Ian Williams / NBC News

Rival parties have complained to the electoral commission that portraying politicians as animals is undemocratic. The slogan translates as: "Don't Let the Animals into Parliament."

BANGKOK - It's election time in Thailand and a forest of posters has been planted along the capital's roads.

The voters of Bangkok spend a good chunk of their time stuck in horrendous traffic, so the 26 competing parties see this as a pretty effective way of getting their message across to a captive audience.

Among the most colorful are a series of placards featuring animals including buffaloes, monkeys, dogs and lizards, all wearing suits. They feature a large caption in Thai, which translates as "Don't Let the Animals into Parliament".

The nationalist party behind these posters is urging voters to reject all the candidates and tick a "vote no" box on their ballot papers.

Other parties have complained to the electoral commission that portraying politicians as animals is undemocratic.

Offensive to animals?
But perhaps the most heartfelt complaints have come from Thailand's vets. A seminar of the Thai Veterinary Medical Association last weekend suggested that the posters areoffensive to animals. "'Beastly' posters vex vets," was the Bangkok Post's headline.

Nantarika Chansue of Chulalongkorn University's veterinary science department pointed out that dogs and lizards are incapable of lying, which could not be said of certain parliamentary mammals.

Among the clutter of posters, the others that really stand out are those of Chuvit Kamolvisit, who leads one of the smaller parties.

Ian Williams / NBC News

Chuvit Kamolvisit's angry posters urge voters to let him fight corruption.

Chuvit was once knows as the "massage parlor king", as he owned a series of these notorious establishments, the biggest of which are almost industrial-scale brothels. He has re-invented himself as a crusader against corruption, exposing the cart-loads of cash (and payments in kind) he used to make to police and politicians to keep his sex businesses running smoothly. Chuvit appears angry in his election posters, which urge the public to let him fight corruption.

The posters of the two front runners, Abhisit Vejjajiva's Democrat Party and Yingluck Shinawatra's Pheu Thai Party, are by comparison, well, rather dull.

Abhisit led the most recent and rather lackluster government. Yingluck is the youngest sister of Thaksin Shinawatra, who was deposed in a military coup in 2006. From self-imposed exile in Dubai he remains the force behind the party, though his sister has brought a fresh face and some excitement to the campaign. With just over two weeks until the July 3 election, most polls show her in the lead, and there is much talk of Yingluck becoming the country's first female prime minister.

If, that is, the army allows her.

Deadly military crackdown
The military remains the most powerful beast in the Thai political jungle. Not only did they kick Thaksin out in 2006, but since then they've worked hard behind the scenes to undermine his supporters and keep them out of power. Last year's military crackdown against red-shirted protesters, who support Thaksin, resulted in the deaths of more than 90 people.

If the army were to interfere this time, though, the anger against them might be far greater than in the past.

The election posters may offer clues of this. 

During previous election campaigns, many candidates have been pictured wearing their crisp military-style uniforms. Most government servants (and a good many others in official and semi-official positions) have these. They are common sight at official gatherings, replete with medals for various achievements in public service.

But not this time, not in the current crop of placards.

Thai friends say this might reflect a desire by candidates to distance themselves from the coup-culture, and the popular suspicion of the military.

Something for the top-brass to reflect on next time they find themselves stuck in traffic.

Fishermen tend to be an optimistic lot, always hopeful that the next cast or haul of the net will yield a big payoff.

Nowhere is that more evident than among the fishermen of Minamisanriku, which lost nearly 85 percent of its fleet, its port, fish market and processing plants to the March 11 tsunami that decimated many fishing communities along Japan’s northeastern coast.

Despite the blow, Minamisanriku’s fishermen plan to return to the sea next month for the first time since the disaster in search of octopi. They’ll also reopen a makeshift market where the old one stood so they can sell whatever they catch.

Most residents of this scenic coastal community nestled amid hillside forests work in fishing, and the head of the industry association says it’s key to saving their town.

“This is a fishing town, so even though there are many issues and problems to be solved, once the fishing starts that will be a driving force to encourage people and to bring joy back to this town," said Norio Sasaki, 63, chairman of the Miyagi Fisheries cooperative, Shizugawa branch. "And once the processing companies also start, that’s going to create jobs and ... that’s going to make this town vibrant again.”

Sasaki acknowledges that his vision of a revitalized Minamisanriku is likely years in the future.

The March 11 quake and tsunami destroyed some 60 percent of the town’s homes. About 900 people are dead or missing, including up to 60 fishermen who lived inland and didn’t think the tsunami would go that far, he said. Some 4,700 survivors, including fishermen, are living in shelters.

The town’s fishermen catch salmon, oysters, octopus and harvest wakame seaweed. Together, they land the second-biggest catch in Miyagi prefecture, trailing only Onagawa to the south. The industry, including processing plants, generates about $49.5 million a year.

Jim Seida / msnbc.com

A fisherman cuts floats off ropes and nets that were damaged by the March 11 tsunami.

But of the 1,000 boats registered with the fishing association before the tsunami, only 56 survived intact. Another 100 were recovered, but in need of repairs.

But Sasaki said that he has heard from about 340 fishermen, or 80 percent of the association’s full-time membership before the tsunami, who are telling him, “We want to do fishing again, we want to go to the sea again.” That gives him hope that the fleet will grow to 500 to 600 boats by the end of 2011.

For the time being, Minamisanriku fishermen with seaworthy boats are collecting floating wreckage from the tsunami: large floats for nets, trees, rope for fish farming, parts of boats and other debris that appears to be from homes. They make between $100 and $150 a day doing this, though that doesn’t come close to replacing their usual income of between $86,000 and $124,000 a year. Japan’s fishing ministry is boosting cleanup wages, since fishermen don’t get unemployment insurance.

Another barrier to getting back into business is the lack of a port.

“There’s no port to put all of the boats in and because the land has sunk, when the high tide comes in, all the boats will come into town,” Sasaki said, adding that 11 boats were delivered on Thursday morning, but the fishermen had to park them on a mountainside. For now, most of the debris-collecting boats are operating from a single dock.

Jim Seida / msnbc.com

Fishing floats are piled high next to Hadenya port in Minamisanriku, Japan. Shizugawa Bay is in the background.

The fishermen also are concerned that the sluice gates leading to the Niida River,which were closed before the tsunami and now are jammed shut, could impact the salmon catch the town is famous for.

Because town officials and the fishing association have “mountains of things to do” and are starting from “minus" zero, Sasaki said it may take five years for the town’s fishing industry to completely rebound.

Fifty-seven-year-old Takumi Oyama, who took a crew out on Friday morning to collect debris from the sea, said he was about to give up on fishing until officials found one of his five boats after the tsunami, But he said he remains anxious because his livelihood has been so disrupted.

"I want to start fishing again once we're done cleaning," he said, noting he was living off savings and insurance. "The  volume is expected to shrink, but that's our agenda for the time being."

Masayuki Miura, 20, joined the crew on Oyama's boat after his family’s four fishing boats were washed away by the tsunami. He said his father was doing the same on another boat.

"It's very severe and I'm sure my father is feeling the same way, too," said Miura, a third-generation fisherman who lives in an evacuation shelter. But he remains positive. "I want to continue fishing and I'm sure I'll be able to do it again."

Sasaki said such faith in the future is common among his members:

“We were once betrayed by the tsunami, but considering how they make a living, there’s nothing else but the ocean.”

Fayez Nureldine / AFP - Getty Images

Saudi women get into the back seat of a car in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, this week. Saudi women are planning to take the wheel in protest against a driving ban that is unique to the conservative Sunni kingdom.

By Lubna Hussain, special to NBC News 

RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA – This desert kingdom may be on the road to change.

It's been 21 years since 47 Saudi women took to the streets of Riyadh in a convoy in defiance of Saudi Arabia's ban on women driving. And although the issue has been discussed at the highest levels of government since then, nothing has changed.

But a Facebook, Twitter and YouTube campaign that urges Saudi women to stop talking and start driving this Friday may force the issue. Women2Drive encourages Saudi women to get behind the wheel in protest of an unwritten "law" that makes them the only ones in the world without the right to drive.

"I can’t understand the fuss," complains Hind, an 18-year-old student from Riyadh who requests that her full name is not used for fear of repercussions for her government scholarship to pursue a degree in Boston this fall. "Can you imagine that before Manal (Al Sharif) drove in Khobar and Najla (AlHariri) in Jeddah, the last women to drive took to the roads in 1990? I really find it hard to believe that we are still even discussing an issue that should have been resolved before I was born!"

However, the attempt to reverse this ban has polarized opinion within Saudi society and even families.

 "Personally I am against this whole thing," says Jahan Y, a self-described ‘liberal thinker’ and physician at a government hospital in Riyadh. "I feel that the women who started this enjoyed the publicity and liked the fact that they could get some iconic status because of it."

Digital Life: Making the transition from Web to road

So, was she against the concept of women driving?

"If there was a decree tomorrow, then I would be one of the first to drive, but I don’t like the way that they went about it. I think it’s wrong to just bring our problems to the attention of the outside world and especially the media. They don’t really care about Saudi women. They just want to sell newspapers. It’s much worse if we do this the wrong way, and then the cause will be set back, like it was during the Gulf War."

'King Abdullah ... will understand'
In a kingdom filled with contradictions, support for the most controversial of causes sometimes comes from the most surprising quarters.

Umm Khaled, a fully veiled grandmother who can neither read nor write and guesses her age to be around 70, lends her backing to the protesters.

"I have to rely on my sons to take me to the hospital for all my appointments and they are working." she says. "I hear that there are women like me in America and outside of Saudi Arabia who can drive cars and nobody stops them. God willing, one day women in my country will also be like them. King Abdullah is a good man and he will understand this."

Would she drive in protest alongside the Women2Drive campaigners if she were able to?

She giggles and then pauses. "People here might talk, and we don’t want trouble with the authorities. But if I were a young woman, then I would do it to fight for my rights and the rights of my daughters. There is nothing wrong in it, because it’s like a knife you can use to cut or to wound. It’s not driving that’s the real issue."

Support among men
The ban also presents challenges to Saudi men, many of whom feel they are being punished.

Take the case of Saeed, a 34-year-old security guard for a private television company. He can't afford to employ a driver on his meager salary of about $1,000 a month and yet has to assume the responsibility of transporting his wife and five children around the city.

"It’s hard, very hard," he says thoughtfully. "I have to work a nightshift, but during the day bring my children back and forth from school and then run regular errands as well."

If the current restrictions were relaxed, would he allow his wife to drive? He grins widely and says, "Definitely. Yes, definitely. There is no shame in that. It would make my life so much easier. My wife doesn’t work and she sits at home all day, so she could be in charge of all those things."

And there may be wider support among men for dropping the ban.

"Most men I know are for it," said a businessman who spoke on condition of anonymity. "It is an economic necessity in two ways: Firstly, we cannot force people to hire private drivers and pay their salaries, which are estimated to be around 2 to 3 billion Saudi riyals per month that is repatriated abroad; secondly, there has been a huge drag on the economy because of the extra trips that have to be made by these drivers. ... I can’t believe we are the only country in the world that doesn’t allow women to drive! What is the big deal?"

So if many Saudi men seemingly are unopposed to their wives and daughters driving, where is the sticking point?

"You would be surprised to know," Hind says with great authority, "that there are many, many Saudi women who want things to remain like this. It’s true that there are some religious scholars who are against women driving, but even girls in my own family, young like me, don’t like the idea. But my point is that they can stay home and use drivers if they wish, but the rest of us should have the choice. We are not forcing every single Saudi woman to go out and drive, so how come they are imposing their will on every single Saudi woman?"

This isn’t how Michio and Ryoko Konno envisioned spending their golden years. 

The Konnos are picking up tsunami debris five days a week near their demolished home in Minamisanriku, earning about $100 apiece for a day’s work. 

Kyle Drubek for msnbc.com

Ryoko Konno, left, and her husband, Michio, are earning about $100 a day collecting tsunami debris and barely making ends meet.

Michio Konno, 63, was working as a maritime engineer and Ryoko, 58, was staying home and minding two grandchildren when the earthquake and tsunami struck on March 11, destroying most of the town’s homes and businesses. They ended up in an emergency shelter, but left after a short stay to move in with a relative. Later, they moved into an apartment in another town. 

Now they are caught in a Catch-22 faced by many tsunami survivors along Japan’s northeastern coast. Leaving emergency shelters for temporary housing means cutting the financial lifeline provided by the government, including meals, utilities and access to other resources and services provided through the shelters to help them through these difficult days. Typically, it also means buying new furniture and appliances to replace those lost to the waves. 

“It’s impossible to live on what we are making here right now. We can only just barely pay our rent,” Ryoko Konno said on a tea break from her cleanup duties late Wednesday. “If we were in an evacuation center, it would be free – electricity, food -- everything supplied. … Once you leave (the shelter), you’re out. We would have liked to have stayed, but we couldn’t.” 

 The government has tried to help homeowners get back on their feet, giving those who lost their home about $24,000 in disaster aid and $6,500 to those whose homes were damaged. But with the fishing- and tourism-dependent economies in the coastal cities and towns in paralysis, finding work – apart from low-paying jobs picking tsunami debris -- is nearly impossible. 

That has created a difficult situation, as the government rushes to build temporary housing -- mostly prefabricated units or mobile homes – to enable people to move out of the crowded shelters, only to find that some aren’t ready to go, fearing they will be unable to make it on their own. 

Jim Seida / msnbc.com

Rows of recently built temporary housing units sit on what used to be the baseball diamond at Shizugawa High School in Minamisanriku, Japan.

Yukari Sato, a 45-year-old florist who lost her shop and home and is living in a shelter while working picking up debris, said money is “probably the most important problem” she and her neighbors face. “I think it’s tough for everyone.” 

In Minamisanriku, which lost about 3,300 homes, or 60 percent of its housing stock, 1,224 temporary housing units have been built since the disaster, but just over half – 690 – are occupied. On Sunday, a lottery will be held for another 264 of the units, 123 of which already had been offered to people who turned them down. 

Officials of the town are sympathetic to the survivors’ plight, but they say that getting them out of the shelters is crucial if Minamisanriku is to surive. 

“Otherwise, the town won’t be able to exist as a town,” said Yoshifumu Goto, 37, an employee in the town’s health and welfare division. “It can’t survive if we keep providing necessities or food that is sold in the regular shops. How would those shop owners make a living? At first, of course, we were very thankful for all of the supplies but now as we go into the next stage, the reconstruction stage, there are some cases in which those supplies prevent the town from recovering. The most important capital for the town is people.” 

Some shelter dwellers have tried to hedge their bets when they won the lottery for temporary housing, which gives priority to pregnant women, families with children under 3 and the elderly.  Town officials said some winners of a recent lottery had only moved their belongings over, while others had not even visited, the Mainichi Daily reported on June 6. 

“The reality is … the people in the shelter, they are provided three meals and the necessities, while those in the temporary houses are not. That’s the reality,” said Akira Saijo, head of the town’s construction division. “There is no measure to ease this situation. I believe there are people who can’t move into temporary houses because of this issue.” 

Saijo said the town held a community meeting on June 5 to discuss the situation and imposed a new rule requiring lottery winners to move into their temporary housing within a week, or return the key. Occupancy increased afterward, the Kahoku Online Network reported.  

Saijo and Goto said it was the prefecture’s decision not to extend aid to residents in temporary housing. 

“The temporary houses, moving into them, is not a solution at all. People have lost houses, income, family and jobs, so even moving into the temporary houses doesn’t mean they can live independently,” Saijo said, adding that he wished it was possible to at least provide food to those in temporary housing. 

Some locals in Minamisanriku are finding ways to get around the cutoff. 

“Everyone is very nice and they give me food to take home and we all share things,” Ryoko Konno said of her team of debris collectors. “Everyone shares their energy with me and I can get lots of information, for instance, there is something happening today or there are supplies arriving … There’s no supplies where we are and there’s no one to bring them to us, but if we come here they all know that we’ve had to evacuate and they’ll help us out with foodstuffs and whatever we need.” 

Nobuko Chiba, 65, who is living in temporary housing with her husband, Masayoshi, and two adult daughters, said her family is barely making ends meet. And as she tries to stretch her paycheck for picking up debris, her disabled husband’s pension and earthquake insurance payout of $41,300 on their home, which only covered about 30 percent of its value, to cover their monthly expenses, she fears for the future. 

Jim Seida / msnbc.com

Returning home from her job of picking up tsunami debris, Nobuko Chiba, 65, walks between rows of government-built temporary housing outside Shizugawa High school in Minamisanriku, Japan, on Thursday.

“You can only stay two years in temporary housing so we’re going to have to be self-sufficient at the end of that,” said Chiba, who fled her home of 35 years as the tsunami engulfed it. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to rebuild on the same plot that we had before and if that happens then we’ll have to buy another plot of land and build a house. I don’t think that will be possible.”

“I was happy to be alive after the tsunami, but now, looking back, sometimes I wonder what was better.”

Jim Seida / msnbc.com

Masayoshi Chiba, 67, sits in the living room of the 320 square foot temporary housing he shares with his wife, Nobuko, and two daughters in Minamisanriku, Japan, on Thursday. Masayoshi is on disability pension while his 65-year-old wife, Nobuko, works during the day picking up tsunami debris.

Many townspeople are hoping that a draft plan for the rebuilding of Minamisanriku, expected to be presented in September, will answer some of their questions. But that is a long wait for people living on the edge of survival. 

“There’s nothing we can do now but live day to day,” said Chiba, “and hope we get some glimpse of our future.”

Before officials in Minamisanriku, Japan, can begin rebuilding from the March 11 tsunami, they must first dispose of what remains of their coastal town: an estimated 650,000 to 700,000 tons of wreckage that they have nowhere to put.

It’s a monumental challenge, and one being faced by communities along hundreds of miles of Japan’s battered northeastern coast.

The debris covers an estimated 10 square kilometers (a little less than 4 square miles, or three times the size of New York’s Central Park) of the fishing town, one of Japan’s hardest hit communities. It comes in all shapes and sizes: cars, refrigerators, wood, steel, air conditioners, concrete rubble, clothes, broken glass and countless other forms.

Town officials, who estimate it will cost about $27.4 million to remove it, have plans to burn as much of the debris as possible and recycle what they can.

But since Japan has little landfill space left, the rest may eventually be shipped overseas. The New York Times reported on June 3 that the government of Miyagi prefecture, which includes Minamisanriku, also plans to use land adjacent to Matsushima, a group of islands considered one of “the three most beautiful places” in Japan, as a dump.

Officials are planning to build five incinerators in Miyagi prefecture, in which Minamisanriku is located. But the one that the town will use in Motoyoshi, in nearby Kesennuma city, won't be operational until the summer or fall of 2012. That puts the companies in charge of the cleanup in a quandary.

"The debris storage space will be used up soon. Unless we secure other space to dump the debris, we may have to stop the cleanup," said Takashi Abe of Abei Construction, one of the 20 companies hired to collect the rubble from Minamisanriku. "That's the biggest issue we're facing right now."

The cleanup began in late March, but initially the pace was slow, as the crews also were searching for bodies in the town, where 900 people died or vanished.

Kyle Drubek / for msnbc.com

This map of Minimasanriku shows the tsunami-affected areas in red, was colored by hand and is posted on a large information board in the city's disaster response office.

"While we were cleaning up the debris, we were also looking for those (missing) people, so we had to do it delicately," said Akira Saijo, head of the town office's construction division, which is overseeing the debris removal. "The pace of cleaning it up was slow until the end of May."

Abe, whose company is cleaning one of three sectors of the town, said all of the cleanup crews alone are employing about 100 excavators and up to 70 trucks, said Abe. Enough debris to fill 500 large trucks is cleared daily, he said, but in some areas removal has just begun.

The garbage is divided into "burnable and nonburnable," with the latter being split into various types, such as plastic, iron and vinyl, Abe said. Materials like steel and concrete will be recycled. Other companies are handling the disposal of vehicles.

As slow as it is proceeding, the cleanup has one immediate benefit: It is one of the only sources of employment in the economically idled town. Workers – many of them survivors of the tsunami – can be seen each day combing through the debris fields, filling plastic bags with burnable material and picking up items that could be dangerous, like big shards of jagged glass and metal. Fishermen, who are jobless due to the destruction of the fish market, are also being hired to collect wreckage that is floating at sea.

The human hands are key in many ways to rehabilitating the land, said Abe, who employs 80 such part-time workers out of a total crew of 300.

"By giving them this work, we give them hope and income so that we can build our town together," he said.

Abe said the company also had “special handlers” on hand to deal with any hazardous materials, such as needles and medicines from a demolished hospital, or fertilizer from rice paddies.

Debris ready for permanent disposal – including piles of tires, wood, metal and hand-filled plastic bags -- is stacked up along roads, waiting for trucks to haul it away.

Saijo, the Minamisanriku official in overseeing the cleanup, said the interim step “is a waste of time and a waste of money." But without the incinerators, he said, there is no other choice.

Abe noted that having these new piles around town creates another cause for concern: hygiene.

"As the rainy season hits Japan and the summer comes, we'll have issues like odor, flies and mosquitos. We already have those issues now. But how we can prevent those issues from spreading will be our biggest challenge," Abe said.

Saijo and Abe believe about 50 percent of the material will eventually be burned.

"By burning (it) into ash, you can reduce the content to one-tenth," Abe said, noting he thought the ash would likely then be buried.

It’s not known how much of the debris can be recycled, as saltwater complicates the process and spending a lot of time sorting recyclables could hold up the cleanup, Abe said.

What is clear is that the task will take considerable time. Saijo said only 10 percent of the debris has been removed so far and predicts the work won’t be done until the end of March 2012 -- depending on when the incinerators are operational.

"I am hoping after three years, five years at the latest, this area will be reborn completely," Abe said.

Kyle Drubek / for msnbc.com

When asked the hardest part of her new job, Yukari Sato replied "My back hurts." Although it is a daunting task, cleaning up the town for the future is important to her.

But Abe took a more optimistic view, saying that between 200,000 and 300,000 tons of debris – roughly 30 to 45 percent of the total -- had been removed so far.

For many residents, the mountains of wreckage can’t be removed soon enough.

“I want it cleaned up as fast as possible," said Yukari Sato, a 45-year-old mother of three whose floral shop and home were wiped out and is now working in the debris fields. "Until we have it cleaned up, we can’t start anything."

“I want him to grow strong, become a strong person who can survive no matter what happens, even in this disaster.” 

The hopes of Koya Takahashi for his son, Nagato, are understandable given all that the child has endured in his first few tumultuous months of life. 

Koya’s wife, Megumi, was due to deliver the couple’s first child on March 11, the day a 9.0-magnitude quake triggered a tsunami that ripped through her hometown of Minamisanriku. Though the couple’s home was on a hill and was spared, because of her delicate condition they were in no way out of danger. 

Jim Seida / msnbc.com

Koya Takahashi, 28, and his wife, Megumi, 27, hold their 3-month-old son, Nagato, outside Megumi's parents' home in Minamisanriku, Japan, on Monday.

She prayed the baby would stay inside her belly a little longer since all of the roads to her home were blocked by tsunami debris. 

The next day, the military flew Megumi, 27, to a Red Cross hospital in the nearby city of Ishinomaki. There, she sat in a chair for five days before going into labor. Though the petite Megumi had wanted a C-section due to the size of her baby -- 9.5 pounds – the operating room was jammed with the tsunami wounded so she went through 25 hours of natural childbirth instead.

 Throughout her ordeal, the hospital was in chaos, as more wounded and other pregnant women were rushed in, including one whose baby was crowning. 

“It was full of people and more and more people came in,” said Koya, 28. “People were covered in mud and blood. They put a blue tarp on the floor. People were sleeping there with blankets.” 

Nagato Takahashi was born healthy, but his parents and others in the devastated areas of northeastern Japan are now weathering another kind of storm: raising their infants in a disaster zone. 

Nearly 60 percent of the homes in the fishing community of Minamisanriku are gone, many livelihoods have been washed away and people don’t know where their next paycheck will come from. And many of the stores where baby milk, diapers and food once could be purchased have vanished. 

“Many mothers are under a lot of stress,” said Yumie Ikeda, an obstetrician who is also a health and medical advisor for the U.N. children’s agency (UNICEF). “Many mothers are just moving from one place to another, especially in this town. … They know the evacuation center is not a good place for their children. That’s why they are moving, sometimes to their relative’s house and sometimes to their friend’s house.” 

Seven mothers of toddlers, boys and girls around 10 months old, gathered on Monday at a local school for the first health check-up held by the town’s health care and welfare division since the tsunami. It’s common in Japan for mothers to obtain their children’s check-ups through such a government-run facility. 

Kyle Drubek for msnbc.com

Left to right: Yukari Miura watches over Riyo Takeda, 11 months, Ryuto Takahashi, 13 months, and her own son Taisei, 11 months, while waiting at a health check up at an elementary school in Minamisanriku, Japan.

“Our health care center was destroyed,” said Hatsue Kudo, 51, head of the division. But despite the dual disaster, “Our kids are growing.” 

“We started from nothing -- no water and no food -- but now we have water that we can use for washing and cleaning even though the drinking water is not fully recovered yet,” she said. “Life has been coming back to normal. Having been through that, we all became stronger.” 

The toddlers acted like normal kids at the check-up: they took each other’s toys, crawled as far as their mothers would let them and suddenly burst into tears or big grins for no apparent reason. Some did not enjoy their lesson on brushing their teeth, while others just ended up sucking on their toothbrushes. 

“I am sure that the kids are feeling stressed, too, and this baby, when we first evacuated, he suddenly woke up at night and start crying, because where we were staying was not our home,” Kumiko Takahashi, who is not related to Koya and Megumi Takahashi, said of her son. “I think it must be a frustrating situation for them, too. As a mother, I have to be strong and raise them.” 

Kumiko Takahashi, who also has a four-year-old daughter with her husband, said their home was washed away by the tsunami. Now her husband, who fishes oysters and scallops, has no work since the fish market is closed, so he is working as a security guard for much less pay. 

“For the first two months we were getting lots of supplies from the government and other groups of people, but as time passes, we are getting less,” she said. “At the moment, we have enough necessities and food. But if we get less baby food, I’ll worry. We buy what we don’t have, for now.” 

The disaster has left parents with a host of new concerns, including whether radiation that continues to leak from the Fukushima Daichi plant, 120 miles to the south, could affect their children. (On Wednesday, Japan Today reported that Fukushima city would give dosimeters to measure radiation doses to 34,000 children there starting in September due to increasing worries about radiation exposure.)  

“I’m worried about the air and also the water, if they are contaminated or not,” said Megumi Takahashi. “From time to time we check on the (prefecture’s) website because they check the radiation level … and we also keep checking news reports, too. If the radiation spreads more, we might think of possibly moving.” 

For others, radiation concerns are secondary to daily needs. 

“I’m worried about infectious diseases because I’m not getting water at home and also because of this disaster there is water contaminated by the tsunami,” said Yukari Miura, 33, who fled with her now 11-month-old son, Taisei, as the water filled the first floor of the family’s home. “It’s stagnant and the mosquitos are coming so that could eventually spread disease, that’s what I’m afraid of.  For drinking water, we go to the shelter to get bottled water.” 

Kumiko Takahashi said she was more worried about the dust and sand from the cleanup and reconstruction and the lack of infrastructure in Minamisanriku. 

“Our concern about this disaster is the reconstruction,” she said. “ … I’m more worried about it than the radiation at Fukushima. … (Also), my house was washed away and there are no shops around. There are not enough lifelines around to make a living.” 

Koya and Megumi Takahashi also are coping with the economic disruption that the tsunami has left in its wake. 

Koya’s truck driving job petered out with the loss of many of the fleet’s trucks and then he broke his ankle at a construction site. But while the challenges are considerable, they feel lucky to have a safe place for their baby at the home of Megumi’s parents, which is on a hill away from the devastation. 

There, with cows mooing in the distance and a man driving a red tractor back-and-forth, it is possible to feel hopeful, both for themselves and their young son. 

“The city is still destroyed and I have worries, but now I have a baby,” said the soft-spoken Megumi. “My will is strong. I am quite positive.”

By Chris Hampson, NBC News Director of Foreign News

LONDON – I watched a man die on television last night.

Not in some Hollywood crime mini-series, but for real.

He sat on a sofa, drank a cup of barbiturates and, quite deliberately, let his life ebb away.

His last act on this earth was to snore loudly, as he fell into the deepest sleep a human can ever have, the one from which you never wake up.

Sitting awkwardly by his side was his loyal wife of 40 years, going along with her husband’s last wish to finish his life while he was still able. You could tell that inside she was screaming.

This was assisted suicide, Swiss-style, and the BBC aired it as part of a moving – and highly-controversial – debate on the so-called “right to die.”

The man, a 71-year-old Briton called Peter Smedley, had motor neurone disease and chose to kill himself rather than suffer what he saw as an awful, lingering death.

I have been with people shortly before they died, and I have seen many bodies shortly after. The first is a consequence of watching family and friends grow older; the second the hazard of being a journalist.

But this was the first time I’d been witness to the moment when a person passes from life to death. That it was by choice, made it even harder to watch. I admit to tears rolling down my face.

The debate about the right to end one’s own life is one of the most fundamental of any issues. It is proscribed in some religions, and, in most countries, by law.

In Europe, only the Netherlands and Belgium make exceptions for residents.

Similarly, in the United States only three states allow physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill, Montana, Oregon and Washington. 

In most places, and in the U.K., you run the risk of prosecution – and possibly prison – if you help a loved one to take his or her own life.

So a curious branch of the tourist industry has opened up, where those who want or need help to kill themselves travel to a house on an industrial estate just outside Zurich. The authorities won’t allow it in a residential area.

Switzerland has permitted assisted suicide under certain criteria since 1940. Those who want to take the final step can make their last journey to the Dignitas clinic there and for a fee, they offer what they call a “dignified death,” medically-supervised, counseled, and legal.

So it was to Dignitas that Peter Smedley traveled, and was filmed ending his life just a few days before Christmas last year. He would have preferred to die at home, but that choice was not open to him.

It was hard to watch, more so because, for much of my life, I have lived with the painful knowledge that my own grandfather killed himself. It was a story whispered to me as a teenager by my mother.  My father never spoke to me about it, but in all his conversations about his own father he spoke of a decent, upstanding man – someone who, these days, we’d say had a strong “moral compass.”

One night, 80 years ago, he left his wife asleep in bed, went down the stairs, and quietly took his life by his own hand.
He was alone, and told no-one.  He left only a note, which I found a couple of years ago in an archived newspaper report of his death. It makes hard reading.

It tells of a man struggling with nerves and a painful illness, who had recently lost his only daughter. He was worried for his job. A doctor had diagnosed “neurasthenia” – a condition no longer in scientific use – “exhaustion of the nervous system.”

“My nerves are all shaking as I am writing this,” he says in his final words to his wife and two sons.  “This will break your heart, and I have tried not to do it, but I am a beaten man.”

The coroner recorded a verdict of suicide while of “unsound mind.”  But he added kindly: “Instead of saying anything against his memory, one ought to feel very sorry he has been impelled to do this…I expect he thought it was the best way to end his trouble.”
These days my grandfather would likely have lived.  His medical condition could have been treated and his mental state – depression – correctly diagnosed and addressed. I like to think he would have wanted to live, and I could have met him.

But even with modern medicines and treatment, there are those today for whom life seems to lose its worth. Do they, like my grandfather did, have the right to end it? 

Should their loved ones face punishment if they help? Must they die alone? Must they die at all?

For Peter Smedley there was only one answer.

And so, as snow fell and covered the distant Alps beyond, he thanked his wife and those helping him to die, and drank from a plastic cup in a clinic far from home.

Related link:

Jack Kevorkian, aka 'Dr. Death,' dies at 83

The fishing community of Minamisanriku was among Japan’s hardest hit towns when the earthquake and tsunami devastated its northeastern coast on March 11. And more than three months  after the disaster, city officials are still focused on clearing the mountain of debris left behind when the waves retreated. 

"We're not at the reconstruction stage," Kiyotake  Miura, head of the town’s disaster division, said Monday in the temporary city hall.

Nearly 60 percent of Minamisanriku’s homes (3,300 of 5,632) are gone. The land has sunk 2½ feet in places, and some 9 square kilometers (a little less than 3½ square miles) are now underwater at high tide.

The death toll is about 500, with 400 other missing and presumed dead. Some 4,700 of the 17,666 residents are living in shelters --  either inside the town or elsewhere. The government is rushing to build temporary housing to accommodate the displaced. It has completed 1,224 units so far and hopes to have 2,200 done by early August. But with so much debris piled up and the sunken parts of the town unusable, there is not a lot of space left for rebuilding.

Miura said that while the waves claimed sizeable portions of nearby cities like Kesennuma and Ishinomaki, the damage was far more extensive in Minamisanriku, which is located on Shizugawa Bay.   

"In  Kesennuma and Ishinomaki, buildings exist even though they were affected or flooded. But here, they are all gone, they are all washed away," Miura said.

So out of necessity, city officials are still focused on the cleanup, with 700,000 tons of debris to collect. It’s a monumental task, one made more challenging by a shortage of heavy equipment.

Jim Seida / msnbc.com

Nearly 60 percent of Minamisanriku's 5, 632 homes are gone. That's 3,300 lost to the wave.

"There is too much debris along the coast, not just this area, but all along the coast," Miura said. "We don't have enough excavators."

The pace of cleanup also was slowed by the search for bodies, which continued until  March 31.

Now that it has begun in earnest, the cleanup is providing work for many unemployed locals, 50 percent of whom worked in the idled fishing industry before the disaster.

The debris cleaners are separating wood from steel and concrete. The materials will be taken to land in Kesennuma city, in Motoyoshi town, near where we met Teruo and Katsuko Kano early in our trip.    

The town aims to complete the cleanup by March 31, 2012 -- the end of its fiscal year. It's not clear how the salmon fishing season, which runs from October to December and typically represents a fishing family's entire earnings for a year, will fare. The sluice gates linking the river to the sea were closed ahead of the tsunami and so far workers haven’t been able to reopen them.

Jim Seida / msnbc.com

Employees in the Public Works office of the temporary Minamisanriku City Office work the phones on Monday, June 13, 2011, in Minamisanriku, Japan.

But the town aims to have its reconstruction plan ready by September, Miura said, well before the last of the debris is gone.

"When the Chile tsunami hit back in 1960 this area was also largely affected, but we rebuilt this town," he said. "I don't think we cannot do it, I'm sure we can do it. We have to reconstruct the town for the people who died, as well, not just for us, but for the people who died."

They tap the keys on their trombones, trumpets, piano and saxophones, strum electric guitars and bang  drums in a cacophonous noise familiar to young aspiring musicians around the world. But how they’re playing is not the point: this kids’ jazz ensemble has resurrected itself after a devastating tsunami swept away their instruments and nearly stole their musical dreams. 

They’re the Swing Dolphins, an outfit of 23 girls and one boy in Kesennuma that regaled visitors with their renditions of jazz and rock standards “Mack the Knife” and “Route 66,” and Japanese songs like “Hometown” during a practice on Saturday.

Jim Seida / msnbc.com

Conductor Shinsuke Onodera works with saxophone players Waka Kikuta, left, and Takako Onodera, both 14, during a practice session on Saturday in Kesennuma, Japan..

It was just the band's fifth practice since a 9.0-magnitude quake jolted their city on March 11 and triggered a deadly tsunami that slammed Japan’s northeast coast.

Despite the recent down time, their bespectacled leader, Joichi Suto, wasn’t tolerating any sloppiness. 

“We have to perform well no matter what happened to us,” said the 52-year-old Suto. “Otherwise, it’s disrespectful to the audience. … Because this is what we love, we should practice hard, so that we can improve.”

 Suto founded the junior jazz orchestra for elementary and junior high students in 1993. “Before March 11, it could have been OK if we kept doing so-so ... but now we have lots of challenges,” he said. “We have to work hard. We have to be people who can help the community.” 

When the churning waves roared through Kesennuma, they hit Suto’s home, where he had stored many of the band’s instruments -- drums, a keyboard, trombones, trumpets and saxophone -- as well as amps and music books. The city hall where they practiced also was flooded, leaving them without a place to rehearse. 

Jinichi Nishimura, father of 13-year-old electric guitarist, Yumi, said he believed that “all the kids, including my daughter, were almost giving up that they could play again.” 

“I thought the Dolphins will disappear after the tsunami, naturally. It would meet its end,” said Nishimura, 50, who is living with his family in an emergency shelter at a school. “But then it was reborn.” 

The rebirth was helped along by a U.S. midwife: After Hurricane Katrina, the Swing Dolphins raised $125 at fundraising concert and donated it to the Red Cross. So when the Dolphins were down and out, Tipitina’s Foundation, a New Orleans nonprofit focused on supporting Louisiana’s music community, donated about $11,200 to the Japan-based Wonderful World Jazz Foundation, which bought four trumpets, four trombones and six saxophones for the Swing Dolphins. Suto received the instruments on April 16. 

“Jazz lovers in Japan have been bringing musical instruments and cash support to New Orleans area schools for years,” Tipitina’s Foundation said in a statement. 

“People in Southeast Louisiana can genuinely understand the suffering and anguish caused by this tsunami, and naturally want to reach out and help,” said the foundation’s co-founder, Mary von Kurnatowski. “We’re also mindful of the generosity and support we received, from Japan and elsewhere, after our own catastrophe. It’s time to pay that forward.” 

Jim Seida/msnbc.com

Swing Dolphin Kyosuke Yonekura, 13, holds a baritone sax at Kujo Elementary School in Kesennuma, Japan, on Saturday. The band lost many of its instruments in the March 11 tsunami, but is back in business with the assistance of a New Orleans nonprofit that returned the favor for a post-Hurricane Katrina donation.

The Swing Dolphins clearly appreciate the gesture. At the practice, a trombone player jumped at the chance to do a solo, the musicians scribbled notes when Suto gave them direction, and many giggles erupted as their leader joked and exhorted them to improve. 

“It was the first joy for a long time,” when we got to play again, said 12-year-old trumpet player Kanako Oyama, who won praise from Suto for her skillful playing. “It (the practice) was more fun than it is usually ... I got the sounds I wanted out of my instrument.” 

The orchestra played its first concert with the new instruments on April 24 for 500 people at the shelter where some of them are still living. But the challenges remain. Some members have not returned due to health issues, while others are dealing with the stress that comes with a natural disaster, including living in new environments. 

Saxophonist Takako Onodera, 14, said she found it hard to practice at her grandmother’s house, while trumpet player Kanako’s father said he believed his daughter’s bout with diarrhea after the disaster was due to stress. 

“I’m sure everyone is feeling sad, but we try to act normal,” said Hinako Chiba, a 15-year-old pianist whose family’s home -- and her mother’s piano -- were washed away. The Chibas, who we profiled earlier in this series, moved out of a school shelter last week. 

Nearly 1,000 people died and another 511 remain missing from Kesennuma, a warren of hamlets nestled amid forests, where families of farmers and fishermen have plied their trades for centuries. 

The Swing Dolphins next performance will be at the Jozenji Street Jazz Festival on Sept. 11 if they pass the video audition. Although Suto told them that they may not be up to par –a typical teacher’s attempt to motivate them to improve – he clearly thinks highly of his students. 

“This activity can give them a will to live and each kid has their own goals and the reasons to play. But now, after this tsunami, I’m sure they will have the power to overcome any challenges,” said Suto, who is living in a shelter. He added that this work is giving him a “will to live,” too.

“I’m not an expert,” he said, “but through music I want to teach them so that they can be a driving force of the reconstruction.” 

 Katsuhito Torii is finally going home.

Though he didn’t lose his home to the March 11 tsunami that devastated Japan’s northeastern coast, the 37-year-old carpenter and single dad has been living ever since  in an emergency shelter in the fishing community of Miyako, working as a jack-of-most-trades to help those whose lives were shattered by the disaster.

Jim Seida / msnbc.com

Katsuhito Torii leans against a shed he built for a washing machine and sinks at the shelter at Daini junior high school in Miyako, Japan.

Three months later, though, he has run through his savings and is feeling the stress of living in tight quarters with the tsunami’s most devastated victims.

When asked about what he would do when he returns to work this week, a tired-looking Torii said: "I can’t think that far even now. I have been having dreams of the tsunami and all the problems in this shelter, so I can’t even think about the future."

Jim Seida / msnbc.com

Volunteer Katsuhito ToriiÕs sleeping quarters in a gymnasium storage room at the shelter at Daini junior high school in Miyako, Japan. Torii has lived and worked at the shelter full-time since the earthquake and tsunami struck three months ago. June 10. 2011. (Jim Seida / msnbc.com)

Torii’s story illustrates the tremendous impact volunteers have had in the months since the tsunami struck, and the price that some pay for their involvement.

Torii, who said he lived "just a normal life" in Miyako before the disaster, rushed to Daini junior high school on March 11 to check on his daughter after hearing about the 9.0-magnitude quake that had struck offshore. En route, he saw the tsunami waves coming into the community and thought, "This is it," but he made it to the school, which is perched on a hillside.

Torii sent his 14-year-old daughter, Ikue -- a student at the school who greeted visitors on Friday before rushing off to her next class – to live with his mother.  But he stayed at the school, which quickly morphed into an emergency shelter, and quickly took on the role of Mr. Fixit.

"I’m the kind of guy, who, once I am in, I have to finish it. I can’t just quit," he said.

The atmosphere in the shelter in those early days was oppressive, he recalled.

"There were many aftershocks and we didn’t know when the next tsunami would come," he said. "There was no electricity, no water. So we had to go get some water and when somebody came they needed someone to take care of them. Back then there were only (15 to 20) schoolteachers and me.

"The first day we were in the classroom sleeping, but there were many people who were mentally depressed and at midnight there were some people who were sleepwalking. I was up 24 hours working, because back then there were no volunteer workers."

Torii did what he could to give the evacuees some semblance of normalcy in their lives. He used his savings to buy small things for the shelter  –  knives, can openers and cutting boards – and made a few bigger purchases as well -- a Wii for the children and costumes so he could perform  for them almost every night.

He also  built an outdoor shed for a washing machine and sinks, helped put up partitions in the gym to give the 200 people sheltered there at the peak some privacy, cooked, picked up donated food, futons and generators, and collected water from a mountain spring, since the school initially had no water.

His daughter pitched in, spending time with some children who lost a parent in the disaster, and gaining an "understanding of the importance of this volunteer work."

The work has been  the hardest he has done, he said, "not just physically but more mentally. You have to look ahead -- way ahead -- otherwise you can’t deal with what’s going on."

He has had to deal with the everyday issues of people living in close quarters and coping with the trauma of a nightmare that took the lives of 420 people, destroyed 3,670 homes and left at least 1,170 homeless in the city of 60,000. Some people were concerned about rations being shared equally, while others didn't want to move out of the gym into the classrooms last week.

Finally, Torii decided last week that the time had come to leave. He has run out of money and needs to work, plus "another phase is starting" -- that of the rebuilding.

"It’s a very busy time after the tsunami because of the reconstruction demand," he said. "I’ve been getting many business calls in the last month, so after Sunday, I’ll go back to work and be busy."

Half of Miyako, which is tucked in a national park, was untouched by the disaster, and businesses in those areas are leading the recovery. Japanese media reported last week that the Reconstruction Design Council, part of the Cabinet, has estimated the reconstruction for the devastated areas will cost between $176 billion and $250 billion.

Meantime, nearly 90,000 people remain in shelters like the one that Torii is leaving behind, with another 12,100 living in 27,600 temporary houses, according to Japanese media, which cited statistics from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

Torii plays down his volunteer role, saying it was a "no-brainer" to do what he could to help. He also noted there wouldn't be a void in his absence, with the city now helping run the shelter.

"There’s nothing much to do actually" since the people moved into classrooms, he said. "And they (the city workers) can take care of everything so I thought I could go home."

But it's clear he has made an impact. Children, people living at the shelter and the city workers constantly greet him as he talks to visitors. A woman who used the washing machine in his outdoor shed to do laundry said his absence will be felt, noting he had a "good heart" and "strong leadership."

"After the earthquake and tsunami, we were desperate. We had absolutely no energy to do anything. I'm glad that they worked for us, prepared food, cleaned and provided the necessities so we could gradually start our lives again," said Megumi Kikuchi, 36, whose home was destroyed by the temblor, said of the volunteers, including Torii. "We were dependent on him (Torii) so much, so I have no idea what it's going to be like once he leaves here."

Torii said he will continue to visit daily and hopes to meet again with the 20 other volunteers who he worked with at the shelter.

"I want to keep being involved. If I do, I will feel the connection" to the people and this place, he said.

Jim Seida / msnbc.com

Residents line up for breakfast at the shelter at Daini junior high school in Miyako, Japan, on Friday.

Jim Seida / msnbc.com

Boys play with Nintendos at the shelter.

Jim Seida / msnbc.com

A kettle of water stays hot on a kerosene heater.

Reuniting friends, announcing restaurant and shop reopenings, sharing information on where people can get health care, it’s all in a day’s work for the crew of Miyako FM 77.4, a makeshift radio station born days after the deadly tsunami of March 11 swept over their city.

“After the tsunami and earthquake, we had nothing: no electricity, no lights, no telephone …  It was so dark, we couldn’t even watch TV, so we didn’t know what was going on, we didn’t get any information,” said Satou Shoji, a retired Miyako city worker who runs the station. “Only radio was something that we could listen to.”

Miyako, tucked into a state park and home to 60,000 people, was hard hit when the quake-generated waves roared ashore:  At least 420 people were killed in the city, 3,670 homes were destroyed and at least 1,170 were left homeless.

Shoji, 61, said he and other members of the Miyako Community Broadcasting Society had already laid the groundwork for a local radio station and quickly sprang into action. They got permission to go on the air and arranged for a consulting company in Fukushima to the south to bring up the equipment they needed, including audio processors, a microphone and a sound mixer.

They uttered their first words on the air on March 22 -- just 11 days after the quake.

The early broadcasts focused on immediate needs, Shoji said.

“For the first month, it was all about the dead people or the missing people and also the lifeline (electricity, water, other infrastructure), whether it’s going to come back,” said Shoji, whose home was among those destroyed and whose parents and an aunt were killed in the nearby city of Yamada.

Kyle Drubek for msnbc.com

Station manager Satou Shoji checks listener emails at his desk. Questions and comments from other listeners are aired daily. .

The station, which airs daily from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 2 to 4 p.m. and is also broadcast on Ustream, a live video webcasting service, has built a good following. The volunteer staff regularly receives email and faxes from residents trying to locate missing friends or find out where they can obtain goods or services.

The station has helped reconnect a handful of residents, Shoji said.

“There were five to six cases that I know of,” he said, noting it may seem like “small numbers but we started without having any information at all. This is something a newspaper or TV couldn’t do, but this is something that, because we are a local station, that we could do.”

Local radio has a proven track record in sorting through the chaos after a major disaster. In 2005, msnbc.com documented how a tiny radio station in Kiln, Miss., became a lifeline for that community. And at least two other local emergency radio stations have sprung up along the northeastern coast of Japan --  in the communities of Kamaishi and Ofunato  –  since  the tsunami.

In the first days and weeks after the disaster, “People were confused, the city itself was confused,” Shoji said. “Every day, we heard the patrol car or the ambulance with the sirens on. … It was just a mess, a mess.”

But Miyako FM came on the air as the city was beginning to shift into clean-up and recovery mode and has played a small but important part in moving that process along, he said.

 “People’s needs were shifting towards the future,” and they needed to know when a shop or hospital had reopened, or when temporary housing would be built, Shoji said. “As the city has calmed down (from the disaster), I think the economic activity has gradually been coming back again.”

The station, which is funded by the city, has two volunteer announcers, three paid workers and a small staff of high school students who help do research. The studio is crammed into in a single office, with the equipment and a pile of email stacked on a table big enough for two people. One of the walls is decorated with a flag and cards from well-wishers to the people of Tohoku region, which encompasses Miyako.

Kyle Drubek for msnbc.com

Tetsutaro Yoshida, left, a veteran announcer from Okinawa, and local co-host Miiko Fujiwara wrap up the early show on Friday.

Miyako FM has developed a strong fan base, some from as far away as Tokyo.

Among them is Jun Saito, a 52-year-old Miyako resident. Saito, whose home was not affected by the tsunami, said she found out about the station on Twitter and discovered that it offered useful information on where you could buy necessities. She also noted that the announcers’ “soothing” voices helped her feel better in the post-disaster reality.

“When I listen to it I feel like I am safe,” she said. “This voice makes me relieved and secured. This announcer is talking to us Miyako people. It's a heartwarming station and I want to keep listening.”

Shoji would like to see Miyako FM 77.4 evolve into a commercial station with expanded offerings, such as comedy, as the needs of the community evolve.

“At the moment, I can’t enjoy it,” he said. “This is something we have to do. A day passes so quickly and we’re doing it every day. This is something that we feel obligated to do and we think that we are being helpful. …  (But) as the reconstruction moves on, we won’t have to do this temporary disaster radio station, I hope.”

By Yonatan Pomrenze, NBC News Producer

MOSCOW – Depending on how you want to look at it, it was either a glass half-full or a glass half-empty week for Russian-NATO relations.

The two sides held their most advanced joint air exercises ever, in a four-day drill called “Vigilant Skies 2011.”

In the drill, an airplane was taken over by terrorists and flanked by Polish aircraft until it reached Russian airspace, when responsibility for tracking the plane was handed over to Russian military aircraft. Communication between the two sides was handled by two newly opened coordination centers – one in Moscow and one in Warsaw – which shared real-time information at a level that both sides said was unprecedented.

“This is the first time that NATO and Russia are exchanging real-time radar information. Operators on both sides, in Warsaw and in Moscow see the exact same picture,” said Istvan Talla, Director of Aerospace Capabilities from the NATO side.

On the other hand, a Russia-NATO council meeting was held on the sidelines of the NATO defense ministers meetings this week in Brussels.  The mood there was decidedly less encouraging.

The two parties made no progress on the biggest sticking point they face – a plan for a missile defense shield in Europe.  Russia has repeatedly objected to a shield controlled solely by NATO, arguing that it would degrade Russia’s defensive capabilities.

“We need to find an option that satisfies both NATO and Russia so work needs to be continued. There is no other way out,” said Russia’s Defense Minister, Anatoly Serdyukov. But while trying to take Russia’s concerns into account, NATO has made it clear that its security needs won’t be dictated by them. “NATO cannot outsource to non-members collective defense obligations which bind its members,” said NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen at the meetings.

In essence, it mirrors the kind of one-step forward, no-steps back progress that has been the hallmark of U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s “reset” in Russian-U.S. relations:  focus on making tangible steps where you can (even if they are small) and keep talking about the larger picture issues (but without drawing lines in the sand, or rather willfully ignoring the lines that are there in hopes that somehow they will be washed away).

It allows Russian and Western partners to take a week that could have been solely about the great ideological divide between them in how to keep the skies safe, and instead making it about one way that they could work together in doing so. 

At a volunteer firehouse that also serves as a shelter  in the Japanese village of Matsubara, 64-year-old Fire Chief Akitoshi Takahashi has a new view of a firefighter’s duty, one forged both by the desire to protect his friends and neighbors and the death of his 33-year-old son, Toshiyuki, in the March 11 tsunami.

The volunteer spirit is crucial for firefighters, he said, “but more importantly, they have to be alive.” 

Speaking outside the fire station on a spring day, Takahashi was alternately determined and grief-stricken Thursday as he described how his 12-member crew has rallied in the nearly three months since the tsunami roared through the Matsubara district of Kamaishi city, killing 25 people and leveling 160 of its 230 homes. 

Jim Seida / msnbc.com

Volunteer Fire Chief Akitoshi Takahashi, 64, who lost his son in the March 11 tsunami, vows the disaster won't defeat the spirit of his crew. He's seen here holding a valve that was frozen open by saltwater from the tsunami.

“We have some accidents, disasters and fires, and every time we help them, we protect people living here,” he said. “We have had this volunteer spirit, that’s very important to protect people here and to help them be safe.”

Takahashi, a firefighter of 42 years whose home and rice shop were destroyed, knows about volunteerism and the responsibilities that come with it.  

“My father was a volunteer firefighter and I was, and my son, too,” he said. “Living here, I felt obligated to volunteer. … I think my son felt the same way.” 

Takahashi spoke through tears at several points when he spoke of Toshiyuki, who ran back a second time to call to neighbors to evacuate Matsubara, which is about 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Kesennuma. 

Toshiyuki Takahashi’s body was found two months after the tsunami, stuck in a house in the same  neighborhood as the fire station. As the fire chief and the head of the town committee, the elder Takahashi had to identify the body. He said he has hard feelings about the death of his middle child, “lots of feelings I can’t describe.” 

“Both of us came to this office and went out to rescue people. But, it was my fault because I went out,” Akitoshi Takahashi gasped. “He went out, too, so it’s my fault that he died.” 

“I just saw him run off, but I should have stopped him.” 

A memorial service is scheduled for June 18 for those who died in Matsubara, including Toshiyuki.

A member of  Takahashi’s crew, 43-year-old Fukuaki Ito, said the death of a comrade and the teamwork required to rebuild after the tsunami had in many ways made the unit stronger. 

“Our bond is even tighter after this earthquake,” he said of the crew, one of eight volunteer teams in Kamaishi. 

“His legacy will continue,” he added of Toshiyuki, whom he called his drinking buddy. “… His spirit to fight the tsunami will last.” 

The firefighters spent the early days after the disaster replacing equipment lost to the waves, including a fire truck, hose, a pump and valves. Now they are helping the reconstruction, dropping off supplies and patrolling the area.  

About two dozen who lost their homes now live in part of the firehouse, which also serves as a holding center for relief supplies. In the storage room, firemen’s silver jackets with neon stripes and helmets -- some gray, some white -- hang on the walls, barely visible behind the boxes of aid.  

Ito said Chief Takahashi has been the glue that has held the team together since the tsunami. But with Takahashi saying he plans to retire soon, the responsibility of keeping the team strong will soon fall to Ito and other crew members.

He said Takahashi had been his mentor when he was an apprentice firefighter, teaching him how to put out fires -- “everything” – and now Ito was doing the same for the younger generation. The youngest firefighter  is 21 and though the unit is seeking new members, none have been found. Once things settle down, he said, they’ll step up their recruitment efforts. 

No matter, Chief Takahashi said his team is ready for the next blaze, with a new pump and an old red truck primed for action. 

“There have been three major mountain fires and we have fought those,” he said. “I won’t let the tsunami beat us.”

Rice farmer Katsushi Haga sees just one thing as he stands atop a hill on Japan’s northeast coast, flanked by spindly trees, tall grasses and a well-tended vegetable patch: a future for the tsunami-devastated community of Koizumi.

Haga is one of the leaders of a drive to move the historic, tight-knit seaside community of mostly rice farmers and fishermen to the top of this hill, which is about a mile inland and nearly 214 feet above sea level than its present location.

Given the devastation that the March 11 tsunami visited on Koizumi, he is not bothered by the lack of a sea view. In fact, he considers it a plus.

“I don’t want to see the ocean,” he said. “If I see the ocean, it reminds me of the tsunami.”

The tsunami flattened Koizumi, a district of Kesennuma city, destroying 266 of its 518 households and damaging or flooding 42 more -- affecting 60 percent of the community's households. It also killed about 30 of its estimated 1,800 residents, including Haga’s 87-year-old mother, and left survivors in a shelter in a local school or living with relatives. That led to them to contemplate something that would have been unthinkable three months ago.

Shortly after the disaster, Haga, a member of the district committee, and others in the evacuation center saw a news report about another community that wanted to stay together after the tsunami and was trying to relocate. That gave them the idea that the people of Koizumi could do the same.

“Some of these families have been here for years, in some cases a few hundred years,” he said. “We have had our own customs and relationships, and I was afraid to lose them all. If we move together, we can get back to our normal life as it was before.”

The committee set out to identify a plot of land and soon settled on a 5-plus-hectare plot (about 12 ½ acres) on the hill, which is owned by a fellow committee member. Next, they’re hoping to get the Kesennuma city office to approve their plan and help negotiate a price. If they can get more than 10 of the remaining residents to agree to the move, the federal government would cover 75 percent of the cost rebuilding – not the homes but the infrastructure – while the city would pay the other 25 percent.  Koizumi also would need to get permission from Kesennuma to develop the hill.

Haga stressed that the proposal is in the early stages, but added that advocates of the move already have held 15 meetings since late April, had an engineering professor look at their proposed site and gotten advice from a think tank. Next, they are planning a town-hall style meeting to talk with fellow residents about their plan.

Haga said the hilltop would have to be flattened so that homes could be built, and estimates that it would take three to four years to complete the new Koizumi. But the site has some advantages: It gets lots of sunlight, doesn’t have a steep slope, is already accessible by road, is close to the former Koizumi and, most important, would be safe from all but the most horrific tsunami, Haga said.

“I want to make this new area look like the original place. But that doesn’t mean it’s completely the same. It has to be better than the original community,” he said, speaking through a translator.

Koizumi’s leaders think it will work, Haga said, since moving of entire towns has happened before after natural disaster. But Koizumi also is facing competition for city dollars, as one other district in Kesennuma already has applied to relocate, while Koizumi and one other appear to be close to doing the same.  

It’s easy to understand the desire to begin anew elsewhere. A view of the former town from an overlook reveals a scene of unbelievable destruction: a major overpass with a 200-foot chunk ripped out, a massive vault torn from a bank, and countless wrecked cars and houses. All told, more than 10,600 homes were destroyed in Kesennuma.

Haga speaks of “kizuna,” a Japanese word to evoke strong emotional ties and bonds, when talking about Koizumi, where he has lived all of his life.

“Most of the people around here are either farmers or fishermen, mainly farmers,” he said. “Being in those industries means that you have to help people and accept help from others. We’re always helping each other. That’s part of being in a community. Everything revolves around the fact that we help each other.

“Living in the city you wouldn’t even know who was living next door, but here, it’s completely the opposite, everybody knows everybody.”

The disaster forced the people of Koizumi to either move elsewhere or live in an evacuation center set up in a school gym. Some have since moved into temporary trailer homes next door, but there is not enough room for everyone.

About 80 people remain in the gym – down from a peak of 530. Among them is a 62-year-old woman who only gave her last name, Iwabuki. She said the life there was hard and she could only shower once a week.

Iwabuki could get housing further away, but that would mean a long journey for her grandson to school. She supports the committee’s plan to move Koizumi.

“I want the original Koizumi town, too, and I want everybody to be together,” said Iwabuki, who was sitting amid stacked boxes and chatting with a friend as “enka” – a traditional form of Japanese music – played softly over gym’s loudspeakers.

Haga said some 60 percent of the townspeople support the move while another 40 percent were undecided or possibly opposed, though no one has spoken out against it. But not everyone will be able to live on the hillside, since there is not enough space. It’s also unclear how much of the nearby land will be available for marking, since Haga is expecting that other Kesennuma residents also will want to move uphill.

Jim Seida / msnbc.com

75-year-old landowner Keiichi Oikawa tills the soil of his vegetable plot outside Koizumi, Japan on Wednesday. Oikawa wants to sell some of his hillside land so the community of Koizumi can rebuild out of a tsunami's reach.

Keiichi Oikawa, the 75-year-old landowner and a member of the Koizumi town committee, rode his orange tractor over his hillside land, tilling the soil as dusk approached late Tuesday. Birds whistled, a breeze rustled the trees and pine needles and branches lay strewn across a dirt path ringing the vegetable plot that he bought six years ago. He said he wouldn’t give the land away, but he promised a reasonable price, since so many of his friends in neighbors in the shelter “have nowhere to go.”

Oikawa, whom Haga laughingly referred to as his drinking buddy, also was born and raised in Koizumi.

“I want to help the Koizumi people and also if people are spread out and go far away, the schools won’t be able to operate either and then there will be no town,” Oikawa said. “I don’t want that to happen. That’s why I want everybody, whether they have land or not, to move here and live together in one community. It’s not that this is the best place, but it’s important that everybody lives together.”

Back on the hilltop, Haga contemplated the possibility of a life here. When asked what he wanted to bring most from the old Koizumi to the new one, his answer was simple.

“I want the people,” he said. “I want all the people to be together and live together, because we’ve been together a long time.”

By Miranda Leitsinger, Senior Writer and Editor, msnbc.com

In an isolated corner of Kesennuma city, Teruo and Katsuko Kano are slowly reassembling the pieces of the “small life” they shared before the tsunami came roaring up the nearby river and nearly added them to its fearsome death toll.

The 69-year-old Katsuko and her 76-year-old husband have another aim in rebuilding the two-story home in their wrecked and deserted community: saving the last home built by her brother, a carpenter.

"This is the last work of his, so I have to hang onto this house," she said, noting that his home and another one he had built washed away in the tsunami. "For the sake of my brother, I must rebuild." 

Kyle Drubek for msnbc.com

Katsuko and Teruo Kano have cleaned the mud out of the first floor of their home on the outskirts of Kesennuma after it was inundated by the March 11 tsunami. The couple had insurance on their home, but they still face a long wait until they can move in because obtaining supplies is so difficult.

The Kanos, who lived in a shelter for a time before moving in with one of their daughters, have traveled to their still uninhabitable home, which is about 1 kilometer (or 0.62 miles) from the sea, every day for the past month. Slowly, they have begun repairing the damage inflicted when the tsunami flooded the first floor to the ceiling.

They’ve used wood and plastic sheeting to cover the shattered windows, but otherwise, the 15-year-old structure built by Katsuko’s brother held up remarkably well. She noted that an architect had told them it was still habitable, and proudly pointed out the solid spruce wood floor that her brother had laid before being diagnosed with cancer and being forced to retire.

The Kanos had earthquake and tsunami insurance, which they believe will cover their expenses to rebuild. They also are expecting to receive government compensation as owners of homes that were partially destroyed by the tsunami -- about $6,500. 

They’re prepared for a long haul – maybe a year or more – before they can move back in, since building materials, especially wood, are in short supply and are largely being used to construct  temporary shelters for the 10,600 people who lost their homes entirely in Kesennuma.

"Because they are short on materials, the pace of the renovation is slow,” Katsuko said, speaking through a translator.

But the Kanos still come each day to do small tasks. On Tuesday, Teruo tossed debris from the yard into a wheelbarrow and carted it off. Katsuko said their sons-in-laws have helped with the biggest jobs so far, but they've not asked for volunteers since she needs to sort through their remaining belongings and decide whether they can be salvaged.

Kyle Drubek / for msnbc.com

Teruo Kano slowly pushes washed up brush and roots through his garden and past cars gathered from the surrounding rice fields.

Some of the objects that did survive are hard to keep because “it reminds me of this horrible disaster," Katsuko said.

But it’s equally hard to dispose of some things, like the four wedding kimonos she brought with her decades ago after she got married.

"They got flooded, messy and muddy. I couldn't throw them away myself, so I left them there (near the house) hoping that somebody would take it, but nobody took it so I threw them away," she said. "I have the memories and the feelings with the kimonos so I couldn't throw them away" at first.

"Everything I brought when I got married is all gone," she added.

The couple was at home when the 9.0-magnitude quake struck. Twenty minutes later, Katsuko heard a roar. Her husband pulled her upstairs, and she said she braced for death when she saw the rising waters bearing down on them.

“I was hoping to live but at the same time I was sort of trying to prepare to die, and then, the tsunami, for some reason started to go that way,” she said pointing to the road in front of her house heading to the north. "That’s why I survived.”

A walk inside the home reveals the scars of the flood: dirt and grass pasted to the walls extend almost to the ceiling and the cloth that once covered part of the home’s traditional sliding doors is shredded.

But it also offers examples of improbable survival: A small religious shrine with a purple flag sits in a nook seemingly untouched near the ceiling, a bookcase that slide into a wall shows little damage, and a table that houses a heater typical in Japanese homes still appears to be solidly set on the floor.

Katsuko said she felt numb after the tsunami, but is finally coming around. She said she feels like wearing makeup again and jokes about the youthful style of the clothing her daughter gave her.

Kyle Drubek / for msnbc.com

Katsuko Kano was embarrased to reveal that she hadn't cleaned out the shoe box yet. Mud and sand still cakes her husband's summer sandals.

But her mood becomes more somber when she ponders whether their community will ever resemble what it was before the disaster.

“Some of my close friends in the neighborhood have died and some people say they don’t want to come back here again,” she said of the Motoyoshi community. “But I’ve been here for 42 years and even though it’s the countryside, it’s inconvenient, but this is where I’ve been and where I belong, and this is where I want to live."

"I want to keep this house so that my grandchildren can live here," added Teruo.

And, Katsuko said, no matter the cost, they intend to return their home to its former glory.

“Me and my husband lived together, just the two of us,” she said. “Every day we cleaned the house and had the friends in the neighborhood, and every day we saw each other and said hello. We were enjoying this small life here and once I thought (when the tsunami was coming), it’s OK if this house is washed away. But now it’s here, it still remains and I’m happy.”