Saturday afternoon at 2 this is w. When p.r. Connecticut's public media source for news and ideas w when p.r. And w. When p.r. H.d. One merit in 90.5 w p k t m w p k t h d one Norwich at 89 point one. F.m. Stamford at 88.5 w.r.i. Southampton at 91.3 and w. When p.r. Dot org. B.b.c. World Service at 7 hours g.m.t. Welcome to Weekend with Judy and more. Coming up President Kenyatta are of Kenya wins a 2nd term in office but the opposition has rejected the results mystic and Yasser is calling for national unity we shall never. Forget or forgive. Also what next in the standoff between the u.s. And North Korea you will hear live from Seoul and kick boxer turned film director Lexie Alexander on being a prominent woman in Hollywood and showed as many times where somebody came in and met on the movie with a better take than me but you know the numbers don't lie that's a thing that we can't all be that bad that's all coming up here all weekend. First the world news. B.b.c. News with Montgomery Chinese state television says President Xi Jinping told his u.s. Counterpart Donald Trump that a peaceful resolution of the crisis over North Korea's nuclear program is essential the 2 leaders spoke over the phone to find ways to reduce tensions Robin Brunton so has more details China is North Korea's only ally and its main trading partner it has a crucial role to play in solving this standoff Chinese state t.v. Reports that she Jim ping told his American counterpart that all parties should stop words and actions that would exacerbate the situation the White House said both men agreed that North Korea must stop its provocative behavior it also described the relationship between President Xi and Trump who met in Florida earlier this year as extremely close saying hopefully it would help to bring about a peaceful solution President Trump has said he's not ruling out a military option in dealing with the crisis in Venezuela uncertain a question in New Jersey Mr Trump said people in Venezuela were suffering and dying here down South America correspondent Katie Watson the relationship between Venezuela and the u.s. Is already pretty tense the trumpet ministration has in the past few weeks slapped sanctions on many top government officials including President Maduro and everytime Venezuela responds defiantly saying the u.s. Needs to stop meddling in other countries affairs but Mr Trump now saying that the u.s. Had many options including a military option if necessary to deal with the problems in Venezuela the tension has escalated Venezuela's information minister at a nest of the youngest hit back saying Mr Trump comments were the most serious and incident threat ever made to his country the German chancellor Angela Merkel launches her campaign for a 4th term in office later on Saturday to give an hour long speech to supporters of her Christian Democrat Party in the western city of Darkman and it will be the 1st of a series of rallies she will hold in the 6 week run up to the general election. Kenya's president to hurrican Yatta has called for national unity following the official announcement of his reelection Well the president's supporters are celebrating angry protests have broken out in some opposition strongholds the B.B.C.'s me in Nairobi has more details the nation is definitely divided after this very high contested elections I was actually just reading on it a Tauriel from one of the country's biggest newspaper the nation it's a one of the biggest ask a doctor who is facing now that he's been elected for 5 more years as unifying the country and bringing together people and they talked about how the president has the task of including more people in his government and so it's definitely one of the biggest task that who are Kenyatta is facing unifying the nation world news from the b.b.c. Hundreds of white supremacists have how the torch lit rally in the u.s. City of Charlottesville to protest against a decision to remove a statue of the Confederate Civil War General Robert Robertson lame some at the gathering at the University of Virginia gave Nazi salutes clashes broke out with anti fascist demonstrators and police dispersed the crowd. Lawyers for the football star Neymar say he has agreed to pay a fine of $2.00 and a half $1000000.00 to end a 3 year dispute with the Brazilian tax authorities one of his lawyers said Neymar did not agree with the amount but felt the dispute over tax payable on image rights funny was that the Brazilian club Santos had dragged on too long. The Canadian government has ordered a temporary speed restriction for certain ships using the Gulf of St Lawrence in an attempt to cut the number of endangered North Atlantic right whales being killed in collisions vessels longer than 20 meters must not exceed 10 knots Marc Garneau is the Canadian transport minister this is a mandatory slowdown and it is effective immediately ships that fail to comply will face fines of up to $25000.00 at least 10 of the huge mammals have died in the area in the past 2 months with several deaths being attributed to rectally to impacts with ships the restriction will be lifted once the whales migrate to the start of winter. A judge in the Us city of Denver has dismissed a disc jockeys legal claim against the singer Taylor Swift the court has been weighing David Miller and Taylor Swift accusations against each other. With swift and allege that Mr Mueller had reached under her skirt to group her during a pre-concert reception with her fans in 2013 Mr merely assert her accusation was false and he'd lost his job as a result the John ch dismissed his claims but missed but Taylor Swift assault charges against him still stand b.b.c. News. It's 6 minutes past 7 g.m.t. Welcome to Weekend from the b.b.c. World Service with me Julie Morcha Coming up you'll hear from Lexi Alexander a kick boxer turned film director who made the jump to directing vibing a stunt woman and if you are a stunt woman as opposed to a stunt man there are some difficulties which you may not have thought of it was a lot like oh can you afford these 3 flights of stairs but in your large area you know what I think people don't consider is that you know as a stunt woman you know if I don't have any clothes to hide any kind of padding and basically doing this with nothing on me and taken a fall down the stairs but when a guy does it and they wearing a suit or even a shirt and jeans they have all kinds of a quick mind under it that you don't see in other words those stairs hurt you'll hear more from her in this half hour with me throughout the program if I'm a licensed professor in genetics at Trinity College Dublin and Maggie Abdulhadi Egyptian born writer broadcaster and former b.b.c. Arab affairs analyst let's bring you up to date on events in Kenya Kenyatta waking up once again as president with the country still divided after Friday's election result the head of the electoral commission announced late last night that Mr Kenyatta had won 54 percent of the vote that's nearly 10 percent more than his rival reloading Mr Kenyatta offered an olive branch to the opposition and called for national unity. Specially. I reach our. Vision is we shall. We show. We show. You show the. This was. Probably going to be with a new general the opposition rejected the results even before they were declared they called the process a sure Rod However it has been endorsed by international observers Mr Kenyatta said they had ensured a free fair and credible election 10 years ago there was widespread violence in the aftermath of a disputed election more than 1000 people died back then will Rebecca run Pelleas from the Africa Program at the Chatham House think tank in London Rebecca Welcome to the program thank you good morning good morning how do you see things and how they stand today. I think the nation has woken up to a result that wasn't unexpected I received intellectual independent electoral and Boundaries Commission started releasing results showing that Mr Kenyatta would win already on Wednesday so it's not unexpected but segments of the country will be very unhappy and we do hear outbreaks of violence in one of 2 places a report of that where yes that's right particularly in the western city of Kisumu which is a stronghold meseems for me has been gunshots and some of the Kenyan papers are reporting deaths I mention the events of 10 years ago what can all the main players and those in north already more broadly do to try and stop any any hint even of a repeat of that yes 10 years ago saw a great deal of violence more than 1000 killed and many hundreds of thousands displaced so that will be in the minds of citizens and hopefully the need as well today and in the next few days. Nasser the right coalition has demanded act as to the service of the i.d.c. And hopefully the i.p.c.c. Can you know either work with that request or you know in some way refute fully Nasa's allegations as. Hacking into their database of votes and then from Kenya at a Yes hopefully you know reaching out and calming the atmosphere so openness and transparency about the actual process is very important is Calamity Yes Yes And what of those words I mean we played that clip of Mr Kenyatta it sounded very conciliatory How do you think that will go down amongst Mr Dingell supported. Mr Kenyatta has one ballot seems to his one and he's been endorsed by observers of having won really a sweet victory in the last election 2013 he only won with point 707 percent of the vote this time you see it well this time 5 percent 10 percent advantage over doing that so it might seem a little bit hollow that he's saying he was once conciliation when he saw one such a sweeping victory and when this is been such a bitterly contested poll there remains to be seen what Mr can actually does how will this be watched by Kenya's nearest neighbors do you think. I think with great interest in key foreign policy. Between the 2 sides between Mr mystic and actor was that mistaken Yatta wants to keep his forces fighting Kenyan forces fighting against al-Shabaab in Somalia Mr Dingell wants to withdraw them so sesame being watched with interest in Somalia Tanzania more disappointed I imagine Mr Mack sooty president actually of Tanzania is known to be a strong supporter of. Thank you very much for coming on Rebecca Rumpole from the Africa Program of the Chatham House think tank in London. As we heard in the News President Trump has raised the possibility of American military action in Venezuela we were talking about that an hour ago most of his remarks there were at a news conference on Friday evening in New Jersey were devoted to North Korea there was more tough talk but he did strike a slightly more moderate tone fully in all work out. Nobody loves a peaceful solution better than President Trump that I can tell you hopefully it will work out but this has been going on for many years would have been a lot easier to solve those years ago before they were in the position that they're in but we will see what happens we think that a lot of good things could happen and we can also have a bad solution and we think about the good things can happen where the Chinese leader Xi Jinping as urged Mr Trump to show restraint in his dispute with North Korea and to avoid words that exacerbate tensions Let's go to our correspondent Robin Brant in Seoul a word on the Chinese 1st of all Robin what's their take on the latest developments . Well the context being that China is crucial I think to trying to bring about a lasting peace here just quickly North Korea's only ally North Korea's main trading partner as well certainly President Trump thinks that she Jinping holds the keys to getting a last ing peace here are the 2 men spoke on the phone in the last couple of hours they've spoken before this one dominated I think by what's going on in North Korea they agree that North Korea needs to stop its provocative actions it says the White House the White House also pointing out that it thinks the relationship between these 2 presidents is extremely close that's their words and this could help bring about a lost in peace in this dispute with North Korea in terms of what she did paying said to Donald Trump he said that all relevant parties should exercise restraint when it comes to words and actions and avoid exacerbating this already very tense situation now you know that kind of language is not uncommon in English translations of Chinese Chinese kind of press releases but all relevant parties important there. Those words of caution directed at Donald Trump as well as Kim Jong un I mean if you're in the south you are familiar with the tensions in the region but do you sense anything different. Well I mean this is a few days I've been here it really is a case and I know we hear this all the time of life goes on we're reading some reports this morning about people buying more gold perhaps that's a sign of you know concerns about financial stability people buying more ready to eat meals the Reuters news agency has been looking that there's going to be a nationwide civil defense drill next week that this happens every year but next week the city of Seoul from where I'm talking to all the districts within the city going to take part in that so that's when people kind of guarded off the streets taken down to bomb shelters which are usually metro stations last year I think only a handful of districts took part this year is going to be the whole of the city so . Some signs perhaps that preparedness is slightly going up a notch probably stay there members are just going bring some comments in from I guess they may want to put a question to you and then I'll come back to you Maggie what's in your mind what has been in my mind ever since the syrup to this conflict again is we all know that North Korea has only one friend and that is China would this China get in return is becoming such a troublesome relationship isn't it does China get must be a benefit of some kind. At what point will North Korea become a liability and China's right we've had enough will ditch Robin Dunbar cause I'm going to bring me for. What I think you know shouldn't paying its no secret has lost patience with Kim Jong un and the increasing threats that North Korea's leader has made nonetheless China continues to allow some trade controversially with the North the materials it says are not banned under the United Nations resolutions there are an argument that essentially China continues to prop up the regime I think what China fears most is a humanitarian crisis if North Korea were to implode millions of people perhaps fleeing north on the border with China and also strategically and this is where it has a distinctly different view from the United States you know a unified Korean Peninsula maybe with American forces moving north with their South Korean partners getting close to the border with China is not perhaps what they want to see Having said all of that this was some slightly Mecurio you know a president in Washington distracted by a growing crisis in this part of the world is a little helpful perhaps to China who has its own policies and priorities in this part of the world comes to South China Sea its relationship with India might be again for China maybe was nodding knowingly at that observation coming from top to well I mean so I just look at this whole situation just as and layperson you know just weren't following the news and some watched in horror just what's happening in the last week it's that it feels kind of scary trip seems to be you know rattling and trying to threaten war it seems that one hand in saying hopefully it will all work out and it strikes me that you know he should be one of the people who should be actively taking steps for it to work out. Just now hoping somebody else will do something that you know just from the point of view of an ordinary layperson it just feels quite unpredictable and scary which which prompts a final thought from me Robyn to you about the tactics being employed by President Trump he would argue of course that President Obama's approach didn't make any difference and if you rattle the cage if you are unpredictable if you suddenly use different language to try and address and apparently intractable situation it might just work. Yes and that's Trump style isn't it I mean he's a transactional politician he's also a politician who likes to unsettle his opponents that's been his style in here in his business. In the past and he's brought that very much to the White House and you're right you know I don't think there's an arguing about failures of previous presidents President Clinton's administration tried to reach a peace deal that didn't work and President Obama I think we even have and 8 of his knowledge in today that that president could have done far more perhaps whoever won the election in November was going to have to deal with this finally coming to an apothecary anyway and there is an argument harking back to President Nixon's relationship and opening up with China the kind of these aren't my words a kind of crazy guy approach being unpredictable. Is something that made bring that may bring results which will see I hate to use those kind of final it's. Going to I think we will see is about all we can say on this one of the but we will probably have another conversation which might end with the same words at some point in the coming days in Seoul. Now let's see Alexander is not your average Hollywood director for a start she is a woman but that barely scratches the surface born in Germany to a German mother and a Palestinian father she became a world karate champion when she was still a teenager but before long she decided to leave Germany for Hollywood. As she worked as a stunt woman within a few years she moved behind the camera to direct her 1st short film which won an Oscar in 2002 and now she's just written a television series that features unusually for American television almost exclusively Arab characters it's a drama called you bury me and she told me about it from Los Angeles while you burn me was an idea that I had that probably came from being frustrated to watch a lot of Arabs an Arab Americans portrayed in a very one dimensional manner we are usually portrayed as terrorists or if we get lucky we're portrayed on the good side of national security we may be a people working for the f.b.i. Or CIA but there seems to be no no space for you know the diversity that people from the Middle East really have talked to me about how you arrived at this kind of work because obviously we know you as a film director here we are talking about a television show and you've obviously written for television and worked on television as well talk to me about the route that took you from Germany to Hollywood when I was a martial artist really you know I traveled around to Europe for a couple of years and farting competitions with this little sponsor team that we had and eventually you go to the void championship and that was in Atlantic City and you know even some of the best martial artists we can be world renown in martial arts but you know there's no prize money really there's no no way to make a living and no matter how good you are in any of these disciplines and so for us there was really only a few options that you can you know convert this success that you had in martial arts into a career but you know I came here and I thought I'll at least try it out and I got into stuff. It's really easy because stares few women you know who can do the kind of fighting stuff for the actresses and so it was mainly fighting stunts it was based on your experience in the world of martial arts but that's what got me in but you have to learn the other stuff too eventually I was doing all of it motorcycles fall from high rises I even learned to precision driving and racecar driving and because if you're not versatile it becomes an issue on many shows. So yeah you know that there was that was fun but I'm not sure if you know this do you know actresses usually don't wear a lot of clothes they wear a lot less than their you know male peers and when they're on motorbikes you mean even then you know I mean it was a lot like oh can you afford these 3 flights of stairs but in your last 3 and you know what I think people don't consider is that you know as a stunt woman you know if I don't have any clothes to hide any kind of padding I'm basically doing this with nothing on me I'm taking a fall down the stairs but when the guy does it and they wearing a suit or even a shirt and jeans they have all kinds of equipment under it that you don't see but me can never do that and it gotten to the point where I was like Ok I'm certainly not doing that for very long hence the world of direction exactly that wasn't the only reason but that was a part of the thinking that was going on in your mind at the time absolutely I quickly realized that you know directing is something I definitely almost felt like a calling for and luckily it was very early on that I realized that and then I just needed to figure out a way to you know break in which you know at the time there was maybe one female direct that that I knew of and she wasn't really that successful so it was difficult to kind of figure out you know if I can break in and how do I do it and even the career for me I wanted to get into that because you've spoken a number. Of occasions about the the lack of opportunities even now for women to be directors in Hollywood how would you assess that level of opportunity today compared with how it was when you 1st went into it you know in the eighty's there was a moment where the women in the direct us. Suit and you know even the older suit were thrown out the numbers went up for a little bit because the studios got worried and then it dropped again and right now we thought we made a lot of noise you know to make it change and there's been a lot of talk and sadly actually a study just came out last week telling us that our numbers to up declining again I mean I'm not sure if you aware of this but there's an entire government investigation going on into the discrimination of women directors and what do you think that will uncover Well from what I understand is that they have already discovered that there is blatant discrimination and they are in negotiations with the studios and when you talk about blatant discrimination just thinking about the experiences that you personally have had how is it played out in your career because clearly sometimes it might well be that you go for a movie others go for a movie the guy who gets it is for whatever reason considered to be better qualified better suited and you would acknowledge that will sometimes happen but you're pointing to the the number of times that this seems to have happened correct and that's why I think discrimination especially India you know artistic interest rate it's a very difficult thing to prove because you're absolutely right I'm sure there's many times where somebody came in and met on the movie with a better take than me but you know the numbers don't really life that's a thing like we can't all be that bat was the film director Alexis Alexander talking to me from Los Angeles some final thoughts from you both on that I mean we well I think the portrayal of Arabs on screen is an interesting point that she made early on and. You were talking about women in science a little bit earlier on as well I want to where you want to take the conversation and on the back of what you just heard well I think it's interesting which is saying about the discrimination against women you know this is the there was also in the last week or so this famous and Big 10 page memo in Google about a male working there who is saying that females just aren't suited to that kind of work in general and this happens in a lot of industries that are typically male that they because they've been historically male people are used to thinking that the traits that make you good at this are male traits and this all gets these things get or get bundled up together and it becomes difficult for women to just get a fair break and yes so that's it's I didn't realize it was quite so bad in the film industry and trade she's talking about with the actual investigation into the discrimination that sounds like a positive step but actually says well it's also really hard to prove that you're talking about in academia there's a similar issue with the numbers and so if you look. If you look at their students so if you look at people getting degrees and Ph D.'s The numbers are usually around $5050.00 say in the sciences but then when you look at professors it's usually less than 20 percent or something like 18 percent in my university professors so you can say well something's happening in between but it but again you can't point to very clear examples or it's very difficult to prove any kind of discrimination because it's always a choice that's being made you know you have 2 people or several people looking for a job and they've got their own track record and you can it's very hard to say that it's a blatant case of any individual cases of breaking case of discrimination but there seem to be kind of a habit that has formed over very many years that people are finding it hard to shrug off it's mostly unconscious I think b. And so there are studies on this that have. By ss and it can be women as well who are biased against other women names just am an unconscious bias that gets in Grange from a very early age and it's hard to shake it off if I think it's right these things it has to be done consciously You can't just expect things to fix themselves my dear what is what about the portrait of Arab characters on u.s. Television is Lexie Alexander sort you think she's right. It's an old problem and I can you know very much relate to that even though I wasn't personally born in Western Europe would have been very painful if this was a society that I'd always regarded as my country and people viewed me as an outsider I'll tell you briefly a story about what a daughter of a Swedish friend of mine once referred to me talking term other you black friend and a mother loft and I also lost because we Middle Eastern people we don't regard ourselves as black but I think it comes down to the way human mind is programmed to perceive foreignness So as an initial stage it's all right but when culture and education comes in and qualifies this equips as give the Deuils to question our initial understanding there is hope and in an open society like the states here there is this constant revision so I'm optimistic things will get sorted out in the end on that uplifting note thank you both very much for being a part of the program today thanks to Mack Maggie Abdulhadi who's been here with me in London for Maclise head in Dublin thank you very much for your company as well and thank you for listening to this edition of Weekend I'll be back at the same time tomorrow a summary of international news is coming up next here on the b.b.c. World Service. Distribution of the b.b.c. World Service in the us was made possible by American Public Media producer and distributor of award winning public radio contact a.p.i. American Public Media with support from Lumosity brain training developed by scientists and game designers turn cognitive research tasks into challenging games learn more Lumosity dot com. You're listening to the b.b.c. Well welcome to. Around the world children raised by people who. Raise someone else's child does it make sense biologically and how do adoption fostering and step parenting shape the way. It means to be a family. My Mariano and I'll be back after the nice. B.b.c. News Chinese state television says President Xi Jinping has told his u.s. Counterpart Donald Trump that a peaceful resolution of the crisis over North Korea's nuclear program is essential during a telephone conversation with Mr Trump the Chinese president called upon the relevant parties to exercise restraint President Trump has said he's not ruling out a military option in dealing with the crisis in Venezuela is that people in Venezuela are suffering and dying and the u.s. Had many options including a military one if necessary Venezuela's defense minister said Mr Trump's comment was an act of craziness tensions remain high in Kenya after the incumbent to her to Kenya was declared the winner of the disputed presidential election there's been violence in parts of the country that supported the opposition candidate Rylan a dingo police are reported to fight tear gas and exists in a district of the capital Nairobi and in the western city of Kisumu the German chancellor Angela Merkel launches her campaign for a 4th time in office later she is to give an hour long speech to supporters of her Christian Democrat Party indoor and hundreds of white supremacists have held a torch lit rally in the u.s. City of Charlottesville to protest against a decision to remove a statue of the Confederate Civil War General Robert e. Lee clashes broke out with anti fascist demonstrators and police dispersed the crowd and officials in Iran say 12 people have been killed in flash floods triggered by heavy rain in the north and northeast of the country the storms caused flooding in 5 provinces and severe storms have disrupted hundreds of flights that Beijing International Airport one of the busiest in Asia more than 300 flights is that have been canceled and Saturday jus to Terentia rain the city authorities they've issued a weather alert b.b.c. News. Praising children. Doesn't it make sense to devote. Raised. To the. Kind of child to be your responsibility even if you don't. I'm Marianne. We explore what it means to be a parent. Would choose to raise another person's child my mother was. My father who hear all the time. So she. Police and taken away put into prison. For. Stephen Morrison is one of hundreds of thousands of South Koreans who were abandoned on the streets as children he's now in his fifty's and. Around the streets with. Food and we were asleep on the bridge. My younger brother. Or so. I was. There for 8 long years. Until I was. Age 14 I wonder for a couple they had 3 children by birth and their adopted 2 and I was their 5th child they took a pic risk they love me just as their own biological children and I never felt any discrimination or favoritism in fact my friends often told me that they seem to like me the past. Since the 1950 s. 200000 Korean children have been adopted to families outside the country in Steve Case his family were in America where he still lives traditionally in South Korea adoption is. In a very negative social stigma in fact fewer than one in 5 parent lost children find adoptive homes in South Korea 80 percent of abandoned children grow up in state often it is South Korea is a country that reveres family ancestry and traditionally adoption is a mark of shame suggesting an illegitimate unwanted child and an infertile desperate adoptive mother purity of bloodline and loyalty to ancestors remained central to the Korean psyche in confusion tradition one of the 7 deadly sins for mother not to be able to bear a child so domestic adoption in Korea was happening but it was all being done in secret so a lot of times a woman when she adopted she fakes a pregnancy by putting in some cotton herring in her womb and then she would increase it month by month and when she has enough of it like in the night but then she says to her neighbor that she's going to go down to her hometown to deliver a baby so when she comes back up to her neighbor she has a child in her arms all the people in the neighborhood thing. They were the baby in cultures like South Korea immediate simple in contestable bloodlines are often the measure of family but in other societies a child can belong because of how people feel about them shared beliefs values and experiences become the measure of kinship. Joan puck is also South Korean a concept a family was challenged when she moved abroad the 1st time I met in real adoptive family whereas when I was in u.s. And it was 2008 we attended an American church and church there were many adoptive family and they didn't look like a family because Korea consists of one race and when I say that adoptive family one is African American and the other one was Asian and the parents were white so I felt they didn't harmonize at all but when I see the family closely they were just like a normal family I felt a lot. Has since moved back to Korea and now has a family of her own my family's My has banned me and my beautiful daughter Atlanta . That's German playing with her daughter and making preparations for the arrival of her 2nd child neither of the children is biologically related to. Her husband when I told everybody that we are adopting a baby most people sat Why don't you wait some more of you guys are too young my parents in law was against the idea of a monster they never stopped to convince us to try to give birth what was it like when you 1st met your daughter on that day I felt water separate times and making so many. Shaky hands in failing like trying and standing right in front of the door of every room my baby was in I was so nervous just so much no interest and when I opened the door and there was a beautiful girl wearing a pink dress and white hair band. And she was way more beautiful than I expected do you feel like you felt immediately. Or did that grow in time now now they're growing time and a very 1st day maybe in the same house she cried all day and the next morning came and I went to her room looking at my sleeping baby and I was so nervous when during. Cry like yesterday again and my daughter they are finally opened her eyes and looked at me and you know I should gave me a smile and that was a moment to which made me cry average time I rode out there. That. I have never game a birth but I felt just like the other moms and nothing different and I was surprised by that even though I am a adoptive parent I was just a mom who don't want. To do. Feels a deep bond with her daughter the genetics seem irrelevant but in terms of evolutionary biology isn't that a bit old despite the emotional spiritual social satisfaction surely it is against genetic interest to spend all energies on another person's children. Doesn't it define natural selection where animals who have the most successful offspring passing the genes on to the next generation become winners in the race of life adoption doesn't necessarily have to have a genetic interest is something that can be very much to the benefit of the individual because of the emotional needs that it satisfies Robert Folie professor of human evolution at the University of Cambridge there's an idea that been widely employed and discussed in evolutionary biology which is this idea of The Selfish Gene the title of a book by Richard Dawkins and it's basic idea was that we are the slaves of our genes and programmed to behave in selfish ways to look after ourselves and in a way what comes out of that was that any acts of altruism so behaving in ways that are not in your own selfish interest are difficult to explain in an evolutionary context the selfish gene is a catchy phrase but in a way hides the fundamental idea which is a more interesting one that in evolution clearly what is selected for is whatever benefits you as an individual as you reproduce the idea of natural selection is just having more offspring than someone you're competing with but this is where the twist comes what's happening is that genes are being pushed through from one generation to the next but you share many of those genes with your close relatives you share 50 percent with your mother your father your children so that it ends up what is in your genetic interest maybe more than just your own personal want to mix tend to your family. This genetic logic means many species demonstrate what's called co-operative parenting where kin groups help raise each other's offspring from ants and spiders to vampire bats Lions lemurs and almost a 1000 species of birds and humans have an extraordinary ability to build these strategies into complex cultural roles to. Happen soon enough amongst the Innuit people of the Arctic traditional naming practices include giving a child family names including a dead person's name they inherit a spiritual connection to their namesake and the working relationships of that person will be talked to and treated in the same way say as their grandmother would have been received the protection of the white network of invested adults in a hostile natural environment the more people expected and willing to help care for a child the better his or her chances of surviving but the way we've evolved takes us even further we're willing to raise children that are total biological strangers thing one of the things one can say very clearly is that humans are co-operative on a scale that goes so far beyond kinship in other words humans are hyper co-operative well beyond the bounds of kin selection but why humans have a profound interest in one capacity for reading other people's emotional states young human children demonstrate acts of spontaneous generosity tolerance and an eagerness to engage and bond with multiple caregivers that far outstrips any of the other great ape species parenting non-biologically related children is an instinctive thing for humans to do. Some researchers believe this is what allowed us to evolve into the hyper social fast learning world dominating species we are today. No biological trigger that makes you any better as a parent than anyone else Jerry Byrne is a consultant child psychotherapist and an expert in working with families in distress in the u.k. Going back into our evolutionary past the old phrase of it takes a village to raise a child would have been true of our species for the larger part of our time on this planet and there are still societies in which that still happens one can point to very successful child rearing practices in communities where many others feel responsible for the child and not just one or 2 sole caregivers What's crucial is the facilitating environment of the parent child relationship and there's no biological trigger for. In the USA around 50 percent of marriages end in divorce and 4 in 10 new marriages involve children from previous relationships it means many kids will be raised in step families which often results in a complex and contested set of relationships between adults and the children they're raising and although the blended family is the fastest growing family type in the West if the stories we tell are anything to go by the perils of raising someone else's child are nothing more. Wouldn't you prefer to eat in the works done earlier or you can call me at the time to do the step mother is the most vilified parent in human history you shall not go to the box don't exist. The evil stepmother thing is tragic because it's true you know there's just that slight disconnect so you just don't feel so emotionally for the child and therefore you can be more cruel it's one of the secrets of looking after other people's children that you can't honestly and openly admit that you have difficult feelings about having married the man but not like his children Alison Omani runs a consultancy advising stepfamilies on managing the challenges of raising other people's children there's a great expectation when you start looking after other people's children that you can just bond like that but who are you kidding you might be trying to kid yourself but you're certainly not kidding them your good to love your children but if I would say to you you know you just pop across the pavement then start loving those children over there is just not a bond that happens overnight the bottom line is step parents join the family because of the partner not because of the children they might keep them safe protected fed but this is the ultimate What happens when you don't love. The children you're raising we're confident the more we say to the mothers who may have trouble initially in loving a child is that look if you really work hard at trying to understand your child and respond to his needs at some point those feelings that seem allusive now may well kick in and it will take some time for you to learn to love this individual there's no biological trigger that makes you and he better as a parent than anyone else so literally and a loving adult with these capacities can be an excellent parent by 10 years you've kind of got there many many step families say that and sometimes step families never feel as though they've got their your 2 families living under one roof and that's Ok too we wouldn't be fair to my stepchildren to say that it's exactly the same as it is to your natural children because they have had a mother for a period of time when people are asked May I say I've got 4 children I want to have 4 children I want them to be my children and I want us all part of one family in so many areas of human life biology is just the starting point for that role material we build cultures beliefs and relationships in thousands of different ways how we define what a mother or father is and whose children of theirs to raise is in our homes at the start of this program we heard from Stephen he was adopted by loving parents at the age of 14 after a life lived on the streets and in the orphanages of South Korea he's working hard to change perceptions of adoption in his home country and he's also made the choice to raise someone else's children a atop the children from Korea. Yeah there were both in orphanages. So he's been with us for 17 years. So he's been with us 6 years. Because. Because you know. There are. Differences. Big wonderful wonderful to be. On the website. Subjects including why some people choose not. To hate the way they. The modern economy Tim Harford. Unless I am very much mistaken this invention will prove important in the future. And wrote those words in his journal on July the 11th 1907. And why not 43 years old and had done well for himself. He was born in Belgium if it had been up to his dad hit been there mending shoes his dad was a cobbler he'd had no education and he didn't understand why young Leo wanted one but his mom a domestic servant had other ideas with her encouragement Leo went to night school and won a scholarship to the University of Kent by the age of 20 he had a doctorate in chemistry he married his chewed his daughter they moved to New York and leo made enough of a fortune from inventing a new kind of photographic printing paper that he could have retired there and then . He bought a house in Yonkers overlooking the Hudson River and he built a home laboratory to indulge his love of tinkering with chemicals in line 1907 he was experimenting with formaldehyde and phenol. The cheerful journal entries continued July 18th another hot sultry day but I do not mind it and for only appreciate the luxury of being allowed to stay home in shirt sleeves and without a collar. Not all rich men were so happy knew that how about these slave millionaires in Wall Street who have to go to their moneymaking pursuit notwithstanding the sweltering heat all day spent in the laboratory he concluded with an unmistakable note of satisfaction perhaps Leo mused about who he had to thank for this enjoyable carefree life the next day's journal entry records to be wired 100 dollars to his mother 4 days later this is the 23rd anniversary of my doctor ship how these 23 years have gone fast now I am again a student and a student I will remain until death calls me again to rest. Leo wasn't entirely right about that when death did call him at the age of 80 had become an eccentric recluse dining on tinned food but what a life he lived in the mean time he made a 2nd fortune he became famous enough that Time magazine put his face on the cover . What Leo bacon and invented that chill I was the 1st listen Thetic plastic. He called it Bakelite. And he was right about the future importance plastics are now everywhere when the author Susan Frankel set out to write a book on them she spent a day noting down everything she touched that was plastic the light switch the toilet seat the tooth brush the toothpaste cheap She also noted everything that wasn't the toilet paper the wooden floor the porcelain. By the day's end she listed $102.00 items that were made of plastic and $196.00 that were we make so much plastic It takes about 8 percent of oil production half for raw material half energy. The bakelite corporation didn't hold back in its advertising blurb humans they said had transcended the old taxonomy of animal mineral and vegetable Now we had a 4th kingdom whose boundaries are unlimited That sounds hyperbolic but it was true scientists previously had thought about improving or mimicking natural substances earlier plastics like cellulite were based on plants and bagel and himself had been seeking an alternative to shellac or resin secreted by beetles that was used for electrical insulation. Yet he quickly realized that bakelite could become far more versatile than that the bakelite corporation christened it the material of a 1000 uses and again they weren't far wrong it went into telephones and radios guns and coffee pots billiard balls and jewelry it was used in the 1st atomic bomb . Making Light success shifted mindsets what other artificial materials might be possible with properties you couldn't necessarily find in nature in the 1920 s. And thirty's plastics poured out of labs around the world there was policy often used for packaging nylon popularized by stockings polyethylene the stuff of plastic bags at the 2nd World War stretched natural resources production of plastics ramped up to fill the gap and when the war ended exciting new products like Tupperware hit the consumer market. But they weren't exciting for long the image of plastic gradually changed in 1067 the movie The Graduate famously started with the central character the young Benjamin Braddock receiving unsolicited career advice from a self-satisfied older neighbor television any I want to talk to you if you join just one word the neighbor promises steering Benjamin towards a quiet corner as if about to reveal the secret to life itself. Usually just so you. Plastics. The line became much quoted because it crystallized the changing connotations of the word. For the older neighbors generation plastic still meant opportunity and modernity. For the likes of young Benjamin it stood for all that was phony superficial. Still it was great advice half a century on despite its image problem plastic production has grown about 20 fold it will double again in the next 20 years that's also despite growing evidence of environmental problems some of the chemicals in plastics are thought to affect how animals develop and reproduce when plastics end up in landfill those chemicals can eventually seep into groundwater when they find their way into the oceans some creatures eat them but there's another side to the ledger plastic has benefits that aren't just economic but Environmental to vehicles made with plastic parts a lighter and so use less fuel plastic packaging keeps food fresh for longer and so reduces waste if bottles were made of plastic there'd be made of glass and which would you rather gets dropped in your children's playground. Eventually we'll have to get better at recycling plastic if only because oil won't last forever some plastics can't be recycled bakelite is one many more could be but armed only about a 7th of plastic packaging is recycled far less than for paper or steel for other plastic products the rate is lower still how about technological solutions fans of science fiction will enjoy one recent invention the protest cycle or feed it or plastic waste and it gives you filament feel 3 d. Printer to protest cycle is as close as we can get today to Star Trek's replicator . In its day bakelite must have felt as revolutionary as that Star Trek replicator feels to us it was a simple cheap synthetic product that was tough enough to replace around that table where all metal letter openness hit beautiful enough to be used as jury could even replace precious ivory It was a miracle material even though like all plastics today we now take it for granted. The manufacturers haven't given up on the idea that you can make something precious and practical from something cheap and worthless the latest techniques up cycle plastic trash mixing it with agricultural waste and nano particles to create new materials with new properties. Near Baker and what if approved. A key reference for this program was American Plastic a cultural history by Jeffrey l. . First full list of our sources b.b.c. World Service dot com such. You might think that because the kids on from the top are so amazing at their music that they're just slaves to the practice room with no life beyond that well 2 I think again one of my hobbies is raising chickens and one nationals for dance about 3 years ago we really hope someday we can actually qualify for the Olympics I have a small part in the movie Wall Street Money Never Sleeps join me Christopher O'Reilly for a weekly celebration of great American kids and great music it's npr's from the top .