BEIJING – Xin Xin is a 24-year-old west Beijing native who runs her own media consultancy.

In 2006, she bought a limited edition Mini Cooper GP.  Only three of them exist in China.  Two years later, with her parents’ help, she forked over $200,000 in cash for a pink Porsche Cayman.  "I like the lines of the car," she said.  "It's very pretty....  And I like changing gears so you can accelerate very quickly." 

It's extraordinary enough to hear that someone this young in a nation still making the transition from a low-income to a middle-income economy can buy a top-shelf German sports car.  (In cash! In a city with Beijing's traffic problems!)

But what's more remarkable, for retailers and advertisers, is that Xin Xin’s not the only one.  In fact, many other young Chinese women are snapping up high-performance sports cars.  (One woman named Guo Meimei was pilloried after she posted on China's Twitter-like service, Sina Weibo, photos of herself with some of her cars, including a Maserati and a Lamborghini.  At the time, she claimed to be working for the Red Cross Society of China, which triggered a flurry of Netizen speculation that she was siphoning funds, the Red Cross was corrupt, or she was the mistress of some official.)

Fiat – whose Maserati brand now counts China as its second biggest market after the U.S. – says 30 percent of its Maserati customers in the mainland are women – far greater than the percentage of women buyers in Europe or the U.S., which ranges from 2 to 5 percent.  

The number of women who buy Ferraris in China is double the global average.  About 300 models were sold in the mainland in 2010, with women accounting for 20 percent of the sales. 

"[Women] are  much more involved in China about buying the car: the look, the feel, the actual decision to buy the car," said Matthew Bennett, Asia-Pacific Director at Aston Martin. 

But they're not just, ahem, steering the decision on what family car to purchase.   

They're buying high-performance sports cars for themselves.

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"The culture is very different," said Angelica Cheung, Editorial Director of Vogue China.  "A lot of women in China are very independent women....  They really made their own fortune.  They earned their own success.  And they just feel that, I can have what men have." 

Indeed.  Xin Xin, who takes her cars out regularly to a local track to race other drivers, said, "We Chinese girls not only have a heart of girls, we also have a wild heart for driving sports cars.  You can feel the charm of racing cars just like boys do." 

Which drives sports car aficionado Paolo Gasparrini, well, a little nuts.

"I am thinking of my country, Italy, you don't give your sports car to your wife, frankly speaking, not so easy, here it's easy," he said.  On a regular basis, Gasparrini sees young Chinese women driving a high-performance sports model around the streets of Shanghai. 

"You see much more here than in Europe, [where] we have a different attitude about car[s]," he continued.  "The men, we are very jealous about [our] cars....  But here it's fantastic.  It's very, very open." 

Role reversal
In fact, as president of L'Oreal China, Gasparrini thinks the average Chinese luxury consumer is very open to displaying symbols of wealth and power in ways that their European or American counterparts might be a little shy about. 

"I think that in the Chinese culture there is not a taboo" about men spending time and money on grooming products, he said.  Ten years ago, such products were virtually nonexistent in China.  Today, it's an industry worth nearly $800 million.  

"Nobody pulls your leg if you take care of your face...so little by little more and more Chinese men use [these grooming] products," said Gasparrini, whose company dominates the men's sector with its Biotherm and L'Oreal Paris lines.  In fact, 30 percent of Biotherm's overall sales come from its men's skincare products. 

They're consumed by Chinese men like Jacky Sun, an ebullient young Shanghai native who had just purchased a Biotherm skin cleanser.  "More and more of my friends like to use these things, because they think it's very important...to leave a good impression on other people," he said. 

A recent survey by the Hurun Group, a consultancy which tracks China’s wealthy elite, finds that these impressions are critical to the rich.  

“Chinese luxury consumers are in general younger, many under 40 years old….  Furthermore, they are mainly new rich, with a rather short history of luxury consumption.  Therefore, the social function of luxury goods is most important to them,” according to the GroupM Knowledge—Hurun Wealth Report 2011.

But some luxury goods also serve a practical function.   

The 'man bag'
Going back to our young Shanghai native, Sun possesses another important status accessory – the man-bag. 

"The purse?  My friend says that's a purse," laughed Sun as he held up his small shoulder bag.  "This way I can make my hands free, and it can take my wallet, my key, small stuff, so I like it....  Sometimes my friends from America will tease me that it's a purse, a woman's purse, but I still like it.  I don't care." 

As a report by the Los Angles Times put it, “Luxury leather goods makers can't believe their luck:  Both sexes in the world's most populous country adore purses.” 

“Our survey shows about thirty percent of male consumers buy bags or shoes regularly,” said Mao Mao Xun, Beauty Director at Men’s Health China.  Moreover, “Chinese men have a different view of masculinity from that in the West.” 

A random sampling of interviews with young men in central Beijing suggests the practical benefits of toting around a small handbag outweigh any Western conventions of masculinity.   

Jing, who did not want to give his full name, was toting a leather clutch during a visit to Sanlitun Village one Saturday afternoon.  It was given to him by his mother, and he raved about its functionality.  Other men said they’d rather wear a shoulder bag than have a bulky wallet and cell phone jammed into their pockets. 

“Given the commuting nature of our Chinese consumer, we find that cross-body bags, bags that hang over their body, are much more popular than they would be here in the United States,” said Victor Luis, President of Coach International Retail, which has designed special editions for the China market.  In fact, male consumers make up half of Coach’s mainland China sales of premium handbag and accessories. 

And it’s not just Coach.  All the foreign luxury brands sell well in China. 

”Bags are very discernible,” said Mao.  “You can easily tell the brand by a bag.  Many Chinese buy these products to be known, to be noticed.” 

There’s no question these young consumers get noticed.

Xin Xin, the owner of the Pink Porsche, is already working on her next purchase. 

"Lamborghini," she said confidently. 

And this time she's planning to buy it with her own cash.

 

  

By Ian Williams, NBC News Correspondent

BANGKOK, Thailand – The floodwaters that had swamped the riverside community of Sam Sen receded Monday, but nobody was taking any chances as they worked to reinforce a wall of sandbags that had been overwhelmed by Sunday's all-time record high tide in the Chao Phraya River.

Men and women formed a relay team, passing sandbags from hand to hand along the length of the wall. All the time keeping a wary eye on the bloated waters of the river – known as “the river of kings” – which swept by in front of their small wooden houses. There were smiles and jokes.

A small boy pointed to the water line on the side of his house, a full three feet up the wall, as tall as him. But now, just a couple of inches of water flowed across his bare feet.

On Sunday, Thai soldiers had formed a human wall in a forlorn attempt to block the flood water in this area.

Thailand’s prime minister has told the city that with the passing of the weekend's high tides, they may be over the worst. But the information from the authorities has chopped and changed, and there's a good deal of skepticism in these frontline communities.

---

Now what?
Kritsada Rakwongchai just smiled when I asked him what he thought of the prime minister's comments.

Rakwongchai is in charge of drainage on the other side of the river from Sam Sen, and we had followed him through chest high water to one of the dikes he supervises.

"I watched the water surging in," he told me. "It flooded this high in just 30 minutes."

He said he's seen nothing like this in his 10 years in the job.

Rakwongchai, a good 6’ 5” tall, led the way, and though the water was murky, he knew the route well, cautioning us about hidden stones, steps, holes or dips. Bangkok's streets and sidewalks are not easy to navigate – even when you can see where you are going.

We waded gingerly past semi-submerged wooden homes, where whole families had taken refuge on the upper floor.

"They are frightened," Rakwongchai said, a dog suddenly appearing and paddling frantically between two houses. "Some have started to move to evacuation centers, but many are staying to look after their belongings."

One woman pleaded with him to find her baby milk. While another sat in her window watching the water go by. "Because my house is high, I didn't expect to get flooded. Now, what can I do?" she asked.

While many riverside and canal-side communities were swamped by the weekend's high tide, the center of Bangkok was largely unscathed and remains dry. For the most part the flood defenses did hold.

‘Water everywhere’
But this is really the story of two floods: those caused by the high tides, and those more directly the result of the massive run-off from flood waters almost surrounding the capital, the result of weeks of flooding in surrounding provinces, which has been slowly bearing down on Bangkok, picking off the northern and eastern suburbs one by one.

There was no let up for those areas Monday, though the more optimistic of the authorities predict that with lower coastal tides, the water will drain more quickly to the sea.

I asked Rakwongchai what he thought.

"There's water everywhere," he said, with a shake of the head. "Water everywhere."

 By Amna Nawaz, NBC News Correspondent

ISLAMABAD — Nusrat Bhutto — the  widow of one of Pakistan’s former prime ministers and the mother of another –  died  Sunday in a Dubai hospital at the age of 82 after a long illness, according to a family spokesman.

The Bhuttos – because of their political clout, generations of influence, and personal tragedies – have often been called the Kennedys of Pakistan. Nusrat Bhutto, who was born in Iran but settled in Pakistan's southern city of Karachi, was this country's strong and statuesque equivalent to Jackie O.

News channels ran "breaking news" alerts to announce her death this weekend. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani declared Monday a national holiday in Pakistan, with 10 days of mourning to follow. And pictures of Bhutto from throughout her life, stylishly clad and perfectly coifed, have been playing across the networks. She appears in these images as most Pakistanis will remember her – poised and confident. She smiles warmly and gracefully greets heads of state beside her husband. She claps primly to music, seated at a flawlessly-laid table at a state event. She sits with head held high, elegantly enveloped in an evening sari, and flanked by both daughters for a family portrait.

As the matriarch of Pakistan's most powerful political clan, Nusrat Bhutto was more than a witness to history. She was, herself, a force and a player in the country's churning system of governance.

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Her husband, former Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, founded the Pakistan's People Party (PPP), which controls the government today. When he was overthrown in a military coup and hanged in 1979, she stepped into a leadership role, assuming the chairmanship of the PPP for the next four years until her daughter Benazir – who went on to twice serve as prime minister herself – assumed control. Bhutto later twice won elected seats in Pakistan's parliament.

But Nusrat Bhutto's family was known as much for their personal misfortune as they were for their political muscle. Her younger son, Shahnawaz, died in Paris in mysterious circumstances in 1985. Her elder son, Murtaza, was gunned down in Karachi in 1996. And her elder daughter Benazir, the first female elected to lead a Muslim country, was killed in a 2007 suicide attack after returning to Pakistan from exile in Dubai. Of Nusrat Bhutto's four children, only one – daughter, Sanam – is still alive.

According to a Pakistan's People Party spokesman, Nusrat Bhutto's body is being transported from Dubai to Pakistan today, for burial in the Bhutto family graveyard in the southern province of Sindh.

By NBC News’ Ploy Bunluesilp  

BANGKOK, Thailand – This city is on edge as we wait to see whether the worst floods to hit Thailand in decades will engulf us, too. 

Water rushing toward the sea from swollen rivers and rain-swept highlands to the north of the capital have already inundated most of central Thailand. And we are in its path next. The government seems overwhelmed. Nobody seems to be able to give us a straight answer on whether Bangkok will soon be under several feet of water.

For me, it's more than just another story to cover. I live in a wooden house in Thonburi, a neighborhood of Bangkok on the west bank of the Chao Phraya River that has kept the city's traditional character and has canals instead of streets.

Many people in the area still access their homes by boat. It's a beautiful place to live, but it is right beside the river, on low and marshy ground. If Bangkok is flooded, my home will be one of the first affected.

Like many in my neighborhood, I've been trying to build up brick defenses around my house, and moving everything upstairs to the second floor. But I'm worried about my friends and family. And I'm worried about my two little puppies, Sarsi and Brown. They can probably swim, but they prefer dry land.

And the government has warned that more than 100 alligators and crocodiles have escaped captivity when floods swamped their enclosures on farms. They are offering 1,000 Thai Bhat or $33 bounty for each one caught alive – some are up to seven feet long.

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People have questioned the measly pay out for wrestling a crocodile into submission: according to a poll on the Bangkok Post, 77.5 percent of people did not think that was an equitable payout.

More than 340 people have lost their lives in the flooding across Thailand since July. And wildlife is suffering too.

Animal rescue mission
So this week I took a trip with an animal rescue team north of Bangkok, looking for stranded household pets – or dangerous escaped predators. With roads flooded, the only way to access the area is by boat.

Sometimes they would find cats and dogs sitting on rooftops. Others were left behind by owners who had fled. And the animals don't always appreciate being rescued.

"Force needs to be used if the dog is not willing to come with us," said Roger Lohanan, the head of the rescue team. In all, the team tried to save 300 trapped cats and dogs throughout the city of Ayutthaya.

Some have to be caught with a net and sedated before being put on the boat.

"I have to take them all with me as nobody can access here to give them food," Lohanan added.

Rescued cats and dogs will be looked after in a safe area, and the owners can claim their pets back later when the water recedes. As for wild animals rescued – including tigers, crocodiles, monkeys and pangolins – they are being looked after in zoos, but will be released back into the wild later.

Except for one group of the wild animals, I hope. Officials plan to keep the crocodiles in captivity, which is fortunate for Sarsi and Brown.

Related link: Floodwaters begin seeping into outer Bangkok

By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Correspondent

ON THE ROAD TO SIRTE, Libya – It started with confusion. There were rumors on Twitter and then reports by foreign media that Sirte, Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s hometown, had fallen.

A military commander from the Misrata brigade told us "there were still houses to clear," not quite confirming or denying the news. 

When we called the National Transitional Committee's press office, a man said, "Sirte is finished." We asked him how he knew. His reply was, "It was on TV."

En route to Sirte, we began hearing from militiamen at checkpoints that Gadhafi had been captured and was being brought back to Misrata, home to one of the strongest militias that rose up against his 42-year rule.

With no cell signal and amidst general chaos, we couldn't verify anything on the ground.  The only thing that was clear was the gathering force of exultation that was evident even on this lonely stretch of road in the North African desert.

---

‘Blood did not run in vain!’
We decided to set up for a live shot beside the highway instead of continuing onto Sirte.

Vehicles painted in the colors of the new Libyan flag began gathering around a checkpoint and bridge behind us. Rebel forces driving back west towards Misrata shouted in jubilation. Men fired their guns into the air. Others shouted, “Our martyrs' blood did not run in vain!"

We began hearing that Gadhafi had been killed. Fighters stopped to show us cellphone footage purportedly of his body.  In one video, the body was in the back of a vehicle with a white cloth wrapped around his head.  In another, the body was shirtless and on the ground; men picked him up and turned him over and then covered him.

"He was shot in the neck," said Fathi Bashagha, a Misrata military commander and NATO liaison. He was trying to get back to Misrata, ahead of a large convoy rumored to be carrying Gadhafi's body. 

Moments later, a large convoy of 18-wheelers, pick-up trucks, SUVs, and sedans drove by on the outside lane. 

Shadowing them were a ragtag bunch of vehicles driven by cheering militiamen – so caught up in the moment that a couple rear-ended each other, creating a small traffic jam in front of us.

Grim souvenirs
As we continued to try to get official confirmation from either the Misrata military council or the interim government in Tripoli, more fighters stopped to show us "souvenirs." 

One man had a military cap he claimed belonged to Gadhafi. Another showed a ring, a hat, a nine-millimeter handgun, and a bottle of shampoo that he said were taken from the basement housing the former leader.

But by far the most troubling sights were the bodies of what fighters claimed were Moatassam, Gadhafi’s son, and Abu Bakr Yunis, one of Gadhafi's most trusted senior military leaders.  The body of the former appeared to have a bullet hole in the back of his neck; half of the latter's face was a strange shade of blue.

And then there were those who were alive. 
A truck drove by with dozens of men crowded into the back; we assumed they were prisoners because they were not cheering.

One sedan stopped in front of our van.  Rebel fighters proudly scrambled out to show off two men – black Africans, mercenaries perhaps – tied up in their trunk, alive; they looked alert and stared at us quizzically. 

NBC News’ Correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin answered reader questions about Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s death and what it means for Libya and the region.

Mohyeldin covered the Middle East for several years as a correspondent for Al Jazeera. He reported extensively on the Arab Spring in Egypt and Tunisia. He has spent time reporting from Libya and interviewed Gadhafi several years ago.

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Readers asked him questions about what Gadhafi’s death means for the Middle East? How his death will reverberate across the region and affect the other countries still revolting against authoritarian regimes, like in Syria, or trying to sort out what democracy means, like in Egypt.

Click below to replay the chat.

 

 

By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Correspondent

TRIPOLI – Even from a remote perch in Libya, we heard about the horrific story making waves in China.

Last Thursday, a two-year-old girl crossing a street by herself in the city of Foshan in China’s southern Guangdong Province was hit by a car. The driver paused briefly as the girl lay between the front and rear wheels and then tore off, thumping her now-limp body again. 

Soon after, a second vehicle rolled over the girl, with the driver presumably unaware that a body lay on the road. The second driver also did not stop.

As if both these acts were not outrageous enough, 18 more people – on foot, on motorbikes, or on bicycles – passed by the girl, lying inert on the ground, and did nothing. Even a mother with her own child ignored the victim.

(Warning the video is very graphic, but it can seen here from a Chinese broadcast or here from the BBC).

It wasn’t until a female trash collector saw her and proceeded to pick the girl up that she was moved to the side of the road. The trash collector asked passers-by who the girl belonged to, and eventually the mother appeared, distraught, to claim her daughter named Yueyue.

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All of this was caught on surveillance cameras. A clip was posted on China’s popular micro blog, Sina Weibo on Sunday, generating a huge outcry as netizens counted the number of people who glanced at the girl and ignored her plight – all in the seven minutes she lay on the road until the Good Samaritan carried her to safety.

The story, which has been a leading headline on all of China’s news sites, touched a nerve in the country, with many decrying the lack of moral standards and general disregard for fellow human beings.

One report quoted the first driver as saying, “If she is dead, I may pay only about 20,000 yuan ($3,125). But if she is injured, it may cost me hundreds of thousands yuan."

Some news reports and online discussions made the point that civil behavior is not always rewarded in China. Many people fear they’re being subject to some sort of scam while others remember still a well-known case from 2006, when a man helped a woman who had fallen only to have her accuse him of causing the injury to begin with.  She filed a suit against him, in which the judge ruled the man wouldn’t have come to her aid had he not caused the fall.

 

State-run news agency Xinhua has reported both drivers of the vehicles that ran over the girl have been apprehended by police.

Yueyue, meanwhile, is in critical condition with serious brain injuries, breathing with the help of a ventilator. Her parents are asking eyewitnesses to come forward with any additional information.

The story of Yueyue’s hit-and-run stands in stark contrast to another story that picked up steam online over the weekend.

Last Friday afternoon, a woman fell into a scenic tourist lake in Hangzhou, the capital of the eastern province of Zhejiang. A Western woman who was walking by saw the Chinese woman struggling and quickly jumped into West Lake to save her. 

After swimming back to shore, the foreigner dragged her onto the bank. The victim remained conscious and appeared out of danger. Police turned up ten minutes later, and the Western woman left quietly. Several websites reported she was American.

What was notable in this instance was the response of those who read the story online.

In addition to giving the rescuer high praise (“That American girl is great, she has a beautiful character”), people also made unfavorable comparisons to Chinese behavior:

“According to Chinese laws and regulations, if she hadn’t pushed the girl into the water, why ever would she save her?”

Thanks to China Digital Times for the translations.

Adrienne Mong is NBC’s Beijing correspondent. She is on assignment in Libya.

Analysis

By Paul Goldman, NBC News Producer

TEL AVIV – Israel and Hamas are scheduled to swap prisoners on Tuesday, and the exchange raises some intriguing questions.

How many Palestinian prisoners is one Israeli soldier worth? Should Israel release people with blood on their hands? Should a democratic country negotiate with a terror organization?

The deal will bring home Sgt. Gilad Schalit who was captured in a cross-border raid in June 2006 by Palestinian militants who snuck into Israel and dragged him into Gaza. Little has been known about his fate since then, but demands for his release have been a major issue for Israelis ever since.   

---

The list of some of the Palestinian prisoners who will be released has been leaked to the press. Palestinian families finding their relatives name on the list will be reunited with their loved ones. Schalit's family will be able to hug their son again. But some Israelis are furious.

For Yossi Mendellevich the swap will be a very sad day. On March 5, 2003 a suicide bomber exploded himself on bus No.37 in the northern port city of Haifa. Yossi lost his son Yuval who was on board the bus. Yuval was 13 years old and was on his way to school when the bus exploded. 

On Tuesday, Fadi Juaba, who allegedly built the suicide vest worn by the bomber who killed Yuval, will be released to Gaza. “The state of Israel did an unforgettable thing,” Yossi told the Israeli Internet site Ynet. “We can change the colors on the Israeli flag from blue and white to only white which will signify our surrender to terror.”

I have been covering the Israeli Palestinian conflict since 1989 and I can say that this week’s prisoner exchange is just part of the deadly cycle of violence representing this conflict.

Palestinian prisoners have been exchanged for Israeli soldiers since 1979. On April 4, 1978 seven Israeli soldiers crossed the border to Lebanon, four where killed, two escaped and one soldier was taken by the Palestinian Liberation Organization. It took one year for Israel and the PLO to broker a deal in which they exchanged that one Israeli soldier for 70 Palestinian prisoners.

Now 33 years later and the teams from both sides are back at the negotiating table. This time it took five years of ongoing talks to broker a deal which will release Schalit in return for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners.

Since that first exchange in 1979 about 6,566 Palestinian prisoners have been exchanged for nine Israeli soldiers, 10 dead soldiers and one Israeli civilian.

This is a deadly cycle that won’t stop now.

Khaled Mashal, the head of the Hamas organization, held a press conference in Syria last week vowing to do anything he can to release the remaining prisoners in Israeli jails.

This means only two things:  more kidnapping by the Palestinians and more arrests by the Israeli army in preparation for the next prisoner swap.

By John Boxley, NBC News producer

MISRATA, Libya – A tour of downtown Misrata is a vivid reminder of the impact war has had on Libya.

Devastation is all around, with bombed out buildings,   torched cars and bullet-riddled houses.

For more than three months, revolutionary fighters battled against forces loyal to former Libyan strongman Col. Moammar Gadhafi here in downtown Misrata. The battle claimed hundreds of lives, but the rebel fighters emerged victorious.

The fighting is now over, but driving around town, we came across an unusual sight: Staged in front of a vegetable market stood an assortment of military weaponry.

There was everything – mortars, rocket launchers, cannons, tanks – all on display like a museum.

Grandy Maiteeg, our local fixer, told us that they were “Gadhafi's weapons.”

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Apparently Gadhafi’s forces fled Misrata in such a hurry that they left many of their weapons behind.

So volunteers went street by street, gathering them up. Once they were all collected, the question was asked, what do we do with them?

They decided to put them on display on the city's main thoroughfare for all to see.

Aliywa Hdy, one of the organizers of the makeshift museum, told me, "We want people to know what Gadhafi used against the Libya people."

Each day crowds gather for a look at the arsenal. They take pictures while the children climb on tanks and cannons as if this were a playground.

But this is not all fun and games. For some, this exhibit is difficult to look at.

Ibrahaim Elglay stopped by to take pictures. "Seeing these weapons,” he said in a somber tone as he turned to look at a destroyed building behind him, "and seeing the damage they caused, it’s painful to see."

Imed Mohammad Bennor's home was damaged during the fighting. He said the display makes him sad, but at the same time it makes him happy, because, he said: "We won.”

But Grandy Maiteeg has a different view.  "I hate this place," he said. The 25-year-old lost a lot of friends during the conflict, and he said the exhibit brings back too many painful memories.

The armaments sit on display, a reminder of an important and difficult chapter in this city's history.
 

By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Correspondent

MISRATA, Libya – It was a sign that perhaps life was getting back to some kind of normal in Libya. 

Last weekend, Turkish Airlines resumed direct commercial flights from Istanbul to Tripoli.  One week later, the Boeing jet was packed with families with very small children returning to the Libyan capital, despite the fact that the NATO no-fly zone remains in effect.

On the ground, it wasn’t quite normal yet.

The drive from Tripoli to Misrata, which is only 120 miles, takes between two and three hours these days because of the series of checkpoints that dot the main road, slowing traffic down every few miles.  The rebel militiamen are still on the look-out for pro-Gadhafi supporters.  Some are more diligent than others, stopping vehicles to ask for IDs; others wave them on with nary a glance.

In Misrata itself, life was definitely not quite normal.

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The main strip that runs through the town, Tripoli Street, was a key battleground and the site of fierce fighting that broke out in February and lasted three months.  Burnt-out buildings line both sides of the thoroughfare today; those that remain somewhat intact bear scars from gunfire and heavy artillery.

“It was scary,” said Mohammed Abdul Majid, a Misrata-born native whose parents came from Sudan.  “We saw all the firing everywhere.”

His home is just off Tripoli Street, on the second floor of a building pockmarked with bullet holes, but the fire damage was so bad that he moved to his sister’s place across town.

When we ran into him, he and a friend were trying to open the roll-down steel gate to the first floor storage room – the fighting had bent it out of shape, and they couldn’t roll it back up.

Abdul Majid wanted to store some new appliances, including a refrigerator he said he’d bought before the war.  “This is for me.  Before, I needed [to have a] party,” he laughed.  “I will fix the current home.  And then have a party.”

Down Tripoli Street, Mahmood al Gazil was fixing up a photo studio also badly damaged by the fighting earlier this year.  The owner had hired him to repair the store, and he was working alone.

“A lot of the guys who own the shops are on the frontline, so they are busy,” he said.  In the meantime, he’s working without pay.  “There is no money right now.”

And what if the people who are supposed to pay him die fighting on the frontline before he gets paid?  He smiled and shrugged, “I
am not worried, because then they died for our country.”

In the meantime, al Gazil said he has enough savings to see him and his family through for the foreseeable future. 

Mahdi al Toumy, a university student, was sitting in the shade of a corner building on Tripoli Street; his family is one of the few still living there.

“There is maybe one other family in the area still living here,” he told us.  “All the neighbors have gone, staying with relatives in other neighborhoods.”

Traffic appears normal even if the buildings don’t. At one intersection there was even a policeman in a pristine, though slightly wrinkled, white uniform directing cars.

At a villa now housing the office of Doctors Without Borders, Mohammed Hasb el Rasoul said that despite the heavy fighting in nearby Sirte, they did not have any injured from the frontlines coming through the hospitals or clinics in Misrata.

“It was a kind of a big mess back in July,” said el Rasoul, a Sudanese man who has been living in Misrata since 1993 and now works as a radio operator for MSF. 

But perhaps the most bemusing sight is one that suggests just how much Libya teeters between normal and not normal.

Everywhere there are pick-up trucks driving around with mounted anti-aircraft guns or 50-calibre guns in the back, wrapped in some sort of covering, their tell-tale barrels pointing toward the sky.  It suggests that the fighting is done.

At least for now.

By Ian Williams, NBC News Correspondent

THIMPU, Bhutan – It's not every day you get to meet royalty.

And when I found myself just feet away from the king of Bhutan and his new queen, I have to admit that I wasn't entirely sure what to do.

Our Bhutanese coordinator had given me a white silk scarf and demonstrated how to hold it out as an offering, a mark of respect to the king – but only if he approached. Protocol in Bhutan – and there is a lot of protocol in Bhutan – dictated that you don't approach him, you don't doorstep the King of Bhutan.

Yelling a question from the midst of a crowd lined-up in silent and solemn respect seemed the surest way for an early flight out of the country.

We'd traveled out of Thimpu, Bhutan's capital, to a small village high in the mountains and on the route the royal couple would be taking back from the monastic fortress where their stunning wedding ceremony had been held.

Two or three hundred people had lined up along the road near the village, while from a hillside monastery barely visible through thick incense, the sound of horns and cymbals reverberated around the valley.

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I joined the villagers, towards the end of the line, and waited, until the king and queen were directly in front of me.

"Congratulations your majesties," was the best I could go, completely forgetting about the scarf. To my utter surprise, King Jigme Khesar immediately approached extending his hand for me to shake.

"Thank you, thank you," he said.

"It seems as if the whole country is out to meet you," I replied.

"I am very fortunate, very fortunate," he said.

I felt the disapproving stare of a legion of protocol officers and some pretty rugged looking security types. But the king was smiling. The queen was smiling. They seemed eager to talk.

"It was a wonderful ceremony yesterday," I said, stating what I guess is the blindingly obvious.

"We enjoyed it," said the King, turning to his wife.  "Yes we did," she agreed.

Then I thought, well, I might as well pop THE question.

"Do you have plans for a honeymoon?"

I felt those protocol daggers. But the king was keen to talk.

"No. We start working right after the day we were married," he said. "And if we travel we'll travel around the country. We like to meet more people."

Absolutely convinced I'd probably overstepped every mark, I once again congratulated the couple, who both came forward, smiling broadly, the king again reaching to shake my hand.

"Thank you. Thank you. It means a lot to us."

Then they were gone. Then they were back in their car heading down to the next village. In fact it took them 11 hours to cover the 50 miles back to Thimpu, hopping from village to village, receiving offerings, and meeting as many people as possible, and all with an incredible air of warmth and humility.

The King of Bhutan is often called a king of the people, renowned for his common touch. I'd heard that dozens of times since arriving in the country. But journalists are skeptical folk. The more somebody tells you an object is black, the more convinced you become that it must be any color but black. You learn to suspect motives, to question supposed certainties.

When officials in Thimpu had spoken to us about the royal couple's journey home, they'd been unable to give us any sense of how long it would take.

"It's really up to him. He might linger. He does like to meet people," they'd said.

And with hindsight I was probably being way over-sensitive about offending protocol. There probably weren't any protocol daggers, for the simple reason that the king had decided he wanted to talk, and what the king decides IS protocol. And this is a king - and queen - who thrive on personal contact with their people, and even the occasional pushy foreigner.

Bhutan is often described as a magical place. I think I'd go along with that.

By Charlene Gubash, NBC News producer

CAIRO — What a difference five days make. 

Just last Sunday, Egyptian soldiers clashed with mainly Coptic Christian demonstrators protesting the demolition of a church in Aswan. Twenty-five people were killed, either shot to death or run over as army trucks sped through the crowds.

Friday night, party boats decked with colored lights plied the Nile, blaring disco music in front of Egypt’s state TV building, scene of the recent tragedy. In a show of unity, about 200 people, Christians and Muslims, gathered on a street median to protest last week’s violence. Muslim worshippers bowed in prayer. They had marched five miles from Al Azhar Mosque to the Coptic Cathedral to the TV building.

The poor attendance at the demonstration indicated that, despite a week’s worth of angry rhetoric in the newspapers, talk shows and coffee shops, the country has not turned against its provisional military rulers yet. The army’s attack, whether provoked or not, shocked the nation and tarnished the image of the army, regarded as heroes who took the side of the people instead of the dictator who ruled them, brought the revolution to a quick and peaceful conclusion, and put an end to the chaos. The deadly clash, in which most of the victims were Christians, also raised the specter of full-blown sectarian strife.

But those who did attend the small demonstration voiced what appears to be a minority opinion.

---

Do’a Mohamed, a high school student, declared that Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi, head of Egypt’s interim military government, “must step down and leave it to a civilian government.”

“Tantawi must be held responsible for the people who were killed here and be tried, just like [former President] Mubarak,” said Abdul Basset al Fashley, who had come to pray for those who had died. “We are here to take back our rights,” said Peter Aziz, a law student. He fingered the wooden cross hanging from his necklace. “I came today because of what happened here. We were martyred because of (the army).”

“The army is creating sectarian conflict. They have to go. The leaders are the same corrupt figures as before,” complained taxi driver Mohamed Salawy.

“Their armored personnel carriers were being stolen, the army said so themselves. If they can’t protect themselves, what can they protect?” asked Mohamed el Sayed, a pharmaceutical employee.

Dr. Emira Edris, a pediatrician, also saw the vulnerable side of the army. She has a clinic on a street where protesters and soldiers fought. “We saw soldiers cry,” she recalled. “The people were attacking them and they were shocked, and they found themselves fighting fellow Egyptians, not enemies, but fellow Egyptians.”

Clinic staff slipped one soldier – a Christian – into the lobby of their building and gave him street clothes to wear so that he could safely escape. “For us the army is a symbol of pride and success,” Edris said. “But this incident created a great rift between the civilians and the army.”

She, and many other Egyptians, believe there was an orchestrated attempt to turn citizens against the army in order to create chaos. “The soldiers are our last defense,” Edris said. She still believes only the military can steer the country safely through the instability of the next six months, before parliamentary and presidential elections. "Egypt is like a (religious) mosaic. If we lose that, it will be catastrophic," she insisted. "We have to cool down. We have to have a vision. We have to look for the future."

Charlene Gubash is an NBC News producer based in Cairo.

By Adrienne Mong, NBC News

BEIJING –They are a feared species, threatening to invade America’s Midwest and cause the collapse of an ecosystem and a $7 billion industry.

They prompted one U.S. lawmaker to say, “We are not in a go-slow mode. We are in a full attack, full-speed-ahead mode.”

“They” are Asian carp.

The fish were imported from Southeast Asia in the 1970s to help clean ponds at wastewater treatment facilities and fish farms in the American South. 

But they escaped into the Missouri and Illinois rivers during flooding of the Mississippi River. A twenty-pound Asian carp measuring three feet long was found just six miles south of Lake Michigan in July 2010.

Biologists worry that the invasive fish will starve native ones to death. A hardy creature that breeds easily and with no natural predators in the U.S., the Asian carp can eat up to 40 percent of its body weight in plankton every day.

Concern is so great that Asian carp have been “the subject of state lawsuits, EPA and Congressional hearings, and U.S. Supreme Court motions,” according to a U.S.-based environment magazine.

A task force comprising more than 20 state, regional, and federal officials monitors the fish’s every move.

There’s even a carp czar, appointed by the White House, to oversee the $80 million federal effort to keep the Asian carp from getting into the Great Lakes. 

But the state of Illinois has a simpler solution.

Send them to China.

---

‘If you can’t beat ‘em, you eat ‘em’
A few years ago, Chinese-American businessman David Shu was on a trip to China, where he met some clients who had heard about attempts to poison the Asian carp in Illinois rivers and asked, “Why are they killing the Asian carp?”

Shu teamed up with Ross Harano, who had just stepped down as Illinois trade director, to find a way to persuade Chinese to buy Asian carp from the state.

The problem was one that anyone who’s ever set foot in a Chinese restaurant knows: the Chinese like their seafood fresh. That’s what the restaurant aquariums are for – to keep fish and shellfish alive until the very last minute.

The Asian carp from Illinois were going to be sold frozen; moreover, they were too pricey for local Chinese consumers.

So Harano, who is now Director for International Marketing at Big River Fish, found himself mapping out a marketing strategy that ultimately made more economic sense than simply just trying to pit their frozen product against local varieties sold live in China.

Coining the term “wild-caught” to market the Illinois carp, Big River Fish try to emphasize its freshness. 

“There are no pollutants,” said Harano in a conversation with NBC News. “The fish feed on algae in Illinois rivers. They have a very non-muddy taste.”

“We sell it as a high-end fish to high-end restaurants, so the cost is not an issue,” he said. In particular, Big River Fish is ringing up sales mostly in northern China. “There’s a better market for fish like this in northern China than down south,” he added.

In July 2010, the Beijing Zuochen Animal Husbandry Co. agreed to buy Asian carp from Big River Fish. The aim was to ship at least 30 million pounds of fish by the end of this year. The small start-up from Illinois could make $20 million a year exporting the carp to China.

“If you can’t beat ‘em, you eat ‘em,” said Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn at a much heralded signing ceremony.

The deal seems an elegant solution to a worrying ecological problem. 

But it also appears to address, in a more modest way, another issue: unemployment. 

With a state grant of $2 million, Big River Fish is in the final stages of acquiring a new 10,000-square foot plant in Pike County, to which it will add another 30,000-square feet, enabling it to reach its export target.

The new plant is not the 80,000-square foot facility Big River Fish had hoped to purchase back in March, owing to a paperwork glitch. The hiccup put the company “behind track” on its timetable, CEO Lisa McKee acknowledged to NBC News.

Once the new plant is secured – hopefully by Nov. 1, according to McKee and President Rick Smith – Big River Fish will increase its plant work force from 12 to 61.  An additional 120 jobs will come from hiring more fishermen to harvest more carp.  Not insignificant, says Harano, for a county of 17,000 people that in 2010 registered more than 10 percent unemployment.

Slowly creating jobs via China
The Big River Fish deal exemplifies the kind of salesmanship Quinn wants for his state. He continued to tout the culinary advantages of Illinois carp even last month during a rare trip to China.

“We have wonderful rivers in our state,” he told NBC News just before dashing off to attend a special carp luncheon. “Some of the freshest waters in the country, and the Asian carp we have are big and meaty. We catch them wild, and we ship them to China.”

Quinn peddled other Illinois specialties during his eight-day trip through China – with the aim of drumming up business, jobs creation, and investments in his home state.

In a major coup, he persuaded Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co., a top wind turbine manufacturer in northwestern China, to build a $200-million wind farm in Lee County, which will provide electricity to some 25,000 homes. 

It’s the largest U.S. project to date for Goldwind, and the Illinois governor stressed that it will create a dozen permanent jobs and more than 100 construction jobs.

Another deal announced on Quinn’s trip was for Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) to sell 180,000 tons of soybeans to China by the end of next year – a deal worth about $50 million. China already buys a quarter of all U.S. soybeans and is Illinois’ third largest exports destination.

Chinese trade & economic reforms critical
But there are skeptics about just how much Quinn and others can recoup his state’s job losses and whether these minute steps towards creating jobs by boosting exports will be enough.

There seems to be consensus among most pundits in Washington that selling more American goods to growing economies, like China, will mean more jobs. 

But getting more U.S. goods into China requires a few substantive reforms on the part of Beijing, skeptics say. 

One of those measures is currency reform, and the Chinese central government is balking at Washington’s efforts to get it to move more aggressively to strengthen the yuan against the U.S. dollar.  A weak yuan makes Chinese exports cheaper and imports from the U.S. and other countries more expensive.

More specifically, for Illinois, a survey from the Economic Policy Institute found that the Land of Lincoln lost 118,200 jobs in the past decade as a result of the U.S. trade deficit with China. 

In particular, traditional manufacturing industries took the brunt of the job losses: auto parts production, fabricated metal products, electronics, and specialty steel – areas in which the Chinese have sought to compete.

“Increases in the bilateral trade deficit with China will lead to growing trade-related job displacement in Illinois for some time to come,” said Robert Scott of the Economic Policy Institute survey, unless Beijing reforms its trade and economic policies – particularly on the Chinese currency. 

“Until those policies are reformed,” he wrote in an email to NBC News.  “The growth of imports and job displacement will vastly exceed the growth of export-supporting jobs for Illinois, and all other U.S. states.”

By Ian Williams, NBC News Correspondent

THIMPU, Bhutan – Dasho Kinley was brutally honest.
 
“We’ve not really done this before,” said Bhutan’s secretary of the ministry of information and communications about the media arrangements for the royal wedding. “In fact, this is the biggest international media event we’ve ever had in Bhutan – ever.”

At the same time, Bhutan’s state broadcaster also was mounting its largest operation ever to bring the wedding to the country.

There are 160 international media people here. You’d get that in a routine press conference in cities across Asia. But that and the elaborate wedding coverage, is pretty impressive when you consider television wasn’t introduced here until 1999.

By the end of Thursday, I was pretty impressed with the patience and fortitude of our hosts.

---

The world comes to Bhutan
Our journalistic day started at 2:30 a.m. Thursday. That’s when we set out from our hillside hotel to the media center in downtown Thimpu to join a fleet of 11 mini-buses for the bumpy, windy drive under a full moon through the mountains to Punakha, the old capital.

Punakha sits in a steep valley, with the Dzong, the stunning monastic fortress, at one end beside a river. It is the most sacred site in the country, which is why it was chosen as the venue for the wedding.

Journalists had come from around the world. The biggest single group, and the most pushy, was from India, Bhutan’s giant neighbor (China is the other side of the sandwich to the north).

"Can we talk to the king?" asked one, which brought a wry smile to the face of Dasha Kinley, who replied that the king was a man of the people – but not us people.

“He might, but it is entirely up to him.”

He didn’t. But then kings rarely do.

Thailand was well represented, too, and far more restrained. Yet it was the Thai press that coined the name Prince Charming for Bhutan’s King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuk after a visit to Thailand in 2006, where he gained a legion of young female fans.

One young woman reportedly fainted in his presence back then and ever since he’s been known in the Thai media as a man who has women swooning at his feet.

It’s not a characterization Bhutan is particularly grateful for.

One young official at the media center told me they’d been worried about opening up to so many foreign journalists. Officials winced when a TV journalist from India mistakenly reported that the new queen is Indian.

Another journalist from an international agency asked impatiently what the big moment was.

“When are the nuptials exactly?” You know, the moment when they tie the knot.

Kinley took another deep breadth and said ancient Buddhist marriage ceremonies didn’t quite work that way.

Not on TV time
Many devotees of Bhutan’s principle of gross national happiness shake their heads at the explosion of satellite television in Bhutan – dozens of channels now available, largely from India. It’s just one giant assault on Bhutan's culture, as they see it.

And they raised another issue: Would the growth of the television business in Bhutan itself affect the way the king relates to the people?

King Jigme Kesar has cultivated an image as a man of the people, a king with the common touch, and to that end he undertakes epic journeys by foot (and sometimes mountain bike) to meet personally as many of his 700,000 people as possible.

It’s not unusual to hear of him inviting ordinary people round to his small palace for tea.

Friday the royal couple will wind their way back to Thimpu stopping to greet well-wishers along the way.

I asked the official what time he would reach Thimpu.

“Well,” he said, “It really depends on how long he lingers along the way.”

I found that rather endearing. Why should he be concerned with TV deadlines when he has the chance to meet real people face to face?

There are a lot of other challenges to Bhutan’s efforts to keep out what they see as some of the worst effects of modernization, but being in the television business makes this particularly intriguing to me.

One of the biggest challenges for the king and his new wife will be deciding how closely to embrace the 21st century, while maintaining Bhutan’s culture and traditions. I do hope he keeps up the house calls.

Related: Royal wedding fever grips mysterious nation

Bhutan's 'Dragon King' marries his commoner bride

 

By Sohel Uddin, NBC News Producer

KABUL – Afghan farmer Ismael Iyas Khail had gotten out of the poppy planting business six years ago, but desperation has brought him back in. The current market value of opium poppies is approximately $1,500 per kilogram, four times the amount he used to sell it for.

As a poor 27-year-old farmer with no other economic opportunities, he needs the money to survive.

“I just planted poppy seeds last month and hopefully they will be ready for picking in a few months,” said Khail over the phone Thursday from Afghanistan’s Nangahar province.

Six years ago, Khail was approached by a non-governmental organization and asked if he wanted to take part in a program to move farmers away from growing the poppies that fuel the heroin drug trade and cultivate alternate high-value crops such as pomegranates, saffron or wheat.

Khail chose saffron and was promised cheap seeds, a tractor, electricity and additional funding.

---

But out of all those incentives, he says he only received the cheap seeds, sparingly distributed by the police who were supposed to help implement the program. Khail claims the police sold most of the seeds to third parties for profit.

He says that growing saffron has left him struggling to survive. 
 
“We have borrowed so much money from people over the years and now they want it all back,” he said.
 
Apart from the stress created by the moneylenders, there is the pressure of feeding five children, as well as helping his extended family, which consists of his four brothers and their families.  
 
Not alone
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) underscored the predicament of farmers like Khail in a report published this week titled “2011 Afghan Opium Survey.”

UNODC said Afghanistan saw a 7 percent rise in poppy cultivation from last year, despite a number of programs to eradicate such farming. The study attributed the increase to a sharp rise in opium prices, combined with persistent poverty.

The boost in the value of opium means that the 7 percent increase in poppy cultivation will likely double the value of opium production in Afghanistan to $1.4 billion – making up 9 percent of the country’s GDP, the UNODC estimated.
 
Afghans living in the cities have been the main beneficiaries of the progress brought by 10 years of war and international involvement in Afghanistan.

But with the exception of a few schools and clinics, most villages and towns in the provinces have not seen much change since the Taliban or even earlier. According to Global Humanitarian Assistance, which tracks humanitarian financing, $286 billion has been invested in Afghanistan since 2001, but the majority of Afghans are still living on less than $1 a day. 
 
The various poppy eradication initiatives succeeded in converting 20 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces into poppy-free zones, but the results of UNODC’s survey found that three of these provinces have since lost this status, reducing the number to 17.  Farmers like Khail are returning to poppy planting because they find alternative crops are not living up to their economic promise amid persistent corruption and the lure of higher prices for opium.

“We have tried to be good and understand that opium is bad, but I don’t have a choice now. We have to survive,” he said.

He is aware that Afghanistan is hugely responsible for the world’s supply of opium that ends up being sold on the street as heroin, but he is probably unaware that it is as high as 90 percent.

 By Ian Williams, NBC News Correspondent

THIMPU, Bhutan – From a distance, across the Thim River, they resembled a field of bobbing sunflowers.

We approached by way of an old carved wooden bridge, festooned with sacred Buddhist flags, to find the flowers were a field of yellow and orange umbrellas, unfurled and spun by dozens of dancing schoolchildren, practicing beside the river for Thursday’s royal wedding celebrations.

All along the valley road into downtown Thimpu, preparations are in full swing.

Flags are being hoisted together with portraits of the royal couple. In the main parade ground, hundreds of performers – many of them schoolchildren – have been going through their paces. Young children danced as they gracefully wielded huge bunches of flowers. A group of former government officials were practicing a song prayer for long life and happiness, as the country's home minister shouted encouragement from the sidelines.

A group of monks twisted and scowled as they banged drums and performed the dance of the black hats, used to ward off evil.
"It's all a bit last minute, but we'll get there," one official said. "Everybody's very excited."

Bhutan is in the grip of wedding fever. Everybody is in national dress. And there seems to be only one thing on their minds.

---

“I think they are the most perfect couple in the world,” said one young student of the royal couple.

Three young schoolgirls giggled about their future queen. “She’s so beautiful, kind and simple,” one of them said. While another schoolboy had a rather less subtle response: “She’s hot!” he told me.

‘A peoples’ king’
Bhutan’s 31-year-old king, the Oxford-educated Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuk is marrying 21-year-old student Jetsum Pema, a commoner, educated in India and London, where she studied international relations.

The organizers have tried to discourage any comparison with the extravagant British royal wedding, insisting the king wants a simple and traditional event. No foreign royals or heads of state or other celebrities have been invited.

“He has de-emphasized the whole event to make it low key,” said Dasho Karma Ura, who runs the Center for Bhutan Studies here. But in Bhutan, where the king is revered, that’s easier said than done.

“You can’t also block the mood of the people to celebrate you know,” Karma Ura conceded.

“Dasho” is the Bhutanese equivalent of a knighthood, and Karma Ura is close to the royal family. He helped develop an index to measure Gross National Happiness, which is Bhutan’s way of trying to achieve a balance between the spiritual and the material. It is used to measure development and takes account of some 250 variables from material well-being to culture and the environment.

“He is truly a peoples’ king,” Karma Ura told me, pointing out that he lives in a four-room cottage beside Thimpu's dzong, the monastic fortress that is the seat of government (and the office of the king).

One of his hallmarks, apart from the Gross National Happiness index, has been epic journeys by foot – and sometimes mountain bicycle – across Bhutan, trying to meet in person as many of the country's 700,000 people as he can.

The wedding ceremony is taking place at a stunning monastery in the former capital, Punakha, about three hours from Thimpu, the current capital.

The king has said he wants it to be a wedding for the people, and rather than retiring with grandees behind closed doors, he’ll be winding his way back to Thimpu trying to meet as many as he can.

Challenge: Preserve culture, but let in change
King Jigme Khesar was crowned in 2008, when his father (the fourth king) abdicated, which also marked the start of democracy in the country, with a new elected parliament. Until them it had been an absolute monarchy, albeit a benign one.

Many Bhutanese at the time were alarmed at the prospect.

The tiny Himalayan nation, sandwiched between the giants of India and China, remains one of the most isolated and insular places on the planet. It had no roads or currency until the 1960s, and television was only introduced 12 years ago.

It still restricts mass tourism, limiting access to small groups, who must pay hefty fees. That said change is all around in Thimpu, where a building frenzy is under way, and some officials fret about the rising rates of unemployment among the young – some 60 percent of Bhutanese are under 25.

That is the challenge facing the new king and his young wife, trying to preserve Bhutan’s rich culture and environment, but also satisfy the growing material demands of a young and growing population.

For now though, he's got a wedding on his mind.

Thursday’s ceremony will be followed by three days of colorful celebrations across Bhutan. And from the evidence this week, as they prepare for the big day, it has already given a boost to that Gross National Happiness index.

Tune in to the Today Show Thursday morning for coverage of the royal nuptials.

Related link:
Powerwall: The world's most expensive royal weddings

BBC: Bhutan in pictures

Afghan media tycoon Saad Mohseni, one of TIME magazine's 100 most influential people in the world, talks about Afghanistan's progress over the last decade, why he chose to start a media empire in the country and why the world should not give up on Afghanistan.

---

By Martin Fletcher, NBC News Correspondent

Sixty-six years ago Edith and Georg took a bus to Liverpool Street station in London to meet Edith's cousin, Anna, who was arriving on the 7:21 train from Dover. Start of journey: Auschwitz.
      
They had never met a survivor of what some were calling a holocaust. None of their friends had. They didn't know what to believe. The stories from the concentration camps were dribbling out like blood through a rag – rumors, newspaper reports, Red Cross bulletins.

Could this madness be true? In October 1945 nobody in London knew.

Amid the screeching and loudspeaker announcements and belching smoke of the railway terminal, Edith hugged her belly, hoping to calm her baby inside. She'd already had one miscarriage in her sixth month and everything was a struggle.

Classified as "Enemy Aliens" throughout the war, terrified by the uncertainty of the fate of their families at the hands of the Nazis, now they had to face a new threat: a petition to throw the Jewish refugees out of Britain.

Their neighbors were signing it. And with all the stress, Edith's doctor advised her to lie down for the last three months of her pregnancy to make sure she didn't lose another baby.
     
So begins my new novel, “The List.” It's personal. After 40 years as a journalist, telling other people's stories, I tell the story of my own family.

---

Crafting a story      
Many people have asked me, if it's the truth, why write it as fiction?
      
Although I have been a journalist for so long, I have long believed that the real truth about people can only be told through fiction. Not the truth of events, facts and analysis, but the truth of emotions, characters and their complex relationships.

What was it like to be waiting at that station? Or to learn that not one close relative survived the camps? Or to face the wave of anti-Semitism in their refugee haven? To build new lives?

I don't know because my parents never talked about it and by the time I had the idea to write their story, they were dead. So I had to make it up.
     
I read all the bulletins of the Association of Jewish Refugees from 1942 to 1950. I read all the editions of the local newspaper, the Hampstead and Highgate Express. I read dozens of books and interviewed dozens of people who experienced those times, from nurses who delivered babies, to former Jewish soldiers who fought fist-fights with fascists in London's streets. I even spoke at length to a Jew from Palestine sent to London to assassinate the British Foreign Minister, Ernst Bevin. I had all the facts, as far as I knew.

But I didn't know anything about the essential question: What was it like?

So I set out on my first work of fiction, and it was a scary journey.

I left NBC partly because I found it impossible to write a novel while working as a full-time reporter. I finished one writing session about Otto, a character in the novel, was sent to Afghanistan for three weeks, and when I returned to my story I had no idea who Otto was. I had to go back 20 pages before I remembered.

Writing non-fiction is a breeze compared to fiction. Non-fiction can be broken down into chapters, each with a beginning, middle and an end. You can easily drop in and out as time permits.

But fiction is a continuous story with multiple strands, interlocking narratives and varied pacing. You can't break the flow and you have to stay focused for months to the exclusion of everything else, which makes writing an unnatural activity in our modern world.
Yet apart from raising my family, it is the most rewarding thing I have ever done. I hope I did my family justice and also the millions of others who experienced similar tragedies.
      
Because ultimately their story is not one of loss and pain but of facing challenges and rebuilding lives, of hope and love.

In my parents’ home there was no such thing as complaining when things went wrong. What could be worse than what their family had been through?

There was only the wonder of being alive.

Veteran NBC News’ Correspondent Martin Fletcher’s first fiction novel, The List, is published by St. Martin’s Press and goes on sale Oct. 11. Fletcher’s previous work includes two non-fiction books: Walking Israel and Breaking News: A Memoir. 

Read more of Fletcher's posts in the World Blog.