continue to perform brilliantly and garner national and international honors.

Moreover, our loyal alumni, parents and friends set a new record for Annual Giving last June and the Aspire campaign is making excellent progress, highlighted this year by the magnificent gift of Gerry Andlinger ’52 to launch the new Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment. The Peter B. Lewis Library opened this fall, attracting rave reviews from both architecture critics and Princeton students, who have already made it one of the most popular study spaces on campus. A few blocks away, graceful and light-filled Sherrerd Hall has quickly become a campus landmark for the Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering and the Center for Information Technology Policy. And this fall the women’s soccer team celebrated the inaugural year of the stunningly beautiful Roberts Stadium with an Ivy League title. I am truly grateful to be part of such a vibrant and healthy university, especially during such difficult times.

At the same time, Princeton is not immune from the effects of the turmoil gripping the world economy. In particular, our endowment, which has grown robustly in past years and now supplies more than 45% of the University’s operating revenue, has significantly lost value since the beginning of the current fiscal year last July 1. Through October 31, the University’s endowment had declined by 11%, based upon our standard reporting protocols, using information that is the best available as of the reporting date. However, given that values for non-marketable investments, which comprise more than half of the endowment portfolio, are reported only with lagged estimates until the end of each fiscal year, it is certain that 11% understates the actual economic loss the endowment suffered through October. And, of course, financial markets have continued to decline since then. Although we cannot know what the next six months will bring, we believe it is prudent for the University to plan for the possibility that its endowment will have declined by 25% at the end of the fiscal year.

Declines in endowment value do not automatically reduce the endowment’s contribution to next year’s operating budget. On the contrary, our policy is to increase that contribution by 5% each year, as long as the amount falls between 4.0% and 5.75% of the value of the endowment, as determined on June 30 of the prior fiscal year. When our rate falls below that range we make upward adjustments in spending and when it rises above that range, we must make downward adjustments. On five occasions in the past 11 years we have made special upward adjustments, and this year our spending rate is comfortably within the range at 4.76%. Looking ahead, however, a 25% decline in the value of the endowment would put our spending rate well above the upper limit of our range. To bring spending closer to the upper limit, we are planning to reduce the endowment’s contribution to the University’s general funds operating budget next year by $50 million. Even with this reduction, our spending rate would remain outside our target range, exceeding 6%, but we believe this spending level represents a measured response to the current economic climate. If circumstances change between now and June, we have the flexibility to modify this plan.

Fortunately, Princeton planned conservatively during the good years, knowing full well that markets go down as well as up. Though this year’s downturn is deeper than what anyone could have imagined, Princeton will be able to protect its key assets. Foremost among these is our human capital—the students, faculty and staff who are the vital heart of a great scholarly enterprise. One of Princeton’s signature commitments is our unsurpassed financial aid program, which led the way in 2001 as the first university program to replace student loans with grants. We are completely committed to meeting the full financial need of the students who will be admitted this year, as well as currently enrolled students, some of whose families have already been affected by the recession. In addition, we have approved some modest improvements to Princeton’s aid package this year, reducing the summer earnings requirement at a time when jobs will likely be hard to find. Happily, we have been able to fully meet an unanticipated increase of ~$5 million in demand for financial aid this year because of the extraordinary performance of the 2008 Annual Giving campaign.

It is also essential that we continue to recruit and retain the finest faculty in the world. In the past few years we have been enhancing our strength in high priority areas such as neuroscience, the creative and performing arts, African American studies and international relations, as well as sustaining excellence in disciplines where we are already preeminent. We should not put at risk the foundations we have so recently laid. Consequently, for this year the University will continue the searches for new faculty members that have already been authorized, with the goal of attracting to Princeton new colleagues who will sustain and enhance the quality of our research and teaching. However, any new requests to initiate or reopen a faculty search will be carefully reviewed by Dean of the Faculty David Dobkin, so that we can direct our limited resources to our most pressing needs.

In recognition of the important role that the University’s administration plays in our preeminence, we have been making strategic investments in our staff over the last several years to strengthen our effectiveness as a university. To reach our operating budget target for fiscal year 2010, we will need to slow this growth considerably. Beginning immediately, all new searches for term, temporary and regular employment must be approved in advance by a review committee composed of Provost Christopher Eisgruber, Executive Vice President Mark Burstein and Vice President for Human Resources Lianne Sullivan-Crowley. The committee will also review the status of searches currently under way to determine if any could be placed on hold. This scrutiny of new hiring will allow us to sustain our commitment to the dedicated staff currently working at Princeton.

If we are to devote Princeton’s resources to our core priorities and protect our human capital, all of us will have to work together to reduce expenses on other fronts. As you know, we have been reviewing the University’s 10-year capital plan, and earlier this semester we announced a series of project deferrals that reduced the cost of the plan by more than $300 million. While we continue to review opportunities for savings in the capital plan, we will complete the two major construction projects already under way; the exciting renewal of the Butler College dormitories and the new chemistry building on Washington Road. To ensure that we are poised to rebound rapidly when the economic climate improves, we will continue to design and seek public approvals for high priority projects such as the new home for the Lewis Center for the Arts, the new psychology and neuroscience buildings and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, but authorization to begin all construction and renovation projects will be made on a case-by-case basis, contingent on funding. The projects in the capital plan are critical to the future of the University, and we are hopeful that they will move forward as soon as economic conditions allow. Until that happens, however, we need to adjust our expectations appropriately, and I appreciate the support and good will that we have received from those whose projects have already been affected.

We must also look for ways to conduct all aspects of the University’s operations more efficiently. All non-personnel administrative budget allocations will be reduced by 5% in fiscal year 2010. Furthermore, departments with restricted endowed funds must plan for an 8% decrease in their annual allocations from these funds, and it is possible that further decreases will be needed in fiscal year 2011. While it may provide small comfort today, it is helpful to remind ourselves that even with this decrease in income, the payout from endowment units in fiscal year 2010 will be 50% higher than it was just four years ago. For this we have to thank the tremendous success of PRINCO, our investment company, whose skillful investing allowed us to significantly increase endowment spending in 2006 and 2007.

In order to help managers achieve the savings that these decreases require, I have asked Mark Burstein and Vice President for Finance and Treasurer Carolyn Ainslie to design a set of tools that will assist departments in reducing their budgets. These include everything from renegotiating procurement contracts to reducing the amount of printed materials. A website that describes the cost-savings initiatives can be found at http://www.princeton.edu/savings . I also ask anyone with good ideas to submit them to Mark Burstein via a suggestion box on that website. I am confident that we will be able to call upon the ingenuity and competitiveness of the entire Princeton community to help us identify and deliver ways in which we can reduce non-essential costs.

I have also asked Provost Eisgruber to collaborate with academic units to ensure that all the funds they manage are being directed to core priorities rather than more discretionary ones. Unfortunately, the economic constraints confronting us will require that we reduce the number of visiting faculty and fellows whom we might otherwise bring to campus to enrich our scholarly community, and Dean Dobkin will work with academic units to minimize such appointments next year. All of us in Nassau Hall recognize that needs and opportunities will vary from one department to the next, and we will work with chairs and managers to implement these budgetary initiatives in ways that are sensitive to the differences among units.

I am very grateful this year to the members of the Priorities Committee, chaired by Provost Eisgruber, who have worked so thoughtfully and flexibly for the last several months to craft a set of budgetary recommendations during a time when the economic landscape was changing day-by-day. That committee, which is charged with recommending an operating budget for the University each year, includes representatives of the faculty, staff and the undergraduate and graduate student bodies.

The committee will bring to the Board of Trustees for approval later this month three important recommendations. First, the members will propose that in light of the very modest funding that will be available for increases in faculty and staff salaries next year, the largest percentage increases should be directed to the University’s lowest paid employees. To accomplish this important goal, the maximum increases for tenured faculty and the highest compensated staff will be capped at $2,000. Second, in recognition of the need to sustain the quality of the Graduate School at Princeton, the Priorities Committee will recommend a 3% increase to graduate student stipends. Third, the committee will recommend a 2.9% increase in the undergraduate fee package for the 2009-10 year, the lowest percentage increase since 1966. This increase, which will not affect any student on financial aid, reflects the fact that many of our tuition-paying families are experiencing financial setbacks of their own.

The committee’s proposed budget also recognizes the University’s confidence in the goals of our five-year Aspire campaign. The campaign continues energetically in its second year, and we plan to adhere to the announced timeline for it. The initiatives embodied within the campaign are the University’s highest priorities, and I am thankful for the energy that Princeton’s volunteers, donors and friends have brought to the achievement of these goals. A campaign is a marathon, not a sprint, and I remain very optimistic about the prospects for success.

The extraordinary depth of the economic downturn, coupled with the uncertainty of predicting its duration or impact, make it likely that we are at the beginning of a multiyear budgetary adjustment. As this academic year progresses, my colleagues and I will continue to watch economic developments carefully so that Princeton can adjust its response as circumstances warrant. All of us hope that an economic recovery will come sooner rather than later, but it is likely that this year’s downturn will require creative planning for not only the upcoming budget year but later ones. The University will weather this storm and emerge from it even stronger than ever if all of us pull together and contribute our energy, understanding and good will. While all of us would prefer a different set of challenges and a sunnier economic forecast, I am cheered by the commitment and spirit that the entire Princeton community has already shown in these difficult times. I cannot imagine a better group of partners with whom to approach the tasks ahead, and I very much look forward to working with all of you in the New Year.

Sincerely,
Shirley M. Tilghman

The broad takeaway: while Princeton claims it no longer owns BAE bonds and that it has two cents worth of an 18-year-old holding in Zimbabwe, nothing prevents the University from making future investments in either. Further, Princeton can only offer speculation to account for the listing of Zimbabwe on a federally-filed, public tax form that requires disclosure of investments of $10,000 or greater in foreign countries. What has changed, however, is that investment records are no longer made public due to concerns over “economic cost”. The precise economic cost of having made investments public before 2002, when the current non-disclosure policy was implemented, remains unclear.

BAE Systems
While the money manager responsible for the acquisition of BAE bonds is no longer affiliated with Princeton, “the fact these changes occurred had nothing to do with BAE,” Golden told WPRB.

“There is nothing that prevents us from investing in defense contractors,” Golden said, adding that the manager who acquired the BAE bonds “thought it was a good economic investment.”

While PRINCO is charged with overseeing Princeton’s multi-billion dollar endowment and managing funds of several organizations associated with the University, including WPRB, individual investment decisions are made by external money managers. Any non-economic factor applied to investment decisions– what Golden termed a “social overlay”– must be imposed by the Trustees of Princeton University and not by PRINCO or individual money managers.

Zimbabwe
After a lengthy search, PRINCO could only locate a single, 18-year-old bond valued at around $.02, Golden told WPRB, adding he was “99 percent sure” it was the only investment.

Should PRINCO’s review prove accurate, why Zimbabwe was listed last year among countries where the University has investments in excess of $10,000 remains a mystery. During the Friday interview with WPRB, Golden suggested it was an “out and out mistake” while Cliatt speculated that Zimbabwe might have been listed because in situations where “there’s any confusion” the University adopts a “conservative approach” to its filings.

In the meantime, I wanted to point readers to an article that ran last Friday in Princeton’s campus newspaper, The Daily Princetonian, that provides a great deal of context on the comparative policies for ethical review of investments at Princeton, Harvard and Yale– something that becomes more interesting in light of our Friday interview with Golden, who told WPRB he felt Princeton’s system is “more democratic”.

From the Princetonian:

At Yale, an eight-person Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility (ACIR) meets regularly to discuss ethical investment policies for the school’s endowment, said ACIR chair Jonathan Macey, a law professor and deputy dean of Yale Law School. The committee, composed of two students, alumni, faculty and staff members, makes recommendations to the Yale Corporation Committee on Investor Responsibility relating to matters ranging from “company investment in South Africa, to defense contracting, political lobbying and environmental safety,” according to the ACIR website.

Though some of the committee’s meetings are open to the Yale community and the ACIR values outside input, Yale evaluates the ethics of its holdings regardless of community interest, Macey said.

“It’s none of my business what goes on at Princeton, but either an investment policy is ethical or it isn’t,” Macey said. “The idea that it’s only a problem if it upsets a lot of people seems odd to me.”

“It doesn’t seem plausible,” he added. “It sounds like it’s a practical concern at Princeton, not an ethical one.”

Harvard, like Yale, has an Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility composed of faculty, students and alumni that recommends ethical investing policies to the Harvard Corporation Committee on Shareholder Responsibility.

Princeton does not currently have a body specifically devoted to reviewing the ethics of its investment practices.

Princeton University says it “no longer owns” bonds of BAE Systems, a controversial British arms supplier,  that WPRB reported yesterday were purchased in 2001. This disclosure appears to represent a departure from the University’s stated policy of not discussing investment holdings.

In an e-mail sent to WPRB Wednesday evening, University spokeswoman Cass Cliatt wrote:

A case in point is your inquiry related to BAE. While we do not disclose specifics of our investment portfolio, I can confirm that your inquiry relates to a fixed-income account that was widely diversified, but since mid-2003, the University no longer owns those securities.

BAE Systems has been criticized for dealings with, among others, Suharto’s Indonesia and Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe and has been investigated on charges of alleged corruption on multiple occasions.

Additionally, details surrounding the foreign financial account or accounts held by the University in Zimbabwe, first revealed by WPRB on Tuesday, have yet to be disclosed.

In her Wednesday evening e-mail, Cliatt instead suggested that:

members of the campus community with interest in these issues typically would not need to know whether the University is invested in Zimbabwe today to know whether they feel the University should be invested in Zimbabwe.  And looking at a list of investment holdings on a given day can’t tell you what we’re invested in today.  It tells you only what we were invested in at the time the list was published.

Tomorrow afternoon, at the invitation of the University, WPRB is slated to sit down with Andrew Golden, the president of the Princeton University Investment Co. (PRINCO), to discuss how the University makes and monitors investments, why Princeton has stopped disclosing printouts of investments–as was a standard practice during the late 1990’s up until 2002–and why consideration of non-economic factors in investment appear only to be considered after concerns are raised by the campus community.

[Editor's Note: If you have questions you feel WPRB should ask Mr. Golden, send them along to tips@wprb.com before 1:30 PM tomorrow]

Our full program on Zimbabwe, and on Offshore Financial Centers (OFCs)– where companies, individuals and foundations can invest funds at very low tax rates, usually at the expense of their home nations’ tax revenues– aired this afternoon and will be posted online tomorrow evening. Roughly one third of Princeton’s declared foreign financial accounts, as of June 2007, are situated in OFCs.

The report states that:

For the most part the Trustees have delegated the responsibility for selecting specific investments to outside money management professionals. These professionals are provided with a detailed investment policy statement that describes our basic investment goal of maximizing the total long-term return on the endowment consistent with acceptable levels of risk. Quite deliberately they have not been asked to take into account any non-economic social, political, or moral guidelines other than those few South Africa-related limits explicitly approved by the Board of Trustees. The Trustees expect that, in carrying out this assignment, the investment managers will vote on all shareholder resolutions in a manner consistent with the overall investment objective of maximizing the total long-term return on those investments, rather than seeking to achieve some separate social objective.

In order to deviate from the above policy– which is to say, in order to consider the merits of an investment on non-economic grounds– a situation requires involvement from students and/or faculty:

If there is considerable, thoughtful, and sustained campus interest in an issue involving the actions of a company or companies in the University’s investment portfolio, the Resources Committee will study the issue. In the first instance, the Resources Committee will determine what constitutes “considerable, thoughtful, and sustained campus interest” in each case and report its conclusions to the Trustees. It may be appropriate, for example, to require that an issue be raised several times over an extended period of time, say two academic years. The Resources Committee will also consider the magnitude, scope, and representativeness of the expressions of campus opinion in making this determination.

However, how members of the University community would learn of potentially controversial investments and then create “considerable, thoughtful and sustained campus interest”– particularly in the absence of publicly accessible, company-specific investment reports (as it appears may once have been available)– remains unclear.

Also, while the document directly addresses “companies”, it does not appear to indicate whether campus interest in foreign financial accounts (which, among other things, can be bank holdings, brokerage accounts, or mutual funds) would prompt review by the Resources Committee.

WPRB has asked Cliatt for clarification on a number of these issues and will update this post when we hear back.

In 2001 Princeton University purchased bonds in British arms supplier BAE Systems, essentially giving a $1.5 million dollar loan to a company whose dealings with regimes like Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe have come under repeated scrutiny from investigators, journalists and activists, WPRB has learned.

An excerpt of a 2002 printout of Princeton University's investments that reveals holdings in British arms supplier BAE Systems.

In Zimbabwe, BAE has been tied to alleged efforts by arms dealer James Bredenkamp to supply the government with military equipment, potentially in violation of sanctions. Just days ago Bredenkamp, who The Guardian claims “acted as BAE’s agent in southern Africa”, had his assets frozen by the United States Treasury Department for his close relationship with Robert Mugabe’s regime.

For years BAE supplied military equipment to Zimbabwe, a relationship that began in the 1980’s when the Zimbabwean Air Force acquired 12 fighter planes from British Aerospace, BAE’s predecessor.

In 2000, the British government imposed an arms embargo against Zimbabwe, yet replacement parts for BAE-manufactured planes arrived as late as 2001, in apparent violation of sanctions, according to a UN report. Those components were allegedly supplied by Bredenkamp, who received £20,000,000 between 2003 and 2005 from BAE, The Financial Times reported this July. The payment served as “the first detailed evidence of a financial relationship” between Bredenkamp and the company.  Both have both repeatedly denied violating sanctions.

Beyond its dealings in Zimbabwe, BAE Systems has run into trouble elsewhere for questionable business practices. As of June 2007, The Guardian reported that the company had been investigated for alleged corrupt dealings in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the Czech Republic, Romania, Chile, South Africa and Tanzania. In past decades, the firm counted the brutal Indonesian dictator Suharto among its clients.

For its part, Princeton’s dealings with BAE apparently extended beyond investments: in July 2001, one month after the bonds were purchased, Defense Daily reported that Princeton and BAE, along with 11 other universities and corporations, were collaborating on a “lucrative” $76,000,000 research project commissioned by the Army Research Laboratory.

University Spokeswoman Cass Cliatt, responding to questions about University investments in BAE Systems and in Zimbabwe generally, told WPRB in an e-mail sent Monday, that “as a matter of policy, the University does not disclose the specifics of investment portfolio or its return drivers.”

As with Princeton’s more recent investment in Zimbabwe revealed by WPRB yesterday, the University would not confirm or deny whether it currently has holdings in BAE Systems and would not say what internal standards, if any, Princeton employs in selecting and vetting its investments.
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Stay with WPRB as we prepare additional reporting on the subject to be aired this Thursday on 103.3 FM and on the web at www.wprb.com at 5PM. Among our guests will be Andrew Meldrum, who wrote for The Guardian and The Economist about Zimbabwe for 23 years until he was kicked out of the country in 2003.

Update- Read WPRB’s report from Thursday on how Princeton says it “no longer owns” BAE Bonds here..

As the United States and members of the European Union condemned the Zimbabwean government and considered strengthening sanctions, Princeton University chose to invest in Robert Mugabe’s troubled African nation, according to tax filings obtained by WPRB.

A portion of Princeton's tax records covering foreign assets, obtained by WPRB. The previous two filings, spanning July 2004 to June 2006, show no investment in Zimbabwe.

The investment, placed between July 2006 and June 2007, was made despite Zimbabwe’s highly publicized political and economic upheaval and disreputable human rights record. Questions as to the size, nature and current state of the investment remain unanswered at this time.

Princeton spokeswoman Cass Cliatt told WPRB in an e-mail this evening that “as a matter of policy, the University does not disclose the specifics of its investment portfolio or its return drivers.”

“The University in 1997 adopted guidelines for socially responsible investment under which action is taken after “considerable, thoughtful and sustained” campus interest and widespread consensus that action should be taken. The first step in that process is for the issue to be raised by a segment of the campus community and to my knowledge, the process has not been initiated,” Cliatt wrote.

What internal standards, if any, Princeton employs in selecting and vetting investments in corporate stock or foreign assets were not addressed by Cliatt.

Mugabe’s rule has drawn harsh international criticism ever since a violent policy of land redistribution plunged Zimbabwe into severe food shortages and economic crisis in 2002.

In 2005, the United States government called Zimbabwe an “outpost of tyranny” on par with Burma and Iran, the Zimbabwean government implemented an urban “clean-up” plan that the United Nations estimates left 700,000 people homeless and, by year’s end, the UN’s humanitarian chief had concluded the country was “in meltdown”. Conditions in 2006 and 2007 worsened with inflation reaching all-time highs and widespread imprisonment of union leaders and political activists (several of whom alleged they were tortured while in state custody).

This summer Time reported that, in the run up to Zimbabwe’s June elections, Mugabe’s “brutality before the vote resulted in the deaths of about 100 Zimbabweans, the detention of some 2,000, injury to 10,000 and the displacement of more than 200,000.” Just last week, The Guardian reported that the country was on the “brink of collapse”.

Stay with WPRB as we prepare additional reporting on the subject to be aired this Thursday on 103.3 FM and on the web at www.wprb.com at 5PM. Among our guests will be Andrew Meldrum, who wrote for The Guardian and The Economist about Zimbabwe for 23 years until he was kicked out of the country in 2003.
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Update- Read WPRB’s report from Wednesday on Princeton’s investments in Zimbabwe-tied British arms supplier BAE Systems here..

Princeton University and China
Sebastian Jones reports on the ties that bind Princeton University and China– and the potential conflicts of interest that come with them.

E. Perry Link
Professor E. Perry Link, a distinguished scholar of East Asian and China Studies who, until recently, was based at Princeton University and currently teaches at UC Riverside, joins Sebastian Jones for an interview about the challenges academics and universities face in balancing relations with China. Link also touches upon the recent Summer Olympics and tells the story of how he was blacklisted by the Chinese government, preventing him from entering the country.

Part One:

Part Two:

Part Three:

Ken Silverstein
Ken Silverstein, The Washington Editor of Harper’s Magazine, joins Sebastian Jones for a discussion of how China policy is shaped in Washington by foreign policy consultants whose actions raise serious ethical questions.

Part One:

Part Two:

Anne Marie Slaughter
Dean of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School, Anne Marie Slaughter, sits down with Ashley Schoettle to share insights from her stint in China while on sabbatical and her thoughts on the current state of and future possibilities for China.

Part One:

Web-exclusive:

Slaughter and Silverstein on the Olympics– Web Exclusive
In a WPRB web-exclusive, Ken Silverstein of Harper’s Magazine and Princeton University Woodrow Wilson School Dean Anne Marie Slaughter share their differing views on the recent Olympic games in China.