October 2007 - Posts
By Andy Eckardt, NBC News Producer
As long as I can remember, I have never had any of my overseas colleagues or friends make editorial inquiries about a regular party conference of Social Democrats party. But suddenly this week Germany’s internal politics touched an international nerve.
A proposed speed limit for Germany's super highway – the autobahn – was put on the political agenda at the Hamburg party Congress. Once the news hit the front pages of papers across Europe, it immediately triggered questions from many of my American colleagues.
Apparently many had been day-dreaming about a high-speed journey in a powerful Porsche, whizzing past Cinderella-like castles, racing toward an ice-cold beer at one of Munich's famous beer halls – and they were afraid those dreams might be prematurely dashed.
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By John Larson, NBC News Correspondent
CHIBOMBO, Zambia – For whatever reason, it is considered improper for journalists to cry. We are supposed to remain detached, and act as if we’ve seen worse. That’s why, when tears do come, we often walk away or bury ourselves in notes. It is, I believe, one of our greater failings.
After seeing what we had seen in Zambia, I was surprised anything would get me going, but I wasn’t prepared for the littlest grave.
We had traveled one hour from Lusaka, the nation’s capitol, to the small village of Chibombo to see, of all things, the giving away of bicycles.
World Bicycle Relief, the vision of F.K. Day of Chicago, is a stunningly simple idea.
It delivers tens of thousands of bicycles to the poorest people in the world. Why? Because simple transportation improves people’s lives more than you can imagine.
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| John Larson / NBC News |
| World Bicycle Relief trainees build bikes and learn maintenance in Lusaka, Zambia |
All of a sudden, a child can get to school, a parent can find work, and a rural medical worker can reach eight families with AIDS. Farmers can transport extra corn. A father can walk one hour a day instead of seven. Emergencies can be dealt with. Neighbors can get a message. Income increases. Nutrition improves. All because people have wheels, and they can move. Think what your life would be without your car, and you get the idea.
Riding to the rescue
While we were there, we followed two Zambian "field-care specialists." They are villagers who volunteer to help the sickest people in their region. In the massive international effort to fight AIDS, powerful people are discovering that the least powerful people – those villagers who live in the middle of the pandemic – may be the most critical link of all.
They provide regular care, support, and help where there is little or none. Village volunteers receive training, and simple medical care kits. Before today, these "field-care specialists" walked everywhere, traveling long, dusty tracks to bring basic medical care, or HIV drugs, to desperate friends and neighbors.
On the day we visited, World Bicycle Relief gave brand new, indestructible bicycles to 70 field-care specialists. It was fun to watch. The recipients danced and sang as if they had just received 70 space shuttles. I have rarely seen people happier.
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| Lisa Berglund/NBC News |
| From left to right, World Bicycle Relief founder F.K. Day, Roderick, and field care giver Phinmore Choongo, surrounded by Roderick’s younger brothers and sisters. |
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By Richard Engel, Middle East bureau chief
PESHAWAR, Pakistan – I'd never been mistaken for a Taliban fighter before. I've been accused of being a CIA agent, a Mossad spy, a crusader and a war profiteer, but never a militant Islamic fundamentalist. I hardly look the part.
But when we pulled up outside the madrasa near Peshawar, it was the first thing we were asked.
I was in the back of a new Toyota 4x4, driven by a Pashtun who knows how to handle himself. The Pashtuns are members of an ancient tribe that straddles the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Before these were ever countries, the Pashtuns were here, and they like to brag how they pushed out British colonial forces and now American soldiers. They like to think of themselves as the toughest people in the world. They might be right.
I was flanked by two armed guards, also Pashtuns. One was dressed in an old police uniform. The other had a thick black beard and wore the traditional vest, long jacket, skull cap and baggy trousers.
In the 1980s, Peshawar was the one of the centers of al-Qaida, then known simply as the Services Office. The Services Office's mission was to deploy holy warriors from across the Islamic world into Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. Osama bin Laden had a house in Peshawar. The two-story villa is now a dormitory for a girls’ school. Two decades later, the holy warriors are back in Peshawar. That's why we were accompanied by armed guards. You don't fool around in Peshawar.
Outside the madrasa, men huddled around a steaming cart serving boiled chickpeas turned and stared when we pulled up in the 4x4. With the expensive car and hired gunmen, I guess we looked like we meant business, and the only people doing that these days in Peshawar are al-Qaida and the Taliban.
"Are you from the Taliban?"one of the men asked my main Pashtun escort. The armed guards never spoke a word.
"Maybe," he said.
"What are you doing here?"
"We are bringing Islamic Revolution."
"Good," the man said and nodded. "We need it."
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By Michelle Kosinski, NBC News Correspondent
LONDON – Every time I touch down in this magnificent city of such history, I can’t help but be taken by how much of it is new.
Construction cranes are everywhere; the Thames is lined with sparkling new and amazingly unaffordable ultra-modern condos, and red Ferraris boast their untested powers on the traffic-slowed streets.
This town is awash in foreign cash. Huge sums of it. You can almost feel the buzz, emanating from the Financial District. My poor little dollars seem to shrink even more in my pocket. I try my best to protect them.
And the British press talks of London being the new capital of capital – the new financial center of the universe.
In the last U.S. Republican primary debate, several of the candidates treated the question itself as if it were an affront to patriotism: Will London overtake New York as the financial capital of the world?
What?! Never! Un-American, seemed to be the general feeling.
But there are many analysts who say it’s already happened.
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By Mark Potter, NBC News Correspondent
HAVANA – During a recent trip to Cuba to follow-up on our earlier reporting on the lucrative but very dangerous business of smuggling Cubans to the United States, we came face to face with some of the human tragedies behind this illicit trade.
Taking to the seas to leave Cuba and to find a new life in the United States is a desperate and horribly risky endeavor. It speaks volumes about the difficult life on the island -- and about the lure of virtually guaranteed entry in the U.S. where the Cuban Adjustment Act (and its so-called "wet foot/dry foot" policy) give unique privileges to Cuban immigrants who set foot on American soil.
Over and over again we talked with young and middle-aged Cubans in Havana who said they feel no hope here for them or their children. They spoke openly of economic deprivation, of shortages, of struggling to survive, and of seeing the treacherous ocean as their only way out.
One man, facing an interminable wait for a U.S. visa and unable to afford the $10,000 fee charged by smugglers coming on fast boats from South Florida, said he was all but ready to take his chances on a rickety homemade boat.
It seemed a faint boast, but the next night, under cover of darkness, he proved he was serious by showing us the metal frame of a boat he and other men were quietly building in a garage.
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By Ned Colt, NBC News Correspondent
CIZRE, Turkey – It's a spectacularly beautiful corner of the world. The canvas has a sandy-bronze backdrop of mountains on the Iraq and Syrian border. Tufts of tawny grass populate the foreground, backed by fields of cotton, orchards, and vineyards.
The only disconcerting sight we see as we drive along the headwaters of the Tigris here in southern Turkey towards the Iraq border, is a scattering of tanks under camouflage. We stop on the road’s shoulder when we see a platoon of Turkish soldiers being ordered through their paces on a hill below. As our cameraman pushed in for a tight shot, another three cars pulled up and still photographers and video shooters piled out. This is our first good glimpse of the Turkish army buildup along the Iraq border.
Since Sunday's ambush of Turkish troops by rebels of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party – known by the acronym PKK – a couple of miles from the Iraqi-Turkish border, more troops and artillery have been dispatched to the region.
The message to the estimated 3,000 Kurdish militants in northern Iraq is anything but subtle. Turkey is ready to go in and root them out. It's already been happening – with artillery bombardments and airstrikes.
On Wednesday, the government also acknowledged sending in small numbers of troops to pursue guerrillas over the past couple of days.
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By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
We were running at least half an hour behind schedule – a little surprising given the tightly orchestrated nature of China's weeklong Seventeenth Communist Party Congress (informally known and much less a mouthful as the "17 Big" in Mandarin).
Hundreds of journalists from around the country and around the world were herded down passageways inside the Great Hall of the People – or as NBC cameraman Marcus O'Brien calls it, the Great Walk of the People. (To get anywhere inside the cavernous building, you have to walk. A lot. The Hall, which seats China's legislature, covers more than 1.8 million square feet.)
We all came to a stop on the second floor of the Great Hall of the People, outside the viewing hall. Minutes more passed as everyone, yawning and bleary-eyed on a Sunday morning, shuffled equipment and feet.
However, when the doors suddenly opened, a roar erupted as everyone surged through into the room, rushing to get the best spot.
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By John Larson, NBC News Correspondent
Sometimes the story is out in the street. Sometimes, it is on a battlefield. Sometimes, it is in the room, sitting next to you.
After a four-hour drive south from Zambia’s sprawling city of Lusaka, I’m sitting in a small, whitewashed office with 11 people. Clement Chipollilo, an aid worker, is telling us about a Zambian village we will visit. HIV/AIDS, unemployment, and drought have ravaged the village. In recent years, most of the region’s cattle have died of pneumonia. Drought has trashed its agricultural base. It is the next thing he says, however, that makes us all sit up and listen.
He tells about what happens when parents die, usually from AIDS, and leave their children behind. “In the city,” he says, “children often raise themselves. A 7-year-old child becomes the head of the household. You’ll see them along the street. If the children are orphaned in a village, however, a relative usually tries to take them in, but sometimes they cannot afford to.”
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| John Larson / NBC News |
| A young orphan girl in Zambia. |
I ask him how often this happens, parents dying, leaving their children with nothing and no one. “A lot,” he says. “In fact, all four of us in the room are raising children who are not our own.”
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By Charlene Gubash, NBC News Producer
Not everyone was displeased to see more than one hundred Pakistani citizens dead on the streets of Karachi on Thursday. Most of those who commented on the suicide bombings on a popular pro-militant Internet site called EkHlaas greeted the news with postings of “God is great!”
“This woman promised the United States to fight Islam and allow the U.S. to interrogate the father of the Pakistani nuclear weapons. God is great, thank God, the Mujahideen (holy warriors) Taliban said they would shoot her,” posted one visitor under the name Meskin.
“I hope she will be destroyed and this is the last page for Musharraf. I hope they will all be burned,” a visitor named Abbas said.
Even before the attack, one contributor posted a hauntingly accurate predication: “Today Bhutto will return to Pakistan and has announced she will allow the U.S. troops, so the suicide bombers are having a rendezvous with her today,” wrote Mohenid Saram. “If not today, after a week, or a month, but reaching her before she reaches power will be easy and the mujahideen (holy warriors) will not spare an effort.”
One sole voice stoked an angry debate when he stood against the attack: Tarek al Shamri called it a ‘crime’ that killed hundreds of Muslims and described the perpetrators as “infidels.” He questioned whether the CIA was behind it.
Others quickly rebuked him by saying the attack targeted a tyrant, her guards and supporters, and not innocent Muslims. Argued Abu Rayan al Ansari, “If you call it a crime, it is not a crime.”
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The Turkish parliament approved a possible cross-border offensive against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq. NBC’s Richard Engel reports on the significance of the vote and how it is a major show of force for Turkey both politically and militarily.
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By Ali Arouzi, NBC News Producer
The last time a Russian leader came to Iran was in 1943 when the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill attended a wartime summit in Tehran.
Six decades after Stalin’s visit, it was the turn of President Vladimir Putin, who came to Tehran to make it clear to Washington that Moscow would not accept military action against Iran, a sentiment shared by other Caspian Sea states at the summit.
"We should not even think of using force in this region," Putin said at the summit in comments clearly aimed at the United States and Europe.
And as far as official Iran is concerned – Putin’s visit was just as significant as the Tehran summit during World War II.
"The mere fact of Putin's presence on Iranian soil is evidence that the West's policy of isolation is a failure and can be interpreted as a victory of Iranian diplomacy," the newspaper Iran News wrote prior to the summit.
But even though Tehran may seem to have gained an upper hand with what seems to be Russian support for it is nuclear program and a buffer against a military strike, at the same time, many Iranians don’t trust Russia as a country that will defend their national interests. While official Iran is touting Putin’s visit as a victory that is beneficial for Iran, unofficially the visit has been treated with a great deal of suspicion.
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By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
LHASA, Tibet - Travelling in the field as part of a TV news crew, you get used to the attention a big video camera attracts.
In China, where you're rarely on your own, people stop mid-flow and stare, open-mouthed, occasionally throwing out a question to no one in particular about what you are doing.
In Tibet, where you're often in huge open spaces with nothing around but maybe a yak or two, the locals emerge like apparitions, drawn to the camera.
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| Adrienne Mong / NBC News |
| A Tibetan peasant and his granddaughter who were drawn to our TV camera on the road from Shigatse from Lhasa, Tibet. |
On a drive toward Shigatse from Lhasa one morning, we stopped at a riverbank overlooking the Yarlung Tsangpo - a vast meandering river that becomes known as the Brahmaputra once it crosses into neighboring India.
As we filmed the surrounding valley, an elderly Tibetan man and his granddaughter appeared from nowhere, looking intently at the camera.
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By Chris Hampson, NBC News London Bureau Chief
I don’t know what kind of sweet nothings Prince William whispers into his girlfriend Kate Middleton’s ear.
But, inspired by this weekend’s British tabloids, let me take a guess at romancing royal style: "Darling – I want you to come and stay with Pa – win him and Camilla over - it’s time for them to know we are serious and in love - that you will be my queen one day.
"So what say you come over and shoot Bambi?"
Beats the usual slushy hearts and flowers stuff, right?
The Sunday papers here were positively gushing at photos of the comely Kate in her camouflage jacket stalking deer on the queen’s Scottish estates.
The romance is back on for sure, they screamed. A wedding can’t be far away. Look, here she is trying to impress her future Pa-in-law Prince Charles by shooting Santa’s little helpers (OK – so they weren’t reindeer, but they’re related).
Was that the distant glimmer of an engagement ring? Nope. It was a telescopic sight.
I couldn’t find anything on this in The Rules, but Kate sure seems to know how to win her way into her future in-laws hearts.
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By NBC local journalist in Iraq*
Once I asked a little girl what the Eid al-Fitr feast at the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan meant to her. Her answer was: a new beautiful dress, new shoes, a nice gift, candies, balloons and some pocket money to buy extra sweets and enjoy the day at a playground.
It was pretty pure and simple – a child’s dream of how to enjoy a day.
Many families mark the end of the month of fasting by bringing their children to simple playgrounds with local made swings, slides, seesaws, and sometimes manual ferris wheels.
On Friday, in the northern city of Tuz Khormato where kids must have been laughing while innocent smiles spread across their faces as they swung and slid down slides – a vendor approached selling homemade sweets.
But the vendor was not the ordinary one, he was a suicide bomber hiding an improvised explosive device (IED) inside his cart full of sweets.
The attack killed a boy and his father, and wounded another 20 children.
The smiles turned to tears, wounds and sorrow.
What was the message that the terrorists wanted to send beyond killing and injuring children? I asked myself and couldn’t find an answer other than don’t ever cheer up.
* The names of local journalists are not used to protect their identity.
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By Richard Engel, Middle East bureau chief
To survive under Saddam Hussein, you had to feign loyalty and turn on your friends. To survive after Saddam, you had to cooperate with Saddam's enemies. It's a reality that has left so many in Iraq with checkered pasts.
Some former spies have done well and reinvented themselves. Others have been forgotten and disavowed.
Saddam's final defense minister Sultan Hashim says he is one of the betrayed.
I met Hashim in Baghdad during the 2003 invasion. He was gruff, portly, and abrupt and ended up looking somewhat foolish. I was in the Palestine Hotel, holed up with a few journalists still in Baghdad, taking shelter from the rain of bombs and rockets. Hashim had come to give a statement to the tiny Baghdad press corps.
He sat at a table set up on a little stage in the Palestine's main conference room. A giant map of Iraq was pinned to the wall behind him. Hashim’s main message was that American troops were bogged down in southern Iraq and were not advancing toward Baghdad as quickly as American commanders claimed. Hashim wasn't fooling anyone. As he spoke, the map behind him shook like paper in the wind as American JDAMs (joint direct attack munitions) and cruise missiles exploded outside. Nope, no Americans here. It was almost funny.
But it turns out Hashim wasn't working only for Saddam. He'd also volunteered to work for the CIA to overthrow the dictator.
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By Tom Aspell, NBC News Correspondent
Israeli police questioned Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for five hours Monday about his role in the 2005 privatization of one of the country's biggest banks. Olmert, who was finance minister at the time, is alleged to have altered tender rules to favor a friend, Australian businessman Frank Lowy.
Monday's questioning has highlighted other allegations of financial misconduct over a Jerusalem house he purchased in 1999.
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| Yonathan Weitzman / Reuters |
| Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert attends a session of parliament in Jerusalem on Monday. |
Olmert is not the only Israeli prime minister to be associated with corruption: Benjamin Netanyahu was questioned over his lavish spending while in office, including modifications to his residence; Yitzak Rabin's family confessed to owning illegal foreign bank accounts; and Arial Sharon's family was investigated for bribery connected to hotel construction projects in the Mediterranean.
Olmert's approval ratings have been low since he failed to win's last summer's war against Hezbollah in Lebanon. In Israel, where security concerns are paramount, mismanaging the country's armed forces is considered a cardinal sin. Whiffs of corruption may be the death knell for his political career.
What happened to the days when Israelis admired their prime ministers as pioneering giants dedicated to the defense of the Jewish state and willing to take risks to ensure its security?
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By Mary Murray, NBC News Producer
Observe the kids at any Havana rock concert or on line for a Saturday night movie date, and lots are wearing Ché Guevara's photo emblazoned on T-shirts or handbags.
They are no different from the many kids around the globe who sported the iconic image of the young Argentine revolutionary a few years ago when Hollywood released the "Motorcycle Diaries."
But sales of Guevara paraphernalia go beyond Ché chic in Cuba.
Here, kids are urged to identify with Ché as a role model. Starting in primary school, children salute their flag with the slogan "Seremos como Ché"… "We will be like Ché."
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By Martin Fletcher, NBC News Tel Aviv Bureau Chief
A hungry crocodile lurked in the muddy water as thousands of migrating wildebeest massed nervously on the bank of the Mara River. Some crammed forward, and then frantically retreated. Dust flew up under their hooves. Finally, after hours, one brave wildebeest plunged in, and then the rest followed.
Exaggerating wildly, I felt a bit like that brave wildebeest, which by the way was eaten by the crocodile, when I wrote my blogs about my NBC News team’s adventures and misadventures in Kenya recently. I took the plunge, knowing the responses may be somewhat hostile, as they always are to critical comments, but I must admit I was a bit taken aback by the sheer vituperation of some.
"You guys are a bunch of crybabies!" I think that was one of my favorite responses. Maybe we have indeed been spoilt by our other trips this year, which include sweltering Iraq in midsummer for Kevin, freezing Afghanistan in mid-winter for Jeff and me, and Gaza for all three of us, but I doubt it.
In fact, Kenya was my most pleasant trip for years. It’s true; some of the blogs readers may conclude that if I was such a crybaby in Kenya, which I loved, how dreadful must my whining be from the other places? But you know what? I like pointing out problems. That’s my job. Maybe somebody will fix them.
Still, the responses to the Kenya blogs, with a few silly and rude exceptions, were so interesting, passionate and educational that I wanted to respond.
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By Chris Hampson, NBC News London Bureau Chief
The problem with election fever is that it sometimes leads to politicians catching a cold.
Sadly for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, he is showing all the symptoms. The frenzy of speculation – fueled by his own advisers – that he was about to call an early election to capitalize on his "popularity" has been spectacularly stamped out.
Brown has now been forced to announce it's not going to happen.
Instead of heading for what the opinion polls had suggested only days ago would be a resounding victory, the prime minister has pulled the comforter over his head and told everyone to come back in a year or two.
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By Mary Murray, NBC News Producer
A top Cuban rock band – "Moneda Dura" – is in trouble with government censors. Someone decided their newest song is too controversial. Presumably it’s been perceived as too unfavorable to the Cuban government – so it’s been banned on all state-run airwaves.
But, the songwriter feels his work is misunderstood. "We did something important, that mattered to the people who listen," said Nassiry Lugo, the band leader.
The song is entitled "Mala Leche" – Cuban slang for "evil intentions." It’s the title track on their latest CD, released this summer on the island’s Egrem label.
Despite the official ban – or maybe helped by it – Mala Leche is gaining fame.
Local fans are downloading the contraband from YouTube – and then, sending it straight to the Cuban underground.
Proof that in today’s high-tech world, censorship is no match for a good song.
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By Chris Hampson, NBC News London Bureau Chief
Along with the changing foliage and colder days, there’s a touch of election fever in England’s autumn air.
After fifteen years waiting in the wings, and 101 days in office, Prime Minister Gordon Brown may be about to risk it all and "go to the country" – one of the phrases we use to describe a general election over here.
Unlike in the United States, the prime minister can call an election anytime in his or her government’s five-year maximum term of office. (The number of terms is unlimited.)
The trick is to know when the wind is in your direction.
But it’s a delicate call – and sometimes governments get it spectacularly wrong.
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By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
MYAWADDY, Myanmar –
There are two ways of traveling from Myawaddy to Thailand. There's the official crossing over the Friendship Bridge, where day laborers and small traders queue for passes, and there's the numerous illegal transit points across the muddy Moei River, some within sight of the bridge.
Smuggling thrives here, all manner of goods – and people, looking to escape the poverty of Myanmar, a country rich in gas, gems and timber, but where millions live on less than a dollar a day. Such has been the enormity of military misrule.
This morning we traveled into Myanmar, across the bridge and into the border town of Myawaddy. We entered on a tourist day pass, carrying a small camera, into a world filled with poverty and tension, where everyone we spoke to had heard about the military crackdown in Yangon, but where nobody dare talk openly.
The grounds of one temple were filled with street children, their dirty clothes hanging loosely, chasing each other, sliding on the floor, wet from a heavy downpour. One of them break danced, sliding his body round and round.
Live goes on in this ramshackle town, but they are nervous of outsiders. Everywhere there are Buddhist temples. Its the monks who are held in highest regard here not the generals. At one temple a pavilion was packed with the faithful, meditating. We could only imagine what they were thinking - in these dangerous days, thoughts – and prayers – are best kept private.
I spoke to the head monk at another temple, an amiable English speaker. Had he heard about the events in Rangoon. He nodded nervously, looking around for some unseen presence, before changing the subject.
"Everything fine here," he told me.
Click here to read the rest of Ian Williams blog in the Daily Nightly blog.
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By John Bailey, NBC News Researcher, Beijing Bureau
Columns of soldiers marched into Tiananmen Square at 10:00 p.m. on the eve of China's National Day barking orders to the thousands of students occupying the area to clear out.
The students scattered in confusion and apprehension.
But, it wasn’t a crackdown.
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| NBC News/John Bailey |
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People line up overnight in Tiananmen Square hoping to get a good spot for the daybreak flag raising on China’s National Day. |
The patriotic students were only confused about where to line up while crews cleaned the area. They were lining up to get back in to see Tiananmen's sunrise flag-raising ceremony on their country's birthday, Oct. 1. This year’s event attracted an estimated 200,000 spectators, according to the "China Daily."
The apprehension? They are all anxious to get front-row seats.
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By Jim Maceda, NBC News Correspondent
For more than four years the world has watched news of the violence and political problems plaguing Iraq.
But what do Iraqis watch? You might be surprised....
Many are tuning into black comedies like "The Country Has Been Sold" – a home-made spoof on Iraq's political elite starring a Hitler-like general called "the Chief."
Then there's "Obrah"– a take-off on Oprah Winfrey's show. Obrah, however, mocks her guests – like the fictitious Minister of Displaced Families, a satirical jibe at the government’s failure to help Iraq’s millions of refugees.
It's part of an explosion of reality-based soaps and sitcoms on a dozen new private Iraqi TV channels.
All on a shoe-string budget – less than $5,000 an episode – they mirror the daily grind of war and terrorism and lack of basic services...but with a comic twist.
Click on the link above to watch scenes from the shows and see more of this report.
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By Martin Fletcher, NBC News Tel Aviv Bureau Chief
Here’s what travel books don’t tell you: If you come to Nairobi, bring a surgical mask. It stinks.
Driving bumper to bumper, with your car enveloped by black smoke pouring out of the exhausts of other vehicles, a blue-gray, throat–scratching pall hanging over the traffic, you can almost see your lungs turning black. It feels like smoking four packs of Russian cigarettes a day.
Between the dust and the pollution, I have never coughed, sneezed, cleared my throat and blown my nose so much. My companions quite lost their patience with me. The soundtrack of much of Jeff Riggins’s video sounds as if it was recorded in an infectious diseases ward.
The pollution, which I don’t remember existing at all when I visited Nairobi regularly until about 10 years ago, is in complete contrast with the signs sprinkled through town: "Tree-planting campaign, make your city beautiful."
It must be so frustrating for conservationists and environmentalists, who are doing genuinely great work in reforesting Kenya, to see such a noxious advertisement for their work in the capital.
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