NPR 2009-06-05

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From NPR News in Washington, I'm Jack¹ Speer.

In an address that was targeted at the world's one and a half billion Muslims, President Obama today called for a new beginning in US-Muslim relations. Speaking in Cairo, the President insisted the Palestinians must have a state and he said continued Israeli settlement in the West Bank is not legitimate². However, Mr. Obama also said Hamas and the Palestinians should recognize Israel and refrain from violence.

"Threatening Israel with destruction or repeating vile³ stereotypes⁴ about Jews is deeply wrong and only serves to evoke⁵ in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve."

The President's speech was carried live in many parts of the world, and translated into more than a dozen languages. Mr. Obama has now arrived in Germany on the next leg of his overseas trip.

Arabs in the Middle East, meanwhile, welcomed the President's outreach to the Muslim world with a mix of surprise and suspicion about whether real peace can be achieved. Dale Gavlak reports from Amman.

Labib Kamhawi, a Jordan-based political analyst⁶, said President Obama ushered⁷ in a new beginning for the United States with the Muslim world. He called the speech "groundbreaking" and "a clear statement that the US would not turn its back on Palestinian aspirations⁸ for statehood." But an Amman jeweler, Ibrahim Hreish, said he was not impressed by what he termed an "old new speech." Talking about a Palestinian state is not something new, he said, adding that “what we need is concrete action on the ground to bring that about”. Egyptian dissident Ayman Nour said the speech was better than he expected, but not as good as he hoped. He said democratic change in the region should have been detailed⁹ and developed. For NPR News, I'm Dale Gavlak in Amman.

Former head of mortgage lender Countrywide Financial has been charged with civil fraud. Securities and Exchange Commission alleges¹⁰ former CEO Angelo Mozilo and two other executives intentionally¹¹ misled investors¹². More from NPR's Ina Jaffe.

The fortunes of Countrywide rose and then fell on the subprime loan market. In announcing the charges, Robert Khuzami, the director of the SEC's division of enforcement, said former CEO Angelo Mozilo concealed¹³ from investors the deteriorating¹⁴ standards in Countrywide's underwriting, including the increased risk of defaults and delinquencies in their mortgage portfolios¹⁵ and the increasingly dark prospects¹⁶ for the future. The SEC also charged Mozilo with insider trading for raking in 140 million dollars at the same time he allegedly knew the company's prospects were bleak¹⁷. Countrywide was bought by Bank of America last July for two and a half billion dollars, that's about a tenth of what the company had once been worth. Federal prosecutors¹⁸ are also conducting a criminal investigation¹⁹ into Countrywide.  Ina Jaffe, NPR News.

On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 74 points to end the session at 8750; the NASDAQ gained 24 points; the S&P 500 was up 10 points today.

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A North Korean court is believed to have begun hearing the case of two American journalists accused by the country of crossing the border illegally and engaging in what officials there have termed "hostile acts". Laura Ling and Euna Lee were arrested back in March near the North Korean border while on a reporting trip to China. If convicted, the pair who were working for former Vice²⁰ President Al Gore's Current TV network could face up to 10 years in a labor²¹ camp. US State Department's spokesman said US officials have been monitoring news reports that say the pair's trial has begun.

A new study into the origins of human laughter suggests that laughter has evolved gradually over the last 10 to 16 million years. NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce has more.

Young apes make odd sounds when they are tickled²³. Here is the rumbling²⁴ of a gorilla²⁵ as someone tickles²⁶ its feet. And here is a chimp²⁷ being tickled. To see if these tickle²² induced sounds are really related to human laughter, scientists analyzed²⁸ recordings²⁹ of 21 orangutans, chimpanzees, gorillas³⁰, and bonobos, plus three tickled human babies. A report in the journal Current Biology says the research team found a revealing pattern of similarities and differences. It suggests that the ape sounds are truly related to human laughter, because it looks like our last common ancestor had a kind of primordial³¹ laugh-like sound that gradually evolved into different laughs. Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR News.

A federal magistrate³² has ruled that a group of Florida deep-sea explorers who recovered an estimated half a million dollars in a sunken Spanish galleon³³ should return the treasure to Spain, though the decision still has to be considered by another federal judge. The coins are believed to be from a Spanish navy ship that sank in 1804.

I'm Jack Speer, NPR News in Washington.