The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

GWEN IFILL: Good evening. I'm Gwen Ifill. Jim Lehrer is on vacation. On the NewsHour tonight: A summary of today's news; the housing market on a roll; a Chicago neighborhood's reborn glass garden; world leaders gather for a summit on development problems; and a report on the bleak prospects for families of AIDS victims in Malawi.

NEWS SUMMARY

GWEN IFILL: Vice President Cheney today made the case for a preemptive strike against Iraq. A growing number of prominent Republicans, including cabinet officials from the first Bush administration like former Secretary of State James Baker, have raised questions about whether the U.S. should go it alone. Cheney addressed those concerns in a speech to veterans in Nashville.

VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: As former Secretary of State Kissinger recently stated, the imminence of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the huge dangers it involves, the rejection of a viable inspection system, and the demonstrated hostility of Saddam Hussein combined to produce an imperative for pre-emptive action. If the United States could have preempted 9 slash 11, we would have. No question. Should we be able to prevent another much more devastating attack? We will. No question. This nation will not live at the mercy of terrorists or terror regimes. (applause) I am familiar with the arguments against taking action in the case of Saddam Hussein. Some concede that Saddam is evil, power hungry and a menace but that until he crosses the threshold of actually possessing nuclear weapons we should rule out any pre-emptive action. That logic to me seems to be deeply flawed. The argument comes down to this: Yes, Saddam is as dangerous as we say he is, we just need to let him get stronger before we do anything about it. Yet if we did wait until that moment, Saddam would simply be emboldened and it would become even harder for us to gather friends and allies to oppose him. As one of those who worked to assemble the Gulf War coalition, I can tell you that our job then would have been infinitely more difficult in the face of a nuclear armed Saddam Hussein. And many of those who now argue that we should act only if he gets a nuclear weapon would then turn around and say that we cannot act because he has a nuclear weapon. At bottom, that argument counsels a course of inaction that itself could have devastating consequences for many countries, including our own. Today in Afghanistan, the world has seen that America acts not to conquer but to liberate and remains in friendship to help the people build a future of stability, self-determination and peace. We would act in that same spirit after a regime change in Iraq. With our help, a liberated Iraq can be a great nation once again.

GWEN IFILL: Also today, a White House spokesman confirmed the President's lawyers have told him he does not need approval from Congress to strike Iraq. They said a congressional resolution authorizing the 1991 Gulf war remains in force. But, the spokesman said Mr. Bush still plans to consult Congress before taking any action. The United Nations Earth Summit opened today in Johannesburg, South Africa. Delegates to the ten-day conference hope to agree on ways of improving the lives of the poor, and protecting the global environment. President Bush has decided to skip the meeting, but Secretary of State Powell is expected to attend next week. We'll have more on this story later in the program. Home sales rose more than expected in July, thanks to low mortgage interest rates. The Commerce Department reported today new home sales are up 6.7 percent a one-month record. Separately, the National Association of Realtors said existing home sales rose 4.5 percent. We'll have more on the housing story in just a moment. The FBI announced today it will reenter an anthrax-tainted building in Boca Raton, Florida, this week. The agency said it now has tools that allow for a more thorough examination of the contaminated site. The building housed the "National Enquirer" and other publications until last October. That was when a photo editor became infected and died. Mail-borne anthrax spores killed four other people last fall. Grammy-winning vocalist William Warfield, best known for his rendition of "Ol' Man River" in the musical "Show Boat," is dead. He died in Chicago on Sunday, his brother said. Warfield suffered a fall late last month. An autopsy is pending. Most recently, he was a professor of music at Northwestern University. William Warfield was 82 years old. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the housing boom, a garden under glass, the world's growing pains, and Malawi's dispossessed widows and orphans.

FOCUS GOING UP

GWEN IFILL: Now the housing story. Sales of new homes shot up 6.7 percent in July, to the highest monthly level on record. With short-term interest rates now at 41-year lows, consumers have continued to buy homes at a blistering pace, in spite of an otherwise weakening economy. But some pessimists are still bracing for a collapse. What keeps the housing boom booming?

Here to explain: David Lereah, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors; and Eric Belsky, executive director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard. So, is this housing boom too hot not to cool down, David Lereah?

DAVID LEREAH: Well, I don't think it's going to cool down anytime soon. The primary reason why housing is hot is because of mortgage rates. Mortgage rates right now are at all-time lows, as you just mentioned earlier, and that's making homes more affordable for the low-income households. And it's also making homes affordable and better investments for the middle- and higher-income households. So all the stars are aligned right now. The housing markets are in relatively good shape. You've got a lean supply of homes, low mortgage rates and very, very healthy price appreciation, and that's giving us a great environment for housing demand.

GWEN IFILL: Eric Belsky, is this something that's happening nationwide or just in selected markets?

ERIC BELSKY: No, this is a national phenomenon. In some places clearly house prices are going up much more rapidly than in other places but, by and large, most places are seeing significant house price gains and strong housing markets. There are a few exceptions. They tend not to make the national news. Topeka, Kansas may not be doing great but for the vast majority of places housing is doing great and for the reasons that David, I think, described: Mortgage interest rates are at phenomenal levels, and in the United States people take advantage of those rates and that's keeping the housing market strong as well as still solid income growth.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Belsky, this actually sounds like it's all good news except for one small problem. If you're trying to get into this market low interest rates aside, the prices are pretty high, aren't they?

ERIC BELSKY: Absolutely. When prices go up to the degree they have, this obviously has an affect on affordability. That hits hardest those people who have modest incomes and low incomes and first-time home buyers. But you really can't overstate the fact that interest rates have slid considerably, and we're at a stage now where even though house prices have gone up, the actual affordability of homes for the typical first-time buyer in many markets is still good and, in fact, may even be better than it was a year ago. And, again, there are exceptions in the most high price appreciation markets like Boston or Washington or San Francisco, and those kinds of places people are really having a hard time getting into a home and the escalating house prices are the reason for that.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Lereah, what about the affordability question?

DAVID LEREAH: If I may add-- I agree with Eric -- affordability conditions are still very favorable but let's look at the stock market because a lot of people like to compare stocks with real estate and that there was a lot of irrational exuberance as Chairman Greenspan talked about in the stock market, P/E ratios got way out of whack going from 20 to 30 to 200 to 300

GWEN IFILL: What s a P/E ratio?

DAVID LEREAH: Price/Earnings ratios for companies. And then, you know, we're talking about, well, the bubble burst in stocks so thus the bubble must be bursting in real estate.

GWEN IFILL: I'm sure I had that very conversation sitting at this table at the time.

DAVID LEREAH: Right.

GWEN IFILL: What's the difference?

DAVID LEREAH: And the big difference is that I don't see the irrational behavior in the real estate markets. People are buying homes to live in. And when you look at the P/E ratios in real estate, which would be more of home prices to income or debt service to income, it turns out that home prices to income has risen somewhat but it's still within an historical normal range. The debt service to income actually has gone down because mortgage rates are so low, people don't have this huge debt load in their homes because they're taking out mortgages.

GWEN IFILL: So, Mr. Belsky, this is not the same thing as the tech boom. We should not be waiting for a bubble to burst.

ERIC BELSKY: No I really don't think we're waiting for a bubble to burst. As David said housing is just not like stocks. I think it's understandable that people are concerned about their real estate holdings when they see their wealth evaporate as quickly as they did in the stock market but you don't get an annual statement or a quarterly statement on your home and then rush out and sell your home. Your home is a place that you live in and you tend to try and hold on to it as much as you can even in difficult times. We're really not in any kind of situation where you could imagine the right set of circumstances coming together to have house prices fall in any significant way. And there really aren't many signs that you'd even see much easing in many marketplaces. You really do have strong fundamentals underlying the growth in home prices and while they may be getting out ahead in some places not dramatically so.

GWEN IFILL: I hear that term strong fundamentals a lot when talking to economists. I'm always curious. In this case what does that mean?

ERIC BELSKY: Well, in this case it means that demand is strong. There are a lot of people who are in the market looking to buy houses because household growth is vigorous, and that's a demographic phenomenon as well as an economic phenomenon. You do have growth in disposable incomes. As we said you really have actually fairly good affordability conditions because interest rates are so low. People can reach with those interest rates to buy homes that perhaps before they couldn't. You have a lot of low-income buyers in the market as a result of some great efforts on the part of industry to reach out to low-income markets in ways that they hadn't in prior decades. And so you have really a lot of fundamental demand built up, and you don't really have a lot of supply out there to purchase. That's why prices go up and people are able to still afford them because the interest rates allow them to afford them. So all these things mean that we're in a fairly safe zone with some exceptions, some metropolitan areas that you look at the extent to which house prices have gotten out ahead of income and you worry that there might be at least a slowdown in prices but no conditions that would suggest a downturn. That would require really concentrated job loss in one or two markets.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Lereah, we talk about consumer behavior in all this. Consumers are going out there and refinancing, they re buying and taking advantage of low interest rates. What about business behavior? Is there any possibility that home builders are going to go out and build a whole bunch of homes and increase the supply that Mr. Belsky was just talking about to the extent that the market cannot support it?

DAVID LEREAH: No. That would have already happened because home builders learned lessons from the last recession, the 1990-91 recession where we really did have an oversupply of homes, the month's supply of homes was very high so thus we did have prices-- the price bubbles deflating a good deal. This time around, the supply of homes is very, very lean. It's almost half of what it was during the 1990-91 recession, so I think home builders will not get caught with their financial pants down anytime soon and as a matter of fact when you look at housing starts and construction activity, it's lagging behind home sales activity.

GWEN IFILL: I read a story I think in the Wall Street Journal, I think, that some people are selling their properties, moving out and renting and then waiting out the bubble figuring that they can cash in later on. Is that something that's happening?

DAVID LEREAH: No, I don't think so. I think... I saw that same article. I think those are outliers. They talked to some people that are doing that but generally speaking people are in homes. It's been a great investment. You've been building your wealth very well. The returns are solid. And for people that are in the stock market and are nervous and have lost a significant amount of wealth, the housing market represents a safe haven as well as good investment returns.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Belsky is a slowdown -- I'll be the pessimist here. Is a slowdown kind of inevitable after things have been riding so well for so long?

ERIC BELSKY: Well, you would expect the rate of growth to slow at some point because it hasn't been frankly dramatic and I think it's been dramatic for reasons that are understandable. It's not that these are deviating from something that we might expect although they are going quite fast. So you would expect some slowdown but again the issue is, is this something that people should fear in terms of losing value in their homes? Again, it doesn't look like that that's what's going on here, that you might see some slowdown, but no dramatic softening. And I agree, this notion of people going out and selling their homes and then renting, if that were the case, you'd see a real run-up in the supply of homes for sale on the market and that's not a run-up that we've seen. So I think that people are buying homes to live in them. They're supported by strong demand. Therefore, I don't see any real bursting of a bubble. But, yes, you could easily see a slowdown in growth and perhaps even a flattening of growth in those places where house prices really have gone up in a dramatic way relative to the incomes of the people in that community.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Lereah, is the strength of the housing market enough to prop this economy up when in every other measure it seems to be sliding especially if the Fed decides to lift the lid on interest rates and go back to raising them again?

DAVID LEREAH: Well, look at last year. Last year the housing markets set a record. And housing contributed to 68 percent of economic growth last year, which is just an incredible statistic. So can it support and prop up the economy? The answer is yes, it already did it last year. Will it this year? For the first half of this year housing did contribute to GDP growth, economic growth, but in the second half of this year we can't sustain this record-setting numbers forever. We are coming down a bit in terms of construction activity and home sales activity so I don't expect housing to make marked improvements to economic growth going forward. But I do expect the health of the housing sector to help the health of other sectors of the economy. You buy a house, you're buying furniture. You're buying appliance; you're landscaping your house. There's many different services that are impacted positively by housing. I think that should continue for the rest of this year.

GWEN IFILL: We'll be watching. Eric Belsky, David Lereah, thank you very much for joining us.

DAVID LEREAH: Thank you, it was fun.

ERIC BELSKY: Thank you.

SERIES HOW WE LIVE

GWEN IFILL: Next a report on "How We Live," our continuing look at how and where Americans live their lives. Tonight, Ray Suarez looks at an alluring art exhibit in a blighted Chicago neighborhood.

RAY SUAREZ: There's a breathtaking tropical forest under glass just a few minutes away from Chicago's loop, but it sat almost forgotten, neglected for years. Its story is not only about decay and decline, but about second chances, and about how art and the buzz a big show can unleash can put a forgotten city neighborhood back on the map. The fortunes of the Chicago park district's Garfield Park conservatory sagged just as the fortunes of its west side Chicago neighborhood did. The body blows of the 1968 riots after the murder of Martin Luther King, the steady loss of industry and jobs, and the abandonment of the Garfield Park neighborhood by banks and mortgage lenders left an area with little promise and little hope. Chicagoans avoided the neighborhood, and they avoided the conservatory. Lisa Roberts runs the place for the Chicago Park district.

LISA ROBERTS, Executive Director, Garfield Park Conservatory: If you think about keeping glass secure, keeping plants warm in a glass building in the city of Chicago, keeping all the glass intact, that's a very big prospect. And things just kind of went downhill.

RAY SUAREZ: It wasn't always that way. Garfield Park was built by the Chicago Park district in the late 19th century as a pleasure ground, a park for strolling and relaxation in what was an upwardly mobile middle class neighborhood. The conservatory came in 1908.

LISA ROBERTS: It was it was one of the big cultural attractions here in Chicago. And it's rather well known in the history of greenhouse design. And when this opened, particularly in the fern room right behind, you saw a completely landscaped natural looking setting and people-- so the story goes-- actually came in and said... thought that the conservatory had been constructed over an existing lagoon. It was that realistic looking.

RAY SUAREZ: Did the city's commitment to the place change when nobody came to it anymore?

LISA ROBERTS: What happened is it reached a low point, which in retrospect turned out to be a real blessing in disguise, because there was one of these famous Chicago sub- arctic nights, and everything failed. The heating failed, and there was broken glass, and we lost a portion of one of the plant collections. It was very bad. But what it did is it was kind of a wake-up call to people, and people came together from across the city and said, "we've got to save this place. We've got to do something about this."

RAY SUAREZ: That was in the mid- '90s. The city government and the Chicago Park district began to pull America's largest conservatory back from the brink with $8 million in renovation. A non-profit community organization started raising money to save the landmark building and its collections, and to reconnect the place to the neighborhood and the wider city. Reunite Rushing is the executive director; she's a west sider, and knew her neighbors had felt estranged from the landmark in their midst, shut out.

EUNITA RUSHING, Executive Director, Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance: In terms of a conservatory, the community really didn't visit a lot. We're trying to change that, because we feel like we have a jewel here, not only in the sense that it's located in the community, but all of the downtown museums are really fighting for the audience that we live with. And so it's very hard for us to ignore that, and we have a real opportunity as the conservatory is being rebuilt and restored to its glory days, that the community can play a pivotal part in that.

RAY SUAREZ: So far, so good. Historic building in danger. Alarm bells ring. Comeback begins. New building starts in the old neighborhood. Dangerous and badly built public housing is replaced by new low- rise housing units. The Chicago Transit Authority rebuilds the train station based on its original 19th century design. Suddenly, people from around the city aren't afraid of Garfield Park. Attendance grows. But then, everything gets kicked up into a new gear by the arrival of artist Dale Chihuly, who works in vividly colored, large scale glass objects.

SPOKESMAN: It's almost finished. I can still move it a little if you stay still. Yes!

RAY SUAREZ: He developed a great working relationship with the city after some small commissions, and plans began for a major exhibition. The suggested location wasn't one of Chicago's world famous museums. It was the Garfield Park Conservatory.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, what's your reaction when this was first floated to you? "Hey, Lisa, a famous artist is going to make a bunch of work, and we're going to stick it in with the plants. What do you think?"

LISA ROBERTS: "Glass?" That was my reaction. Although glass is one of the few materials you can actually display in the plant collections, and it doesn't care about water, and it doesn't care about humidity, and in some ways it's the perfect material to display in here. Actually, I was very excited about it. I'm very interested in kind of this fusion between the botanical sciences and the arts.

RAY SUAREZ: Then Roberts, and the public got to see the work installed amidst the plants. In the space of a few weeks this place moved from solitude to packed crowds, even on weekdays.

RAY SUAREZ: So is it fair to call this the signature piece of the exhibit?

LISA ROBERTS: Yes, I would say this is the signature piece. There are actually two or three which have been become signature pieces. But this is the first piece you see when you walk in the door. This is the blue peacock tower. This is the one that, for people who are looking at this for the very first time, haven't seen Chihuly, haven't seen the conservatory, this is a very impressive piece to walk in to. It kind of stops people in their tracks because they aren't expecting what they see. To a person you get gasps and ooh's and ah's.

RAY SUAREZ: So in a way the art can draw attraction to one of the great treasures of the collection.

LISA ROBERTS: Yes. And that was something that Chihuly took great care to get to know what the different plants were here and to know what the most important plants were so he could display his art in a way that enhanced those plants. This is one of them, the double coconut palm, which is the single most important plant in this entire conservatory. But so what Dale did is he took his blue baskets and made almost a necklace around them, which is quite beautiful and which really frames this plant beautifully, and that was part of what he wanted to do. So that this installation is as much about the double coconut palm as it is about the blue baskets.

RAY SUAREZ: The appeal of that partnership of plants and art is working for the conservatory. Attendance has quadrupled over the last several years. Attendance just through the summer had already doubled the numbers for all of last year. The glassworks bring busloads of tourists, Chicagoans, kids, seniors, families, plant-lovers, art-lovers, and key for the conservatory, a lot of first time visitors.

WOMAN: First time I've ever been here and I was born in Chicago.

WOMAN: I think it's amazing the way the glass almost looks like it's some plant forms, kind of like it's growing out of the plants.

RAY SUAREZ: Looks like it belongs there, huh?

WOMAN: Yeah, it really does. Every time you turn a corner there's another surprise of something else hidden there.

WOMAN: I unfortunately never visited Garfield until this Chihuly exhibit was here. Now I discovered it. We'll come back probably even maybe when the exhibit leaves.

WOMAN: People are aware of what's happening over here so they're coming around to take a look and they're enjoying it because I've heard some peoplecame for the first time. "We're going to come back. It's in our neighborhood."

RAY SUAREZ: I spoke to Reunite Rushing of the Conservatory Alliance in the recreated city back yard garden, where visitors can take courses or do volunteer work. We talked about the new success of the conservatory and why it's good for Chicago, and the Garfield Park neighborhood.

EUNITA RUSHING: A lot of people had sort of written the west side off but I think they're all rethinking that opinion. We've seen many, many people come through the door to see Chihuly whom hadn't been here in years. And I am so pleased about that because now they can actually come here. They can see for themselves what is going on here. They can see that the people out here are people just like the ones that they live next door to, that their concerns and what they want for their families is the same thing people want everywhere. You want decent housing, you want good schools for your children, and you want to be able to go out and have some recreation in your neighborhood, if that's what you choose to do. And so I think the perception of the west side is changing. And so what does that do for the city of Chicago? Another neighborhood that's open to all of the residents who live in the city, as well as all of the many tourists who come here to visit on an annual basis. So it's a win-win for everybody.

RAY SUAREZ: A win-win. There's revamped public transit, the park and its stunning field house have been rehabbed. Hope, once in short supply, lives on the west side. And the conservatory is a source of, and at the same time benefits from, the good news. Garfield Park's neighborhood is still troubled, but no longer the scary, mysterious place it was to many in Chicago. Lisa Roberts is looking for new opportunities to bring art to her forest under glass, and she'd like to raise the money to have one or two of the Chihuly works stay permanently when this successful run wraps up just after Labor Day.

LISA ROBERTS: That looks like a big old grape that has just dropped off. I actually wouldn't mind keeping that one either.

GWEN IFILL: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight prospects for the world summit in South Africa, and AIDS widows in Malawi.

FOCUS GROWING PAINS

GWEN IFILL: The big UN summit in Johannesburg. Tom Bearden begins with a background report.

TOM BEARDEN: As the world summit on sustainable development opened in Johannesburg, South African President Thabo Mbeki told delegates the gap between rich and poor countries had only grown since a similar meeting in Rio de Janeiro a decade ago. He decried what he called a system of "global apartheid."

PRESIDENT THABO MBEKI: The time has come to reflect anew on the state of the world today. None of us cannot but be dismayed at what we see. We see a world that is ailing from poverty, inequality, and environmental degradation, despite the agreements at the Rio summit. This is a world in which a rich minority enjoys unprecedented levels of consumption, comfort, and prosperity, while the poor majority endures daily hardship, suffering, and dehumanization.

TOM BEARDEN: The ten-day summit is the largest in the history of the United Nations. Nearly 50,000 delegates and 100 world leaders are attending under heavy security. Leaders are hoping to agree on specific plans for improving the economies of the developing world. At the same time, the summit is equally focused on protecting the world's environment and natural resources. By holding the summit in Johannesburg, the UN is showcasing a city that is home to many of the problems of poverty that leaders will be talking about. The United Nations has several key goals, including reducing by half the number of people without access to clean water and proper sanitation; more than one billion have no access to clean water, more than two billion are without real sanitation; cutting in half the number of people living on less than a dollar a day; and creating a timeline for protecting the environment, lessening pollution, and slowing global warming. Developing countries have other goals, including more aid. They are asking wealthier nations to allocate 0.7 percent of their annual Gross Domestic Product for aid. The European Union has pledged to give about 0.4 percent annually by 2006 and the U.S. is providing about 0.1 percent of its annual GDP. The elimination of tariffs and trade barriers on agricultural goods from poorer countries: Wealthier countries say they already have increased aid. They also say developing countries need to improve their own political and economic performance before aid increases. But protesters and many leaders are concerned that too much of the summit's broad agenda will end up leading to a lot of talk without much action. Whatever resolutions pass will be non-binding.

JAN PRONK, United Nations: We cannot leave Johannesburg without an agreement to implement and a commitment to implement. Not just a new text. We should not be interested in new words and new texts. We should only be interested in a firm commitment to implement, and that also means that we have to discuss how to do it.

TOM BEARDEN: When he was in the White House, President Bush's father attended the Rio Summit in 1992. But the current President Bush declined to go to Johannesburg. President Bush is the only G-7 leader not to attend. Secretary of State Colin Powell will attend next week instead.

GWEN IFILL: And to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: For more on the summit and what it might achieve we're joined from Johannesburg by Jan Pronk, whom we just heard in our report on the conference he's the United Nations secretary general's special envoy to the summit and the former housing and environment minister of the Netherlands; and Jocelyn Dow president of the Women's Environment and Development Organization, an international advocacy group. She's a native of Guyana. Here in the studio with me are Myron Ebell, director of international and environmental policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a research organization, and Gregg Easterbrook senior editor of the New Republic, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and an author of A moment on the Earth: The Coming Age of Environmental Optimism. Welcome to you all.

And, Greg Easterbrook before we launch into the debate explain what s meant by the term sustainable development.

GREGG EASTERBROOK: There are many possible definitions based on your politics, Margaret, but I think the most useful one would be economic growth without environmental harm. People would agree on that as a consensus value today. It's technically possible today. In the 19th century, our economy and other countries' economy could not have grown without environmental degradation. The last 30 years the United States and the western world have dramatically cut pollution even if economies have grown. This is possible for the world now as well and very important because with half the people of the world living in poverty compared to the United States global use of resources must increase in the next century.

MARGARET WARNER: So Jan Pronk, how realistic a goal is this? In other words,some would consider these conflicting goals; that the developing world needs to grow its way out of poverty but without environmental harm, the same kind of environmental harm that many of the wealthy countries caused when they grew their way to wealth. Can you reconcile those two?

JAN PRONK: It is possible but it requires a change in production systems which, for instance, have to become much more energy efficient, using much less energy per unit of output, and at the same time also the northern countries, western countries, rich countries, should give more space to economic growth in developing countries by themselves, indeed using less natural resources as by polluting the environment, much less than they have done in the past.

MARGARET WARNER: So Myron Ebell would you agree that the burdens on both the wealthy countries and the poor countries.

MYRON EBELL: Certainly, I think that the lack of economic development in the so-called developing countries has become a tremendous problem. Luckily this summit, unlike the earth summit in Rio ten years ago, is concentrating on the development side, the economic and social pillars underlying sustainable development rather than simply focusing on environmental protection.

MARGARET WARNER: And why do you think that's a good idea?

MYRON EBELL: Well, because environmental protection and environmental quality follows wealth creation. The World Bank has done a number of studies that show very clearly as countries become richer their environmental quality improves. As a person, if you have to spend a large part of your day gathering fuel to cook your meals, you're not going to have very much time or you're not going to really worry too much about whether you're deforesting your country. You're going to be worrying about where the next meal is coming from and where the next load of firewood is coming from. But as people become part of the electrical grid, they have electricity, they can cook their meals with stoves, they have refrigerators, pretty soon they start worrying about the environment. And so consequently their nations then start to provide environmental improvements and protections.

MARGARET WARNER: Jocelyn Dow, do you see it that way, that really the economic development has to come first before the environmental concern and sensitivity?

JOYCELYN DOW: Well, I would challenge what he said because it's in fact not true. People who depend on the environment solely for their capacity to live have a great interest in how it is conserved. The fact is if we look at the statistics, it is not the poor who are depleting the world's resources but the rich. It is not people who are cutting firewood that are deforesting the world. It is people who are creating value-added products out of forests, a lot of that value is added outside of the owners of the forests. So those of us who live in forested communities know that our logs are exported. We get very little for our primary resources and certainly it is not the poor who are depleting the world's resources. They are really the objects of a system that pushes them into the margins of the worst degradation, but the consumption patterns in fact are quite the opposite.

MARGARET WARNER: Greg, is that the case that it's really the consumption patterns of the wealthy western countries that is driving the environmental problems even in the developing world?

GREGG EASTERBROOK: No, I would, you know, I would take that point and playoff it in a different way. There's a famous statistic that everyone at the Johannesburg summit is familiar with, that the United States has 3 percent of the world's population and consumes 25 percent of current resources. What that... to some people what that statistic tells you is the United States must reduce its resource consumption. To me what that statistic says is the developing world must increase its resource consumption. If the United States were magically overnight to cut its resource consumption in half, this would not help anyone in the developing world one bit. The developing world needs to burn more fuel, it needs to process more resources. These things are not easily done but they are all possible. Most importantly they're all possible today with reduced environmental harm. The onset at the beginning of your interview that the... that pollution from the develop... from the western countries keeps increasing, the fact is it's been declining for 30 years including from his home nation the Netherlands. All forms of pollution with the important exception of greenhouse gases from the West have been declining for decades now. If you can take this model to the developing world and allow the developing world to seek prosperity without the forms of gross pollution that plagued the West a century ago, this could be the solution to some of the world's poverty.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Pronk, of all the goals we set out in our tape piece about what you hope to achieve there in Johannesburg, what would be the most important for you to call this conference a success?

JAN PRONK: It is undoubtedly so that we will get the agreements. The mood is good. The important thing is to have a commitment to implement the agreement because we have so many agreements in the past which we have not implemented. We are going to focus on five areas: Water, sustainable energy, sustainable agriculture, biodiversity, and health. These five areas are able to agree on the implementation of action plans, which both result in a conservation of the environment and an eradication of poverty, then this conference will be successful.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Ebell, do you see that as a possibility here, that the wealthy countries and the poorer countries could at least on those five goals make firm commitments?

MYRON EBELL: I think that the United States under the Bush Administration has really tried to come up with a plan that is workable. And that plan is based on emphasizing the internal institutions in developing countries that we must put some focus and some resources into helping poor countries develop institutions of governance. The European Union is opposed to that idea. They believe in the old eco imperialist model. I'm afraid Mr. Pronk is part of that eco imperialism.

MARGARET WARNER: So you're saying that the Bush administration-- and you support them in this-- is saying to these poorer countries, "you need to first get your internal house in order and end corruption and mismanagement," rather than being an advocate for any kind of greater aid or even reduction of trade barriers?

MYRON EBELL: Well, the Bush Administration has proposed more aid but they've made it conditional upon demonstrating that you can use it effectively, not just throwing money at problems but actually using it within the context of your own governmental institutions. Secondly, the Bush Administration has put tremendous emphasis on clean drinking water, which is a huge problem for hundreds of millions of people in mostly poor countries.

MARGARET WARNER: Jocelyn Dow, what do you see as the realistic possibilities for this conference given what you've just heard both from Mr. Pronk andMr. Ebell?

JOCEYLN DOW: I think that the conference must acknowledge what has happened in the ten years. I think if we look around the world, we can see every form of disaster: Health disasters, environmental disasters, and there must be a recognition that these have not come about because developing countries are not behaving in a proper manner and not into good governance but because there's an essential system of trade and economic processes that are really exclusionary of the poor -- the poor in your own countries and certainly the poorer countries across the world. And this notion that we are in any way trying to get a new agreement, what we would like is for them to honor the agreements that they made in 1992. We in the developing countries have done everything within our power, I think, to meet sustainable development goals in a deteriorating economic environment. We have burdened some debt. We have terms of trade that are pushing countries to the margins. Goods are able to access less and less money. Technology has not been transferred in the way that it was committed to in Rio, and then we are told that we are at fault. And this is, in fact, a lie.

MARGARET WARNER: Gregg Easterbook, many of the promises and pledges made at the Rio conferences, as previous guests have noted, have not been carried out. Do you think this will be any different, given the divergent views we've heard expressed right here?

GREGG EASTERBROOK: It may not be different ten days from now when conference ends but I think the mood is shifting. Americans should feel embarrassed at the low level of foreign aid that we send to the world. Today even with the welcome increase that President Bush has proposed, which is small sadly, America spends less on foreign aid than we did in the final year of the Reagan Administration only about 1/10th as much on foreign aid as we spent during the Eisenhower Administration. Yes, it's true that some foreign aid has been wasted but mainly it's had a tremendously beneficial humanitarian effect on the world -- with the exception of some countries in Africa -- most of the predicted humanitarian disasters have not occurred because of foreign aid. We have a strong moral obligation to increase both money aid and technological aid to the developing world. And it's also true that our trade barrier situation is unfair to the developing world. Through the WTO we have demanded that developing countries drop their barriers. We have not dropped many of our barriers against them. So we do need to practice what we preach on money and trade, yes.

MARGARET WARNER: Finally, Jan Pronk, as we noted President Bush is not attending this conference. What signal does that send and what in practical terms does that mean?

JAN PRONK: It is not a good signal. We have done our best to invite President Bush and indeed we have quite disappointed. On the other hand, Colin Powell is coming, as a politician of the United States who is inspiring a lot of confidence in other countries, so he's very welcome. We are very much looking forward to his contribution.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Ebell you signed a letter to the President urging him not to go. Why? And do you think it will have a practical effect that he himself is not there when so many other world leaders are?

MYRON EBELL: We sent a letter to President Bush thanking him for deciding not to go. But I think it's very important to understand how these world pow-wows are now being treated. They're traveling circuses for every sort of leftist in the world who oppose progress, who oppose economic development, who oppose globalization, who oppose trade, and I think if President Bush had gone, he would have helped raise the media coverage, the world's attention to these... to the sort of goofees and lunatics that attend not as delegates but as the 40,000 or 50,000 people who hang around. And so I think it's very important that he not go, and I'm glad he isn't. And I hope that we put... start putting some of these problems in the proper context, which is they require long-term effort by a lot of people, not huge meetings that attract massive amounts of protests and television coverage.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Pronk, do you want to respond to that?

JAN PRONK: We are working together with representatives of all countries in order to agree on a long-term program of action in a proper context. We are not a bunch of leftists or a bunch of lunatics as was said just like a couple of seconds ago. We are people working within the system of the United Nations and the system of the United Nations has been created under the leadership of the United States just after the Second World War. And we are working together in order to preserve peace and to get away with world poverty, poverty is breeding violence, and that is not in the interest of any country including not of the United States.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. We have to leave it there. Thank you all four very much.

FINALLY - DISPOSSESSED

GWEN IFILL: As we just heard, one of the major agenda items at the Johannesburg summit is health care. Now special correspondent Jonathan Silvers reports from Malawi, on the side effects of one of the continent's chief health challenges: AIDS.

JONATHAN SILVERS: The harvest has begun in southern Malawi and the maize crop is largely a failure. The rains came early in the planting season; storms or rare intensity that washed away seeds and shoots. The drought that followed stunted the remaining crop and left farmers no chance to replant. After two years of meager harvests, the country's food reserves are depleted and villagers, already malnourished, are speaking openly of famine.

IWENI BONONGWE, Farmer (Translated): People are going without food for many days and are selling anything they can for money to buy food.

JONATHAN SILVERS: Iweni Bonongwe is a farmer in the province of Mangochi. Since January, he's lost two- thirds of his maize crop, the staple for his family of seven.

IWENI BONONGWE (Translated): The children are very weak because there is no food. They're very sick. Even if they go to school, they can't concentrate. No one cares about us. There's been no assistance. My neighbors are all suffering. There's a woman not far from here, she and her children are starving and they're all alone.

JONATHAN SILVERS: The woman is named Margaret Kulekana. A widow, she lost one of her four children earlier this year to malnutrition and is now struggling to feed her family. Like many women in Southern Africa, the AIDS pandemic has left her alone in that struggle. The hardships imposed by the drought have been compounded by the death of her husband, who is believed to have died from AIDS- related complications.

MARGARET KULEKANA (Translated): We were living in the city of Zomba. My husband died after a long illness and we came here to live with my parents. I came here because I had some problems. I was removed from my house. There were some people interfering with my property.

JONATHAN SILVERS: The people were her husband's family. The "interference" she experienced is known legally as dispossession, and more commonly as property-grabbing. Weeks after her husband's death, Margaret and her children were besieged by his relatives.

MARGARET KULEKANA (Translated): They grabbed everything in the house. We had a prosperous home and they snatched the cooking utensils and iron roof, the furniture, everything.

JONATHAN SILVERS: Margaret has lived with her children and parents for three years in a one-room hut. It's a far cry from the five- room house she called home. Last year, her adopted son Julius found a job in their old town, 50 kilometers away. He's 16 and comes every month to bring his family the little food he can spare. A generation ago, dispossession was an exceptional event. But since the AIDS pandemic began 20 years ago, the exceptional has become commonplace. The disease has claimed more than 15 million lives in sub-Saharan Africa. Combined with poverty and unemployment, it is altering basic social relationships.

ELIZABETH HUGHES, UNICEF, Malawi: Social relations have been affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic particularly when it comes to the role of the extended family. Whereas in the past the extended family was very close, very cohesive, now we're moving more towards the nuclear family and the fragmentation of the community. You see it also because the community has... are so desperate for resources that they are willing to consider the property more valued than the custody and the care of the widow and orphans.

JONATHAN SILVERS: Joyce Giya's descent into poverty was especially extreme. Her husband was once a member of parliament. He died in 1999 after a two-year battle with HIV. Joyce now has little but memories.

JOYCE GIYA, Widow of AIDS Victim (Translated): When I was married, my husband had a high status as a member of parliament and we lived a good life. We had a new truck, there was always food, we kept crates of beverages and bought meat and fresh fish often. We live here now because of my husband's death. His parents no longer consider me related to them, and two years ago they forced me from the house that my husband and I built.

JONATHAN SILVERS: While their numbers are growing and their suffering profound, victims of property grabbing have been largely invisible. But the Southern Africa research Trust reports that dispossession of widows like Joyce has become the most prevalent and entrenched form of violence that Malawi women experience.

SEODI WHITE, Woman and Law in Southern Africa Research Trust: It is one of the saddest issues to see a woman who was in her own... she used to believe in herself. She had high self-esteem but as her property is being dispossessed, as she is losing the social ties of her husband's family, how she starts losing confidence in herself, in the state, in the law, in the justice system. She has to move from her lovely house to go and stay in a village. And you see her deteriorating by the day. I'm supposed to be a champion of the law, I'm supposed to help this woman, but you find that the social forces are stronger than you, they're stronger than her. You can be bound together to say "let's fight this." It's taking years, it's taking time, it's very disheartening, I must say.

JONATHAN SILVERS: Joyce and her three children now live in a one-room shack. Unlike most women, Joyce has a basic knowledge of legal affairs, acquired through her husband's political activities. And unlike many women in her position, she sought professional help. Ivy Chipofya Mshali is Joyce's legal advisor. She's cofounder of the Malawi Center for Advice, Research and Education on Rights.

IVY CHIPOFYA MSHALI, Malawi Center for Advice, Research and Education on Rights: In a normal situation, if Joyce had the resources, she would have gone to a lawyer to act for her but because she s a poor person she can't afford legal fees so that's why she came to this center because this center is intended to help people who can't afford legal fees.

JONATHAN SILVERS: Each week, scores of women-- mostly widows-- seek the center's help in recovering property.

IVY CHIPOFYA MSHALL: Property grabbing is a growing problem because these days deaths are very frequent, maybe because of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. So the HIV/AIDS pandemic has reached to an increase in deaths, so that's why the incidents of property grabbing are also on an increase.

JONATHAN SILVERS: Ivy and her colleagues have had little success in the courts. With other women's rights organizations, they are now advocating for new laws that protect women and children.

ELIZABETH HUGHES: We need to advocate more and sensitize chiefs and traditional authorities to try and make them see fair play as a principle. And we are doing that. I think it is the only way we can curb the problem because it is about empowerment of rights. It's not anything that a huge amount of resources is going to change. We have to change attitudes.

JONATHAN SILVERS: When that change will occur is anyone's guess. While awareness is growing, so too is the desperation that leads to dispossession. Famine has claimed thousands of lives this year in Malawi, where nearly 80 million people 70 percent of the population-- are hungry, according to the World Food Program. With food reserves depleted, with malnutrition fueling outbreaks of malaria and cholera, the prospects for AIDS widows and orphans will likely remain bleak.

RECAP

GWEN IFILL: Again the major developments of the day: Vice President Cheney made the case for a preemptive strike against Iraq, amid questions from a growing number of prominent Republicans. And the United Nations Earth Summit opened in Johannesburg, South Africa. We'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Gwen Ifill. Thank you and good night.