December 2007 - Posts
By Michelle Kosinski, NBC News Correspondent
To fly over the majestic, jagged peaks of Afghanistan and Pakistan just at dawn, I felt that sense of expansive peace that seeing the world at a distance endows-- if only for a few moments.
It took just that long to snap the last threads of sleep and consider the trouble that lay imperceptibly below. The struggle of this country that, in its short modern history, has never seen a democratically elected head of state serve out his or her full term; has never seen a thriving economy; has survived shaky periods of military rule and sectarian murder.
Those same breathtaking mountains, are also believed to harbor Taliban and Al-Qaida militants -- and Osama bin Laden.
On the ground, in the capital Islamabad, the only sign that things were amiss was the silence of the streets. Shops closed, people indoors, few cars on the usually-jammed highways. It didn't know whether to be reassuring or ominous, on a warm sunny day. We passed the occasional corner-lot cricket match, and clusters of children in their long tunics chasing kites.
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Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf turned Pakistan from pariah state to partner after the 9/11 attacks. Take a look at the leader that won the United States trust against many odds.
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By Andy Eckardt, NBC News Producer
MAINZ, Germany – It smelled of fresh-baked cookies when I dropped my children off at kindergarten on a recent morning. For a moment, I just stood there, inhaled the sweet scent and watched little kids in their aprons – faces dusted with flour – dance to German Christmas songs.
The weeks before Christmas – or the Advent season, as we often refer to it here – is a very special time in Germany. Solemn, quiet and full of old traditions.
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| Andy Eckardt / NBC News |
| An evening in the Christmas market in Wiesbaden, Germany. |
While it seems that marzipan and chocolate Santas are put up earlier in stores every year, people begin to really feel the Christmas spirit about four weeks before the big holiday – when Christmas markets open and more visitors than usual flock into churches for the four Advent Sunday masses.
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By Mary Murray, NBC News Producer
PERICO, Cuba – This tiny town is in mourning this holiday season.
Forty residents of Perico, some 100 miles southeast of Havana, are believed dead,
drowned at sea on a failed smuggling operation.
The group, which included somewhere between nine and 12 children, set off in the pre-dawn hours on Saturday, Nov. 24, and was expected to be dropped off in the Florida Keys by Sunday.
No one has heard from them since.
"People leave here all the time but they always make it to land, somewhere," said Maria Galban, waiting for some word about the fate of her brother Jorge, his wife and two children, aged 10 and 19.
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| Roberto León / NBC News |
| Maria Galban looks despondent while explaining that she doesn’t know the fate of her brother, sister-in-law, and their two children since they set off in a boat for the U.S. |
This was Jorge’s fourth attempt to leave the island. Twice he ended up in the Bahamas, only to be extradited back to Cuba. On one of those occasions, he spent four months in a Bahamian immigration detention center. Another time, Cuban Border Guards stopped him in local waters.
"He always came back to us. We always heard something," Galban said, as she wept.
Her only consolation comes from living in a relatively small town of approximately 31,000 residents where neighbors treat everyone like family. People say the entire town shares in the collective grief of losing so many people at one time.
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By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
WUHAN, China – A few days ago we posted a blog musing about the "Mystery Mandarin Expert" who was interpreting at the joint U.S.-China trade talks in Beijing earlier this month.
With a little persistence and the assistance of the U.S. embassy, I was able to track down the interpreter – Jim Brown – and interview him over the phone about his Chinese language training.
The first thing I learned about Jim is that he isn't as shy as reputed. In fact, he's quite assertive, especially when it comes to discussing the U.S. diplomatic service and China.
Early in our interview, he set out to clarify the perception that it's rare for non-ethnic Chinese to interpret at high-level official events, dismissing the suggestion that he's unusual. "It's totally normal and common that Americans do know these languages, and that officials do bring their own staff," he said.
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AFP - Getty Images
The interpreter Jim Brown sits behind U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson as he speaks with Chinese President Hu Jintao during a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Dec. 13. |
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And contrary to popular opinion, Jim said, many American diplomats are proficient in the language of the country in which they're working, "more so than other diplomats." Moreover, explaining why so many more Chinese seem to be proficient in English, as opposed to the number of Americans who speak Chinese, he added, "In the U.S., people can choose from 30 or 40 languages [to study], but in China everyone learns English."
For the 54-year old Jim, the decision to become an interpreter was made fairly early on in life.
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By Yonatan Pomrenze, NBC News Producer
MOSCOW – The phone rang. It was a frantic call from a colleague who works at NTV, one of Russia’s major television stations.
"Is there any way we can watch the ‘Today’ show here in Moscow?" she asked me. "We heard they will be announcing Time magazine’s Person of the Year, and we want to be watching in case they choose President Putin."
I couldn’t help her with the ‘Today’ show, but otherwise she wasn’t disappointed. Time did chose President Vladimir Putin as their Person of the Year, citing as a major factor his efforts to bring Russia "roaring back to the table of world power."
Along with the two other largest television networks in Russia (all three are run by the Kremlin or Kremlin-friendly companies), NTV had a story which would earn Putin even more airtime than the ample amount he usually gets: an American magazine chooses Russia’s president at its Person of the Year, at a time when tensions between the countries are on the rise over disputes about the political direction that Russia is taking.
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By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
EPOCH CITY, Xianghe, China –
Let’s be frank. Covering the prepared remarks of senior officials on the closing day of trade talks isn’t exactly the most scintillating of assignments.
So as China’s top trade negotiator Vice Premier Wu Yi and U.S. Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson read their statements to a room full of Chinese and western journalists at the end of the China-U.S. Strategic Economic Dialogue, I amused myself by comparing the original comments to the translations that followed.
The English translation of Wu’s Chinese-language speech was more or less on the mark. But as I jotted notes down in my pad, listening to the Chinese translation of Paulson’s remarks, the inflection of a phrase caught my ear and I glanced up to take a look at the interpreter.
Somewhat to my surprise, it was a westerner who was translating Paulson’s speech into fluent Mandarin.
I racked my brain, trying to remember whether I’d ever seen a Caucasian interpret Mandarin at a high-level Chinese diplomatic function.
Now I’m not suggesting fluent Mandarin-speaking westerners are rare. Far from it, I’m repeatedly shamed by all the non-Chinese around me whose Mandarin is so good they can mimic regional accents. But normally interpreters at high-level official events are ethnic Chinese.
Mandarin, after all, is a tough language to master. For one, it’s tonal, not phonetic. (Mandarin – considered China’s national language – has four tones. So each character has four ways to pronounce it and thus at least four different meanings. The popular southern dialect, Cantonese, has nine tones!)
It’s character-based, using ideographs instead of an alphabet. (To be able to read a newspaper you need a command of at least 3,000-4,000 characters.) And the grammar, which appears deceptively simple at first, can actually be quite tricky.
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By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
NEW DELHI, India – Sankar Masthri is a monkey catcher. It says so on his business card.
"Monkey, Dog Hunter," it reads, together with little drawings of his targets and his cell phone number. The phone's ringing a lot these days, as India’s capital tries to rid itself of an exploding primate population that’s accused of all kinds of mayhem.
"Problem is, monkeys [are] getting smart," Masthri said, as we watched from a distance as one audacious monkey leaned inside a cage baited with bananas and made away with the food before Masthri could pull a wire to close the hatch and trap it.
Monkey hunters are paid 450 rupees (around $11) per monkey, a good rate by local standards. The monkeys are taken to reserves outside the city after they are caught. Masthri claimed to have caught scores in recent days, but the day we joined him was clearly slow going.
"Smart monkey," he repeated, shaking his head and again taking cover behind a bush, wire in hand.
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NBC News' Ned Colt leads a tour of some of the wacky holiday rituals celebrated worldwide. From a gathering of 13,000 Santas in Northern Ireland, to a pet reindeer in England, to an electric eel powered Christmas tree in Japan, take a look at a few of this year's pre-Christmas events around the world.
By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
CHONGQING MUNICIPALITY, Central China –
Many of our stories for NBC News focus on the "new" China. Since the country launched its open-door policy in 1978, there's been much to say and much to document on this subject – unprecedented social change amidst years of double-digit economic growth.
But it's the old China that fascinates me – a China that still holds fast to a certain way of life, no matter how many new Louis Vuitton boutiques or Wal-Mart superstores might sprout up across the country.
Roughly 60 percent of the nation lives in the countryside. I was reminded of that recently as we sped down Yuyi Expressway, through the Chongqing provincial municipality, where every nook and cranny is occupied. We were on an official trip sponsored by the Chinese government to visit the Yangtze River’s Three Gorges Dam and some other areas along the way.
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By Ali Arouzi, NBC News Producer
He might not be the first person that comes to mind when you think of the blogosphere – but Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has his own blog. And surprisingly, it’s a somewhat open forum.
While the president writes fairly infrequently, his posts are less confrontational than his usual speeches and the comments are both scathing and supportive.
NBC News' Ali Arouzi reports from Tehran.
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By NBC News' Chapman Bell
Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Bonham, and John Paul Jones. Four names that effortlessly roll off the tongue… Led Zeppelin broke up the year before I was even born, but as in the case of the Beatles, the Who, the Doors, (I could go on) the music keeps going. On Monday night those four names were reunited again for a benefit concert here in London – Jason Bonham filling in on the drums for his late father.
"Have you ever seen so many happy people in one place?" someone asked me as the show started at the O2 Arena in Greenwich. I look around at the sea of smiling fans – from middle-aged rockers to kids and grandparents, in everything from tie-dyed t-shirts to suits and ties. Everyone was standing and dancing – and that person’s comment stuck with me the whole night.
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By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
NEW DELHI, India – As politicians gather at a
U.N. conference in Bali this week, to haggle over how best to tackle climate change, they should spare a thought for the humble bicycle rickshaw drivers of New Delhi.
The rickshaw wallahs, as they're known locally, have invoked the battle against global warming in their fight to be allowed to stay on the crowded streets of the Indian capital.
I first learned about the plight of the wallahs on a recent visit to the city when the wheezing old taxi I was riding in nearly ran a rickshaw off the road. This isn't altogether unusual in India, where traffic runs on the principle of survival of the fittest – or at least the biggest.
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| Ian Williams / NBC News |
| A rickshaw travels across the busy streets of New Delhi, India. |
All the same, my driver's reaction seemed unusually hostile. The rickshaw shouldn't be on the road, clogging it up, he snarled, and anyway it was now illegal for them to come to this part of town.
That surprised me too, since I've yet to find any Delhi driver who regards traffic rules as anything more than advisory.
I decided to investigate further, since I rather like the old rickshaws. They may not be much to look at, and sitting behind a sweating, straining cyclist, his rickshaw squeaking and wobbling amid the Delhi gridlock, might be regarded by some as rather cruel. But to me Indian cities just wouldn't be the same without them.
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By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
Three Gorges Dam, Hubei Province – It was correspondent Mark Mullen who first noticed them.
"What's that?" he asked as he pointed down at two red, waxy-looking discs on the ground. A piece of paper with Chinese writing was pinned on one of them. "They're all over the place," he said.
"Dunno," I replied, befuddled by the writing. But once we became aware of them, we noticed they were everywhere.
And because of where we were standing, atop the Three Gorges Dam, their existence seemed especially baffling.
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| Adrienne Mong / NBC News |
| The Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydropower project. |
The world’s biggest dam
The world's largest hydropower project, the Three Gorges Dam in central China's Hubei province is as much an engineering feat as it is a magnet for controversy.
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By Ali Arouzi, NBC News Producer
The National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear program came as a surprise and shock to most people here, for the most part Iranians felt that a U.S. military strike was a certainty, until Monday's findings.
The latest NIE report sharply contradicts it's 2005 assessment that Iran was working inexorably towards developing a nuceaur weapon -- prompting a case of "we told you so" on Iranian state TV, which branded Bush a liar and war monger.
Dr.Mohammed Marandi, professor at the University of Tehran, discusses the turn about and what it means for U.S-Iranian relations.
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By Paul Goldman, NBC News Producer
I recently wrote about a new video game that gives ordinary Israelis and Palestinians the chance to play the role of peace-maker from the luxury of their own personal computers.
But just as the game, and reality at the Annapolis Mideast peace summit show, bringing peace to the Middle East is no easy task.
An incredible piece of video, recently released by the Israeli Army, shows how in the volatile ground shared by Israelis and Palestinians – high tech often meets low tech in basic battles for survival.
High tech becomes low tech
What you’re looking at are thermal images taken from an Israeli unmanned drone flying high above on the night of July 21. Two figures catch the eye of the drone operator sitting in a comfortable office far away. The figures are identified as Palestinian gunmen approaching the fence separating the Gaza Strip from Israel. The two gunmen move slowly among the bushes.
An Israeli unit is dispatched on a mission of interception, and you can see clearly that both sides are moving very slowly heading toward a collision.
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By Ali Arouzi, NBC News Producer
In a region where other Muslim governments ignore the AIDS epidemic, quarantine HIV-infected people or preach abstinence as the only solution, Iran's approach is fairly progressive. Iran's AIDS program melds up-to-date programs and research with deep-rooted religious values.
The country still doles out floggings to Iranians caught with alcohol, but it also gives clean syringes and methadone treatment to heroin addicts. Health workers pass out condoms to prostitutes. Government clinics in every region offer free HIV testing, counseling and treatment.
In 2005 the postal service unveiled a stamp emblazoned with a red ribbon for AIDS awareness. In 2006 there was an AIDS awareness concert in Tehran. This year, school children in Mashad created a 150 foot long painting to promote AIDS prevention and awareness. And in 2008, the government is due to earmark an estimated $30 million to AIDS programs.
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| Reuters |
| A man stands next to a piece of artwork at a conceptual art exhibition about HIV/AIDS in Tehran on World AIDS Day, Dec. 2. |
"Iran now has one of the best prison programs for HIV in not just the region, but in the world," said Dr. Hamid Setayesh, the coordinator for the U.N. AIDS office in Tehran. "They're passing out condoms and syringes in prisons. This is unbelievable. In the whole world, there aren't more than six or seven countries doing that."
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By Kerry Sanders, NBC News Correspondent
CARACAS, Venezuela -- I’ve reported for more than 25 years. I’ve sat through my share of news conferences. Some boring. Some self-serving. Some just plain weird.
I’ve attended press conferences in the United States, and through out the world, but the news conference with President Hugo Chavez on Saturday was hands down, the most unusual ever.
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