October 2008 - Posts
With war-weary Congo refugees begining to trudge home, the images look eerily familiar -- like the scene of hudreds of thousands of people fleeing the genocide in neighboring Rwandan in 1994. Unfortunately, grave humanitarian crisis is nothing new to the long suffering people of the region.
ITN's Lindsey Hilsum explains the background of the current catastrophe in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
See a slideshow of images from the current crisis as well.
By Paul Goldman, NBC News Producer
TEL AVIV, Israel – Thousands of Americans living in Israel cast their votes this week for the U.S. elections. With approximately 40,000 Americans in Israel registered to vote, their numbers are small, but significant.
And Shimon Greenspan and Dina Lerner, founders of a private, non-partisan organization called Vote from Israel, were determined to make sure their votes were counted.
Several months ago Greenspan and Lerner, were sitting around with friends talking about the upcoming election and were amazed to find out their friends were not intending to vote. There were many reasons, but they mainly boiled down to that that it was just too difficult.
All the excuses prompted Greenspan and Lerner to create their organization and encourage U.S. residents living here to register and vote. In a period of only a few weeks, their organization has been responsible for registering up to 10,000 U.S. citizens to vote in the November elections.
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By Lawahez Jabari, NBC News Producer
RAMALLAH, West Bank - With the U.S. election now just a few days away, Palestinians here have been fascinated by the race, not only because the system of primaries, conventions, and debates is so different compared to the way leaders are chosen here, but also because of the prospect that Americans could actually elect a person of color as their leader.
It's always been a given that the unflinching support for Israel by the U.S. helps give Israel leverage in its negotiations with the Palestinian Authority and that statements of support from the White House have always been the best indicator of that commitment. But, that's also why this year's election has been closely watched by the Palestinian media and by Palestinians in the streets of the West Bank, Gaza, and east Jerusalem.
All of the people I spoke with in the West Bank are tantalized by the idea of a Barack Obama presidency. They see it not only as an historic moment for the U.S., but also as the possible breakthrough they've been waiting for in their own struggle for a state.
At the same time though, enthusiasm for an Obama presidency is tempered by the sobering facts on the ground.
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By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
SANHE, HEBEI PROVINCE, China – Spend an afternoon with the men who run the HuaXia Dairy Farm in Hebei Province and you soon suspect they are on a mission that’s more than simply about making money.
"We want to provide all the Chinese people [the ability to] drink fresh milk," said ER Hong, HuaXia’s Chief Strategy Officer, as we walked around the clean yet odorous farm that’s home to 5,000 cows and a lot of imported technology.
"In China right now, most people are not drinking fresh milk," continued the Taiwan native who says he grew up drinking fresh milk daily and talks about dairy as a basic human right. "Not many places can produce fresh milk."
It might sound like an odd pitch to make, given the bad press dairy products have been getting here lately. In September, the industrial chemical melamine was discovered in Chinese-made powdered and fresh milk and other dairy products sold in China and exported to parts of East Asia and Africa. Four babies died from kidney failure and at least 54,000 other young children in China have fallen ill as a result of drinking the tainted milk.
But HuaXia is poised to help overhaul the way millions of dairy farms operate across the country.
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By Jason Cumming, msnbc.com reporter
LAKENHEATH, England – In a country where "football" means "soccer" and "American football" is derided as an inferior version of rugby, the quarterback painted on the bookie’s front window is an unusual sight to say the least.
On the other side of the High Street, the Stars and Stripes are on display outside the Costlow cell phone shop. A laminated U.S. map welcomes customers to R & B Property Agency and there are noticeably more SUVs and Ford F-350s on quaintly named streets like Dumpling Bridge Lane than in most places in Britain.
With the U.S. Air Force’s 48th Fighter Wing based on 2,000 acres of countryside at the edge of this village, about 500 of the community's 2,000 dwellings are occupied by Americans and their families, giving the area a distinctively American flavor.
But the absence of "McCain 2008" or "Obama for President" signs sprouting from lawns in Lakenheath has much more to do with geography than a lack of interest in the race for the White House.
As a home to American airmen for 60 years, RAF Lakenheath is one of three U.S. military outposts within a 15-minute drive of the village. Officials estimate there are as many as 30,000 Americans in the area.
Long considered a source of aggravation, the conversation-halting roar of F-15s overhead now provides local residents with regular reminders that the looming U.S. election could have a dramatic impact on their livelihoods.
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By Homero Nava for msnbc.com
MEXICO CITY – Given our common 1,900-mile border, it’s not surprising that Mexicans south of the border are paying close attention to the U.S. presidential election.
Migration issues and the violent anti-drug war along the border region are big issues – but without a doubt, the top worry for many Mexicans is the economy.
While Americans have been wrestling with the bailout plan, Mexico has already been suffering – the peso’s value has plunged by 18 percent this month, its worst monthly performance since December 1994, when Mexico’s currency fell by 48 percent.
The peso rebounded a bit this week, but Mexico’s growth rate has slowed from 4 percent to 1 percent and unemployment is on the rise.
Many Mexicans have placed responsibility for the disaster squarely on President Bush, and by extension see presidential candidate Sen. John McCain as someone who would pursue the same policies as the current administration.
"We definitely don’t want another Bush. I have more faith in [Barack] Obama, because at least he would listen to new models and new ways of working," said Vanesa Musi, a Mexican artist.
Musi is not alone, many in Mexico are hoping for the arrival of the "Obama era."
According to a Reader’s Digest Global Presidential Poll, 70 percent of respondents support Obama, and 25 percent support McCain.
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By Carla Marcus, NBC News Producer
BAGHDAD, Iraq – Slowly over time, Baghdad has become a more colorful city.
Though most of the city remains a dusty, beige hue, the grey, concrete blast walls that shield neighborhoods and government buildings from potential suicide bombers or other intruders have been transformed into large, public canvases for the city's artists and others who may be inspired to pick up a brush.
The idea to beautify the city began about two years ago, when students at Baghdad's Academy of Fine Arts proposed painting blast walls near their campus. Their work depicted images that were typically historical – Baghdad and Basra in the 1940's for example.
Soon local municipalities and government ministries commissioned the students and other artists who were still left in Baghdad – a fair number had fled Iraq – to paint the walls.
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By Ali Arouzi, NBC News Producer
TEHRAN, Iran – In a country that can be very isolated, people from all walks of life in Iran seem to know the ins and outs of the upcoming U.S. elections. Most are well informed about the candidates and their running mates and almost everyone has an opinion or a theory – some surprising, some far-fetched.
Some even want to claim Sen. Barack Obama as one of their own – with Persian lineage to boot.
"Obama has an international background, I understand his background is not totally American, he even has family ties with Iran, I hear Bushehr," said a university professor who asked only to be identified as Max. He was referring to the southwest port town of Bushehr, which coincidentally is the site of Iran’s controversial nuclear facility.
Others seem to believe that the hard-line policies of Sen. John McCain may be exactly what are needed to deal with the current Iranian regime. "I think McCain should become president, America needs a strong experienced man to deal with this region," said a student who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
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NBC News' Correspondent Richard Engel, Producer Madeleine Haeringer and Cameraman Bredun Edwards take you behind-the-scenes on their recent military embed in Afghanistan.
By Jim Maceda, NBC News Correspondent
Twenty-five years on and it still appears in my nightmares and daydreams: the visual equivalent of a lone, empty shoe or sandal, on top of a pile of rubble, all that remains of the child who once wore it.
Only in my mind’s eye it’s not a shoe – it’s a stepladder. The aluminum kind you’d use to change a bulb or paint the ceiling. It was lingering somewhere inside or against the 1/8 Marines’ barracks in Beirut when a suicide bomber drove his five-ton yellow Mercedes truck, laden with six tons of TNT, right through an unfortified perimeter fence and straight into the lobby of the barracks, setting off the largest non-nuclear explosion since World War II.
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| AP file |
| British soldiers give a hand in rescue operations at the site of the bomb-wrecked U.S. Marine command center in Beirut on Oct. 23, 1983. |
I came across the ladder hours later, and hundreds of yards from the scene. It had impaled a tree trunk like a huge dart, and was hanging, parallel to the ground, swaying in the breeze. A strange image – but one that is seared in my mind when I think about that awful day 25 years ago that marked the first of what would become many radical Islamic terror attacks against Western interests.
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By Andy Eckardt, NBC News Producer
MAINZ, Germany – It's not surprising Germans are fascinated with the American election; it's colorful and flashy when compared with the usually staid German political process.
Even German politicians admit that they are impressed by the numbers of supporters at U.S. campaign events and especially envy the American parties' financial budgets.
"There are clearly cultural and structural differences between the two countries. In Germany, for example, the entire election spending of all parties adds up to only $85 million," said Dirk Metz, a spokesperson for the local state government in Wiesbaden, in comparison to the hundreds of millions spent by both the Democrats and the Republicans in their race for the White House.
But, in general, Germans are clearly just interested in American politics. When the candidates' television debates were shown recently in the early morning hours in Germany – the usually marginal middle-of-the-night ratings surged.
The interest likely stems from the desire among the general public in Germany to overcome what has been dubbed "Bush-fatigue." A generally negative sentiment towards the Bush administration that has been nurtured over the past eight years by Germany's anti-war stance, as well as the "old Europe" and "with us or against us" remarks by U.S. officials.
But while many Germans favor the fresh face of Sen. Barack Obama, it's yet to be seen if he is really the best candidate for German interests.
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By Kiko Itasaka, NBC News Producer
Baghdad isn't the best place for consumer therapy, but in moments of desperation, near the NBC News bureau here there is one small dusty shop selling alleged antiques, dusty carpets, and tattered post cards.
About a month ago, I bought some cards and decided it would be fun to send one to Petra Cahill, the msnbc.com World Blog editor in New York.
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| The postcard sent from Baghdad to New York on Sept. 19 was scanned before it was dropped in the mail. |
My first step was to determine whether or not the postal system actually works in Baghdad.
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By Hamilton Wende for msnbc.com
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – "America is used to being ruled by a white president," Lucky Mathye, a 22-year-old police reservist told me in the suburbs of Johannesburg. "America looks like a worldwide boss. They want all the power in the world and they don’t want to share it. Maybe [Barack] Obama will be a peacemaker."
South Africans of all colors are watching the upcoming U.S. elections very closely. America is the world’s oldest constitutional democracy, while South Africa is one of the youngest.
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| Hamilton Wende |
| Lucky Mathye is paying close attention to the U.S. election from Johannesburg, South Africa. |
Yet, the parallels between the two countries are often striking, and sometimes ironic. Both countries have a history of segregation and racism. America has a white majority and black minority; in South Africa it is the other way around.
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By NBC News’ Karim Hilmi
Karim Hilmi, an Iraqi citizen, works in NBC News' Baghdad bureau and has a great passion for cinema.
BAGHDAD – I didn’t expect to see many people at the al-Khayam Cinema in downtown Baghdad when I went to see a movie on a recent afternoon.
Some were alone, just like me, some were with friends and a young couple on a date was chatting, laughing and eating popcorn.
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| Karim Hilmi / NBC News |
| Movie posters featuring some of the movie hits of the 80s and 90s are on display at the al-Khayam Cinema in downtown Bagdad. |
I felt relieved and happy to see Iraqis going to the movies again – like they used to almost 20 years ago.
Economic sanctions were placed on Iraq in 1990, after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. It banned all foreign imports except some food and medicine – making daily life incredibly difficult and essentially eliminating any chance of escaping reality at the movies.
Making matters worse, for the past five years, since Saddam’s regime was ousted in 2003, religious fanatics and extremists have controlled almost all of Baghdad’s neighborhoods, enforcing a ban on art in general. Painting, sculpture, music, singing, plays and showing movies were all taboos.
Many artists, actors and singers were killed, kidnapped, tortured, displaced or forced to change their professions. Some art galleries were bombed by extremists.
But now, since the U.S. military surge has increased security in Baghdad, four movie theaters and three live drama theaters have re-opened and many actors, directors, singers, and painters have returned to the country.
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By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
NEW DELHI – As Election Day approaches, India is looking nervously at the United States. Pundits here are asking how big an impact the U.S. economic downturn will have on the booming outsourcing business, and how the next U.S. president will react to pressures to protect American jobs.
Anamika Wani, a business consultant in Mumbai, India’s financial capital, says she's liked Sen. Barack Obama ever since she heard him speak while she was visiting California.
But she says many in India are wary of him. "A lot of the Indian economy has come about through outsourcing," she told me. "Because the U.S. has been willing to shift business centers out of the country. So if that reverses, then there would be a fall in the economy and job losses here, so from that perspective, I think a lot of people don’t favor some of Obama’s policies."
Many see Sen. John McCain as more committed to free trade, which will keep the outsourcing work flowing to India.
Closely tied to the U.S. economy
Outsourcing is now a multi-billion dollar industry here. If China is the workshop of the world, than India has become its back office, doing everything from working the phones in call centers to transcribing U.S. doctors’ notes and tutoring American students.
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Despite economic turmoil around the globe, the Iraq Stock Exchange is defying odds and surprisingly growing. NBC News' Carla Marcus reports on Baghdad's very unique market.
By Mary Murray, NBC News Havana Bureau Chief
HAVANA – When it comes to the
U.S. presidential elections, the Cuban public doesn’t believe everything it’s told.
For more than a year, Cuban officials and the state-run media have been hammering away at the U.S. voting process, criticizing the influence that big money plays in electoral outcomes and dismissing both candidates along with their proposed policy toward the island.
No surprise there, given that Havana has spent the past 50 years battling a White House occupied by Democrats and Republicans alike.
Even retired and ailing Fidel Castro dedicated 11 different editorials since the presidential primaries began to belittling the U.S. elections, equating the process with the seriousness of a "Sunday afternoon card game" and accusing both Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain of planning to starve the island into submission.
And other Cuban officials have echoed that disdain for anything American.
Recently parliament president Ricardo Alarcón advised voters looking for "real change" to cast their ballot for Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney or independent Ralph Nader. Neither Obama nor McCain, predicted Alarcón, will transform much of anything.
But the Cuban public isn’t falling for the rhetoric.
Instead of just parroting the editorial line from state-run media, people are watching and weighing the U.S. election. They’re forming their own strong opinions instead of conforming to the prevailing official view.
Furthermore, many people believe that the outcome on Nov. 4 does matter. Some even argue that their own futures are at stake.
"I’m hoping that the American people will elect someone who will be open to changing relations with Cuba and allow free travel," said Alejandro Sene, 22, who dances with the National Ballet of Cuba and dreams of performing on the U.S. stage. "We need the breathing space."
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Fears about a possible global recession have begun to trickle down to China, a nation of traditionally high savers. NBC News' Adrienne Mong reports from Beijing on why many Chinese households typically save as much as 30 percent of their annual income, compared to the near-zero percent saved by the average American family.
Click here to read more: Can China save the global economy?
By Carla Marcus, NBC News Producer
BAGHDAD – Attacks carried out by female suicide bombers have become as common an occurrence here as roadside bombings, political assassinations and public mourning. No longer do I react with surprise when I hear about an explosion triggered by a woman.
Just last week on Oct. 8, a young woman in Baqouba blew herself up in front of a courthouse – killing 10 people and injuring 17. She was wearing an abaya, a traditional black robe, which allows explosive devices to be easily concealed. According to the doctor who examined the remains of her body, she may have been as young as 14.
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| AFP - Getty Images file |
| In this police handout picture, an Iraqi policeman attempts to unwrap an Iraqi woman's suicide vest after she surrendered in Baqouba on Aug.24. |
A day earlier, Iraqi authorities in the same region arrested a 38-year-old woman named Ibtisam Edwan, suspected of recruiting females to become suicide bombers – including a 15-year-old who gave her first name as Rania and turned herself into Iraqi police in August. In extensive video footage released by Iraqi police, she was wearing an explosives-laden vest at the time of her arrest, but denied that she planned to stage a suicide attack.
Although violence in Iraq is down overall, the spate of attacks perpetrated by women is certainly on the rise. By NBC News’ tabulation, the Baqouba courthouse attack last week was the 31 suicide bombing involving a woman to take place this year. By comparison, eight occurred in 2007, and a total of four in 2005 and 2006, according to U.S. military officials.
The majority of suicide attacks by women take place at police and army checkpoints, though headquarters of Awakening Councils (groups of Sunnis, some of them former militants, who have banded together to take on violent Sunni insurgents) are also popular targets.
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By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
HANOI, Vietnam – Mention the U.S. election on the streets of Hanoi, and you are likely to get two very different reactions.
Among the young, the most common response is a shrug. But older people – the Vietnam War generation – are watching closely, and everybody I spoke to was backing the man they know: Sen. John McCain.
That may sound odd. McCain endured five and a half years in prison here after his Skyhawk bomber was shot down over the city in October 1967, and he parachuted into Hanoi's West Lake.
But he is remembered most for what’s happened since then – his many return visits, and his role in helping to normalize relations.
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By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
BEIJING – One of the very few light moments during the Sichuan earthquake last May occurred as a family in Xiang'e dug through the rubble of their fallen home. The wife paced around an earth-mover, looking agitated but not grief-stricken, and I guessed she was looking for a lost pet. But when she began hopping up and down in excitement at the appearance of a mattress, I was momentarily stumped.
That is, until one of the men began tearing through the mattress lining.
Before long the wife was beaming, having rescued and quickly tucked away several wads of rolled up 100-yuan notes.
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| Adrienne Mong / NBC News |
| A family digs for its savings in the aftermath of May's earthquake in Sichuan. |
One might chuckle at the scene, as I did, but this family represents one reason some commentators think China can save the global economy.
The argument(s)
The argument that China can bail out everyone – or at least the American economy – is actually two-fold.
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By Martin Fletcher, NBC News Correspondent
TEL AVIV – This
American election has fascinated the planet more than any other in living memory; because it concerns us all more than any other. America’s war is the world’s war and Wall Street’s disaster has infected the globe.
So it is with all the more consternation that observers here regard their putative saviors.
In Israel, with its famously combative and unrestrained media, it is the American system that is under the microscope as much as its representatives. Here, the U.S. presidential race is seen as the bitter old guy and the dimwit versus the untried young guy and the windbag.
And the big issue in Israel is: What kind of a system is it if these are the best they can muster? When the insults halt, the votes are cast and the dust settles, many say that is the question that needs to be answered. Is this really the best America can come up with? Isn’t there a better way to do things?
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Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin unveils a new instructional judo DVD, adding to his legendary 'tough guy' image.
NBC News' Yonatan Pomrenze reports from Moscow on how in many ways, Putin, Russia's former president and current prime minister, is still center stage in Russian politics.
By Richard Engel, NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent
JALALABAD, Afghanistan – U.S. military officials don’t talk about our secret war in Pakistan.
Don’t even ask, I was told, on U.S. military bases in Afghanistan at Bagram and Jalalabad.
Don’t ask about the remotely-controlled American drones armed with missiles that are now hunting across the Pakistani border, searching through the mountain peaks, valleys and dusty villages inside Pakistan for the leaders of a few dozen networks of al-Qaida fighters, Taliban militants, warlords, weapons smugglers and opium traffickers.
And certainly don’t ask about the troops on bases here in Afghanistan who don’t wear uniforms, have long beards (so they can better blend in during covert operations), tattoos and don’t mingle with regular soldiers.
They eat in their own chow halls, plan their own missions and don’t talk much. They don’t talk at all to the media. They’re the men who have been called in to cross into Pakistan when the drones can’t get deep enough to find and kill their targets.
They are elite Special Operations Forces, the most-highly trained and covert of the U.S. military. They are America’s ghost warriors. According to Pakistani villagers who claim to have witnessed their operations, the "Special Ops" work in small teams, fast roping out of helicopters, air assaulting their objective before the enemy can re-group.
Their strengths are rapid violence, stealth, mobility and surprise. The Special Operations Forces don’t receive much attention or credit in the media, but they’re leading America’s secret war inside Pakistan, at least for now.
The Army Times, a military newspaper, recently reported that the U.S. will temporarily halt ground incursions into Pakistan. The newspaper quoted an unnamed Pentagon official as saying, "We are now working with the Pakistanis to make sure that those types of ground-type insertions do not happen, at least for a period of time to give them an opportunity to do what they claim they are desiring to do." The newspaper said the halt did not apply to the incursions by drones.
U.S. perspective
While details of American operations in Pakistan are sparse, several commanders have helped me understand the American motivation for the raids.
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By Charlene Gubash, NBC News Producer
CAIRO – After eight years of watching the Middle East peace process disintegrate into violence, five years of what most here regard as an illegal U.S. occupation of Iraq, the ensuing Sunni-Shiite conflict, and the subsequent rise of Iran as a nuclear threat in the mainly Sunni Gulf, most Egyptians agree that President Bush's legacy in the region has been one of instability.
Many Egyptians believe Sen. John McCain will likely hew to Bush's foreign policy and that Sen. Barack Obama will be more likely to solve, or at least attempt to solve, those pressing issues that are nearest and dearest to people's hearts here: the Palestinian/Israeli conflict and the war in Iraq.
"If McCain wins, the general perception seems to be that we're screwed," Sara Inani, a university drama professor, said during a recent interview in Cairo.
Although she prefers Ralph Nader, she believes most Egyptians feel that "if a Democrat wins, we have a fighting chance." And the most important issue for Inani? "War in Iraq, slam dunk. Most people would like to see the U.S. pull out."
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By NBC News’ Carol Grisanti and Fakhar ur Rehman
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – For many Pakistanis, the battle for the White House raging in the U.S. is less about the differences between the two candidate’s qualifications to be president, and more about which of the two is more likely to stop sending missile-firing drone aircraft from across the border in Afghanistan into Pakistan’s tribal areas.
And in that regard, many Pakistanis are overwhelmingly in favor of Sen. Barack Obama.
Many believe that Obama will be a friend to Pakistan and change the Bush administration’s policy of "hot pursuit" of terrorists inside their borders.
Even more surprisingly, more than a few of the Pakistanis we spoke with were convinced that Obama is Muslim because his middle name is "Hussein," and therefore believe he may be more sympathetic to Pakistan if he were president.
"Barack Obama is for Muslims," said Osman Ali, an 18-year-old high school student in Islamabad. "I am sure he will withdraw U.S. forces from our borders and that’s why I hope he will win."
Nazim Hussain, a medical student, echoed Ali. "Obama will not be like Bush," he said. "Bush had an aggressive policy towards Muslims and I’m sure that Obama will be different."
But if these Pakistanis had listened to the first presidential debate between the two candidates, they might have been surprised. Obama and Sen. John McCain were at odds over Pakistan – with McCain taking a softer stance.
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By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
MANILA, Philippines – I was standing outside an old church in the poor Tondo neighborhood of Manila, watching people line up for subsidized rice, when I met Jose Torres. The 34-year-old charity worker got straight to the point.
"It’s getting close," he told me. "I’ve been watching it on the Internet. Very close."
It took me a few moments to realize Torres was talking about the U.S. election.
"It’s the election of the century, what with Obama, but I think McCain will win." He couldn’t say quite why he thought McCain will win, but Jose has clearly been crunching the numbers, and meeting an American television news team was a chance to present his bit of punditry.
"We depend on the U.S., even though we are independent, so the November election is going to affect us," he said.
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