May 2009 - Posts
By Eric Baculinao, NBC News Beijing bureau chief
BEIJING - It was hardly conceivable that the sports of rock n’ roll dancing and Frisbee could help drive Taiwan closer to China, but that’s exactly what happened with the recent visit to China of a leading stalwart of Taiwan’s pro-independence movement.
Chen Chu, mayor of Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s second largest city, took a big political gamble by flying to Beijing to seek help in selling her hometown’s World Games, an alternative to the Olympics, that has seen disappointing sales. That a prominent figure of the pro-independence and anti-China opposition party had no choice but to seek Beijing’s help bespeaks of the startling reversal of the political wind across the once-turbulent Taiwan Strait.
And, in turn, the dramatic shift from the threat of war to the outbreak of peace, due in large part to the growing economic dependence of Taiwan on China, is fueling speculation that the two former rivals are headed towards greater integration and reunification.
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By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
BEIJING – "City of Life and Death" might sound like your average escapist action film helping to usher in the summer movie season.
But it’s not.
The 2-hour black and white epic recounts the early days of Japan’s occupation of Nanking (now known as Nanjing) in 1937. Over six weeks, Japanese troops committed brutal atrocities against hundreds of thousands of residents of the wartime Chinese capital.
Estimates of those killed vary wildly, but historians say around 200,000 to 300,000 people were slaughtered. It’s a dark episode of World War Two that doesn’t get much mention in the West, but here in China no one has forgotten.
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| Courtesy of Lu Chuan Film Studio |
| Japanese troops take over Nanking in the "City of Life and Death." |
"In China, everyone knows about the Nanjing Massacre," said 38-year old filmmaker Lu Chuan, who directed "City of Life and Death."
"But as far as I know, nobody outside of China knows [about it]… I think it’s important to let people outside of China know the truth, because wars and massacres are everywhere."
Portraying Japanese in a new light
But Lu’s film does more than "tell the truth."
Using an ensemble cast of Chinese and Japanese actors, the movie tries to portray Japanese soldiers in a much more humane light than previously seen in China-made movies of that era.
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As the number of people fleeing fighting in Pakistan's northwestern Swat valley reaches nearly 2 million, the race to help those displaced by the worsening war may prove crucial in determining the outcome of the battle. NBC News' Ian Williams reports.
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By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
Graduation is just a month away and millions of college students in China are expected to hit the streets during what is the country’s tightest job market in decades.
In anticipation of keen competition, most of this year’s 6.1 million graduates have been searching high and low for work the past few months. But they join an estimated two to three million graduates from previous years who still haven’t found jobs.
The graduate glut isn’t simply the result of a slowing economy. It’s the product of increased college enrollment and the expanding number of campuses. In 1998, there were 3.4 million college students in China. Last year, there were just over 20 million.
It’s been a tremendous investment in human capital, as one economist put it, but it hasn’t quite turned out the way the government’s hoped. Aside from unemployment concerns, many students – and prospective employers – complain that the new graduates haven’t got the right training or skills.
And for the millions of parents who save and scrimp to put their child through university, it’s hard for them not to wonder whether it was worth it – would their child have been better off entering the job market straight out of high school?
Click on the video link above to see more of Adrienne Mong's report from Beijing.
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As the war in Afghanistan morphs into a drug war, the U.S. is shifting its tactics by trying to develop alternative crop programs for the world's top opium producer. NBC News' Jim Maceda reports.
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By Martin Fletcher, NBC News Correspondent
TEL AVIV – America has always related to Israel with the carrot, but now Israelis fear the stick will be President Barack Obama’s implement of choice. Maybe not right away, but soon.
As Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (also known as "Bibi") and Obama meet on Monday for the first time since each assumed office, Israel’s media, fed by government sources, are reaching a crescendo of hysteria: Is this the end of Israel’s special relationship with America?
One analyst hoped so – writing that the only American president who really helped Israel was, the now much reviled here, Jimmy Carter.
He helped cobbled together Israel’s peace treaty with Egypt by brow-beating then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin into giving up on his promises not to cede an inch of land. As a result of the Camp David Accords, Begin eventually gave up all of Sinai – winning a peace agreement with Egypt that stands firm today and is in no serious jeopardy.
So there are mixed feelings in Israel. On the one hand, nobody likes or wants to be bullied by America; while on the other many analysts accept that it is only by having its figurative head knocked together with the Palestinians’ that any progress towards peace is likely.
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By Charlene Gubash, NBC News Producer
CAIRO – The aisles were empty in Country Homes Furniture in Wilbraham, Mass., and owners Hazel and Nazih Zebian were sitting in their office doing what they described as the "usual whining and complaining" about how bad business had become and questioning how much longer they could last.
"Like so many people in these economic conditions, furniture has been hit hard," Hazel said. "It’s the last thing people want to buy."
Out of boredom, she began to surf the Internet and came across a story on msnbc.com about another man half a world away facing hard times: Abu Sayed in Cairo.
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| Mohamed Muslemany |
| Abu Sayed picks up his money from a Cairo Western Union. |
We reported on how Sayed had just lost his small herd of pigs, the only source of income for his extended family of 14. The Egyptian government began culling all pigs in a misguided attempt to prevent swine flu. But pig farmers, most of them living below the poverty line, lost everything when police seized their swine herds without any compensation.
Sayed was no exception. He was beaten by police when he asked what would happen to his herd. He had no idea how he could continue to feed his own children or help provide for his brothers and sister.
But after reading Sayed’s story, Hazel silently calculated how much it would cost to replace the 25 pigs.
"I read it to my husband and as I started reading it, multiplied in my head and all it amounted to was $1,125. I said, ‘I wish we could give that to him ourselves.’ And he said, ‘If that's what you want to do, just go ahead and do it.’"
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Members of the U.S. Army First Battalion, 26th Infantry man an isolated outpost, Camp Restrepo, in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley.
A mournful China marked the first anniversary of the devastating earthquake that left nearly 90,000 people dead or missing and 5 million homeless on Tuesday. NBC News’ Ian Williams reports from the quake zone.
By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
HANWANG, Sichuan Province – It came without warning. Its unexpectedness as stunning as the raw emotion it so clearly expressed.
We were wrapping up our interview with Huang Lianhe, a father who lost his only child, 18-year-old Dengfeng, in last year's deadly quake that killed more than 69,000 others in Sichuan, Gansu, and Shaanxi.
He was showing us photos of his son as his own elderly parents circled quietly in the background.
The grandmother, a diminutive but sturdy woman, approached with a friendly expression. She placed her hand on my wrist, her palm soft despite decades of hard farm work, and began to murmur something.
I leaned in expectantly but quickly leapt back when a sad, long wail erupted.
"My grandson didn't die in a natural disaster! He died from the collapsed school – it was bad construction!" cried the 68-year-old Wang Zhenxiu.
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By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
BEICHUAN, China – It looked like a Sunday midday stroll.
Families, couples, and clusters of young students carrying large bouquets and plastic bags containing incense and paper walked under a hazy sun toward a town set in a picturesque river valley.
But this was no weekend country ramble, and the town of Beichuan was no longer really a town.
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| Adrienne Mong / NBC News |
| Visitors to Beichuan pay their respects to the dead. |
A ghostly presence now, Beichuan was leveled on May 12 last year, when a deadly earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale struck western China.
So many buildings in this town collapsed, and landslides shed boulders the size of houses onto the main road, sealing off the town, that that it took rescuers days before they could assess the actual scope of the damage.
When they did, it was discovered that half of Beichuan's population of 30,000 was killed or missing.
"Our friend's parents died there," said Wu Qian, a young woman who, like her three friends, carried a bouquet of yellow chrysanthemums. "They're still buried in there. We came to bring flowers."
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By Tom Aspell, NBC News Correspondent
AMMAN, Jordan -- Rita Aziz, a 24-year-old Christian Iraqi woman, fled her country for Amman a few months ago after her two brothers were kidnapped on a highway leading north from Baghdad.
Shortly afterward, she received a telephone call from neighbors in Baghdad telling her that two bodies had been found and that they could be those of her missing brothers. They suggested she return to Baghdad to identify them. She took the next available flight from Amman.
Just as she arrived at her house, four men appeared and bundled her into a car and drove her to an unknown destination.
For the next five days they raped and tortured her, telling her they were punishing her for being a Christian.
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By NBC News’ Mushtaq Yusufzai
MARDAN, Pakistan – Shaista, a terrified 11-year-old girl from the Swat Valley, was lying in a hospital bed in Mardan’s ill-equipped health center on Friday.
She suffered severe injuries to her legs when an artillery shell, reportedly fired by Pakistani troops, hit her family’s small house Thursday night in Mingora.
The traumatized Shaista said the mortar shell struck a room where she was sleeping. Her voice choking, Shaista said her mother, two sisters and brother were killed in the incident – and then she became lost in deep despair.
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| Mushtaq Yusufzai / NBC |
| Shaista, 11, in her hospital bed in Marden. |
A doctor treating the girl said she seems to lose her memory when speaking and starts to suddenly cry – apparently because of deep shock she suffered.
Children have proved to be some of the hardest-hit victims among the estimated one million people displaced by the ongoing fighting between Pakistan’s armed forces and Taliban militants in the northern districts of Buner and Swat.
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By Yonatan Pomrenze, NBC News Producer
MOSCOW – At the Russian Orthodox Church of Saints Cosmas and Damian in central Moscow, attendance has almost doubled in the past year alone. At most churches, this would be a blessing.
But for this church, the spike in attendees is not attributed to successful preaching or newfound faith. Instead, it’s due to the soup kitchen that serves up free meals four times a week in the midst of the ongoing financial crisis.
"Last year our biggest meals would have around 300 people," said Boris Kleparsky, a volunteer who led prayers before serving soup, potatoes and sausages to rows of people sitting at long tables running the length of the church. "But this winter we were already routinely getting over 500 people a meal. And it’s all because of the crisis."
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| Oxana Onipko / AFP - Getty Images |
| Unemployed Russians read classifieds while waiting in line at a job fair in Moscow on March 18, 2009. |
Kleparksy and other volunteers say the majority of the new faces they are seeing at the soup kitchen are not the customary pensioners or homeless clients, but newly unemployed who can’t make ends meet in an expensive city like Moscow.
"They came here from all over Russia, even Ukraine and Kazakhstan looking for work, and now those jobs have dried up," said Kleparsky.
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As Pakistani forces try to uproot the Taliban from the Swat Valley, hundreds of thousands of civilians have been displaced by the fighting. Pakistan Prime Minister Yousaf Gilani appealed to the international community for help on Thursday as more civilians were forced to flee the area. NBC News' Richard Engel reports.
By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
The cameras converged on Chinese artist Ai Weiwei as soon as the news broke.
An official from the Sichuan provincial government announced a final toll for the number of children missing and killed from last year’s devastating earthquake: 5,335.
Although authorities have confirmed more than 69,000 people died in the quake – which struck in the middle of a school day on May 12, 2008 – until today they had not released any details about the children who died in thousands of collapsed school buildings.
It’s a highly sensitive topic here in China, where local officials have been accused of negligence in cases where schools caved in while surrounding buildings remained standing. Authorities have resorted to a harsh crackdown on families of the dead children and the media for trying to report or investigate the story.
"I’m glad they try to be responsible now," said Ai, attributing it to "the tremendous pressure of the media or the public."
For months, the artist – who helped design the iconic Bird’s Nest Stadium featured prominently in the Beijing Olympics – has been contributing to that pressure.
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Hoping to use lessons learned from the war in Iraq, the U.S. has launched a new strategy in dealing with the Taliban in by talking to moderate Taliban and peeling them away from hard core jihadis. NBC News' Jim Maceda reports from Afghanistan.
Fighting the Taliban now includes a concerted effort to cut the organization's financial lifeline: the illegal drug trade. NBC News' Jim Maceda goes behind the scenes in Afghanistan as a U.S. DEA team carries out drug raids.
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Couples who put their lives on hold amid Iraq's turmoil are rushing to get married and make up for lost time. NBC News' Cheryll Simpson reports.
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Egypt's slaughter of pigs, a move described by the government as an effort to combat swine flu, is inciting riots between the farmers who raise the pigs and police. The World Health Organization and the U.N. say the cull is not necessary.
NBC's Charlene Gubash reports from Cairo.
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By Cheryll Simpson, NBC News Producer
BAGHDAD – Widespread violence is down across Baghdad, but not for one minority group.
Iraq’s gay population is being targeted by militia groups in a wave of killings that has claimed the lives of up to 25 young men and boys in the past month.
"They know I am gay. I don’t know if I am going to be killed, this is up to God," said Moyad, a 38-year-old Baghdad resident who would not give his last name out of fear for his safety.
Visibly frightened, he said that he has many friends who have been sadistically tortured, some even murdered. "They are sticking glue up their anuses; some hospitals refuse to treat them. Is it a war waged against homosexuals?" he asked.
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By Michelle Kosinski, NBC News Correspondent
MEXICO CITY – Above a quiet, languid Mexico City, there is a hint of blue in the center of the sky. The usual haze, that obscures the view of the mountains and the sun-bleached homes that crawl up into them, is remarkably light. From a tall building these past two days, the view is stunningly clear. These are small gifts, for citizens still living through an international scare – and a national shutdown.
With little to do today around the normally electrified capital, a person can marvel at the prospect of a stroll down silent lanes, hearing single bird chirps, breathing in the clearer air – or a drive without a traffic jam. It is both refreshing and eerie – a good time for the mind to wander – and then you remember that the cause of this otherworldy calm is quite alarming. Or at least, it was.
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By Kerry Sanders, NBC News Correspondent
PUEBLA, MEXICO – It’s difficult to spot any evidence folks here are concerned about the swine flu.
In this city, about 60 miles southeast of Mexico City, few residents are wearing masks. Stores and restaurants are open. The town center, called el zocalo, is awash with families, children holding balloons. Lovers are in clutches on city benches, smooching.
In Mexico City, streets are empty, restaurants are closed and it’s so quiet you can hear the birds chirping. But Puebla is alive.
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By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
HONG KONG – To Dr. Danny Tong, it’s a war.
He talks about "peace time" and "war time," meaning the period before an outbreak, and the time after it hits. The "war cabinet" is how he refers to the conference room where top health officials meet to plan the battles ahead.
"Most of the doctors here lived through the SARS outbreak. We really do see it in terms of warfare," he told me.
Tong is the Senior Nursing Officer at Princess Margaret Hospital in Hong Kong, overseeing a specialist isolation center that will receive the first victims of
swine flu in the former British territory.
"SARS made us tough," he said. "We are ready."
On Friday,
Hong Kong announced that the territory detected its first case of the flu, Asia's first confirmed instance of the disease.
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