CARACAS, Venezuela – In a country where some fear democracy is about to be muzzled, just about everyone seems to have something to say.

Venezuelans Sunday go to the polls to vote on a package of changes to the nation's constitution that would, among other things, allow President Hugo Chavez to run for president his entire life and cut the work week down to 30-hours.

Tens of thousands of Chavez's opponents poured into Caracas streets Thursday under a slogan "Shout No!" while even greater numbers of his supporters gathered Friday under the "Yes" banner.

The city is plastered with political signs from both sides – some slicker than others.

The government has hung hundreds of colorful banners along lampposts and billboards, urging people to stick with the man who took power in 1999.

The "No" campaign, a loose alliance of university students, old-guard politicians, and Chavez  defectors, has had less access to posting their message on state property, so it has resorted to painting over the fancy pro-government signs and passing out handbills on street corners in downtown Caracas.

VIDEO: Venezuela's controversial referendum

One wall near Venezuela's Central University is plastered with a medley of messages, from "Christians Say Yes" to "Anarchists Against Chavez."

Government supporters wielding cans of red spray paint marked the gate around the 5-star Embassy Suites with a gigantic red "Sí."

People are even speaking their minds through their clothing. Donning blue t-shirts and caps means you are against the proposed constitutional changes and will vote "No" in the referendum.

Wearing red screams that you support the changes Chavez is promoting and will vote "Yes" in the ballot.

According to recent polls, Sunday's vote will most likely be close, although like any good political fight each camp remains convinced their side will win.

But both sides are anything but naïve about the possibility of a loss. The opposition has a carefully crafted plan to closely monitor the results, ready to call "foul" at any hint of fraud. 

Leopoldo Lopez, the mayor of the Chacao municipality in Caracas and a major opposition leader, told NBC News that he wants to see grassroots organizing to defeat Chavez in the next election, scheduled for 2012.

Even Chavez concedes that the last word lies with the Venezuelan people. If his constitutional "reform" package loses, Chavez said he would "start packing," despite the fact that his current presidential term goes until 2012. However, he predicts the reforms will be approved by a "crushing majority."

CARACAS, Venezuela – Sunday could be a turning point for this country's future. Venezuela's 16 million voters will decide if they want to change their constitution in a major referendum.

Among the 69 proposed changes to the country's 1999 constitution is one critical issue: can presidential term limits be eliminated? If so, President Hugo Chavez could be re-elected president every seven years for the rest of his life.

Some here, and some in the U.S. State Department, fear that type of power could effectively give Chavez not only the "president for life" title, but it could allow him to establish a totalitarian rule similar to what Fidel Castro and his brother have done in Cuba.

The president's supporters say they want Chavez to remain because he has done what no other leader here ever has attempted – shared the oil wealth with the poorest people. 

 

VIDEO: Venezuela votes on referendum

Either for or against change
But the method of the referendum and the ballot itself is not what you would expect in the United States.

The reforms are grouped into two blocks. Voters choose "yes" to all of the reforms or "no" to them in one block.

The actual ballots do not have any explanation of what exactly people are voting for or against.

In a U.S. election, the language on a ballot is written out -- and while the language is often confusing because it's crafted by lawyers, it is there for voters to read, re-read, and re-read again.

Also, in the United States, you can vote on each amendment.  

Here it is more about aligning with movements rather than the details of the specific reforms.

The two sides here are Red or Blue. Red is pro-change. Blue says "no to the reform."

Perhaps it is a politically astute move, or maybe just happen-stance, but the presidential term limits issue is in the same block as a change in the work day – from eight hours to six hours a day for the same pay. Some of the other reforms include creating forms of communal property and increasing social security benefits for the poor.

In the end, those social reforms might be what will push through the referendum.

Class division
One factor you can't help but notice: the Blue party backers are mostly of European descent while the Red party is dominated by those with indigenous blood lines.

They also are separated by wealth.

The Blue party supporters have long held the wealth here. The Red party is mostly comprised of those who have endured generations of poverty.

The polls open Sunday morning.

It's expected the tally will be announced sometime late Sunday.

Will violence follow?

Both the Red and the Blue parties are not predicting violence, but everyone says they're prepared.

"It's an old disease in Iraq – people spend their money on books, not on food. Iraqi intellectuals are very poor because of it," our NBC News translator* said as he carried an armful of books into the office after a shoot at the Al Mutanabi book market.

"Your wife will kill you," I teased him, remembering how concerned he'd been after already spending a good proportion of his salary on books only the week before. 

"I know, but I just couldn't help it. It's so fascinating there right now. I even saw some Harry Potter books," he joked. His face was flush with the unaccustomed exposure to sunlight after the months and years that he, like most Iraqis, spent being cooped up inside.

AFP - Getty Images

Iraqis shop for books as workers repair buildings that line Baghdad's Al-Mutanabi street on Nov.22.Â

As the security situation improves, our local staff seems increasingly hungry for action, volunteering to dash out all over the place. Our translator's love of books made him the natural choice to go and check the pulse of Baghdad's legendary Al Mutanabi book market (the area is still not safe enough for Western TV crews to wander around).

We'd heard that the Al Mutanabi book market – the longtime literary and creative nucleus of Baghdad until it was attacked by a suicide car bomber in March – was coming back to life.   

The book market has always been a favorite for international TV crews. In Saddam's days, it was the place of choice for thoughtful interviews and good English.While there, we'd often rummage through the fascinating array of new and second hand books.

Sometimes, amid the stock-in-trade Iraqi government propaganda, we'd come across a favorite old out-of-print paperback or a must have memento, like an elegantly illustrated book of Arab love poetry that I found one day.

 AFP - Getty Images

The formerly lively Al Mutanabi book market seen here in May 2006. Â

After the fall of Saddam, the book market became a perfect place to test the ever-changing mood of the city. We would marvel at the quirky mix of all the new titles flooding in along with the technicolor posters of revered Shiite leaders, forbidden under the old regime. 

But the insurgent attack on the book market in March that killed 38 people really ripped the heart out of Baghdad's intellectual and artistic soul.

Our translator had been there the week before and returned like a person transformed.

"I've had conversations there I haven't been able to have for years. It's just so free. It's brilliant," he beamed.      

By the time he returned from the shoot, seven hours after we'd sent him out with a camera crew, our translator was so excited I decided not to ask what on earth he'd been doing all that time. Instead, I inquired about the pile of  books now on his desk.

"I bought two novels about dictatorship and torture in prisons in the Middle East and some other books on extremism and the changing political face of Iraq," he replied. Harry Potter was clearly not for him.

"The novels on torture are exactly the same ones I read after I was released from prison back in 1993, when I was only 17 years old," he said. "I found it really comforting back then to read how other people had been through the same thing as I had." 

We'd never spoken about this before.

"So you were imprisoned and tortured?" I asked, tentatively.

"Oh yes, there were five of us who were arrested for a so-called coup against the government. It wasn't true of course. We were all kept in a dark, damp room dressed only in our underwear and chained to the wall. We were beaten regularly with thick cables, which hurt like hell, but don't leave scars."

Our translator says his friends didn't survive captivity – one committed suicide and the rest were hanged years after being arrested. He said that his friend's families only learned their fate when Iraqi authorities sent them a letter and asked them to pay for the rope they were hanged with.

"I was really lucky, though, and was released three weeks [after being arrested]. To this day, I still don't know why," he said.

He said he's suffered from the trauma of the experience, as well as survivor's guilt.

"I've tried and tried to write about it, but just can't," he said. "Yet books have been my escape."

Judging from the popularity of the long revered book market and the push to bring it back to life, it seems he is not alone and that many Iraqis look to books as an escape from the harsh reality of life.

NAIROBi, Kenya – "Don't worry! She'll be here…" Anne Nzuva, one of the organizers of a human rights symposium on the outskirts of Nairobi, reassured me.

But already, "she" was over an hour late. I stared out at the road leading to the gates of the compound we were waiting in, but there was no sign of her famous green Pajero (a sport utility vehicle made by Mitsubishi).

We are waiting for Professor Wangari Maathai, affectionately known as the "Tree Lady" of Kenya. She is a formidable advocate of tree planting and environmental protection, a human rights activist, and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

The NBC News team I was with – correspondent Martin Fletcher and cameraman Jeff Riggins – had spent the past week driving up and down the bumpy roads of central Kenya as we filmed a story about Maathai for the Nightly News with Brian Williams.

VIDEO: Saving Kenya one tree at a time

Maathai grew up in a remote village perched between lush, green, rolling hills and, you guessed it, lots of magnificent trees. The mud hut she helped build as a girl still stands, but she no longer lives there. Instead, it has been turned into a tree nursery, which is being looked after by her niece and nephew.

Over the years, Kenya lost many of its trees due to a devastating mix of development, corruption and land-grabbing. In the late 1970s, Maathai founded the Greenbelt Movement, a grassroots environmental group, and made it her mission to replant trees and put a stop to deforestation.

We visited a tree nursery run by rural villagers. The Greenbelt Movement pays villagers to tend to tree saplings and to replant them in forests. The villagers buy goats with the money they earn. From the goats, the villagers get milk and eventually sell their offspring.

In other words, the Greenbelt Movement's work is not just about tree planting, but also about creating an income generating incentive for those who live in rural and often poor communities. Maathai and her supporters have already planted over 30 million trees in Kenya.

While Maathai's movement many seem like a noble cause to many, that was not always the case. For many years, her activism was a target of the government of Kenya's former president, Daniel Arap Moi.

When Maathai and her supporters attempted to block the unlawful development of upscale homes inside a national forest on the outskirts of Nairobi, she was beaten and ended up in the hospital with head injuries. From her hospital bed, she vowed to "fight the government" which supported the development of the area. And she did. The planned development was subsequently scrapped. 

Later, she and her supporters went back and planted tree saplings on the site. When we went to film there some eight years after the violent incident, the place looked rather uneventful. It had reverted back to being just an ordinary part of the forest with young trees and shrubbery.

So after four days of filming around Kenya, we had some good elements for the professor's profile. But one crucial part of the story remained conspicuously missing – the Tree Lady herself.

I had spent two-and-a-half weeks prior to us filming in Kenya negotiating for an interview with her. It was a rather frustrating process, where my daily calls to the professor's office were met with various shades of ambiguity.

Some days, the interview sounded like it would happen, but most of the time it seemed like a lost cause. Fellow journalists who had attempted interviews with her advised me that she was one busy lady who had a fully booked calendar that changed so often that it was almost impossible for her to commit to an interview in advance.

After all, she has become an international celebrity. As an acclaimed environmentalist, her simple message to plant trees resonates around the world, especially now that climate change is such a hot button issue that's close to many people's hearts.

But after having rescheduled several times, we finally had a "definite" plan to interview the Tree Lady. However it was now planned for our last day in Kenya. We had a flight to catch in the afternoon.

We were planning to meet her during a coffee break at a human rights symposium she was attending. The time when she was supposed to arrive and give her keynote speech came and went. I was frantically pacing.

If there was no interview, then there was no story, and the thought of leaving Kenya without a story was weighing on my shoulders. "What if her plans changed and she doesn't show up???"  All we could do was wait.

Finally, nearly two hours later, the green Pajero drove up. And there Maathai was, dressed in a bright blue dress. A group of children who had been waiting to greet her started singing and dancing. The professor joined in and danced with the kids – a giant smile on her face.

The owners of the venue wanted her to plant a tree. With that same giant smile, she obliged. She picked up a sapling about a foot tall. Then she looked at the singing children and called out: "Come children, help me plant this tree." Another tree added to Kenya's soil by the formidable Tree Lady.

Still smiling, she finally sat down for an interview with us. Phew… She says she wants to plant two billion trees worldwide by the end of 2008! And we made the flight out of Nairobi on time, too.

TEL AVIV, Israel

Are you a world leader? Do you have what it takes to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Are you willing to make bold moves for peace?

 

In a new interactive game being distributed this week by the independent, Tel Aviv-based Peres Center for Peace, you can do it all. You can bring peace to the Middle East by implementing a two-state solution and on the way visit Oslo, Norway, to pick up your Noble Prize. It's that easy.

 

As their political leaders gather in Annapolis, Md., in the latest round of U.S.-led negotiations, the new computer game, appropriately called PeaceMaker, grants ordinary Israelis and Palestinians the opportunity to play the role of peace-broker on their own personal computers.

 

Be a peacemaker
After a short installation, players can choose their preferred language and which leader they want to be. The game gives two options: either Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert or Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

 

I selected Abbas and a full-frame 3-D map of the region opened up. My goal was to balance the concerns of internal Palestinian factions, as well as the world community, while establishing a true partnership with Israel.

 

A red flashing circle on the game's map indicates a violent incident. In my game, a spot in the Gaza Strip lights up and I have a (virtual) crisis on my hands: an Israeli tank killed 18 Palestinians. Action is needed immediately.

 

The game presents players with three options: security, politics and construction. After the incident in Gaza, I click on the security tab and decide to maintain order by boosting the police presence.

 

My national approval rating immediately falls by a point. But, on the bright side, my world approval is up by three. Oslo, here I come.

Peres Center for Peace

 

My next step is initiating joint Israeli-Palestinian patrols, which, it is hoped, will build trust between the two sides in the long run. Easier said than done.

 

I receive a message that the Israelis are turning down this initiative and accusing me of being in league with militant groups. Life is not easy in the fast lane.

 

I now decide to give a peace speech and choose to deliver a message of "believing in making Gaza an oasis of stability…"

 

Uh-oh! National approval rating is back to its starting point: zero.

 

Goodbye, Nobel
Another flashing red light appears in the West Bank town of Jenin. It turns out that members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade launched an attack on an Israeli tank. My national approval goes up to three points but world approval is down minus 35.

 

Bye-bye Oslo.

 

The game goes on with real-life situations and events, making it far more difficult to achieve success than in many of today's popular computer war games, in which gamers' success is determined by how many (virtual) people they kill.

 

In this interactive game, players -- just like their real-life political counterparts in Annapolis -- wade through the political and security intricacies of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict only to find that, when suicide bombers and tanks are involved, there is no easy path to peace.

KALAPARA, Bangladesh

Flying Officer Junaid Ashraf stood in front of a stack of boxes containing high-protein biscuits. Behind him, soldiers formed a human chain as they rapidly loaded the boxes into the belly of a giant transport helicopter.

Junaid and his fellow airmen from the Bangladesh Air Force are flying missions from dawn to dusk across the cyclone-affected coastal areas.

"As a human being you are shocked, because the people are crying, asking for goods," he said. "They don't have any goods."

We joined one of those missions into the heart of the disaster zone, flying over a brutalized landscape of shattered houses and flattened crops. A ferry sat halfway up the bank of a river, where it had been thrown by the storm. I imagined a malign giant stomping across the landscape.

A tragic sign
We squeezed in the plane beside a cargo of rice, blankets and biscuits, and landed near a town called Kalapara, where hundreds of hungry cyclone survivors lined the perimeter of the makeshift helipad, held back by soldiers. The airmen quickly unloaded the supplies, explaining to us that they didn't want to spend long on the ground, because earlier flights had been mobbed by survivors, many of whom have received little help since the cyclone struck eleven days ago.

Within minutes we were airborne again, flying over a nearby bridge, part of which had collapsed Saturday under the weight of angry and desperate cyclone survivors. They'd been scrambling for relief supplies; the accident a tragic sign of the desperation now gripping many areas. Three people were killed and many injured.

NBC News

The Bangladesh Air Force has been flying relief missions from dawn to dusk across cyclone-affected coastal areas.

The air force insists aid is now reaching most affected areas. But with only seven available helicopters, they cannot hope to more than a fraction of the needs of those in the more isolated areas. Foreign aid is arriving in Bangladesh, but distribution is patchy, coordination poor, and only a fraction of the of the $500 million pledged to Bangladesh has arrived.

Wrangling delays aid
Bangladesh's army chief today appealed for better coordination among relief agencies. The most urgent need is for drinking water to head off an epidemic of water-borne diseases.

"We are trying to collect as much water as we can. We are doing are level best to get it to the affected people," Junaid told us.

U.S. Marine helicopters operating from the USS Kearsarge, anchored off the Bangladesh coast, have ferried 6,000 gallons of water ashore. The Marines have set up a coordination headquarters in the town of Barisal, but a promised larger humanitarian operation has been delayed.

According to senior aid officials, the delay is the result of wrangling with the Bangladesh military over coordination and control of the operation. The Bangladesh government is also very sensitive about the way it will be presented, not wanting to be upstaged. And so the survivors wait.

In town after town, they gather at the roadside, trying to stop passing aid trucks. In the shell of a mosque, we met an imam who was carefully drying out water-logged copies of the Quran. He read from one, while urging those at prayer to have strength.

The Bangladesh Air Force insists it is doing the best it can. One senior officer told us today that a joint operation with the Americans is kicking into gear, establishing a strong network of helipads across the storm-affected area. They will need to move quickly if they are to ward off hunger and disease among the desperate survivors.

KALIKA BARI, Bangladesh -- We could hear the angry crowd well before the yellow, squat government building came into view.

It was under siege from 200-300 desperate cyclone survivors, jostling and shouting as they clambered for a share of the first aid to arrive in the village since a cyclone devastated Bangladesh six days ago.

"We need more, we need more," one man told NBC News. "One hundred per cent of the people in this village were affected by Cyclone Sidr. Everybody needs help. Everybody."

Inside the government building, a team of agitated aid workers handed out high-protein biscuits through a barred window, three boxes per family. Faces were pressed against the window; outstretched hands implored them for more food.

Police officers tried to keep the crowd at bay.

Within an hour all the biscuits had gone, but not the angry crowd, which remained demanding more help. The survivors taunted a police officer who urged them to return to what remained of their homes. An aid worker promised that more relief would arrive Friday.

A town uprooted
That was the scene we found in the village of Kalika Bari, where almost every house is damaged. Up to 20 people died here.

Corrugated tin roofs and uprooted trees still litter the roads and fields. Most crops were destroyed; the shredded stumps of banana trees line a narrow river.

Villagers recalled harrowing stories of escape. One fisherman showed us the injuries to his chest, lacerated after twelve hours clinging to a tree.

We also heard complaints about government storm warnings. Although these warnings did get 1 million people out of harm's way, Jehangir, a local teacher, told us that many in this village did not know about the approaching storm.

"The people here are illiterate, they don't have television or radio, they did not know the storm was coming," he said.

Jehangir also showed us the battered village school where he worked, its roof ripped off, walls and windows destroyed. Yet in what remained of one classroom a small group of children continued to study.

Weathering the storm
The main school building was sturdier. It had been deliberately built to serve as a storm shelter and 800 people huddled in there on the terrifying night the storm hit, as the 150 mile per hour winds battered their homes. The storm was the worst disaster to hit Bangladesh since 1991, when a cyclone killed 143,000 people.

Kalika Bari is in southwest Bangladesh, in one of the worst-hit areas. It took several days to clear the roads, but traffic is now moving, and a local ferry service should start Friday.

Relief workers insist that large amounts of aid are now flowing into Bangladesh, but from what we have seen on the ground here, it has yet to arrive in large quantities in shattered villages like Kalika Bari.

 It's not a good time to be a lawyer, student or journalist in Pakistan. 

It's a terrible time to be a human rights activist.

It's a downright abysmal time to be a political opponent of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

But if you are any one of the 99.9 percent of the rest of the 165 million Pakistanis, you hardly notice the emergency law anymore.

Yesterday I went for a jog/hike in the Margala Hills around Islamabad. The dense forest is veined with mountain trails filled with vultures, hawks, monkeys and, supposedly, panthers, although I didn't see any.

VIDEO: Musharraf weathers storm of criticism

What I did see was families with picnic baskets, groups of middle-school students chasing each other (and in turn being chased by their teachers) and young couples holding hands in the shadows behind boulders covered in thorn bushes.

The problem is, they are now doing it all at Musharraf's discretion.

The emergency rule Musharraf imposed earlier this month denies Pakistanis most of their basic rights: public assemblies of more than five are illegal; the state can make arrests without a warrant; and the courts are in disarray.

But most Pakistanis don't feel it. Musharraf wants it that way.

"Go to the villages," Musharraf told me last week, "and you will see that the people support this." He claimed it was "just a few human rights lawyers" (he really seemed to hate them) and "agitators" who have been "causing problems."

He may be deluding himself. Most analysts here say Musharraf has damaged his reputation, perhaps critically. But so far, he hasn't pushed people to the streets. Shops are open. Banks are open. Markets are full. Prices are the same as before emergency law.  

But some things are different. Riot police with wooden canes and plastic shields are posted a few hundred yards from the hotel where I am staying in Islamabad.  But mostly they sit around all day in the shade and are happy to have their pictures taken.

There were riot police at the base of the Margala Hills, too. I watched them have a cookout. 

Musharraf's reason for imposing martial law – he says it's to fight terrorism, although no one believes that, including western diplomats – was not to suppress the general public, but the courts. 

In particular, he hated the country's Supreme Court, which was widely expected to declare Musharraf ineligible to serve his upcoming five year term as president. 

But even some of Musharraf's supporters say he overreacted. He dismissed the Supreme Court, silenced the television media (he never bothered with the print media because so many Pakistanis are illiterate or semi-literate) and used the opportunity to hobble his political opponents. 

The reconstituted Supreme Court – filled with judges hand-picked by Musharraf – threw out legal challenges to his disputed re-election as president Monday, opening the way for him to serve another five-year term, this time solely as a civilian president.

Now Washington finds itself supporting a dictator, albeit a somewhat benign one, trying to achieve his technically illegal political goals without alienating the broader population. 

So far Musharraf has managed to tread that fine line, but there's no guarantee he'll be able to keep it up. One slip-up, one truly violent and deadly clash on the streets, and the balance Musharraf has been keeping could tip against him.

"Take a look at the story on the BBC website about the terrible things happening to women in Basra. We'd be interested to see what you think," I was told during my morning shift. 

The report is full of brutal details about how some of the religious extremists in the southern Iraqi city of Basra are targeting women – threatening, intimidating and even murdering them – in an effort to enforce strict Islamic law.

What are the women's crimes? Anything from wearing a shortish skirt, to not wearing a headscarf, to using make-up.

Forty-two women were killed in Basra between July and September of this year, according to the police chief.

"It's terrible, but I'm not surprised."  I told my NBC colleagues. "I've heard of similar things happening in some of Baghdad's neighborhoods."

In Basra, many have blamed the Iranian-influenced Shiite Mahdi Army for the violence. But in Baghdad neighborhoods like Dora and Ameria, it's not the Shiite, but Sunni extremists who are influenced by al-Qaida, who have imposed Islamic law.

I know all too well because my aunt lives in Ameria and I actually went to see her for the first time in over 18 months when the security situation eased recently.

But despite the improved security situation, it was still a difficult journey to get to the neighborhood – the only way I could travel there safely was by wearing a veil and an Islamic gown on top of my normal clothes.

If I'd gone there dressed as usual -- wearing full make-up, a short sleeved shirt and trousers – it would have been tantamount to a death sentence. I also didn't want to embarrass my aunt, who has to survive there by abiding by the local rules.

 It's a risky business being an independent female here and many friends are shocked by my attitude.

As far as I can tell, women's attitudes toward the veil can be divided into four categories:

--There are those like me who refuse to wear the veil. Like others, I am able to do that by avoiding dangerous, extremist areas.

--There are those who wear it because they like it and believe in it, usually for religious reasons.

--Others wear it because they are obliged to so by tradition and their male family members.

--Finally there are those like my aunt who are forced to wear veils because they are unlucky enough to live in an area controlled by extremists.

Personally, I could never do that. I will not change my life in order to appease militias.

But, then again, that's easy for me to say because I'm one of the lucky ones. Inshallah (God willing) that will continue.

* The names of local journalists are not used to protect their identity.

I had been warned. "It's been the quietest I've known it in Baghdad," a work colleague* had called to tell me as I was preparing to leave London.  "For the first time, I have not been woken by bombs or gunfire while I was there."

I was encouraged, but it still didn't stop me from worrying at a dinner party the night before departing, where the conversation revolved around how hopeless the situation in Iraq seemed and would likely remain.

So I steeled myself as usual for the Baghdad experience. First days are usually the worst. Everything you've conveniently forgotten in order to get through being back home with a semblance of normality suddenly comes flooding back.

But once safely ensconced in the armored cars in the capable hands of our security team upon arrival in Baghdad, it's like you've never left. Flak jackets on, you settle into an automatic routine of familiar jibes and catch up chat that helps to fill the space of fear which goes with the airport road ride.

The dusty streets whizzed by as we sporadically did U-turns and other odd driving techniques in an effort to make it back to the bureau safely.

This time though, we saw some unfamiliar afternoon images from the darkened windows of our armored car.

VIDEO: Baghdad -- positive signs of life

I actually saw Iraqis on the streets, families eating out at roadside cafes, students hanging out by the university campus entrance, (a spot which had been targeted by suicide bombers in the past). There was even a man selling colorful balloons on the side of the highway. Signs of life in Baghdad I hadn't seen for years.

As if to confirm my impressions, I sat down at the Baghdad news desk and was briefed that the bureau was working on a story about how life is getting back to normal.

"Weddings have started up again in big way; there was a recent job fair. People are going out again in the evenings and the street lights even function in some places," I was told.            

Another even more upbeat colleague chimed in. "The other evening Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had an impromptu stroll along the river banks where restaurants are getting back to business and a famous soccer player was out teaching the kids.

"We are not sure whether it's because of the U.S. military surge, or the fact that areas have been so ethnically cleansed that they are now safer; or a mixture of both. We don't know how long it'll last, but for now it look likes things are on the up."

Our conversation was interrupted when my colleague turned to the translator as our office cleaner walked in. 

"Tell him I am very sorry about his brother," he said.

"Thank you, we are looking everywhere," was the reply.

"What happened?" I asked. "His brother has just been taken hostage," was the response.

"Months ago another brother was kidnapped and he has never been found. And there isn't much hope for the second one. The family received a phone call saying they had his brother and would kill him, so need to bother looking for him. We think it's because he is Shiite and still lives in a Sunni neighborhood," was the grim explanation.

"And did you hear about Ali?" the conversation continued.

"Which Ali?" I asked (sometimes it seems like half our staff is named Ali)."Ali from Diyala," was the answer. 

"He was kidnapped, but finally released when his family paid 10 times his salary."

"Oh, I thought you meant Ali from Sadr City," I explained, as I knew he had been tortured last year after a short spell in the hands of a Shiite militia. "No, not that Ali. He left for Sweden."

I took a look at the "life back to normal article" near my computer and noticed it had been written by a former NBC colleague and bureau chief.

"Be lovely to see him again," I said. "We should give him a call."

"What's the point? We can't go out and meet him.""another colleague said, referring to the fact that despite the advances, it was still far too dangerous on the streets of Baghdad for us to go out without a full security entourage.

Normal – Baghdad-style. It just seemed all too familiar.

*Names of NBC News Baghdad staff are not used to protect their identity.

AWARTA, West Bank –

Once the month of Ramadan is over, just before the first rain, Palestinian farmers harvest their olive groves.

The importance of olives to the Palestinian economy cannot be overestimated. They are the single biggest crop for Palestinians and hold important cultural significance – especially as they symbolize land ownership.

As such, the olive harvest has become a major point of contention between Palestinian farmers and Jewish settlers.  

Miri Yehuda / NBC News

A Palestinian family works during the olive harvest near the Palestinian town of Awarta, in the West Bank.

Every year, there are reports of violence against the Palestinian farmers as settlers intimidate them and even beat them and steal the olives. 

But Palestinians have found an unlikely ally in their efforts to continue their harvest – a group of Jewish activists, "Rabbis for Human Rights," put themselves in harm's way to help protect Palestinians during the annual harvest.

"Rabbis for Human Rights" is an NGO that operates on donations, mainly from outside Israel. 

During the annual harvest, rabbis and other volunteers coordinate with Israeli security forces and the local Palestinian population to help guarantee Palestinians access to their trees during the harvest. Their sheer physical presence helps reduce the number of violent acts of theft and vandalism during the harvest season.

"It's difficult for me as a rabbi to say this," said Rabbi Yehiel Greiniman of Rabbis for Human Rights, "but I believe there are people who say they do things in the name of the Torah when in fact they go against it. I want to able to tell my children and grandchildren that I acted against wrongdoing."

The rabbis go out with Palestinian families on a daily basis, help pick olives, and when they detect a threat by Jewish settlers, they call the army or Israeli police for help.

Miri Yehuda / NBC News

Rabbi Yehiel Greiniman takes a few minutes to pray while working with Palestinian olive farmers.

Since the second Intifada (Palestinian uprising) began in 2000, the Palestinian economy has taken a major downturn as a result of the many Israeli checkpoints and closures that restrict ordinary Palestinians from travelling anywhere for work.

"We're happy. Since the rabbis started their activities over three years ago, we can get to our land and work it," said Abu Niaz, a Palestinian farmer from the village of Awarta.

"The rabbis are different from the settlers," he added. "They help us, make it possible for us to stand up, not try to get rid of us like the settlers."

According to the World Bank, up to 100,000 families depend on the olive harvest to some extent for their livelihoods. 

In 2006, thanks to a case brought before the Israeli Supreme Court by Rabbis for Human Rights on behalf of five West Bank villages, the court ruled that the Israeli army must not close off areas in a way that prevents Palestinians from working on their land. The court even added that the military should take steps "to prevent the settlers from interfering with Palestinian farmers from working their lands, and realizing their rights to freedom of movement and freedom of property." 

During the month or so of olive picking, the rabbis publish an appeal for people to volunteer and help out in protecting the Palestinians. They provide transportation for the volunteers and are in touch with locals Palestinians in order to assess where protection is needed. 

It's heartwarming to see the connection between the Palestinian families, the rabbis and the volunteers that work with them. But this gratitude is rarely discussed. It seems they believe this is a basic right, one that doesn't require a "Thank You."

PARIS – It's an invasion. They're everywhere. Wherever you look in Paris, you'll see them.

Bicycles. Dozens of them. And it's not just Lance Armstrong wannabees who are riding them. It's everyone, from the 15-year-old hurrying to get to school on time, to the 60-year-old pensioner leisurely crisscrossing a new Parisian neighborhood.

Like in most European cities, bicycles are not a new phenomenon in the French capital. After all, the first Bicycle Fair and the first bicycle race (81 miles between Paris and Rouen) took place here in 1869, 138 years ago.

Bruno Silvestre / NBC News

One of the many VELIB bike stations in downtown Paris.

And since then, Paris has seen generations of cyclists proudly perched on their bikes, pedaling through its streets and boulevards. But since mid-July, a new self-service bicycle rental scheme called VELIB has turned the city of light into the city of bikes.

VELIB – a mix between vélo (bike) and liberté (freedom) – was launched by the Paris authorities on July 15. The idea was to help combat traffic jams and pollution by providing a bike rental system that was efficient, reliable, easy to use, and cheap.

How it works is indeed quite simple. Parisians and tourists alike can take a bike from one of the 1,450 stations that have been created all over town; pedal to their destination and drop the bike at the nearest station once they have arrived. Organizers claim you're never more than 300 yards away from a VELIB station.

All you need to do, if you plan to use VELIB all the time, is to sign up for a yearly pass, which is what more than 130,000 Parisians have done so far. And if you are a visitor, a simple credit card will do the trick and instantly give you a daily or weekly pass.

"Driving in Paris was becoming a real pain in the derriere, and I hate the metro," explained a man named Francis while he punched in his code number on a ticket machine to unlock a bike.  "Now for 29 Euros ($42, the cost of an annual card), I can go wherever I want to go, whenever I want. Day or night. There's no contest."

VIDEO: Paris become the City of Bikes

Paris isn't the first city where such a service is offered. In France, Lyon started a similar bike rental service months earlier, and throughout Europe – Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Vienna and Barcelona are others cities which have also developed their own systems. But the introduction of the VELIB system is the first time a metropolis has devoted so much time, money and energy to promote the bike as a major tool of its transportation policy.

And by all accounts, it's clearly working. Since it was introduced, around 7 million trips have been recorded and by the end of the year, there will more than 20,000 bikes available in the stations.

It is an impressive program, and Anne Hidalgo, the deputy mayor, said that is one of the reasons VELIB is so popular. "It had to be massive, said Hidalgo. "But even in our wildest dreams, we could never have imagined it would catch on and grow so rapidly."

The other reasons are the minimal cost to use the service and the specific features of the French capital that make bike trips ideal.

When you pick up a bike, the first half hour is free. The second half hour will cost you one euro ($1.45) and the longer you keep the bike, the more expensive your journey becomes.

But Paris is not an incredibly large capital and a half-hour bike trip will take you pretty much anywhere in town. And except for the Montmartre neighborhood, the city is relatively flat. Even those who aren't training for next year's Tour de France can enjoy this unusual method of discovering the city.

Notorious Paris drivers were dismissive of the idea at first and saw VELIB as yet another fad from Bertrand Delanoe, the flamboyant Paris mayor. But after only a few weeks, they became almost overwhelmed by the sheer number of cyclists and had to gradually alter their driving manners. Transport authorities claim they have noticeably reduced their speed and are driving more carefully now for fear of hitting a cyclist.

Bruno Silvestre / NBC News

VELIB Bike riders share busy streets with cars in downtown Paris.

Up until three weeks ago, the number of accidents caused by the bike surge had been minimal and fortunately most of them had been minor. But on Oct 18, VELIB suffered its first fatality. A truck crushed a 60-year-old woman on her VELIB bike while both tried to turn right at the same time.

Critics of the scheme say some of the cyclists are not without blame. Encouraged over the years by poorly enforced regulations, many saw a Parisian red light as merely a suggestion. Close encounters with cyclists riding on the pavements or against the traffic were not uncommon and for a long time authorities saw the bikers disregard for the rules of the road as deplorable, but for the most part harmless.

Not anymore. The police have been ordered to step in and today, anyone caught behaving dangerously is fined up to $130 on the spot. The VELIB team also claims the early bugs in the system have been identified and are being dealt with. They have hired 200 people to repair and maintain the fleet of bikes.

And a visit to a VELIB station has now become a required stop whenever the Paris mayor welcomes visitors from abroad. Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley and New York City's Michael Bloomberg have visited in recent weeks ago and were said to be "quite impressed."  

But more than the Paris landscape, VELIB is also affecting the Parisians lifestyle and mentalities. Pro and anti-VELIB websites are blossoming and provide all kinds of advices on how to deal with the new phenomenon. How to look good on a bike? How to meet people on two-wheels? What is the latest bike etiquette, etc?

On the whole, most would say that VELIB has been a remarkable success, but the real test is approaching. Winter is around the corner and when the going will gets tough, will the tough keep pedaling?

With her white veil, bejeweled blouses, flawless English and flair for drama and theatrical timing, Benazir Bhutto has painted herself as lady liberty, a lone woman willing to risk all and stand up to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and his emergency rule.

Bhutto says she is the one who can stop Musharraf and his crackdown, which has seen several thousand lawyers, students and political activists arrested. Already, observers are comparing the situation in Pakistan to September's uprising in Myanmar, where monks and opposition leader (and Nobel Peace Prize-winner) Aung San Suu Kyi rallied against the military junta.

But Pakistan is not Myanmar, and Bhutto is no Aung San Suu Kyi.

VIDEO: Bhutto's other side

Bhutto is a flawed hero. She has been accused – she says for political reasons – of massive corruption while serving twice as prime minister, first in the late 1980s and later in the mid-1990s. Bhutto stands accused of stealing roughly $1.5 billion, mostly in the form of kickbacks on government contracts.

Common interests
Bhutto and Musharraf also have a common interest in keeping the courts here weak. Despite her rhetoric against the Pakistani president, it was Musharraf who helped to have Bhutto's corruption charges put on hold when he allowed her to return to Pakistan from exile last month.

While the Harvard- and Oxford-educated Bhutto is the leading opposition politician in Pakistan, she is still more popular in the West than at home. Bhutto's regime is remembered for having one of the worst human rights records in Pakistan's history, and her government did not allow the media freedoms she criticizes Musharraf for crushing.

Bhutto could also still face corruption cases in Britain, Spain and Switzerland.

Today, the New York Times let some of the air out of the Bhutto bubble in an article headlined "Bhutto's Persona Raises Distrust, as Well as Hope."

"But her record in power, and the dance of veils she has deftly performed since her return – one moment standing up to General Musharraf, then next seeming to accommodate him, and never quite revealing her actual intentions – has stirred as much distrust as hope among Pakistanis," the Times piece said.

Bitter rivalry for power
Musharraf is certainly no angel. On Sunday, he gave what can only be described as a bizarre rationale for his emergency rule. In a press conference at his palatial office, Musharraf said the emergency law – which prevents public rallies and makes insulting the president a crime – actually helps democracy. Without it, Musharraf said, terrorists, rogue judges and "agitators" would destroy Pakistan's democracy.

When pressed by foreign reporters – many local journalists boycotted the press conference – Musharraf said, "It is the emergency rule which reinforces the hands to control all this and keep it in check. And I think it is quite the opposite that you are saying, it will ensure absolutely fair and transparent elections."

Musharraf's argument was weak, but he had to speak. For the last week, Musharraf has seen Bhutto stealing all the limelight, while he is under intensifying international criticism.

The truth seems to be that there are no good guys here, but only a bitter rivalry over power.

This week, visitors to Berlin can get a feel for what it meant 18 years ago to look at Brandenburg Gate with a wall in front of it.

A South Korean artist has installed a fluorescent plastic copy of the Berlin Wall in front of the city's historic gate in protest of the enduring division of the Korean peninsula. But for many visitors interested in the history of the once-divided city, the display is just another piece of chic artwork in the vibrant German capital, and not much more. 

Reuters

Korean Artist Eun Sook Lee performs next to her illuminated installation "Vanished Berlin Wall" in front of Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on Friday.

It is hard to find any of the few remaining sections of the Berlin Wall these days. After reunification, the German government was quick to sell off these reminders of the Cold War. 

A few crumbling segments and a brick trail through Berlin are all that remain of the wall. In an odd way, the now sanitized path reminds me of the Freedom Trail in Boston – it does not resemble the gruesome "death strip" that was equipped with barbed wire, landmines and watchdogs to prevent East Germans from fleeing the country.

Checkpoint Charlie, the famous allied border crossing, is now just a small booth at the end of the elegant Friedrichstrasse, a major shopping area in central Berlin, where tourists can take photos with actors dressed up in old army uniforms.

And whatever happened to Mikhail Gorbachev, the man whose Russian policy of perestroika played an important role in the dismantling of the iron curtain?

Well, he's been seen near the remains of the Berlin Wall recently – in a Louis Vuitton ad.

Gorbachev, a seemingly unlikely face of the French luxury handbag designer, is shown sitting in the back of a car as it drives past what remains of the Berlin Wall in a glossy ad photographed by Annie Leibovitz.  

For sure, it was not an East German Trabant that he was sitting in. But it could have been.

The boxy two-cylinder vehicle that East Germans often had to wait up to 10 years to receive has not entirely disappeared from German streets. This loud, smelly symbol of the communist East has actually become somewhat of a cult object. It serves as a nostalgic reminder of life in the East, "Where not everything was bad," as many former East German citizens say today. 

AFP-Getty Images

Young visitors stick flowers in a portion of the Berlin wall during a commemoration ceremony at the Bernauer Strasse memorial site in Berlin on Friday.Â

Unified – but still dissatisfied
A recent poll found that a significant minority of East Germans – 21 percent of those surveyed – feel that life was better before reunification. One reason for East German dissatisfaction is that 74 percent think they are second-class citizens in the new Germany.

It seems that the frustration is mainly a result of continuing economic disadvantages. Wages in the eastern part of the country average 25 percent below those in the West and unemployment is twice as high in many eastern regions.

But, despite continuing economic challenges and a "wall in the minds" of some, most Germans remember November 9, 1989, for what it was: a euphoric, emotional and long-awaited reunion of a nation that had been physically separated by a wall for 28 years.   

DAY 7*

7:35 a.m.

Yipee. Cheers. Champagne toasts. We've made it. We're at the North Pole. The GPS says it all.

It's snowing as some of the crew and passengers gather on the bow to celebrate the moment.

One couple from England adds excitement to our moment on top of the world. He proposes to her. She accepts. Kisses. More celebration.

Marketa Jirouskova

GPS navigator shows that the ship has finally reached the North Pole.

It takes a few hours to set the gangplank and get to the ice, but we're here. I'm among the first human footsteps ever on this snow-covered ice. I'm truly in awe.

I wondered if gravity would feel different here? It doesn't.

I wondered if the air would smell different here? It does: clear with a unique freshness.

I wondered if the sun would hurt my eyes reflecting on the snow? Yes, it hurts. For the first minutes it's OK, but then you need sunglasses.

NBC News

The NBC News team finally reaches the North Pole. From left to right, Kerry Sanders, Nery Ynclan and Dmitry Solvoyov.

Time for a swim
After some back and forth with the ship and the ice, it seems like the time is finally ripe for the "polar plunge."

It's 2:36 p.m., the air temperature is 32 degrees Fahrenheit, but the water temperature is 29 degrees.

Anywhere else, the water would be ice at 29 degrees, but here, the salt water is not frozen, but soon I will be.

The challenge by the crew to take the polar plunge is at its core silly, but alas, why not be foolish just for a moment.

And that's what it turns out to be: a moment.

I surprise myself and am able to actually get in a stroke or two before heading right back to the ladder and climbing out. A Russian crew member meets me with a shot of vodka. I don't taste it, and it doesn't warm me up.

VIDEO: Kerry Sanders takes the 'polar plunge'

My body tingles and every inch of skin feels as if it were pulled tight.

As I walk away, my feet hurt, perhaps because my blood has stopped flowing all the way to my toes.

I've learned so much in the North Pole about our environment, the ice and the changes taking place. It'll stick with me the next time I choose to drive to the grocery store when I can ride my bike instead for just milk and bread.

And I wonder if in 50 years' time, folks who venture up this way will have ice to stand on and 29 degree water to swim…er….plunge into.

*Editor's note – Kerry Sanders set off on his trip to the North Pole on June 26, 2007 – so hence the references to summer weather. Kerry's stories from the North Pole aired this week on the Today Show and NBC's Nightly News with Brian Williams as part of NBC's Green Week.

Read some of  Kery's other blogs from the North Pole: "Setting sail for the North Pole," "Headed to the North Pole - but it's hot," "Polar bear off the starboard," "Russian Neptune gives God of Sea an offering," "Making friends at the North Pole," and "Are we at the North Pole, yet?" 

VIDEO: A trip to the North Pole is not your typical Caribbean cruise, watch more of Kerry Sander's  trip to the top of the world.

Most of us think garbage is a stinky business, but for Doron Sapir, it's part of his life and work.

Until 1999, Sapir's knowledge about recycling was limited to throwing away his own garbage, but then he was appointed to the unpleasant job of taking care of 2,700 tons of garbage produced by the city of Tel Aviv and its surrounding area every day.

VIDEO: Israel turns massive landfill into park

Today he can proudly say that he has not only transformed the Hiriya dump, one of Tel Aviv's main dumping grounds for over 40 years, into the largest and most advanced environmental center in Israel, but he has also helped pave the way for the development of a huge public park twice the size of New York's Central Park.

A stinking mess
The Hiriya dump was established in 1952, and by 1999 it had risen to a height of 200 feet and stretched nearly a mile long.

The massive heap contributed to the greenhouse effect by emitting large quantities of biogas, which consists of methane and carbon dioxide. These gases are formed by the decomposition of organic substances found in compacted garbage piles. 

Sapir, together with the Dan Region Association of Towns, decided to turn the dump site into a waste transfer station to sort and recycle the garbage.

Standing on top of a hill at the dump, Sapir points to a tube sticking out of the earth, and explains that there are 60 similar gas wells that collect methane gas and transport it by hose to a nearby factory. The factory, like the Hiriya site, produces all its electricity from this recycled gas.

Every day, 1,000 trucks arrive at the Hiriya center and unload waste from households, army camps and hospitals around the city of Tel Aviv. Some of the garbage is sifted in a very simple but ingenious manner: the waste is thrown into a big pool of water where heavy metals sink and plastic and paper float. Plastic, iron and metal are then sent to recycling plants in Israel.

Special machines shred garden waste, which in turn gets recycled and used for making garden compost.

Huge crushing machines handle the recycling of construction materials into new cement which is used to support the steep slopes of the landfill and build new roads.

Sapir's vision was not only to rehabilitate the former garbage dump but also to create a huge public park.  

Last week, both Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Shimon Peres adopted his vision. In a ceremony on the top of a hill at the Hiriya dump, Olmert and Peres dedicated the new 2,000-acre park to former prime minister Ariel Sharon, who is still hospitalized after suffering a stroke over a year ago.

The $250 million dollar park project will take 10 to 20 years to complete, but some walking and biking paths are already open to the public along the Ayalon River, offering a view of the Mediterranean coast.

And how are they going to create park benches for future visitors? All the wood that is found among the garbage is being saved and transferred to the on-site carpentry shop and turned into garden benches.

DAY 6

11 p.m.

Today was supposed to be "NP Day": North Pole Day.

We were churning thru the ice at around 5 knots, and all signs were we'd been at 90-degrees north in a few hours, then bam! The Yamal hit a pressure ridge.

The pressure ridge in the ice is like the Vikings Defensive Line. As much as you push, you can't get through. The Yamal rammed repeatedly, back and forth, back and forth, but no progress.

VIDEO: Watch time-lapse video of the Yamal struggling through ice near the North Pole

The crews' nickname for the captain is "father." He takes the helm for a few hours, and thanks to experience, he chooses a path that finally clears the stubborn pressure ridge.

The ice here is the thickest we've encountered so far. It's at least 10 feet thick. The Yamal is down to 3 knots at times so as much as we'd hoped to make the North Pole today, it's not going to happen. Maybe tomorrow.

Dmitry Solovyov/ NBC News

The bow of the Yamal cuts through summertime ice as it heads north to the North Pole.

Even though the trees across the country are quickly losing their leaves, Germany is very "green" these days.

It starts with the trash every day. In most local communities, households now have four different trash bins outside their door – one for paper, one for plastic, one for organic waste and a trash can for "other rubbish."

In addition, glass containers are strategically positioned at street corners in every neighborhood, but also require active consumer participation. Under German rules, green, brown and white bottles need to be separated.

While the only reward for garbage sorting is a good "green conscience," the German government has been granting financial incentives for new measures that cut CO2 emissions and save energy.

Large wind power turbines, for example, the tall white towers with their huge blades, have become landmarks in many rural areas of the country. Nearly 20,000 plants with a capacity of more than 20,000 megawatts were in operation at the end of 2006, generating nearly 5 percent in Germany's total electricity consumption.

Meanwhile, more and more consumers – in this country that has opted to phase out nuclear power – are switching to more ecologically oriented electricity providers. Last week, the central German city of Kassel announced that the entire city of 200,000 inhabitants had switched to hydropower from Scandinavia.

VIDEO: Denmark harnesses wind power

Support from government programs has triggered an unprecedented boom of wind and solar power, and has made the use of these renewable energy forms very attractive for the private and agricultural sector. Alternative power sources now represent about 10 percent of electricity generated in the country.

An average German household, for example, can earn over $2,860 a year from subsidies to install solar panels – double their electricity bill – and pay off all costs within 10 years.

As a result, Germany has become by far the largest market in the world for solar cells. But there is a downside to the photovoltaic boom, solar-panel manufacturers worldwide are grappling with increasingly high prices for silicon. Refined silicon, the most costly and crucial element in solar panels, has been in short supply for the last four years.

In April, Germany's environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, proposed an eight-point plan that included cutting Germany's CO2 emissions by 40 percent within 13 years. If government estimates are to be believed, then 20 percent of the country's energy will be coming from renewable sources, like wind, by 2020. Gabriel said he wants to enlist the German industry in pursuing this ambitious goal.

But, Gabriel's program would cost the German government more than $4 billion over the next three years, according to the Environment Ministry's own estimates.

Critics question the cost effectiveness of these programs and say that the savings in terms of greenhouse gas emissions could mainly be promoted to drive a political agenda.

But, there is no doubt that these green initiatives, new regulations and multiple garbage bins have triggered strong public awareness and are creating new jobs in Germany's renewable energy sector.

DAY 5*

6:28 p.m. 88 degrees, 15 minutes North. 54 degrees, 00 minutes east.

I think I'm snow blind. I just saw what looks like a two-masted sailboat on the horizon. Double take. Triple take.

As it turns out, my eyes are not deceiving me. The crew onboard the Yamal has also spotted the ship. The radio room on the Yamal tries to contact the sailing vessel several times, but no one answers. A sailor on watch sees a dog through his binoculars. The decision is made: launch the chopper to the ship to see if anyone is onboard. Maybe someone needs help.

As we circle and then land: one, two, soon 10 people are outside the ship waving their arms.

The hike across the snow from our landing zone is through pools of deep water sitting on the surface of the ice. It's raining, it's windy, and since we rushed off so quickly, I'm unprepared. The boots I'm wearing would be useful on hard pack ice, or snow, but not water. 

By the time we reached the crew, my feet were soaking wet, but they're all smiles, shocked to find we've just landed and made our way over.

VIDEO: North Pole researchers are pleasantly surprised to meet some new people so far from home

It turns out this is the research vessel Tara. The ship's multinational crew is collecting date on global warming. They've been here for two months, and will stay through for another three months, or longer if they can.

What's with the rain?
They're recording temperatures, sounding sonar on the ice to see how thick it is, monitoring the rainfall and snow fall (today it's raining, and it's miserable.)

I asked one of the scientists on board from France if he thought the rain was a sign of global warming? He said he's not sure, but that rain this early in the summer is unusual.

We are with the crew for about 30 minutes when the captain on the Russian ice breaker Yamal radioed it was time to leave. Ice experts on the Yamal feared a shift in the ice pressure could block our continued passage north. As we sloshed back to the landing zone to get on the chopper, one of the two women crew members from Tara whispered in my ear and said, "Tell everyone we're ok."

Dmitry Solovyov/NBC News

Kerry Sanders with a group of researchers and their dog near the North Pole. Â

I'm left in awe of their work. These are pioneers doing what satellites cannot. Gathering data, at surface level, to try to answer the growing questions we have about what impact our SUV's and coal burning power plants are having on the melting polar cap

*Editor's note – Kerry Sanders set off on his trip to the North Pole on June 26, 2007 – so hence the references to summer weather. Kerry's stories from the North Pole are airing on the Today Show and NBC's Nightly News with Brian Williams as part of NBC's Green Week.

By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer

BEIJING – On one of the bluest of "blue sky" days in Beijing this past weekend (a rare occurrence in this usually smog-filled city), a handful of skinny young Chinese men armed with cameras and notebooks were clustered around an older man with shoulder-length hair and wire-rimmed glasses – looking like groupies surrounding their favorite rock star backstage.

Except this was no rock concert.

It was the third annual Beijing Bloggers' Conference. 

That's right. On this beautiful autumn day, a couple hundred young folks decided to forego the crisp sunshine and unseasonably balmy weather to burrow into a large conference hall at Tsinghua Science Park in the capital's northwestern corner to frankly talk about the Internet, blogging, podcasts, investment opportunities, and other more technical matters.

Adrienne Mong / NBC News

Click here for video about censorship in China.

The groupies were circled around a man known popularly online as "Tiger Temple" whose blog is rated the third most popular site in China for 2007 on sohu.com, a popular Chinese search engine . Sohu.com lauded him for blogging "with a heart of the common people."

Tiger Temple, in real life 54-year-old Zhang Shihe, has been blogging for four years. He adopted the name "Tiger Temple" for online use; it refers to the Beijing neighborhood in which he lives. His "24 Hours Online" site, which is available only in Chinese, marks a departure from the typical Chinese-language blog here. 

For one, Zhang doesn't limit his topics to one theme like many bloggers often do. Although he does say he avoids any topics about which he knows nothing. But from a glance at his site, those topics would seem to be very few.

"I think one's life experience is very important," said Zhang one afternoon before the Beijing Bloggers' Conference, sitting in his two-room apartment just a stone's throw away from the Bird's Nest stadium, the huge stadium being built for the Olympics in northeast Beijing.

"I have lived for over half a century," he said. "So anything I see, it may remind me of something, or I may want to comment on it."

Zhang grew up the son of a card-carrying Communist Party couple from Beijing, whose household was a haven of political discourse and debate.  "I always disagreed with what my father thought," recalled the chain-smoking Zhang.  Even now, "we talk about which direction China should go, whether we should give up the way China is heading now or start over again with my generation."

This frank and open atmosphere wasn't always so.

Zhang grew up during modern China's most turbulent times. He's a member of the Lao San Jie ("Old Three Classes") or Lost Generation – those born in the late 1940s and early 1950s who weren't able to attend university because of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76).

During the revolution, the communist son spent his youth working in a steel factory, helping to build the Xiang Yu Xian, the east-west train line linking Hubei province in central China to the Chongqing municipality in the west.

But it wasn't long before his intellectual heritage took hold, and Zhang found himself in the ancient capital of Xi'an, opening a bookshop.

"I had four or five bookshops in the mid-80s that were very popular with writers. We had both Chinese and some western books back then," he said.

The political and cultural climate changed after the June 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen Square protestors. "There were no more books," said Zhang.  "No more translations of books from overseas."

In 1993, the bookseller returned to Beijing to help look after his elderly parents and started his third new career, this time in advertising.

But when he discovered the world of blogs, he retired from advertising to devote himself to writing full-time.

Adrienne Mong / NBC News

Sitting in at the Beijing Bloggers' Conference last weekend.

"I wasn't necessarily one of the pioneers, but I was part of that first generation of bloggers," explained Zhang. "I felt like it was an important medium to try… .[O]nce you started to write a blog, you feel responsible to renew it every day."

Zhang feels responsible for more than just updating the blog, he thinks the point is to also report on what is constantly happening around him.  

One of his early blogs in 2003 reported a stabbing on Wangfujing Street in downtown Beijing.  Although Chinese reporters eventually turned up after a slow police response, there was virtually no coverage in the local press. 

Zhang, who happened to photograph the incident as it happened, decided to post all his pictures online with commentary noting the police's slow response to the crime scene.

The reaction was immediate and tremendous, said Zhang. "I felt deeply how the blog was not as restrained as other media," he recounted.  "It was a very natural news report. …  I didn't realize how important it was at the time. …  But I did something that a blogger should do, something that blogs can be used to do.  So I've kept my blog as a reporting site all these years."

A superficial trawl through Zhang's site suggests nothing out of the ordinary: a Chinese citizen touring Beijing or the countryside, taking photographs, introducing his subjects to readers, all without any overt political commentary.

Just this past summer, he set out from the Bird's Nest stadium on his bicycle and began what he calls a "grassroots reporting trip" through four provinces: Shanxi, Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia, and Ningxia. The idea was to provide instant blogs – containing text and photos – of what he was seeing and whom he was meeting.

But therein lays the power of his blog: stories of ordinary people in difficult circumstances.

One extraordinary entry introduced readers to an 80-year old peasant whom Zhang stumbled upon in northern Shaanxi. The farmer told him a shocking story of pollution and gross official negligence that led to the death of his wife.

Zhang - whose friends regularly caution him to be careful with his blogs - admitted that he censors himself, not unlike many Chinese writers online. "I especially avoid talking about politics," he said, adding that sometimes he uses what he describes as coded language to indicate his skepticism or cynicism about sensitive situations or events.

His circumspection has served him well; the authorities have yet to come knocking on his door. "I realize the blog is media. It's propaganda. It can influence other people," said Zhang. "And we live in China. We know how things work here."

And yet in the same breath, he said he refuses to bow to fear and intimidation.

"I think what I do is very natural," said Zhang. "I am telling the truth. It is the basic need of a human being."

DAY 4

8:30 p.m. - 349 miles from the North Pole.

I am not sure you can invent a more stark contrast. The captain "garaged" the Yamal in a bed of ice, and he and the crew called the passengers to the aft deck.

A crew member dressed as Neptune, Greek God of the Seas, said in Russian that if the ship were to proceed – Neptune required an offering.

The offering turned out to be a large amount of German beer.

So here we are, in the ice, fogged in, on the aft deck, beer in the hand of a guy dressed up like Neptune, and what's next?

I'm not making this up: a BBQ with chicken, steak, and bratwurst.

I can't help but think of explorers from centuries past who traversed this ice, only to die of the cold and lack of food while we're here enjoying music and food on a nuclear powered icebreaker.

I feel guilty, but at the same time marvel at how far mankind has come. The first ship to make it to the pole was in 1958. It was a U.S. submarine.

My guess is we're two days away from the destination: 90 degrees. I know it'll probably look like it does here, iced over, with a dusting of snow, but my excitement is growing. Soon I'll be in a spot that sadly some scientists predict could melt away by the end of the century.

HAVANA – President George Bush awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest U.S. civilian honor, to Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet, an opponent of Cuba's communist regime serving a 25-year sentence in a high-security Havana prison.

While in good company among the other Medal of Freedom recipients, including Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Harper Lee, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the "To Kill a Mockingbird," Biscet, 46, has been a political prisoner in Cuba for most of the last eight years.

As Biscet's son, Yan Valdes, accepted the award on his behalf at the White House Monday, Bush praised Biscet as "a physician, a community organizer, and an advocate for human rights" who is a "man of peace, a man of truth, and a man of faith."

Bush lauded the fact that Biscet "has continued to embody courage and dignity," despite his long imprisonment.

In an interview with NBC News in Havana, Biscet's wife, Elsa Morejón explained how her husband's actions as an anti-abortion crusader in the early 1990s led to his repeated imprisonment and increased political activism.

According to Morejón, Biscet's views were tolerated until he and a young colleague wrote a paper criticizing abortion practices in Cuban hospitals.

After he sent his research to the state-run media, as well as Fidel Castro's office, Biscet started the Lawton Foundation for Human Rights. His small group, which was swiftly outlawed under Cuban law, proposed the expansion of civil liberties for Cubans based upon the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Roberto Leon/ NBC News

Elsa Morejón, the wife of the Cuban dissident Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet, holds her wedding photo.

As a result of his outspoken activities Biscet, lost his job as a physician at a community health care clinic. He was detained in 1997 for nearly a month. That same year, Morejón was fired from her nursing post.

Carrying his Bible, Biscet continued to preach the use of non-violence as a catalyst for change.

In 1999, he managed to bring some two dozen members of the island's splintered opposition groups together for a 40-day partial fast to demand freedom of expression and liberty for political prisoners.

At the time, Havana dismissed the protest as a "publicity stunt" and maintained it held no political prisoners. A spokesman for the government argued that the only prisoners held by the government were common criminals or "counter-revolutionaries."

A few months later, Biscet himself was taken into custody and charged with "dishonoring patriotic symbols, instigating delinquency and engaging in public disorder."

Later in 1999, on the eve of the Ibero-American Summit in Havana, Biscet organized a demonstration to protest abortion and the death penalty. He held a news conference with Havana-based international journalists where he hung three Cuban flags upside down to show his disapproval of the island's system of government.

Those actions sent him to prison for almost three years.

One month after his release in 2002, Biscet was again under arrest – more this time for what he said than what he did.

Interviewed by the Miami Herald newspaper, Biscet called on outside governments to help remove the Castro government. He also endorsed a peaceful transition toward democracy but did not rule out employing violence to hasten a change of rule, equating "people who use other methods" to Cuban patriots.

With his detention, Biscet became the first opposition figure to be swept up in what became a major government crackdown against dissent.

Over the following months, the regime charged some 75 dissidents with working with the Bush administration to topple Fidel Castro and subvert national security. In swift trials, all were found guilty and handed stiff sentences.

This time, Biscet was condemned to 25 years in prison.

In 2003 and again in 2005, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention denounced Biscet's confinement. Other human rights advocates, including Amnesty International, petitioned the Cuban government for his immediate release.

While this has done nothing to free her husband, Morejón believes international awareness has led to an improvement of his prison conditions.

Once confined to a small cell with little light or ventilation in a rural prison hours from his family, Biscet has been transferred to Havana's Combinado del Este Penitentiary, where he has a desk, a chair and a locker for his personal belongings.

Morejón said Biscet has managed to regain some of the 40 pounds he lost since his initial incarceration.

Nonetheless, Biscet's health remains fragile. He suffers from high blood pressure, gastric ulcers, and has also lost most of his teeth. But he refuses to accept any care from prison doctors.

"He doesn't trust them," says Morejón. "It's an ethical issue."

For Biscet, so is the matter of clothing. Since his first day in jail, Biscet refused to put on the prison uniform.

"For nine months, all he wore was his underwear. He was brought to me like that for our visits. It made his mother ill. But, he explained, this is his protest. He is an innocent man, taking the moral high ground," Morejón says.

Eventually, the authorities capitulated, allowing Biscet to dress in his own clothing.

After Bush announced Biscet as a Medal of Honor recipient, Morejón called her husband with the news. "He was humbled by the gesture, dedicating it to the Cuban people and to victims of communism all over the world."

Biscet hopes the award will help draw attention to the plight of Cuba's political prisoners.

LUXOR, Egypt – An irreverent and entirely inappropriate thought kept imposing itself as I waited to report live on MSNBC about the first-ever public viewing of the face of King Tutankhamen from his underground tomb in the famed Valley of the Kings in Luxor, Egypt.

There he lay in front of me, his blackened face and empty eye sockets staring upwards, with taut cheeks stretched over small bones, lips pulled back in a sneer and deep wrinkles forming jagged scars in his face. 

And all I kept thinking as I waited for the anchor to ask her first question: Do not kiss the Sleeping Beauty who died more than 3,000 years ago. I imagined that if I did, maybe he would come back to life. And if he did, what would I say?

VIDEO: Revealing King Tut's face

But all went well. King Tut didn't interrupt the live broadcast, and when the lights went out, I was left contemplating these mortal remains of the famous boy-king. 

Tutankhamen was about 8 years old when he became the leader of mighty Egypt, and he is believed to have been 19 when he died. It isn't clear who his father was, what King Tut did as pharaoh or how he died. But he has become the most famous pharaoh, and along with the pyramids and the sphinx, an icon of Egyptian antiquity.

And all because robbers missed his grave. For about 400 years, Egypt buried its kings in the Valley of the Kings, a practice that stopped roughly 3,000 years ago. But within a century or two, the graves had been picked clean, gold statues had been melted down for their ore and carvings of inestimable value had been scattered to the wind.

So when the fabulous treasure of gold and inlaid stones that was buried with Tutankhamen to smooth his transition to the afterlife (pharaohs believed in taking it with them) was first discovered 85 years ago – on Nov. 4, 1922, King Tut was guaranteed his place in history and has fascinated ancient Egypt fans ever since.

SLIDESHOW: Take a tour of King Tut's tomb

Not so pretty 3,000 years later
But back to his face. Ugly doesn't begin to describe it. After all, what would any of us look like more than 3,000 years after dying? But whether it was the imposing surroundings in the ancient tomb, the tension of the moment (he could have fallen apart while being moved), or my own response to the face of the pharaoh, I was moved, and left wondering what message he brought from antiquity.  

Tutankhamen is on view in a climate-controlled glass case in the tomb, a modern sarcophagus, his burial place in the Valley of the Kings. Only his small black face and his little black feet can be seen. The rest of his body is covered by a linen cloth – much of his body is broken into 18 pieces. The damage was sustained when the British archaeologist Howard Carter first discovered the mummy in 1922.

Taking in the scene, all I could think of was how weird it all seemed.

The King Tut exhibit will travel to the U.S. in the fall of 2008. But the exhibit will be minus the mummy, as the organizers don't want to disturb him anymore.

SURABAYA, Indonesia – Will it? Won't it? Has it already erupted? From my vantage point here in Surabaya, guessing what's going on with Mount Kelud is the most popular game in town. It's headline news; Indonesia's television stations reporting regular live updates from somber-faced correspondents camped on the steep slopes of one of country's deadliest volcanoes.

The brooding volcano sits around fifty miles southwest of us here in Indonesia's second city. Its alert status has been at the highest level for more than two weeks, and experts say an eruption is imminent.

My driver wasn't so sure, though.

"Maybe yes, maybe no," he told me, throwing his hands into the air – a sort of resigned, fatalistic gesture that I've noticed is very common when it comes to Kelud. My hotel receptionist stuck her neck out a little further: "They always say that," she said of the country's excitable vulcanologists.

The experts think they have their facts right. Indonesia sits on a belt of intense seismic activity known as the Pacific "Ring of Fire." The country has 70 active volcanoes, more than any other country, so the experts have plenty of hands-on experience.

Kelud means "sweeper" in Javanese, because of its historic reputation for sweeping everything away when it erupts. And rather like dealing with a patient in intensive care, the scientists have been monitoring Kelud's vital signs for weeks, sensors recording every huff, puff and tremor.

And right now, they say, they have the geological equivalent of a life-support machine gone berserk. It could erupt at any minute.

"There's been a partial lifting of the lava dome at the top, as well as a strong drift of heated winds upwards," they reported Monday – which to you and I means the mountain is about to blow its top.

Orders have gone out to evacuate tens of thousands of people living on the slopes of the 5,700-foot volcano. Officials point out that Kelud killed 30 people when it last erupted in 1990 and more than 5,000 in 1919.

The problem for the experts – and the government – is that not everybody shares their urgency. Many of those in the danger area are refusing to leave their homes, in spite of a compulsory evacuation order, preferring to stay and look after their land and livestock.

And many Indonesians trust age-old mystic traditions, rather than scientists. Last year, when Mount Merapi, one of the most active volcanoes in Indonesia, was rumbling, and experts warned it would erupt at any minute, residents preferred to listen to Maridjan, the 70-year-old "gatekeeper" of the mountain, who has been conversing with its spirits for decades.

To the irritation of the government, the soothsayer told the villagers to stay at home. He said Merapi was merely throwing a tantrum and that nothing would come of it.

He was right.

It's not clear whether Kelud has a gatekeeper, but the Jakarta Post today reported that some residents were hiding in the forests, with others placing banana leaves in front of their homes, believing this will protect them from the blazing lava, should it come.

The standing of the experts hasn't been helped by a false alarm over the weekend, when they announced Kelud had erupted, only to backtrack later. Monday they admitted they were a little baffled as to why it wasn't behaving as predicted, when their readings were now so strong, they could no longer be measured.

One theory is that hardened lava from previous eruptions could be blocking the release of magma, which could make for an even bigger eruption once sufficient energy has built up. Or the hardened lava could perhaps prevent a major eruption.

Scientists also said today that measuring equipment in the volcano's crater lake has been damaged. They said they are no longer able to monitor its temperature.

"We are now left with four seismic quake detectors and two deformation detectors," one scientist said. And if they break? I guess there are always the banana leaves and the soothsayer!

DAY 3

Onboard Yamal, 2:14am.

I was jostled out of my bunk by the sound of the Yamal colliding with the first pieces of Arctic ice. BAM!

Those early smashes into the ice sound faintly similar to a mortar round exploding in the distance, or for those who've never heard the sounds of war, it resembles a percussionists' kettle drum in the popular children's musical piece "Peter and the Wolf."

It eventually sounds as if we're inside the kettle drum, and not only can we hear it, everything on the ship is shaking. 

VIDEO: Crackling ice enroute to the North Pole

NBC cameraman Dmitri Soloyvov and I are sharing a cabin. Initially, he slept through the collisions with ice, but by 2:35 a.m., he was awake.

We have a small porthole, so we could see outside what scientist call "frazzle ice." They're the small pieces of frozen seawater, some about the size of a large backyard swimming pool, bobbing at the surface. The waves here are no more than two to three feet. Because of the ice in our way, the ships speed has dropped from 19 nautical miles per hour to 15.

Finally, we have arrived to what my imagination believed is the Arctic.

We're officially at 78 degrees, 52 minutes and 42 seconds North and 40 degrees, 54 minutes, zero seconds East.

There's ice as I've said, and the temperature has dropped, still, on deck, it's warmer than I expected. Without the wind-chill, temperatures are hovering between 38 and 40 degrees. In the wind, of course, it's a biting cold that feels well below freezing.

These are typical summer temperatures I'm told, but usually not this early in the season. I wonder if it's another sign of global warming, but the experts we're traveling with assure me science doesn't work that way. You can't pick a day or so out of the week and make conclusions. Data must be collected for decades to understand trends they say.

Eight hours after we first woke up, we're now well into an area where most of the surface is covered by ice.

As we're eating lunch, the intercom system on the ship crackles with word a crewmember on the bridge has spotted a polar bear off the starboard side of the ship.

Courtesy Jan Bryde

A mother polar bear and her two cubs walk across ice near the North Pole.

A mad dash to the deck ensues. The surprise could not be more entertaining. A mother-bear with two cubs is trundling across the ice.

Polar bears taking a stroll
At first they are standoffish, but as our ship comes to a halt, it appears they are as interested in us, as we are in them. They wander toward the ship. One hundred plus passengers and crew, cameras and binoculars at the ready, all focus unblinking attention on the bears.

The trio of carnivores wander towards us: mother-bear leading the two cubs across so-called "first year" ice. It looks like a thin sheen on the surface, but "first year ice," as its name implies, is young ice, actually upwards of four feet thick. Ice that thick is ideally suited to support the weight of polar bears.

VIDEO: Polar bears at play near the North Pole

Polar bears are the top predator in the Arctic region. They're the largest land based carnivore and scientist say they fear they're in trouble.

Studies show global warming has reduced the ice cover in the arctic by about two weeks each year. Those are a critical two weeks say biologists. It's time when bears hunt, mostly ring seals, and store up body fat for the long summer months. Studies have shown in the last 30 years, polar bears are smaller, weigh less, and mothers are giving birth to fewer cubs.

VIDEO: Polar bears in danger

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologists say they fear if the warming trend continues, polar bears could be extinct by the end of the century.