A birthday celebration: looking back at 25 years of the personal computer. A bank filled with seeds buried deep in the Artic. Permafrost melts in Siberia. A conversation from Australia: the stance on climate change from Down Under. And the benefits of green tea? And your letters, along with the magical sounds of the one and only Alex Gallafent on keyboard, drums, trumpet and guitar.

Download mp3

Host Marco Werman speaks with music impresario Fabian Alsultany, founder of the Musica Fresca Tour. The tour is a showcase for artists who are on the cutting edge of Latin music in the United States.

For today's Geo Quiz, we were looking for the birthplace of China's great philosopher, Confucius. The World's Lisa Mullins gets the answer from Boston Globe travel writer Tom Haines, who visited Qufu in China's Shandong Province.

Where in the world will we go today?

Susan Phillips of station WHYY in Philadelphia reports on a group of Mexican immigrants who send money back to their home village in Mexico. Such financial remittances are common. The difference is that these immigrants are taking steps to make sure the money is used for the good of the entire village community.

Threats from Mexican leftists made President Vicente Fox abandon plans to lead the main independence day ceremony in the capital today. The World's Franc Contreras reports.

The African country of Kenya is losing memorial statues at an alarming rate. Created to honor deceased relatives, more than 400 of the statues have found their way to the US illegally. Now, one of those statues is going home to Kenya. The World's Ann Lopez has the story.

Host Marco Werman talks with Rudolph Herzog, author of the book, "Heil Hitler, the Pig is Dead." Herzog describes the role humor played in the way Germans described and perceived the Nazis during the 1930s and 40s.

Oriana Fallaci

The Italian writer and journalist Oriana Fallaci has died. Fallaci interviewed some of the world's major political figures, including former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat. And she generated controversy after September 11th with critical writings about Islam. Host Marco Werman speaks with Margaret Talbot, who profiled Fallaci for The New Yorker this year.

The foreign ministry in Pakistan has called in the Vatican ambassador to express regret over the Pope's recent remarks about Islam. In a lecture in Germany earlier this week, Pope Benedict XVI quoted a 14th-century Christian Byzantine emperor, who had said the only new tenet brought by the Islamic Prophet Mohammed was the command to spread faith by the sword, and this was incompatible with the nature of God. The World's Jeb Sharp reports.