Corporate funding is provided by mutual of america designing customized individual and Group Retirement products. Thats why we are your retirement company. Additional support is provided by and by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. From the tisch wnet studios in Lincoln Center in new york, hari sreenivasan. Sreenivasan good evening. Thanks for joining us. Secretary of state john kerry traveled today to cairo to try to enlist egypts support in what the white house describes as americas war against the Islamic State, also known as isil. Egypt is the most populous country in the arab world. It will be our goal in every meeting that we have on the international basis, together, working to degrade and ultimately to defeat isil. Sreenivasan in his weekly radio address, president obama also emphasized the need to build an Arab Coalition to fight the extremist group, which has seized significant portions of syria and iraq. But the president cautioned to meet a threat like this, we have to be smart, we have to use our power wisely, and we have to avoid the mistakes of the past. Sreenivasan the iraqi Prime Minister, haider alabadi, said today that he has ordered the army to stop shelling Populated Areas held by the Islamic State to help reduce civilian casualties. The group controls a number of iraqi cities, including mosul, tikrit and fallujah. Well have more on isis in a moment. Its the last weekend before scotlands historic independence referendum. And in edinburgh today, demonstrators turned out who support keeping scotland in the united kingdom. The most recent polls show those supporting Scottish Independence trail by a narrow margin. The vote is thursday. Turning now to ukraine, where, despite the recent ceasefire, the government says its forces repelled an attack by pro russian rebels at the airport in donetsk. Nearby, in luhansk, a convoy of more than 200 russian trucks crossed the border to deliver food to that rebelheld city of 400,000. Thousands of residents there have been without water or electricity for several weeks. Today, ukraines Prime Minister expressed pessimism about a peaceful resolution to the crisis. Let me put it bluntly, we are still in the state of war, and the key aggressor is russian federation. Sreenivasan Law Enforcement officials from three states converged on a location in northeastern pennsylvania overnight after two state troopers were shot outside their barracks. One trooper was killed and the other wounded. The incident occurred in blooming grove, pennsylvania. Police are questioning a 48 yearold man described as a person of interest. No arrests have been made. With less than two months until election day, a federal Appeals Court has reinstated a Wisconsin Law requiring voters to show a photo i. D. At the polls. A threejudge panel issued the ruling yesterday. Last april, a lower court found the law unconstitutional, saying it posed an unfair burden on poor and minority voters. More than 30 states have some form of voter i. D. Law on the books. The National Football league now acknowledges that up to a third of its retired players could develop longterm cognitive problems, many at what it describes as notably younger ages than the general population. The disclosure was made in papers filed in federal court in connection with the settlement of a lawsuit brought by former players against the league. Adrian peterson, one of the n. F. L. s biggest stars, has been indicted in texas on child abuse charges. He allegedly used a branch to spank his fouryearold son. The child reportedly suffered numerous cuts and bruises on his back, legs, buttocks and scrotum. Petersons lawyer says the Minnesota Vikings running back never intended to harm the child and said pq imon had been disciplined the same way when he was growing up. And for 13 years, no one knew what happened to the people in this photograph, which was found at ground zero a month after the 9 11 attack. Each year, Lesley University professor elizabeth stringer keefe posted the picture online hoping to solve the mystery. Finally, this week, a network of boston blogs wrote about her search, and more than 70,000 people retweeted the photo. On friday, one of the people in the photo saw it and came forward. Turns out, fred mahe was on the 77th floor of the south tower on the day of the attack and his photo was lost. The good news is that everyone in the picture is alive. Mahe wrote, on september 11, we remember what we lost. On september 12, we remember what we have. Sreenivasan for more about the war on the Islamic State, we are joined now by austin long. He is a professor at columbia universitys school of international and public affairs. Previously, he was an adviser to the Multinational Force in iraq. So there seems to be in Public Opinion polls support for air strikes but not for ground troops. And that seems to be the plan that the president is following at the moment. How effective can air strikes be without intelligence on the ground that can verify whats happening and factor more intelligence on whether youre going to do the right thing. Its very difficult. In eastern iraq, the u. S. Has some ground presence in the form of advisers. There are probably intelligence officers, things like that. You can collect a lot of intelligence with assets like drones. So there can be some going to be the boots on the ground that take the territory that air strikes sort of open up opportunity to seize. Sreenivasan that record has been mixed at best when it comes to iraqi forces staying through the fight. Absolutely. The Iraqi Security forces in particular are very mixed. Their special operations units are quite effective and have fought very well within the limitations that they have. But theres only a few thousand of them. The vast bulk of the Iraqi Military suffers from a lot of weaknesses, and the kurdish poosh, who have fought better have their own weaknesses as well. There are real questions about who will be the effective boots on the ground. Sreenivasan isil, isis, Islamic State still control major cities. How do you from the air try to clear some of those cities when these guys can go right back into the civilian population . Its very challenging. Even with the United States having tens of thousands of troops in iraq and at the highest sirnlg, we werent able to completely eliminate al qaeda in iraq, which was sort of the predecessor of the Islamic State, and they hung on and had a presence in mosul, sort of throughout the entire time the u. S. Was there, even if it was a much lower level presence. Its very challenging to clear that kind of presence out. Sreenivasan one of the longer term concerns is the training we would provide or especially the equipment we would floyd this fight. Sometimes the equipment is used against us. Theres a backlash when it falls spot wrong hands. How do we protect against that . Its extremely challenging. People talk about training of the Iraqi Security forces. We had a big endeavor to do that for years in the iraq, and, yet, you saw collapse in mosul and the seizure of a lot of equipment. The key is to build up the capabilities of the organization before you just dump a lot of weapons on it, and thats also, i think, a risk across the border in syria, with trying to arm Syrian Rebels is you have the the possibility that without building up the organization, dump weapons on them, the Islamic State can then just take them from them. Sreenivasan speaking of syria, when you go across that border, who is left to be the ally there . It seems theyve been, on the one hard, decraided by alba shars forces and on the other hand degraded by isil. Theres a fragmented selection of militias there that will have to be rebuild into something that resemblesoon army. Whatever the challenges in iraq are, in terms of providing support to potential local ground forces, i think the challenge is much greater in syria. Lets talk about timelines. The president said lets brace ourselves for a longterm engagement. How long is this going to take . Its going to take a very long time. I think years would be pretty generous. Now, years would be to completely defeat the group. I think you can make Real Progress in taking some of the key cities back on a shoart timeline but its still not going to be days or weeks. Its probably going to be months or years. Sreenivasan and thats in both iraq and syria . I think syria is probably more challenging. The Islamic State is much stronger than most of the rebel troops there, rebuilding them into Something Like a functioning army i think will take a very long time. You can launch strikes in syria without rebuilding those forces, but then youre, at least indirectly, about the to benefit president assads regime. Sreenivasan austin long, thank you very much. Thank you very having me. Sreenivasan and now to our signature segment. Tonight, part two of a series by the center for investigative reporting. The focus chinas purchase last september of americas largest pork producer, smithfield foods. Last nights report examined the chinese governments role in the 4. 7 billion acquisition. Tonight, a look at how the deal fits into the chinese governments plans to feed its 1. 4 billion people. The story, by nathan halverson, begins in henan province, the breadbasket of china. Reporter li grows crops on a few acres of land about 300 miles south of beijing. Farmers like li produce the bulk of chinas food. translated it has been the same way wheat in the spring and corn in the fall. Always this way. It has never changed. laughs reporter but change is coming. Farmers like li can no longer produce enough food to satisfy chinas growing demand. The country is in the midst of the largest agrarian reforms in world history. China is roughly the same size as the United States. The cropland area is similar. The Grain Harvest is similar. The difference is, in the u. S. , we have 300 Million People, and there they have 1. 4 billion people. Reporter lester brown is a food economist and author of who will feed china . He says china must now make the most of its limited farmland. And theyre feeling very vulnerable at this point. They know that they cant feed themselves anymore. Reporter that fear has rattled the chinese government. In 2011, it announced a five year plan to radically overhaul chinas farm system and relocate 250 million farmers to cities. Keep in mind that most of the leaders in beijing today, at can remember the great famine in 195961 when 37 Million People starved to death. Reporter today, the government is no longer worried about starvation, but satisfying an affluent and growing middle class that wants to eat like americans. The government needs to keep people happy, says the former head of Goldman Sachs in china, fred hu, now an advisor to the chinese government. The political system we have in china, we have a oneparty and the party, the legitimacy depends on its ability to deliver Economic Prosperity and consumer satisfaction, if you will. Reporter hu, a chinese citizen, says that what Consumers Want to eat, increasingly, is meat. And meat is so resource intensive, it puts even more pressure on chinas strained farms. It seems highly unlikely for china to be selfsufficient, so china will have to import a large quantity of foods from all over the world. Reporter last years takeover of smithfield foods, the largestever chinese acquisition of an american company, was a significant part of the governments effort to acquire resources from outside its borders. Smithfield c. E. O. Larry pope is now an executive with the chinese firm. China consumes 50 of the worlds pork . Half of all the worlds pork is eaten in that one country and growing, and growing steadily every two or three years. Chinas consumption demand grows by the whole size of the u. S. Market. Reporter pope says smithfield is already gearing up to ship more pork to china. In many respects, this is carrying out the governments fiveyear plan, which is to improve the quality and the security of their food supply. Reporter chinese consumers view american brands, like smithfield pork, as safer than domestic products. After years of food scandals, they have become wary of chinese brands. The last couple of years, there has been a string of food safety accidents baby powder formula or Meat Products so that has caused a big scare and concern among chinese consumers. Reporter officials are now taking a closer look at where the food is coming from. translated my name is wang. Im a pig farmer. Reporter wang is a typical hog farmer, raising about 100 pigs in a barn attached to his house. 200 million Small Farmers scattered across the countryside raise most of chinas livestock. The government knows food safety isnt always a priority on these farms. translated raising pigs is actually easy. They can eat whenever they want. You just throw the food in the pen. When theyre hungry, they will come to eat. If not, whatever. Reporter i noticed some open vials on a dirty table. Some farmers have been caught using illegal growth hormones. I asked wang about the vials. translated a while ago, the pigs got sick and were coughing. Reporter keeping tainted pork off chinese plates has been a struggle in chinas fragmented farming system. Scott rozelle is an agricultural economist at stanford. You have all these hogs coming from everywhere. They have foot and mouth disease. They could have other pork diseases. You may have been giving the injections of hormones to make them grow faster, and you dont know what youre getting. And so, theres absolutely no way you can retrace any food safety from there. Reporter modern facilities provide an easier way to monitor food safety, a key goal of the governments fiveyear plan. China is pushing to replace family farms with largescale operators like shuanghui, the company that bought smithfield foods. We received a tour of a shuanghui plant from its president , zhang taixi. translated the Current Technologies of this factory are a little outdated. The new factories we are building will be stateofthe art. Reporter with the takeover, chinas largest meat processor acquired smithfields food safety technology. Zhang told us the government is rapidly overhauling chinas meat industry, closing half of its slaughterhouses in the next year. translated the number of slaughterhouses will be reduced from 20,000 to 10,000 by 2015 in order to meet the standards of food safety as well as environment protection. Reporter the rapid increase in meat production has resulted in devastating environmental damage, another issue rattling the chinese government. It estimates that threequarters of its waterways are polluted, and nearly half of that pollution comes from agriculture. Here in china, small pig farms still account for about 70 of production. Each farm will have maybe about 100 pigs, each pig producing ten pounds of manure every day. The downside of these operations are that the manure has nowhere to go except for in the local culverts like this. All the agricultural waste makes its way down chinas rivers, into its lakes and out into the ocean, leading to widespread and toxic algae blooms, affecting fisherman like jin tao. translated its got algae. A lot of the water has algae. Its scary. If you drink the water, you will get sick. Reporter shuanghui hopes that smithfields modern Waste Management technology will help tackle pollution. Shuanghui says it is committed to building more environmentally friendly facilities like the one behind me, where the 28,000 head of hogs that are raised every year have their manure running off into the lagoons, capturing it and preventing it from going into the nearby river. How china deals with all these issues from Food Shortages to the environment will have a global impact. The smithfield purchase included hog farms in poland, mexico and the United States. Over the long term, more hogs will be produced in america, but that would be more hogs produced in order to ship pork to china. Reporter Patrick Woodall is the Research Director at food and water watch, an Environmental Advocacy group. They get the meat; we get the manure. We export the best part of what Rural America has to offer, and we keep the waste. Reporter protecting the environment is one of the challenges facing the u. S. As it supplies food to china. No other country has ever had a billion people moving up the food chain consuming more livestock products, grain intensive livestock products. Reporter in addition to shipping more meat to china, American Farmers are sending it more livestock feed than ever. Two years ago, china became the largest importer of u. S. Farm products. When youre driving through the country right now and you see these big fields out there, one out of four rows goes to china. So, this is a huge market, and its a market that i think is going to get even bigger because their middle class hasnt stopped growing. Reporter feeding chinas middle class, which is now larger than the population of the u. S. , is a growing challenge for the entire world. Sreenivasan whos behind t