BEIJING – Every year, thousands of Beijing’s century-old alleyways and historical courtyard residences are demolished to make way for high-rising blocks of concrete and glass.

But now one Chinese architect, who has it made his life work to honor China’s rich history and culture by using salvaged materials in modern forms, has been given architecture’s highest honor for his efforts.

Wang Shu, a 48-year-old Hangzhou-based architect, is the first Chinese citizen to be awarded the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize. 

With much of China’s rapid development being fueled by Western architects, China is pleased to see one of their own honored.

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‘Appreciation for traditional Chinese architecture’
Wang was born in Urumqi, in the western Chinese province Xinjiang.  He and his wife, Lu Wenyu, founded their Hangzhou-based architecture firm, called Amateur Architecture Studio, in 1997. Wang has said he is highly passionate about the “handicraft aspect” of his trade, and shows an equally passionate disdain for the “the professionalized, soulless architecture that is practiced today.”

 

 

 

 

Professor Lu Jiwei, Wang’s PhD supervisor when he was at Tongji University, spoke to NBC about his impressions of Wang as a student. He said Wang was “a highly focused and grounded student who showed a deep sense of appreciation for traditional Chinese architecture and innovatively incorporated elements of it into his own designs.”

Indeed, many of Wang’s notable works, which include the Ningbo Contemporary Art Museum and the China Academy of Art’s Xiangshan Campus, display a distinct Chinese flavor that tends to be absent from many contemporary structures seen in China today.

For instance, with the China Academy of Art building, Wang covered the campus buildings with more than 2 million reused tiles from demolished traditional homes.

“Everywhere you can see, they don’t care about the materials,” Mr. Wang was quoted as saying in the New York Times. “They just want new buildings, they just want new things. I think the material is not just about materials. Inside it has the people’s experience, memory — many things inside. So I think it’s for an architect to do something about it.” 

However, as eco-friendly buildings with modern interior spaces, Wang’s work also simultaneously takes into consideration China’s present and future needs.   

Luo believes that Wang was awarded the highest accolade in the architectural world because “he is able to successfully bring China’s architectural heritage to the present.” He added, “Wang’s win is a wonderful thing because a majority of buildings in China have become too generic and lack cultural characteristics; Wang’s designs try to bring back these characteristics.”

Proud nation
Wang’s achievement has been well received by the media and the general public in China. On Weibo, China’s equivalent to Twitter, more than 90,000 postings about Wang have appeared so far.

The postings range from a simple “Congratulations, Wang Shu!” to excerpts from Wang’s biography and albums of Wang’s notable works.  Many Weibo users have expressed pride about the fact that Wang is the first Chinese national to win what many are dubbing as the “Nobel Prize for Architecture.”

Indeed, the prize, founded in Chicago in 1979 by the Pritzker family, has been likened to the Nobel Prize: winners receive a $100,000 reward.

State-run media organizations, such as China Daily and China Central Television (CCTV), have also run stories about Wang’s win. The China Daily proudly announced “Pritzker Prize goes to Chinese for the first time” on its web site. (I.M. Pei, was the first Chinese-born architect to win the prize in 1983, but he was an American citizen).

China Central Television also mentioned that many celebrities across China, including Pan Shiyi and Zhang Xin, co-founders of the Chinese construction giant, SOHO, have posted on Weibo to express their delight about Wang’s win.

The outspoken, world-renowned artist Ai Weiwei told NBC News: “I’m happy for him. He is a good choice. He has his own way and he has his own style that is different from others. It’s the first time that the Western world has given recognition to a Chinese architect.”

Given the backdrop of the massive socio-economic changes that are currently happening in China, Wang’s win certainly comes at a very interesting time.  As urbanization sees the mass demolition of historical villages for so-called “Lego-set” apartment blocks, and as globalization sees China’s younger generations increasing abandon traditional Chinese customs, Wang’s designs might well serve as a symbol of hope that China’s cultural traditions and its economic growth can go hand-in-hand.

This sentiment was well articulated by Weibo user, Yu Jing Ming, who said “He’s the pride of the Chinese people and the world. Wang Shu is like timely rainfall … it is him staying true to his cultural heritage that has allowed him to win this prize.”

 

BEIJING – These days it seems everyone has an opinion about what China’s economy needs to do to continue to prosper.

Yesterday was the World Bank’s turn to give its two cents as it released a new joint-report with the Chinese Development Research Center entitled, “China 2030: Building a Modern, Harmonious, and Creative High-Income Society.”

The ambitious report attempts to lay out a new development strategy for China that emphasizes a gradual transition to a market economy, serious economic and labor reform and an eventual shift from an economy powered by state-owned businesses to private enterprise.

It was that latter condition that appeared to be a step too far for Du Jianguo who created a stir during a press conference by World Bank President Robert Zoellick at the bank’s Beijing headquarters Tuesday.

Du, a self-described “independent scholar of politics and economics,” stood up as Zoellick was talking and began to shout slogans like, “state-owned industry should not be privatized!” and “this report from the World Bank is poison!” 

He also handed out an essay he had written, aptly titled, “WB [World Bank] Go home with your poison!”

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Privatization debate
Du was pulled from the room by staff, but continued his protest outside where he claimed that the World Bank was corrupting China’s banking sector so much that it was beginning to resemble what he deemed a terrible role model: Wall Street.

“The World Bank wants Chinese banks to become like Wall Street,” said Du. “Do they want Chinese banks to turn into liars and parasites?”

Back inside the conference room, Zoellick acknowledged the intense debate that his bank’s report had generated in China between nationalists and economic liberalizers on the mainland, but defended it by saying that was “the point of any good research report.”

The debate comes at a sensitive time in China as it gears up for a leadership change later this year and a possible change in economic strategy under presumed future-President Xi Jinping.

The drive for greater economic liberalization and an increased focus on private enterprise by supporters of the study would come at the expense of expansive governmental support for state-owned enterprises that have become economic titans in China due to access to low-cost credit from state banks and protection from foreign competitors.

Proponents of the state-driven model argue that state-owned enterprises are a source of national strength and pride and should be protected.

Not so say others, who argue that private enterprise actually creates more jobs in China and should be nurtured to spur renewed growth.

Such proponents of economic liberalization will face a tough slog against men like Du, who are unabashed skeptics of the World Bank and made it a point to say so.

"We have no reason to accept their poison,” said Du later of the World Bank. “After they ruin China, they will ruin the whole world."

It's being called "Pakistan's Oscar," but 33-year-old filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy will be the one bringing the award home.

The Karachi native's latest film, "Saving Face," which chronicles the lives of acid attacks victims in Pakistan and the doctor working to help them, made history Sunday night at the 84th Academy Awards by winning Pakistan's first Oscar ever. The film was co-directed by American filmmaker Daniel Junge, and will air on HBO on March 8th.

Obaid-Chinoy accepted the award for Documentary Short Subject on stage and dedicated it to "all the women in Pakistan who are working for change – don't give up on your dreams."

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Award for all Pakistanis
In an interview with NBC News in Karachi before leaving for the awards in Los Angeles, Obaid-Chinoy said she felt the support of the entire nation, and hoped she could make Pakistan proud by bringing home an Oscar. Some of her fans' reactions confirm she's done just that.

Immediately following her win, proud Pakistanis – watching early-morning satellite feeds of the awards ceremony halfway across the world – took to the web to share their glee and congratulate their fellow countryman. For a brief moment, "Saving Face" became one of the top ten trends, worldwide, on Twitter.

"I walk a prouder #Pakistani today coz of you @sharmeenochinoy and your #Oscar win!!" tweeted @samrammuslim.

"Pakistan wins 1st #Oscar r hero @sharmeenochinoy," tweeted @asmiather.

Networks across Pakistan broadcast breaking news alerts to announce Obaid-Chinoy's win. Pakistan's Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani announced the nation would confer the filmmaker with the highest civilian award upon her return.

'The Artist' rules Academy Awards

In a statement released after the Oscars, Obaid-Chinoy said she was "deeply humbled and blown away by the outpouring of support and well wishes."

She also posted a Facebook message, dedicating the award "to the men in my life who have shaped the person I am today! My father & my husband I love you both!" Her husband, Fahad, and she were high school sweethearts, and are the proud parents of a daughter – Amelia – now a toddler.

Obaid-Chinoy's father died suddenly in 2008 as the filmmaker was en route to the Emmy Award ceremony in New York, to accept the award for her film investigating the Taliban's recruitment of child suicide bombers in Pakistan. She called that win, "bittersweet," but said she knew her father was watching down on her at the Oscars.

"My parents have been very supportive from the very beginning," she told NBC News. "We're five sisters and a brother. My father brought us up as sons, not as his daughters. Had my father and mother not given us that platform or those opportunities, I don't know if I would be sitting here in front of you today."

Dedicated to telling Pakistan’s story
While she admits she considers the Oscar to be "THE award," Obaid-Chinoy said she remains focused on the problems in her home country and the issues she hopes to highlight through her work.

"There are so many stories in this country," she told NBC News. "We have close to 40 news channels, and most of them are talking about terrorism and the impact of terrorism. If you watch that, you begin to think there's nothing else in this country."

She is currently developing a television series to air in Pakistan highlighting the efforts of "real heroes" working to bring change in their communities.

"That," she said, "is how you inspire hope."

On the Oscars' "Thank You Cam," Obaid-Chinoy, clutching her gold statue, again thanked her family for their support, but quickly turned her comments back to her hopes for her country's future.

"To everyone in Pakistan, who fights against terrorism every single day," she said, "this, is for you."

NBC's Fakhar Rehman in Islamabad contributed to this report.

Click here for complete coverage of the Academy Awards

Vote for your favorite Oscar look

MIAMI – "If they're going to kill you, they're going to kill you," said Luz del Carmen Sosa, a reporter in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and mother of two, who spends most of her day running from one murder scene to another. "Even if you arrive surrounded by police, security escorts, whoever wants to hurt you will hurt you."

Just 20 miles from Ciudad Juarez, photojournalist Alejandro Hernández Pacheco did get hurt. On July 26, 2010, Hernandez was part of a TV news crew videotaping at a prison in the city of Gomez Palacio when he was kidnapped at gunpoint, along with two colleagues.

"They took us to a place that was covered with dried blood, with teeth and hair stuck to the walls," said Hernandez. He stopped himself from describing the room any further, saying it brings back terrifying memories.

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"They hit us until they tired," he said, adding that the gunmen also threatened to burn him alive. "They hit me in the head with a piece of wood, on my back, my knees, my ankles."  The men were released five days later.  Authorities believe the kidnappers were members of the notorious Sinaloa cartel.

Mexico has become a killing field for reporters, according to a study released this week by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. The organization’s "Attacks on the Press in 2011" study shows 48 Mexican journalists have disappeared or have been killed in the last five years across the country.

CPJ's survey found the increase in crimes against media workers began with the start of Mexican President Felipe Calderon's escalated war against narcotics traffickers, a crusade which has led rival cartels to fight for control of the profitable drug routes into the United States. 

‘Nothing has changed’
Pressure from international press organizations like CPJ prompted the Calderon administration to launch an initiative to protect the country's journalists. London-based writers group PEN has called for "immediate and definitive action" to end the killings of journalists in Mexico. 

But the killings and kidnappings continue.

"Nothing has changed," Hernandez said.  "No one is going to protect them [journalists], they have no one to turn to for protection, but themselves."

In Ciudad Juarez, a city that sees an average of eight murders a day, Sosa says journalists put competition for exclusive stories aside and call each other when news breaks, so they can travel to cover developments as a group. A 23-year veteran crime reporter of the award-winning El Diario, Sosa and other experienced journalists have also gotten used to giving up their byline for a simple "staff" byline  when they write a story that may infuriate a cartel leader or government official.  

Self-censorship
Journalists complain the threats have led to the spread of self-censorship.  Mexico City-based correspondent Ana Arana said much of the country is suffering from what she calls "news black holes."

Arana runs Fundacion MEPI, an independent investigative nonprofit. In an effort to determine how pervasive self-censorship has become, the group studied the coverage of drug-related crimes by 11 regional newspapers, as well as the national edition of Milenio and El Universal in 2010 and then again in 2011.

MEPI found that in Nuevo Laredo and other crime-ridden cities, the press was barely covering gangland executions and other drug-related crimes. And if they published stories on those types of crimes, they did so without mentioning suspects.

"We don't know how bad things are in some regions of the country because of self-censorship," said Dallas Morning News reporter Alfredo Corchado, who has been covering Mexico for many years. "Who can blame Mexican journalists for self-censoring themselves when the government is incapable of protecting them, or even solving one case of colleagues killed," he added.

Some Mexican authorities seem to be censoring their information too, according to many reporters. "What we are seeing is that the government forces are slow to respond, or against sharing statistics or details about specific drug violence," said Arana.

That increasingly leaves the public depending on social media for information. Many turn to Facebook and Twitter for the latest on crime hot spots. But even that source of information is being curtailed, especially after the murder of Marisol Macias Castro.

The 39-year-old Twitter user posted notes on the criminal activities of local cartel members last September. She was found decapitated shortly after. Two other murders have also been linked to the use of social media to denounce a drug cartel.

‘Not going to retire because I'm scared’
While the risk of reporting worsens, many won't give up their dangerous profession.  Sosa has told her children, now 17 and 20 years old, she does not want a funeral when she dies, because she has seen so many she has developed an aversion to them.

But she says the drug war violence won't force her to quit. "I'm not going to retire because I'm scared or because I'm tired," she said. "This is what I know how to do and this is what I love doing." 

Hernandez also refused to give up being a journalist, but 19 months after being kidnapped he now practices his profession in the U.S.  He was granted political asylum and now works as a photojournalist for a TV network in Texas, where he lives with his wife and three sons.

But those still reporting from Mexico have to continue to brave the dangers.

Culiacan reporter Javier Valdez Cardenas survived a grenade attack in the course of his work. Last year, he was the awarded the CPJ's International Press Freedom award. In his acceptance speech last September, he spoke about the grim tragedy continuing to unfold in his country.

"Mexico is living a tragedy that should shame us,” said Cardenas.  “The youth will remember this as a time of war. Their DNA is tattooed with bullets and guns and blood, and this is a form of killing tomorrow."

There have been violent protests across Afghanistan since it emerged on Tuesday that copies of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, used by detainees held at the Bagram military base had been burned. 

The incident has become a public relations disaster for foreign forces in Afghanistan, more than 10 years after the U.S. invasion of the country began.

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On Thursday, President Barack Obama sent a letter to Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai apologizing for the burning of copies of the Quran at a NATO military base, but it is uncertain whether or not that will quell the anger.

NBC News Correspondent in Kabul, Atia Abawi, answered reader questions about the controversy earlier today.

Click on the link below to replay the chat.

BEIJING – Between Linsanity and Apple’s iPad trademark case, it seems like the only things on people’s minds in China right now are basketball and trademarks.

Leave it to “His Airness” to elevate that talk to another level.

Earlier today, NBA legend Michael Jordan issued a statement announcing that he has filed a lawsuit in Chinese court against Qiaodan Sports Company Ltd., charging the company with using his name and playing number without permission.

“A Chinese sports company has chosen to build a Chinese business off my Chinese name without my permission,” said Jordan in a video statement posted on a special website announcing the suit. "It pains me to see someone misrepresent my identity.”

“Qiaodan” is a transliteration of the name Jordan has gone by in China since he and the NBA took China by storm in the ‘80s and ‘90s, transforming the mainland into a nation of basketball diehards.

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“It is deeply disappointing to see a company build a business off my Chinese name without my permission, use the number 23 and even attempt to use the names of my children,” Jordan said, referring to Qiaodan’s recent bid to trademark the name of his children in China. He continued by saying, “I am taking this action to preserve ownership of my name and my brand.”

Jordan’s announcement is a blow to Qiaodan, a Chinese sportswear and footwear manufacturer that has its roots in the 1980s but found tremendous financial success when it changed its name to Jordan’s Chinese moniker in 2000.

Company: Lots of people named 'Jordan'
Since that time, Qiaodan has borrowed heavily from the Jordan mystique to drive sales in China. His iconic number 23 is on much of their sportswear and advertisements and equipment often sport a logo which greatly resembles Nike’s iconic “Jumpman” logo, which accompanies virtually all of Jordan’s branded gear.

Still, the company denies any connection to the NBA legend and argues any resemblance is coincidental.

Speaking to Chinese media today, a spokesman for the company brazenly claimed, “There is no connection, 23 is just a number like $23 or $230 dollars… I don’t think there is a problem at all here.”

He continued by saying Qiaodan goes to great lengths to advertise that the company was a “China national brand” and that there was no need to tell every customer that they are not associated with Jordan since their brand is already unique to the mainland.

“Not everyone will think this is misleading,” said the spokesman. “There are so many Jordans besides the basketball player – there are many other celebrities both in the U.S. and worldwide called Jordan.”

A bold claim by Qiaodan, but one that is seemingly refuted by a 2009 survey conducted by a Shanghai marketing company. They found that 90 percent of 400 young people polled in China’s small cities believed Qiaodan Sports was Michael Jordan’s own brand.

“We live in a competitive marketplace, and Chinese consumers, like anyone else, have a huge amount of choice when it comes to buying clothing, shoes and other merchandise,” said Jordan, “I think they deserve to know what they are buying.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by Nike, who markets the “Jordan” brand in China under its English name, which the Oregon-based company registered in China in 1993. It failed, though, to register the Chinese name, allowing Qiaodan to take it in 1998. Attempts by Nike to legally halt Qiaodan from selling under that name were blocked by the Chinese government’s state trademark office 

Subsequently, one can walk into a sports store here in China and often find Nike’s official Jordan line of sportswear on sale just a few racks down from Qiaodan’s brand.

Why now?
In lieu of Nike’s previous experience in attempting to protect its trademark and the fact that Jordan himself has waited 11 years to make his first high profile attempt to stop Qiaodan, the question is: “Why now?”

The answer to that may be found in two recent legal decisions involving two other NBA players.

Stan Abrams of the invaluable China legal and business blog, China Hearsay, wrote about two cases involving Chinese basketball stars – Yi Jianlian and Yao Ming – and the parallels between their two trademark cases and the suit Jordan is bringing against Qiaodan.

In the Yi Jianlian case, a company unaffiliated with the player registered for the trademark of his name in 2005. Yi filed a complaint with the Chinese Trademark Review and Adjudication Board and won in 2009; he also won a subsequent appeal in 2010.

Yao Ming faced a similar issue when he filed suit and won against another Chinese sporting goods company, Wuhan Yunhe, which had attempted to trademark a name associated with the former NBA superstar.

In both cases, lawyers for the players cited Article 31 of Chinese Trademark Law which states: "An application for the registration of a trademark shall not create any prejudice to the prior right of another person, nor unfair means be used to pre-emptively register the trademark of some reputation another person has used.”

Perhaps seeing the trademark law now being more stringently enforced in cases closely paralleling his own, and already knowing the terrific economic potential for himself and his brand in China, Jordan must have seen this as the time to make a definitive move against Qiaodan.

Considering Nike’s failed injunction and the fact that Qiaodan is a purely homegrown Chinese company – a fact that should not be underestimated - Qiaodan must have appeared frustratingly untouchable to Jordan, who touched on fairness in his statement.

“When I was a former player, I played within the rules, I played off of honesty,” said Jordan. “Today, even in business, honesty is something that I truly, truly hold as a high value, and I stay within the guidelines.”

While the lawsuit is primarily for control of his Chinese name in China, Jordan has pledged that any money earned in the lawsuit will be “invested in growing the sport in China.”

“No one should lose control of their own name; China recognizes that for everyone. It’s not about the money; it’s about principle—protecting my identity and my name.”  

One person who should take heed of Jordan’s words? Current NBA phenom, Jeremy Lin, whose Chinese name was registered by a Chinese company back in 2010.

Watch Jordan's video statement

The intense fighting in Syria between President Bashar Assad's forces and opposition rebels seems to be getting worse by the day. On Wednesday, a French photojournalist and a prominent American war correspondent working for a British newspaper were killed as Syrian forces intensely shelled the opposition stronghold of Homs. 

Weeks of withering attacks on the city of Homs have failed to drive out opposition factions that include rebel soldiers who fled Assad's forces. Hundreds have died in the siege - galvanizing international pressure on Assad, who appears intent on widening his military crackdowns despite the risk of pushing Syria into full-scale civil war.

NBC News' Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel is on assignment along the Turkey-Syria border. He answered reader questions about the ongoing conflict in Syria earlier today.

Click on the box below to replay the chat.

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ARABEH, West Bank – For a moment Randa Adnan’s dark, defiant eyes, the only part of her face visible behind a white veil, softened with tears.

NBC News was at her home for an interview Tuesday and we had just passed on the news that her husband, Khader Adnan, a Palestinian prisoner, had agreed to end his two-month hunger strike after reaching a deal with Israel’s Justice Ministry that it would release him in April.   

Adnan, 33, had starved himself, refusing food for 66 days, to protest against Israel’s controversial policy of holding suspected Palestinian militants without charge. He was arrested in his West Bank home on Dec. 17 – but neither he, nor his legal team, were ever told the evidence against him.

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The Israeli authorities would say only this of his case: “Adnan’s detention stems from involvement in actions that threaten regional security.”

In 2008, Adnan was convicted of membership of Islamic Jihad, the outlawed extremist group that has killed dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings and other attacks. But his family insists he has never been party to any violent act.

His wife was overjoyed at the news of his imminent release.

“By God’s will, I am proud of him. Not just as a husband, but as a leader of our people. This is a great victory,’’ she said.

Randa Adnan is the mother of two daughters, with a third child, a son, on the way.

“I swear I felt him kick inside when you told me the news,” she smiled.

Anti-terror tool
Over the past few weeks, Adnan’s case has become a cause célèbre – his face, in graffiti form, has come to adorn security walls all over the West Bank and has been emblazoned on dozens of flags flown at protest marches.

He is just one of some 300 Palestinians held without proper trial in Israel, on the basis of secret intelligence dossiers, a practice known as “administrative detention.” It is a highly controversial practice that is bitterly criticized by human rights groups, but according to the Israeli military, extremely effective in protecting the security of the state.

In an interview with the Jerusalem Post, retired Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland, a former national security adviser to the Israeli government, explained one of the reasons why the legal loophole is used. “The first is that you know someone is planning an attack, but you can't prove it through a legal process. If you relied on the legal process, the suspect would go free, but the risk [to the public] would be very high.  
 
Alan Baker, one of Israel’s leading lawyers and a former senior legal adviser to the Israeli military, explained another reason commonly cited for administrative detention: to protect the highly sensitive sources.

“There are times when you cannot make evidence against some individual public,” said Baker.  In other words, the information is so sensitive that revealing it publicly might threaten the safety of the informant. 

But Adnan’s case, Baker said, might now make the authorities think twice about imposing detention orders. “It’ll keep them on their toes,” he said.

For his part, Adnan’s lawyer, Jawad Bulos, said the deal that will free his client is a “painful compromise.”

Asked whether he thinks the case might encourage other Palestinian detainees to starve themselves in return for freedom, he paused for a moment, pondering the personal stamina that requires. “Adnan was a special man. In all my experience of cases, I have never met anyone quite like him.’’

Adnan will probably spend the rest of his sentence in a hospital. His hunger strike has left him gravely ill. His family still fears he might not recover.
 

 

 

BEIJING – If you thought that Guangdong province’s peaceful handling of the Wukan uprising last year would become the precedent for managing future mass protests in China, guess again.

Early Tuesday morning, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China notified journalists that three employees of European news agencies had been attacked in two separate incidents this past week while attempting to cover a land dispute story in eastern China.

The three were attempting to cover protests in the village of Panhe in eastern Zhejiang province. The first attack happened on February 15, when a Dutch journalist was accosted by a group of what appeared to be plainclothes police after interviewing villagers in Panhe.

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The reporter was beaten and had his notebook and camera memory card confiscated.

The next day, a French reporter was attempting to drive to Panhe with his Chinese assistant when another car collided into theirs. The reporter described the incident as “obviously 100 percent intentional.”

After the journalist's vehicle was rammed, a group of men approached the car, dragged his Chinese assistant out and assaulted him.

When they finished beating the assistant, the men walked to the side of the road and smoked cigarettes until a police car arrived.

No arrests were made, but the local Wenzhou government apologized for the incident, according to the French journalist

Chinese police beat-up journalists

To be sure, press restrictions in China have been relaxed considerably in recent years, but since last year’s anonymous calls for a “Jasmine Revolution,” local municipal and provincial governments appear especially sensitive to negative press and foreign reporting on so-called "mass incidents." 

It’s unclear whether the Panhe attacks represent a government-driven reversal in strategy for dealing with foreign press coverage of mass incidents. It is nevertheless a stark reminder of the dangers of reporting local disturbances despite the optimism inspired by the peaceful resolution of the Wukan rebellion.

Rebellious Chinese village takes baby steps toward democracy

Rebellious Chinese village under siege by police

 

Ploy Bunluesilp is the NBC News Bureau Producer in Bangkok. She has reported from Myanmar five times since 2006. She was most recently on assignment in Yangon, Myanmar’s commercial capital, in early December for U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s meeting with pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

YANGON, Myanmar – A thumping rock and hip hop beat, entranced teenagers clutching beer cans, hundreds of people smiling happily – it sure wasn't the Myanmar I am used to.

I've had plenty of memorable experiences in Myanmar, most of them unpleasant. I've been kicked out of the country by officials not once, but twice.

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In 2007, when journalists were forbidden from covering the so-called "Saffron Uprising," I posed as a tourist to get into the country and played cat-and-mouse with the security forces to grab some footage when escalating political protests, initially led by monks, were crushed by the military. I watched soldiers beat cowering Burmese men and women with batons on the streets of the capital. It was an exceptionally dangerous time: a Japanese journalist was among those killed. 
 
The following year I was back again to cover the devastation caused by Cyclone Nargis.  I saw people who literally lost everything – I remember one man who was clutching photographs of his wife and children to help officials find their corpses. Reporters were banned from the whole cyclone-hit area, so again we had to film in secret. Eventually our team was spotted, and police later tracked me down to a hotel in the capital and threw me out of the country.

 

During all of my previous trips, most people I met were terrified to talk, fearing they could be jailed just for speaking to a journalist. Even the guide who took me to the barricaded house where pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was imprisoned begged me not to take photographs, saying it could put him in danger.

So it was wonderful to be able to move freely around Yangon during my last visit, and to find optimistic people unafraid to talk. That alone showed me how profoundly things have changed already.
 
This time I was there on Dec. 2, 2011,  the same day U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Suu Kyi. I went to a huge rock concert, and I had a lot of fun.

Rocking out of a rut
Myanmar has stagnated for decades under the oppressive rule of a paranoid military dictatorship, but over the past year the country has suddenly started to make progress toward greater democracy and freedom of expression – and more tolerance of rock and hip hop.

So I found myself at a nearly-sold-out concert at an indoor stadium in Yangon. Burmese stars belted out rock and hip hop tunes to an audience of girls in tight skirts and young men in skinny jeans, instead of the traditional sarongs usually worn in the country.

The music was full of energy, and got me moving, but there was little boisterous enthusiasm and dancing among the audience – most stayed seated, tapping their feet and nodding their heads to the music.

They were mostly rich kids, teenagers who arrived at the stadium in expensive cars while poor children in tattered clothes collected garbage around the stadium.

“Only rich or middle class people can afford to buy a ticket as you have to spend at least 50 kyats ($7),” a Burmese friend told me. That would be cheap for a concert in most countries, but Myanmar remains mired in poverty and most people earn just a few dollars a day.

There were still plenty of reminders of the old repressive Myanmar: the atmosphere at the concert was not helped by the presence of several stern-looking armed guards.

Singing for change
Backstage the celebrity musicians were hanging out before the concert started, and I met the hip hop group ACID in their room. Their first album, also Myanmar’s first hip hop album, was the country’s best seller in 2000.  But their non-traditional style, lack of deference for authority and controversial lyrics about the hardships of life in Myanmar eventually got them in trouble.

 “Our music was new to people. The government doesn’t like us because we did not follow the traditional style,” said Anegga, a 32-year-old ACID band member who goes by one name.

Two of the band's members were arrested in 2008 for allegedly illegal political activities. One of them, Zayar Thaw, 32, was dressed in shorts, a tee-shirt, a baseball cap and his arms were covered with tattoos – not exactly the traditional Myanmar ideal of a quiet, well-behaved young man.  
 
He was released from prison in May, and told me he still has to watch his words. “I have to be careful about saying things now, Big Brother is watching.” 

But now, the band is back together and ACID is performing again. They are among more than 50 musicians and singers who have pledged their support for the election campaign of Suu Kyi, who has been released after years of house arrest and is now running for a seat in parliament. 

Suu Kyi's musical supporters are producing a special album, with songs designed to raise awareness about politics and encourage people to stand up for their rights. One of the songs contributed by ACID asks: “How can I talk, How can I see, If you close my eyes and ears?”

The musicians hope their songs can help push the boundaries and educate people in their country after 49 years of censorship and military rule.

“Everything for Aung San Suu Kyi, we love to do it for her. We love her,” said female pop singer Than That Win.

After elections in November 2010, which were widely condemned as rigged, Myanmar's ruling generals exchanged their uniforms for civilian suits – but few expected much to change.

Then beginning in October of this year, the government introduced a series of dizzying changes: The new government led by a former general, Thein Sein, eased censorship, released political prisoners, introduced a limited right to strike and protest, and started a dialogue with the Suu Kyi.

The United States has shown its support for the political reforms – Clinton was in town when the concert was held, to see the progress for herself.

Like many Burmese, the musicians worry that the recent changes could be a false dawn. They are optimistic, but still wary.

 “This is the beginning of change in the country," Anegga told me. "We hope nobody will be arrested this time.”   

Anthony Shadid, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who covered nearly two decades of Middle East conflict, including long stints at the Washington Post and the New York Times, died on Thursday, apparently of an asthma attack, while on an assignment in Syria.

Ayman Mohyeldin, an NBC News correspondent currently based in Cairo, Egypt, offers this appreciation of Shadid, a mentor, colleague and friend.  Prior to joining NBC News Mohyeldin was a Middle East a correspondent for Al Jazeera and CNN, covering events including the Iraq War, the Arab Spring in Egypt, and Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

CAIRO – To many, Anthony Shadid was a notable byline, a name that you knew would capture a story like no one else. His accolades and body of work speak volumes about his skills as a journalist.

But for me, it was as much about Anthony the person, who inspired by his example and came with a  professional and personal kindness possessed by no one else.

---

Over the past decade of wars, sieges and revolutions in the Middle East, our paths crossed numerous times. It started in the spring of 2003 when I arrived in Baghdad as a journalist with very little international experience, let alone time in a war zone. I knew very few journalists there, but there was one I was determined to meet: Anthony Shadid.
 
The first time I spotted him, I quickly walked over to introduce myself. “Mr. Shadid, my name is Ayman.…”  “Call me Anthony,” he said, smiling. It was a simple exchange but very telling of the type of person Anthony was. 

In 2005, a few years after Baghdad, I was covering my first tumultuous Cairo protest when I bumped into Anthony again. It was my first time among thousands of  Egyptian demonstrators and I was flat-out nervous.

Anthony sensed it, called out my name and told me to stay close. He graciously and protectively let me shadow him as he navigated his way between protesters, police and thugs, never losing  focus on his reporting task.

In doing so, he took the time and care to show me that even in the most acute moments of tensions and work, there is always time for humanity. It was a profound moment of selfless collegiality in an industry often characterized by hyper-competitiveness.

Over the years, as Anthony’s successes grew and his work received more and more of the accolades it deserved, he never became inaccessible to those he mentored along the way, always offering us advice and wisdom. He raised the bar for journalists the world over, and particularly for Arab-American journalists.

We looked up to Anthony as the highest example of what hard work and humility achieve. He became an inspiration and role model for cadres of aspiring Arab-American journalists wanting to make a difference in their country and communities. He made it possible for us to tell our parents that we, too, wanted to be journalists, just like Anthony.  And he made it possible for us to believe that one day we, too, could work for the New York Times, the Washington Post and other major American media outlets.

A few days before his death, Anthony was featured in an article about Arab-American journalists. That evening, after reading the article, my dad called me in Egypt to talk about it. “I hope one day to see you like Anthony,” he said at the end of the conversation.

On his last trip to Egypt, just a few weeks ago, I missed the chance to see Anthony one last time. It is something I will always regret.

That’s what he meant to so many of us.

NYTimes Correspondent Anthony Shadid dies in Syria
NBC's Richard Engel: NYT reporter Anthony Shadid was 'absolutely brillant' 
Shadid's death highlights dangers of asthma

ATHENS – Shock was a common sentiment in the heart of Athens this week. 

Athinas Street, the colorful shopping mile in the Greek capital, is known for its lively fish and meat markets, where spice salesmen mix with traditional shoemakers and sidewalks are packed with commodities for sale. 

But at one corner earlier this week shoppers and residents stopped to look at the ugly face of growing public anger in the Greek crisis.

Workers were removing broken glass, burnt wood and other rubble from the Bank of Cyprus building, one of at least 48 Athens buildings that were torched by protesters during riots two days earlier.

Two blocks up the road, 50-year-old Michael Ipermahos stood outside his small clothing store and looked on in despair.

"Once, we were proud to be Greeks. Now, I am ashamed. Ashamed not of myself, but of the Greek politicians and what they have done to this country," he said.

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'Work, work, work'
Ipermahos said he has been to several of the public demonstrations outside of the Greek parliament in the past months to peacefully protest the harsh austerity measures and to voice his anger over what he calls "injustice.“

"I work, work, work, day and night, 16 hours every day, sometimes in temperatures below freezing, sometimes in brutal heat," said Ipermahos, a father of two children – ages 20 and 23 – who still live at home with him and his wife.

"We are not lazy," he said. "But while my income is shrinking, the taxes are going up, fuel prices are skyrocketing and even basic food is becoming more expensive."

On this cool morning, only a few people stopped to look at the tee-shirts, jackets and other garments that Ipermahos sells.

But he does have one item that sells briskly.

"Gas masks," Ipermahos said, as he pointed to the prominently displayed protection gear.

"Because tear gas is regularly used at the protests, we now also offer gas masks. It is one of our best selling products," he said.

But it may not be enough, over the course of the past two and a half years, Ipermahos said the little shop that he owns with his brother-in-law has seen a 60 percent decline in business.

And, hope for a better future is fading.                                                             

"It is almost certain that we will lose our jobs; we are only counting the days,“ he said. 

Armed robbers steal 70 relics from museum in Olympia, Greece

Tightening the belt
Of course, it’s not just retail businesses that are feeling the crunch in Greece.

Chris Manolitsis, a 52-year-old freelance sound engineer who has been working with Greek artists for over 30 years, said he had been struggling ever since the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers in New York.

"The Greek music industry has generally deteriorated because people do not have the money to go out to nightclubs or events anymore, one of the first things everybody saves on is entertainment," he explained.

In recent years, the father of two grown-up children had to cope with a 50 to 60 percent reduction in his income, though he still feels somewhat financially independent because he has been receiving money from other sources, including rent from a house that he bought in better economic times.

However, his alternative income sources are far from secure.

"The woman who is renting my house is a civil servant who had her salary already cut three times and she is now facing a fourth cut," Manolitsis said. "I agreed to reduce her rent by 20 percent, otherwise the mother of a young child would have moved out and I would have been left with more uncertainty.“

And his 27-year-old son Terry, who finished college with a degree in media and communications, was recently fired from a job as a security guard, the only employment he could find after finishing his studies. As a result, the young man left for Scotland, looking for job opportunities outside Greece.

In Greece, the crisis is making people ill (literally)

Broken promises
Manolitsis blames the current financial crisis on two decades of financial mismanagement, which has resulted in broad public anger and deeply rooted mistrust towards politicians.

"Greeks had the wool pulled over their eyes, so to speak,"  he said.

"When former Prime Minister Papandreou won the elections in 2009, for example, he received overwhelming support on a platform that there is plenty of money," he said. "Two days later, the politicians said sorry, we made a mistake, there is no money.“

Today, most Greeks feel that they have been pushed to the limits, leading to growing despair and rising suicide rates.

"The situation is a tragedy and a shame for a nation with such a powerful heritage," Manolitsis said. "Of course I am worried about my future, but we have to keep going and I am not afraid to get my hands dirty or explore new routes."

Next week, the Greek sound engineer has signed up for a training seminar, which will teach him how to sell insurance.

ABOARD THE USS CAPE ST. GEORGE – More than 31,000 ships transit the Strait of Hormuz every year, traveling between the Persian Gulf and the North Arabian Sea. Among those are U.S. Navy warships, operating throughout the region to conduct exercises and to support the war in Afghanistan.

But don’t let the numbers fool you … while transiting the Strait is common, it is far from simple – especially as tensions with Iran continue to rise.

Since the Strait of Hormuz is only about 24 miles wide, the critical waterway is both contentious and dangerous to cross. Countries can claim up to 12 miles off their shores as their own territorial water – and since the strait is wedged between Iran and Oman, it is a particularly tricky zone.

Three U.S. Navy ships traveled through the strait together on Tuesday: the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, the destroyer USS Sterett, and the guided-missile cruiser USS Cape St. George. NBC News was there and got a first-hand look at the careful, deliberate Navy maneuver.

---

The transit actually began inside the Persian Gulf, went through Oman’s territorial water, traveled through the so-called "knuckle" (the nickname for the narrowest part of the Strait which includes a sharp turn where Oman sticks out), and continued in to the Gulf of Oman and the North Arabian Sea. At a speed that ranges between 20 and 30 knots, the entire route took more than 10 hours to complete. 

Beyond the challenge of navigating the Strait, the recent escalation of rhetoric and increasingly tense relationship between the U.S. and Iran has brought even more concerns for the Navy as they operate in the area. Iran recently threatened to close the strait in retaliation for tighter Western sanctions.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy operates submarines and war ships throughout the Gulf, and they often send out small boats to harass U.S. Navy ships.

These Iranian boats, which the U.S. Navy calls FIACs, are just small motorboats with mounted machine guns. Despite the fact the U.S. warships literally dwarf these tiny boats, U.S. military officials worry that just one of these FIACs loaded with explosives could do significant damage to a U.S. aircraft carrier. The cruiser and the destroyer provide protection for the carrier – they are the muscle.

On board the USS Cape St. George, sailors manned their stations as early as 2 a.m. to prepare for the day of the transit. Gunners took up their positions around the ship. The Cape St. George also has a massive missile capability (cruise missiles,harpoons, and more), so it was prepared to strike at threats both in the air and on the seas, if necessary.

Around 7 a.m., one of the ship's helicopters took off from the Cape St. George to provide surveillance during the mission. The helicopter was loaded with half a dozen Hellfire missiles when it took off.

The USS Sterett took the lead, staying about 2,000 yards in front of the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln.  Tasked with protecting the carrier, the USS Cape St. George stayed about 2,000 yards behind the Lincoln, ready to react to any threats.

The first several hours were uneventful. The three ships passed several commercial cargo ships along the way. All the while U.S. helicopters flew ahead, warning the ships of any threats.

Just as the ships closed in on the most difficult part of the transit – the so-called knuckle – a U.S. Predator spotted an Iranian F-27.  Just minutes later, the Iranian surveillance plane flew along the starboard side of the ship. While this is fairly routine, as soon as the surveillance plane came in to sight, sailors all across the bridge grabbed binoculars and ran outside to catch a glimpse.

The F-27 flew right by the ships without any incident.

After the plane disappeared, an Iranian patrol boat appeared as just speck on the horizon.

A sailor on the bridge of the Cape St. George estimated the boat was at least five miles away. "It's heading right for the Abe," another sailor said, referring to the USS Abraham Lincoln.

Suddenly the bridge was buzzing with energy again. Some sailors held binoculars and studied the ship, while others picked up phones and radios.  U.S. helicopters headed toward the boat and radioed information about the craft. Suddenly, when the boat was just about two miles away from the U.S. ships, it changed course and headed away from the carrier.

Despite the fact the potential threat seemed to be over, the bridge continued to buzz and binoculars remained pointed in that direction for several minutes after the boat disappeared.

Aside from the occasional direction to change speed or check how far the Cape St. George was behind the Abe, the bridge quieted a bit. Minutes passed without incident.  A minute turned into an hour. The crew ate fruit and pop tarts Pop Tarts and drank coffee.

Then the radio crackled, a phone rang, and someone said that six or seven fast boats were heading right for the Abe.

The tiny boats were tough to see as they went speeding along the horizon, disappearing every few seconds when they found the bottom of a wave. In fact, the easiest way to keep track of the boats was to look for the U.S. helicopters overhead.

Several of the boats sped right in front of the Sterett.  One sailor said they cut less than 2,000 yards in front of the destroyer.  After they made it to the other side of the U.S. convoy, one of the boats, lagging behind, tried to cut in between the Sterett and the Abe.

That was a little too close for comfort, so a helicopter fired off a flare in the direction of the boat, causing it to turn off and away from the carrier.

The bridge was alive with excitement.  Were they Iranian boats?  Were they Revolutionary Guard?  Several minutes passed before the captain said they were likely smugglers and did not appear to be armed. But just about every sailor on the bridge was smiling at the excitement.

The transit was nearing the end and the crew seemed to take a collective deep breath.  About one hour later the ship’s Capt. Don Gabrielson, addressed the ship over the PA system, congratulating them for a job well done.

The sailors returned to their normal duties and began to prepare for their next mission, conducting flight operations over Afghanistan. They were scheduled to begin flights the very next day.

Despite the fact the transit was safe and somewhat uneventful, the sailors seemed pleased.

“I got to see fireworks!” one sailor said, referring to the flares and smiling wide.

Amid Israeli accusations that Iran is striking out at Jewish targets around the world, Iran’s claims that that it has made major strides towards mastering the production of nuclear fuel and threats to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz, tensions between the two countries are at an all-time high. 

NBC News’ Stephanie Gosk is on assignment in Tel Aviv, Israel. Earlier today she answered a wide variety of reader questions about the rising tension and what people in Israel think about the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Click on the link below to replay the informative chat.

---

 

 

See Stephanie Gosk's most recent report from Israel on NBC's Nightly News Wednesday evening.

 

BEIJING — He means something to many people: Asian Americans, underdogs, geeks, Ivy Leaguers, sports fans, Christians, anyone who loves a great story.

But Jeremy Lin — the Harvard graduate of Chinese descent born in Palo Alto, California, to Taiwan parents — is not the same thing to all Chinese.

If ever there were one event that has the potential to show how fractured Chinese communities can be, "Linsanity" — or linfengkuang in Chinese — might be it.

---

For days now, we in Beijing have been fielding emails from our U.S. colleagues: “Hey, we hear Lin’s big in China now?  He’s on the cover of the New York Post!”  “The NY Knicks player is having a Cinderella week… he’s being noticed/watched in China….”

For the record, yes, he’s big in mainland China. 

It’s been widely reported that his Sina Weibo account (a popular Chinese version of Twitter) clocked more than a million followers as he led the Knicks to victory over the Toronto Raptors on Tuesday — more than doubling the number he had the night he faced off with Kobe Bryant and the Lakers last Friday.

Perfect storm continues for Jeremy Lin

On Taobao, China’s leading e-commerce site, shoppers can buy copies of Lin’s Knicks jersey and t-shirts and sweatshirts bearing his number “17.”  A quick look suggests the merchandise isn’t moving as briskly as Weibo messages about the athlete, but it’s an impressive range of goods nonetheless.  In the brick and mortar world, however, his jersey — even counterfeit versions — is said to be selling out.

But mainland China is also very big.

Let’s go back to Weibo.  Lin’s following, large as it sounds, is still just a fraction of some high-profile mainland Chinese.  Pan Shiyi — a Beijing-based property mogul some people liken to Donald Trump — has 8.6 million followers.  Hong Huang — a publisher and commentator who is often described as the "Oprah of China" — has four million.  Lee Kai-fu, the former head of Google China, has 11 million.

The comparisons may be unfair since none of these Chinese are athletes and all have had profiles on Weibo for longer.  But high-profile mainland athletes like Yao Ming, Guo Jingjing (the glamorous Olympic gold-medallist female diver), Liu Xiang (the Olympic gold-medallist hurdler) don’t have a presence on Weibo.  Only Yi Jianlian has a profile; the mainland Chinese NBA athlete who plays for the Dallas Mavericks has 6.5 million followers.

In the offline world, Lin’s name is not on everyone’s lips the way it seems in the U.S.  It’s not perfect evidence, but a random sampling of Beijing taxi drivers, normally glued to radio news, this morning came up blank.  “We only know Yao Ming,” said one cabbie.

PhotoBlog: Lin leads Knicks to 7th win in a row

There’s been steady speculation about why China’s state-run media has been muted with its reporting on the Lin phenomenon and why CCTV — normally awash with NBA coverage — has not been broadcasting his games.  (New York City Time Warner subscribers, we share your pain.)

 “Mr Lin is a trickier fit for Beijing’s propagandists,” one Western report noted.  “His Christianity is perhaps more awkward for China’s atheist Communist rulers. While Beijing officially sanctions some churches, it frowns on the spontaneous professions of love for God that pepper Mr Lin’s postgame comments.”

Lin’s success has also raised the inevitable and perhaps unwelcome question (at least in the mainland) “Could China, an Olympic powerhouse and homeland of Yao Ming, produce such a gifted, confident point guard?”  As the journalist pointed out, not for now.  Not given the state-run sports industry or its rigid approach to training and talent-spotting. 

China's president-in-waiting returns to Iowa

Then, of course, there’s the fact Lin’s parents come from Taiwan, which has engaged in a fractious rivalry with mainland China for nearly 70 years.  Beijing considers Taiwan a renegade province while the latter regards itself an independent nation.

Tug o’ war over the favorite son
Over the weekend, folks in China’s Zhejiang Province, the ancestral home of the athlete’s maternal grandmother, laid claim to him.   And today, a local newspaper re-posted photos from Lin’s visit to his mother’s hometown last May. 

The accompanying article opens with the following lines: “Lin Shuhao became famous overnight.  But what we here are more proud of is his roots here in Pinghu.”  It concludes with a quote from Lin’s mother saying the family might return to Pinghu again this summer.

The media in Taiwan — which has hailed Lin as one of their own — have taken notice.  Local newspapers on the island today went on a blitzkrieg to assert Lin’s Taiwan identity, quoting family relatives, and also claimed Lin might visit the island this summer.  The coverage followed a report in the New York Times, which quoted Lin’s uncle in Taiwan as saying about the Knicks player and his parents, “For sure, they are Taiwanese.”

Since Lin’s debut for the Knicks on February 4^th, Taiwan’s local media have given the overnight sensation blanket coverage, and there has been no problem catching any of his games live on television.  “They’re broadcast live in the morning,” one of my uncles who has spent the past month in Taipei told me.  “And then they’re shown twice again later in the day.  And every newscast has packaged highlights of every game.”

And, yet, something still seems to ring hollow about the mainland's or Taiwan's scramble to call Lin one of their own.  One of the mainland Chinese readers who responded to the local Zhejiang newspaper report put it succinctly: "He's American.  You should be ashamed of yourself trying to dig up his maternal ancestral grave."  In fact, many Chinese--in dismissing comparisons between Lin and Yao Ming--have argued that Lin is distinctly American, has nothing to do with China, and didn't experience the cultural and language adjustment that Yao underwent when he moved to the U.S. to play in the NBA.

But then there are the American-born Chinese (ABCs).

'A watershed moment'
Judging by the flood of columns by Chinese-American commentators, Lin’s success means more to this cohort than any other community:

Eric Liu: “[The Knicks fans’] embrace of Lin has made millions of Asian Americans feel vicariously, thrillingly embraced. Not invisible. Not presumed foreign. Just part of the team, belonging in the game. It’s felt like a breakout moment: for Lin, for Asian America and, thus, for America.”

Jeff Yang: “It’s hard not to feel like this isn’t a watershed moment. Hard not to feel like this is historic. Hard not to think that we’re at the cusp of an actual tectonic shift in the culture, when an Asian American “kid” could be the unquestioned king of one of the most storied franchises in sports, the guy that every guy in the room wishes he could meet and every kid in the room wants to group up to be.”

Ling Woo Liu: “For those who've been following the campaign ad controversies as well as the [Harry] Lew and [Danny] Chen cases, Lin's meteoric rise has been a much-needed sign of hope.

Bryan Chu: “Some might say, why didn’t Yao Ming evoke this type of emotion in you?  The difference is that Jeremy is one of us. He was born in the U.S. He was that kid who got straight A’s in school. He was the one that worked at his high school student newspaper. He has a bit of an Americanized accent when he speaks Mandarin. He had a pipe dream of making it to the NBA. He’s humble and sometimes misperceived as a shy, Asian kid who shows flashes of brilliance and then finally explodes on the scene when he’s given a chance. He’s the guy friend who, if he needs a place to crash, will be thankful for a couch.”

With additional reporting by Bo Gu.

 

 

At first glance, Michael McFaul seems an odd fit for the post of U.S. ambassador to Russia. Pushing 50, McFaul, a political scientist and tenured professor at Stanford University, has spent almost all his career in the halls of academia, not in diplomacy.

And he hardly looks like a threat; on the contrary, he’s engaging and jovial, combining a plain-speaking folksiness with a laid-back attitude he must get from his Montana and California background. Yet Professor, now Ambassador, McFaul has hit the Russian tarmac with all the force of a howitzer shell.

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Just two days on the job (he arrived in mid-January) and he’d become headline news on Russia’s Kremlin-controlled Channel 1, which ran a story about a string of Russian opposition leaders lining up outside his new residence at Spaso House that day, suggesting they were coming to get their instructions from the man who once wrote "Russia’s Unfinished Revolution."

The Russian reporter’s suggestion was that McFaul, a fluent Russian speaker, had come back to finish business.

A red flag of anger suddenly waved defiantly across the national media. McFaul hadn’t yet found his work-out gear in his boxes and he was already being compared to those evil ambassadors of yore, conniving in the shadows to topple the host regime.

Siberia-style cold shoulder
But McFaul has taken the Siberia-style cold shoulder in stride. In fact, he says, he was only at that meeting for protocol.

Both Russian government and opposition leaders had come to see the visiting Deputy Secretary of State, William Burns, not him.

And he points out the Russian media never mentioned the rest of his second day on the job.

Cars with ribbons, balloons circle Moscow to protest Putin

"I had some very warm, cordial and substantive meetings with people like the Foreign Minister, Prime Minister [Vladimir] Putin’s foreign policy adviser, President [Dmitry] Medvedev’s foreign policy adviser, so when I read that it was unwelcome – well, we didn’t have the camera crews out for those so I guess that’s the problem, right?" he says.

The real problem, of course, is that, with presidential elections in March, McFaul’s past advocacy for a more democratic Russia has become easy prey for the Kremlin propaganda machine.

Tens of thousands of Russians defy cold to demand fair elections

In the same vapor breath, thousands of pro-Putin protesters who braved sub-zero Moscow temperatures in early February could be heard chanting "No Orange" (referring to the 2004 pro-democracy Orange Revolution in Ukraine) and "No U.S. Embassy!" 

But, typically, McFaul is brushing off his rude welcome. In a veiled apology, he says he’s learning from his mistakes (while not naming any).

Anti-Putin protesters: Coping with bitter cold and big questions

'Invigorating!'
And he’s raring to go. "If you stop learning, to me as an academic that’s the most insulting thing you can say about anybody.’’

How does he sum up his first month as Ambassador? "Invigorating!"

And McFaul is already making his presence felt in other ways. He’s checking official records, but believes he’s the first resident of Spaso House to set up a Nerf Basketball hoop in one of the giant reception rooms.

US finds democracy a tougher sell abroad

He thinks he’s also the first to play badminton in the salon. McFaul is confident the chilly "first impression" will change.

"We’ll find our way and I think also Russia and our Russian guests will find their way in dealing with a different kind of group at Spaso House," he says.

And if it doesn’t get any better, Ambassador McFaul can always resort to his two secret weapons: basketball and badminton diplomacy.

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• Officials: Hundreds die in Honduras prison fire
• Israel-Iran tension sparks new concern in US
• Franco in fridge sculpture draws mixed reviews

MUSCATINE, Iowa – A young, blue-eyed Sarah Lande never thought the polite young man from China, Xi Jinping, sitting at her dining room table in 1985 would go on to become the next president of China. She simply thought of him as a gentle soul with genuine interest in her family’s Iowa roots, sharing a home-cooked meal of pork, beef and locally grown corn.

Wednesday afternoon 27 years later – he returned to the same three-story home on Muscatine’s 2nd Street and walked through the same door, but this time as China’s next president.

“Coming here is really like coming back to home,” Xi told a packed living room of familiar faces he met on his 1985 visit. “You can’t even imagine what a deep impression I had from my visit 27 years ago … because you were the first group of Americans that I came into contact with.”

“Everything was very new and fresh,” he added.

Xi’s visit is a rare glimpse at an ascending leader in China’s typically opaque and rigid Communist Party. No high-ranking official has had such direct and personal ties to the United States.

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'Old friends'
Xi first visited Muscatine as a provincial official from Iowa’s sister state of Hebei almost three decades ago. Leading a delegation of four other local officials on an educational trip primarily focused on agriculture, Xi and his colleagues toured local farms and businesses as part of an exchange that began with Iowans going to Hebei in 1984. He met then- and current Iowa governor Terry Branstad and more than a dozen other Iowans in Muscatine he now calls his “old friends.”

Lande, who was one of the organizers of his trip, was constrained by a limited budget so she resorted to old-fashioned hospitality of home-stays and meals at home. Xi spent two nights with the Dvorchaks a few blocks away from the Landes. There, Xi slept in their son’s bedroom, decorated with Star Trek figurines and wall paper.

“I wish I had updated the room,” Eleanor Dvorchak, 72, recalled. “But he was so congenial, anything would have been fine.”

One thing was for certain, no one ever expected the quiet Xi to become China’s next leader.

“Sometimes we are just in awe, that he is going to be the next leader,” Lande told NBC News in an interview ahead of the reunion.

“Nobody knew,” Dvorchak added afterward. “At the time, I was impressed what a hard worker he was.”

Clearly, Muscatine also left an indelible impression on Xi. Upon invitation back to Iowa by Governor Branstad, he requested to reunite with each person he met in Muscatine.

Small-town charm
Muscatine is the perfect, if coincidental, background to counterbalance Xi’s highly-scripted meetings in Washington. Aesthetically frozen in the 1950s, the town oozes both old-fashioned small-town charm and the harsh reality of post-industrial American economy. Many storefronts and warehouses stand empty in a place that once called itself the "pearl button capital of the world." Meanwhile, China has opened and expanded exponentially since 1985, into a roaring economy.

But it was friendship, not jobs, that was the complete focus of today’s reunion. Fond memories about American movies and a tour of the Mississippi river took up most of the conversation.

When Lande recalled Xi seeing puppies play in a Muscatine backyard in 1985, Xi replied, “We love puppies. We have two puppies as pets now.”

However, Xi has not always been entirely friendly to foreigners. According to a diplomatic cable leaked by Wikileaks last year, the soon-to-be-president lashed out against countries who have criticized China's human rights and trade record.

"There are some well-fed foreigners who have nothing better to do than point fingers at our affairs," Xi said at a lunch meeting in Mexico in February of 2009.

Ultimately, Muscatine citizens and leaders alike had high hopes of leaving another positive memory with Xi that would, yet again, last far beyond his time in Iowa.

“I hope we can really express the warmth and you know we’re proud of him and we look forward to really enhanced relations between China and America,” Lande told NBC News. “Let it start in the heartland.”

“So many Iowans are pleased that a man we befriended those many years ago, has risen to such a position of prominence and respect in the great nation of China,” Gov.  Branstad said in a toast to Xi tonight at an official dinner in Des Moines.

Others hope Vice President Xi’s two visits here will help push US-China relations in a more positive direction, as diplomatic tensions have escalated over trade and currency valuation.

Hope for improved relations
During the tea at her home, Lande told Xi that she hopes the US and China will “have a surge in the amount of visas that they issue, so we can have more international exchange and more trade, as we’re having here between Iowa and China.”

Others in Muscatine are hoping to contribute to leaving a warmer legacy between the two countries.

“If you meet people and treat them the way you would want them to treat you, then good things can come from that,” said Steinbach of the Muscatine Journal.

“I hope that's the case for Muscatine and that Mr. Xi would take that back to China with him and remember that in any dealings he has in the years to come with the United States,” Steinbach added. “There are people here who are honest and hardworking that you'd I'm sure find in parts in China and anywhere else.”

Xi’s stop through the Midwest also put Muscatine on the map like never before. The anticipation of Xi’s visit took the town by storm. The local paper welcomed Xi on its front page and reproduced the articles and photos that appeared in a 1985 edition, hailing his visit as a young official.

At the local high school, a classroom of students dutifully practiced their "ni hao’s” and "xiexie's" ahead of Xi’s arrival.

Jenny Juehring has been learning Mandarin for three years and today was selected to stand on the front porch of Lande’s to greet Xi and show off her language skills.

“I think he's very cool, that'd he come back here, to a place that's so small and pretty insignificant, for such a small town,” Juehring told NBC News.

Ho Xuefeng, a waiter at a Thai restaurant downtown, took the day off of work to watch Xi’s motorcade whiz by.

“I’m originally from Shenyang,” Ho told NBC News. “To see someone like him come to this little town is rare.”

The town’s McDonald’s posted a message on their marquee for their Chinese visitor: “Welcome back, Vice President Xi Jinping,” perhaps lending a new local meaning to “billions and billions served.”

Inside, line cooks and high school-aged cashiers peered out the drive-through windows hoping to catch a glimpse of Xi’s motorcade whizzing by.

Some protests
But the trip wasn’t without minor hiccups. Free Tibet supporters lined the block leading to the home where Xi was hosted for tea and waved Tibetan flags, often chanting opposite equally animated college students from mainland China responding with “We love China!” across the street.

Just minutes before Xi’s arrival at the Lande home, security officials rerouted the vice president’s motorcade to arrive on the other side of the house, where the Tibetan flags were far from sight.

Agile protestors questioning the Chinese government’s human rights record slipped past police barricades, waving signs that read “Stop Prosecuting the Falun Gong” in English and Mandarin. They were quickly ushered away by Iowa State Troopers and a Chinese government representative.

But overall, the visit was exactly how many in Muscatine hoped it would be: friendly, smooth and memorable.

As Xi departed the Lande home in the evening rain, he peered through the window of his bullet-proof limousine, waving and waving to his “old friends” until his motorcade turned the corner.

Clad in a red silk jacket emblazoned with Chinese characters, Lande waved after the polite young man who came over for that pork and corn dinner 27 years ago.

“Wow, I just can’t believe it!” she said.

 

BEIJING – “This is the user manual and spec sheets for the IPAD,” said Ma Dongxiao, a patent lawyer in Beijing. In his hands he held a simple black and white pamphlet that laid out the technical aspects of his client’s product.

Absent from the front page was the familiar Apple logo we have come to expect. Rather, he held just a simple description in English for a boxy wireless device shaped like an old TV that was ponderously dubbed a “Professional Color LCD Monitor.”

Simple as the device might appear, it is the linchpin in a new phase of Shenzhen-based tech company Proview’s latest attack on Apple: A restraining order filed this month in a Shanghai court demanding Apple cease using the iPad name in China.

Just days after the euphoria of a $500 stock valuation, Apple has been dealt a series of significant legal blows in China that casts doubt on the legality of the tech giant’s control of the iPad trademark here on the mainland.

And the worst might be yet to come.

The legal issue at hand for Apple is simple enough: Does the Cupertino-based company own the “iPad” trademark in China? Or does it belong to Proview (Shenzhen), a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Proview International Holdings Ltd. – at one time one of the largest manufacturers of computer displays in the world.

---

Murky trademark deal
Proview began trademarking the term, “IPAD,” in China and other countries back in 2000. The company coined the name for a handheld device it claims was the actual start of what later would be dubbed “tablet computing.”

The project never came to fruition, though, and the name sat unused until 2009 – a year before the debut of the iPad we know today. That’s when Apple allegedly swooped in and paid a Proview subsidiary in Taiwan $55,000 for the trademark rights in ten countries, including they claim, China.

Not so, says Proview in Shenzhen, which argued that it – not the subsidiary in Taiwan – had registered the iPad name in China and thus controlled its trademark on the mainland.

In 2010, Proview took Apple to court in Shenzhen and won a decision last December that ruled Apple had incorrectly purchased the China trademark from the Taiwan-based subsidiary, resulting in a legally non-binding agreement. 

An appeal filed last month by Apple in a Guangdong provincial court was similarly rejected, paving the way for Proview to file a slew of trademark violation complaints across China with local Industrial and Commercial Administrative Bureaus. In 20 cities across four provinces, these departments began enforcing the decision, confiscating iPads from sellers and exposing Apple to fines up to five times the profit from iPad sales.

Online retailers are also taking note of the complaints, with Amazon China and Suning.com, a Chinese e-commerce site, also pulling iPads off their websites.

Undeterred, Apple has appealed the ruling to a higher Guangdong court. Carolyn Wu, a spokesman for Apple in China, told the Wall Street Journal Tuesday, “We bought Proview’s world-wide rights to the iPad trademark in 10 different countries several years ago… Proview refuses to honor their agreement with Apple in China.”

More suits to come
Talking about the upcoming Shanghai suit for which Ma says arguments will begin next week, Chinese legal experts are already arguing that Apple faces long odds of winning. As one lawyer put it, Apple’s negotiating with Proview’s Taiwanese subsidiary is “like negotiating with a son and expecting the father to go along with what was agreed upon.”

With Proview’s ownership of the iPad trademark already established in the Shenzhen courts, it seems doubtful that the Shanghai court will side in favor of Apple and effectively overturn the appeals court in Guangdong.

Late last year, China became Apple’s second largest market after the United States. A decision against Apple that results in the ceasing of mainland iPad sales would be catastrophic for the company, which reportedly sold 15.43 million iPads in the last quarter of 2011 alone.

Even more troubling is another complaint Proview plans to file by the end of this month to China’s customs authorities that would ban the export and import of the new iPad 3. Almost all of the 30 million iPads sold last year are assembled outside the U.S., mostly in China. A successful injunction against Apple on exports of its iPad 3 would effectively make its rumored early March rollout date a pipe dream, putting a significant dent in the company’s profits.

Payday ahead for Proview?
All of these lawsuits, injunctions and complaints beg the question, what is Proview’s end game?

After all, Proview can seemingly look ahead confidently to the upcoming customs complaint and Shanghai lawsuit knowing that the Chinese courts have ruled in their favor in regards to ownership of the iPad trademark. Barring some new, compelling evidence from Apple, it will be extremely difficult for Apple to overturn two decisions in favor of Proview.

So what does Proview want?

The lawyer, Ma, played coy in answering that question and simply said he hoped that the two parties would be able to settle their disputes out of court. Indeed, a settlement between Apple and Proview is increasingly looking like an expensive proposition for the American tech company and a financial windfall for the cash-strapped Proview.

However, rumors of Proview seeking a $1.6 billion dollar payout may seem almost reasonable to Apple if Proview’s multiple suits successfully pass through Chinese courts and an embargo on shipments of iPad 3s is enacted. Although, it’s important to remember that Apple reportedly has $97.6 billion in cash reserves, so a $1.6 billion payout wouldn’t exactly break their bank.

Despite the long legal odds against Apple, and Proview seemingly sitting in the driver’s seat, the chances of such a doomsday scenario occurring seem distant as both sides appear even more poised for a settlement.

After all, while China’s expansive, albeit limitedly enforced, intellectual property laws currently favor Proview, it seems doubtful that a Chinese ruling blocking the shipment of iPad to countries where Apple legally owns the trademark would hold up in a complaint among the bodies that regulate international trade.

Furthermore, during these trying economic times globally, it would simply be foolhardy for China’s Customs Bureau – and by extension, the ruling Communist Party – to invite the swift international condemnation that would inevitably follow any blocking of Apple exports.

Ultimately, as Stan Abrams of the China Hearsay blog put it, Proview’s best strategy would seemingly be to wreak enough legal havoc for Apple so that the disruption of exports, while not an inevitability, would be a big enough threat to bring them to the settlement table.

Whatever decisions are made in the next few weeks, Apple will surely pay dearly for its first significant blunder since its entry into the China market.

 

 PORTLAND, Ore. — Family, friends and supporters celebrated the homecoming Tuesday of Jamal Tarhuni, a Libyan-American businessman whose return to the U.S. from North Africa was delayed by a month after he was detained for questioning by the FBI.

A burst of applause and cheering went up as Tarhuni emerged into the waiting area at Portland International Airport after clearing the last bureaucratic hurdle of his trip – a two-hour wait to clear customs. His youngest son, 10-year-old Rasheed, armed with helium balloons, stood at the front of a welcome line of men.

The tone of the homecoming quickly became serious again, as Tarhuni reassured others about the status of another member of the Libyan-American community – Mustafa Elogbi, 60, who remains in Tunisia after being barred at the last minute from joining Tarhuni and their attorney, Tom Nelson, on the flight home.

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Tarhuni, 55, left for Libya in October to deliver medical supplies to hospitals and refugee camps, but he said that when he tried to return on Jan. 17, he was denied boarding and directed to the U.S. Embassy in Tunis, where he was questioned extensively by FBI agents.

At the Portland airport, he addressed the gathered press with a message to the FBI:

"We value your work when you stop criminals," Tarhuni said. "We do not value your work when you do not do your homework and stop innocent people."

He called his ordeal a shock and said he was particularly disappointed in the U.S. Embassy.

"I was not able to get straight answers or help you would expect from your embassy abroad," he said. "I was not even able to get basic information on who made the decision to stop me from coming home."

Tuesday’s reunion with his wife, Nariman Samed, and four children ended a month of uncertainty for Tarhuni, a naturalized American citizen, but it did nothing to clarify why he was held or whether he faces further questioning. He does not know whether he is on the government’s secret no-fly list, which would prevent him from flying back to his native Libya or in U.S. airspace.

The uncertainty around Elogbi remains, although he has booked a flight home from Tunis on Sunday.

American aid worker: U.S. bars my return

What gives? Another American caught in no-fly limbo

No-fly Americans split up to fly home

"I’m really happy that Jamal Tarhuni is coming home, but I’m really ready for my dad to come home," said Elogbi’s daughter, Allaa, 20, fighting back tears. "(This return) does give me hope that within a week my dad will be here. … But so far you don’t know if you can trust them or not, you know? There is no reason my dad should not be home today. There is no reason he shouldn’t have been home last month."

The crowd of about 40 people on hand to greet Tarhuni was a mixture of family and friends from Muslim and interfaith communities.

"What brings me out is injustice, not allowing someone to come home because they are Muslim or have an Arabic name, or a foreign-sounding name – the nemesis du jour," said Pam Allee, a Portland resident who came to show support but does not know the families.

Karen Redington, a Christian who said she has worked with Tarhuni on interfaith events, carried an American flag and a sign that read: "I’m sorry."

"I am so sorry that this would happen to anyone, let alone somebody who is one of the most gentle, humble, caring men, who has taken the time to go back to his country of origin to bring millions and millions of dollars of humanitarian aid through Medical Teams International," she said. "I am so sorry. This does not represent this community; this does not represent this country."

No one was more relieved at Tarhuni’s return than Rasheed, who was looking forward to spending some quality time with his dad after an absence of four months.

"He missed my birthday, so he said we’re going to have a cake and we’re going to go out and we’re going to invite my friends, maybe go to Evergreen waterpark. Or we’re going to take trip to Disneyland," he said.

Going forward, he said, he’s going to keep his eye on his dad:

"I’m going to hug him so much and never let him go back anywhere else, and tell him, ‘If you’re going somewhere, the whole family comes with you.’"

 

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HONG KONG & SHENZHEN, China – Anchor babies. Birth tourism. Cross-border births.

It’s a growing global phenomenon driven by Chinese with wherewithal and wealth.  Chinese from a China that – even as it continues to grow and open up to the rest of the world – still faces a restrictive enough present and an uncertain enough future that they choose to give birth outside of China.

Some do it to avoid the one-child policy.  Many do so for the benefits the child will receive as a citizen of the country into which it’s born: free or better education, the freedom to travel, good social services, a safe haven.

The United States is overwhelmingly the most popular destination for wealthy Chinese, a phenomenon covered by NBC News.

But a close second is Hong Kong, the tiny former British colony of 7 million people.

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Since its return to Beijing’s oversight  in 1997, and as China has made it easier for its people to travel, tens of thousands of mainlanders regularly head over the border to book up maternity wards at Hong Kong’s good quality and affordable public hospitals.

Of the 88,000 births in Hong Kong in 2010, roughly 45 percent were delivered by mainland Chinese women, according to Hong Kong's government.

The growing number of cross-border births isn’t just straining health care resources and the local population’s goodwill.  It’s also helped to provoke an identity crisis that 15 years after the handover has alienated local residents from their northern neighbors.

A business catering to pregnant mainlanders
For four years, Gordon Li has been running a business from Shenzhen, southern China, arranging travel to Hong Kong for pregnant mainland Chinese women. 

(*Gordon Li is not his real name; he did not want to divulge his identity.  Just last week, another agent from mainland China pleaded guilty to breaching Hong Kong immigration laws for helping mainland women give birth in the city.  It was Hong Kong’s first prosecution of its kind and, given the current mood, may not be the last.)

“We work like a travel agency [and] the fee depends on the client –whether they want to stay in a luxury hotel or a small hotel, etc.,” said Li, who charges his clients between a few thousand yuan and 20,000 yuan ($3,200) to navigate the system.  Most of his customers are from the mainland’s wealthiest regions like Guangdong, Zhejiang, Beijing, and Shanghai.

Li estimates that he has helped at least a few hundred mainland women to have babies in Hong Kong.  “Last year was the most,” he said. 

His early clients were trying to get around the mainland’s strict one-child policy, but today most of his new customers travel to Hong Kong because, Li says, there are “a lot of conveniences.”

The public health system in freewheeling capitalist Hong Kong is considered better and safer than it is in its communist neighbor.  Maternal mortality ratio statistics collected by organizations like the World Health Organization support Hong Kong’s reputation for good quality health care for mothers and newborn babies.

Other benefits for newborns include being automatically eligible for “the right of abode” in Hong Kong, which means becoming permanent residents.  Which in turn means unfettered access to free public education considered superior to that in the mainland; political freedoms; and ease of travel anywhere in the world.

And they are entitled to all of this without giving up their China citizenship.

In fact, more than 10,000 mainland Chinese children who were born in Hong Kong, but live in China, go across the border every day to attend school in the former British colony.

Hong Kong is fed up
Huang Lijuan is a 27-year-old kindergarten teacher from Guangdong Province.  She and her husband, Tsing Ho Nan, a 32-year-old engineer from Hong Kong, met in Shenzhen and moved to Hong Kong after getting married.

“I’m three months pregnant, and the due date is August 5,” Huang told NBC News one afternoon in a community center in Tsuen Wan, Hong Kong.  “But I haven’t been able to book a hospital bed in a maternity ward.  All of the public hospitals are fully booked.”

“There are 80 to 100 [mainland women married to Hong Kong men living here] who are pregnant, but they failed to book any hospitals to deliver their babies,” said Koon Wing Tsang, an organizer with the Mainland-Hong Kong Families Rights Association.  Like Huang, they are all casualties of recent restrictions on non-local women.

Under popular pressure, the Health Authority (HA) in Hong Kong has instituted quotas for non-local residents.  Currently, only 3,400 births by non-local women are permitted at public hospitals this year – down from 10,000 in 2011.  Private hospitals are allowed 31,000 births by non-local women.

“The government and the HA are committed to ensuring that local pregnant women will be given priority in the use of the services over non-Hong Kong residents (non-eligible persons, NEPs),” said a Health Authority spokesman in a written response to NBC News requests for an interview.

But even the new quotas may not be enough.  As Huang found out, all the maternity wards in Hong Kong’s public hospitals – and many private clinics – are fully booked until September. 

Moreover, the quotas don’t prevent mainland women from using the emergency wards as a last resort.  More than 1,600 such births last year were delivered in Hong Kong’s emergency rooms – an unnecessary medical risk since such wards are not equipped or staffed properly for deliveries.

Some Hong Kong government officials have raised the possibility of an outright ban on mainland Chinese women giving birth in the city, but critics have argued enforcement is problematic. 

Others have suggested ending the practice of granting automatic permanent residency status to babies born to non-local parents.  To do so, according to legal experts as well as Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Donald Tsang, would mean having to reinterpret the Basic Law – the territory’s mini-constitution. 

Any such action would require consultations with Beijing, which could prove to be a political minefield for Hong Kong, which prides itself on its Western-style democratic values.

China to ban names that signal 'orphan' status

'Locusts' & 'running dogs'
Adding fuel to the fire is a recent series of tense confrontations between local and mainland residents.

Last month, Hong Kong citizens were outraged over a report that a Dolce & Gabbana boutique had banned local shoppers from taking photographs of its shop, but allowed mainland Chinese tourists and other visitors to snap away.  A Facebook campaign days later galvanized more than a thousand people to protest outside the shop, forcing it to shut early.

Barely a week later, a heated dispute broke out on the Hong Kong subway when a mainland Chinese child was asked to stop eating on the train – a practice banned in the territory.  The argument between locals and mainlanders was captured by a cell phone camera, and the video went viral on the Internet.

Tensions were further inflamed by comments from a Peking University professor, who when shown the video of the subway dispute, called the territory’s residents “running dogs of the British imperialists.”

This month, a group of concerned Hong Kong citizens bought a full-page ad in a popular mainstream Chinese-language Hong Kong daily newspaper that called mainland visitors “locusts.”  The term refers to the large numbers overrunning the territory to consume all its resources.

A “locust” song even made the rounds on the Internet, with spiteful lyrics poking fun at mainland Chinese, and inspiring at least one group of young Hong Kong men to roam around singing the song at visiting mainland Chinese.

An identity crisis
“I think the real reason that Hong Kong people are upset is because they feel helpless politically,” said Wen Yunchao, a mainland blogger and activist now living in the territory.  “The rules they believe in are being broken by all these mainland visitors, and yet they still have to rely on China economically.”

Dr. Elaine Chan at the Center of Civil Society and Governance at Hong Kong University agrees the tension is “a manifestation of something deeper.”

“Hong Kong people do not have a very positive view of mainlanders,” she said.  “Not just because they are buying properties and not just because they are buying all the luxury goods.  But also because of how they carry themselves.”

Both Wen and Chan argue there’s an underlying sensitivity to and awareness of the fact that Hong Kong is bound up with China –culturally, historically, politically, and economically – and yet there remains a gap in fundamental values between the two: in terms of the rule of law or basic civility.  That tension makes some people in the territory uncomfortable.

For now, Beijing has remained silent at least on the cross-border births issue, although authorities in neighboring Guangdong province have promised to find a solution.

But another hot-button topic may soon eclipse that of birth tourism.  The main topic of conversation last week was a government proposal to open up the border to mainland Chinese drivers and their vehicles.  Concern over road safety issues is so great in Hong Kong that an online petition has already gathered 7,000 signatures.

With additional reporting by Bo Gu.

 
BANGKOK – Carrie Jeffers feared she would never kick her heroin addiction after relapsing repeatedly in her native Michigan. Then she flew to Thailand, and her life changed.

Jeffers, a 37-year-old yoga teacher, says she broke her dependency thanks to treatment at a remote Buddhist temple. The rigorous regime includes meditation and the daily ingestion of a foul-tasting herbal drink that induces projectile vomiting to cleanse the body of toxins.

“I got my strength back slowly but surely after the treatment,” Jeffers said after spending months at Thailand’s Thamkrabok Monastery, a drug rehabilitation center in Saraburi province about 90 miles north of Bangkok.

The center, in the heart of a sunlit forest surrounded by limestone crags, has won a worldwide reputation as a place with harsh but effective addiction treatment and has attracted thousands of foreigners from Europe and the U.S.

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Harsh, but effective
Jeffers said she had been addicted to heroin since the age of 14 and underwent rehab treatment twice in the United States. The fees were $1,000 a day, which, fortunately, were covered by insurance. "A lot of drug addicts don’t have that [insurance] and they get turned away,” she said.

Thamkrabok, by contrast, offers its services for free. And Jeffers said she found it far more effective than rehab in the West.
“At other rehabs they feed you drug after drug; there is no meditation or teaching you to look into yourself,” she said.

Monks at the temple say another key to the success of their treatment is the special tonic, made with 108 herbs according to a secret recipe. 

“I remember feeling a kind of a burning sensation, but it soaked up all the toxins,” said Jeffers, who is now helping teach yoga to foreign patients at the temple.

The Thamkrabok monastery has another rigorous feature: addicts must take a vow swearing that they are 100 percent committed to being drug or alcohol-free. They can only be admitted to the monastery for treatment once; if they break their vow, they are not allowed to return. 
 
Same treatment for celebs to civilians
At Thamkrabok, everyone is treated equally regardless of wealth or status. Patients have to wake up early each morning to clean their bedrooms and bathrooms, and sweep the temple compound. They all wear the same red uniforms and sleep in dormitories on thin mattresses closely packed together.

The detox center is a complex of low-rise whitewash concrete blocks set apart from the main compound, which is dominated by several giant Buddha statues.

"It’s very humbling here. It doesn’t matter who you are, you are using the same bed,” said Jeffers, who plans to return to the U.S. in May.

Some don’t last. Pete Doherty, the controversial British singer and former boyfriend of model Kate Moss, was a patient at the temple but only completed three days in 2004 because he found the treatment too austere. One of the monks told me that Doherty lacked the patience that the treatment required and that he did not enjoy the spartan living conditions.

However, another British musician, Tim Arnold of the band Jocasta, returned home drug-free after completing the treatment. The temple said they have treated other celebrities, but they wanted to keep their names confidential.

The temple has treated more than 100,000 addicts since it started the rehab program in 1959 and about 30 percent of former patients, including Jeffers, become ordained as monks or nuns after completing their treatment to help out the new patients.

Many of the young Thai monks are tough-looking chain-smoking youths with tattoos. They enforce the temple rules and keep new patients in line.

"Only three more minutes, get inside. Just get inside,” one of the monks shouted at patients outside the packed herbal steam bath room during my visit. 

Patients are not allowed to carry money at the temple, in part to prevent them sneaking out to buy drugs. Instead, they buy coupons at the start of the treatment for food, which costs about $6 a day for three meals.

Cleaning body and mind
“When I first arrived, it felt very surreal because we all have preconceived idea of what the monastery or rehab might be – but this is very far away from any kind of imagination,” said Nick Thorp, a musician from London and one of many of the foreigners who found out about the temple through the Internet or from friends who had been treated there.

“They clean up your body and they give some input in your mind,” said 57-year-old Ong Boon Beng from Malaysia, who had been taking opium and heroin for more than three decades before seeking help. “At the other rehabs, you pay money, but it is just like you go for holiday. They give you sleeping pills – that doesn’t help.”

Mike Sarson, a founder of the East West Detox Center in southern England, works with the monastery and sends some patients there. He said about 95 percent of the patients the charity has sent to the temple remain drug-free.  

Reporter's Notebook  
 
ATHENS – When you touch down in Athens, the signs of an economic slump are immediately evident. The arrivals hall in the domestic terminal is almost deserted, with flights within Greece having been cut back by about 25 percent. Outside the taxi pick-up point stretches a long line of yellow cabs going nowhere. It is symbolic of Greece's economy – stretched and stuck.

On the ride into town the driver explains that he's been waiting for me for seven hours. I was his second and last fare of the day.

Greece still holds the magic of an ancient Mediterranean country. The Acropolis, its columns lit majestically at night, juts grandly above Athens. It is a testament to one of the world's great civilizations.

But down here on the street, there is fear that Greece is unraveling as a modern state.

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‘Economic death spiral’
You don't expect to see so many hungry people in a major European city. They line up each day looking for a handout in the soup kitchens and bread lines run by the municipality. But the 40 workers under contract to prepare a basic lunch of pasta and bread say they will lose their jobs in June because the city has run out of money to pay them.

Essentially, the country is broke. And to borrow enough money to stay solvent, the Greek government has agreed to severe austerity measures imposed by the European Union, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The money will run out next month unless another chunk of the bailout is handed over. But the European Union wants even more cuts in government job, salaries and benefits.

Public employees have already taken a 40 percent pay cut and pensions are being reduced. The private sector has also been hit and unemployment is nearing 20 percent. A staggering 40 percent of youths between the ages of 18 and 24 are without jobs.

Take, for instance, Leo, a 64-year-old painter of religious icons for devout Greeks and tourists. His business dried up. The money ran out and he ended up living on the street. Evicted for not paying rent, Leo, who didn’t give his last name, took warm clothes, books and ten boiled eggs to his new home – a metal bench near a park in central Athens. He spent 45 days in the open with what he called the “unhappy homeless.” 

What makes Leo unhappy is the realization that the government is to blame. "They borrowed," he said. "Every time they needed money they borrowed and then borrowed some more."

Successive Greek governments borrowed an estimated $498 billion, in essence to bribe the Greek people into being happy. Governments who could offer cushy office jobs, fat pensions and long vacations got re-elected. It made perfect political sense, but it was economic suicide.

A businessman in the aviation industry described the country, "as gripped in an economic death spiral."

Enough to make you sick
Yiannis Varoufakis, a professor of economics at Athens University was just as blunt when he told me, “This is Greece's Great Depression. If you look at the statistics it is indeed a deeper slump than what Greece went through in the 1930s.”

Imagine for a moment taking a 40 percent pay cut. Then suffer an increase in sales tax to 23 percent. Add on increased rates for electricity, a new tax on heating oil and the cost of a gallon of gas hitting almost $10. Oh and your pension is not secure, and your kids stay home because there aren't enough teachers. It is enough to make you sick.
 
And that's precisely what the Greeks are doing. Getting ill. Hospital admissions are up 25 percent. At the same time hospital budgets have been cut 40 percent so there are shortages of medicine and staff.

Nikitas Kanekis is the director of Doctors of the World, a charity that runs health clinics. He has the genteel manner necessary to be a pediatric dentist, but the economic decline has unsettled him. "We have seen four times the number of Greek patients over the last year,” he said. “We are afraid the humanitarian crisis can develop into a humanitarian catastrophe."

It may already be happening. The department of health reports that suicides are up 40 percent. And violent crimes including murder are up almost 100 percent.  “We have all the characteristics we see in big cities in the Third World,” said  Kanekis. “People with no shelter, starving people and people looking for doctors and medicine."

Fears about what may come next
Greek coalition leaders are meeting Wednesday to prepare their response to a draft deal on steep cutbacks demanded by creditors in return for a $170 billion bailout that could protect the country from looming bankruptcy.

They need the money to stave off crunch time on March 20 when a big bond redemption payment is due. Without the bailout, they risk a default that could send shockwaves throughout financial markets and the global economy.

No one is certain it will happen. To receive the previous handout, Greece promised to cut 30,000 public-sector workers, but only 1,000 have been let go. The government also promised to sell off 65 billion euros in state owned assets. So far only 2 billion have been sold.

The government is trying to raise money through increased taxation. There's a new property tax that is collected through the state-owned electric company. If you don't pay the tax your electricity is cut off. There's a luxury tax to hit the wealthy – a 30 percent tax on sports cars and yachts. There's even a tax on private swimming pools. The government is reportedly using Google earth to pinpoint pools even as some Greeks are said to be using camouflage nets to hide them.

Even the Greek Orthodox Archbishop Hieronymos II of Athens and All Greece, who rarely comments on issues not related to the church, is worried.  “The unprecedented tolerance of the Greek people is being exhausted, rage pushes fear aside and the danger of social upheaval cannot be ignored anymore,” he warned in a letter sent to interim Greek prime minister.   

The origin of the words tragedy and economy are Greek. In this crisis, they are too close to home.