On Assignment
By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
ULAN BATOR, Mongolia – You won’t see Michael Phelps at these Olympic Games.
Sometimes billed as the Nomad Olympics, the Naadam festival in Mongolia features competitions in the three "manly" sports – horseracing, archery, and wrestling.
The event dates back 800 years, to the days when the great warrior horseman, Genghis Khan (known as Chinggis Khan in Mongolia), and his men swept down from the grassland steppes to conquer empires in Asia, Russia, the Middle East, and as far as Europe.
It’s believed that Genghis came up with the festival to keep his men in fighting shape when they weren’t conquering new lands. Today, the three-day event marks Mongolia’s independence from China in 1921 and Tsarist Russia. Everyone takes off work to watch – whether in front of their televisions or in person.
A couple of days before the festival earlier this summer, we noticed Mongolia’s bright blue and red national flags springing up on cars all over the country
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| Adrienne Mong / NBC News |
| Wrestlers at the National Stadium on the opening day of the Naadam festival in Ulan Bator. |
Families in Ulan Bator, Mongolia’s capital city, shopped for live goats or sheep from shepherds, who had traveled long distances to reach the edge of the city with their herds.
And at least in Ulan Bator, Mongolia’s capital, the recent festival had a state fair feel to it – lots of food, families, and fun. Smaller-scale, local Naadam festivals also are held all across Mongolia.
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By Arata Yamamoto, NBC News Producer
TOKYO – Sunday's landslide victory for Japan's main opposition, Democratic Party of Japan, or DJP, is being heralded as a new beginning for Japanese politics, squarely putting an end to the near continuous postwar rule by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).
The Liberal Democrats only lost power once before in 1994, when a center-left coalition took over the helm of the nation for six months. But that was quickly followed by two years of a pseudo-comeback for the LDP when they combined forces with the polar opposite Socialist Party – but had to give their leader Tomiichi Murayama the front seat to run the nation.
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| Itsuo Inouye / AP |
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Yukio Hatoyama, leader of Japan's main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, speaks with red rosettes attached on victorious candidates' names in the background during the ballot counting for the parliamentary elections in Tokyo on Sunday. |
But Sunday’s election was a particularly stunning defeat for the incumbent party of Prime Minister Taro Aso with an unprecedented voter turnout of 69 percent, overwhelmingly ousting 181 politicians from the Liberal party, including former ministers, and replacing them with 143 freshman opposition candidates.
Still given the entrenched power of the Liberal Democrats, many voters are welcoming the change of party, but tempering their expectations.
"I don' have any high expectations for the Democrats. They're inexperienced and I don't think things will work out so smoothly," said 59-year-old office worker Kazuo Sasaki. "But it’s worth giving them a chance. We need to change the way things are done here."
Yasuhiro Tanaka, 28, agreed. "It was a process of elimination," he said. "There was absolutely no hope with the LDP."
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By Tom Aspell, NBC News Correspondent
TRIPOLI, Libya – The Egypt Air supervisor boarding our flight from Cairo to Tripoli waved a sandwich in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other. It was shortly after sunset and devout Muslims were breaking their Ramadan fast for the day after going without food or water for 14 hours. Our flight was departing on time, he said, and we should hurry aboard.
By the time we arrived at the Tripoli airport it was nearly midnight, yet the Libyan capital’s streets were jammed with cars. Restaurants and coffee shops were crowded and shops were doing a brisk business. During the month of Ramadan countries in the Middle East work shorter daylight hours and do most of their business at night.
It was quickly apparent that Tripoli has changed quite a bit since my last visit in the 1990’s. Many of its old houses and shops are being torn down and replaced with modern high-rise apartment buildings.
Awash with money from its rich oil reserves – the largest in Africa and the ninth largest in the world – Libya’s leader Moammar Gadhafi has embarked on an ambitious modernization program.
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| Imed Lamloum / AFP - Getty Images |
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Libyans walk past festive lights and pictures of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi on Friday ahead of celebrations for the 40th anniversary of his coming to power in Tripoli planned for Sept 1. |
Gadhafi has opened up his country to foreign investment. The rush is being led by oil companies, but breathtaking construction contracts have also attracted foreign developers as Libya hurries to make up for decades of sanctions which left Tripoli looking like a desert version of Eastern Europe before the fall of communism.
Its buildings were crumbling, its sewer systems were leaking and its roads were potholed tracks. But now, accepted back into the fold, Libya is rushing to catch up to the outside world.
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By Erika Angulo, NBC News Producer
MEDELLÍN, Colombia – The 18 hippos are the biggest attraction at the ‘Hacienda Napoles’ amusement park, 99 miles from this Andean city.
Their home was created by Pablo Escobar during his reign as Colombia’s most notorious drug lord.
He built the luxurious ranch with 20 man-made lakes, six pools, an airport, a hydroelectric power plant and a zoo filled with zebras, hippopotamus and other exotic animals.
Nowadays, the once highly secured hacienda is visited by 50,000 tourists annually, underlining the change in the city and province that was once ground zero for a bloody war between powerful cocaine magnates and the state.
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| Hugo Angulo / NBC News |
| Children play in the fountains of a Medellin park. |
Almost two decades later, business is thriving and most Medellinenses remember almost daily explosions as nightmares from the past.
The former textile capital of South America is again making clothes for companies such as Diesel, Naf Naf, Levis, Tommy Hilfinger and DKNY. The growing transportation system is another source of pride for many in Medellin, the only Colombian city with a metro and an aerial cable car network that connects downtown to its hilly suburbs.
And the United States is committed to helping Colombia continue to achieve greater security across the country. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently announced the new "Defense Cooperation Agreement," reached on Aug. 14 and expected to be signed in a few weeks. It is aimed at helping strengthen security and tackling the illegal drug trade.
(Some South American nations fear that the U.S. is using the agreement as a way to create military bases in Colombia – a charge Clinton was quick to deny. Still a group of Latin American leaders will meet this Friday, Aug. 28 to discuss the Washington - Bogotá agreement.)
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By Kerry Sanders, NBC News Correspondent
JACALEAPA, Honduras – Exiled Honduran President Manuel Zelaya has been hanging out in Ocotal, a Nicaraguan mountain town near the Honduras border, for the last four days as he tries to launch his return to power after a coup last month.
It's been a little bit like the childhood song and dance, "The Hokey Pokey." On Friday, Zelaya took a few steps into the no-man’s-land between the countries. When he arrived at a sign that said "Welcome to Honduras," Zelaya claimed he was home. But he didn’t stay long, returning quickly to the Nicaraguan side of the border.
As the song says, "You put your right foot in, you put our right foot out, and shake it all about."
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| Mayerling Garcia / AFP - Getty Images |
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Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya (in white hat) greets supporters at an improvised camp site in Ocotal, Nicaragua on Monday. |
It's unclear, though, what Zelaya thinks his border dance will achieve.
I asked him if his camping stunt was costing him in the court of world opinion. He said it was "a just action" and that the world should not support "a tyrant." He was referring to de facto President Roberto Micheletti.
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By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
ULAN BATOR, Mongolia – As events unfold in Xinjiang Province, we have seen a resurgence of ethnic Chinese nationalist sentiment mixed with fear and mistrust of not just the Uighur people but also the outside world.
China’s central and local governments were quick to accuse the U.S.-based World Uighur Congress of fomenting racial tension in Xinjiang and alluded to "outside" terrorist and separatist organizations working together to split up the country.
Meanwhile, China’s blogosphere has been rife with Han Chinese outrage at the foreign media coverage of the violence, calling it prejudiced and erroneous. And on the streets of Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, Western reporters have faced angry mobs of Han Chinese accusing them of a long-standing bias against China.
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| Adrienne Mong / NBC News |
| Mongolians today prefer looking west, not to Russia or to China. |
But looking at the unrest in Xinjiang from a neighboring country like Mongolia offers an interesting perspective on China’s regional reputation. Whether the Chinese would acknowledge it or not, unfortunately the long reach of history often influences modern attitudes much more than any current day media reports.
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By Albert Oetgen, Managing editor, NBC News Washington
L'AQUILA, ITALY – You first see this city from up high as you wind around a mountain highway and this is what you think: It's a city in a bowl.
It's name means "The Eagle," and there is plenty of room for eagles to soar here. L'Aquila is encircled by enormous ridges that are part of the Appenines, that "spine" of mountains that grade-schoolers learn runs down the middle of the boot of Italy.
It's a lovely place, this bowl, set in a fertile valley and protected by those mountains – a safe and secure place that played a strategically important role in the medieval struggle for control of central Italy.
L'Aquila is not big and famous like Milan, or Venice, or Florence. It is not even a small but famous place like Assisi. But it is Italy. The real Italy. There is a university here, not a world-famous one, but one where Italian families confidently send their children for a good education. There is a ski resort in the distance, one frequented not by deep-pocketed Americans or Europeans, but by ordinary Italians who live within an hour or two.
We are here because of an earthquake, and we are here because of Italian politics. But we are really here because of history.
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By Anthony Galloway, NBC Nightly News Producer
ACCRA, Ghana – The last stop on President Barack Obama’s week-long trip may prove to be his most historic and newsworthy. Just one day before Obama arrives in Ghana, the significance of his trip is the topic of conversation among most Ghanaians.
In this country, even though Obama’s father hailed from Kenya, the president is considered “from the soil,” a man with an African bloodline, who is now returning home as leader of the free world.
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| Luc Gnago / Reuters |
| A street vendor sells American and Ghanaian flags along a street in Accra on Wednesday. |
But even as Ghana waits expectantly, many here are wondering why Obama chose this country for his first visit to sub-Saharan Africa
“Part of the reason is because Ghana has now undergone a couple of successful elections in which power was transferred peacefully, even a very close election,” Obama said in an interview last week with reporters for the news website allAfrica.com.
“Countries that are governed well, that are stable, where the leadership recognizes that they are accountable to the people and that institutions are stronger than any one person have a track record of producing results for the people. And we want to highlight that," said Obama.
Asked if he would like to see a lot more countries like Ghana in Africa, the president replied, “Absolutely.”
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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 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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