"Everyone here knew it was coming, but on Wednesday evening when the government suddenly announced it was enforcing gas rationing at midnight, the move sparked protests across Tehran.

Long lines turned violent at nineteen gas stations in the capital, as customers tried to get as much as they could before the new restriction came into effect, only 26 gallons per car per month.

We were at one gas station when we saw an angry mob set fire to the gas station while chanting derogatory slogans about President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Then the fury of the mob turned its attention to other targets, looting government owned banks and supermarkets.

VIDEO: Rioting over gas rationing

The sheer level of anger and resentment over this issue has seriously undermined the credibility of Ahmadinejad, who was elected two years ago on a platform of delivering Iran's massive oil wealth to the workingman's doorstep.

Instead, the opposite has happened. Gas hasn't delivered any wealth to the average Iranian and instead the price of gas has become more expensive. Parliament voted last month to increase the price of gasoline by 25 percent to 64 cents a gallon.

Restrictions hitting everyone
The effects of the high cost and rationing of gas are wide-raging – from frustrating to affecting people's bottom line.

"I work in a small office in the north of town and I live in the south of town, so on the way to work I pick up people and drop them off if they are on my route," explained one man named Ahmad who asked that his last name not be used.

"This gives me a little extra cash every month so me and my wife can go for a meal sometimes. But now that they have made it more expensive, I can't even afford that anymore," he said as he looked at me solemnly through his rear view mirror. "And now with only 26 gallons of rationed gas a month I can't even drive to work every day."

The new regulation allows private cars 26 gallons of gasoline a month for 64 cents a gallon. Registered taxis are allowed from 118 gallons to 211 gallons a month.

Even ambulances weren't immune from the rationing; they have been allocated 118 gallons a month.

Even though Iran is one of the world's largest producers of crude oil, it has been forced to import about 40 percent of its gasoline at an annual cost of $5 billion to make up for its ailing and archaic refining industry. Iran offers the highest subsidies for gasoline in the region, buying foreign gasoline for slightly more than $2 a gallon, according to official figures, and offering it for 64 cents a gallon.

The Iranian government had planned for a year to ration gasoline but had postponed the move, fearing unrest.

Longstanding discount prices have encouraged gasoline consumption in Iran, where many people believe that the vast oil resources make cheap gasoline a basic right.

Feeling the heat
Now that the summer holiday season has arrived, when many Iranians would usually be hopping in their cars to drive to the Caspian Sea, the rationing pinch is felt even more strongly.

"This is just crazy. I can't believe it," said Jamshid, a married man with two young children who didn't want to give his last name.

"The kids are on holiday now, so it's nice to get them out of the city and the flat, go up to the coast and relax a bit. They can play, me and my wife can get away from the stress of Tehran, but we can't do that anymore," said Jamshid. "I have a jeep that uses a lot of petrol, with the amount of petrol I have been rationed, I'll barely get out of the city. I don't even mind paying a little more for it as long as I can have as much as I want."

Some analysts have said that the reason the government suddenly put into effect the rationing – only three hours notice was given – was in preparation for another round of U.N. sanctions over it nuclear program. If the government was to enforce the rationing after sanctions had been imposed, it would look like it had been affected and put under pressure.

Despite a warning to the media to avoid reporting the unrest caused by rationing, the local daily newspapers have continued to criticize the decision. Ahmadinejad is facing growing discontent over his economic policies and is being blamed for failing to deliver on his promises to improve the economy.

One of President Bush's biggest critics came to Moscow on Thursday, and you would have expected him to be welcomed with open arms.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is here on what has become almost an annual state visit with Russia's President Vladimir Putin. Economic ties between the two countries have grown considerably – mostly in the form of billions of dollars of weapons sales from Russian to Venezuela.

With the relationship between the U.S. and Russia considered to be at its lowest point in years – missile defense in Europe, democracy development in Russia, and the status of Kosovo being just a few of the issues where the two are at odds – the occasion seemed ripe for Chavez and his harsh criticisms of Washington.

But even though the timing of Chavez's visit may be perfect for him, it's a delicate moment for the Kremlin, since Putin is heading to Kennebunkport, Maine, in two days to meet with Bush in an attempt to smooth over some of those differences.

While bringing most of the mainstream media within Russia under its control or influence, the Kremlin usually has little use for foreign media and foreign opinion, and constantly complains that that both are biased against Russia. But in a rare acknowledgement of the importance of both, it looks like the Kremlin has done all it can to tone down Chavez's impact here.

Chavez opened a Latin-American cultural center in Moscow yesterday with typical blustery remarks castigating the United States, but Putin was nowhere in sight.

Newspapers here reported that the official meeting between the two leaders was purposely scheduled to take place late in the evening over dinner and behind closed doors at Putin's residence outside of Moscow – late enough to miss some of the evening newscasts.

Putin limited his remarks to diplomatic niceties about the evolving relationship between Russia and Venezuela and avoided the veiled criticism of the U.S. that he has been using over the past few months.

And in a surprising display of self-censorship, the Duma (Russia's lower house of parliament) voted not to have Chavez address the entire chamber, but had him meet a smaller group of deputies in a conference room. The party leading the vote to cancel Chavez's speech was United Russia, the ruling party which rubber-stamps decisions made by the Kremlin.

Putin and the Kremlin tend to walk a fine line between demanding that Russia be part of the club of leading countries (alternately lumped together as the West, Europe and the U.S., Western-style democracies, G8, etc.) in the world, while also taking an independent line that many in that club would not agree with (like inviting Hamas leaders to official meetings in Moscow after they won Palestinian elections in early 2006).

This tightrope act continues this weekend as Putin heads to Maine, while Chavez continues on to visit Belarus and Iran – two countries who count Russia as their friend while considered "outposts of tyranny" by Condoleezza Rice.

VIDEO: London, has been called "a city of shadows." NBC News' Dawna Friesen takes us on a trip through some of the strange stories that have been buried over the years in the London fog. Visiting abandoned tube stations, WWII bunkers trapped in time and glimpsing video of a purported ghost caught on CCTV, Friesen explores the city's murky underbelly.

On my first trip to China, my cab slammed into the side of a van. The second trip, I was hit while crossing a street – luckily no injuries. So I had plenty of personal interest when I was assigned to cover a forum on road safety in China.

Automobile accidents account for 3,000 deaths per day worldwide. As China gobbles up steel to produce automobiles, its contribution to this number is starting to look like its contribution to global warming: huge. Every five minutes in China a person dies of road traffic injuries.

Reinhard Krause / Reuters

Cyclists cross a street in Beijing.Â

Injuries and violence in China, grouped together in World Health Organization reports, now cause more deaths and disabilities than disease and nutrition combined. Traffic injuries account for 25 percent of injury-related deaths in China, surpassed only by suicide at 28 percent.

To shine light on the problem, the WHO this week organized a forum on road safety in China. The event brought together members of the seventeen agencies responsible for road safety, along with foreign experts for a series of lectures and discussion sessions.

The conference room was filled with more than 120 people from China and abroad. Every 10 minutes, an attendant would appear with a bottle of hot water to fill our tea cups to the brim with green tea. During the break we were served Nescafe – a Chinese staple – and cookies.

The Chinese government estimates that 45 percent of road traffic deaths are due to poor driving. The majority of those deaths are pedestrians or bicyclists.

Official rules state that to obtain a driver's license in Beijing, the driver must attend 58 hours of practical instruction and a week of theory classes. In practice, according to a number of Chinese interviewed, often a small bribe will secure a license nicely. As with many other aspects of Chinese society, corruption is rife.

The World Bank estimates China road traffic fatalities increased 243 percent between 1975 and 1998. Predictions are fatalities will rise another 98 percent by 2020 unless preventative measures are taken.

Ray Shuey, a former assistant police commissioner of Victoria, Australia, spoke about the effectiveness of cameras, advertising campaigns and enforcement on reducing accident rates and how those methods might help in China.

Swerving between trucks and a median, going the wrong way down a one-way street and creating an extra turning lane on the way back from the conference in a cab, I had trouble imagining those kinds of measures gaining much traction here.  

[YouTube:7_G9fFEqwnM]
Crazy traffic patterns in China have even inspired video on YouTube. Click above to watch footage of traffic at an intersection in Zhaoqing, Guangodong Province.

 Part of the problem, an event organizer told me, was the low priority of road safety when compared to other problems like HIV/AIDS or SARS.

China it seems, as the saying for so many problems goes, has too many people, especially when they all take to the road.

Until the forum's advice is implemented, I'm looking into extra health insurance.

It was cold and damp at 6:30 a.m., but the press throngs were all in place. Armed with coffee, umbrellas, cameras, and a fair bit of good humor, the media were ready to note the last moments of Tony Blair's decade as prime minister.

It was hours before he finally made an appearance, jumping into his car swiftly as he headed for his final session of Parliament. The press started screaming "Tony, give us a shout." "Tony, say something, come on say something."

VIDEO: Blair resigns, Brown steps in

At least these demands were friendly if a tad aggressive. Far less friendly were the abusive shouts from some 100 protestors who were screaming "Yo Blair, You Criminal," and "Shame on you Tony."

Tony returned briefly, and then along with his wife Cherie, sprinted into their car, this time to tender his resignation to the queen. Once again the media started to shout their demands.

This time they got a response. Cherie, who has had a difficult relationship with the fourth estate said with glee in her voice, "Bye!!! We won't miss you."

That was not the most uncomfortable moment of the day by any means.

When the new prime minister, Gordon Brown finally came out and spoke he seemed uncomfortable. His speech was short and measured, lacking the natural and charming manner of his predecessor.

Once again the press started their chants saying, "Wave. Wave. Wave." Finally Brown awkwardly turned around, looking slightly disgruntled, slightly perplexed. Outside his new address of Number 10, he lifted his arm and moved it back and forth in a gesture that resembled a wave.

Meantime the protestors were still in force. Blair may have departed, but they now have a new prime minister to target, as does the press.

During my latest assignment in China, recalls have been all the news.

First there was the pet food, then the toothpaste, then Thomas the Tank Engine, and now tires.

All of these items have mostly low manufacturing costs and literally hit home because they are daily consumer products. The recalls have filled U.S. papers with views of China as a negligent factory floor and only helped fuel pre-existing fears of Chinese exports.

But as all is fair in love, war, and trade relations  – there are now reports in Chinese papers of U.S. fruit products that have been halted at Chinese ports and a couple weeks ago there were concerns about a shipment of U.S. pistachio nuts. 

Marketplace fuels issues
Of course, there are many who would argue that the United States does bear some responsibility for the situation here.

"Sixty percent of all China's exports come from foreign-invested companies, so it's not as though China, by itself, is pumping out all of this," said Andrew Browne of Brunswick Consultancy in an interview for NBC Nightly News.

Browne pointed out that market forces – often from the U.S. – are a lot of what drives the cost-cutting that leads to dangerous products. "The relentless pressure on Chinese factories to bring down costs, to shave pennies off of each product that they sell... that in part is driven by American-end users, by the Wal-Mart's of this world who keep pushing the cost of the price down to factories in China, but also driven by the higher costs of industrial inputs into the factories."

Not any easier on the China side
I can imagine the hesitations of thousands of American consumers who love Thomas and Friends train sets or their pets for that matter. But grocery shopping in China can feel a bit more hazardous, too.

Just the other week a local baker of German bread was reported to be using toxic substances with the wheat in his bread. According to reports "they soaked their uncooked bread in water mixed with sodium hydroxide in order to give them better color at a reduced cost." 

An hour and a half later I ran smack into a number of bread products for sale at my local grocery store here – clearly the owners of the store hadn't seen the small blurb I read in the English language Beijing Daily. 

I put on my regulator hat and felt obligated to warn people reaching for the bread.

But it shouldn't be just me running around notifying people in the aisles! For this and for the larger recalls regulation needs be seriously strengthened. Laws need to be enforced and not in haphazard way.

Global issue
The former head of the Chinese equivalent of the FDA recently got sentenced to death for widespread corruption in his department presumably causing the lax practices in the food and drug industry. Certainly that sentence sends a message, but will it be a deterrent?

It's not one country against the other – it's the global consumers' problem because if China regulators are successful, low-quality factories can always find another place of operation in some other country.

At the very least, the recent rash of recalls will focus people's attention enough to notice that quality and regulation matters in any country. The next time I go to the grocery store, I won't have to case the joint first. It's not something you really want to have to think about when brushing your teeth or playing a game of choo choo with your child.

See more about how China is addressing the consumer recall issue on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams tonight.

There's a whiff of something special in Downing Street this week.

Could it be the smell of freshly-cooked apple pie coming from the kitchen of Number 11?

Perhaps a good and kind neighbor is busy baking a little farewell gift for the occupier of the more famous address next door: Number 10.

Prime Minister Tony Blair is – after 10 long years – giving up the most sought-after address in British politics and heading out the door.

VIDEO: Britain's next Prime Minister 

And no one has sought after this address more than Blair's neighbor, friend – and rival –Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and fellow resident of Downing Street.

At last, the most photographed door in Britain is letting Blair out – and Brown in.

Theirs has been a long partnership, based originally on friendship and shared values, but characterized more recently by the stresses and strains of one man holding onto the job longer than the other could bear.

Years ago, according to political legend, Brown agreed to step back to let Blair reach unchallenged for the Prime Minister's seal of office. But the deal was that Blair would pass it on – in good time.

The battle for succession has gone on largely out of sight – fought by "aides" briefing and counter-briefing the political media off-camera. But no one could fail to see the growing tension between these two powerful men.

Now Blair – charismatic, charming, a great speechifyer – is handing over to Brown – a solid, serious, some say rather dour Scotsman, not given to making many jokes.

VIDEO: Tony Blair's decade as Labour leader

But many in the U.K. – Labour Party supporters as well as its detractors – are ready for the change.

Blair still has a following, but his charm – like his hair – has worn thinner over the years.

Iraq has left a stain. Few doubt it's the right time for him to go, Blair amongst them, and to offer his undoubted political talents in another cause.

Latest opinion polls appear to show the public already shifting some support back towards the Labour government. The honeymoon has begun.

And, at last, our serious, solid and persistent Prime Minister Brown may find himself at the right time, and in the right place, at Number 10.

Very few people are going to cry for Ali Hassan Al-Majid, "Chemical Ali," who was sentenced to death by a U.S.-supported Iraqi court on Sunday. Al-Majid was clearly guilty of horrible crimes. He admitted in court to ordering the destruction of Kurdish villages in 1988.

I have watched videos of mass executions of Kurds, lined up in what is now a public park in Irbil. They were shot for allegedly cooperating with Kurdish fighters, the Peshmerga. Kurdish villages, in particular Halabja, were also attacked with chemical gas, massacring about 5,000 men, women and children, their twisted dead bodies filmed by horrified international news crews.

But did Al-Majid, like Saddam before him, receive a trial that was free of political intervention? It doesn't seem so. 

The Iraqi government has consistently pressured the court, making guilty verdicts near forgone conclusions and undermining the tribunal's credibility.

It started right at the beginning.

In January 2006, the first judge to try Saddam, Rizgar Amin – a polite, methodical, conscientious man and a firm believer in the rule of law – withdrew from the case. He told me it was because of political pressure.

Amin was replaced by Judge Rauf Abdel Rahman. Rahman was much harsher. He threw defendants out of court, and ignored the boycotts of defense lawyers.

The government also quietly replaced two other judges who worked on Saddam's case.  The move was meant to assure that Saddam would be given the death penalty.

Rahman sentenced Saddam to death in November 2006.

Al-Majid's trial followed a similar pattern.

In September 2006, the government sacked Judge Abdullah al-Ameri because he was seen as too soft on Saddam and his cohorts.  Ameri angered Iraqi government officials when he said in court that Saddam was "not a dictator." Ameri was replaced by Judge Mohammed Al Oreibi Al Khalifah who on Sunday sentenced al-Majid to the gallows. 

Miranda Sissons, head of the Iraqi program at International Center for Transitional Justice, is one of the few people who has followed all of the twists and turns of these trials.

Tonight she told me, "Political interference in the tribunal has been shameless, but seems to have gotten better as interest in the proceedings has waned after Saddam's death."

Yesterday, Al-Majid was given five death sentences.  The sentences will automatically be appealed

He shouldn't expect much.  

When Saddam's former vice president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, issued his appeal in December 2006, the tribunal actually made his sentence harsher.

Ramadan was initially sentenced to life in prison. The appellate court said, "no, it will be death."  It was like a frustrated parent warning a disobedient child, "If you keep complaining, you will only make it worse on yourself!" 

It was not American justice.  It was Iraqi justice, better than under Saddam, but still deeply flawed.

I was convinced we were at the wrong gate at the Amman airport for our much delayed departure for Iraq.

The passengers looked more like the crowd that might be on a flight headed to Barcelona that had just been called and on which we wished we were traveling. In fact we walked right past the crowd because we were so convinced it was not our gate.

The reason being that the flight to Baghdad is usually full of khaki-clad contractors, military security types all brawn and dark shades, a few coalition government types in business suits and a few random fellow members of the press. But today there were additions to the pack – groups of smartly dressed Iraqi women and families all looking in holiday mood.

The place was packed, the first flight out after days of the airport being closed after the Askariya shrine bombing last week, so we were lucky to find a few spare seats and squeezed in next to a group of chatty Iraqi women. 

Not just grieving widows
One, a voluptuous lady wearing tight grey trousers with sparkly bits down the side and a bright green headscarf, started to flirt with my male colleague – gesturing that she was too fat and taking up too much room. The lady next to her, dressed in pink and sparkles from head to toe with matching pink ring and bracelet, was proudly browsing on her state-of-the-art computer, while the third lady sported a leopard-print headscarf that any fashionista would have coveted.

Who were they these animated women so full of buzz? They certainly didn't match my preconceived notion of the wailing oppressed women of the street that we see so often on our screens.

Having visited Iraq so often, I should have known better, and I really do, but well, I'd forgotten. The interest level in the role and plight of Iraqi women – besides being grieving mothers and widows – seemed to have dropped off as the al-Qaida attacks and U.S. military surge took over the news focus.

Totally frustrated that I hadn't picked up sufficient Arabic over the many years I've spent working in the region, I searched around to find someone to help me strike up a conversation. I didn't get far, but I did manage to make out that these ladies worked for an NGO and were returning from a conference in Istanbul. We were sitting next to them on the plane and as soon as we landed one of their spanking new cell phones rang out with the latest grooves.

How do they do it?
"I need a more up-to-date ring tone," I told my colleague, secretly wondering just how these women manage. I'd been checking them out in the waiting room questioning how they get by day by day. Their grooming and colored hair would need serious upkeep, the difficulties of keeping fit when you can't leave home and then braving the treacherous streets to snatch those fashions which they were wearing with such pizzaz? How did they do it?

But more immediately, how were they going to get home from the airport? Presumably their waiting families, with whom they were chatting so excitedly on their cells, had braved the incredibly dangerous airport road in normal vehicles to wait for them while we would be being picked up by a serious security team in an armored car.           

And then there were young couples with kids; how must they be feeling about bringing their children back to a trauma ridden country? And why were they doing so? And what about sex? What effect did the day-to-day horrors and fears have on Iraqi couples sex life?

I started to recall the various Iraqi women we'd encountered over the last decade or rather in the days when it was safe to mingle. The powerful female politicians, the talented artists, the ballsy translators who'd brave the treachery of Saddam's regime to help us with our news stories, and, more recently, those we'd sought out as examples of the effect of the fall of Saddam on women. The consensus on that last question was mostly negative. But what about now?

And while I had a few moments in the limbo of the baggage carousel, before the onslaught of the news machine, I promised myself to try and rediscover the Iraqi woman of 2007 – who is she right now? That's part of my mission to myself over the next few weeks of my Baghdad assignment. Inshallah, I'll have some stories to share here.

Here is what I knew about Chongqing when we rolled into town late last week: it's big.  Really, really big – over 31 million big, up from a mere 6 million in 1997.

The industrial and economic growth has been mind-boggling – with locals caught up in widening city limits and rapid development whether they want in on it or not.

Marisa Buchanan / NBC News

The bright lights of Chongqing, China beckon from the Yangtze River.

Our NBC team was there at the invitation of the local government – but throughout our visit, we tried to define the city for ourselves. What slogan would we give it?

If local party officials had their way the slogan might simply be: Chongqing: Boomtown.

On the official tour we were introduced to investor after investor taking us from one growing development to another. Chongqing (pronounced: Chong- ching) has changed dramatically in part from the blessing (read: money) it received from the central government to recreate itself as a standalone municipality.

Beijing has direct oversight of the city – it's as if Chicago reported directly to President Bush rather than to the governor of Illinois.

As a result, Chongqing is a place where big investment gets the red carpet and essentially its own play land – known here as "parks" and "zones." There are lots of them, like "the high and new technology zone," "the technology development zone," "the southern new city development zone," "the new northern zone," "city college park," "university hi-tech zone," and, my favorite, the "jiu long zone of high tech zone".

All of these parks are working toward the same goal – the big G – GROWTH. And it seems to be working.

Marisa Buchanan / NBC News

A Coca-Cola bottling plant in Chongqing, China.

Changan (China's largest automaker) and Ford paired up here in 2003 in a joint venture which was recently joined by Mazda. The JV folks told us they were short of supply because the domestic demand is so great.

In another zone, home-grown Loncin's Motorcycle is pumping out 10,000 small engines and 3,000 motorcycles in their Chongqing plant a day. They supply more than 60 brands around the world besides their own.

Each day in every direction we looked there were construction cranes. In an "electronics park" being advertised as the equivalent of Silicon Valley, we found Hewlett-Packard – it planted a flag here a few weeks ago with a software development team – while IBM and Oracle are reportedly following suit and Coca-Cola is already here.

At dinner one night a party official showed me a local newsletter. Under the hype for the 10th anniversary a headline read: "Peoples lives are wonderful day by day." That was just about the time she put the duck tripe on my plate and encouraged me to eat it.

If you don't think the food is just as important as the development in this place you might as well drop yourself in a hot pot. That's the boiling, spiced water they dump just about everything in from cows throat to duck tripe to chicken stomachs – and that was just at my table. In the guide book we looked at – a good 75 percent of the book was about the food. It too was one of the most pressing questions I got from local journalists: Had I ever had hotpot?

Marisa Buchanan / NBC News

Dessert treats for sale in a tourist section of Chongqing, China.

What the local press didn't ask me about was the other big story in Chongqing in recent months. The flipside of rapid development – displacement.

Some readers might recall an image of a lone house in a giant construction pit standing firm against the real estate developers who the owners alleged had underpaid the family for their home. Known as the "nail house" it was an inspiring David versus Goliath story that circled the globe and the blogosphere.

It would have been more inspiring if others in Chongqing had been able to reap the benefits of all the attention paid to the "nail house," but that has not been the case. Last week, a French human rights organization released a report with reams of testimony from people who say they failed to get adequately compensated when big retail blocks and marked up apartments redesigned their neighborhoods. The report is a scathing look at an issue that was hidden from view on the official tour.

The central government knows it has as an explosive issue on its hands and has given the local government the responsibility to handle it. But since the local officials also are being tasked with the success of the enormous growth plan, they have gotten mixed reviews to say the least on how they address the problems caused by the rapid development.

Ultimately, for our team, the slogan we thought would best fit Chongqing wasn't based on the scale of the place, the sparkle of the auto plants or the Vegas style riverfront. It wasn't (dare I even say it), the food, either.

Marisa Buchanan / NBC News

A bang bang man in Chongqing, China.

For us it was the people hidden in plain sight. The "bang - bang jun" (pronounced "bung-bung") - people who carry bamboo poles across their shoulders and balance bricks, to shoeboxes, to cargo by rope for little more than $7 dollars a day. They are all over the city – diligently climbing up and down stairs, ramps, and highways, looking like workers from another era.

Marisa Buchanan / NBC News

Bang bang men in Chongqing, China.

But they are not from another era, they are rural men and women trying for a piece of the pie in the big city. Of all the things we saw in Chongqing – it was their character, work, and tenacity that showed us the big G. Carrying the city's business on their backs they seemed the very definition of the complex issues in this growing city.

SHUIGUAN, China –

In the midst of all the Chinese blog chatter about investing in the stock market, the new compulsory dance curriculum due out in schools this autumn (parents debating whether "little girls and boys be allowed to touch"), and the college entrance exams recently endured by over 10 million students, one thread has been slowly gathering steam over the weeks: Will China's Great Wall be a Seventh Wonder of the World?

VIDEO: A look at the Great Wall on a recent hot summer's day.

In two weeks, we'll see the results of a global electronic campaign to choose the new Seven Wonders of the World, and concern here over whether the Chinese perennial favorite will in fact make the cut has grown so much that the Academy of the Great Wall of China has been running a campaign to get out the Chinese vote.

The Great Wall: past and present
The wall is no slouch of a candidate. Parts of it were built in 300 B.C. to keep out nomadic herds from the north, but it wasn't until much later – during the dynasty that first unified China, the Qin (221-206 B.C.) – that the fragments were connected into one single arrangement. Portions have been rebuilt over the years, with the most recent dating from the Ming (1368-1644).

Some estimates say the wall runs about 4,500 miles across the northern flank of China.  But conservationists and historians fear it's diminishing – from environmental degradation, tourism, and even trucking companies trying to dodge toll fares by digging holes in the Wall to drive through their vehicles. 

But there are valiant efforts to police and protect the structure, too. Back in 1998, English geographer William Lindesay brought attention to the Great Wall's deteriorating conditions. He has since established the International Friends of the Great Wall to work with China's Bureau for Cultural Relics on preserving the site.

More recently, conservation groups have given way to eco-tourism designed to cast the Great Wall as art. Chinese property giant Soho commissioned a dozen Asian architects to build twelve contemporary-style houses designed to fit into the landscape, which in 2002 won a special prize at the Venice Biennale. The homes have since been converted to an upscale boutique hotel managed by the Kempinski Hotels, but the place still retains a certain artsy aura.

Adrienne Mong / NBC News

The Airport House, one of 11 original villas that make up Commune by the Great Wall, an ambitious eco-architectural art project on the outskirts of Beijing.

The 'New' Seven Wonders of the World
The new Seven Wonders of the World campaign was launched in 2000 by the Swiss-based New 7 Wonders Society. The not-for-profit organization has been trying to fund restoration projects of other major monuments around the world. One undertaking is to recreate one of the Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan, destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.

The campaign's original list of 77 contenders was whittled down to just 21 in 2005.  Some 50 million people around the world so far have voted to select the final seven – to be announced on July 7.

Until recently, visitors to the website could check up the latest rankings. But information from the site's "rankings" page has now been removed, "due to a large increase in voting volume, which is causing frequent changes in candidate positions."

The last publicly released grading, on June 7th, however, showed that the Great Wall was still one of the top 10 sites at the time – alongside the Acropolis and the Eiffel Tower.

Not in the bottom ten
In fact, the Great Wall's popularity might be greater than its fans think, and a quick trawl through international media coverage suggests that supporters of other monuments are fretting, too, if not more.  

Newspapers in India have been urging people to get online to vote for the Taj Mahal.  In the U.K. the Guardian newspaper ran an article saying, "It's all looking a bit Eurovision for Stonehenge."  (Eurovision is an annual European song contest, which the U.K. never wins.) 

At least Stonehenge is keeping good company.  Latest results show it's rounding out the bottom 10 – next to the Sydney Opera House and the Statue of Liberty.

I should have known when I switched on the TV in my Amman hotel room and saw the reports that insurgents had attacked the revered Shiite shrine in Samarra, Iraq on Monday.  

I was working in Iraq the last time on the shrine was attacked and its Golden Dome was destroyed in 2006 – and the country is still reeling from the sectarian violence which has ensued as a result.

This latest act of violence didn't bode well either – it raised immediate fears that violent reprisals would be imminent. Within a few hours a curfew was imposed, then news came from our colleagues in Baghdad that the international airport had been closed. So now we are stuck in Jordan.

We – myself and another NBC News producer – are the lucky ones. Our only inconvenience has been to check out of our hotel and go to the airport just in case there was a chance things opened up; only to be called back, check back into the hotel and unpack for a few days. We are "stuck" in a good hotel in the increasingly thriving and vibrant Middle East business and tourist hub of Amman. Our only dilemma now is how best to kill two unexpected days of downtime.

Meanwhile our friends and colleagues who we were replacing are stuck in Baghdad with an increasingly dangerous situation unfolding and plans for family vacations postponed, a family christening about to be shelved. We feel awful.

Our rotations in and out of Baghdad are as much about helping each other out and sharing the load, as they are about the wider journalistic challenge. The other producer with me stepped in when a family death prevented my last planned trip and this time I'd put off a trip of my own to help a colleague take a much-needed break.

It's what we do – we all swap in and out to try and accommodate each other on our rotations for what has to be the most dangerous assignment in the world, if we choose to accept it.

So why do we accept it?

It's a question that was recently asked after a group viewing of Richard Engel's "War Zone Diary" in London. 

While feeling relieved that I wasn't the one fielding the questions, I listened to my colleagues' responses intently.

After watching Richard's nakedly truthful and often grisly account of working in Iraq over the last four years, I was beginning to wonder myself why anyone would do it – especially since I hadn't been back in a year.

"It's the most important story in the world right now and we have a responsibility to cover it as best we can," replied one colleague. That's it, of course, I said to myself. Then another spoke of a sense of responsibility to the local staff, to be there to see it through with them through this. That's also part of it I conceded.

The truth is that we all no doubt choose to accept the assignment for a myriad of reasons – some of which we are more conscious of than others. And the reasons can change. But what clinched it for me that night, as I sat wavering a bit myself to be frank, were my colleagues up there on the stage.  

So it's doubly difficult to be sitting here in Amman and not be there on time to replace our pals and share the load.

"This has now turned from a rescue operation to a search mission," said Sgt. Niedbalski, his voice despondent as he led a troop of Alpha Company on yet another search mission.

The men of the 10th Mountain division were looking for their missing comrades – Spc. Alex R. Jimenez, Pvt. Byron W. Fouty and Pfc. Joseph Anzack Jr. – who disappeared May 12 when insurgents ambushed their patrol.

After a month of searching for their missing comrades under extremely difficult conditions, we saw a range of emotions during a recent week-long embed with the troops.

(U.S. forces later found the body of Anzack and an al-Qaida umbrella group – the Islamic State of Iraq – claimed in a video released on June 4 that they had killed the three missing soldiers. The U.S. military condemned the insurgent's claim and said the search for the missing soldiers will continue.) 

The bad news about the soldier's abduction came at a time when the troops were still digesting new orders: their deployment had been extended for another three months.

VIDEO: Soldiers' struggle in summer heat

Obviously everyone was disappointed that they could not return home to their families after a year, as they had expected. But on top of that – a $1,000 bonus, which was promised to them, was withdrawn. Now that everyone serving in Iraq had their tours increased it was unfeasible to pay the whole army this incentive.

To make matters worse, at this time of year in Iraq the temperature can reach a staggering 120 degrees Fahrenheit and in this heat the troops must live, sleep, fight, and in this case, search for their colleagues.

During the time the NBC crew was embedded, staying at a number of combat outposts around Yusufiya, we saw first hand how the troops manage to grapple with all of these challenges and get their jobs done.

Spartan conditions
One outpost was a derelict mansion, as bare as can be, the paint peeling off the cracked walls, and with concrete floors. It had a few tables and chairs with a small television blaring out sound from the Pentagon Channel.

Most of the troops slept upstairs on cots packed like sardines. The building probably housed about 70 men, although it was probably designed to hold about a tenth of that. The bathroom facilities were basic: a few wooden cubicles outside the building and personal hygiene involved pouring a few bottles of water over oneself.

There were a few computers with Internet but they hardly worked, certainly not while we were there. It was the same scenario at the other outposts – a smaller house and a tent which slept 30 people.

To add to the spartan living conditions was the high voltage heat. "The heat builds in the house and it sits... the heat sits in the walls," a tired looking soldier said as he returned from an eight-hour mission.

It was admirable to see how these soldiers, mainly in their early 20's, were able to live in each others faces day in, day out, all year round – well now at least for the next 15 months.

Other than military gear and their uniforms, they had few possessions. There wasn't any place to store personal belongings, leaving little to entertain them with during downtime.

"We read magazines, we all talk, rag on each other all the time, write letters home...we have our games out here, you know, so we can do stuff," said Pfc. Robert Winter who was with Alpha Company and lived in the smaller house.

Most of the other men agreed with Winter when he said he prefers to be out on mission, "I'd rather be out on patrol than sitting around all day, when we're out here we're doing something all the time. I'm doing my job." And that job had intensified as it now involved a full-scale search for their colleagues and the people who captured them.

Determination surpasses complaints
It's only natural that under these conditions there would be a certain degree of complaining, a number of voices expressed how they couldn't wait to get out. There was resentment toward the Bush administration; especially it seemed, since the extension of the mission. "I wish Bush could see us now and what we do, then he would realize how hard it is," said one soldier.

At one point everyone was woken up at the derelict house early in the morning to get ready for an attack on a compound. As the soldiers passed by us, I heard one say, "I am sick of this sh**. I hope I get IEDed tonight, then I can go back home."

Despite such sentiments, it was clear the men we came across were determined to go out of their way to find their missing comrades. "We have to do it, other stuff we might, you know, complain about, but this – it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how far they have us go, we have got to find them," one soldier said.

Morale was not low, but frustration was definitely high. The discovery of Anzac's body near the Euphrates River served as a kind of closure for some of the men, but it was not enough. There was a need for success, a need for quicker results.

But the length of time that had already gone by reduced the hope of finding them alive. The search was a non-stop process, with numerous missions conducted night and day, involving air assaults, foot patrols, and hours and hours in harsh terrain. The men rarely used the roads. The insurgents were planting roadside bombs and a number of soldiers died during the search. So they took to the fields, walking through reeds, crossing canals and forests in the unbearable heat, made all the tougher by a 25-pound flak jacket and another 30 pound of essential equipment on their backs.

Whether or not the soldiers agreed with the war, or had lost belief in why they were here, what was remarkable was their undying loyalty for each other.

Thousands of men serve in the 10th Mountain Division in Iraq and the vast majority had never met the missing troops Jimenez, Fouty or Anzack. Still their feeling of loss, their determination to find them and their need for closure resembled a family who had lost their children.

It's a dance revolution.

Obesity is a growing problem in China, and the government's new solution: mandatory dance classes, in the hopes that students will boogie their way to a slimmer waistline.

Starting in September, millions of students will have to spend their breaks or gym class time shimmying; each set of the seven designated dances – different for elementary, middle and high school students – will last four to five minutes, the Chinese Ministry of Education announced on Tuesday.

Chinese students, nicknamed "Little Emperors," have been growing chubbier by the decade. They are on average more than 2 inches taller and 6.5 pounds heavier than they were 30 years ago, according to the Chinese Ministry of Health.

Nancy Chen / NBC News

Chinese students demonstrate their dancing skills at press conference held by the Chinese Ministry of Education on Tuesday.

Many Chinese blame the problem on the influx of Western fast-food chains – you can't walk a block in a major city like Beijing or Shanghai without spotting a McDonald's, KFC or Pizza Hut.

The restaurants are almost always full – the clean environment, air conditioning, fast service and American element all add to their popularity. And the $9 for a 12-inch pepperoni pizza from Pizza Hut (delivered on bicycle, not car) is also becoming more affordable for the increasing number of affluent Chinese.

But children's waistlines are growing along with their parents' bank accounts. 

The new dances appear to be a good solution: they will supplement the hour-a-day exercise students have been ordered to perform, and boogying away stress seems to work for many.

"Be a little happier! Smile more!" a school administrator encouraged middle school students as they demonstrated several of the dances Tuesday at a press conference held by the Office of the Ministry of Education to allay parents' concerns about the new program.

Snappy and exciting pop music blared over the loudspeakers as row upon row of students in dresses and slacks raised their arms in the air.

VIDEO: Dancing off the fat in China

They jumped; they jived; and they sometimes fell out of place. Arms went up when they were supposed to be down, and one student kept moving forward while everyone else moved back. The students may have been well dressed and well choreographed, but they still giggled and looked nervous.  

Overall, though, their performance made them almost look like pros, except instead of being on a stage, they stood on a green-turf basketball court behind a school. The students had just learned the dance on Friday. No doubt they worked around the clock to perform it on Tuesday morning.

Parents, however, are in an uproar about everything from students unwilling to take a whirl to what the dances promote.

Yang Gui Ren, an official at the Sports, Health and Culture Department, said at a press conference that students will be allowed to participate in other activities if they don't want to dance; they just have to get outside instead of "sitting in the classroom just doing problems."

Nancy Chen / NBC News

Chinese students show off their dance skills at the Chinese Ministry of Education on Tuesday.

Parents have been debating on Internet message boards whether the close contact will lead to puppy love. Romantic relationships before college are frowned upon and called "early love."

"Letting students waltz will create hotbeds of adolescent love. That is not good," a Beijing teacher told The Guardian. "Schools work very hard to prevent students from falling in love too early."

And if dancing with someone of the opposite sex every day isn't stressful enough, the Xinhua News Agency reported last month that students may have to prove their physical fitness in addition to achieving good grades in order to gain admittance to a Chinese university under an Education Ministry proposal.

Most students are currently admitted to college based solely on the results of a three-day examination called "gaokao." The tests decide the fate of millions – and only 20 percent of the students will get into a four-year college program, according to CCTV Television.

The exams, which finished on Sunday, leave the nation's busiest cities at a standstill. Roads are blocked; police sirens are silenced; and parents crowd in front of schools, leading to an environment so full of pressure that student suicides are often an element of the "gaokao" as well.

The fitness tests are supposed to help decide which students to admit when test scores are too similar.

And how to kick it all off?

With a waltz, of course.

Eighteen months after defeating Fatah in legislative elections the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas is poised to take military control of the Gaza Strip after a month of street battles. 

Fatah, founded by the late Yasser Arafat, has been fielding units from police forces and some elite guard units in the fight with Hamas, but the Islamists have proved to be better disciplined. Hamas has been well supplied with weapons, communications equipment, vehicles and fuel.

Hamas has also proved to be more nimble in urban warfare. Its fighters now control both ends of the Gaza Strip. Fatah forces are largely confined to police stations and camps while Hamas gunmen surround them with firing teams based on high buildings.

Hamas has nearly 20,000 men mobilized for this fight. Some of Fatah's forces have been trained and equipped by the United States (with Israeli approval), but they appear to lack motivation.

In Gaza City, Hamas has demanded Fatah surrender control of government offices; there have already been attacks against the security headquarters established in the city in 1994 after Israel pulled out of Gaza and handed control to Arafat.  The compound of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also has been threatened. Abbas is not in Gaza where Egyptian-mediated truce talks have proved ineffective.

Abbas and Fatah are backed by the United States. Hamas draws its support from Iran and Islamist organizations throughout the Mideast.

About 100 Palestinians including civilians, politicians and fighters from both sides have been killed in Gaza over the past five weeks. Some have died in shootouts between rival groups showing up at hospitals treating their wounded.

An independent Palestinian source reached by telephone in Gaza's southern town of Khan Younis says this is the worst fighting the Gaza Strip has ever experienced. He and his family and neighbors have been trapped inside their houses for days now. They report Hamas fighters on every rooftop overlooking key streets in the town. People still have food and electricity and spend their days glued to television and radio. 

Both Hamas and Fatah operate broadcasting centers in Gaza and the airwaves are full of unverifiable propaganda. But people report a firm sense that Hamas is winning this war, and that the Islamist leadership appears determined to totally overcome Fatah in the Gaza Strip within the next few days.

While Hamas takes control of the Gaza Strip, Fatah is moving to cement its hold over Palestinians on the West Bank. Today Fatah forces stormed Hamas offices in the city of Ramallah, and have threatened to target Hamas politicians on the West Bank in retaliation for losses in the battle of Gaza.

"Doomsday planes," C-17s, helos, motorcades, Afghan commando squads... it's the stuff of Tom Clancy novels. It's also how an NBC News team spent a week traveling with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Producer Courtney Kube, soundman Johnnie Roth, and I circumnavigated the globe from May 30th-June 6th, filing dispatches from far-flung places like Hawaii, Singapore, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and France. We were the U.S. television pool team on the trip, which means we had the responsibility of covering the secretary for all five of the major networks.

In addition to shooting with my Ikegami HL-V55, I brought along a mini-DV cam to chronicle our adventure. In the first of a two-part series, we travel from D.C. to Colorado, where Gates gives the commencement speech at the Air Force Academy. Then we fly to Hawaii to meet with the Commander of Pacific Command Adm. Tim Keating. Keating next joins us en route to Singapore for an Asian Defense Conference.

Click here to watch Jim's video blog from the trip.

Read more from Jim Long in the Daily Nightly blog.

ZHONGDIAN, China – It's not commonly understood that the Tibetan kingdom once stretched well beyond what is today referred to as Tibet. Looking at a map of China, you realize just how vast it was – and thus why it is strategically important to Beijing. You also see how much Tibetan territory has been folded into the neighboring four Chinese provinces.

What meager media coverage Tibet receives these days is confined to what's known as the Tibet Autonomous Region (which, according to historians and Tibetan rights groups, comprises only half of the original Tibetan kingdom). But there is very little international reporting done about the Tibetan communities that span the other half – in the Chinese provinces of Yunnan, Sichuan, Qinghai, and Gansu.

Adrienne Mong/NBC News

An ever-present Tibetan marker near Zhongdian.

So it came as something of a welcome surprise to us when we traveled to Zhongdian, an old gateway to the Tibetan plateau, high up in the mountains fringing Yunnan and Sichuan. In this corner of the world, the Tibetan community seems to be thriving despite the signs of creeping urbanization.

Their counterparts elsewhere in China, however, are not, according to a new report from Human Rights Watch. 

"Since 2000, the Chinese government has been implementing resettlement, land confiscation, and fencing policies in pastoral areas inhabited primarily by Tibetans, drastically curtailing their livelihood," the report says. "Many Tibetan herders have been required to slaughter most of their livestock and move into newly built housing colonies in or near towns, abandoning their traditional way of life."

These moves, said the report, are part of the broader "Go West" campaign which Beijing has pursued since 1999 to bring interior provinces up to the same standards of living as the southern and coastal regions. Economic improvement, the central government reckons, will also bring long-term stability and possibly minimize disgruntlement and resistance from minority ethnic groups like Tibetans. It also tightens Beijing's long reach over remote, outlying areas.

Hence the link between "political objectives with economic objectives," said Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch in Hong Kong. "The central authorities are clear about this. The drive to the West is about consolidating the border. They talk about the cultural security of China. This basically means stamping out Tibetan culture, because Tibetan culture is seen as the vehicle and the basis for separatist aspirations."

Bequelin called Beijing's resettlement program for Tibetans a long-term objective. "The central government has been concerned for a long time with nomads and with Tibetan ethno-nationalism in Qinghai and parts of Gansu," he said. 

But the relocation program could backfire in that respect, fuelling resentment instead of quelling it.  The Human Rights Watch report notes that many of those resettled wind up in a further impoverished state, no better off than they were before.

Looking around the vast grasslands surrounding Zhongdian, where herders bring their yaks down from the hills to graze in the mornings, we wondered how that picture might change if one day the central government decided the nomads here were a threat and wanted to institute resettlement programs in this town.

We caught up with Wong How-man, a Hong Kong explorer who has spent decades leading conservation and research projects in the Tibetan plateau, at one of his centers in the region. To see what he told us about the Tibetan way of life and its reliance on the yak, click on the video link below. 

VIDEO: The Tibetan way of life

I went to my first Israeli funeral as a mourner today. The Arabs say the Jews love life; I was curious to see how they conduct burials.

We gathered inside the main gate of a Tel Aviv cemetery, about a hundred family members and friends of the deceased, the mother of a colleague of mine.

The dress code was informal. None of the men wore a suit or a tie, and only a few women were in black. The men wore yarmulkes, the skull cap worn by religious Jews and at religious ceremonies, and a few had added baseball caps for protection from the sun. The women were bareheaded.

Condolences were exchanged before the crowd moved slowly towards the body, which was on a bier covered with a black cloth emblazoned with a silver six-pointed Star of David. It was overlooked by a sign in Hebrew forbidding anyone with the family name of Cohen to go further inside the cemetery. (By tradition Cohens have duties in temples and may not be contaminated by the dead.)

Same prayers for thousands of years
A cemetery rabbi said a short prayer while everyone stood in silence, and then made a small rip in the shirt of the dead woman's son. He in turn cut his father's shirt, and female family members did the same to each other's clothing.  I recall biblical stories mentioning the rending of garments.

The body was transferred to a handcart and wheeled off down a shady lane to its resting place. The mourners followed in twos and threes in an informal procession and gathered around the fresh grave.

The rabbi and his assistant lifted the body and lowered it into the ground.  There was another prayer, the Kaddish, the traditional Jewish prayer of mourning. Some parts were sung by the rabbi and answered occasionally with a word from the mourners. I felt a brief tug of history hearing the prayer Jews have uttered for thousands of years.

My colleague's brother and the dead woman's sister spoke brief eulogies.   

Then the rabbi shoveled earth in the grave before handing the shovel to a male mourner who continued covering the body. Men stepped forward to take a turn. Some placed small stones on the mound of earth. Others laid flowers. 

Condolences were offered again to the family and then the service was over. It took less than an hour.

Walking through the neat rows of tombstones to the exit I recalled attending funerals in distant lands. They were all so different…state occasions in world capitals, colorful processions in tropical countries, solemn family affairs in Europe, lonely burials at sea and military funerals in forests and deserts and mountains. 

This one felt modest. And somehow, under blue skies in the Holy Land, appropriate. 

As soon as our small boat came to a stop in a muddy cove of the Janauaca lake region, along the Solimoes River, we sensed some movement behind the trees. Birds? Maybe an animal? No, just four small children padding out toward the water in a row, to see what the commotion was all about.

They were not so eager to talk, as we found throughout our trip. The children here are extremely soft-spoken and polite, at least when outsiders are tiptoeing around.

Michelle Kosinski / NBC News

A young boy who lives along the Amazon River. Â

I took a few pictures of them as they sat together on a fallen tree, then let them take a look at my digital camera, causing some giggles. They teased one another and then decided to follow us into the forest as we started a morning's trek.

The children were irresistible –we couldn't stop watching them watch us. They were curious and heart-wrenchingly beautiful. One boy carried his baby brother. Another helped his little sister fix her hair, patiently twisting it over and over again so it would fit into a pink plastic clip.

The children lived on a small farm with at least a dozen other people, growing manioc (cassava), the food staple, and often the currency, of the Amazon people. 

On the day we visited, the group –  small children included – was hard at work in a main hut peeling a big pile of manioc while others prepared it for cooking and making flour.

One of the visitors asked the children following us if they like going to school. The answer was a definite yes. 

Education is important around here. At one point we passed an Amazonian school bus – a boat! Like so many things that float in this magical region – houses, clinics, taxis – a big boat takes children to school in the mornings.

Some parents send their children to school in the nearest large city, Manaus, when they get a little older, hoping to give their kids the best education possible, as well as a taste of the larger world around them.

Michelle Kosinski / NBC News

A family prepares manioc.

That was the story with Piro, an experienced guide who grew up in the jungle as a part of the Bare (BAH-reh) tribe until he was 14.

He said when he was about 8 years old some American missionaries came to his village. At first there were wild rumors that the outsiders were there to kill them, and the children were told to stay inside. But over time, suspicions faded and Piro said he learned much from the Americans that fascinated him – how to ride a bicycle, brush his teeth, and take care of his health. At 14, his mother decided to send the exuberant, hungry-to-learn boy to Manaus to get an education.

From there, Piro became a musician and traveled through Europe with a band. He plays traditional wooden flutes like nothing we had ever heard before. He now has a few CDs out and more in the works.

And he leads excursions into the wilderness, often encountering children like he was.  He feels that some outside influence can be healthy and good, as long as things are not forced upon them. "A balance," is how he describes the ideal.

Some children seem to be well aware that the outsiders were fascinated. 

As our boat meandered its way through the Amazon, suddenly a canoe appeared out of nowhere, speeding up to us as a little hand reached out and latched on. 

There were three children inside, and each had a pet to show us: a turtle, a parrot and a three-toed sloth! We were amazed. It looked like a teddy bear with a spiked haircut, and long long arms that move slowly and gently.  The children offered it up to our group to cuddle and hold. And then they offered out their hands for a little cash for their trouble.

The smart rainforest business kids knew the sloth will get 'em every time. They made a few Reais from everyone in the boat.

Life in the forest for a kid can be hard work, but a great life, according to Piro. He emphasized how peaceful it is, as if we couldn't possibly understand. And, we probably can't. 

There is virtually no stress there, said Piro. People help one another. They have to work to survive, to grow food or fish and hunt, but they spend a lot of time relaxing together, too.  

His memories are very, very good.  He says on weekends people get together and have parties, often in a communal floating house, where there is music, drinking and everyone is welcome. There is a rhythm to it, he explained, that might seem slow to us, but it works.

The motion of the jungle life, and the modern world, seem to run side by side but separately, swirling together at just a few points along the way. 

It is like a human meeting of the waters: That legendary place outside Manaus where the cool, slow, black Rio Negro meets up with the warmer, faster, lighter Rio Solimoes, and they flow side-by side without combining for six mysterious miles. Just swirling. You can actually see the split, though together they are the Amazon. Down the river, it all mixes up. Maybe one day it will be the same for the people here too.

And for all of his travels and experience, in both worlds, Piro says in 10 or 15 years, he plans to move from his city home in bustling Manaus back to the rainforest. 

"It's where my people are," he said. He misses them. He misses the peace, the tranquility of his youth, and what he remembers as a complete lack of crime or fighting. 

Will it be a tough transition? "Don't get me wrong," he said. "I will have a beautiful house. I will have my television – and my phone. But it will be in the jungle."

Read Michelle Kosinski's previous blogs from her trip down the Amazon: Making music in Brazil; Setting sail on the Amazon; Pink dolphins of the Amazon.

 One Palestinian refugee camp here in northern Lebanon is today a smoldering, sniper-infested, booby-trapped battlefield where a few hundred al-Qaida inspired fighters have been making an Alamo-like last stand against the Lebanese army.

Another refugee camp in the south seems to be heading in the same direction, and there are more, many more, al-Qaida inspired time bombs like these slowly ticking away in Lebanon and throughout the Middle East.

The jihad-inspired militants fighting Lebanese troops today in what's left of the shelled, scorched and bullet-strafed Nahr al-Barid camp are from a small cell called Fatah al-Islam, "Islamic victory," but the name isn't important. There are other groups here too, Jund al-Sham, "Soldiers of the Levant," Esbat al-Ansar, "League of Partisans," and Al-Qaeda fi Bilad al-Sham, "al-Qaida in the Levant."

While the names are unimportant (they change as the factions split off and meld into each other), don't ignore the groups. It didn't work for Lebanon, and won't work for the rest of the Middle East and the United States.

Click here to read the rest of Richard Engel's analysis "'Al-Qaida franchises' - ticking time bombs"

China may have 144 million Internet users, but spend a Sunday afternoon at the multi-storey Xidan Books, and you'll discover a whole lot of Chinese folks trawling for information the old fashioned way.

Three sections in particular were jammed with people, nose deep in pages, faces set in deep concentration.

As China's economy grows at breakneck, double-digit speed, it was hardly surprising to see clusters of hopeful entrepreneurs parked in front of shelves labelled "Store Operation."

Adrienne Mong / NBC News

In search of the next big thing... at the Xidan Books Building.

Nor was it unexpected to find people crowding around books on how to invest, given the rollercoaster performance of China's stocks. The A-shares market, for instance, which is open to domestic traders and some foreign institutional investors, has surged 250 percent since 2006.

However, my jaw dropped when I spun directly around and noticed dozens of readers crowding the aisle for "Buddhism and Taoism."

This is, after all, a country run by a government famous for its harsh views on religion and religious philosophy.

And, yet, in recent months local media have reported a growing popular interest in organized faiths like Buddhism and Christianity as well as traditional Chinese philosophies such as Confucianism and Taoism.

In fact, one could say the Chinese central government has been shilling for Taoism. The evidence? In April, China's director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs, Ye Xiaowen, led a promotional tour of the Tao Te Ching – Taoism's principal text, written roughly in 500 B.C. by Lao Tzu – to several Chinese cities, at an estimated cost of $1 million.

Taoism appeals to the government here because of its emphasis on social harmony. And a "harmonious society" is one of President Hu Jintao's top goals these days as he and the rest of the Chinese leadership attempt to steer the nation's course through economic swells, all the while maintaining firm control.

And with the stock market's patchy history here – riots erupted in Shenzhen after severe stock losses in 1992 – it's no small wonder the government is looking to encourage social harmony.

Adrienne Mong / NBC News

The cavernous Xidan Books Building

But like other modernizing societies, there also seems to be enough anecdotal evidence to believe that China's burgeoning middle class – which can now feed itself and purchase the latest GM model – might also be wanting a bit of spiritual meaning to make sense of their transforming lives.

I decided to approach a middle-aged woman leafing through a book on Buddhist history. 

"Excuse me," I interrupted her. "There seem to be a lot of people in this section. Why is that?"

Adrienne Mong / NBC News

Reading one's way to becoming a better person.

She looked up from her book and said, "People are interested in Buddhism these days. We find relevance in it."

I asked her whether she was a Buddhist.

The woman stared at me closely. "It's not a religion," she answered. "It's a way of life. It teaches you how to live." 

Which – as we learned today that a man in Shanghai was shot and killed by police after holding a three-year old girl hostage at a KFC because he had lost all his money in the stock market – seems infinitely more harmonious.

Every few months Israel holds a military exercise, often in the south of the country in the Negev desert, to train its troops to fight.  The latest exercises involved tanks and infantry with aerial assets, ending this week after simulated battles against Syrians and Palestinians. These are the two fronts that most worry Israel.

The exercise sharpened some of the soldiers' urban fighting skills, a coincidence perhaps to remind Israelis that the battle skills displayed by their paratroops capturing Jerusalem from the Arabs 40 years ago this week in the Six-Day War may be needed against Syrian or Palestinian towns one day soon.

Syrian headache for Israelis
According to Israeli military intelligence, the Palestinians might soon have bigger rockets or missiles to fire at them from the Gaza Strip, and one day maybe from locations in the West Bank, too.

The Kassam rocket, with a range of up to five miles, is the Palestinians' weapon of choice against Israel, but they may soon have Katushkas with a 10-mile range, and Grad missiles that can fly 15 miles. 

But it's the Syrians who give the Israeli military a headache.

Since last summer's inconclusive Lebanon War, President Bashar al-Assad has beefed up his military with anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons, and more long-range missiles. While Israel is totally confident it could repel any Syrian attack, it worries constantly about unacceptably high casualties a war with its arch-enemy would generate, particularly in the Golan Heights captured by Israel in 1967.

Syria has recently been maneuvering freshly-armed troops near the Golan Heights. They abruptly reshuffled defensive positions after Israel noticed.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's security cabinet has been meeting to assess Syrian intentions and has reached the conclusion that Damascus maybe preparing for war but won't start one.

Intelligence officials have pointed out that Assad offered Israel peace talks last summer based on Israel's willingness to withdraw from occupied Arab land and solve the Palestinian issue, but that he also threatened war to liberate Arab lands. 

While cabinet opinion is split about what Syria might be up to, the Israeli military is emphasizing there will be no relaxation in its vigilance.

100 percent approval between the two leaders

In any case the United States closely monitors relations between Israel and Syria. Washington is in no mood to do Damascus any favors while Iran's nuclear threat and Syria's alleged involvement in the Iraq conflict cause concern at the White House.

What about Israel starting a war with Syria? There's probably little chance because Olmert's approval rating is currently an embarrassing 3 percent.

In comparison, a recent election gave Assad 97 percent of the vote.  

Political comedians here joke that the people of both countries support their leaders 100 percent. -- which means there might be a war, and there might not be.

It is an icy spectacle to behold – the Columbia Icefield certainly lives up to its billing.

This 130-square-mile complex of mint-green headwalls and moraines, up to nine football fields thick, contains the largest glaciers in all of the Canadian Rockies.

Jim Maceda / NBC News

The Columbia Icefields on the boundary of Banff and Jasper National Parks in the Canadian Rockies.

This was to be the perfect "get-away" from my more routine "mountain" experiences with U.S. forces in the remote, arid ridges separating Afghanistan and Pakistan. But another kind of war – the one on the environment – has taken a serious toll here as well.

Unlike most glaciers, these were accessible by road. My family (of 14, with in-laws, nieces and nephews) piled into the specially adapted, high-torque "snow-bus" and drove from the well-appointed terminal – half way between the Canadian Rockies towns of Banff and Jasper – to the edge of the Athabasca glacier, the largest within the icefield.

Jim Maceda / NBC News

The "headwall" of the Athabasca glacier in the Columbia Icefields of the Canadian Rockies.

The drive was pleasant – at 10 mph it took about 20 minutes – and offered wonderful photo-ops of the glacier, as well as the stark, treeless valley between the bus terminal and the glacier's edge. 

As we drove – and gazed – we learned why it was all so stark and treeless. "What we just drove over used to be part of the glacier," explained our 22-year-old driver and guide, Jamie Bosom, who grew up near the icefield. "But you can see for yourself what has happened. This glacier, one of the world's largest, is melting FAST."

Very fast. Thirty years ago my brother-in-law says it took only several steps to WALK to the glacier's edge. Now we had to take a bus ride.

Jim Maceda / NBC News

A view of the receding Athbasca glacier in the Columbia Icefields.

And, despite Canada's signing of the Kyoto protocols on climate control, and general acceptance of the threat of global warming by most Canadians, the Athabasca continues to recede some 50 feet a year (as do its sister glaciers in Glacier National Park in Montana, just over the border, which scientists say will disappear by 2070 at the current rate of retreat.)

Bosom drove home these cold facts, it turned out, to make a larger point. "Ladies and gentlemen, this is not just about the loss of a beautiful work of nature." He went on to explain that the glacier complex is part of a "triple continental divide," with its melted waters flowing into three oceans – the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic – providing a source of pure, natural water to hundreds of thousands along the way.

Also, some 13 hydroelectric dams built along the glacial rivers since the 1950's account for a quarter of British Columbia's electricity. In fact, the Canadian government even sells a surplus of that power to Los Angeles, Calif. So, as the glacier recedes, there will be less water and less power, not only for Canadians, but for Americans as well. A delightful detour on our excursion through the Canadian Rockies had suddenly taken a more sobering turn.

Jim Maceda / NBC News

The Athabasca glacier is receding at a rate of approximately 50 feet per year.

Of course, it didn't ruin our day; we romped, gingerly, on the still massive glacier, peered into deep milky crevasses and took too many family photos along the way.  

Bosom himself put the meltdown into context, explaining that the glacier had been in a "receding" phase for centuries. And he let us draw our own conclusions about the connection between the 2 degrees Fahrenheit increase since 1907, the 40 percent increase in CO2 emissions, and this majestic wonder disappearing before our very eyes.

He wasn't insistent, or on any pro-active Greenpeace mission. He wasn't looking for donations or selling membership cards. This articulate young man, who grew up on the glaciers, was clearly losing a chunk of himself. And he wanted to share that with any "customers" who would listen. Who would think hard about what they had seen. And what his great-grandchildren may never get to witness.

It was a special – unexpected – bonus to an amazing spring break.

After four years of coming in and out of Baghdad, I've learned to always expect some kind of change each time.

Like a violent storm, with an occasional lull, there would always be some deadly shift:  more kidnappings, tortured bodies, car bombs, booby-trapped donkey carts, phony cops at phony checkpoints, and always more of the improvised explosive devices.

But if there was any constant or calm at the center of the storm, it was those members of our local staff, the ones who would never leave. That is, until now. Mohammed*, our fixer/local producer, has given up, and has left to find a new life.

I arrived last week to the news that Mohammed would be leaving in a few days, to join his family, who he had moved a year ago to Damascus, Syria. Now he was leaving for good, with his mother. His father refused to leave, saying he was too old to start again.

Actually Mohammed has two families. "It's not easy to leave after four years of working for NBC," he told me. "I've spent more time with NBC these last four years than even seeing my own family. I expected one day to finish with NBC, but not like this."

Fear surpassed hope
A climate of fear and terror had made his life unbearable. (See Mohammed's last blog).  

Mohammed is a Sunni, and even though his neighborhood, al-Gdeer, is a mixed one, Shiite militias roam the streets, setting up checkpoints, looking to flush out Sunnis. And to work for a Western firm is even worse.

The clouds for Mohammed had darkened over the past two months. "Strangers started coming to my neighbors asking details about me. 'What is he doing? Why isn't his family with him? Why does he only come home every few days?,'" Mohammed said. "They also went to my university teacher. They wanted to know who I worked for."

I remember Mohammed from the beginning. We had arrived in Baghdad days after the city fell, and set up our first office at the Hammurabi Hotel.

In those days, the only street traffic was from the Abrams, M-1 tanks, and Humvees rolling through the city. Most Iraqis were staying put until they were sure that Saddam really was gone.

But Mohammed pulled up to our hotel in an old Peugeot sedan, looking for a job. He offered to be a driver/translator. He had no experience with the media, and his background was in tourism. Still we hired him, and also saddled him with the tedious chores of logging and filing the hundreds of field tapes we were accumulating. He never complained and ended up being our longest-serving Iraqi employee hired after the fall of Saddam.

Grace under pressure
Over time, he became part of the heart of our coverage in Iraq: developing contacts with each of the three Iraqi governments, from the Iraqi Governing Council to the first elected government under Nouri al-Maliki. With his gracious style he had an "in" with all of the different prime ministers' offices and became one of our main troubleshooters, especially when it came to discreet dealings with the Ministry of Interior and the police.

He also had a front-row seat to history: the three Iraqi elections, the war against the insurgency, the capture and trial of Saddam Hussein, and, of course, Saddam's execution.

He also lived through and remained a sea of calm during some traumatic moments for NBC: two different bomb attacks of our offices; the forced re-location of numerous local staff members' families out of country; and even the kidnapping of one of our local employees.

He was a study of grace under pressure, with a good sense of humor to throw in. He is a tireless worker, reliable, and trustworthy – qualities that are not always apparent in a lot of people here.

The 'future is very black'
But through all this, Mohammad was losing his own identity. "When I started I was so excited and proud to work with NBC. I was so eager to get an NBC ID…I was proud to show it at a checkpoint. But then I started to hide the ID and even started to hide my own personal ID. I stopped saying I was a journalist." In the end, he even told people he was looking for a job.  

Now he is bitter about Saddam and bitter about the future, "When they captured Saddam, he deserved a double execution. For what happened to us during the 30 years of his regime and for what is happening now because of him," Mohammed said.

"And now the future is very black. It's more than one year for this government, and we've gone from bad to worse.  The main thing on the agenda was to get rid of the militias. But as we see now, the militias are still the biggest threats to the future of Iraq."

More than 750,000 Iraqis have fled to Jordan since the war began and Syria has become the second gateway for another 1.2 million. According to the United Nations, up to 2,000 Iraqis line up daily seeking entry at the Syrian border.

Mohammed has now joined that exodus and from now on he will only say that he is a refugee. We will miss him and I worry that he is not the only calm in the storm that we've lost. 

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