RAWALPINDI, Pakistan - Beer. Vodka. Whiskey.

These are not words you hear often in Pakistan, where it's illegal for the majority of the population to buy or drink alcohol.

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But once you walk inside the gates of the Murree Brewery Company, it's all anyone wants to talk about.

We're greeted by the company's CEO, Isphanyar Bhandara - a man in constant motion - who is the third generation in his family to run the 150-year old company. In his office is an impressive display of bottles - lagers, flavored gins, matured whiskeys - the full product line of Murree Brewery, including non-alcoholic beers, fruit juices, and the latest addition - an energy drink called "Blitz."

"We're very proud of the fact that we're working in Pakistan," he says with a smile. "But you must remember, this brand - Murree Brewery - is much older than it's host."

A brewery that the British established in 1860 to ensure their soldiers were never without their favorite drink is now an unlikely institution in Pakistan, where Muslims are prohibited from purchasing or consuming alcohol. Legally, the company's only potential market is limited to Pakistan's non-Muslims - just three percent of the 180 million population.

And even for them, the actual process of legally buying alcohol is involved and tedious, with business conducted out of sight of the general public. The country's Christians, Hindus, and Zorastrians can obtain an alcohol license from the government. That license comes with a monthly quota. To buy a case of beer, or a bottle of vodka, they must stand in line at distribution points hidden behind hotels or other establishments, license in hand to prove they are not Muslim.

Murree Brewery is doing business with one hand tied behind its back. It's illegal for them to advertise their alcohol. It's illegal for them to export their alcohol. Still, it is alcohol sales that bring in 60 per cent of their revenues, which totaled just under $100 million dollars last year.

Running a successful business in Pakistan these days in hard enough. A lack of basic utilities, corruption within the law and order system, and the volatility of the Pakistani rupee are enough to keep any CEO awake at night. Bhandara shoulders the additional burden of running the only legal alcohol producer in a majority-Muslim country, where the conservative segment has grown more vocal and more influential with time.

"There are more heinous crimes going on, like honor killing, and throwing acid on people's faces, burying people alive," Bhandara says. "These things are considered in a lighter mode, that they are forgivable crimes. But having a beer is considered a non-forgivable crime!"

The truth in Pakistan that few will admit on the record, is that many Muslims do, in fact, regularly commit this "crime." The black market for alcohol is booming business, and the porous border makes for easy smuggling. The Pakistani elite serve wine at dinner parties in their homes. Pakistani men will end a long day at the office with a glass of whiskey. A bar table, hidden behind a curtain, is set up at weddings so that guests can enjoy a drink as they celebrate. But few are willing to do so openly, and potentially incur the wrath of the country's conservatives, whose power, Bhandara says "is increasing by the day."

"We like to keep a low profile," he says. "I think that's the best security."

TOKYO –  When the earthquake and tsunami ravaged Japan's northeast coast last March, approximately 60,000 acres of agricultural land was inundated by seawater, resulting in damages to farms costing over $10.2 billion.

Miyagi Prefecture, which was closest to the epicenter of the 8.9 magnitude earthquake, was particularly hard hit with over 37,000 acres of its and drenched in salt water and debris from the tsunami.

The clean-up and rejuvenation job is  too big  for humans, especially the aging populace to tend to live and work in agricultural areas, many of whom lost everything in the disaster.

But now, the Japanese government is planning to implement an experimental program that will use robots to do the heavy lifting and unmanned tractors to work fields on land that was swamped by the tsunami.

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The agricultural ministry’s six-year plan would take up to 600 acres of land in Miyagi, rent it from owners and conduct test trials of Japan's latest technologies from the nation's all-star roster of companies, including Panasonic, Hitachi, Yanmar and Fujitsu.

The agricultural ministry has already earmarked $9 million for this year's budget and plans to spend about $52 million over the next six years.

In addition to the robotic tools, the project will test some previously existing technologies, such as LED lights that give off ultraviolet rays that can fend off pests in an environmentally friendly manner.

Study groups with the technology companies have already been conducted at the ministry and actual testing and research will begin this year.

The project will encompass four towns in Miyagi – Natori, Iwanuma, Watari and Yamamoto –and focus on people who lost their farming equipment in the tsunami and are unable to restart on their own. The project will be centered on a 172-acre farm plot in Natori.

Another plot of land in Yamamoto will be used to offer new employment for those who gave up their land for the project by creating a farm using desalinated potted soil to grow berries and other produce.

"Our main focus is on the reconstruction and the immediate assistance for those who lost their ability to farm because of the tsunami," said Kazuhiko Shimada, the agricultural ministry spokesperson. 

The project is also aimed at tackling the thorny issue of an aging farm population, with the ministry hoping that the technologies tested can improve efficiency and help graying farmers.

Also, with increasing competition on the world market, the ministry hopes to promote the creation of larger, more competitive farms.

For instance, another test will use cloud-computing to communicate with supermarkets and identify what produce is desired by consumers, so that information can then be shared with farmers.

The first stage of the project will concentrate on desalination and various technological tests will first be conducted at nearby universities and research institutes.

Although government assistance will expire in six years, Shimada hopes that enough momentum will be made that farmers will be able to work directly with the private sector and continue to seek new advances in the nation's agricultural sector.

BEIJING – Turns out the Year of the Dragon may be inauspicious for China-U.S. relations.

Beijing has just released a New Year’s commemorative stamp featuring a ferocious-looking dragon last week, stirring up talk that China was sending an intimidating message to the world. Meantime, the United States has proclaimed a new, more robust, military strategy in Asia. 

Are the two countries headed for a dangerous confrontation? Is the U.S. beginning to pursue a Cold War-style containment policy toward China?  What is China’s rightful place on the world stage?

As Beijing prepares for events celebrating the 40th anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s landmark trip to China in 1972 that opened up official diplomacy between the two countries, analysts say the superpowers are entering a new chapter in their uneasy relationship.

Questions about growing competition between the two super-powers are unnerving officials, as well as energizing opinion-makers, and bringing to the fore pessimistic theories about a possible great-power conflict.

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‘Don't blame the mirror designer’
The “fiery debate” sparked by the release of the official Year of the Dragon stamp was emblematic of China’s self-image issues as it  continues to grow as a world power. 

The image shows the fang-baring face of the mythical ancestor of the Chinese, the most revered of the 12 animals in the Chinese Zodiac. Critics say the image sends a menacing message at a time of growing international unease over China’s rise.

 “When I saw the design of the dragon stamp in a newspaper, I was almost scared to death,” said Zhang Yihe, a noted writer, said on her micro blog on Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like service.

 “It’s truly intimidating and powerful,” echoed another post. The “fierce stare and wide-open mouth” conveys an image that is “frightening and aggressive,” said another commentator. 

The stamp’s graphic artist Chen Shaohua defended his work, however, writing in his blog that the image is reflective of China’s newly -found “national confidence” as a major world power.

While past dragon stamps showed the creature in more gracious, gentler poses in keeping with the early years of China’s opening up to the word, he said that this year’s image of a “powerful, intimidating, fierce and confident dragon” befits China’s “prestige and self-confidence.”

Yue Luping, another micro-blogger, likened the dragon stamp to a mirror. “We have destroyed the old mirror of ourselves as poor old dragon.  After a hundred years, we see our image as powerful, menacing… Don’t blame the mirror designer.  You may be scared of what you see in the new mirror, but don’t forget, what you see is our very own image,” he wrote.

America’s shifting strategy
However, more baffling for the Chinese as they grapple with their global standing is the new defense strategy that U.S. President Barack Obama unveiled recently. It features a leaner military, but one with a greater focus on the Asia-Pacific and China’s growing power.

“The United States is deploying forces around the Asia-Pacific in advance in order to contain China’s rise,” warned Maj. Gen. Luo Yuan, writing on the official newspaper of China’s People’s Liberation Army, in the strongest Chinese reaction so far to America’s new strategy.

“Who can believe that you are not aiming this at China, that this is not the return of a Cold War mentality?” he asked on the Chinese-language Liberation Daily.

“Obama said the country will ‘continue to get rid of outdated Cold War-era systems,’ it would do better to do away with its entire Cold War mentality,” declared the state-run China Daily. The newspaper added that both countries will lose if the U.S. regards the region “as a wrestling ring in which to contain emerging powers like China.”

China’s official response has been more subdued, with the foreign ministry merely defending China’s policy as “defensive” and calling U.S. accusations as “groundless and untrustworthy."

But in a recent briefing with a select group of Western and Chinese media that included NBC News, China’s chief diplomat in charge of U.S. relations shared his misgivings about the U.S. moves. 

“Peace and prosperity are still what many countries want, not military alliances,” said Cui Tiankai, Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister.

“I find it hard to understand why the U.S., which has the strongest military in the world, feels insecure about other countries,” said Cui. “I suggest the U.S. should do more to make other countries feel less worried about the U.S., so that other countries will feel safe and the U.S. will feel safe as well,” he added.

Doctrine of “offensive realism”
But to Professor John J. Mearsheimer, America’s strategic shift and the intensifying security competition in Asia all seem inevitable. 

Mearsheimer, a professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, is an international relations theorist who authored the pioneering book, “The Tragedy of Great Power Politics,” which propounds the theory of “offensive realism." The doctrine regards all great powers as perpetually on the offensive, constantly seeking security by maximizing power. He broadly anticipated America’s response to China’s growing challenge. 

In an interview with NBC News, Mearsheimer shared his views on the growing power play in Asia. 

“The Obama administration is definitely worried about China’s growing power as well as its aggressive rhetoric over the past two years, and that is why it is beginning to build a balancing coalition to contain China,” he said.

“My realist theory tells me that China will try to dominate the Asia-Pacific region as it grows more powerful and that the United States and China’s neighbors will try to contain Chinese power. It is too soon to say for sure whether my theory will be proved correct, but recent developments suggest that my theory will have a lot to say about Asia’s future,” he added.

Reflecting on the upcoming 40-year anniversary of Nixon’s landmark visit to China in 1972 that changed U.S.-China, Mearsheimer pointed out that U.S-China relations are based on realpolitik.

“Relations between the United States and China are largely determined by the balance of power in Asia, not by principles or ideals,” he said. “Beijing and Washington were driven together 40 years ago because they faced a common threat – the Soviet Union. But the Soviet Union is now gone and the Asian balance of power has changed drastically.”

For Mearsheimer, China’s new 21^st century role in the world, has changed the power dynamic.

“Today, China is the most powerful state in the region and if it continues its rapid growth over the next 30 years, it will be by far the most powerful country in Asia.  I believe that it will try to dominate the region the way the United States dominates the Western Hemisphere.  However, Washington will go to great lengths to prevent that outcome, which means that China and America are destined to become rivals if China continues its rise,” he observed.

“There is little that Chinese or American leaders can do to avoid strategic competition, which carries with it the real possibility of armed conflict between those two great powers,” he warned.

Agreement and disagreement
“I totally agree with Professor John Mearsheimer,” said Dr. Yan Xuetong, China’s top international security expert and dean of the Institute of Contemporary International Relations at Tsinghua University.  “As the gap of comprehensive power between the U.S. and China narrows, the tension between the two will intensify and there will be more conflict rather than less,” he told NBC News. 

“But I disagree that this competition will get out of control and escalate into war,” he said. “Both sides have nuclear weapons which will deter them from going to war. I have great confidence in nuclear weapons, which have the important political function of preventing war between China and the United States.”

Professor Yan considers the recent developments as validation of his argument against the danger of “superficial friendship” between America and China. “I think that the ‘superficial friendship’ will turn into ‘superficial enmity’ this year,” he predicted.

“We are not partners but we need to carefully manage the competition to prevent it from escalating into a major confrontation,” he said.

“If both sides fail to admit the competitive relationship and instead consider it as a partnership, then that, for me, will be very dangerous,” he warned.

Researcher Ting Zhao contributed to this report.

HAVANA -- No surprise to anyone that we're hearing tough words during the Latin American tour of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Swinging through Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba and Ecuador, the Iranian leader seems to be at home among America’s united enemies — and the left leaders equally comfortable with him.

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First and foremost, Ahmadinejad seems to be on his tour to defend his country’s nuclear program. While Iran claims that the nation’s nuclear program is solely for energy and other peaceful purposes, the United States and Western allies accuse Tehran of secretly building nuclear weapons.

During Monday’s stop in Caracas, Ahmadinejad addressed the issue head on and charged the Obama administration with making unjust threats. 

"They say we're making a bomb. ... Everyone knows that those words ... are a joke, something to laugh at." Ahmadinejad claims Washington is just "afraid" of Iran’s development.

For his part, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez accused Washington of demonizing Iran and trumping up false claims about the nuclear issue "like they used the excuse of weapons of mass destruction to do what they did in Iraq."

Chavez even joked how Ahmadinejad’s tour was making America nervous: "When we devils get together ... it's like they go crazy," Chavez said.

From Caracas, Ahmadinejad headed to Managua for the inauguration of Daniel Ortega to another term. He called Ortega his "brother president" while Ortega praised Ahmadinejad for his "peace" efforts. Once again, Ahmadinejad dismissed the accusations about Iran's nuclear program.

Wednesday morning, Ahmadinejad landed in Havana.

In each country so far, Ahmadinejad secured the backing for his controversial nuclear program. Don’t expect less from the Cubans.

Fidel Castro is on the record defending Iran's right to develop nuclear energy and ridiculing the Obama administration for claiming that Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons.

Receiving an honorary doctorate in political science from Havana University, Ahmadinejad spent almost his entire acceptance speech accusing the West of being the world's "bully." The wars in the Middle East, he charged, have been all about winning elections in the West and about controlling oil reserves.

Ahmadinejad was also expected to meet with the Castro brothers during his one-day visit. Again, we should expect to hear more of the same given that the two countries see eye to eye, especially when it comes to the United States. Since the start of Iran’s nuclear program, Havana has unflaggingly defended Tehran's right to develop nuclear technology while openly ridiculing the Obama administration for its claim that Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons.

And for Iran's part, the Islamic nation has repeatedly condemned the U.S. economic embargo against the island nation.

But, for as much as this trip is about criticizing U.S. policies, it also seems to have a practical edge to it. Ahmadinejad is talking up the importance of trade in Latin America.

In Venezuela, Iran has already invested in the construction industry along with factories producing farm machinery, trucks and food products.

Cuban-Iran economic ties are fairly strong too.

Back in 2003, the two countries agreed to support mutual foreign investment and expand bilateral trade. Since then, Iran has extended 200 million in euro credit to the island, which the island has used primarily to upgrade its rail system. There is discussion to increase that line of credit to 500 million euros. Cuba is helping to build a plant in Iran that produces vaccines and medicines. The bilateral trade is said to be as much as 30 million euros a year.

From here, the Iranian leader heads to Ecuador as the last stop on his whirlwind tour.

More from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Divided opposition bolsters defiant Assad
• Chinese applications to U.S. schools skyrocket
• 'Tortured' Gitmo prisoner seeks release of secret videos
• Three million parade in Philippines despite terror threat
• US expels diplomat after cyber-attack allegations
• Kremlin's photo-doctoring backfires big time
• Divided opposition bolsters defiant Assad

BEIJING – Retired NBA star, Yao Ming, carved out an eight-year career protecting the hoop in the NBA. His next defensive assignment though may be a considerably taller task for the 7’6” all-star, if not a lot cuter and fuzzier than his former basketball opponents.

Yao was in the central Chinese province of Sichuan on Wednesday, where he presided over the opening of a new phase in the giant panda-breeding program that some experts hope will help pandas born in captivity eventually assimilate back into the wild through a regimen of acclimation and survival training. 

“I think it is most important to keep a balance between modern living and nature,” said Yao to reporters in Sichuan. “We have been talking about it for many years but it is never an easy thing to do.”

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Chinese experts constructed a $4.75 million habitat called “Panda Valley” in the area around the town of Dujiangyan – a place heavily hit by the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. The 50-acre park will serve as a large, open-area school where researchers will be able to slowly teach the pandas the art of survival in the harsh, elevated mountain wilderness that pandas thrive in.

Over time, organizers plan to expand the panda habitat to eventually allow for up to 30 pandas to live there. It is hoped that eventually 100 pandas from this facility will be released back into the wild over the next 50 years.

Panda researchers in China screened the 108 pandas in captivity at the Wolong Panda Reserve in Sichuan over the period of a year and whittled the list down to six final candidates. The roster included such panda celebrities as twin brothers, Xingrong and Xingya, and one panda named Gongzai, who was the inspiration for “Po” the rotund, fighting panda featured in the “Kung Fu Panda” movies.

These pandas were selected for this pilot project based on criteria that encompassed age, health and genetic background. 

It is hoped that the pandas selected will demonstrate the best combination of strength to defend themselves from wild pandas, while being young enough to allow them the opportunity to grow up and adapt to their wild surroundings.

The ultimate goal is for these pandas to grow up, assimilate into the wild and give birth to new pandas ready to survive in the wild.

The preserve’s opening comes as China is in the midst of a nationwide panda census that is conducted every ten years. There are an estimated 1,600 pandas living in the wild and an additional 300 living in captivity.

Despite China being at the forefront of panda research and the masters of a highly successful breeding program, some experts feel that the park is simply too expensive and that previous attempts to create similar preserves for other species have come with mixed results.

A similar attempt to reintroduce pandas back into the wild in China ended in failure in 2007 when Xiang Xiang, a five-year-old male panda trained for three years by researchers was found dead after he was killed by wild pandas.

Related link: Six pandas amble toward freedom in China preserve
 

BEIJING – Wenzy Duan dreams about becoming a delegate to the United Nations.

“I know this [ambition] is pretty high,” said the 17-year old Beijing native.  “But I think I can give it a shot.” 

To prepare, Duan wants to study international relations at an American college – someplace like the University of Washington. “I hear [it] is good at social science," she said.

The University of Washington is one of approximately 10 U.S. universities Duan plans to apply to in the coming year with the help of an education consultant she hired last summer.

“I know that the scores is not the only thing that the university will consider whether you can get in or not,” said the high school senior.

Duan is not alone.  Today, China sends more of its students to America than any other country. During the 2010-11 academic year, 157,588 Chinese students were studying in the U.S. – an increase of 23 percent from the previous year, according to the Institute of International Education. 

The growing market of Chinese students wanting to go to the U.S. has created various cottage industries in China and the U.S. –  among them are education consultants who help students navigate the maze of college applications and "brokers" representing American universities who seek student candidates paying full tuition. But it's also fueled anxiety among American students and their parents about increased competition from abroad.

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Education consultants: the main cottage industry
“When [Chinese students] decide to come to the U.S. and study in the U.S. school, they have no idea,” said Steven Ma, president of ThinkTank Learning, the consulting group with which Duan is working.  "What do colleges in the U.S. look for anyway?  What do they want?  What type of students they want?  And that’s where we come in.”

ThinkTank Learning, based in Santa Clara, Calif., offers tutoring and college counseling.  Most of the students contracting its services have been Asian-American, but Ma said increasingly his firm began fielding calls from mainland Chinese families wanting their advice. 

Eventually ThinkTank Learning opened a branch in Shenzhen in 2009 and then in Beijing a year later.  It charges anywhere from $17,000 to almost $40,000 for tailored consultation packages lasting six to 12 months, dispensing advice on choosing the right schools, writing essays, or preparing for interviews.  

“They’ll just tell you when you need to get something done by what deadline and how do you prepare your application to the school’s standards,” said Julia Yin, Duan’s mother, a petroleum engineer who hails from Hunan province.  “Basically, everything is DIY [do it yourself.]"

Go West, Young Man (and Woman)
China sent its first student to an American college in 1850: A native of Guangdong Province named Yung Wing earned his degree from Yale University, paving the way for thousands more over the following century.

The flow of students from China to America dried up in the 1950s when the establishment of the People’s Republic of China gave way to tumult and isolation, and did not re-start until 1974 1978.

From then until just a few years ago, "It was almost all graduate students, most of them funded by the host universities through research assistantships or teaching assistantships," said Peggy Blumenthal, senior counselor to the president at the Institute of International Education (IIE).

Now, Chinese undergraduates drive the growth, particularly in the past two years.  At the start of the 2006-07 academic year, 9,955 Chinese undergrads were enrolled in U.S. schools. The following year, that figure jumped to 16,450.  By the 2010-11 academic year, 56,976 undergraduates made up a third of all Chinese students living in the U.S.

“What you’re seeing is the growth of the middle class of China who can really afford to send their kids to the U.S.,” said Blumenthal.  “The Chinese undergrads are all coming virtually self-funded.”

The fact that so many students pay their own way has not gone unnoticed.

"Foreign students spend about $21 billion a year in the U.S. in tuition and living expenses for them and their families,” said Charles Bennett, Minister-Counselor for Consular Affairs at the U.S. embassy in Beijing – where Ambassador Gary Locke has made among his top priorities the expansion of visa processing capacity in China.

“That’s a very large sum of money for U.S. academic institutions,” continued Bennett, especially as so many face shrinking endowments or reduced state funding.

The Chinese comprise at least 21 percent of all international students newly enrolled in American schools, which means that they and their families contribute roughly $4 billion to the American economy, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Edging out American students in America?
Recent reports, however, have suggested mainland Chinese students and their ability to pay full tuition are costing American students placement in American colleges. A bankrupt state school system in California – one of the most popular destinations for Chinese students – has meant that its well-regarded schools are seeing record enrollments from out-of-state and international students. 

For the 2010-11 academic year, California welcomed the most international students – 96,535. And for the tenth year in a row the University of Southern California was the leading host U.S. institution for overseas students, enrolling 8,615, according to the IIE.

But the IIE argues adding mainland Chinese students is helpful for diversity.  “Most Americans will not study abroad. On the other hand, their careers will be global,” observed Blumenthal.  “They need to learn how to interact with professionals from other countries, and many of them will be from China.  There are very few industries or business not affected by China.”

Moreover, at the graduate level, Chinese students aren’t competing against American students for a seat in the classroom, according to Blumenthal.  “There still aren’t enough Americans in the pipeline wanting to get graduate training in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math,” she said.

But detractors note other challenges have surfaced as a result of so many Chinese students going to U.S. schools.  Among them is whether some applicants from the mainland are cheating their way into admissions by falsifying their academic records or achievements. 

One consulting company in Beijing that works U.S. universities, Zinch China, says 90 percent of Chinese undergraduates submit false recommendation letters for their U.S. college applications and that 70 percent enlist someone else to write their essays.

The dishonesty works the other way, too.  A growing number of “education brokers,” who work on behalf of U.S. institutions to solicit Chinese students, have led to misrepresentations and predatory fees, according to a revealing report from Bloomberg News. Some agents promise admission to top-flight schools, charge exorbitant fees, in some instances including a portion of scholarship funds, and students can end up at schools that are a far cry from the "dream schools" they hope to attend.  

Can China produce innovative thinkers?
The desire among Chinese students to seek an American college degree has grown stronger over the years owing to a number of factors.

Above everything else, there is the fierce competition for gaining admissions to a preeminent Chinese university. The selection process is decided solely by the gaokao, an annual national college entrance examination that lasts nine grueling hours over two to three days.

This past year, more than 9 million students across China took the gaokao.  And believe it or not, that number has been declining since 2008 as more students opt out of the gaokao and sign up for exams like the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) and the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test), both of which are generally prerequisites for applying to any U.S. college or university.

A lively debate is growing about whether China’s education system can produce innovative thinkers who can enable the country to lead – not just catch up with or follow in the footsteps of industrialized economies like the U.S. or Britain. Such concerns triggered a widespread discussion online when Steve Jobs died earlier this year.

“The students here are not as robotic as Americans think,” said Gene Hwang, a 27-year-old Taiwanese-American, who has been working in China for ThinkTank Learning for almost two years.  “But they are held back by some of the systems in schools, which emphasize rote memorization….  We work with them on [developing] critical thinking.”

Broadening those horizons
“When I get into America, I can get [a liberal] education [that] could open my mind,” said Zhang Yuqi, a soft-spoken but intense 17-year-old high school senior.

He’s been working with a ThinkTank Learning consultant for three months, reviewing which schools to apply to and working on his essays.  A possible math major, he has his eye on Carnegie-Mellon and Emory where he hopes to find a climate that differs from his elite Beijing high school, which he says has too many “planned activities.”

Duan wants to study in the U.S., because “they accept all different kinds of different ideas.  You can dream about anything,” she said.  “In America, I can experience more…maybe all kinds of things I will never experience in China.”

For high school junior Dolly Luo, it's simply about getting the best education.  “The U.S. has the most well-developed college education," said the 16-year-old Beijing native who loves Harry Potter and dreams about attending an Ivy League college.

Her parents have similar faith in the U.S. college experience.

“She will have more opportunities, and it will broaden her horizons,” said William Luo.  In fact, Dolly’s father had harbored his own U.S. scholarly ambitions, but he didn’t have the financial resources to enable him to pursue his graduate studies in America.

“I hope when Dolly goes abroad and she learns American values or Western values that she can absorb the Western education – the good parts: the culture, the education,” continued Luo.  “In China, we would need that.” 

LONDON – Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, and those who work for him, seem determined to turn a relatively unknown, 30-something protester into a larger-than-life political rival.

It all began on a cold, December 4 afternoon, when Alexei Navalny stood up among a small crowd in Moscow and blasted Putin's United Russia party as one of “crooks and thieves” who had just stolen the parliamentary elections. The Kremlin put him in jail for two weeks. The tactic was obvious: keeping Navalny locked up would hinder his ability to organize a massive anti-Putin demonstration on December 24.

Instead, the move backfired and ended up boosting Navalny's profile – and street cred – at a time when the splintered opposition was hungry for a new leader.

By Dec. 24 he was out of prison and had become the face of the opposition. His rant in the bitter cold that day inspired more than 100,000 people in the street to “take back the election – by force if necessary” from those who had stolen it.
 
But catapulting Navalny into instant celebrity wasn't good enough for the over-anxious Kremlinites. Now they've made him the face of their own absurdity as well. 

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Open up last Saturday's edition of Arguments & Facts, a popular national daily, and you'll find a photo of a beaming Navalny standing next to Putin's arch enemy, the oligarch-in-exile Boris Berezovsky, himself sporting a Cheshire cat smile.

The caption reads: “Navalny has never hidden that Boris Berezovsky gives him money for the struggle with Putin.”

Well, it took Navalny and his corral of fellow bloggers a few nano-seconds to work out that the photo had been doctored.

In the actual photo, Navalny is standing next to another, Putin-friendly oligarch, Mikhail Prokhorov, the owner of the New Jersey Nets and a candidate for Russia's presidency.

But standing next to Prokhorov is seen as benign because he's neither considered an agitator nor a serious threat to the Kremlin.

Instead of just pointing out the fakery, Navalny’s supporters took things to the next level – by beaming photos across the blogosphere of him standing next to the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, a space alien, Putin and other action men.

Rich history of air-brushing
The air-brushing of photos for propaganda reasons is an old Soviet art. Joseph Stalin routinely had  friends and allies erased from photos taken with him when they became his enemies (often after he’d had them killed, as in the famous case of Nikolai Yezhov, the leader of the NKVD, precursor of the KGB, in the 1920s.) 

My personal faking favorite is the iconic shot of several Soviet soldiers holding up the hammer-sickle-flag above the German Reichstag building, marking the effective end of the war in Europe in 1945. If you look closely you'll see that the soldier supporting the flag-bearer is wearing a watch on his left arm. In the original, however, he has watches on both arms – suggesting that he might have looted them. The Russian magazine Ogonok removed the second watch just before publication.
 
Of course, the practice is not restricted to Russia. Ever since photographs became a means by which world leaders defined themselves to their public, photos of Hitler, Mussolini, Mao Tse-tung, and going back in time, Grant, Sherman and, yes, even Abraham Lincoln, were doctored in order to enhance their image.   .
 
But seldom has a manipulated photo backfired with the same concussive effect that Navalny's has.

One can even imagine the taciturn Putin, an ex-KGB agent, letting out an unforced guffaw as he scans Navalny's blog and finds the latest “photo-toad” (an English translation of the Russian slang for a doctored photo) of Navalny standing next to Bender, the robot from the comic strip Futurama.

Putin's camp had no doubt hoped to turn Navalny into an enemy of Russia's people. Instead, the Kremlin itself has become a lightning rod for Russians' scorn and mockery, and Navalny has seen himself launched into the stratosphere of a Marvel Comics hero, without even having to lift a megaphone.

In the lead-up to the March presidential election, Putin – still considered a shoo-in to win it all – may yet turn out to be his own worst propagandist.

Jim Maceda is an NBC news correspondent based in London who has covered Russia and the Soviet Union since the 1980s.

ANALYSIS

CAIRO – It was a speech that was long in form, but short on new substance.

For the first time since June, Syria's President Bashar al-Assad spoke publicly, addressing a crowd at Damascus University in a nearly two-hour speech that was carried live on state television and around the Arab world. 

But if Assad is under increasing international pressure and isolation, he certainly did not show it.

In fact, he was defiant as ever, seemingly casual at times but confident with his government’s course of action. At one point, he dismissed calls to step down, saying that while he never sought power, he would also not shy away from his responsibilities as the country's ruler.

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The speech followed the same talking points the Syrian regime has been consistently delivering: There will be no let-up in the crackdown on what Syria describes as terrorists who are undermining the state and its sovereignty. Foreign hands are at work to divide Syria and sow sedition in an attempt to conquer the broader region.

But perhaps the strongest words from the president’s speech were targeted at the Arab League, the pan-Arab regional body, which has condemned Syria and sanctioned it for its violet crackdown on protesters that the U.N. estimates has killed 5,000 people since March 2011.

He even said the Arab League should be called the “Foreign League.” With that comment he seemed to be playing to his audience, if there is one thing that irks people across the Arab world uniformly it’s the notion of foreign powers intervening in their domestic affairs.

Tough spot for Arab League
Analysts say the Arab League is in a difficult position. Its 165-person observer mission in Syria is tasked with making sure Damascus complies with an agreement aimed at ending the violence. The mission has drawn criticism for its work and its composition – including the fact that a Sudanese general who has been accused of war crimes himself is in charge of the mission.

The observer mission is expected to submit its full report on Jan. 19 in Cairo. Russia says the mission is helping stabilize the country, but according to activists inside and outside Syria, the death toll continues to rise, leading many in the opposition to worry the mission could simply serve as a political cover for the continued crackdown. 

Syrian opposition groups say the Syrian government is limiting the mobility and ability of the mission to freely see the facts on the ground. A group of Arab League observers were reportedly attacked by “unknown protesters” in the northern city of Latakia on Monday.

Opposition groups say they want the Arab League to refer the Syria crisis to the United Nations Security Council. But doing so may prove to be a double edge sword for the Arab body which does not want to appear as having given the green light for foreign action in yet another Arab country.

The fear among some within the Arab League, according to sources I have spoken to, is that such a move would pave the way for international intervention in Syria that could ultimately take the shape of military action. However, Western powers have expressed their unwillingness for any foreign military action in Syria like that in Libya.

The Arab League was criticized when it referred Libya to the United Nations. That move ultimately led to NATO military intervention that helped topple the Gadhafi regime.

The current Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby previously told me the Libya decision was a mistake (he was not the Secretary General at the time of that vote) and he did not want it repeated under his leadership.

The Syrian opposition has concluded that the Arab League is divided and weak to take any further actions to stop the bloodshed. But they are divided as well.

The opposition movements both inside and outside of Syria have been criticized for their inability to build a cohesive decision-making opposition body that could allay the fears of regional countries and also meet  the immediate demands of the Syrian people in a possible post-Assad Syria.

‘A challenge of biblical proportions’
The larger international community isn’t stepping up to fill the leadership void, either. The international community is reluctant to get involved in Syria as it did in Libya. The regional fallout could be greater following any intervention in Syria than it was for Libya.

Security experts say Syria's military capabilities are far greater than Libya's and that poses a whole host of challenges. 

“There are questions as to whether the process could be repeated, for example, in Syria,” said Jeremy Binnie, a senior analyst at IHS Jane’s, the defense and security intelligence provider. “Russia and China have expressed concerns that the U.N. resolution to protect Libyan civilians was loosely interpreted, the allies were up against inferior air defenses and the potential geo-strategic ramifications of the intervention were comparatively limited.”

Binnie explained how the situation in Syria differs from Libya. “The Syrian regime would be a significantly harder to topple and the fallout potentially far more serious, especially given the country’s arsenal of chemical weapons. Libya’s air defenses were a push over by comparison. Syria would be a challenge of biblical proportions compared with Libya.”

Hanging in the balance
For now, Assad says his government will press ahead with reforms while pushing for wider political participation from opposition groups. The president boldly promised that a new constitution would be put up for referendum later this spring and new elections would be held shortly after, a timetable that analysts say is unlikely to produce genuine reform.

Opposition groups have dismissed these as half-hearted measures and duplicitous. But with a divided opposition, timid Arab neighbors and an international community that lacks consensus on what to do, Assad has found a balance in which he continues to remain in power.

 

 

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WARSAW – Zuzanna Radzik wants Polish children to know that almost every Polish town and village was part of the Holocaust.

There were about 3.5 million Jews in Poland before World War II, making up 10 percent of the overall Polish population. And some pre-war Polish towns Jews comprised as much as 70 percent of the residents.

But although Polish children learn about the Holocaust in school, many believe the killing was confined to death camps like Auschwitz and Treblinka.

However, the Holocaust also happened in little known places like Stoczek Wegrowski, a town of about 5,000 where 188 Jews were shot dead on September 22, 1942. The massacre took place on Yom Kippur, the most solemn Jewish holiday.

“We bring history to children in towns and villages who have never met a Jew or seen a synagogue,” Radzik said. “When we show them where the ghetto was in their town and that Jews were killed there, it all becomes real.”

Radzik represents an increasing number of Poles who believe Jewish heritage is integral to Polish history and that citizens must learn about that aspect of the past to understand contemporary Poland. The Holocaust all but wiped out the country’s Jewish population – today the number of Jews in Poland is estimated to be just 15,000, according to government estimates.

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Teaching the next generation
Faith motivates Radzik, a 28-year-old Catholic theologian. “We have a long history of Christian anti-Judaism,” she said. “We should do our repentance for that and be strong about fighting anti-Semitism.”
Radzik supervises The School of Dialogue, sponsored by The Forum for Dialogue Among Nations, a Polish non-profit organization that seeks to eliminate anti-Semitism and to foster better relations between Poles and Jews.

The school deploys educators throughout Poland to teach young people about Judaism and the places in their towns where Jews once lived and worked. These educators highlight shared religious traditions and teach about Jewish holidays and their connections to Christian calendars. 

In Kielce, where 24,000 Jews lived before the war, making up approximately one-third of the city’s population, the educators’ effectiveness was clear after they visited. 

“I’ve been living here since I was a baby,” a local teenager wrote, “and I did not know the meaning of the monuments for Holocaust victims I passed by every day and where the Jewish cemetery is.” Thanks to the program, she now does.

Bringing life back to the old ghetto
But it is not just Radzik’s organization that is highlighting the role of Jews in Poland’s past.

Beata Chomatowska, a 34-year-old journalist who lives in Muranow, a neighborhood built on the rubble of the former Warsaw Ghetto, has created the web site Stacja Muranow (Muranow Station) to educate residents about their neighborhood’s history..

It’s estimated that up to 300,000 Jews from the area were sent to death camps, particularly in the wake of the famous Warsaw Ghetto uprising of April 1943. After brutally quelling the insurrection, the Germans leveled the site, leaving countless victims buried in the ruins.

“This area is still dead 68 years after the Germans destroyed it,” said Chomatowska.  “It is my obligation to remember the people and the place that was here before.”

There are few physical reminders of the former ghetto. One of them is Muranow’s sometimes hilly terrain, which results from the fact that much of the rubble was not cleared and new housing was built on top of the ruins.

However, Chomatowska is proud of recently completed murals by Warsaw artist Adam Walas in the entryway leading to an apartment complex. The artwork features prominent Jews who lived in Muranow before the war, such as Ludwik Zamenhof, creator of Esperanto.

Zamenhof intended Esperanto as a common language to unite people of different cultures. “I transferred Zamenhof’s hope to the mural with hope that people would see what is universal,” said Walas.

Thirty Muranow residents participate in Chomatowska’s education project. They meet in a ground floor office intended as a meeting place where neighborhood residents and Jewish visitors can learn about the district’s past.

Asked what motivates her, Chomatowska said, “I was always interested in Jewish culture and history, and a world that disappeared.”

Looking for unmarked graves
Like Radzik and Chomatowska, Zbigniew Nizinski brings to light a world that disappeared. Inspired by the Bible and a fervent belief that the memory of the dead must be preserved, Nizinski has dedicated his life to finding unmarked graves of Jews murdered by the Germans.

In particular, the 52-year-old Baptist travels to tiny villages in eastern Poland.  “We discover and rescue the graves from complete oblivion and place memorial stones,” he said. “It is so unjust that there are so many Jewish burial sites that are not visited because there are no relatives left.”

Nizinski usually travels by bicycle, finding elderly people who remember where murdered Jews are buried. That’s how he met 90-year old Wladyslaw Gerula near Przemysl in southeastern Poland.

The Germans killed Gerula’s parents for hiding Jews. They also killed the hidden Jews. Although Gerula does not know his parents’ burial place, he knows where the three Jews are buried and he placed a large stone, carved with a Star of David, on the spot. He considers the spot his parents’ memorial, although they were also honored at Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust memorial, on April 25, 1995.

One of the unmarked graves Nizinski discovered is near Stoczek Wegrowski. Buried here are Rywka Farbiarz and seven other Jews murdered by the Germans on November 26, 1942. Farbiarz’s 10-year-old daughter, Chasia, survived the massacre, lying silent beneath the dead.

Chasia, who now lives in Israel, visited the grave with her two sons in June for the unveiling of a memorial stone Nizinski placed there.

‘We miss them’
Nizinski, Chomatowska and Radzik’s work reflects growing recognition that acknowledging the nation’s Jewish history is essential to Poland.

Dr. Alina Molisak, who teaches Jewish literature at Warsaw University, cites the tremendous influence of Jewish authors on Polish literature. “You can feel the Jewish absence,” she said, reflecting on the Holocaust, “Not only in literature, but in culture and science. We miss them.”

Related links; At Auschwitz, future U.S. military leaders learn what not to do

Casting aside current tensions between the U.S. and Iran, the U.S. Navy on Friday rescued 13 Iranian seamen who were being held captive by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Oman.

A Navy helicopter from the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis, responding to a distress call from a merchant ship under attack by pirates, chased the pirates to their "mother ship," an Iranian-flagged dhow that had earlier been hijacked.

 

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A heavily-armed counter-piracy team from the Navy destroyer USS Kidd met little resistance when they boarded the dhow where they found 15 armed pirates and the 13 Iranians who were being held hostage. The pirates were taken into custody. The Iranians were set free in their dhow.

 

The rescue occurred about 175 miles southeast of Muscat, Oman.

• STORY: Iran warns US carrier to stay out of Persian Gulf

It came less than two days after Iran threatened never to allow the USS John C. Stennis back to the Persian gulf following its departure last week for the Gulf of Oman and North Arabian Sea.

An Iranian surveillance plane last week video-recorded and photographed the vessel near the Strait of Hormuz, in a bid to cast its navy as having a powerful role in the region's waters.

• STORY: Iran tracks US aircraft carrier amid Strait of Hormuz tension

Iran has threatened to close the route in possible retaliation to new U.S. and European economic sanctions, a tactic the U.S. already has said it would not tolerate.

About one-sixth of the world's oil passes on tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, and analysts have warned the price of Brent crude could temporarily jump to as high as $210 if the strait is closed.

U.S. officials have said the Navy's Fifth Fleet, based in nearby Bahrain, is prepared to defend the shipping route.

White House officials said Iran's threat showed Tehran was increasingly isolated internationally, faced economic problems from to sanctions and wants to divert attention from its deepening problems.

"It reflects the fact that Iran is in a position of weakness," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters Tuesday.

• STORY: Iran oil standoff could mean higher gas prices

State news agency IRNA quoted Iranian army chief Ataollah Salehi as saying: "Iran will not repeat its warning ... the enemy's carrier has been moved to the Sea of Oman because of our drill. I recommend and emphasize to the American carrier not to return to the Persian Gulf.

"I advise, recommend and warn them (the Americans) over the return of this carrier to the Persian Gulf because we are not in the habit of warning more than once," he said.

• STORY: UK warns Iran over oil threat

Britain's defense secretary warned Iran Thursday that any attempt to block the key global oil passageway the Strait of Hormuz would be illegal and unsuccessful — hinting at a robust international response.

During his  first visit to the Pentagon for talks with U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Philip Hammond told the Atlantic Council in Washington that the presence of British and American naval ships in the Persian Gulf would ensure the route is kept open for trade.

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  NBC's Jim Miklaszewski and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

By Jason Jouavel, NBC News

LONDON -- A plaque near a bus stop in south London marks where murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence took his last few breaths and serves as a grim reminder of one of Britain's most notorious racist crimes. 

The memorial at the site of Lawrence's killing -- which has been described as the U.K's "Rosa Parks moment" -- has been vandalized several times. That strikes me as a sign that deep hatred still exists.

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• Racist killers sentenced in UK's 'Rosa Parks moment'

I'm a black south Londoner. And almost two decades after the slaying, I still feel very anxious walking through certain streets in Eltham after dark.

Lawrence, 18, was stabbed to death by a gang of white youths in an unprovoked attack as he waited at the bus stop in Eltham in 1993. The investigation was bungled and despite multiple court appearances by suspects over the years no one was convicted until Tuesday.

At least three people involved in Lawrence's slaying remain at large and to this day a notable lack of local people have come forward with information about what happened.

Duwayne Brooks, who was with Lawrence at the time of the attack, told investigators that they had been racially abused before the stabbing. However, police initially treated Brooks like a suspect -- as opposed to a key witness.

The crime also resulted in a 1999 public inquiry that branded London's Metropolitan Police force as "institutionally racist."

 Stephen's parents, Doreen and Neville Lawrence, have waged a nearly 19-year battle for justice, which finally paid dividends with this week's murder convictions of Gary Dobson and David Norris.

I've seen the slain teenager's courageous mother several times on the streets of south London as she continues her fight to clean-up the police, strengthen laws and support victims of racially motivated crimes. My immediate impulse is always to just salute her.

'Deep darkness'
Although there was celebration in some quarters over the conviction and sentencing of Dobson and Norris, I have to agree with the Reverend Jesse Jackson. He summed up this week's events as "little light with deep darkness."

It's important to remember that the people who killed Lawrence have been harbored by their community for years and some are still being protected.

Some progress has undoubtedly been made since Lawrence's slaying.

However, recruitment drives aimed at attracting more black and Asian officers have failed to make the Metropolitan Police representative of London's ethnic diversity.

A disproportionate number of black people are still stopped and searched by the police. It's something I've been through several times. On one occasion, I was driving to work when I was stopped. The police officer said that I looked "suspicious."

Many young black men in London complain about being prejudged and stereotyped. 

I was astonished when a well-educated acquaintance told me she thought that black people should be stopped because they commit most crimes as we casually discussed last summer's London riots. I wonder whether this is also the view of some police officers.

The police must be commended for pursuing Lawrence's killers for close to two decades. But let's not forget that if the investigating officers had been more rigorous when the crime was committed, the Lawrence family may have had justice much sooner.