WORLD Radio Rewind

LEIGH JONES: 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 managing editor Leigh Jones.

First up, two stories about life online. On Tuesday’s program, Sarah Schweinsberg reported on why governments are so interested in creating their own digital currencies.

SARAH SCHWEINSBERG, REPORTER: In April 2020, China took a big step in its quest for a nationwide digital currency. It launched Central Bank Digital Coin pilot programs in four different cities.

China isn’t alone. Ecuador, Senegal, Singapore, and Tunisia have also launched their own national digital currencies. And at least 50 other countries are researching their own versions. The United Kingdom is considering creating a CBDC called “Britcoin.” The European Union wants a digital Euro in four years.

And in May, the United States Federal Reserve said it was researching its own completely digital dollar.

Martin Chorzempa is a scholar at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He says national interest in digital currencies is a direct response to cryptocurrencies.

CHORZEMPA: Many countries are worried about their monetary sovereignty. China's efforts really started in terms of developing a digital currency after Bitcoin really took off there in 2013, and made them worry that there might be some parallel currency, they can't control that circulating in China, that would allow people to get around capital controls, move their money out freely out of the country, transact without any record for the tax authorities.

Peter St. Onge is an economic policy scholar at the Heritage Foundation. He says CBDCs could be distributed in a couple different ways.

ST. ONGE: The sort of simplest one is where it's administered through the banks. Alright, so the bank, basically, from the end user perspective, it would look identical to how dollars do today... Now a second design philosophy, which the banks really don't like, is a design where you basically bypass the banks. Alright, so individual Americans could hold a, essentially a bank account at the Fed.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Sarah Schweinsberg.

LJ: Our next story from the digital realm involves non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. They’re best known now for their connection to ridiculously expensive digital art. But on Thursday’s program, Anna Johansen Brown explained they could soon have much more common—and useful—applications.

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN, REPORTER: Owen Cyclops is an illustrator and artist who started tying his work to NFTs recently. He compares the blockchain to an omnipresent public ledger.

CYCLOPS: And all these equations and bits of information are getting locked in there and cemented and they can't be changed. That matters for digital money. Because the problem before was if I sent you, you know, a file, that's digital money, couldn't you just copy and paste it and make a million digital dollars or something? Right? So it never worked, until we had this public record that is cemented over time called the blockchain.

That’s why cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin work.

CYCLOPS: If I send you one bitcoin, you can't just copy and paste it into another one, because it's locked into this larger chain of information.

Michael Sutton manages a cryptocurrency hedge fund. He compares an NFT to a certificate of authenticity, like what you’d get if you bought a signed baseball at the World Series.

SUTTON: So what artists are doing is they're taking a picture, which Yes, you can download yourself anytime. So it's digital. And they're matching it with this certificate, this NFT token and saying, yes, this unique serialized token, of which there's only one, I'm attesting belongs to my piece of artwork. And that can be then proven and shown digitally online to anyone else.

That’s how you can “own” a digital image. Other people can copy it, but they can’t copy the NFT. So only you have the original. Like owning the Mona Lisa instead of owning a printed poster of it.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown.

LJ: Next up, an abuse scandal in France. On Wednesday’s World Tour, Onize Ohikere reported on the findings of an investigation into the Catholic Church.

ONIZE OHIKERE, REPORTER: We start today in Europe.

AUDIO: [Man speaking French]

French Catholics are reeling over the revelations of a report detailing child abuse in the church. The independent commission released its findings this week.

Its investigation found more than 200,000 cases of abuse by clergy since 1950. Another 100,000 children fell victim to lay leaders such as teachers.

AUDIO: [Woman speaking French]

This woman said she prayed the report would help the church deal with the problem. Investigators estimate about 3,000 abusers are involved. According to the report, the “vast majority” of victims were pre-adolescent boys. The lead investigator urged the church to pay reparations to victims, even though most of the crimes are too old to prosecute.

That’s this week’s World Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere in Abuja, Nigeria.

LJ: And finally, we end today with a trip to Berlin. On Thursday’s program, Jenny Lind Schmitt reported on Germany’s growing pro-life movement.

JENNY LIND SCHMITT, CORRESPONDENT: It’s 1 p.m. on a blustery September Saturday in Berlin. Pro-life activists gather in front of Brandenburg Gate in the heart of the city. They’re listening to speeches and preparing to march through downtown streets carrying pro-life signs.

On the other side of the gate, angry counter protesters are shouting and banging drums, trying to disrupt the event. Police in riot gear block off the pedestrian passage through the Gate.

LINDER: Yes, the atmosphere concerning the other side is very aggressive.

Alexandra Linder is the leader of the Bundesverband Lebensrecht. It organizes the March for Life every year. In the square where the Berlin Wall once stood, Christian journalist Helmut Matthies reminds protestors that the injustices of communist Germany once also seemed insurmountable.

Through the years of the Cold War, atheist East Germany promoted abortion as “family planning.” Nearly half of unborn children were killed. In West Germany abortion was illegal except for cases of severe fetal abnormalities. After reunification, parliament compromised: Abortion is technically illegal but not punished in the first trimester if the mother gets counseling. Older leaders recall the bitter debate around that decision. But they also see hope in a new generation who are reopening the discussion.

LINDER: Yes, because in Germany there was a big aggressive discussion several years ago, the new generation doesn’t know anything of that. They are just putting [forth] questions. It’s a human? It’s a person? Why are we allowed to kill them? These are the right questions.

One such person is Lisa Hiesch from Nuremberg. She’s a first year university student who made the six-hour car trip to march.

HIESCH: I am convinced that every life is precious and that it should be saved. And that they get a chance to live the life that we have...

Back at Brandenburg Gate, marchers gather for a worship service to close the day. There were only a few verbal confrontations with counter protestors along the march route.  The German parliamentary elections were to be held the week after the march, so pro-life leaders urged marchers to contact their representatives. The more liberal-leaning Socialist party won the September 26 elections, which is a setback. But as Linder says,

LINDER: If we get a left-sided government it will be a little bit more difficult for us, but not forever. [laughs]

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Jenny Lind Schmitt in Berlin, Germany.

LJ: 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.

Next week, we’ll find out what happened to the police reform legislation proposed after the 2020 summer of protests. And we’ll tell you about the push to legalize marajuana at the federal level. As if we didn’t already have enough to worry about on Capitol Hill…

For the latest news, features, and commentary from WORLD News Group, visit wng.org. For WORLD Radio, I’m Managing Editor Leigh Jones.

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