July 2007 - Posts
By Jane Arraf, NBC News Correspondent
On a trip with Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. military commander in Iraq, over the weekend, I asked him about reports that he and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki were on such bad terms that Maliki had asked for him to be replaced.
"It’s nonsense to think he’s ever asked," Petraeus said as we sat down and talked in an abandoned wool factory turned into a combat outpost west of Baghdad. "We actually have a very good relationship."
But that doesn’t mean they haven’t had their moments. Petraeus said he and Maliki had had serious disagreements over the issue of reining in Shiite militias, but that had been several months ago. "These are tough issues and sometimes they require a degree of candor."
As for the report that Maliki had complained to Bush about Petraeus during a video conference, Petraeus said he had sat in on every one of those video conferences since he’s been here.
Officials on both sides say the reports of stormy relations are greatly exaggerated.
There is, though, a clash of personalities as well as cultures.
CONTINUED >>
By Michele Neubert, NBC News Producer
Just 36 hours after touching down back in gray, rainy London after my assignment to a parched Iraq during the height of the sweltering summer heat there, I stood outside the gates of Buckingham Palace.
Dressed in a red and white polka-dot summer dress, red straw hat and matching handbag, I was part of a long queue of even more dressed up mostly Brits lucky enough to be among the thousands who for several days each summer are invited to mingle with royalty on the verdant lawns of Buck house at one of her Majesty’s Garden Parties.
I was thrilled when I got the news just before leaving Baghdad that my name, along with several others, had been picked in a drawing by the Association of American Correspondents in London – an organization which is given a certain number of tickets a year for the event by the palace. Most of the invites are sent out by the Lord Chamberlain and are by nomination only.
I excitedly plotted with friends on the phone and via e-mail about what to wear, (the dress code for women being "afternoon dress with hat," while men were advised to wear "morning dress, lounge suits or uniforms." I'd managed to grab a hat on sale at the Jordan airport and had figured out the perfect shoes.
Yet suddenly, the transition to this dramatically different world – which I'd jumped at as a welcome antidote to Iraq – was proving somewhat overwhelming.
Feeling a bit silly and very much alone in what seemed line an endless sea of couples – my invite, as a working journalist, was strictly solo – I was already wondering if this was such a good idea. What's more, it looked like rain.
CONTINUED >>
By Warren Pettine, NBC News Researcher, Beijing Bureau
My blog fell victim to the Chinese censors.
It’s probably the title that turned them off. I thought "warinchina" was kind of cute. They obviously did not. The site, like those of many other bloggers, is still blocked, stuck behind what has been labeled as the "Great Firewall of China," the largest system of Internet censorship in the world.
Sites such as Flickr, Wikipedia, religious websites, Amnesty International as well as Western news media are all blocked.
Ten years ago no one thought China would be able to control the Internet, or the scream that it could unleash. Heralded as the great medium of democratization – an unsilenceable siren of anarchy and free speech – the theory went that since the Internet is decentralized and quick to adapt, no despot or authoritarian would be able to restrict it.
They were wrong. For the most part, the Chinese Communist Party has succeeded – and Western companies appear to have been eager to help. CONTINUED >>
By Jane Arraf, NBC News Correspondent
Joy – it's not an emotion you see here very much. But on Sunday, it washed over Iraqis in waves – sweeping them into the streets after Iraq's soccer win over Saudi Arabia in the Asia Cup – to cheer until they were hoarse and dance until they couldn't dance anymore.
The euphoria was infectious. You could see it in the faces of young men in our neighborhood who don't normally have much to cheer about chanting and whirling through the streets wrapped in Iraqi flags. "Bring it! Bring us the cup!" they shouted.
Even sweeter for Iraq's battered national pride, it was a trophy seized from Saudi Arabia, the country's rich and powerful neighbor and a three-time winner of the Asian Cup. Iraq, forced to train outside the country with a team cobbled together of expatriates, was the underdog.
The city sweltered under a blanket of 120 degrees Fahrenheit heat. With the electricity off in a lot of neighborhoods, people crowded into cafes and homes with generators to watch. For 71 tense minutes, the score stood tied at zero. And then, the heart-stopping winning goal.
CONTINUED >>
NBC News' Michelle Kosinski was recently on assignment in Brazil, riding the Iberostar, a luxury five-star cruise ship, up the Amazon River for a for a story about ecotourism for CNBC's "On the Money." Watch her report here:
By Mary Murray, NBC News Producer
When all is said and done, Cubans are very practical people.
Living for decades under a centralized island economy with limited international trading opportunities has taught people real survival skills. Cubans learn to make do without some basic commodities and find creative solutions to life’s everyday challenges.
But that pragmatism has not always extended to how people view Fidel Castro.
If anyone had suggested last July that their 80-year-old president would still be convalescing a year after emergency intestinal surgery that almost killed him, lots of Cubans wouldn’t have bought it.
This was the David who has stood up to the Goliath of the north, in the view of his supporters.
If 10 American presidents and 200 CIA plots couldn’t kill him, how could a little intestinal bleed and infection?
CONTINUED >>
By NBC local journalist in Baghdad*
For a moment today, everyone in Iraq was happy. Without discrimination - Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, Christians – were all delighted.
Our national soccer team had managed to unify us Iraqis, make our hearts pleased, draw smiles on our faces and let us put our arguments aside when they beat South Korea in the Asia Cup to reach the tournament’s final on Sunday.
I was watching the game with some of my other colleagues. I tried to ease the tension while the game was on by serving tea and nuts. The room was filled with cigarette smoke and the sofas we were sitting on bore the brunt of jumps and kicks during the game and with every penalty shot.
Then came the crucial moment when we scored the winning goal during a penalty shootout to beat South Korea 4-3 and advance to the Asia Cup finals. There were shouts of joy, with people jumping in the air, wishing one another congratulations and celebratory gunfire in the street, the Iraqi way to express pleasure.
All the Iraqi TV channels were broadcasting the game live, as well as Iraqi celebrations all over the country, from Sulaymaniyah up north, to Basra in the south, and of course, in Baghdad. The country rife with discord was united in joy.
CONTINUED >>
By Ali Arouzi, NBC News Producer
You can tell that Iran is feeling a little beleaguered these days when there are reports that Tehran may be under attack from rodents!
That is what the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported this week, that police had, ahem, "arrested" 14 squirrels on charges of espionage.
The rodents were found near the Iranian border, allegedly equipped with eavesdropping devices, according to IRNA.
When asked to confirm the story, Esmaeel Ahmadi Moghadam, the national police chief, said, "I have heard about it, but I do not have precise information." He declined to give any more details.
IRNA said that the squirrels were discovered by intelligence services – but were captured by police officers several weeks ago.
CONTINUED >>
By Michele Neubert, NBC News Producer
Taking advantage of a brief lull in the action while some of my male colleagues were out on a military embed, I tried to follow up on a promise I'd made to myself when I arrived on this latest assignment to Iraq – to try to find out who is the Iraqi woman circa 2007?
Unable to stray too far, I started by chatting with some of the Iraqi women in the compound where our hotel is located. On another occasion, when it was just too dangerous for me as a Westerner to venture out, I asked our female translator, Rose, to do some of the leg work for me. I also persuaded her to make some pretty embarrassing phone calls.
What I found, while perhaps not exactly the in-depth take on female society I’d hoped for, offers a small taste of the everyday lives of some Iraqi women. The headline, should you choose to stop reading now, is no sex, too much food and no future.
CONTINUED >>
By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
Around this time of year, conversation among Beijing's expatriates turns to the coming summer holidays: what seaside they'll be vacationing at, what Western foods they'll be eating, which books they plan to read, but most importantly how much clean air they're going to be breathing.
Lucky them.
 |
| Adrienne Mong / NBC News |
| The Forbidden City's famous rooftops can barely be seen through the smog and humidity. |
August in Beijing is dreaded for its brutal heat and humidity, which conspire with high levels of pollution, dust, and sand blowing in from the Gobi Desert. The air gets thicker and hazier, despite the fact that it's also the rainy season.
Just over a year away from the Olympics, one wonders how the athletes will perform under these conditions.
Well, the government in Beijing isn't wondering. It's busy battling the problem by instituting new power-saving measures to curb energy consumption in order to reduce pollution and laying the groundwork for, well, near-perfect weather.
CONTINUED >>
By Jane Arraf, NBC News Correspondent
Khalid Hassan was irrepressible. In the days after Baghdad fell, he would drop by my office with the most positive outlook of anyone I’d ever seen. It was only after I got to know him better that I realized how even more remarkable that was.
After Saddam was toppled, the dream of a better life went horribly wrong for Palestinian-Iraqi families like Khalid’s much sooner than for most Iraqis. Iraqis blamed even Palestinians born here for supporting Saddam while he was in power and drove thousands of them out of their homes. When I met Khalid four years ago, his family had taken shelter in a school. It was a fact that he mentioned in passing with a rueful and still hopeful smile – hopeful that everything would turn out OK.
 |
| NBC News |
|
Khalid Hassan, the New York Times reporter killed in Iraq last week, with NBC News' Kianne Sadeq, left, and Jane Arraf during happier times. |
For a while it did. He got a job he loved with the New York Times, a steady paycheck, moved his parents and sisters into an apartment and delighted in the long black leather jacket and trendy clothes he was able to buy. His father was shot and wounded driving a taxi and his family depended on him more than ever.
On Thursday, Khalid was driving to work in southwest Baghdad when gunmen forced his car off the road and opened fire, according to his employers. He survived the first bullet and called his family to tell them he was OK And then incredibly, a second group of gunmen came back and shot this remarkable 23-year-old with the sweet, rueful smile in the head.
Absorbing that news it felt as if the earth should stop turning for a while. The same way it seems incomprehensible that life rolls on after every sudden death of a friend or colleague or family member that leaves the world you know much sadder and smaller.
CONTINUED >>
By Michele Neubert, NBC News Producer
"Why don't you take some food for you family," I said to our freelance cameraman, Ali. He had just finished telling me how all the families in his village were desperate for basic supplies.
He'd come down from Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, where the U.S. military had been conducting a three-week long surge to flush out alleged al-Qaida operatives.
And while there have been some military successes, being caught in the middle hasn't been easy for the locals already struggling for survival. NBC had been in the region recently and saw first hand the humanitarian relief effort to help the locals, many of whom have been too frightened to leave their homes
"Then there is the added problem of who really is al-Qaida? Have they indeed gone? Or have they just melted into the population?" he pointed out. "And everyone is frightened of repercussions, especially if we get too friendly with the Americans."
Well, maybe at least some food could help. I thought he could take some of our extra kitchen supplies and some treats for the kids. He politely declined.
CONTINUED >>
By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
A couple of days ago, we wrote a blog about Josh Gartner's discovery of having all the content from his website, http://www.chinaexpat.com/, lifted and posted -- without attribution -- on another website, Confucius Institute Online.
A day or so after Gartner blogged about the discovery on his own website, the Confucius Institute began taking down some of Gartner's articles from its site.
Then the Institute sent Gartner an apology.
You can read more here: "Confucius Institute Removes Content"
By Michele Neubert, NBC News Producer
Editor's note: This blog was updated at 3:00 p.m. ET to reflect the fact that there are conflicting reports about the amount of money stolen in the bank robbery in Baghdad.
We don’t usually laugh when our local fixers write up the day’s events on our Baghdad bureau dry-erase board – the list is usually a shockingly grim catalogue of the day’s deaths and attacks. But last night we couldn’t help ourselves when they chalked up "$300 million stolen from a local bank."
"Didn’t think there was that much cash in Iraq," said one of our correspondents, while the rest of us were just incredulous.
"Better than our potential lottery winnings," another colleague added. (We've started to enter the Euro lottery every Friday – it gives us something to fantasize about – usually the fantasy involves chartering a private jet out of here.) None of us really believed the report.
And then today there it was again on all the major wire services: "An official at the bank said about $300 million in U.S. dollars had been stolen, as well as 220 million Iraqi dinars ($176,000)," reported Reuters.
"Why don’t you guys use some of your special talents and go and track that?" I joked with some of our security advisors. "Don’t think it hadn't crossed our minds," they teased.
Ends up our initial instincts turned out to be right after all - later on Thursday the Iraqi police and bank manager corrected themselves and said the stolen bounty was more like 300 million Iraqi dinars, not U.S. dollars. That's more like $500,000 dollars.
But it was still a substantial amount, and it got us thinking...what if?
CONTINUED >>
By Ed Flanagan, NBC News Researcher
We were only two days into our work trip to Yunnan province and I was looking for a way out.
Without a doubt, the scenery was a visual feast. Perched high atop Tiger Leaping Gorge – a stunning natural site formed between the Jade Dragon Snow and Haba Snow Mountains – we were treated to breathtaking views of snow-capped mountains and lightly forested hillsides dotted by picturesque terraced farm plots.
Far below us, the Jinsha River lazily wound off into the distant horizon. The price for these beautiful views though? Thin air.
VIDEO: The treacherous trip up to Tiger Leaping Gorge
With the cliffs starting at 6,600 feet and my lungs and head already working hard to cope with the load of our camera gear, I was anxious to get back to the gorge base to give my body a break.
But a half-mile from the park's entrance, everything came to a standstill as we ran right smack into a traffic jam that rivaled anything we had ever seen in Beijing.
Blocking our exit from the park were two converging caravans of tour buses and private cars vying for access along the same narrow two-lane path carved out of the side of the cliff. At the center of this honking cacophony of mayhem was one lone tour bus whose nervous looking driver was attempting an absurdly difficult 10-point turn before an audience of hundreds of irate tourists.
As if on cue, a shirtless old man walked by our van and jovially told us, "You aren't going anywhere, there are buses backed up almost two kilometers [over a mile] from here! This place is so popular now, it's always like this ..."
CONTINUED >>
By Michele Neubert, NBC News Producer
Have you ever wondered what happens to all of the innocent people killed in the war in Iraq? What happens to the victims of the ruthless revenge killings and the cycle of death we’ve come to call "sectarian violence."
How are their bodies identified? Where do they go? How can they ever find peace?
One option is the Valley of Peace cemetery in Najaf, burial home for several million Iraqi Shiites. It’s one of the largest cemeteries in the world, significant as home to the tomb of Imam Ali, the revered 7th century Shiite leader.
A freelance cameraman recently documented what has become a regular monthly occurrence. Hundreds of unidentified bodies, often impossible to distinguish Shiite from Sunni, are brought almost 100 miles from Baghdad morgues, to rest in the holy Shiite province.
Watch the video link below to learn more about the place where in the midst of tragedy many Iraqis rest in peace.
VIDEO: The Valley of Peace cemetery in Najaf CONTINUED >>
By Richard Engel, Middle East bureau chief
The girls circle the stage in a nightclub outside of Damascus, holding hands in protective pairs as they march, always counterclockwise, at the same slow pace, one unenthusiastic step per second.
It's three a.m., but bright as a hospital ward in here.
The club owners leave on the florescent lights so customers can get a good look at what's for sale.
The girls' faces are painted in slashes of pink blush. Their lipstick is drab browns and beiges. They want it that way, so it doesn't distract from their eyes, accented with glittering splashes of emerald green and sapphire blue. Many girls connect their thin shaped eyebrows with a black pencil, and have orange and yellow plastic flowers in their long hair, blackened with henna.
VIDEO: Young Iraqi refugees forced into prostitution
Read more of Richard Engel’s blog about the dozens of nightclubs on the outskirts of Damascus full young Iraqi girls – refugees forced into what U.N. relief agencies call "survival sex."
By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
The headline in the Beijing Times this morning gave some of us here pause for thought. An investigative report carried by the paper found that up to half of the city's water coolers could contain fake branded water.
But Josh Gartner was busy pondering another type of counterfeiting.
He was searching for information online about a little-known music group from northwestern China called Sharizhad when he came across an article he'd penned for his website, chinaexpat.com .
The problem was that the piece wasn't on his site.
It was Confucius Institute Online, which is part of the Confucius Institute overseen by the Office of Chinese Language Council International. ( The organization is a bit like the Chinese equivalent of USAID or the British Council -- a government agency that seeks to enhance China's standing through "soft power," or cultural-educational exchange.)
So it would appear not even words escape counterfeiting in China.
CONTINUED >>
Can climate change and warming water threaten the Great Barrier Reef?
Watch NBC News Anne Thompson's report from off the Australian coast and read her blog about her assignment of a lifetime.
VIDEO: Warming threatens Great Barrier Reef
By Yonatan Pomrenze, NBC News Producer
Russia’s most popular weapon celebrated its 60th birthday, and it couldn’t come at a better time for Russia’s weapons industry.
At a ceremony in Moscow’s Armed Forces Museum, a first model of the Kalashnikov rifle, the AK-47 (the first version was produced in 1947), was unveiled and placed into the hands of its creator, Mikhail Kalashnikov.
 |
| NBC News/ Yonatan Pomrenze |
| Mikhail Kalashnikov, inventor of the famed rifle, celebrates 60 years of the weapon dominating armed conflict all over the world. |
The 87-year-old Kalashnikov said he was excited to greet what he called his "first-born," but also said he loves all versions of the Kalashnikov equally – the way a mother loves all her children.
<
CONTINUED >>
By Jane Arraf, NBC News Correspondent
It was a moment Lisa Ramaci thought might never happen -- the doors at JFK airport swinging open and a young woman in a headscarf and high heels walking into a new life of freedom -- and safety.
It was a very long journey for both of them. Nour al-Khal is the Iraqi interpreter who was with Lisa’s husband, Steven Vincent, when he was abducted and murdered in Basra in 2005. Nour was wounded in the attack and Lisa had spent 18 months fighting U.S. authorities to bring her to the United States.
I first met Lisa more than a year ago at a dinner for the Committee to Protect Journalists. She introduced herself as the widow of Steven Vincent. His murder then was recent enough that you could tell she found it strange to be defining herself that way. Over the next year, this extraordinary woman started a foundation in Steven’s name to help the families of local journalists killed in war zones and successfully battled to get Nour to the United States -- all while being treated for breast cancer.
VIDEO: War unites two women in unlikely fashion
"I was filling out paperwork, making phone calls, e-mails, pledging to stand financial security for her, promising that I would let her live with me," Lisa said. Many times it seemed she would never get her here.
But now, here we were with her at JFK, waiting for Nour to arrive, to meet the woman who would be sharing her home. I’d met Nour in the Jordanian capital, Amman, while she was waiting for her visa. Like many Iraqi refugees, she lived in fear that she would be deported back to Iraq. And she wasn’t sure what to expect from her new life.
Read the rest of Jane Arraf's story about Nour's amazing journey from Iraq in the Daily Nightly blog and watch her report on NBC Nightly News tonight.
By Michele Neubert, NBC News Producer
Shaboot and Buny are the favored fish of Baghdadis. Traditionally enjoyed grilled on wood ovens and eaten al fresco in the cool of the evening in riverside restaurants, they symbolize the taste of a way of life that's existed for decades, of easier days gone by.
However, the local appetite for fish appears to be on the decline.
"People just aren't eating it much anymore because there are so many dead bodies being fished out of the river that they are worried about eating fish that have been feeding on dead bodies," a colleague told me after venturing out to some of the (once popular) restaurants on the river banks.
In fact fishing dead bodies out of the river seems to be the main activity along the banks of the Tigris these days. Hardly a day goes by without another report of a body being dumped into Baghdad's main waterway.
The river is convenient for dumping corpses, and, it seems, has become a useful artery for extremists.
CONTINUED >>
By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
Jinan, Shandong Province – "You see," Wang Liqiang gestured through the windshield at a taxi that had cut our car off at the traffic light. "This is what I'm talking about."
Wang, an otherwise laidback Shandong native sporting a small potbelly, was working up to his argument.
"China's changing all the time," he continued. "People used to behave okay. Now with all this development, it's chaotic all the time, and the young people have lost a sense of who they are."
He turned to me. "Baseball will bring that sense of order back."
Baseball?
VIDEO: America's pastime catches on in China
"It teaches people manners," Wang was hitting his stride now. "Baseball is a nine-person sport. Everyone has a position to play. Everyone knows what he needs to do. Everyone has to work together."
CONTINUED >>
By Michelle Kosinski, NBC News Correspondent
At first sight of that flaming car, in television pictures trickling in from Scotland, the first hopeful thought was that it must have been some unfortunate accident. And that, at best. Or maybe one of those copycat acts that inexplicably arise when something horrible happens.
No. Within minutes, this appeared to be something more. And so started our journey to Glasgow in a hurry. A most futile rush, as London reacted to this, and its own, fear of continued attack.
A strange thing, to find traffic into Heathrow at an absolute standstill, for miles and miles. Every now and then we'd move a few car lengths in the pouring rain. The tension and worry on the faces in other cars was painfully obvious. Some were resorting to driving on the narrow shoulder of grass. It got them nowhere. As we drew closer, and the hours -- yes, hours -- ticked by, I contemplated several times jumping out of the car and just running the rest of the way to the terminal, but the rain was soaking and I would have had to run through a long tunnel. I should have. Heathrow had reacted quickly with increased security and closed roadways.
I, and my photographer Krzysztof, coming in from a different location, both missed the last flight out to Edinburgh, the nearest airport to Glasgow that was still open.
CONTINUED >>
By Alexa Chopivsky, NBC News Producer
Some call London the world's most cosmopolitan city. It's also where the majority of the U.K.’s estimated half a million Arabs live. Among their gathering spots: the ubiquitous shisha cafés which dot the popular Edgeware Road and Queensway corridors bordering London's Hyde Park.
At virtually any given hour of operation – morning or night – you can find both Arabs and non-Arabs partaking in the Middle Eastern custom of shisha: fruit-scented tobacco, burned using coal, runs through a water pipe and is inhaled through a hose. Paired with a steaming glass of mint tea, this tradition, some say, goes back a thousand years.
But come July 1, when England's smoking ban goes into effect in public places, shisha business owners will be out of customers and cafe-goers without a public place to rendezvous and practice their ritual. An element of London's diverse, vibrant character will be lost.
CONTINUED >>
