WORLD Radio Rewind

PAUL BUTLER: This is WORLD Radio Rewind: a 10-minute review of some of our news coverage and features from the past week on WORLD Radio. I’m Paul Butler.

First up: vaccine mandates. In light of rising COVID-19 concerns, many organizations, local governments, businesses, and universities are mandating vaccines. On Tuesday’s program, WORLD’s Sarah Schweinsberg reported on the deepening friction between public health and personal liberty.

SARAH SCHWEINSBERG, REPORTER: Kaitlyn is a second year post-grad student. She’s studying to be a physician’s assistant at a school in New York. We’re only using her first name to protect her position in the program.

Kaitlyn says throughout the summer, her school asked about her vaccination status.

 KAITLYN: We were constantly getting email and getting vaccination surveys... and even in the surveys...we had to put our name, so it wasn't even anonymous.

Kaitlyn held off on getting vaccinated. Then about a month ago, she got a call from her program director.

KAITLYN: So he was asking, like, I see that you're not vaccinated? You want to tell me why?

The program director said that without the vaccine, Kaitlyn can’t fulfill the hospital hours required to graduate. But she says those rounds don’t start for another year. Another year she could go without the vaccine.

KAITLYN: That allows, one, more time for them to do studies… Also, they'll probably have to tweak and do different things now that the Delta variant is running rampant... So a year will allow them a lot more time to do that.

Across the country, students and employees are being put in similar conundrums. Vaccination or job? Vaccination or graduation? It’s even affecting less important decisions, like vaccination or eating at a restaurant?

Jonathan Emord says this is an unprecedented choice. He’s an attorney who specializes in health law claims. 

 EMORD: We really have no parallel as to the degree of government restriction on individual liberty that we now experience in our history. 

That’s why a growing number of lawsuits are challenging vaccine mandates.

PB: Up next, a conversation on the US pullout from Afghanistan. The rapid takeover of Kabul surprised many. Images of the Taliban sitting in government houses stood in stark contrast to the footage of tens of thousands desperate to escape, clinging to transport planes as they attempted to take off.

On Tuesday’s program, host Mary Reichard spoke with Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute … and an expert in Middle Eastern culture and conflict.

REICHARD: Prior to the U.S. and NATO pullout, the Afghan military was doing the heavy lifting on the front lines. We had not lost an American serviceman in combat in Afghanistan since February 2020. Was the situation in Afghanistan somewhat contained prior to the pullout? Or was a major Taliban offensive going to happen regardless of whether our military withdrew?

RUBIN: Well, there's two questions there. Really, when it comes to the Taliban offensive, remember that in Afghanistan, because of the topography, because of the weather, fighting is seasonal. The Taliban would fight from the spring to the fall, but once the mountains were snow covered and the passes blocked, then you would have relative calm. So a lot of Afghans are asking why didn't you time your withdrawal so that it would come in the fall before the Taliban could take over? That would give us time to regroup. The other issue with regard to what happened, really, is the Afghan army is able to fight. But what they lack are the logistics to get from point A to point B when that fighting does occur. In effect, we pulled the carpet out from underneath them. And then lastly, while the Americans might look at this as an even playing field, the Afghans don't because Pakistan fully supported the Taliban, and that's one of the reasons why so many Afghans decided to make their accommodation with the Taliban, because they figured they didn't have any patron, the Taliban did, and they saw the writing on the wall.

PB: Our third story today comes from our weekly report on international news: WORLD Tour with Onize Ohikere. Last weekend, a 7.2 earthquake struck Haiti’s southern coast. Just days later, a tropical depression added to the country’s misery—making relief efforts difficult.

AMBI: Sound of voices, honking [fade under]

ONIZE OHIKERE, REPORTER: Rene Lako and a small group of aid workers with Hope Force International traveled to Haiti’s southern coast on Sunday.

LAKO: And then we visited Les Cayes, went to different parts of the city and saw firsthand some of the damage. The first one was a totally collapsed hotel, where big equipment, heavy equipment was already removing debris, loading it into a truck. Then we saw damaged homes, sometimes totally collapsed. We saw a couple of church churches that were damaged and collapsed.

Not all of the damage is that bad. But even when homes are still standing, people are too scared to stay indoors.

LAKO: And since they are afraid of aftershocks, and they're maybe already damaged homes further breaking down, they are afraid and kind of that fear factor was probably that struck me the most, that even if their houses were not damaged or just had those those cracks, they were still afraid to be inside.

More than a thousand people died in the earthquake and 6,000 suffered injuries. Many thousands more were left homeless. Because people are staying outside, Lako says tarps and tents will be in high demand. But that’s not a good long-term solution.

LAKO: They certainly do not do not want to go back to like the tent city sort of camps they had after the 2010 earthquake. So they want to learn we collectively want to learn lessons from things that were done right, but also things that have gone wrong in the 2010 response, and you know, those tent cities are surely not part of the answer.

Aid groups in Haiti have experience with what doesn’t work, but also with what does. Dr. David Vanderpool runs a hospital in the village of Thomazeau,.

VANDERPOOL: We worked extensively in the 2010 earthquake, that's what brought us to Haiti, we set up a large hospital right after the earthquake and did a lot of surgeries there to care for the people. And so we've got quite a bit of experience with disaster relief.

PB: And finally, we return to Thursday’s program. WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown brought this story, about a Christian theater company in Chicago and its decision to stand for Biblical standards of sexuality and gender.

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN: Christy Dille has been part of Christian Youth Theater…or CYT…for 17 years. She’s volunteered in multiple areas, working with props, refreshments, and hair and makeup. And all four of her kids have taken classes and performed in shows.

CHRISTY DILLE: I could not tell you how many shows we've done. But I would guess it would be around 30.

In 2014, Dille noticed something that worried her.

CHRISTY DILLE: We had a directing team, where one of the intern directors who had just recently graduated from CYT and was now interning was starting to come out...

Some of the kids in the show started questioning what they thought about homosexuality and their own identity. The intern director encouraged them. Then the lead director jumped on board, too.

DILLE: So that was kind of disturbing to us because first of all, they didn't even know these kids very well, or their families … And it was really hard for for the families of those kids as well. The parents were were pretty angry about what these directors were saying.

Dille went to the CYT board with her concerns. She asked for an official statement of CYT’s position and hiring policy. The board said it still affirmed traditional Biblical beliefs about sexuality, and it would work on an official statement. But for the next seven years, nothing happened. Then two young directors came to the board and asked for the same thing … a statement of beliefs … but for a very different reason.

SOPHIE MURK: We wanted them to be able to include and accept Christians of all backgrounds, all perspectives, and all lifestyles.

Murk and her coworker met with the board multiple times. In July, the CYT board released a document titled “Employee Faith and Cultural Policy.” It included a statement of beliefs reaffirming Biblical standards of sexuality and gender: God created people male and female, and marriage is between one man and one woman. The policy doesn’t exclude any students from participating in CYT programs, but all staff members must adhere to the statement of beliefs. Reporting for WORLD, I'm Anna Johansen Brown. 

PB: That’s it for this edition of WORLD Radio Rewind.

We’ve posted links to each of the stories we highlighted today in our transcript. You can find that on our website. 

For the latest news, features, and commentary from WORLD Newsgroup, visit wng.org. For WORLD Radio, I’m Paul Butler.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.