beyondBeijing2008.com

By Michele Neubert, NBC News Producer
Reporter’s Notebook

GAZA STRIP – “Marhaba! Smell the jasmine and taste the olives,” was the text message I had just received and dismissed – thinking it must be from a friend making a joke, knowing where I was heading on assignment.

But the follow-up “Welcome to Palestine” text was a dead giveaway. This was clearly my phone company provider’s warm welcome on a recent trip to Gaza.

But the 25-mile long, 6-mile wide Gaza Strip that greeted me didn’t exactly gel with the phone company’s sales pitch.

As we exited through the sleek, spiked turnstile at the Erez Crossing from Israel, I quickly realized we’d entered another world.?

AFP PHOTO/MAHMUD HAMS

Palestinian workers lay asphalt as a street is paved in Gaza City using funding from the ruling Hamas government on July 11, 2010.

Instead of the robotic scanners, conveyor belts and digital display boards on the Israeli side, we were now greeted by porters offering rickety wooden trolleys andbroken wheelchairs as luggage carts.

Warmed by the porters’ eager help, we lugged our cases of TV gear to a decidedly lower tech, makeshift border, administered by the Hamas-run authorities.

The plight of Gaza’s 1.5 million people has gained renewed attention since Israel’s botched raid on an aid flotilla trying to breach the blockade on May 31.

Israel has imposed a blockade on Gaza since Hamas seized control of the territory in June 2007. Israel says the purpose of the blockade is to weaken Hamas, which has pledged to destroy Israel, and to put an end to the rocket attacks from Gaza.

But the blockade has been widely criticized as a form of “collective punishment” that has created a humanitarian crisis by groups from the European Union to Amnesty International.

We went to Gaza to see for ourselves what life was like for people living under the austere conditions.

Bags of rubble?
Before we arrived, Christopher Gunness, the spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), summed-up the situation, “There’s 80 percent aid dependency, 44 percent unemployment and deep poverty has tripled in the last year.”

He emphasized the urgent need for cement, which is vital for important rebuilding projects. But the importation of cement-making materials have been banned by Israel because of its potential use for military purposes such as building weapon-smuggling tunnels.

But even with the U.N. spokesman’s warning, the scene was startling.?

There were several small groups of young men hacking away at the rubble remains of buildings, homes, businesses, shops, schools, restaurants – all destroyed during decades of conflict, with the most recent damage done by Israel’s 2008-2009 incursion.?

Primitively equipped, these crews loaded donkeys or horses and carts with sacks full of crushed pebbles. These bags of rubble, worth about $1 on the local market, would be used for makeshift repairs.

But as we progressed into the center of Gaza, I couldn’t help notice how clean everything looked despite the scars of some unfinished and destroyed buildings.

The area certainly seemed more spruced up than four or five years ago, when I last visited. Adding to the atmosphere was the intoxicating vegetation, lush orange-colored blossoms, roses, carnations.?

I was also taken in by the shop windows. Along with the usual hardware, food and repair shops, tucked in among the more traditional Arab fashion window displays were alluring party dresses and summery designs that could easily match some London boutiques.?

But I quickly snapped back to reality.?? ??

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Limited options
There’s really not much evidence of glitz and allure on the streets. Since Hamas took over, they’ve imposed strict Islamic dress code. Most Gaza women cover at least their heads and some have adopted full burqa-like attire.

But not 22-year-old Berlanty Azzam.???
?
One of an estimated 5,000 Christians in Gaza, she managed to leave and study on the West Bank, only to have her travel permit later rejected by the Israelis. She’s decided not to cover up and wanders around freely in jeans, short-sleeved tee-shirts and an uncovered head.

Freely might be an overstatement. She has to deal with being stared at and abused by males in the street, so as a result, she spends a lot of time at home or on the Internet. When she does venture out, it’s with her mother, Evette Azzam.

Evette told us that her main worry is for her daughter’s future, “There are so few Christian boys left; so who should she marry? What kind of future could she have?”

For Berlanty, the only future is escape. “Every day I’m trying to forget I’m in Gaza,” she said. “But if they opened the border and it remains like it is now, I’d be out in a flash.”

But the option of leaving is exactly what most Gazans, trapped by Israeli travel restrictions, don’t have. Access to the outside world remains elusive for most since border crossings are mostly limited to humanitarian cases, students studying abroad, and foreign passport holders. Prospects for a future in the blockaded area just aren’t there for Muslims and Christians alike.

The future looks grim for even one of the more privileged teenagers we talked to, Baraa Abu Shawiesh, 14, who was lucky enough to visit the U.S. on an aid-backed program recently. She told us she has changed her dream for the future from becoming a doctor to working as translator, believing that could increase her chances of getting out of Gaza one day. Meantime, she struggles with the frustrations of day to day.

“I want to scream out in a very loud voice and tell them – the presidents and leaders and children from other countries – that we Palestinian children, we love peace, we hate wars and we are?actually very kind,” Shawiesh said.

Born into a grim future
As we approached Schiffer Hospital, one of Gaza’s finest hospitals even though it is still damaged from Israeli attacks, a different kind of screams were ringing out.
?
Gunness, the U.N. spokesman, had told us that the World Health Organization needs $20 million worth of urgent medical supplies to adequately operate in Gaza. He suggested we visit Schiffer Hospital’s prenatal ward to understand the situation better.

Gaza has more premature babies than anywhere in the world, according to Dr. Ashraf who showed us around.

“The causes for such high numbers of premature births may be myriad, but the consequence is that these babies, who just barely arrive into the world, must struggle for survival. We just don’t have the special food and medical equipment that allows them to develop and thrive,” he said.

During our visit, two babies – one just an hour old, looking frail and withering – were without incubators.
?
I asked how the woman who we had heard screaming on arrival was feeling. “Oh she’s just given birth to?premature quadruplets,” Ashraf said. “And we don’t have any incubators left for them.”

For those children who do survive, and there are many of them – some 44 percent of the population is under 15 – it’s a tough future. An estimated 95 percent of them suffer from trauma and stress.
??
Gaza Mental Health Community Director, Dr. Ahmed Abu Tawaheena, told us that the children here are reacting to the traumas of war and the blockade with an inability to concentrate and violent behavior against each other.

“But their biggest fear is that they will be abandoned by their parents, or that their parents won’t get their salary,” he explained.
?
“The kids maybe traumatized, and yet I?end up treating many of their parents?for depression,” said Tawaheena. “One father who has tried to commit suicide several times told me what his young son said to him.?After asking three times over a short period if the father could spare a shekel [about 25 cents] for his son’s pocket money, the boy said?‘If you don’t even have that, why did you bring me into this world?’

MAINZ, Germany – Winning the World Cup means everything to soccer fans, a yearning that can lead to some strange behaviors.

Superstitious Germany supporters, like myself, turned to special rituals ahead of each game during the recent South Africa contest, hoping that previous victories could be repeated by doing things like wearing the same unwashed shirt or watching the match in exactly the same beach chair, with exactly the same group of people.

REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

Octopus Paul, better known as the so-called “octopus oracle” swims in front of a soccer ball in his tank at the Sea Life Aquarium in the western German city of Oberhausen July 9, 2010.

Even our national team coach, Jogi Loew, after advancing to the knockout stage, admitted that he was wearing his light blue cashmere sweater over and over again in order to cast a good spell on his team’s next game.

And then there was the fascination with Paul the octopus, who forecast the outcome for Germany’s matches from his fish tank at SeaLife Aquarium in Oberhausen.

From match to match, we attentively watched the eight-tentacle prophet predict the winner of the next game by choosing between two boxes, each containing a delicious mussel snack and decorated with the respective countries’ flags.

From frying pan threats to honorary citizenship
At first, Paul was ridiculed as nothing more than a PR stunt. But then, after correctly predicting all seven of Germany’s World Cup games – plus Spain’s win over the Netherlands in Sunday’s final – Paul left the soccer world, and even his harshest critics, stunned.

“We had World Cup-related events in all of our eight SeaLife aquariums,” said Kerstin Kuehn, a spokeswoman for SeaLife in Germany, “with two other octopuses also predicting games and even cute little seahorses playing soccer. But Paul is a real oracle; he became the mega star.”

On the sidelines of the World Cup, a media frenzy around Paul kicked in, including live coverage of Paul’s predictions on Germany’s N24 news channel.

Many supporters of the German team quickly turned into “octopus fans” when Paul predicted German victories over England and Argentina.

But summer love for the cephalopod immediately turned into antipathy after Germany’s 1-0 loss to Spain in the semi-finals, which Paul had also correctly predicted.

“Suddenly a number of recipes for octopus dishes were prominently posted on the Internet,” Kuehn said.

But Paul still had some notable international supporters, who quickly came to his defense.

“I am concerned for the octopus. I am thinking of sending him a protective team,” joked Spain’s Prime Minister Jose Luiz Rodriguez Zapatero on Spain’s Radio Cadena Ser.

REUTERS/Radu Sigheti

A Dutch fan wears an octopus-shaped hat outside the Soccer City stadium before the FIFA World Cup 2010 final soccer match between Netherlands and Spain in Johannesburg, July 11.

And Spain celebrated “Pulpo Paul” (Paul the Octopus) as a hero after Sunday’s World Cup final victory over the Netherlands. During a parade in Madrid on Monday, Spanish goalkeeper Iker Casillas raised a cardboard cutout of Paul in Spain’s national colors. Meanwhile, the city council of Carballiño, a town in northwestern Spain, unanimously voted to name Paul an honorary citizen.

(An ambiguous honor for Paul, some might say, because the specialty of the region is spiced calamari in olive oil.)

International affairs
Paul’s World Cup duties ended last week, but the octopus is still the talk of the day.

During this week’s Russian-German talks in Yekaterinburg, a top Russian official blamed Paul for Germany’s painful semi-final defeat.

“I was supporting Germany,” Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov told German Chancellor Angela Merkel during the meeting. “Of course, if it was not for Paul – you know who I am talking about, Paul the octopus – then everything would have been fine.”

“We ate his brother in arms last night at the restaurant,” Russian President Dmitry Medvedev quickly added.

Octopus retired?
It seems that everybody wants a piece of Paul these days.

Earlier this week a British bookmaker put in a bid to buy Germany’s psychic octopus and media reports suggest that Madrid’s Zoo Aquarium is seeking to bring Paul to Spain. The zoo is supposedly prepared to trump any other offer that his present owners receive.

SeaLife in Oberhausen insists that Paul is going nowhere.

“We are definitely not going to sell Paul. He is now retired and will no longer be prognosticating anything,” Kuehn said from her Hamburg office.

But whether or not Paul is ready to head into the golden years of retirement, his special talents are still very much in demand.

“We had a large number of strange requests, including women who wanted Paul to predict when they will get pregnant or others who asked if Paul could forecast the lucky lottery numbers,” Kuehn said.

And the beat goes on.

A catchy song tribute to Paul is currently a big hit on YouTube and gotten almost half a million views. And a software firm in Brazil has created an “Ask the Octopus” app for Apple’s iPhone, which gives users a 50-50 choice for an “oracle” answer.

By NBC News’ Bo Gu

BEIJING – For Chinese Internet users frustrated by the government blocking of Western social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, the best way to communicate has been on microblogging services via major Chinese Web portals like Sina, Sohu, NetEase and Tencent.

Microblogging – short, punchy, Twitter-like posts that can be as brief as a sentence – has become an increasingly popular way to communicate. That is, until now.

There has been a sudden spate of temporary shutdowns of blogs in the name of “maintenance” – which many suspect is just another example of the government cracking down on the flow of information.

‘Sorry,’ no Internet today
It started with the microblogging service on the Chinese site, Sohu.com, which suddenly became inaccessible last Friday night and recovered service early Monday morning.

On Tuesday, NetEase.com, another microblogging site, had a notice saying, “Sorry, we are currently undergoing maintenance.”

NetEase restored its service Thursday afternoon with its official notice “We have finished upgrading the system.” But users discovered that the site’s old search function had disappeared.

The microblogging services on two other popular portals, Sina.com and Tencent.com, were not shut down. But a “beta” logo is appearing on both of their microblogging front pages, which means they are testing the service.??

The shutdowns come just as the government-sanctioned China Internet Network Information Center released a report saying the number of Chinese Internet users reached 420 million at the end of June.

The speed at which Internet use is growing has made it more challenging for the government to monitor what people say and read online every day.

Early last year the Ministry of Industrial Information ordered that so-called “Green Dam” software be installed on all personal computers in China. The government said the software was meant to block websites considered inappropriate or harmful to users. But there was such an outcry from China’s netizens that the government was forced to abort the plan. And more recently, Google pulled out of China briefly due to a dispute over censorship of search results. The U.S. technology giant resumed business on the mainland this month after Beijing renewed its license.

None of these major portals’ spokesmen or editors has confirmed whether the government is behind the current spree of unexpected glitches.

The explanations given were either “system maintenance” or “upgrading,” although the simultaneous timing is highly suspicious.

Bloggers still get word out
Gaoming, a Chinese tweeter, wrote on Twitter.com about the shutdowns. “All major domestic microblogging services have stopped their URL link functions. You can’t find any links on theses websites anymore.” (Sophisticated Internet users have been able to access Twitter and Facebook via proxy servers.)

Another tweeter and popular commentator, Wen Yunchao, wrote, “Internet control policy in China can be concluded in one sentence: Trying as hard as possible to stop the spread of information.”

But, despite the turmoil, Lian Yue, one of China’s most popular bloggers and a microblogger on both Sina and Tencent, said he’s still optimistic about the future of microblogs in the country.

“The government will definitely tighten their control over microblogging, but I don’t think they’ll completely shut them down,” said Lian. “It’s hard to dig out the real reason behind this temporary shutdown, but it could be related to the change of the way information spread. Microblogging speeded up the information flow, but information censorship has always been there.”

By Warangkana Chomchuen, NBC News Producer

NAKHON RATCHASIMA, Thailand – Mushrooms are working their magic in one of Thailand’s largest national parks.

Not the kind of magic sought after by some backpackers on their psychedelic beach trips; rather, one that lures poachers and illegal loggers to abandon the forests for mushroom barns, thus promoting nature conservation when law enforcement and penalties alone don’t work.

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One successful convert is Wanchai Noinart.

Having little education and few job skills, Wanchai used to roam the lush jungles of Thailand’s Khao Yai National Park, logging and poaching in response to the ever increasing demand for wildlife and wood.

“It was my only choice then,” said 34-year-old Wanchai. “The economy was very bad and I couldn’t find any other job.” And it was a convenient and lucrative business, he said.

His village borders Khao Yai National Park, a World Heritage site about 120 miles from Bangkok that spans almost 400 square miles and is a habitat to hundreds of animal species, including endangered tigers, Asian elephants, gibbons (small apes), deer, and wild boars.

But while parks like Khao Yai offer natural lovers a rare treat, they also offer a rich supply of illegal wildlife products to meet the growing demand from within Thailand and the rest of Southeast Asia.

Animals, dead or alive, as well as animal parts, such as bear paws or wild boar meat, are deemed a culinary treat and can fetch high prices at local and international markets. Wild animals are also used in traditional Asian medicine and offered as aphrodisiacs.

Illegal logging of scented rosewoods, used for furniture, is also highly profitable.

Due to its illicit nature, it is hard to know their exact numbers, but conservationists and park officials estimate that about 100 poachers sneak into the park every day.

From January to March this year alone, more than 5,600 live animals and 61,500 dead animals were recovered, worth about $4.5 million on the black market, according to ASEAN-Wildlife Enforcement Network.

Wanchai said he could earn up to $300 a week from logging and poaching, the equivalent of one month’s salary for an entry-level government official here.

Still, he knew he could not make a living like that forever.

“I was always cautious, always in constant fear of getting caught by park rangers,” said Wanchai. “I was worried about my wife and kids if I were to be arrested.”

Mushrooms offer safer living
That was until last year when Wanchai heard of a fungi farming project, an initiative launched by Thailand’s Freeland Foundation, a non-profit organization committed to fighting illegal poaching and logging.

“I think nobody wants to risk [their lives] poaching and logging in the forests,” said Mukda Thongnaitham of Freeland. “They just don’t know what else to do. The mushroom farming project gives them an alternative livelihood – a solution to earn money without breaking the law.”

Mushrooms were chosen, after several discussions and surveys with villagers, because the crop yields almost perennially and is highly marketable thanks to the high demand for Thai cuisine and the boom in organic vegetables.

In addition, growing mushrooms isn’t too complicated for villagers who don’t have a college diploma or a plot of land. Most of the farmers set up a small nursery barn at home or at the project center.

However, when Freeland first started the mushroom program only two families signed up.

“It was very challenging at first. The villagers thought we would conspire with park rangers and put them in jail,” Mukda said.

But just a little over a year since it started, the project is gaining steady success. Several families have joined and are finding that mushroom farming is a way to generate steady income – enough to make poachers leave the forests for good.

“At first they weren’t interested. They didn’t see the benefits of it and some of them still bore grudges about getting arrested by park rangers,” said Narongsak Namtapee, the park’s deputy chief.

But the program has been giving the new guides steady incomes. The number of nature lovers who buy the tour packages has risen from zero to about 20,000 per year in the last few years.

Despite their best efforts to lure poachers and loggers away from their illicit trade with a steady paycheck, Narongsak said park rangers still patrol every day and arrest loggers on a weekly basis.

Sometimes park rangers are outnumbered, or outsmarted, by poachers playing hide and seek. That’s where the ex-poachers can contribute tremendous intelligence resources to park rangers.

“Our rangers move and transfer all the time, while villagers and community stay put. The bottom line is if the community and the park can coexist, both will survive.”

As for Wanchai, he and his wife wake up before dawn to collect newly sprung mushrooms in his barn and even have time to labor in cornfields during the harvest season.

“I feel so relieved that I don’t have to run away from park rangers anymore,” he said with a grin. “I can make a living at home. It’s safe. Lives are saved.”

By Arata Yamamoto, NBC News Producer

TOKYO – “They’re really popular with the customers, these EV cabs,” said Yoshihiko Takahashi who has been driving taxis in Tokyo for 16 years. “The best part is that they’re so quiet. People say they can now talk business in the back seat.”

Nihon Kotsu Taxi is taking part in a three-month trial using remodeled electric cars with the world’s first battery-exchange system for commercial vehicles. (The cabs are old Nissan Dualis which had their engines and transmissions removed and replaced by motors and batteries).

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The system is being promoted by Better Place, a Silicon Valley start-up, which is preparing to launch a large commercial EV infrastructure program in Denmark and Israel by the end of next year.

Instead of recharging the vehicle, which can take up to eight hours using normal household electricity or 30 minutes using a fast-speed charger, the battery exchange station can load up a taxi with a fully charged battery in less than a minute.

“It’s faster than pumping gasoline,” said Takahashi. Each time he swaps in a new battery, he extends his mileage by another 55 miles. And since the average distance a cab drives daily is roughly 175 miles, he only needs to check into a battery station three times a day.

Takahashi acknowledged that the quick battery exchange enabled the EVs to compete with gasoline taxis. “From a business stand point,” Takahashi pointed out. “Its’ a real strength…You would be forced to limit your business somewhat if you had to recharge the car which at the very least takes 30 minutes.”

The key is to keep track of how much power is left and being able to calculate how much longer he can drive. But that information – from acceleration and speed to battery life – are all monitored on a little iPod positioned next to the steering wheel.

And the same information, along with the GPS location of the vehicle, is also shared and monitored on a computer screen at the battery station in case there’s a need to alert the driver that the power supply is diminishing.

As for the customers, they are not just getting a ride, but are also making a contribution to reducing the city’s gas emission. According to calculations by Better Place, while taxis make up only 2 percent of total vehicles on the roads in Tokyo, they’re responsible for 20 percent of vehicular emissions.

But most importantly, the fare may also be another reason for hailing an EV cab. Japan’s Next Generation Vehicle’s promotional material claims that the costs of driving an electric car one mile can be as little as a third or even one-seventh the cost of driving a traditional gas powered car – particularly if it’s a compact car. The taxi company says they are hoping to pass those savings on to customers by charging lower fares.

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The hurdle, however is the EV’s price tag, currently priced at around $42,000. Even with government subsidies – which bring the price down to about $34,000 – it will undoubtedly be a heavy investment for taxi companies.

And there is also the concern of availability of electric vehicles.

Take for example, Nissan’s new EV Leaf. As of June, the company has received 6,000 domestic pre-orders. Add that to the 14,000 vehicles on a waitlist in the United States and demand has already far surpassed the automaker’s global production target of 10,000 vehicles.

In terms of infrastructure, with the current test run, one battery station is set up to service three cabs. But Takahashi says if this system is to take off in earnest, his company alone would probably need at least five stations strategically placed throughout Tokyo, in addition to the 97 charging stations already in the city for emergency recharges. And that presents another cost, since each swap station could cost an estimated $500,000.

Nihon Kotsu Taxi will need to review the data compiled from the trial run to determine the viability of this battery exchange system. But it may be one way of weaning away from our dependency on fossil fuel.

As Takahashi predicts, “If you think about the future, electric cars will definitely become a major mode of transportation.”