June 2009 - Posts
By Mary Murray, NBC News Havana Bureau Chief
HAVANA – As news of the death of the "King of Pop" spread last Thursday night, a group of fans and Jackson impersonators gathered in a tiny Havana living room in disbelief. They huddled around a shortwave radio and tuned to Florida stations, hoping someone would say it was all a hoax.
"We’re stunned and heartsick. For us, Michael was the sun," said Nestor Hernandez. "All of a sudden, the skies darkened."
For the most part, Michael Jackson’s controversies didn’t tarnish his fame in Cuba. As Cuba’s state-run media is devoid of celebrity gossip, many fans know all about his talent but nothing about his troubles.
After his death on Thursday, Cuban radio and TV hosts paid tribute to the American pop star and his musical creations with scant references to his excesses with drugs, spending or sexual molestation charges.
The daily Granma, published by Cuba’s ruling Communist Party, reported on Jackson’s death, describing him as a "magnificent talent with a strange personal life," without providing any further explanation.
"Radio Rebelde," the island’s main radio station, abandoned regular rush-hour programming Friday morning to run news of Jackson’s death and play some of his most popular hits from decades ago while fans called in with accolades and requests.
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By Tom Aspell, NBC News Correspondent
BAGHDAD – No American military vehicles patrolled Baghdad’s streets for the first time in six years on Tuesday morning, as U.S. forces in Iraq finished withdrawing from towns and cities to bases in the countryside.
Iraqi army troops and police manned checkpoints in the Shiite area of Sadr City, searching cars for explosives and weapons. They can still call for American support if necessary, but Iraqis are hoping they can cope with the ongoing insurgency alone from now on.
As the midnight deadline for the handover of security in towns and cities drew nearer, Iraqis gathered in a park near the Baghdad Zoo for an outdoor concert to celebrate.
Pop singers entertained the crowds and there was a modest firework display. For many present it was the first outdoor celebration of its kind in recent memory.
In the Shiite slums of Sadr City, many greeted the departure of American forces with optimism. But Fouad Mohsen, who is 40 years old and unemployed, was cautious.
"I'm not too happy because the security situation is not ideal," said Mohsen. "I think the Iraqi forces are 70 percent capable of protecting us."
Taleb, 27, and also unemployed, said he already sees a decline in the security situation compared with just two months ago.
"I don't think it is the right time for U.S. forces to leave the cities," said Taleb, who declined to give his last name. "We still don't think the government is doing enough to help us. There is no work and no money."
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By Yonatan Pomrenze, NBC News Producer
MOSCOW – When I first heard about the International Medical Leech Center from a colleague, my reaction was probably a typical one for an American: Yuck. Gross.
A breeding center for 150,000 leeches in a small village just outside Moscow did not sound like my ideal location for a story. But when I heard the center’s claims that they raise and sell 10 times the number of leeches than the rest of the world combined, curiosity overcame my initial disgust.
Natasha Lepyoshkina is one of the 29 leech breeders at the center, all of whom are women. According to her, the gender choice is no accident. "You need to have patience with the leeches. You have to be industrious and patient. A man couldn’t do that," she said.
Most of the breeders live in the local village and take shifts on weekends to check on the leeches, lending the center a family-like atmosphere. "They won’t ever bite us – they know us too well," said one breeder as I prepared to dunk my hand in a jar full of hungry leeches. (Maybe it was leech breeders who coined the phrase about biting the hand that feeds you?)
The breeders often referred to the leeches as their children. "Just like a child – we raise them and love them, and once they grow up they leave us," said Lepyoshkina, as she prepared a batch of 1,000 live leeches to be shipped from the center.
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With the warmer weather, Guo Li Yi gets more business repairing bicycles on a Beijing street corner.The 63–year-old from Anhui province talks to NBC News about his life and work in the big city.
By NBC News' Warangkana Chomchuen
“Michael is the first and only international singer who inspired me to learn English to understand his songs,” a die-hard Jackson fan wrote on Pantip, the most popular Thai web forum.
Another comment, posted nine hours after the “King of Pop” was pronounced dead, read, “I’m still waiting for news agencies to say they made error report.”
A devastated fan said she has been writing a diary to Jackson for years now, and she would continue doing so even after his death.
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By NBC News' Ed Flanagan
BEIJING – It’s not often that a confessed murderer is feted publicly for her heroism and bravery, but that is precisely what happened to Deng Yujiao in China’s blogosphere following her release from house arrest last week.
Deng, a 21-year-old waitress from Hubei Province who fatally stabbed a Communist Party official after he tried to force himself on her, became an Internet sensation in China after she was arrested on suspicion of voluntary manslaughter a month ago.
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| Chinafotopress / Getty Images Contributor |
| Deng Yujiao, in white shirt, leaves a local court on in Badong County, Hubei Province, on June 16 after being exempted from criminal charges. |
According to the police investigation, two local officials, Huang Dezhi and Deng Guida, were customers at the Fantasy City Bathhouse, a karaoke parlor in rural Badong County, on May 10th when they approached Deng and demanded "special services." (In China, bathhouses are often fronts for brothels.)
When she refused, Deng Guida (who was not related to Deng) allegedly threw a wad of money at her face and pushed her onto a nearby sofa. As they proceeded to attack her, she pulled out a fruit knife and repeatedly stabbed and killed Deng Guida.
Deng immediately turned herself in to authorities and police initially charged her with manslaughter.
However, details of the case soon leaked out on the Internet. Deng told her side of the story to a Chinese newspaper, and the county government went into overdrive to downplay allegations of similar acts of aggression by Deng Guida and Huang Dezhi.
Chinese bloggers and netizens reacted swiftly. They began to express their outrage over government excess and Ms. Deng’s helplessness in the face of unruly government officials.
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By NBC News' Fakhar Rehman
UPPER DIR, Pakistan – "The noose around the Taliban is tightening," said 50-year-old Sirajuddin, the leader of a tribal militia based in Dhogbala, a town in the Upper Dir region of Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province. "Our fight will go on to the final victory."
Taliban militants have been pouring into Upper Dir for weeks, fleeing the Pakistan army assault in the adjacent Swat Valley. Sirajuddin, who goes by just one name, said that the army had been bombing the militants’ hideouts in the nearby hills and hit some shops in Dhogbala by mistake. The militants then swarmed down from the mountains, raided the shops and stole all the food.
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| Fakhar Rehman / NBC News |
| Sirajuddin, the leader of a tribal militia fighting the Taliban. |
Sirajuddin, tall and slim with a neatly cropped salt and pepper beard, spoke softly as he explained the militia’s determination to go after the Taliban. But his voice rose in anger and his lips quivered when he recalled the suicide attack by the Taliban on his mosque on June 5.
"Those criminals killed 40 innocent people at prayer, just because they would not support them. We had to bury 12 children that day," said Sirajuddin. "Tell me, what was their crime?"
The next day, after the funerals, 500 villagers gathered at the home of one of their elders and voted unanimously to avenge the deaths from the mosque bombing and go after the Taliban. Sirajuddin volunteered to give up his job as a laborer and lead the militia.
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By NBC News' Bo Gu
BEIJING – Wow. People in Iran have the right to elect their own president? Candidates are allowed to participate in TV debates and give speeches to their supporters, just like in the United States? And they are allowed to publicly protest?
This comes as news to many in China who have long viewed Iran as an extremely conservative Muslim country where women have to cover their hair and bodies with scarves and robes. It’s mostly known here for leaders who openly challenge the United States and play cat-and-mouse over their stubborn nuclear power policies.
But people in Iran, usually seen as so mysterious and different from China, do enjoy many rights not endowed to Chinese citizens – such as voting and going out on the streets to express their discontent.
So it comes as a surprise to see that China’s mainstream media coverage of the post-election crisis in Iran has been fairly thorough. The protests and resulting bloodshed were reported all week in newspapers and on Web sites, with vivid videos and pictures.
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For the thousands of Iranian expatriates who moved to Los Angeles after the overthrow of the shah thirty years ago, the latest chapter in the troubled history of their homeland has them deeply worried and watching closely. NBC News' George Lewis reports.
As thousands of Iranians openly challenge their government and the legitimacy of their president, NBC News' Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel breaks down the power structure within the Islamic republic.
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By NBC News' Adrienne Mong and Bo Gu
BEIJING – It’s a real measure of Hong Kong’s autonomy – enshrined in the "one country, two systems" principle contained in its constitutional document under Chinese sovereignty – that certain freedoms and rights not enjoyed in mainland China continue to flourish in the former British colony.
We notice it every time we visit. First, there’s the regular assembly of Falun Gong supporters near the Hong Kong Convention Center in Wanchai, right where busloads of mainland Chinese tourists spill out.
It’s always a curiosity to see how the tourists might react to seeing these folks. After all, the Falun Gong is a quasi-religious group banned in China, and authorities spare no effort in demonizing the organization among citizens.
Then, more recently, there are Zhao Ziyang’s memoirs, selling out across bookshops in Hong Kong, both in English and in Chinese. The former Communist Party chief was ousted in May 1989 during a power struggle that underpinned the student protests in Tiananmen Square
that year. Under house arrest until he died in 2005, Zhao secretly recorded 30 tapes detailing the inner workings of the Party, and they were recently published in a book format to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. Of course, the book is not for sale on the Chinese mainland.
And then, of course, there is the Internet. In Hong Kong and unlike in China, we never need to log onto our NBC intranet in order to access certain websites. YouTube plays instantly. The Huffington Post loads easily. And we have yet to see the "error" message so often encountered on the mainland.
So it was with great dismay that last Monday, while we were still in Hong Kong, we learned about China’s latest efforts to shore up its Great Firewall.
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By Ali Arouzi, NBC News Producer
TEHRAN -- As the post-election crisis in Iran continues, authorities have barred all journalists working for foreign media from reporting on activities in the streets. And foreign reporters who went to Iran to cover last week's elections are beginning to leave, as officials say their visas will not be extended.
Ali Arouzi, an NBC News Producer based in Tehran, discusses how difficult it is to report the story in the middle of a media blackout.
How are you covering the story?
The journalists who had visas to cover the elections have now been told that they have to leave the country. And the journalists who have permanent press cards here, such as myself, have been told that we are absolutely not allowed to film in the streets, that it is prohibited.
The Ministry of Islamic Guidance, which looks after the foreign press here, issued these new rules, saying that these demands have come from above.
But we were out today, walking in the streets, without a camera. We were out and we were just observing what was going on.
How are Iranian officials restricting reporting?
They have essentially cut off all communication. All mobile phones have been cut off. Text messaging is gone. Internet has become very sporadic – sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. None of these things work.
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By NBC News' Warangkana Chomchuen
Thailand has been in dire need of some good news recently thanks to political upheaval and the gloomy economic outlook. The surprise birth of a baby panda has cheered the nation.
Officials at the Chiang Mai Zoo in northern Thailand had tried unsuccessfully for years to breed the mammal and were unaware the mother was pregnant. Thailand joins the United States and Japan in a rare club: the only countries outside of China to breed a panda in captivity.
However, the panda cub's parents are on loan from China, making the cub's length of stay limited to only two years, according to an agreement between the two nations. Still, the Thai zoo says it is ready to do what it takes to make sure the panda stays in the country.
Watch NBC News' Warangkana Chomchuen report on the panda below.
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Just back from Iran, NBC's chief foreign correspondent takes your questions.
Click here to read.
By Richard Engel, NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent
TEHRAN – As the sun began to set, the scene outside the polling station at the Husseiniya Ershad mosque in downtown Tehran was like a big social gathering.
A young bride and groom walked into the polling station to vote together on their big day. And a lot of the women voters in this particular neighborhood turned exercising their political rights into something of an outing.
Some women wore full-length black chadors, the cloak traditionally worn by Iranian women in public. But the majority of the ones at this polling station have been sported brightly colored head scarfs, pulled back to the top of their foreheads or even the middle of their heads, with a lot of hair spray and even heavy make-up. Many have said "Hello" to each other and exchanged phone numbers.
The sense of the election as a social event extended to the opposite sex as well.
Male and female students in this country usually don’t have much of an opportunity to meet and socialize. But at the street rallies during the last several nights in Tehran, many men and women were jumping up and down and cheering – together. That kind of interaction is very rare here because unmarried men and women are restricted from mingling with each other in this country.
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By Richard Engel, NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent
TEHRAN – I’m outside one of the main polling booths here, a large mosque in downtown Tehran. The polls are supposed to officially close soon. But from where I’m sitting, it’s clear that will not be enough time. I am looking at hundreds of people on the steps of this mosque trying to get into to vote.
According to Iranian officials the turnout has been unprecedented. There are estimates that as many as 70 percent of eligible voters have turned out.
That could be an indication that many of the young people who have been so inspired by this campaign and came out in the tens of thousands to demonstrate, demand change and protest against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad actually did come out today to vote.
That was always the big question. Whenever you have so many students who are leading a charge, it’s unclear if they will actually turn out on voting day. That seems to have taken place today. Many of the people we saw were young people.
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By Mary Murray, NBC News Havana Bureau Chief
HAVANA – General Motors may be losing ground to foreign competition at home, but in Cuba the American automaker remains king.
The popular GM models that rolled down Havana's streets in the '40s and '50s are still spitting out fumes.
Government restrictions bar most Cubans from buying new cars, so drivers have kept over 30,000 of these vintage American models on the road - the good majority - classic Chevy's.
Some of the autos are collector's jewels, in show-car condition. But most live on the streets as un-restored workhorses.
Click on the video below to see NBC News' Mary Murray report from Havana.
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By NBC News' Warangkana Chomchuen
BANGKOK – Thailand’s media is a complicated morass of contradictions.
A constitutional monarchy, the country has draconian laws that restrict and prohibit publishing or broadcasting materials deemed insulting or offensive to the monarchy.
But when it comes to reporting dramatic crimes, especially those involving sex and violence, all hell breaks loose. Crime reporting is so detailed that it tends to the gaudy and salacious, the death of David Carradine being the most recent example of over-the-top coverage.
In contrast, century-old lèse majesté ("injured majesty") laws mean that Thai media most often exercises self-censorship and is extremely cautious when it comes to covering the monarchy, military, judiciary or other politically sensitive issues. The codes say that whoever defames, insults or threatens the monarchy is punishable by a sentence of three to 15 years imprisonment (though royal pardons are usually granted after conviction).
Carradine most definitely did not receive the royal treatment. Thai Rath, Thailand’s best-selling daily newspaper, published a grisly photo of the actor on its front page last week. The photo, though pixilated to hide some of his nudity, shows Carradine hanging by rope inside a closet.
Carradine’s family was outraged and their lawyer threatened to sue any other media outlet that published the photo. But criticism of the coverage from Thai readers was minimal.
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In Iran's watershed presidential election campaign, tens of thousands of students, intellectuals and business owners have openly protested against hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in favor of his reformist challenger, Mir Hussein Moussavi. NBC's Richard Engel reports.
By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
BEIJING – Spectacularly sunny and clear skies in Beijing the past two days – and generally most of this year so far – have made residents here (or at least this one resident) appreciative of the Chinese government’s efforts to address climate change.
A news report on Wednesday revealed China’s plans to produce a fifth of its energy needs from renewable sources, including solar and wind power, by the year 2020.
China’s National Development and Reform Commission – which was the source for the news report – also said Wednesday that it plans to promote the use of 120 million compact energy-saving fluorescent light bulbs with the use of subsidies. That measure alone would help save 6.2 billion kilowatt hours of electricity and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 6.2 million tons, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.
It’s just one of a series of steps the Chinese leadership has taken to address climate change.
But the U.S. says China’s still not doing enough.
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By Martin Fletcher, NBC News Correspondent
TEL AVIV – She sounded subdued on the phone, sad even, and who wouldn’t be? All she had wanted was to give a nice surprise to her mother.
So Anat (not her real name), a Tel Aviv resident, threw out her mother’s ratty old mattress and bought her a lovely new one. After all, as people age, they need a firm mattress, not a lumpy old one.
But those lumps were not clumps of distorted wool or loose springs. They were dollar bills. A million’s worth.
Over the years, Anat’s mother had stashed away American dollars and Israeli shekels in her mattress, and now Anat had thrown away her life savings.
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By Arata Yamamoto, NBC News Producer
YEONPYEONG, South Korea – Ever since Pyongyang conducted an underground nuclear test last month, the 1,500 residents of Yeonpyeong, a tiny South Korean island situated about 2 miles from the maritime border with North Korea, have been exposed to much unwanted attention, both from the press and the military.
It’s not that the residents are unaware of the potential tension. They witnessed it firsthand when naval skirmishes broke out in the nearby waters in 1999 and 2002. The first clash left soldiers dead on both sides and offerings of flowers can be found at a statue by the port memorializing the fallen.
Across the island, there are reminders of the possible threat from the North: rows of large spikes made out of logs planted on beaches to keep away the enemy, a bunker overlooking the sea, and barbed-wire fences along deserted coastlines.
However, most of the islanders say these are remnants of the past. "They were originally placed for defense purposes, but that was long ago," our guide and innkeeper Young Ok Song said.
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By Richard Engel, NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent
KABUL, Afghanistan – President Obama's address in Cairo sounded even better in Arabic translation, which after all was the point.
From my hotel room in Kabul I listened to Obama’s speech as it was broadcast on the Arabic-language network Al-Jazeera. Often accused in Washington and by U.S. military commanders of having an anti-American bias, Al-Jazeera dedicated "special events" coverage to the Cairo speech. The network, the leading Arab broadcaster, had correspondents posted around the world to gather reaction and ran highlights of Obama’s address in every newscast.
Its reporters described Obama’s appeal to open a new page in relations with Muslims as a possible "turning point." The speech will be the focus of Al-Jazeera’s Friday analysis program Aktar Min Rai, "More Than One Opinion," which is similar to NBC’s "Meet The Press."
This is a huge break from the past. Former President George Bush was Al-Jazeera’s bête noire. Yesterday, one of the network’s guests remembered Bush as "a warmonger" who spoke "in a language of blood and killing." Another analyst compared the former president to Osama bin Laden.
"I don’t see much of a difference between Bush and Bin Laden," he said. "Both say, ‘You are either with us or against us.’"
In contrast, Al-Jazeera described Obama’s speech as "honest," "historic" and "deeply respectful."
I suspect a main reason Obama was so well received was that he – either by design or coincidence – successfully used the tools of Arabic rhetoric: flattery, history and religion. Simply put, Obama translated well into Arabic.
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By Carol Grisanti, NBC News Producer
ISLAMABAD – Pakistanis want to hold President Barack Obama to his word.
"If he does what he says he is going to do, then it will be the beginning of a new era," said Raja Qamar, the cashier at the New Raja Restaurant in Islamabad.
In this simple lunch place in Islamabad on Thursday, a dozen or so diners seemed more interested in eating their lunch then watching the small TV suspended high on a corner wall. The ceiling fans creaked and groaned in a steady hum but were no match for the more than 100 degree heat outside.
When Obama came on the screen, the diners looked up and watched expressionless; most following the Urdu subtitles on the screen – no one stopped eating.
Nasir Mahmood, the restaurant’s only waiter, wiped the sweat from his brow with the same brown towel that he wiped the tables. His customers were coming and going – Obama’s speech was not enough of a draw to keep them inside. But as he took the lunch orders, Mahmood studied the TV.
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By George Lewis, NBC News Correspondent
I was thinking, on my last visit to China, how much has changed since I first went there in 1989 to cover the events surrounding the student “democracy movement” in Tiananmen Square. Today, you can stroll through high-end malls in Beijing in a neighborhood that looks like Beverly Hills’s Rodeo Drive on steroids.
You can sip a latte at the Starbucks near the U.S. Embassy and watch young Chinese standing in long lines to do the same. But if you take out your laptop and try to surf the Web there, you’ll find that all the sites that might carry any mention of what went on in Tiananmen Square 20 years ago are off-limits.
Some things in China have changed and some things haven’t.
Many Chinese are enjoying a level of prosperity that previous generations never could have imagined. Young university students are very focused on “making it” in this new China. The idea of taking to the streets to protest for a greater measure of democracy simply isn’t on their “to do” lists.< CONTINUED >>
By NBC News Ed Flanagan
While the announcement that General Motors is selling its Hummer line to a Chinese manufacturer brought a collective sigh of relief that another major U.S. brand would be spared from collapse, here in China the first ever purchase of a U.S. auto brand by a Chinese company raised a number of questions.
Chiefly, who is this mysterious buyer, Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co.? And what does it want with a brand largely derided as a symbol of GM’s financial troubles and the failed scheme of pushing fuel-inefficient cars in a time of increasingly green consciousness?
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By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
YANJI, Jilin Province, China –
"Huang yian ham ni da!"
"An nyung ha se yo!"
"Kam sah ham ni da!"
The cries that surrounded us as we walked onto the plane seemed standard fare – "welcome," "hello," and "thank you."
Except they were in Korean, and we were very much in China, boarding an Air China flight that would take us from Beijing to Yanji, a town in the country’s far northeastern province of Jilin.
Yanji is the capital of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture and, as home to over 850,000 ethnic Koreans, is sometimes referred to as the Third Korea.
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| Adrienne Mong / NBC News |
| With its bilingual signs, the border town of Yanji looks as much Korean as it does Chinese. |
In odd little ways, however, the area reminds me of China's other autonomous regions, like Xinjiang and Tibet, on the country's western frontier.
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By Tom Aspell, NBC News Correspondent
CAIRO – At the Wadi Nile cafe in Tahrir Square, 40 men sat watching President Barack Obama's widely anticipated speech to the Muslim world on a television mounted high in one corner.
The café was unusually quiet. Security concerns for the president's one-day visit to the Egyptian capital had prompted police to restrict traffic in the area, so the familiar cacophony of snarling engines and blaring horns on the streets outside was absent. The entire speech, translated simultaneously into Arabic, could easily be heard.
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| David Silverman / Getty Images |
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Egyptian men watch President Barack Obama's speech on TV in a Cairo coffee shop on Thursday. |
Wissam Charaf, a 30-year-old Lebanese visiting from Beirut, shared a table with Hisham Deeb, who lives immediately above the cafe. Deeb dropped by on his way home from shopping to drink a glass of tea and stayed to watch the speech.
When Obama began by addressing American-Muslim relations everyone listened intently. There were nods of approval when the president said, "I've come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition."
For nearly an hour, pausing for occasional applause from his audience at Cairo University, Obama spoke to the world's 1.5 billion Muslims. He touched on America's historic relationship with Islam, the necessity for cooperation against terrorism, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It was easy to imagine many of the world’s Muslims, like the 40 men sitting in the Wadi Nile cafe, listening to his words as a captive audience.
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By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
BEIJING – Twenty years ago, a handful of university students from some of China’s most elite institutions shot to stardom when they led a series of mass demonstrations in Beijing calling for greater freedoms and economic reforms that challenged the supremacy of the Chinese Communist Party.
For some of us who remember clearly the events of those days, the names roll off the tongue – student leaders like Wang Dan, Wu’er Kaixi, Chai Ling, and labor organizer Han Dongfang – even today, 20 years after the crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests.
Many of the bright lights of 1989 wound up in exile and in the intervening years have prospered in the West, Hong Kong, or Taiwan. But dozens of other organizers who came under the glare of the spotlight but didn’t flee the country were rounded up and imprisoned.
One of them was Peng Rong, a native of Hunan Province, who was pursuing a graduate degree in biology at Beijing University when he became involved in the protests. As a result of his activism, he was imprisoned for two years and expelled from the university.
"We were all idealists," he said one recent sunny afternoon in northeastern Beijing. "We were taught to be idealists by the party." But the Communist Party, the students believed in 1989, had fallen short of its goals of pursuing freedom, equality, and fraternity.
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By Tom Aspell, NBC News Correspondent
CAIRO – Egyptians are immensely proud that President Barack Obama has chosen Cairo University as the site for his speech addressing the world's 1.5 billion Muslims on Thursday. They see it as a gesture of respect, and an acknowledgement that their capital is the seat of Islamic-Arab culture.
Workmen cleaned the university's gates this week as students hurried across the manicured campus. Final exams are only days away, yet the talk was all about the American president's visit.
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| Amr Nabil / AP |
| A veiled Egyptian vendor sells newspapers and magazines about President Barack Obama in Cairo on Wednesday, a day before his arrival to address the Muslim world in a speech. |
Ingy Attallah, a 20-year-old business major, is one of about 300 students chosen to attend the speech along with politicians, business leaders and notables from all over the country.
"When they told me I could attend, I was very excited. I was one of Obama's biggest fans during his election campaign, and when he won I was very excited," she said.
And what would she like to hear in the speech?
"A specific plan of action on how he will deal with the conflicts in the Middle East, especially the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. And when he will get American troops out of Iraq," she said.
Mohammed Abu Shakka, a 19-year-old engineering student, also plans to attend the speech.
"We have high hopes for Barack Obama," he said. "But if he doesn't do anything – just talk – it will get people really disappointed."
Actions, not just words – that was the strongest common sentiment we encountered this week when asking people in Cairo what they would be listening for in Obama's speech.
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By Mary Murray, NBC News Havana Bureau Chief
HAVANA – Washington and Havana must travel a long road in order to re-establish relations broken almost 50 years ago, but both governments seem ready to take the first cautious steps.
At the suggestion of the Obama White House, the two sides plan to sit down to talk about immigration issues and restoring direct mail service.
The Cuban government not only agreed to the talks, but also suggested taking further steps. Havana believes the two adversaries could cooperate in fighting terrorism, drug trafficking and hurricane disasters.
While just the tip of the iceberg in the U.S.-Cuba cold war, this warming trend helped a group of American athletes to travel to the island this past weekend for the first time in 12 years.
Team USA came here to compete with 240 athletes from 15 countries in a two-day track and field meet for the America’s Cup in combined events.
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By Paul Goldman, NBC News Producer
TEL AVIV – Israel is preparing for the possibility of war and it appears to be serious about it.
At 11 a.m. on Tuesday, sirens blasted the air, sending millions of citizens into the nearest bomb shelter in the country’s biggest-ever civil defense exercise. The drill is part of a five-day training code-named Turning Point III. It involves simulated rocket and missile attacks on Israeli cities and also preparations for a nonconventional strike.
Most of the kids from the Elharizi School in Tel Aviv were giggling in class as they waited for the siren. Their teacher was trying to get them to act seriously, but the loud siren did the job for her. You really can't stay too calm when you hear a blaring sound, wailing up and down, representing one thing: war.
The kids, all the way from grade one to seven, made their way in pairs to the neat and clean shelter. They were told beforehand that they could bring games to play with while they waited for the all-clear sign. So the packs of cards came out, and most of the kids seemed happy to miss class and play their favorite game.
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