By Nightly News staff

It
was supposed to be a week devoted to reporting on the military and
political situation in Afghanistan, where a runoff presidential
election is scheduled for Nov. 7.

Yet
even as "NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams was still in the air,
making his way toward his first visit to the country in more than a
year, assignments were being overturned. It would turn out to be a week
looking for stories amid extraordinary violence that NBC's Richard
Engel reported has reached record levels.

First came the crashes of three helicopters on Monday,
which killed 14 Americans, making October the deadliest month for U.S.
forces since the war in Afghanistan began eight years ago. Then came the Taliban attack on a U.N. guesthouse Wednesday in Kabul, the capital, which killed eight people — five of them U.N. workers — plus the attackers.

In Kabul, the vibe has changed "literally overnight," Williams observed in an e-mail interview with the Huffington Post.

"Kabul has
hardened and tightened — it's much more about security now that the
Taliban has 'entered the battle space'" with its attack Wednesday,
which has prompted a reassessment of the U.N. role in promoting the
election, Engel reported.

After the blast,
"there was nothing here to salvage," Chris Turner, a truck driver
working as a contractor for the U.S. Defense Department, told Williams,
who toured the devastation afterward.

The
situation is Afghanistan has "deteriorated extremely in the last six
months," Turner said. "I don't know why, but I think we've lost the
minds and the hearts of the people. I think they've turned against us.
And I think our task here is ... very, very difficult, if at all
possible."

For the Americans, winning back those hearts and minds is paramount.

In parts of the
country where there are no doctors or clinics, U.S. personnel and
American-trained Afghan health workers are treating the sick and the
injured — part of a strategy by Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S.
commander in the country, to build "strong personal relationships
between security forces and the local population."

At a camp in the east where U.S. special forces train Afghan commandos, as many as 100 people a day troop into a clinic,
where they receive basic health and dental services that hadn't been
accessible for years. The clinic has forged a bond between local
residents and the military personnel who are so much a part of daily
life here, said the local Afghan commander.

"The people have sensed, really realized that they are the center of gravity," the commander told Williams.

Perhaps not
coincidentally, Williams reported, insurgent attacks on the camp have
stopped now that U.S. money is being spent to help the people.

The clinic, and
others like it, are just one part of the American HA initiative. "HA"
stands for "humanitarian assistance," and food is another big part.

"We want to work ourselves out of a job," said the commander of a U.S. unit in a small town in the east,
where American soldiers supervised Afghan forces who handed out food to
local children with 1,000-yard stares and to men and women scarred by
years of war.

The key to the
operation is the involvement of the Afghan troops — pamphlets that
accompany each handout tells recipients that the food is being provided
by their own neighbors.

"We really want
the people to understand that it's the Afghans, so they can put trust
in their Afghan soldiers," the U.S. commander said.

All the while, the war is still
going on.

Eight more U.S. soldiers were
killed this week by improvised bombs that exploded by the roadside. After more
than eight years of war, October 2009 stands as the deadliest month for U.S.
forces so far.

President Barack Obama and his
top military advisers here and in Washington met in a secure conference call
Friday to continue trying to find a workable policy. Even as the Americans on
the ground here are working on humanitarian initiatives, the administration is
considering
a proposal to send tens of thousands more troops to the country.

Whatever it decides, life will
remain difficult for everyday Afghans, especially the children, untold numbers
of whom have been orphaned by the fighting.

At an orphanage
run by the Afghan Child Education and Care Organization, the executive
director, Andeisha Farid, 26, the fears and threats encroaching on
Kabul melt away. A huge flower garden adds a burst of color to the
cheerful and warm home for 67 girls and 15 boys, who are preparing to
celebrate the Friday holiday with special treats like pomegranates and
bananas.

Farid, a native Afghan who
spent most of her childhood and adolescence in refugee camps in countries
neighboring Afghanistan, recently graduated from the 10,000 Women project in
Afghanistan, which teaches entrepreneurial skills to women from underprivileged
backgrounds, and she has vowed to make life better for these
children.

"We [were] born in war, we
[have] grown up in war and we may die in war, but I really want to do
something," Farid said. "OK, we have gone through [a] very tough situation and
we [are] fed up. But we
shouldn't just give up."

Every child here has an
achingly sad story, but their smiles are testament to Farid's devotion and the
generosity of others. Each child has a sponsor, and the institution itself is
funded by donors around the world — for example, a recent fundraiser in
Brooklyn, N.Y., raised $600 for firewood.

These are lives that are being
saved and launched for the future. The children may not recognize the irony in
the title of today's English-language movie — "Home Alone" — but all of them
came here alone, and they're home now. 

"When I see all the girls, all
the boys, all the small children — when I see their happy faces, I see a future
in them, a bright future, so it gives me hope," she said. "I'm sure I am doing a
difference for the Afghan people."

Click here to see more of Brian Williams' reporting from Afghanistan, including photos from the field, and Web-only video.

I've spent much of the past two weeks – some in New York and the rest in Los Angeles – listening to the pundits and experts talk about the war in Afghanistan. From the Sunday morning network round tables to the Saturday evening interviews on National Public Radio, I've enjoyed a lot of good debate, from both sides of the issue. I've also heard quite a few jaw-droppers.

Here are five popular ideas on the war, the strategy, the nation and the people of Afghanistan – which those of us who spend years reporting from the region find a little misguided.

This is a favorite argument among left-leaning pundits, but while Afghanistan's remoteness may smack of Vietnam, there is a big difference: This is no war of national liberation, embraced by a whole population.

If there's a national "idea" sweeping Afghanistan it isn't freedom from Western colonialists, its freedom from 30 years of conflict. 

SLIDESHOW: On the front lines in Afghanistan

Many Afghans will no doubt continue to sit on the fence until they can see a clear victor – coalition forces or the Taliban. But the vast majority of Afghans do not want a return to the hellish years of the Taliban regime.

They're willing to give coalition forces a chance if that can bring peace to their lives, without fear of revenge attacks or recrimination by the Taliban. That yearning for something other than the Taliban, is one key plus for those who argue that the war is still "winnable." 

.

Those on the right side of the political spectrum love this argument. Not so fast. It's true the surge in Iraq brought breathing space, especially to Iraqis in Baghdad (where most U.S. soldiers "surged to"). And it sent out signals to Sunni tribesmen in Anbar province that the Americans were serious about the fight.

But there are few, if any, positive signs that a similar surge of U.S. forces might trigger a rising up of some local militia, a kind of "Sons of Afghanistan," against the Taliban. In fact, U.S. commanders go to great lengths to deny involvement in the only anti-Taliban militia, the "Peoples Protection Force" based in Wardak province, calling it an "entirely Afghan project" (even though the trainers are U.S. Special Forces).

And that's because, in a nation of warring tribes, this experimental militia has had little success: Local Pashtuns have been unwilling to join forces against fellow Pashtun Taliban in Wardak.

Whereas Iraq saw a Sunni uprising against al-Qaida, there's no such unity of purpose among Afghan tribes, some of whom attack U.S. forces primarily because their tribal rivals have struck deals with the same U.S. units. How do you reach a "tipping point" in a land where tribes are still killing each other over blood feuds that can date back centuries?

VIDEO: New evidence shows Taliban, 9/11 link

3) The Taliban is fighting a local jihad and poses no threat to the U.S. We should focus our troops and resources on al-Qaida, which poses a direct threat from inside Pakistan, and disregard Afghanistan.

This is probably not a good idea. First, al-Qaida and the hard core Taliban share the same ideology: they want to impose strict Islamic religious law or sharia law. The Taliban's goal is to spread sharia law regionally, while al-Qaida wants to spread it globally and kill all infidels along the way.

It doesn't matter if they are Afghan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban, foreign fighters, or former Afghan mujahedeen commanders like Jalaluddin Haqqani (based in Pakistan's tribal North Waziristan) or Gulbuddin Hekmetyar (inside Afghanistan proper). They are all part of a holy warrior network supported by al-Qaida money, camps and expertise.

Secondly, these jihadists make no distinction between Afghanistan and Pakistan. For them it's a battle over the land of Pashtuns or "Pashtunistan" – the area that straddles the boundary line drawn by the British in 1893 between what is now Pakistan and Afghanistan – which they have never recognized.

Al-Qaida moves foreign fighters – Uzbeks, Chechens, Arabs – in and out of this remote, amorphous land. Along the porous border with Pakistan, I've heard U.S. forces pick up a stream of languages – not just Urdu from Pakistani fighters, but Arabic and Uzbek, as well as the Dari and Pashto of local Taliban – in intercepted radio transmissions. In fact, Afghan officials now estimate there are at least 4,000 foreign fighters, supported by al-Qaida, inside Afghanistan. And there are perhaps more on the way: police recently broke up an al-Qaida ring in Morocco that was preparing to send fighters to Afghanistan.

And in the same breath, Afghan Taliban commanders pledge allegiance to al-Qaida's number one, Osama bin Laden, and Taliban leader Mullah Mohamed Omar.

In other words, the Taliban and al-Qaida are blood brothers on the same holy battlefield. So, targeting al-Qaida in Pakistan, while tolerating the Taliban in Afghanistan, looks like a losing strategy. Doing so, it seems, would only create a larger safe haven for al-Qaida and the Taliban, while destabilizing the whole region.

SLIDESHOW: Saving lives behind the front lines

4) Sending more troops for counter-insurgency and more civilian experts for nation-building is a waste of time and resources if there's no national afghan leader in place.

This may seem like a solid point, but think again. In reality, there has never been a tradition of strong central government in Afghanistan.

When I spoke to tribal elders in Helmand province just before the Aug. 20 elections, many told me they had never even seen a politician from Kabul before. In Afghanistan, politics are truly local. District and provincial councilmen are the powerbrokers whose faces matter to most Afghans, not President Hamid Karzai or his rival candidate in the run-off elections Abdullah Abdullah.

U.S. military and aid officials certainly get that. Since 2006, they've directly invested millions of dollars in discretionary funds into local programs, like alternative farming or the opening of schools and clinics, all on the village level, thus circumventing the corruption-tainted government. Their logic? Seven years of failed top-down reconstruction has turned Afghanistan into one of the donor world's deepest money pits.

So, while the West rightly hopes for a legitimate Afghan leader back in Kabul, some local programs are making a difference on the ground. It may be surprising, but progress is possible without a presidential fiat…or even a president.

Well, not exactly. In fact the British Army resoundingly defeated the Afghan tribes in the 2nd Anglo-Afghan War of 1878, only to be withdrawn by myopic British ministers back in New Delhi and London.

But that's not the point. History really doesn't repeat itself. Only the conditions for success or failure do. And it's perhaps worth remembering that, throughout the annals of the so-called "Great Game" (the period in the nineteenth and early twentieth century when the British Empire and the Russian Empire battled for control over Central Asia) those foreign nations had only their own self-interests at heart. The needs – or wishes – of the Afghans themselves never mattered. 

But this time the Afghan people do matter. In a counterinsurgency, as Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, would no doubt argue, it's the Afghan people who must rise up against the Taliban. And the only reason they would do so is because they've gained something – security or a better life – which they don't want to lose. The challenge, of course, is convincing the Afghans that, this time, it's not the same old story.

Jim Maceda is an NBC News foreign correspondent based in London who has reported from Afghanistan extensively since the U.S. invasion in 2001. He is currently on home leave in the United States.

See more of NBC's Nightly News with Brian Williams reporting from Afghanistan this week.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, the spokesman for Pakistan's military, calls South Waziristan the "center of gravity" for terrorism in this country and a sanctuary for both Taliban and al-Qaida fighters. 

The Pakistani military took foreign and local journalists on a guided tour of South Waziristan on Thursday, the first look inside the lawless area since the military launched a major ground offensive there in mid-October.   

During the tour, journalists were shown two passports with alleged links to 9/11 suspects that the military says were recovered in a small Taliban outpost in the town of Sherwangai. 

One passport allegedly belonged to German citizen Said Bahaji who is thought to have lived with 9/11 leader Mohammed Atta in Hamburg. Another Spanish passport had the name of Raquel Burgos Garcia. She is believed to be married to Amer Azizi, a Moroccan terrorist suspect who has been linked to both the September 11th attacks and the Madrid bombings.

VIDEO: Clinton on Pakistan: 'It's a two-way street'

U.S. officials regularly criticize the Pakistani government for not aggressively pursuing al-Qaida within its borders and on her first trip to Pakistan as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton has been blunt about voicing that criticism. She told a group of local reporters on Thursday, "I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to."

But Pakistani officials say the ongoing battle in South Waziristan is proof of their determination to confront the terrorism threat directly.  It follows a similar and successful operation launched last May in the Swat valley.

Major ground assault
For nearly two weeks 28,000 Pakistani soldiers have been battling an estimated 5,000 to 8,000 militants, including seasoned foreign fighters from Uzbekistan and members of the Afghan Taliban. The militants have pulled out of low-lying towns and set up positions on towering ridges that in some places are as high as 7,000 feet.

Pakistani commanders say the fighters have left the valleys booby-trapped with land mines and roadside bombs, and that the mountaintop hideouts are stockpiled with advanced weaponry. In Sherwangai, reporters were shown a cache of weapons left behind by the Taliban when they fled the scene including rocket propelled grenades, mortars, automatic weapons and 10,000 rounds of ammunition.

On two separate fronts, military units are making steady progress towards the Taliban strongholds of Makeen and Sararogha. Gen. Rabbani Khaled said the goal is to "clear them, dismantle the infrastructure and destroy as many as possible." 

The two highest profile targets are Taliban leaders Hakimullah Mehsud and Mulana Waliur Rehman, who, according to Abbas, are still commanding troops from within South Waziristan.  

Standing on a ridge overlooking the town of Kotkai, home to Hakimullah Mehsud and notorious suicide bomb instructor Qazi Hussein, Abbas told the media, "The importance of this operation is to roll up, deny this space, take it away from them … deny them the freedom of action that they had in this area."

For years, militants have taken advantage of this semi-autonomous region, largely cut-off from Pakistan's central government to organize, manufacture suicide bombs and train with impunity.  Abbas said eliminating their "sanctuary" will have a "huge effect" on the security of the country.

Pakistanis are reeling from a month of deadly attacks that have left hundreds of people dead. On Wednesday a devastating car bomb blew up in a crowded market in the northern town of Peshawar, killing more than 100, many of the victims were women and children.  It was the worst attack in this country in two years. 

But when asked how fast the country could expect an improvement in the security situation, Abbas would not give a timeline.  Instead he said Pakistanis should expect, "a long-drawn haul."

BEIJING – Ahead of President Barack Obama's first visit to China next month, American and Chinese officials and scholars are engaged in intense discussions on how the world's two biggest polluting nations should manage their responsibility to address climate change and clean energy issues, which are expected to be high on the president's agenda.

With the U.N. Copenhagen Climate Change Conference scheduled for December, China and the United States, which account for a combined 40 percent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions, are under pressure to cut down their production of greenhouse gases.

VIDEO: U.S. and Chinese leaders discuss climate change

"China is doing a lot and we are doing a lot," declared U.S. Energy Undersecretary Dan Poneman, refuting talks of China taking the leadership on clean energy technology.

"We are investing significantly across a whole range of clean technologies," he said, adding that the U.S. is comfortable with China's ambitious nuclear energy program.

Professor Ken Lieberthall of the Brookings Institution, was also very positive about the prospects for collaboration.

"I think the Chinese are actually very serious about cooperation on clean energy," said Lieberthall. The Brookings Institution recently sponsored a forum in Beijing on U.S.-China clean energy efforts with the China Institute of Strategy and Management. The event gathered over 300 guests, including Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore.

"The whole world is looking at the U.S. and China," said Lieberthall. "But there are many obstacles, politically and technically, to overcome that simply require a lot of work."

Poneman and Lieberthall spoke at length to NBC News in Beijing about the prospects of the United States and China working together in the clean energy arena. See the attached video to hear more of their views.

HERAT, Afghanistan – We watched a teenage girl die last Friday.

Seventeen-year-old Shirin had been brought to the Herat Regional Hospital Burns Unit a few days before we met her. Ninety percent of her body was covered in third-degree burns.

Her mother-in-law said Shirin had burned herself by accident. The girl was preparing a meal in the kitchen but somehow confused cooking gasoline with petrol, she said. 

But Dr. Mohamed Aref Jalali, the director of the burns unit, said Shirin told him in private that she had set herself on fire deliberately after fighting with her mother-in-law and her sister-in-law.

Adrienne Mong/ NBC News

Rezagul set herself on fire to escape her marriage to an abusive and much older husband. SLIDESHOW: See other images of Afghan victims of self-immolation

Many girls in Afghanistan think self-immolation is the best solution for family problems, according to Jalali.

"[For these girls], it's no good to solve the problem with the father-in-law, with the mother-in-law," said the doctor. "They think self-immolation will solve the problem."

It's a "solution" that appears to be a major problem in Afghanistan, particularly among young women between the ages 13 and 25.

In the first seven months of this year, medical staff at the Herat's burns unit – the only one of its kind in the entire country – said they have seen 51 cases of female self-immolation. Only 13 have survived.   

The practice comes from Iran, where many Afghan refugees had fled to during the decade-long war with the Soviet Union (1979-1989) and the era of mujahedeen fighting that followed in the 1990s, said Jalali. But its popularity has spread among Afghan women, often from poor, uneducated backgrounds, where the tradition of child or forced marriages runs strong.

"The forced marriage is the best reason and the important reason, and it starts from the economic problem," said Jalali. 

Often in arranged marriages, women are viewed in very stark terms. 

"She is here only to wash, to clean, to give baby … and nothing more," said Marie-Jose Brunel, a French volunteer nurse at the burns unit who was full of Gallic warmth and purposeful seriousness. "If they have no freedom, no possibility to study, to be considered like nothing, it's very, very difficult."

VIDEO: Afghan girls burn themselves to escape marriage misery

Domestic violence 
Shirin was married two years ago when she was 15 years old.  

But another patient we found at the hospital, down the hall from Shirin, was Rezagul. Skinny and illiterate, the 13-year-old was married at 11 to a man who was almost 20 years older. He was abusive, she told us, beating her whenever she failed to do her housework. So did her in-laws. "My cruel sister-in-law, brother-in-law, and husband … they beat me," she said. 

Out of frustration and homesickness for her own family, Rezagul took drastic action.

"I was in very bad condition," she recalled. "I poured gasoline on myself and set myself on fire. I didn't want to be alive." The burns covered the lower half of her body.

It took several months for her skin to heal properly and she was currently back at the clinic because of chronic kidney pain. Jalali said he would need to finish reconstructive surgery on Rezagul but with physical therapy she would recover nicely.

On the day we visited, Rezagul looked well-adjusted and almost happy. She was no longer married. Her father had welcomed her back home. She was excited about starting to go to school for the first time in her life.

In fact, with her burns covered up, Rezagul looked the picture of health as Brunel, the nurse, teased her – a testament to the success of the burns unit.

Adrienne Mong/ NBC News

At least half of the victims at the Herat Regional Hospital Burns Unit are young children injured in everyday domestic accidents.

Filling a critical void
Brunel, who is usually based in the south of France and volunteers her time at the clinic through the French non-governmental organization HumaniTerra International, has been working with the burn unit's senior medical team since 2003. 

In fact, she was instrumental in starting up the unit – originally as part of the main hospital with only a handful of beds and no trained staff – after a meeting with then-governor of Herat, Ismael Khan, who emphasized the need for a place to treat burns.

In October 2007, after years of fundraising, planning, and training, Brunel and her Afghan colleagues opened the treatment center we were visiting. 

On average, it receives 600 to 700 burn patients a year, the majority of whom are victims of domestic accidents, mostly children. In fact, one ward had dozens of infants – most of them with various limbs wrapped up in gauze and bandages, usually from boiling water that had spilled over from a kettle.

Still, a significant portion of the patients are victims of self-immolation – at least 10 percent, according to statistics kept by the burn unit. "In 2003, when we started, we estimate 350 [self-immolation] cases a year for Herat," recalled Brunel. The number has decreased – at least for those victims from Herat Province – after the hospital and the local government launched a public awareness campaign.

"We have seen decreases," said Brunel. "And I hope with the second year of [the public awareness] campaign, it's better again."

But they need funding, and time. While the incidents of self-immolation from within the province may be on the decline, cases from outside Herat are on the rise. 

"It's going to the other provinces," said Jalali. "Now we have patients from Farah Province, from Nimruz, from Badgis, from Helmand."

Adrienne Mong/ NBC News

The burns unit at the Herat Regional Hospital is the only one of its kind in Afghanistan.

During our visit, we checked back on Shirin every now and then. She had long ago slipped into a delirious state and was murmuring nonstop. Her mother, Hanifa Ahmadi, hovered around her, occasionally stroking her hair. 

Ahmadi – a thin, handsome woman who looks more Persian than Afghan – said she didn't understand why her daughter had set herself on fire. "Shirin is always a happy girl and gets along with everyone," she said.

Ahmadi was convinced that Shirin would soon recover and leave the hospital, but Jalali was unequivocal. 

"She doesn't have long. Maybe she has one hour, an hour-and-a-half," he said. "It's unfortunate, but we can't do anything. Not with 90 percent burns all over the body, third-degree burns."

Brunel agreed. "We can do nothing except … we give dignity," she said. She and an Afghan orderly had taken turns trying to make Shirin as comfortable as possible – giving her a tube to make her breathing easier, feeding her, or just straightening the blankets that covered her burnt body.

The end came later than Jalali had predicted, but come it did. Six hours after we first met Shirin, she died. 

Members of her family rushed past us in the hallway, her mother, then her uncle, an aunt, and then her husband – he looked more confused than grief-stricken. They piled into Shirin's room, wailing, walking back and forth around her bed, hands wringing; even the mother-in-law, with whom the young girl had been fighting just days before.

We stepped away quietly, gathering our things, preparing to leave and trying not to intrude.

But as we walked down the hallway one last time, I ducked my head into the room where Rezagul lay. She looked up, her eyes aglow, and she waved.

The picture of health.

Click here to watch Adrienne Mong's report on Herat's burn unit from NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. See more of Brian Williams special reports from Afghanistan.

For more information about the Humaniterra organization and their work at the Herat Burn Center in Afghanistan, click here.

LONDON – It's a gift they're sure to treasure.

Customers flocking to Britain's most prestigious department store, Harrods, this holiday season will now be able to add gold bars to their basket while shopping for the perfect present.  

This latest arrival to hit the shelves comes in a range of sizes, from just under one pound to 27.5 pounds. There's also a range of coins on offer, from British sovereigns to South African Krugerrands to American gold eagles.

AFP - Getty Images

A selection of gold ingots and coins for sale in Harrods department store.

With new figures out last week showing Britain's current recession as the longest on record, the strategy could be a successful one as up-market customers look for somewhere safe to put their money.

Chris Hall, head of Harrods' bullion department, said the store saw a gap in the market.

 "Up until now, London has had no well recognized name serving this market," he said. "Harrods saw the opportunity to help individuals buy physical gold in a prudent manner." 

But the glittery metal probably won't be flying off the shelves through the festive season. At today's market prices, 2.2 pounds of Harrods gold will set you back about $35,000. And the top-of-the-line bar, which weighs in at 27.5 pounds, will cost you $429,482.

But Hall said sales had been promising, with several pieces of gold having been snapped up in the week or so it has been on sale.

Harrod's

Harrod's department store in downtown London.

Outside Harrods, civil engineer Kishore George said he thought the store is a good platform for selling gold, "Harrods is not your normal department store," he said. "It's the right kind of place to attract investors as some items in there are worth more than a gold bar."

Harrods regular Stephen Magri also sees a good fit. "I know a lot of people are buying gold for investment purposes so it's a good idea as Harrods sells a huge variety of goods anyway."

Driving Harrods' interest is the fact that demand for gold worldwide has jumped significantly since the start of the recession. According to Harrods Bank, the store's private banking service, when they began to test the market they received "surprisingly emphatic demand from both gold investors and shoppers alike."

"Gold tends to do well in times of severe financial stress, as the last two years have shown, with gold rising 50 percent and more against all major currencies," said  investment specialist Adrian Ash of the online gold trading company Bullionvault.com. "Gold outperforms cash during deflation, because falling prices and wages kill debtors, destroying both bank depositors and bondholders."

But purchasing gold is not as simple as carrying it home in one of the store's signature green and gold bags. "Buying gold to hold in your hand gives you a headache," said Ash. "How to keep your gold safe without paying exorbitant bank-storage or home-insurance fees?"

Of course if you decide once you get home that your gold bar isn't quite what you wanted Harrods is happy to accept returns at the current market price. They'll also store it in the Harrods Bank.

Still, Rachel Wallbank was more interested in chocolate bars than gold bars when msnbc.com spoke to her as she was leaving Harrods. "I'm not buying bullion myself, we're just picking up some Christmas presents from the food hall," said the human resources manager. "I don't imagine a lot of British people will be buying [gold] but Harrods has a big international customer base with money to spend. So if it helps the economy it's not a bad idea." 

The moment of impact when two blasts struck near Iraq's Ministry of Justice on Sunday, killing at least 147 people, was caught on tape. The twin suicide bombings, the deadliest bomb attacks in Iraq in two years, has sparked questions about Iraq's security. NBC's Steve Wende reports from Baghdad.

VIDEO: Bahdad blast momemt of impact

BEIJING – Thirty-three years after his death, Mao Zedong is still a god to many in China. And you can see him everywhere.

He's mostly standing, in a military uniform or a long buttoned-up winter coat, sometimes wearing his symbolic little red-starred army hat, usually waving his right arm high up to the air as if giving a victory gesture or ordering his army to march forward. Occasionally you see him posed as a deep thinker with his hands behind the back, or even sitting on a chair looking into some mysterious future.

VIDEO: Mao, Mao everywhere

He mainly stands in big cities' center squares, overlooking senior citizens doing tai chi in dawn light or children running around in a park; many times he stands in military barracks or factory blocks, supervising his soldiers in exercise and workers on the assembly line; sometimes he waves his big hand in universities, reminding the students of his renowned remark "you youth are the sun at 8 a.m. or 9 a.m., you are the future of the country"; now and then, he makes surprise appearances in a dingy local clinic, a small Sichuan restaurant, or in the middle of a rundown low-rise housing complex.

He's mostly cement, gray and stiff, sometimes marble, white and spotless, occasionally bronze, yellow and shining.

There are hundreds of these statues of the late founder of the People's Republic of China across the country. And Cheng Wenjun, an urban sculpture designer and photographer, made it his mission, which he began in 1997, to make a record of every one.

Cheng's inspiration started during a business trip 30 years ago in the western city of Kashgar in China's Xinjiang province. He saw a Mao statue in a remote Uighur region among burka-covered Uighur women and domed mosques near the border of China, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. He was deeply touched by the contrast of such an odd juxtaposition. Then in 1992 Cheng saw another one in Hainan province, the island on mainland China's southern tip, only 172 miles from Vietnam.

"You know Mao used to be our leader. Now his statues are like watching guards in China, I'm just so impressed," he said "Mao statues are also a critical part of China's sculpture history."

The first Mao statue was erected in May 1967, at Tsinghua University, at the beginning of the ten-year long "Cultural Revolution" initiated by Mao himself. During the next three years the whole country was drawn into fanatical worship of Mao and building his statues everywhere was a way to show loyalty to the Great Leader.

Mao allegedly was against the idea and said he preferred to recycle the materials (back then a lot of statues were made of steel) into building airplanes rather than being made into a guard on shift everyday. However, the leader's modesty wasn't taken seriously and local governments in China competed over sizes and materials used in their statues.

In 1978, at the end of the Cultural Revolution and as China began opening up and and reforming, China's new leader, Deng Xiaoping, ordered the mass demolition of Mao statues all over the country. At that time, more than 2,000 Mao statues had been erected across China. Demolition work had to be done at night to avoid provoking devout Mao followers, but the task was obviously not completed.

Cheng Wenjun has taken pictures of 210 Mao statues, in 130 cities and towns in mainland China. He's often impressed by the stories behind the statues. Very often he doesn't just take pictures – he talks to sculptors, takes notes, writes down the stories behind the scene, even films what he sees in the towns where he can find Mao statues.

"No Chinese can ignore Mao Zedong. I hope all of us can view him objectively," says Cheng, explaining his passion for Mao statue pictures. "Looking at history is just like taking pictures, you don't want to do it with absolute frontlighting or backlighting. You always need more details, and I hope people can view Mao in an objective way just like how we should view history."  

Many sculpture workshops in China are still building and selling Mao statues, usually just bust statues or in small sizes, to new Mao believers who deem his image as a blessing or a gigantic amulet.

Cheng's next target is a 105 foot tall statue of Mao's young head (32-year-old Mao in 1925), still under construction in Changsha, close to his birthplace in China's southern capital of Hunan province.

KAKUMA, Northern Kenya – They shuffle aimlessly in the dust: 50,000 refugees crammed into thousands of huts made from branches, leaves, mud and plastic in the Kakuma camp in Northern Kenya.

Natives of Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda, the refugees have fled wars aggravated by drought, yet even here the supply of water is sporadic. They eat once a day from supplies provided by aid agencies. Kakuma is one of the oldest and largest refugee camps in the world and some people have been here since 1991 when it was established.

They don't like to talk to strangers about their problems, but the roads are lined by placards, erected by aid agencies, with slogans and exhortations that are like windows into the refugees' pain.

The most graphic reads: "STOP FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION – IT IS A HEALTH HAZARD (RISK)." The signs are in English, Kenya's official language, but since the camp's residents speak a wide variety of regional and native languages, the words are incomprehensible to most refugees.

However anyone can get the message from the disturbing illustration of a woman kneeling with a razor while a mother offers up her infant girl. Female genital mutilation is almost universal in Somalia and common in neighboring countries.

Martin Fletcher / NBC News

A poster in Kenya's Kakuma refugee camp tells people to "STOP FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION IT IS A HEALTH HAZARD (RISK)."

Another exhorts people to "STOP WIFE INHERITANCE" – the practice of giving a widow to the dead man's brother. Originally this was done to protect the widow, who may not otherwise find another husband, but aid workers say it reduces women to the level of chattel. It is one of the key issues they raise when trying to educate women about their rights, but there is a major problem: men are the leaders here and they must agree to end the practice.

In a crowded area, health issues dominate. "STOP BIRD FLU," "MALARIA KILLS," "A COUGH OR 2 COULD BE TB," "PROTECT YOUR CHILDREN – TAKE THEM FOR IMMUNIZATION" are all posters that are seen by tens of thousands of refugees a day.

Martin Fletcher / NBC News

A poster in Kenya's Kakuma refugee camp encourages people to "Protect your children take them for immunization."

Each has a drawing that explains the foreign words. One shows a nurse injecting babies with immunizations while mothers wait patiently in line holding their infants. Another shows a toilet that has been cleaned while people wash their hands to avoid diarrhea which, the poster warns, kills more than 3 million people a year – "WASH HANDS, WASH FOOD!"

AIDS/HIV is another big issue, with one large poster encouraging people to help each other – "THERE IS HOPE FOR PEOPLE LIVING WITH HIV/AIDS – SUPPORT THOSE AFFECTED IN YOUR COMMUNITIES."

Martin Fletcher / NBC News

A poster in Kenya's Kakuma refugee camp reads: "There is hope for people living with HIV/AIDS. Support those affected in your communities."

Thousands of young men congregate in the narrow alleys and clearings with nothing to do – no jobs, no high school, and no idea when they'll be able to return home. Many end up spending their time chewing a cheap root drug called khat.

Girls often are forced into prostitution, violence is endemic, especially between different ethnic groups, and killings are common. Posters encourage refugees to report any suspicious activities. It isn't clear how widespread AIDS is among the refugees. Condoms are freely available, but aid workers say they mostly stay in their wrappers.

Domestic abuse is another problem that aid agencies and church groups battle. "STOP DOMESTIC VIOLENCE" demands one poster, illustrated by a kneeling woman warding off a blow from a standing man.

Martin Fletcher / NBC News

Another poster exhorts people to "STOP DOMESTIC VIOLENCE."

Another poster, put up by the Lutheran church, says "PROHIBITION OF SEXUAL EXPLOITATION AND ABUSE." It is followed by a densely written explanation of what constitutes such abuse, where to report it and encouragement that abuse is never the fault of the victim. The warning appears to be directed at aid workers who are members of the Lutheran church as much as the refugees, and instructs the Lutherans that they are expected to uphold the highest standards at all times.

There are some encouraging signs though. Several posters describe the food groups: "A GOOD DIET = HEALTHY BODY+HEALTHY MIND+HEALTHY SOUL = LONG LIFE!" It shows mouth-watering pictures of savory chicken, fresh vegetables and fruit, milk and grains. The poster was put up by the U.N. refugee agency but unfortunately bears little reality to real life: refugees are given grain twice a month and those in particular need, like infants, the elderly and the sick, get supplements.

Martin Fletcher / NBC News

Another poster encourages passerbys to eat well: "A GOOD DIET = HEALTHY BODY + HEALTHY MIND + HEALTHY SOUL = LONG LIFE!"

As drought in the region endures and aid budgets drop, food supplies have declined, not only in Kenya but in the entire region of East Africa and the Horn of Africa. Gabriella Menezes, the Nairobi spokesperson for the World Food Program, says that her organization needs to raise a billion dollars to feed all those in need – for the next six months.

Rain would help alleviate some of the camp's hunger problems, but the only truly effective solution would be to end the wars that keep the refugees from going home. Indeed, one sign reads: "A PEACEFUL SUDAN AWAITS ME FOR PEACEFUL DEVELOPMENT." Politicians have agreed to stop the fighting in part of Sudan, and most of the Sudanese refugees have left Kakuma camp. But that doesn't mean the refugee population is declining – their place has been taken by Somalis who are fleeing the ongoing violence, poverty and government instability in their own country.

As we pulled out of the camp some workers were digging holes for a new poster, which was lying on the ground, ready to spread its forlorn message: "PEACE TO ALL."

The negotiations took weeks. The tribal council was called to try to convince Hafiz Gul Bahadar, the 42-year-old militant commander of North Waziristan, not to send his fighters to support the Taliban militants in the south.

Elusive and cunning, Gul Bahadar would be a key government ally in any effort to dislodge Taliban militants from the region. The army needed the consent of this bearded, religious scholar before taking on the Mehsuds, a neighboring, but rival tribe, who are loyal Taliban supporters. Without him, there could be no hope of a military success in routing out the militants.

In early September, 27 elders of the Wazir tribes, along with aides of Gul Bahadar, sat down with government representatives in Miranshah, the administrative capital of North Waziristan to work out a deal. Later, the talks moved to Peshawar in the Northwest Frontier Province.

VIDEO: Pakistan mounts assault against insurgents

In the end, the government agreed to most of the tribe's demands for cooperation; prisoners were exchanged and Gul Bahadar was compensated for losses suffered from U.S. drone attacks and military action in his areas. The tribal council was satisfied, an earlier peace agreement from 2007 was restored, and a feast of roasted goat, rice and sweets was served, according to centuries-old tribal traditions. 

"We will not intervene in the Mehsud's wars," said Maulana Sadiq Noor, deputy to Gul Bahadar, referring to the rival Mehsud tribes of South Waziristan from whom the Taliban militants in Pakistan draw most of their support. "Our people have suffered enough at the hands of the U.S. and the Pakistani governments. We want peace in our lands," he said

Gul Bahadar brought on board his tribal ally, Maulvi Nazir, the commander who holds sway over the border areas of South Waziristan, which encircle the Mehsuds' strongholds in the center.

"If the government attacks me and my people, then I will reply in the same manner, but I have no interest to intervene between the government and the Mehsuds," Nazir told NBC News.

The Mehsuds were squeezed. The tribes had switched sides. The Wazirs, led by Gul Bahadar and Nazir to the north and west, and the Bhittani tribes to the east, would remain neutral and not prevent the Pakistani Army's long planned offensive to attack the Taliban militant's stronghold. 

The Wazirs, in contrast to the Mehsuds, have never attacked the state outside of their own lands of Waziristan. Their focus has always been to send fighters across the border to fight the U.S. and NATO in the Afghan jihad.

Go time
After the agreement with the tribes was reached, the Pakistani army was ready to launch the largest operation ever against Islamic militants in the lawless tribal region on the Afghan border.

Pakistani intelligence officials estimate that the army will be up against 10,000 hard-core Taliban militants. The Mehsuds are believed to be sheltering at least 1,500 hardened foreign fighters – a polyglot of Taliban, Uzbeks, Arabs, Chechens and Tajik fighters – equipped with sophisticated weapons.

Before dawn on Saturday, more than 30,000 Pakistani troops, with air cover from Cobra gunship helicopters and F-16 fighter jets, pushed into South Waziristan from three fronts. All the entry and exit points were closed as they attempted to encircle and isolate the militants.   

"We will neutralize the epicenter of gravity for terrorism," said Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, chief spokesman for the Pakistan army, referring to the Mehsud tribal stronghold in the center of South Waziristan.

"Eighty percent of all terrorist attacks in Pakistan lead back to South Waziristan," he added. Abbas said the military had waited to launch the operation until they could gain the support of those tribes to come over to the government side.  

Faisal Mahmood / Reuters

Residents fleeing a military offensive against the Pakistani Taliban enter Dera Ismail Khan from South Waziristan on Monday.Â

Key: Local cooperation
"The whole problem in FATA [Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal areas] could have been solved by involving the local people [from the beginning]," said Ayaz Wazir, a Pakistani political analyst and former ambassador. "Unless they address the root causes, they can kill 10 [militants], but soon there will be another 10 who will be even more ruthless," he said.

Wazir blames former President Pervez Musharraf for the troubles in the tribal areas. Musharraf was the first Pakistani leader to violate the agreement hammered out between the government and the tribes. When Pakistan became an independent state, the army promised to stay out of the Pashtun tribal areas and allow the tribesmen to solve problems according to their centuries-old traditions.

"The government broke their word and the tribes reacted," said Wazir. He emphasized that in 2001 if the tribes had been left alone to solve their problems with al-Qaida, according to their own laws, they would have forced the foreigners back across the Afghan border.

The Pashtuns who inhabit the border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan and are divided into tribes have a historical, almost mystical, bond with the lands they believe to be theirs. No foreign power has ever conquered the tribes; it is a question of honor for them and they have fought for centuries to defend it.

VIDEO: Analysts discuss the triple threat of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran

The Pakistan army suffered heavy losses in the past when they tried to clean up South Waziristan. The militants are familiar with the wild and unforgiving terrain of barren plains and high mountains. And the Mehsuds are known to be the fiercest fighters of all the tribes.

But Pakistan's government has little choice. A series of brazen attacks by the Taliban over the past couple of weeks have left more than 150 people dead. The Taliban had put the government on notice. They would take revenge for the death of their leader, Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in a U.S. missile attack in August.

 In a round of telephone calls to local reporters on Sunday, a Taliban spokesman said: "We will fight to the last drop of blood."

"The situation in our homeland is very bad, and all because of America and the Pakistan army," said Noor Alam, a 36-year-old Mehsud tribesman. Alam, his wife, mother and five children, had walked for two days to escape the fighting. "They [the Pakistan army] will never win this war," he said.

RELATED LINKS:
Factbox: The battle in Pakistan's South Waziristan 

Afghanistan's presidential elections, marred by allegations of widespread fraud, appear headed for a runoff,  but no matter what the outcome there appears little chance it will change the government's pervasive culture of corruption and crisis of confidence.

"Corruption?  Corruption?  The entire Karzai regime is corrupt!" Dr. Wadir Safi bellows in a fit of anger and frustration.  Outside Kabul University were Safi is a long-standing professor of International Law and Politics, a large crowd of students gathers as Safi delivers an impromptu lecture on what many here see as criminal behavior by President Hamid Karzai and his administration.

Safi has little confidence Karzai's challenger, Abdullah Abdullah could win in a runoff, but insists, "If Karzai is re-elected his government will be illegitimate.  The Afghan people will have "no confidence" in the government, he says.
 
But Safi, and many others from inside and outside the Afghan government who spoke with NBC News, stress that corruption here goes far deeper than fraudulent elections, and in fact infects virtually every level of the Karzai government and Afghan society.

"It's like the mafia" and Karzai is "Tony Soprano," according to one Afghan lawmaker.  "Almost everyone is on the take," from senior government officials, to provincial governors, to the local police.

One of the president's brothers, Walid Karzai, has been publicly accused of facilitating the flow of narcotics out of Afghanistan.  Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said recently that Karzai should throw Walid out of the country. But Karzai has taken no action against his brother.  In fact, in a highly controversial move, Karzai recently ordered five suspected drug dealers released from police custody before they faced any legal action.

One U.S. official involved in counter-narcotics operations tells NBC News that convoys carrying opium and heroin are routinely waved through police checkpoints and border crossings without a second glance. "The drug dealers buy the protection at the top" of the Afghan government.

A share of the money paid in bribes then trickles down to local police commanders and their officers.  Even more shocking, U.S. officials claim that on the way back into Afghanistan some of those same convoys are waved through the same checkpoints, this time carrying weapons that likely end up in the hands of the Taliban -- guns that are then turned on American forces.

This kind of government-sanctioned corruption is not confined only to the top tiers of the Afghanistan leadership or security forces, but infects all aspects and levels of society.  Business owners are frequent targets of criminal shakedowns, demands by government officials and police for illegal "taxes or tolls."  Even common laborers are forced to hand over three days' worth of pay, the equivalent of about $30, to government officials to get a routine work permit.

In his assessment of the war that he sent to President Barack Obama, Gen. Stanley McChrystal warned that "widespread corruption and abuse of power" are as big a threat to the U.S. mission in Afghanistan as the Taliban insurgency.  There's some evidence that such rampant and blatant government corruption is driving many Afghans into the hands of the Taliban.

U.S. officials also worry that the Afghan people are beginning to believe that American presence here is only making matters, and their lives, worse. In the wake of the disputed elections, there appears to be a growing perception the Americans and their military are intent on "propping up" Karzai's corrupt regime. U.S. officials can argue that could not be further from the truth, but as Gen. McChrystal knows, in any counter-insurgency perception often trumps reality, and without the support of the people the war would most certainly be lost.

This presents the Obama administration with a critical dilemma.  If Karzai wins a runoff election, as most Afghans and U.S. officials expect, Obama may be forced to pressure him to clean house --  shake up his cabinet and roster of corrupt provincial governors or the U.S. and its military will pull up stakes and go home.  In the short term, neither appears likely.

The Obama administration may consider the consequences of a rapid pullout -- the potential for an Afghan civil war that could create another safe haven for al Qaeda and other extremists --  too great.  At the same time, to many Afghans, Karzai and his regime are beyond rehabilitation.

"When you wash a black cat," says Safi, the university professor, "it only gets more black."
As Obama considers sending more American forces into Afghanistan,
prospects could not be much darker.

 

LOGAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan – Early on a recent morning we were driving to a shoot when an astonishing sight loomed up ahead of us. NBC News cameraman Steve O'Neill exclaimed, "It's the Great Wall of China!"

The "wall" snaking before us, easily several miles long, was made of Hesco sandbags and circled a camp for Chinese workers. Though not permitted to enter the site, we could see rows and rows of neat white buildings with blue trim; the temporary structures looked exactly like the migrant workers' housing at construction sites all across China.

Size apart, it was all somewhat unremarkable, except for the fact that we were in eastern Afghanistan.

Adrienne Mong / NBC News

"It's the Great Wall of China," said NBC cameraman Steve O'Neill when we saw the Hesco sandbags surrounding the Chinese workers camp at the Aynak copper mine in Afghanistan.

The Chinese workers – several hundred technicians – are part of a multibillion-dollar Chinese investment in Afghanistan's largest-ever infrastructure project, the Aynak copper mine.

Discovered in 1974 but virtually dormant since the start of the Soviet War in 1979, the Aynak mine is believed to contain the world's second-largest untapped copper deposits and could propel Afghanistan into the ranks of the world's top 15 copper producers. 

After wooing Afghan officials from as early as 2001, a Chinese mainland joint venture finally won the rights in 2007 to develop the site over 30 years. So far, it has sunk more than $4 billion into the project. 

The joint venture – between majority partner China Metallurgical Group Corp. and Jiangxi Copper Corp. – expects production to begin by the end of 2011 with an initial annual output of 180,000 tons of copper that will eventually grow to 320,000 tons. China will have rights to half that output, which it needs to fuel its own massive economic growth.

But the mine is just outside Kabul, in Logar Province, where there has been heightened insurgent activity. Some 1,500 Afghan police are stationed on site with a new police barracks in the works. And although they say they are not attached to the project, the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division occasionally sends units to patrol the area. China – of course, not being a member of NATO – has no troops on the ground in Afghanistan. 

It's this set-up that's feeding a percolating debate about China's role in Afghanistan. 

Adrienne Mong/NBC News

The dormitories housing Chinese workers at the Aynak Copper Mine came from China.

In making the case for converging U.S. and Chinese interests in Afghanistan, Robert Kaplan wrote last week in a New York Times opinion piece that, "The problem is that while America is sacrificing its blood and treasure, the Chinese will reap the benefits. The whole direction of America's military and diplomatic effort is toward an exit strategy, whereas the Chinese hope to stay and profit."

In the op-ed, titled "Beijing's Afghan Gamble," Kaplan also noted, "China will find a way to benefit no matter what the United States does in Afghanistan. But it probably benefits more if we stay and add troops to the fight." 

No doubt the discussion will boil over after James Yeager, an American geologist, and former congressman Don Ritter, who has an advanced degree in metallurgical engineering and studied in Moscow, hold a press briefing in Washington on Thursday.  The event is provocatively titled, "Report on the Aynak Copper Tender in Afghanistan: How China Won and the West Lost." 

Ritter, now president of the Afghan-American Chamber of Commerce, called the Aynak bidding process flawed and colored by the fact the Bush administration "didn't have the capacity or the competency to understand the importance of [Aynak]." Speaking from his home in the Washington area, he said: "We're giving tens of billions of dollars in assistance to Afghanistan, and we're getting no credit."

Ritter said the report to be presented Thursday was not done under the Chamber's auspices. 

NBC News asked the U.S. Embassy in Kabul for comment, but the mission was unable to provide anyone for us to interview in time for this article.  

Ritter says the bottom line is: "We need a policy on developing mines and minerals and oil and gas in Afghanistan. Otherwise, it will be dominated by Chinese, who are wired to the Iranians through their oil investments, and the Pakistanis, because of the China-India competition."

It all sounds like some postmodernist version of the Great Game, with the players this time being the U.S., China and India instead of Britain, Russia and France. 

But an Afghan businessman who runs a construction outfit subcontracting with the joint venture, MCC-JCL Aynak Minerals Co. (also known as MCC), sees the situation differently.

Adrienne Mong/ NBC News

The Aynak Copper Mine in Logar Province, Afghanistan.

"This project will benefit Afghanistan and bring jobs," said Nurzaman Stanikzai, a 44-year-old native of Logar Province.  His company has been helping build some of the roads at the copper mine as well as the dormitories for Chinese workers. "The American troops should start projects like this copper mine."

In addition to setting up the copper production infrastructure, which includes a smelter, power generation station, coal mine and groundwater system, the Chinese joint venture is also building roads, Afghanistan's first national railway,  new homes for villagers who will be resettled from the immediate area of the mine, hospitals and schools.

Government officials expect the copper mine to earn hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and royalties as well as provide jobs – direct and indirect – for nearly 40,000 people.

And in contrast to many Chinese investments on the African continent, where Chinese labor is typically brought in, most of the jobs from the Aynak copper mine project are designed to go to the Afghan people.

Under the contract terms, initially some of the workers, including the mine technicians, will be Chinese, but over time training will be provided to the Afghan workers so they can take over more skilled jobs.

"The instability in our country today is due to joblessness. Poverty is the problem," said Stanikzai as he warmed to his theme one afternoon in the spartan comfort of his home in central Kabul. "President Obama should not make a decision to send more troops to Afghanistan. If the U.S. wants to help, it needs to provide more jobs or invite foreign investment into our country."

The trick, of course, is how to court foreign investors while the country is still in the midst of a war.

When we visited the Aynak copper mine to shoot a story about landmine detection, everywhere we looked security was at the forefront.

We drove through two checkpoints just to get onto the main road leading to the copper mine.  Afghan police manned tents on nearby hills. A green chain-link fence provided the outer limit to the site. And of course there were those huge Hesco sandbags that ring the police camp and the Chinese workers camp.

It turns out those buildings did come from China. Stanikzai imported most of the equipment and materials for constructing the dorms. "This was at the request of the MCC," he said, adding that he would have preferred to contract everything locally because it would have cost less.

But this was Stanikzai's only hint of criticism of Chinese management. Otherwise, he admires China for coming into Afghanistan and rejects charges that it's merely satisfying its voracious appetite for natural resources by exploiting Aynak.

 "The Chinese are not doing this illegally," he said. "They have a contract with the Afghan government. They benefit, of course, but we do, too. We don't have the skills or the companies or the expertise to develop a project like this."

Two of China's bigger telecom equipment manufacturers, Huawei and ZTE, have helped develop cell phone technologies and Internet expansion equipment in Kabul and several other Afghan provinces. In previous years, the Chinese have also been involved in the Parwan irrigation project and rebuilding public hospitals in Kabul and Kandahar. 

China is certainly well-positioned to help develop Afghanistan's infrastructure. In addition to having the experience developing their own vast country, the Chinese have also aggressively pursued opportunities across the African continent, from oil production in Angola and the Sudan, to copper mining in Zambia, forestry in Mozambique, and building roads and railways in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

While the Chinese may be benefiting from projects such as Aynak, they also face grave risks. Eleven Chinese construction workers were killed in their sleep by insurgents in Kunduz in 2004. At the time it was the deadliest attack of foreigners in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. The workers were building a road from the Tajik border to Kabul. 

"Where Chinese companies seem to be building public infrastructure, they're seen as proxies for the Afghan government so they are easy targets," said Ben Simpfendorfer, author of "Silk Road Economy: How a Rising Arab World is Turning Away from the West and Rediscovering China." As a result, "Chinese companies are consistently raising security issues," he said.

How they navigate unsafe waters is also still a work in progress. Though the Chinese are known for investing in troubled or violent countries, particularly in Africa, they are relatively new to Afghanistan.

"[The Chinese government] only wants to negotiate with governments," Simpfendorfer said.  "It doesn't talk to opposition groups or civic groups, so until recently that was very difficult in a place like Afghanistan. That meant there is not a history of engagement there."

While Stanikzai admits insurgents may want to target Aynak, he thinks security does not pose as great a threat as some think. "If you don't have the support of the local villagers and the local community, you can't get security," he said. "But everyone supports this copper mine project."

Related Links:  
CFR.org: China's decade? Don't bet on it
Russia cuts gas deal with China
NYT: Biden no longer a lone voice on Afghanistan
Ben Simpendorfer's Silk Road Economy: "A New 'Great Game'"

 

The U.S. Army is working on returning the loot Saddam Hussein stole from the Iraqi people. The stolen goods include guns, antiques, vintage cars and boats. NBC's Steve Wende reports from Baghdad.

VIDEO: U.S. returns stolen Saddam loot

BEIJING – "Abnormal" weather phenomena will have a devastating impact on the world's agricultural production and food supply – which could lead to food shortages and food riots, warned a top U.N. expert.

In an exclusive interview with NBC News in Beijing, American-educated Dr. Kanayo Nwanze, president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, painted a future scenario of "chaos, rioting and crazy migration" due to the severe impact of climate change. 

A 30-year champion of poverty alleviation through agricultural development, Nwanze is appealing for decisive steps at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this December to spare humanity from what he calls impending "catastrophe."

VIDEO: Expert warns of 'catastrophe' if action not taken on climate change

Aengus Finucane, April 26, 1932 - October 6, 2009

It's been a season of notable deaths – Cronkite, Kennedy, Swayze, Jackson, Fawcett, Hughes, Hewitt, Novak, and other so-called bold faced names. But there's a great man who died at age 77 in a Dublin hospice last Tuesday, Oct.6 and if Americans knew this Catholic priest who loved their country as well as his Irish homeland, their hearts would be as burdened by grief as are the hearts of thousands around the world.

His name was Aengus Finucane, and for nearly 50 years he roamed the world with a single purpose: to live among and lift up "the poorest of the poor," is the descriptive he always used, so they might have at least a chance at the life and prospects seemingly denied them by war, famine or sudden disaster. 

Courtesy of Concern Worldwide

Father Aengus Finucane with former President of Ireland, Dr. Mary Robinson.

He had the full tool kit for that kind of work: a missionary's zeal fueled at times by righteous anger and sometimes by that peculiarly Irish stubbornness; humor and the right kind of humility, as well as enormous charm and personal charisma; and a wonk's need to know how the often arcane details of assistance programs could be manipulated to serve very simple human needs – food, water, health services, shelter. As a young man he looked like a movie star yet moved naturally among desperate populations who seemed to quickly see him as someone who understood their lives and challenges and who could find the best route to the nearest solution.

I met Aengus in his role as honorary President of Concern USA, the American affiliate of Concern's Dublin-based worldwide organization. When he stepped down as Concern's Chief Executive he turned his attention to the U.S. operation, headed by Siobhan Walsh, my wife. 

It was my good fortune to have spent a good deal of time with Aengus over the past 13 years, in New York and in Ireland, and to have come to know him as a person and not just the titular head of an aid organization. So I know he liked a good joke and good whiskey, Peking Duck and the latest popular movie, and hours of conversation on any subject that triggered his vigorous curiosity.

But here's the thing:  though this was the humble priest you'd drop off at the residence of the Holy Ghost fathers at the end of an evening, and though he wasn't the kind of man who reveled in the stories of his work, you were never unaware of what that work was and how that work distinguished him from almost anyone else you were ever likely to meet.

As a missionary priest in the breakaway republic of Biafra, during the famine of civil-war torn Nigeria in the 1960s, Aengus did whatever he could to bring aid to the neediest caught in the middle of the war . He organized brigades of helpers who raised oil lamps in the middle of the night to form a makeshift airplane runway, so hundreds of aircraft could bring in food and then fly out with the sickest children in the most desperate need of medical care – while Aengus and his team dodged artillery fire from the Nigerian army. 

His brother Jack, back in Ireland, cobbled together a food collection network that eventually provided nourishment to 4 million Biafrans daily, despite the Nigerian government's attempt at a food blockade.  It was the first African famine to receive worldwide television coverage. But few outside of Ireland knew of the young priest who with his brave colleagues risked everything in a faraway place, night after night and day after day, to keep the famine and the war around it from claiming even more victims.

Aengus soon helped form the relief organization that came to be known as Concern, and began traveling to the far corners of the world in the greatest need.  To Bangladesh, where he worked alongside Mother Teresa when floods and famine threatened whole populations; to Pakistan and Cambodia, Ethiopia, Somalia, Burundi, Uganda, Rwanda just after the genocide; and later to Honduras and Haiti – wherever war or disaster threatened to flatten the most vulnerable and defenseless among us. 

A lot of the work was the kind of drudge work news organizations rarely cover except in broad strokes during calamitous events. The work of digging wells, delivering seed to reclaim farmland, grading roadways;  getting schools and clinics up and running;  providing food, water, medications, shelter kits; fashioning rudimentary sewage treatment systems; teaching AIDs patients how to reclaim their self-respect; pioneering micro-finance programs and food production innovations so that threatened populations could eventually save and sustain themselves. Essentially the long list of projects referred to as "capacity building" in the lexicon of the aid community. The primary goal wherever Aengus touched down was to make outside assistance unnecessary as quickly as possible.

But when Aengus would say, "Mike, will we go out for dinner one night this week?" I knew none of his history would come up unless I brought it up.  Instead we might all talk about the latest world crisis, or about whatever scandal seemed to be dominating news coverage at the moment.  He liked a good yarn, about any subject, and was a captivating raconteur himself.  He was just good company, this world traveler who never seemed to be world weary or infected by cynicism, and I was lucky to be among the many he counted as friends.

On my end, though, he was someone I knew to be more than a friend.  To be honest, how many "friends" does anyone have who in the course of their careers saved not hundreds of lives, but hundreds of thousands of lives – maybe even millions of lives. Human lives that might have been cut short, if not for the efforts of my "friend," who I was lucky enough to have sitting across from me, savoring another bite of duck breast with hoisin sauce. 

He was the real deal, a hero priest who for a half century of his journey on this planet spent each day working so that others less fortunate than he could make it to the next day and the days beyond that.

I mourn his loss and will miss him, and though he wasn't a "bold faced name" in the way of our celebrity-obsessed society, the world will be the poorer for his having left us.   

Related links:
Concernusa.org
Concern Worldwide mourns founder Aengus Finucane

KABUL, Afghanistan – I hadn't planned on writing about kites in Afghanistan; the subject just seemed too obvious after the runaway success of the novel, "The Kite Runner." But then a Western acquaintance who'd just moved to Kabul told me about an afternoon he spent shopping for colorful kites to decorate the walls of his new home, and it sounded like something I just had to do.  

I'm no kite-flyer, but having lived through a couple of summers in Beijing, I've seen the Chinese-made stuff – brilliant, elaborate and intricate – and have grown to appreciate their design. So off I went to the Jadeh Maywand neighborhood in central Kabul, where kite shops line the sidewalks – dragging along my Afghan colleague, Iqbal Sapand.

Adrienne Mong / NBC News

A boy shops for new kite parts in Kabul.

We had been tasked by our bureau chief, Sohel Uddin, to "buy the biggest kite possible." For weeks now, we'd see from our bureau rooftop kites flying high above our heads almost daily at sunset. Sohel was determined to try his hand.

Faced with a row of narrow, open-faced shop fronts crammed with string, spools, and of course kites, we poked our heads into one owned by Zalgai. The poker-faced 45-year-old, who goes by just one name, had caught our eye simply because he happened to be leaning on his counter. He welcomed us into his shop, beckoning to the raised carpeted area behind his counter, and Iqbal promptly sat down. On cue, a glass of simmering tea followed. 

Zalgai's family has owned this shop for 38 years (even through the Taliban years, when kite flying was banned and their business was forced underground). And like his grandfather and father, Zalgai was trained as a kite-maker. But five years ago he stopped producing kites to focus on selling them. 

"I can make a lot more money this way," he said. Making kites takes too much time, he added, all that fussing with delicate paper and the bamboo frame. Moreover, the kites he carries in his shop bring him a brisk enough business.

Among the ones displayed prominently on the walls of his store, a striking black and white piece that celebrates Eid stood out. It was designed by Noor Agha, said to be Afghanistan's best and most famous kite-maker; he was enlisted as a consultant for the filming of "The Kite Runner" movie in western China three years ago. Iqbal pointed out the artist's signature in the top right corner of the kite, and in fact many of those in the shop bore his name.

Adrienne Mong / NBC News

A street lined with kite shops in the Afghan capital.

But at $30, the kite seemed too expensive (and too pretty) for – what I was guessing – would be a bashing on the first go-round by our bureau chief. It also seemed quite high in a city where a family's average monthly wage is between $70 and $100.

We asked Zalgai if he had anything that cost a little less.

He went burrowing into a room in the back of his shop, where I could see stacks of kites lying in the darkness. Minutes later, he re-emerged with a handful of options in printed color blocks of red, green, black, white, purple, and red – just as well-made as the fancier designs. They cost $3 each – a bargain for some Sunday afternoon fun.

The paper is tissue-thin and handmade, according to Zalgai, and comes from India, because Afghans stopped producing it years ago. And the nylon string in favor these days is made in Pakistan. But the wooden spools are still crafted here.

As we mulled over which kite to buy, customers came and went, approaching Zalgai's counter. A handsome little boy with big round eyes stared at us while his father bought string. An elderly man eyed the spools hanging off the ceiling.

"Life here is much better since the Taliban left Kabul eight years ago," Zalgai said as he watched the brisk business. Moreover, the uptick in violence during the last several months in Kabul hasn't affected his sales, he said. "My business seems more influenced by the seasons." 

Flying a kite here, it would seem, is a tradition that endures no matter what – from being banned under the Taliban regime to the current violence.

Adrienne Mong / NBC News

On the left, a design from Afghanistan's best-known kitemaker, Noor Agha.

A short flight
Back at the bureau, Iqbal strung up our new kite and, with Sohel, promptly took it out for its maiden flight as the sun dropped and the wind picked up.

When I stepped out onto the rooftop to watch their progress, the new kite was no longer – its pink corner shredded from a close encounter with a nearby satellite dish – and Iqbal was trying to scotch-tape it back together. Shortly after, the pair returned indoors, breathless with their fingers bleeding from the cutting sharpness of the string. 

"Well, we got it up pretty high," said Sohel. "But we lost it."

BEIJIJNG –  One week after China celebrated 60 years of communist rule, several hundred representatives from more than 100 overseas media groups and 40 Chinese media are gathering in Beijing for the World Media Summit to discuss major shifts and challenges in the news industry.

The summit, which opened Friday, is sponsored by nine media giants including The Associated Press, Reuters and BBC, and hosted by Xinhua, China's official press agency. Its theme is "Cooperation, Action, Win-Win and Development."

Participants included News Corp. Chairman & CEO Rupert Murdoch, AP President & CEO Thomas Curley, Reuters News Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger, BBC Director-General Mark Thompson, Special Consultant to NBC News Jeff Gralnick, and NBC Foreign News Director Chris Hampson. (MSNBC.com is a joint venture of NBC Universal and Microsoft Corp.)

VIDEO: China hosts massive media summit

The gathering of media industry bigshots is another notch in China's ambitious plan of displaying its soft power on world stage – not only with a speedy economic growth and colossal military might but also with a prodigious media empire that can compete with other international press giants.

Underscoring the importance of the event, Chinese President Hu Jintao attended the opening session.

Apparently addressing the issue of perceived unfair coverage of China by Western journalists, Hu appealed to the world's media to "uphold social responsibilities … objectively report the reality of the multi-polarity of the world, economic globalization and diverse civilizations."

For some, the summit offered a platform to urge China to further push media reforms."The policy then was called 'the Open Door,'" said Murdoch. "China now has a chance to open its digital door."

While welcoming China's ambition to build global media giants, Murdoch cautioned that the pestering problem of intellectual piracy in China still needs to be addressed. "I fear the ability of creative companies to prosper globally could be undermined by a lack of intellectual property protection domestically," he said.

Curley echoed the call against piracy. "We don't get paid appropriately for our hard work and the risks we take," he said. "Free-riders and pirates are claiming they're entitled to our property."

Schlesinger urged China to loosen its control of the journalistic freedom and careers of its own citizens."I look forward to Chinese nationals having full careers within foreign media organizations in China," he said. "My fervent wish is that one day soon Reuters' financial news editor in China will be a Chinese national – one step on that person's path to be global editor in chief."

Ironic venue for free press summit
The irony of the event, as many Chinese and international organizations were quick to point out, is that China remains one of the few countries in the world that still has extremely limited freedom of speech – particularly when it comes to reporting on news and political events. The two  government departments, Central Publicity Department and China Administration of Radio, Film and Television, have absolute grip on all the media in the country, and are viewed as the mouthpiece ( the "throat and tongue" in Chinese) of the Communist Party's rule.

"We have to remember when we're talking about these global media initiatives by the Communist Party that we're not talking really about Chinese media per se. We are talking about central-level party media, about Xinhua News Agency, People's Daily and China Central Television," explained David Bandurski, a research associate at Journalism and Media Study Center of the University of Hong Kong. "But a lot of the most vibrant professional activity in Chinese journalism happens elsewhere, at commercial publications such as Caijing magazine, at metro newspapers such as Southern Metropolis Daily, and now also in the blogosphere."

He added that despite the public push, the atmosphere for journalism in China on a more local level is getting worse. "This central party policy of 'going out' into the global market has nothing whatsoever to do with these media, and this media push is in fact happening against the backdrop of a worsening environment for domestic media in China."

There's speculation that the fallout from coverage of the Tibet riots in March 2008 prompted China's strong will to build a powerful media empire, but it's still a little bit too early to tell where all these efforts are leading to.

NBC News correspondents and producers around the world share some of the local reactions they heard to news that President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize.

By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer

KABUL, Afghanistan – News that President Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize came as a surprise to people we spoke to in Kabul. 

At the Kabul Fried Chicken restaurant in the Shar-e Naw neighborhood, Obaid Alam congratulated us at first. "You are from America, yes?  I should congratulate you," he smiled at first. 

But when we asked whether he thought the U.S. president deserved the prize, he replied, "He just became the president. Things are just the same as the way they were by the administration of Mr. [George W.] Bush. Things are not better, things are worse and worse."

In fact, Alam said, as far as Afghanistan is concerned, "The number of U.S. Army [troops] has increased here. The number of terrorist attacks increased here. I'm kind of confused whether that Nobel Award [is] for all those things."

Similarly, another customer at the restaurant, who did not offer his name, said no one had seen any results yet from Obama's efforts to bring peace to the world. "Since he is the president just for the last eight months, I think that's too early."

These sentiments were echoed everywhere in local Afghan media, although there were extreme versions as well. On the one hand, President Hamid Karzai offered his congratulations. On the other, a Taliban spokesman condemned the award, saying Obama's strategy has been to increase the number of U.S. troops on Afghan soil, which has increased violence and lead to the deaths of more civilians. 

VIDEO: Nobel Prize surprise

Palestinians and Israelis: Prize 'for what?'

By Lawahez Jabari, NBC News Producer

JERUSALEM – The news that President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize was announced while his Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, was in the midst of meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

Despite the high level meetings on Mitchell's agenda, both the Palestinians and Israelis have low expectations for any breakthroughs to come from this round of talks. Israel has refused to freeze the construction of settlements – and Palestinian leaders won't meet with the Israelis until there is a freeze. So the peace process remains at an impasse.

Even Israel's powerful Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman declared Thursday that there is no chance of reaching a final accord with the Palestinians anytime in the near future. 

So, in spite of the fact that Obama made the Middle East conflict a top priority upon entering the White House, there are no accomplishments that he can point to as signs of progress in the peace process. It is a goal that remains remote.

Still, both Israeli and Palestinian officials welcomed the news and offered congratulations.

But, in the street, the reaction was much different. The news that Obama won the peace prize was met with surprise. It was a shock for both sides and the major question is: "For what?"

Shlomit Tamir, a young mother from Tel Aviv who works in TV production, was shocked. "Peace prize? Obama? He didn't do anything yet. He has a nice wife, makes nice speeches and everything is very nice, but he didn't do anything yet. He just talks all the time. Am I right?"

In Ramallah people felt the choice of Obama did not represent any achievement. One woman said he was rewarded only because he was a symbol and not for accomplishing anything, because he's done nothing so far.

"He's the president and just a president," said Kuds, a student from Ramallah, who only gave his first name. "Yes he's a black president, which is great, but you don't accomplish something by the color of your skin. So no, he didn't deserve it."

Even Obama acknowledged in his statement today that he didn't feel he deserved the prize. So people here are now asking: "Why didn't he refuse it?"

Chinese netizens ask: 'Is today April Fool's Day?'

By Bo Gu, NBC News Producer

BEIJING – A few hours after the news came out that American President Barack Obama won this year's Nobel Peace Prize, the online forum of China's biggest Internet portal, SINA.com had over 10,000 comments on the subject, mostly sarcastic and suspicious, some even furious.

"Since when has Sweden learned to kiss America's a$$?" one angry comment said. It was followed by another one, "Isn't it ironic that the leader of a hegemony country wins Nobel Peace Prize?"

Very few people applauded the president's honor on the comment thread. After any comments that say something like, "I think Obama deserves the prize," the comment was immediately followed by angry replies. Comments like, "Yeah the whole country and Iraq and Afghanistan are laughing at you!" Or "Why don't they just give it to Adolf Hitler?" Quite a few Chinese netizens raised the same question: "Is today April Fool's Day?"

Before the announcement some Chinese were expecting that Hu Jia, an AIDS and human rights activist, who was put in jail under the charge of "subversion of state power and the socialist system" would win the prize. But just as last year, they are disappointed again.

The page on Chinese citizens winning the Nobel Peace Prize still remains blank, ironically, with the notable exception of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader, who won the Peace Prize exactly 20 years ago.

Cuban professor: 'What peace does this award represent?'

By Mary Murray, NBC News Producer

HAVANA, Cuba – I'm sure this comes as no surprise to Cuba watchers: its noon and still the island's official media has yet to report the news that President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

When it does, chances are it will be cloaked in a challenge to the American president to live up to the award and apply his "new international climate" to Washington's half century old Cold War with Cuba.

U.S.-Cuba  politics aside, Esteban Morales, U.S. Studies professor at Havana University, thinks the Nobel committee's choice was "inappropriate."

"I find it paradoxical that he won this prize when the U.S. is currently embroiled in two wars and has practically declared its intention to attack Iran," said Morales. "While I give him the benefit of the doubt with his talk about tolerance and unity, in real life he's done nothing to solve the problems at hand. Maybe he would deserve this down the road, but I have to ask today: What peace does this award represent?" 

But former political prisoner Oscar Espinoza Chepe argues that the Nobel Peace Prize is "well deserved." He congratulated Obama for initiating bilateral talks with the Cuban government and for allowing Cuban Americans to freely visit family back on the island.

"This prize shows the changes that are happening internationally and Obama as a symbol of this moment. It bolsters his strength and legitimacy," said Chepe. "And is good news for the many Cubans who identify with him and hope that he will normalize relations between our two countries and help our lives here."

Miriam Leyva, Chepe's wife and a figure in Cuba's political opposition, sees Obama's youth and message of global good will as the basis for the award. "Obama does not just represent the present. He gives us the optimism of a stronger future. Between his younger views and good intentions, we can expect much, much, more from Obama."  

Kenyans ask 'why?'

By Paul Goldman, NBC News Producer

LOKICHOGGIO, Turkana District, Kenya – In this village in northern Kenya aid workers were shocked when they heard the news that "native son" President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. 

"Why?" asked a logistics officer of the World Food Program. "What has he done to deserve it?"

We were on an assignment unrelated to the announcement, traveling from a refugee camp to a local airport, and were the first to deliver the news. Although from the same tribe as Obama's family, the Luo, the aid worker said that he feared that "this will devalue the Nobel Peace Prize."

But his friend separately asked, "Does he deserve it?"

"What do you think?" I asked.

"No!"  he replied instantly.

However, other Kenyans contacted by phone were happier, some seeing it as a second prize for Kenya. Wangari Maathai won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 "for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace." 

Egyptians: 'A bit soon' but still deserved

By Charlene Gubash, NBC News Producer

Egyptians in general have a had a warm spot in their hearts for President Barak Obama ever since his election.Their affection flourished when he chose to address the Muslim world from Cairo. So although some here felt that the president had not yet done enough to merit a Nobel Peace Prize, the award did not dim their enthusiasm for the man.

"I didn't expect it at all," said school teacher Sara Osman. "He's a very diplomatic president. He knows how to keep the peace, the global peace around the world. ... I can say that I was surprised and I think it's a bit soon."

Adam Kamis who works in the oil sector agreed. "I am really happy, and he deserves everything good. The only thing is I think it is a little early."

Others cited his outreach to Islam as reason enough to earn the award. "I was very happy because his approach with Arab and Muslim countries is quite different," said Manal Attiya, an oil company employee. "America is always considered the leader all over the world, and I think he will encourage and push others to get the same way, and this is the correct way and the only way to have peace all over the world."

"He deserved it very much," said an Egyptian-American attorney in a Cairo café. "He has the guts to approach the Muslim world (when) 9/11 sits in every American mind."

Mervat Mohsen, head of news at Nile TV, credited Obama with improving relations between the U.S. and Muslims, but faulted his performance in regards to Iraq, Afghanistan, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the U.S. economy. "We have to bear in mind the kind of cordial welcome that he received by Egyptians when he was here. He did make a severe change in how Americans perceive Arabs and Muslims … but nevertheless we may be a little bit reserved with our viewers in giving him too much too soon."

Al Jazeera coverage was somewhat less magnanimous. While most Arab stations covered the item as straight news, Al Jazeera dedicated some of its broadcast to sharply critical discussions of the decision. In one program, "Behind the Events," guests from Beirut and Egypt echoed a common theme when they insisted Obama did not deserve to win the Peace Prize while acting as commander in chief of a country at war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

British press critical
By Tom Aspell, NBC News Correspondent

LONDON – British official reaction has lauded Obama's Nobel Peace Prize win. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown sent private congratulations to the White House. And opposition politician Mark Durkan hailed the award.

"Since his election President Obama has touched and inspired people all around the world. He has been a sign of positive progress, not just in the United States but in terms of international leadership," Durkan said.

But overall reaction in Britain has been muted and in some cases critical.

Northern Ireland-born laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire slammed the award as "very sad." Maguire won the prize in 1976 with fellow Belfast peace campaigner Betty Williams after they mobilized tens of thousands of people on "Peace People" marches demanding an end to violence in Northern Ireland. 

On British Web sites the sentiment was overwhelmingly against the Nobel committee's decision to award its peace prize to a U.S. president in office for less than two weeks when nominations closed February 1 of this year.

Michael Binyon, writing for the Times of London, was blunt in his reaction: "The prize risks looking preposterous in its claims, patronizing in its intentions and demeaning in its attempt to build up a man who has barely begun his period in office, let alone achieved any tangible outcome for peace."

We'll have to wait and see how many other Britons agree.

Japanese laud nuclear disarmament

By Arata Yamamoto, NBC News Producer

TOKYO – As the news of President Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize accolade came late in the day in Japan, the public reaction is a bit tough to gauge. But the news had a particularly strong resonance with the Japanese government because of Obama's repeated calls for nuclear disarmament.

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama upon hearing the news in Beijing, China offered his congratulations. "I thought particularly his speech on building a world without nuclear weapons in Prague was wonderful. To have the President of the United States, the world's largest possessor of nuclear weapons call for a nuclear free world, this was no simple feat. And I think our enthusiasm in supporting President Obama was reflected in today's Nobel Peace Prize."

The mayor of Hiroshima, Tadatoshi Akiba echoed: "I completely approve of this decision."

In Tokyo, the chief cabinet secretary told reporters that the prime minister hopes that Obama would someday be able to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki – hinting at Japan's wish for such a visit when he travels to Tokyo next month.

What do you think? Vote: Is Obama a deserving winner?

 NAIROBI, Kenya – Anena Hansen, a 32-year-old writer from New Hampshire, first came to Kenya last year for what was supposed to be a two-week volunteering stint just outside Nairobi. But she found the work she was doing with HIV-positive women so rewarding – she stayed.

"I didn't have to have great medical skills, and I didn't have to throw money at the situation," Hansen said. But she found that "just by being there and caring about them and interacting with them, these women who were very marginalized and shunned in this culture were feeling better because of the emotional psychological support." 

She was hooked and found a job working with Africa Mission Services, an organization dedicated to community development among the Maasai tribe in South-West Kenya. 

Africa Mission Services focuses on building infrastructure sorely lacking among the Maasai. A medical clinic built by the non-governmental organization has treated over 3,000 patients this year, and more than 1,000 students attend their two elementary schools.

Hansen is working on raising the funds (most funding comes from private donations) to build a secondary school and maternity ward for the clinic, while traveling to the Maasai community to implement an HIV prevention and treatment program.

VIDEO: Two-week vacation turns into mission of hope

But Hansen also wanted to do more for the women she worked with when she first came to Kenya. So she moved to Mlolongo, a truck-stop town on Nairobi's outskirts which one resident described as a "center of prostitution for the whole of East Africa."

In the age of social-networking, it's interesting how I found Hansen. I usually work out of NBC's Moscow bureau, but got a last-minute assignment to help cover U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's trip to Nairobi. I decided to try to extend my trip by a few days and checked couchsurfing.org, a Web site that connects travelers who want to meet or stay with locals when they travel.

The idea is clearly an amazing tool for budget travelers, but as a journalist, I find it to be an invaluable way to meet people on the ground and get a more varied picture of a place than I might otherwise get in the State Department bubble.

Hansen's profile mentioned the volunteer work she is involved in, so the day after Clinton and all the other foreign journalists left, I found myself in a car, navigating unfinished highways and waist-high potholes to go and see it firsthand. 

Helping from the ground up
On the day I arrived, Hansen was holding a meeting in her home with local residents. By the end of the meeting, they had formed the Women's Empowerment Development Agency (WEDA), a community-based organization with the goal of creating a women's health and counseling center in Mlolongo with an emphasis on helping the commercial sex workers in town.

"We want to empower them by giving them counseling, by showing them alternative ways other than prostitution," said Mary Rainwater, chairwoman of WEDA and head of the local neighborhood council.

Rainwater moved back to Kenya three years ago after living in the U.S. for 25 years. She is one of the 12 Kenyans who make up the majority of WEDA's 14-person founding committee.

Hansen hopes that the center will provide much more than education about HIV prevention and awareness. The plan is to provide vocational training, teach money management, provide micro-lending and support teenage girls who wish to complete their education.

Meetings like the one I attended have become routine in Hansen's house, which has also become a mini-headquarters for short-term volunteers who come to Kenya on programs similar to the one that first brought Hansen. Most of the volunteers I met found Hansen through International Volunteer HQ, a program that matches up volunteers to the type of work and region of the world they wish to work in.

Ten volunteers lived in Hansen's house this past summer, mostly college students from the U.S. The volunteers worked at the orphanage in Mlolongo and at a nearby medical clinic.

"We get to do a bunch of different stuff," said Stephanie Savala, a 21-year-old senior at University of Nebraska at Lincoln. But she said that "the most tremendous experience was to actually be able to help deliver a baby."

The volunteers live on a fairly bare-bones level by Western-standards. The house has running water for just one week out of every five or six. Showering is a rare occurrence, flushing the toilet is rationed, and the electricity is fickle.

But the house is luxurious compared to the homes of the HIV-positive women that Hansen took me to visit. Most live in single rooms or shacks, with corrugated tin roofs and walls, but no bathrooms, running water or appliances to speak of. Still, their biggest challenge is not only poverty, but the stigmas against HIV that make alleviating poverty even harder.

'He might beat me' 
Violet Nduku, 23, said when she first found out she was HIV-positive, a medical worker told her, "You have to tell your husband. I tell him, 'No, because I am scared he might beat me.'"

Nduku said people will tell her children to stay away from HIV-positive people and she spoke about how some people will refuse to buy things from people who are HIV-positive.

It's attitudes like these that Hansen hopes WEDA's community center will change. The group has approached the Kenyan government and other women's rights groups for a grant to be able to rent a facility, which Hansen said is key to getting the project off the ground. "We can start meetings and offer a venue for support groups, which means this thing can go somewhere."

While the social and bureaucratic obstacles to success are still huge, Hansen isn't fazed. "Education and empowerment are the most effective tools against the spread of HIV," she said.

www.wedakenya.org

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN – I came to Pakistan for the olives. I am on a fellowship from the International Reporting Project, and I am working on a story about an agricultural development project launching an olive oil business here.

Pakistan is not in a region normally associated with olives. The Mediterranean Basin comes to mind, as do parts of North Africa and the Middle East.

But olives, as I've learned, are a sturdy fruit. There are hundreds of possible cultivars that can grow in dozens of different climates. A little less rain won't hurt them. A little extra fertilizer won't ruin an entire crop. There is room for error and less-than-expert knowledge to manage an orchard.

Evidence suggests the olive tree was being cultivated as early as 2500 B.C. in parts of the Mediterranean. So this is a tree that knows how to stick around. 

Amna Nawaz / NBC News

Boxes of olives from a recent harvest in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan sit on a table as personnel discuss the future of the olive project. Since the region is too unsafe for develpoment workers to visit the orchards, the fruit had to be brought to the meeting in Islamabad.

In the far corners of Pakistan, this is something many people already knew. Wild olive trees have grown for centuries in some of the country's hardest-to-reach spots.

A recently conducted national survey found the most olive-friendly conditions right along the Northwest Frontier Province and Baluchistan, two of the country's most troubled regions.

In an effort to try to develop a Pakistan olive industry, a project was started by international investors and a Pakistan agricultural development agency – the Pakistan Oil Seed Development Board. And hope for a new indigenous industry with enormous potential for Pakistan's economy was ignited.

For the last few weeks, I have been traveling to project sites, speaking with the dedicated agency personnel spearheading the work, as well as community farmers who are taking part in the project. There is cautious excitement at the early signs of success.

There are actually millions of wild olive trees in Pakistan, but they don't produce the ideal olives for consumption. So farmers are using grafting techniques to create new seedlings using parts of the old trees. Much of the work is still done by hand – from planting, to picking the olives, to pressing them. Once the scale of the project grows, the work is expected to become more mechanized.

'Cautious optimism'
Production on a substantial scale won't happen for another few years – the first real harvest was just in September and October 2008. So far the sales are just for domestic consumption and are in small quantities. But some farmers have turned profits even on the small harvests they have planted so far – the kinds of profits they hadn't previously been able to make with any other crop except for poppies.

"Cautious optimism" is the term that keeps coming up in describing the early sentiment. Progress is slow. Getting farmers to invest in this new crop, to believe that those trees they've long used for firewood can actually be turned into something more profitable, is a difficult task. Trust here is built with home visits and handshakes.

Which is why not being able to make those home visits or shake those hands is a huge setback. The attack on the U.N.'s World Food Program in Islamabad on Monday that killed five workers lays bare the risks aid workers take in Pakistan. Taliban militants claimed responsibility for the attack at the agency's heavily fortified compound.

As a result of the attack, our plans to visit a farm in the Northwest Frontier Province were cancelled - adhering to guidance from many of the embassies in Islamabad that staff should lay low and not travel outside of the city. In fact, foreigners have been strongly encouraged not to leave Islamabad for the next few days. Which means not only that I can't visit the farm, but the development agency can't follow up either and ensure that the farmer's progress continues.

This is the real story for why development dollars don't really work here in Pakistan yet. Even a plan like this one – that relies more on Pakistan's own indigenous crops, that focuses more on a Pakistani private-public partnership instead of foreign funds, that has already displayed early signs of success – even this plan can't move forward without security.

It's simple really. If you can't even get to the places you're supposed to help, how can you ever help? My inability to report the story as well as I'd like to these last few weeks is nothing compared to the frustration of the international and Pakistani aid workers who have been working on projects like this one for years.

I came here for the olive story. But like most stories in Pakistan these days, it has been quickly dominated by the security story.

International Reporting Project (IRP).

 I've never been to Afghanistan – only looked at countless photographs and screened hours of video reports on the U.S.-led conflict there since 2001.

But over the past week, I dug into NBC News archival coverage of Afghanistan as we prepare for the eighth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of the war-torn country on Oct. 7 and ahead of the launch of Richard Engel's documentary 'Tip of the Spear' on Sunday.

As I watched 50 years worth of highlights of NBC News coverage of the country, one feeling jumped out at me again and again in the pre-2001 segments: doesn't this look familiar? The texture and atmospherics of video coverage, the suffering of Afghans and statements like Tom Brokaw's "the Afghans have a fighting tradition," at the end of the Soviet occupation in 1989, struck me as being eerily reminiscent of reporting we often see today.

Obviously, the conflicts are not exact parallels. Afghanistan did not provoke the Russian invasion by hosting terrorists who attacked Moscow and our volunteer troops certainly aren't Soviet conscripts. But many of the complexities of a foreign army fighting a war in Afghanistan persist.

Here are just some of the reports over the years that stood out to me. Let me know what you think in the comments section below. 

1959: Chet Huntley reported on the state of Afghanistan in advance of a trip by President Dwight Eisenhower. Afghan culture at the individual level stands out in his narration: "The average Afghan's loyalty starts with his family and extends to his tribe...sometimes, he does what the national goverment tells him to."

1980: Even one year after the Soviet invasion, it was clear that the Afghan resistance was stiffening. 

1984: Five years after the Soviet invasion, it was still hard fighting for the mujahideen as they attacked remote Russian outposts defended by air power and artillery, and ammunition was in short supply. But note the tone of this report, in the Cold War context of the 1980s, the mujahideen fighters were American allies.The U.S. covertly aided the mujahideen fighters throughout the war by supplying weapons and ammunition. 

And Ishmael Galani, the commander quoted at the end of this piece, apparently fought against al-Qaida with the U.S. military and Afghan government in 2001. (I've been unable to find reference to him recently – if anyone knows of his current whereabouts, please post a comment below).

1989: Tom Brokaw, reporting as the deadline for Soviet pullout approached, noted the importance to mujahideen of bases in Pakistan and that "the Afghans have a fighting tradition. They have battled invaders for centuries. The Soviets are just another name in a long list."

You can see all of the clips above, and more, in the context of the full reports here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33107901#33127143 . And beyond commenting below, you can always make custom clips like those above for your own blog or site from any video on msnbc.com by using the "clip & embed" function in our video player.

APIA, Samoa – Robert Louis Stevenson, the author of "Treasure Island" called the Samoan Islands home. He died here, at only 44 and was later buried on a hilltop overlooking the Pacific. But as gifted a writer as he was, even he might be at a loss for words to describe his beloved Samoa now.

Once called Western Samoa, it is a dot in the South Pacific, barely the size of Rhode Island; a paradise rich in ancient tradition, natural beauty and peace and quiet.

Most of the island escaped last week's tsunami, and life goes on almost without a care. Tourists are arriving, music is playing, and rum is flowing.

SLIDESHOW: Tsunami strikes Samoa islands

But along Samoa's southern coast, once home to some of the most beautiful beaches in this hemisphere, the massive wave struck, creating an unimaginable scar several miles long.

The villages along the pristine coastline never stood a chance. The tsunami itself was described to me as a giant wall of black moving at some 30 miles an hour – which brought with it a sound, as terrible as its countenance.

Within minutes, everything in its path was obliterated. The debris is scattered in such a way that it's hard to get one's mind around how terribly violent it must have been. Or how silent the land was, once the wave returned from whence it came.

It seemed to target the most vulnerable: the elderly, and the very young. Standing at a small hospital, now a clearinghouse for the dead, I watched a father wrap his 5-year-old son in a blue plastic tarp, and drive away to lay him to rest next to his other son, who perished as well.

In the end, the difference between life and death was a matter of inches. Those who could find high ground, just 30 feet or so up a hill, survived without a scratch. Those who fell short were lost, not for lack of swimming abilities, but because they were likely pummeled by swirling debris.

VIDEO: Lee Cowan reports from Samoa

Samoans have long buried family members close to them, often in their front yards. It's a sign of respect, honor, and a reverence for their ancestors.  But now, the wave has taken that too.

Many now don't have a home to bury their dead. The land itself seems hardly fitting anyway, with wreckage scattered like garbage. With the tropical heat, and the morgues full, the government here has no choice but to bury as many as 100 in a mass grave, foregoing tradition in favor of expediency.

Disease is now the worry, with thousands living in makeshift homes. The idea of rebuilding seems too daunting, and frankly too frightening a prospect for many. Survivors, who saw that wall are afraid to return from the hills that saved them.

Back on the north shore, as we prepare to leave, the airport looks as I imagine it always does, with children running around after their parents in their colorful tourist garb, with dreams of sandcastles and gentle surf running through their minds.

But it's an uncomfortable dichotomy. Just over the peak of this volcanic uprising, a different world exists. Robert Louis Stevenson's Samoa is now a tale of two islands, one drenched in more than its fair share of beauty, while the other now endures more than its fair share of misery.

 PADANG, Indonesia – When I asked Peter, a young student, what it was like to live on just about the most active part of the most active fault line on the planet, the 20-year-old just smiled and shrugged.

"I can handle the quakes," he quipped as we gave him a ride through battered Padang. "It's not a big deal. But I don't like tsunamis."

Wulan, who goes by just one name, took things in stride, too.

She was something of a quake connoisseur. She rolled her hand back and forth, then bounced it up and down to illustrate some of the earth tremors she'd experienced.

SLIDESHOW: Deadly earthquake hits Indonesia

"But this one was different," she said of Wednesday's 7.6 magnitude quake that rocked western Indonesia. "It was the worst I've ever seen," she said as her family sifted through the wreckage of their wooden house.

Sometimes it seems like Indonesia is natural disaster central. There are more active volcanoes here than anywhere else and floods are an annual event.

Recently, on the neighboring island of Java, they had a mud flow when a mining company breached a volcanic aquifer, sending steaming sludge to the surface. They can't stop the volcano from erupting, and several villages around Surabaya have disappeared under the mud.

The official death toll from this week's quake is now more than 700, and this is certain to rise – the health ministry says as many as 3,000 may still be buried in the rubble.

VIDEO: Indonesia quake death toll climbs

But natural disasters are viewed as a part of life.

I've always found Indonesia an incredibly good natured place. Maybe it's something about living with such volatile and threatening geology, which many Indonesians imbue with mystical properties.

Perhaps that's why they can take disasters almost in their stride.

That does nothing to diminish the horrors of the past two days, but as Wulan said as we left her battered home, "What can you do?"

BEIJING – A veil of secrecy and intense – some would say comically extreme – protective measures defined the lead-up to today's 60th anniversary celebrations in China.

The massive military parade on Thursday was the manifestation of months of highly choreographed, tightly managed planning – the calling card of mass events in modern China.

For the 12 million inhabitants of the capital, the massive security and traffic restrictions caused widespread inconveniences. But many brushed off the temporary annoyances.

"We should accept temporary difficulties," said Cao Jian, a Chinese cook whose restaurant had to shut down temporarily due to the celebrations. "When we see this rare display of modern weapons, we Chinese feel a sense of security, a sense of pride," he added.

VIDEO: China celebrates 60 years

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The centerpiece of the parade was a display of China's military arsenal, although it seemed almost absurd that such a heavy police presence was required to guard the new, highly advanced war-fighting might of China's armed forces.

However, many military observers who were leaning in a little closer to their TVs in expectation of seeing as many as 52 new Chinese weapons systems were disappointed to find none of the new arsenal on display.

Yet, from the media position in front of the Forbidden City, the procession of modern weaponry achieved its intended effect. Throughout the day there were subdued awes and nods of respect from the assembled media and distinguished guests as we witnessed a mass display, which could only be described as awe-inspiring.

The roar of massive diesel engines from scores of brand new tanks, missile batteries and amphibious fighting vehicles provided a unique accompaniment to the soundtrack of the day, a selection of martial and nationalist musical scores that blasted throughout Tiananmen Square and the areas around it.

Equally impressive was the cadence of thousands of boots marching in step as perfectly dressed ranks of soldiers from every military branch goose-stepped past dignitaries and then cheered in perfect unison, "HELLO SENIOR LEADER!" to President Hu Jintao and later, "SERVE THE PEOPLE!" in response to Hu's salutations.

Meantime, an armada of more than 150 helo and fixed-wing aircraft soared overhead. The first wave of fighter jets trailing colored streaks of smoke through the city were met with wild applause and cheers from the distinguished guests near us.

And the hundreds of schoolchildren sitting across from us in Tiananmen Square nearly lost their perfect discipline as they broke into cheers as well. (Not leaving any detail to chance, the schoolchildren's colorful headdresses, from above, spelt out, "Guo Qing" or national holiday.)

SLIDESHOW: China celebrates 60 years of communist rule

What followed the military portion of the parade was a whirl of floats that celebrated not only China's 23 provinces (yes, a float was dedicated to Taiwan), but a bevy of Chinese industrial and cultural interests that ranged from the Olympics to celebrating the train, airplane and port operators of China.

Around each float was a veritable army of enthusiastic university students, many of whom had essentially sacrificed their summer vacations and parts of this school semester to prepare for the parade.

No detail was left out in the effort to stir up nationalist pride, a major goal of the grand exercise. Just days earlier, China Mobile, the largest cell phone service provider in China, changed the ring-back tones of many of their customers to patriotic songs, without notifying anyone. (A ring-back tone is what a caller hears when they dial a number before the call is answered. The usual noise is a repetitive ring).

Just like the Olympics last year, weather conditions were again a cause of concern for organizers, especially since recent days have been alternately hazy and foggy, jeopardizing the scheduled flybys that Beijingers have already been dazzled by over the past few weeks.

In order to beat the precise 36 percent chance of low clouds and less than 20 percent chance of rainfall – odds announced by Xinhua News Agency earlier this week – an Air Force task force consisting of 18 transport planes was formed to "seed" the dense clouds that covered the capital Wednesday with rain inducing silver iodide and dry ice. And down on the streets of the capital, an additional 260 soldiers in 48 fog-clearing vehicles were blowing the remnants of the man-made storm from the city.

INTERACTIVE TIMELINE: China's 60 years of communisim

The resulting miracle, clear sunny skies Thursday morning, was perhaps the greatest celebration of founding father, Mao Zedong, who once famously proclaimed "Man must conquer nature!" 

Today, China most certainly lived up to Mao's bold words.

While soldiers took to the air to clear the Beijing skyline, over the past few weeks thousands of police were mobilized and deployed on the ground along Chang'an Avenue – the central Beijing road artery through which the parade marched – to protect the city from potential terrorist threats and embarrassing acts of protest.

On a day where 10,000 police officers and a reported 800,000 "volunteers" were also present to provide security, no incidents were reported.

Related links:
China's 60th anniversary stirs pride, unease
Newsweek: China's 60th anniversary party isn't to impress us
Newsweek: The competition within China's single party
NBC archival video: A look at China's cultural revolution