beyondBeijing2008.com

By Paul Goldman, NBC News Producer
TEL AVIV, Israel – Up to the age of 30, David Fiquette, who originally hails from Orlando, Fla., used to drink six glasses of vodka and shoot drugs everyday. Everything in David’s world was falling apart – he had already lost several members of his family to either drug overdoses or [...]

By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
 SUVARNABUMI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, Bangkok - Serirat Prasutanond has perhaps the least enviable job in Thailand right now. “We are doing our best, really,” he told me. “We want the tourists to start coming back to Thailand.”
Prasutanond is the acting president of Suvarnubumi, Bangkok’s international airport, which was taken over and [...]

By Mary Murray, NBC News Havana Bureau Chief HAVANA – Cuba’s government took a significant step toward improving relations with the Roman Catholic Church this past weekend. President Raul Castro attended mass with the island’s Catholic hierarchy and thousands of faithful to beatify a 19th century Cuban friar known as the “father of the [...]

NBC News’ Charlene Gubash interviewed Mahmoud Hammad, an Egyptian captain whose ship was hijacked by Somali pirates. He gives a first-hand account of the 23-day ordeal he and his crew went through.  
CAIRO – Egyptian Captain Mahmoud Hammad quickly dispelled any notion that Somali pirates treat their captives well.       
“Any movement and they would put [...]