A banner promoting North Korea’s 150-day economic production campaign in August. Photo: Ben Piven

Part 6 of 6 in our Inside the Hermit Kingdom series on the people and culture of North Korea. Worldfocus multimedia producer Ben Piven writes about the contrast between the North Korean economy and the booming economies of South Korea and China.

“Why does South Korea produce Samsung, LG, and Hyundai?” I asked Jong, our 25-year-old North Korean tour guide.

She said that North Korea will manufacture sophisticated goods once the essentials — electrification and rice production — are covered. But the blank look on her face suggested that she better not discuss the issue.

Then, she perked up when someone asked about her own ideal job. She replied matter-of-factly, “I’d be a businesswoman.”

Jong’s 5,000 KPW (Korean People’s Won) monthly salary is equivalent to around $1.67. The official rate for the North Korean won is 142 per U.S. dollar, but due to severe inflation since the mid-1990’s, the black market rate is over 3000 KPW to $1.

Housing, health care and education are free in North Korea. But with her meager salary, Jong on her own could never afford the television or computer which her family of four (including her mother, father and grandmother) possess. Euros, dollars and Chinese yuan are needed for major purchases.

In North Korea, tourists are not permitted to enter non-tourist shops or purchase the local currency, since a negligible amount of foreign currency could buy out an entire store. Opening up shops and currency to the market would cause economic humiliation.

North Korea’s GDP is $1,700 per capita, 1/15 of South Korea’s, according to the CIA Factbook. Tied with Cote D’Ivoire and just a tad wealthier than Chad, North Korea is poorer than Laos and Cambodia. North Korea went from one of the most prosperous East Asian countries in the 1970s to the least prosperous today.

A Yalu River bridge once connected North Korea with China but was bombed out by the U.S. during the Korean War. Photo: Ben Piven

It wasn’t always this way. Having relied on the Soviets for economic inputs, North Korea developed faster than South Korea in the aftermath of the 1953 armistice that concluded the Korean War. The country’s infrastructure was mostly built from the late 50s to the early 70s, when the Soviet system was strong.

But by the 1980s rural South Korea had transformed into a tech-savvy urban tiger, and the stunted north turned more repressive after a number of aborted attempts to liberalize the economy.

The Juche state ideology — which emphasizes economic self-reliance  — intensified around 1982, almost certainly in response to South Korea’s explosive economic growth. Today, the paradox is that North Korea may be isolated,  but it’s not self-reliant. The authoritarian state relies heavily on food and fuel aid from abroad — as well as, some say, criminal activities.

David Rose explains in Vanity Fair how the Office 39 slush fund supplies Kim’s personal coffers, his inner circle and the missile defense program. Annual revenues from decidedly un-Juche activities, including crystal meth sales and human trafficking, may surpass $1 billion.

North Korea suffers economically from a strict economic embargo. Photo: Ben Piven

According to Rose, the D.P.R.K. is also the world’s top producer of “supernote” counterfeit $100 bills. Since the government cannot legally borrow cash, military sales and criminal rackets generate enough hard currency to keep the regime from collapse.

Since Kim Jong-il implemented songun (military-first budget policy) in 1994, the nuclear program has propped up the regime but stunted the people’s health and welfare. And economic sanctions have further impoverished ordinary Koreans.

On our officially-sanctioned tour, we gawked at workers burning rubber shoes to pave roadways and saw only one functioning crane in five days. Like the country’s infrastructure, corn and rice plots were orderly but dilapidated. Peasants worked in large groups, then napped individually in tiny wooden shacks.

Except for one rainy day, our bus was lonely on the roadways. Endless queues of people waited for antique Soviet trams and buses, while government officials drove fancy German cars. The only billboards advertised Pyonghwa Motors, co-owned by Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church and under license from Fiat.

Officially, 2012 (Kim Il-Sung’s 100th birthday, known as Juche 100) will mark the completion of several projects, including the pyramidal Ryugyong Hotel, begun in 1987 but halted in 1992 due to severe shortages. Though the country’s tallest structure, the 105-story building is absent from tourist maps.

A North Korean phone on the country’s only cellular network. Photo: Ben Piven

The top two floors are being renovated as an office for Egyptian telecom magnate Naguib Sawiris, whose Orascom employees are also installing the nation’s first cell service, KoryoLink. The company has already enlisted over 50,000 subscribers at $25 per month. Sawiris also recently launched Ora Bank, another joint venture with a North Korean government partner. (North Korea’s ties with Egypt date back to the 1973 Yom Kippur War. In return for air force squadrons, North Korea later received scud missiles).

Some Americans believe that more economic engagement is the best way to bring North Korea in from the cold. There are some signs that the Juche nation is slowly bending to Western commercial pressures - witness the Taedonggang beer ad, Pyongyang pizza craze, and a new Singaporean-owned fast food restaurant.

But for now, despite the rapid globalization on its borders, North Korea remains in an economic deep freeze.

- Ben Piven

Moscow’s Triumph Square. Photo: argenberg

November has not been a good month for Russia’s political opposition.

A number of activists have been detained in recent days, including the outspoken writer and activist Eduard Limonov, who was picked up for participating in an “unsanctioned rally” in Moscow on October 31. Limonov is now serving 10 days of administrative arrest.

On Nov. 16, police detained eight other activists who were demonstrating in support of Limonov.

Their arrests may not have been accidental. Activists from the opposition Solidarity movement say they have uncovered a high-level police memo ordering officers to disrupt the protests. The memo, photographed with a cell phone, is posted on the blog of activist Ilya Yashin.

Signed by an officer in the police force, the memo is directed to the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ Center to Prevent Extremism. It informs the Center about plans by Solidarity activists to carry out a series of individual pickets near the detention facility where Limonov is being held, and the police force’s intent to take measures against the “unsanctioned” meetings.

At the center of the controversy: the right to freedom of assembly, as provided by article 31 of the Russian Federation’s Constitution, which states “Citizens of the Russian Federation shall have the right to gather peacefully, without weapons, and to hold meetings, rallies, demonstrations, marches and pickets.”

In practice, however, the right to freedom of assembly in Russia has been severely curtailed in recent years. To reassert the public’s right to gather freely, Limonov and his followers have been organizing protests on the 31^st of every month at 6 pm in front of Moscow’s Triumph Square.

What’s interesting about the protests against Limonov’s detention on the 16th is that they were planned as individual actions – pickets by one person alone do not need official approval to proceed.

However, when Boris Nemtsov, former Deputy Prime Minister turned opposition figure, went out on the street to picket, he reportedly was joined by two men in hooded jackets – which brought the number of protesters to three, making it an “unsanctioned” protest. Nemtsov was subsequently detained by police.

But the same two men reportedly then joined activist Vladimir Milov, whom police also detained. The hooded men walked away free, and went on to disrupt two other protesters, Aleksandr Ryklin and Sergei Zhavoronkov. RFERL has posted a slide show of the pickets and arrests.

Meanwhile, the Communist party has taken up Limonov’s cause in Parliament and 34 Russian writers and publicists have published an open letter on his behalf, arguing that “Eduard Limonov…should not have to undergo arrest in order to realize his constitutional right to the freedom of assembly.”

If the police are in fact fabricating protests in order to have a pretext to arrest activists, it’s a sorry state of affairs indeed.

- Christine Kiernan

A long camera crane swings overhead, women and men alike scream, and I’m whacked upside the head by a Greek photographer. I work for a serious news show on PBS. So how did I end up smack in the middle of the mayhem at one of Greece’s hottest celebrity weddings?

Last June, correspondent Lynn Sherr and I traveled to Greece to shoot several stories, including one on the controversy over gay marriage. But only one such ceremony had ever taken place. So how do you film something that isn’t happening?

Lynn came up with the idea of shooting a straight wedding, to show what gay Greeks were missing out on. Our fixer, Dee Murphy, then found an event that fit into our packed schedule: the wedding of two Greek celebrities, Adonis Georgiadis, a right-wing member of Parliament, and Eugenia Manolidou, a concert pianist, turned television talk show host.

But, I asked, could we seriously just walk into this wedding without being invited? Dee explained that Greek weddings are nothing like American weddings. For one, churches are considered public places, where everyone is welcome. That turned out to be just one of many things different about this wedding.

When we arrived, the square outside the small church was a mob scene – packed with guests, press and hundreds – maybe thousands – of gawkers. I nabbed a place on the edge of the red carpet. At first, the other Greek cameramen were friendly, introducing themselves and joking – seemingly amused by the arrival of the random American.

But when the bride arrived, all niceties went out the window. The press surged, pushing and shoving to get the shot - no elbows spared for the only woman in the pack (me).

Greek tradition dictates that the bride and groom meet outside the church and process in together. A frenzied mob of cameras, bride and her screaming assistant slowly moved towards, and engulfed, the waiting groom, then worked its say into the already packed church.

Greek paparazzi enjoy a wild wedding. Photo: Megan Thompson

Everyone stood for the entire ceremony. While the Greek Orthodox service was performed at the front of the church, the back was a free-for-all – people coming in and out, carrying on loud conversations, climbing up on benches to see the action, making phone calls, snapping photos.

Outside, tables had been set up to hand out little bundles of candied almonds (another Greek tradition). People off the streets were practically jumping over the table to get at the little fluffs of tulle. Back inside, women started dismantling the decorative flower stands that lined the aisles and stuffing them in their purses.

The service ended, and the bride and groom were mobbed all the way back down the aisle and out the door, greeted by popping flashbulbs, confetti and television interviewers. And then they stood patiently and greeted anyone and everyone - friends and strangers alike - who wanted to convey their best wishes (and there were many).

Although this was not your run-of-the-mill Athens wedding, I still felt I’d caught a glimpse of something uniquely and wonderfully Greek. The energy, the joy and the delightful notion that marriage should happen in a very public way, for all the world to see and to celebrate. I’m not sure I’ll be able to appreciate an invitation-only American wedding in quite the same way, ever again.

- Megan Thompson

On my second day in North Korea, our guide asked if it was true that Michael Jackson had died. We pictured her doing the moonwalk as Michael blared from her in-house PA that never sleeps.

After we confirmed the star’s death, she asked whether Michael Jordan had also passed away. She was relieved to hear that America’s greatest basketball player was doing fine - and was about to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

The following day, our guard tried to impress us as we boarded the bus. “I hope you slept well last night,” said Lee. “I had sweet dreams about Beyonce and hope you did too!”

Exposure to foreign culture remains extremely restricted. As a child, our guide, Jong, had learned Ray Charles piano tunes at the Children’s Palace where we saw elite students perform. Lee had heard Auld Lang Syne and seen My Fair Lady. Jong said cutely that her favorite “popular music” was Ponchonbo Electric Ensemble, a Stalinist military-style band.

With outside media forbidden, citizens rely on domestic TV and intranet - which has instant messaging capabilities.

We were given the Pyongyang Times and Korea Today, English-language publications that resemble high school papers. “The flame of upsurge is kindled” in bold letters prefaced Kim Jong-il paying homage to the key components of Juche society: farm, factory, academy, and military. Our favorite photo showed Kim providing “on the spot field guidance to a gumball factory.”

Despite their national poverty, North Koreans love to picnic next to serene waterfalls. They also enjoy reading the newspaper before boarding the metro. They even find time to bicycle leisurely. However rare these moments seem, outsiders cherish those mundane instants where politics disappears and humanity triumphs.

The 23 million proud inhabitants of North Korea call their country the Land of Morning Calm. The nation is feisty in Northeast Asian geopolitics, but the actual place is indeed peaceful, orderly, and even sterile.

No armed security presence exists in most areas of the country, save for guards at major monuments, museums, and government installations – and of course the massive contingent of one million soldiers within several kilometers of the border with the southern nemesis.

Our guides revealed nothing about the reclusive dictator with a penchant for cognac and caviar. (They also vehemently denied the alleged Kim Jong-il ailments: heart disease, diabetes, and pancreatic cancer).

DPRK cuisine was uninspired and repetitive. and made China seem a gastronomic paradise. Tourists are treated to excessive portions of derivative Western cuisine. Tasteless fish, lukewarm schnitzel, and hard toast made regular appearances. The two authentic Korean meals were more appetizing, even if the kim chee was over-fermented and the baked clams saturated with lighter fluid. Ori bul go gi (grilled duck) on the last night was our favorite.

I brought American cigarettes and dried fruit to our guides, but they were not appreciative. I also brought a bag of jelly beans for schoolchildren. But they would not accept a foreigner’s gift, fearing they would appear selfish.

Our beloved local beer was Taedonggang, made in a brewery transported whole from England. The DPRK’s first-ever commercial was a 150-second Taedonggang promotional video. It first aired in July on Korean Central Television, the government network that reaches 1 million homes, broadcasting for 7.5 hours most days.

Women in North Korea were sharpest in neon pink or green choson-ot dresses that overpowered their malnourished frames. Three-inch platforms were the norm. Men wore matching navy or beige jumpsuits, often accentuating their stocky frames.

A phrase from the Korean-language book that I picked up in North Korea captures the essence of government propaganda: “Korea is a socialist paradise where there are no beggars and all of the people study all of the time.”

- Ben Piven

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the children’s television show Sesame Street. I grew up with Sesame Street when my family lived in Kuwait, where we watched the Arabic version, called Open Sesame (Iftah ya Simsim).

The Arabic version included all the characters in the American Sesame Street with a few changes. For example, instead of Big Bird, it had a big, lovable character named No’man. The characters had Arabic names; Bert was Bader, Ernie was Anis and Kermit the Frog was Kamel the Frog.

No Arabic children’s program in the Middle East was as influential as Open Sesame.

Open Sesame had a major influence on me as a human being. It provided me with an alternative way of learning that hardly existed in the Arab world at the time. The show was made up of actors from around the Arab world. Thus, it familiarized us with the different accents that existed among Arabs from North Africa to Egypt, passing by Iraq and the Gulf.

Open Sesame encouraged and promoted sharing, friendship, and cooperation. It taught me about numbers, the alphabet, manners and waiting my turn. To this day, I still remember many songs I learned from the show about how to be a good neighbor, wash your hands and count to ten.

The show lacked the special effects that many children’s shows have now, yet its masterful use of puppets and the always-entertaining music revolutionized children’s educational programming and learning in a region that desperately needed it then — and more gravely needs it now.

Cath Turner of Al Jazeera English reports on Sesame Street’s impact in countries from Jordan to South Africa.

- Mohammad al Kassim

The signature story Violence and venom force gay Jamaicans to hide reports on the dark side of Jamaica’s anti-gay violence and attitudes and explores the ideological beliefs that perpetuate a culture of homophobia.

Producer Micah Fink of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting produced the Worldfocus signature story “Violence and venom force gay Jamaicans to hide.” He explains why we had to protect peoples’ identities.

For more information on HIV and homophobia in Jamaica, visit The Glass Closet, a multimedia project produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Reporting for television on anti-gay violence in Jamaica is tricky.

It is widely believed that being openly gay in Jamaica is essentially a death sentence. That eventually, if you put your face on camera and admit you are gay, someone, sooner or later, will come along and kill you. Or attack your family. Or kill you and your family.

So we had to accept that anyone gay would not be willing to appear on television talking openly about their life experiences. We also agreed before we began filming that if we did find people willing to tell their stories, we would conceal their identities.

And we met many people, more than we could film, who were willing to be interviewed – and who trusted us to protect them from retribution.

There were only two exceptions.

One was a young gay woman who had been brutally attacked by anti-gay thugs and who was planning to flee Jamaica forever and apply for asylum in the United States. She agreed to openly tell her story as long as she was safely off the island when the film was broadcast. Unfortunately, her request for an American visa was denied, and she remains trapped in Jamaica, fearing for her life. And the footage we shot with her will likely never see the light of day.

The other exception was Reverend Robert Griffin, a gay American minister with the Metropolitan Community Churches, who agreed to appear on camera to tell the story of his efforts to build an underground church for Jamaica’s gay community. He is aware that he is risking his life by showing his face to the camera – since he often travels back and forth between Jamaica and the US – but he believes this is a risk worth taking. He sees himself as part of a long tradition of fighting for civil rights that passes through Martin Luther King and connects back to the anti-slavery movement and the underground railroad. And he believes that fighting for tolerance and human dignity for Jamaica’s gay community is a cause for which he is willing to risk everything.

Everyone else wanted to appear in silhouette.

I wasn’t sure at first if these darkened features, shot against a bright window frame, would convey the emotional intensity that is so essential for effective television story-telling. But after we filmed several young gay men speaking about their lives, it was clear this was material we simply had find a way to use.

I now think that the absence of specific visual details makes you listen more closely to the humanity of these voices, and that their remarks may even be more chilling and more universal than if you were able to see a particular, individual face.

“If you are gay in Jamaica, people want to kill you,” one young man told us, explaining how he has to change how he walks and talks so that he doesn’t draw attention to himself when he walks outside. “So I try to walk thuggish,” he explains.

Another young man tells us that he is now living in hiding. “Where I live it is very dangerous,” he says. “Most of the time I can’t come out during the day because people want to kill me.” Why do they want to kill him? “Because I’m gay,” he says.

He also tells how his best friend was murdered and chopped into tiny pieces – and how another friend was locked into his parent’s home and then burned alive.

“People who live here, once they find out that you’re gay, Battyman, let me use the word Battyman, they want to kill you,” says another young man. He goes on to explain that the police are also a serious threat. Just last week, he says, he was searched by several police officers who “razzle dazzled” him up, and then told him: “Bataman fi dead around here,” which means, translated from Jamaican, “We kill gay people around here.”

How do I know they were speaking the truth?

Partly from my 15 years of experience as a journalist—my inner sense told me while we were filming that these men were speaking openly about their lives. Most were poor and had nothing to gain from making up stories. And then there were the common themes that run through their accounts—that make their stories similar, while still being unique. Most of these men said they were afraid to disclose their sexual identity to their parents, or families, or girl friends, for fear of being rejected or expelled from their homes.

And then there are the odd, but very human inconsistencies.

Listen closely to the young gay man who goes by the pseudonym Damion and who says he believes that homosexuality runs counter to God’s will. “I read the Bible for myself and see in the Bible where it says Sodom and Gomorrah is wrong and God destroyed them, so I believe the practice is wrong,” he explained. “So what we need to do is try and put that in a restraining order and stop doing it.” he says. “It is a big challenge for your lifestyle to be changed from homosexual, to be free from it. I believe you need to go through a lot of prayer and fasting, dedication, commitment, and counseling that would help to bring you through that process. It is very hard to do, but I believe it can be done. I’m trying to climb that ladder but I keep falling back because it’s very hard to do. It’s very difficult to change your lifestyle.”

This is the confession of a man struggling with himself—his conscience battling both his sense of morality and his innate sexuality. Given the social context in which he lives, this seems to me to be a battle that he can never really win. Which I find as profoundly tragic as it is profoundly true.

- Micah Fink

• Watch all the Worldfocus In the Shadows video signature series
• Listen to Worldfocus Radio on LGBT politics and gay asylum
• For more information on homophobia and HIV in Jamaica, visit The Glass Closet, a multimedia project produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Credit: flickr user pdxjmorris

My first image of the “iron curtain” came from a Nancy Drew novel The Captive Witness, in which our heroine Nancy, touring a communist country as a student, gets involved in a plot to help children escape to freedom. What was this iron curtain that separated east from west, I wondered—and what was so perilous and forbidding about the land behind it that made young people like me risk their lives to flee?

As I looked at a map of Europe, I pictured a sheet of metal, upright and extending for miles along the ground and high into the sky, a metal barricade topped with barbed wire, guarded by attack dogs, and surrounded by towers with roving lights. On one side—the world that I knew. On the other—a cold, dark menacing place where the sun never shone.

Fast forward a few years. I am sitting in my high school social studies class when our teacher tells us with tears in his eyes that the Berlin Wall is falling down. I run home and sit transfixed in front of the television, watching the thousands of people clambering up and over the wall, taking away pieces of brick, drinking champagne, celebrating. Exiled cellist Mstislav Rostropovich serenades united easterners and westerners with Bach. I can’t quite fathom what it means—the structure that surrounded the city of Berlin is no more—but understand that with the fall of the wall, the iron curtain is melting away.

In 1993, I venture for the first time behind the line that divided east and west. I’m in Moscow to study Russian for a semester. In part, it was the desire to discover for myself this previously “forbidden” part of the globe that drew me there. I arrive on a grey evening in February. As we drive from the airport to the city outskirts, I peer through the steamy window at the foreign scene outside. The grey sky seems an extension of the snowy landscape. Mammoth apartment buildings extend endlessly, and tiny figures scurry about in fur hats and coats. We pass row upon row of bare birch trees.

Soviet poster: building socialism. Photo: flickr user x-ray delta one

It was four years since the wall came down, and two years since the Soviet Union officially dissolved. Part of me always wished I’d arrived three years earlier, to have experienced life in the USSR. But even though I was too late, I caught glimpses of what life behind the iron curtain must have been like: watching my good friend Anastasia try her very first banana, listening to recordings of singers whose music had been circulated through samizdat, sharing a meal on an overnight train ride with fellow passengers who had never spoken to an American before, handing a mother a letter from her son who had fled to the west, and feeling the oppressive uniformity and lack of diversity in a city where everyone looked and dressed alike.

In the ten plus years that I spent studying Russia and the former Soviet Union, I’ve never ceased to be amazed by the monumentality of the events that transpired during the fall and winter of 1989, and by just how much the world has changed since then. In a sense I’m glad to have known a world in which there was an iron curtain, in order to appreciate a world without it. And so, on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, I propose a toast to the destruction of walls everywhere, walls that keep people apart and walls that keep people in.

- Christine Kiernan

We were some of the first people on earth to see the sun set on Saturday night.  After about 36 hours of travel from the Maldives, we landed on a dot of earth that is the Kingdom of Tonga, greeted by a brilliant Pacific sunset.

Tonga is in the second-most-eastern time zone – the second to start, and end, each calendar day.  But Tongans don’t seem too aware of its significance, and have a relaxed attitude towards the concept of time in general.   “Time doesn’t play a major role here,” said one of our guides.

“Island time” is a bit of a cliché, but it’s true that the Tongan pace is mellow.  I didn’t see a single stop light in this country – just a few roundabouts at the “busier” intersections, and a crossing gate in Lifuka, where the main road intersects the airport runway.  The prevailing speed limit is about 25 miles an hour and sometimes there are more pigs roaming free in the street than there are cars.

Ha’apai, Tonga. Photo: Megan Thompson

Political change has been slow to arrive here, too.  Tonga is one of the few absolute monarchies left in the world — though not for much longer.  The recently-crowned King George Tupou V has promised to start handing power over to the people next year, transitioning the government from one dominated by nobles and political appointees to one run by the prime minister.

But adopting a more modern form of government surely won’t mean that Tonga will lose the many rich traditions that thrive here.  Most Tongans still wear the traditional waist mats – the ta’ovala for men, and the kiekie for women.  It’s a sign of respect – like a neck tie, as it was explained to us – and is required in most schools, government buildings and church.  The Tongan currency is called the pa’anga, but large, hand-made tapestries called tapa are sometimes still used as a form of currency and wealth.

Tapa, made from pounded tree bark, is used sometimes as a form of wealth and currency. Photo: Megan Thompson

That’s not to say that Tongans need - or have - much money.  This continues to be, by and large, a culture of subsistence living, highly dependent on the abundant nature here.  Food is gathered daily from the sea and lush land, and the strong family unit supplies other basic needs.  The material items and frivolities that most Westerners spend their disposable income on just don’t exist.  On the island of Lifuka, I asked our guide what he did in his spare time.

“I go and cut crops on my land,” he replied.

But how about for fun?

“I take a walk.”

Tongans are intimately connected to nature, and most we spoke to have noticed that the weather seems less predictable and the sea level seems to be rising.  But many weren’t familiar with the concept of climate change.

That will probably change soon as well.  For just like the sunrise and sunset, climate change will arrive first in Tonga and other small island states.  And unlike the leisurely rhythms by which most business is done here, this issue must be tackled with urgency and haste.

The government recently formed the new Ministry for Environment and Climate Change and has started a campaign to spread awareness.  They are also gearing up to attend the climate change talks in Copenhagen in December.  There, they will join other small island nations to demand that the international community pick up the pace to save this Pacific island paradise and its people before it’s too late.

But as Google has gained a foothold in markets around the world, adapting its versions to different countries and languages, an inevitable problem has emerged: how do you delineate international boundaries when they are disputed by multiple countries?

This caused problems for the tech giant earlier this year, when its Chinese characters mislabeled an area called Arunachal Pradesh, which is under Indian administration.

While a simple solution to border disputes would be to stick to internationally recognized demarcations, Google has taken things a step further. Rather than risk antagonizing disputes among its partner countries– each with its own market potential– Google has customized its maps according to different countries’ official positions on their versions of its Google Maps application.

“This does not in any way endorse or affirm the position taken by any side,” according to a Google spokesperson, “but merely provides complete information on the prevailing geo-political situation to our users of global properties in a dispassionate and accurate manner.”

Take, for example, the Chinese version of Google Maps:

The disputed boundaries between India and Pakistan are indicated by dotted lines. But the border with China (to the northeast of India) is nevertheless solid.

Consider, then, the Indian version of the same region:

Here, it appears the only disputed area lies between Tajikistan and China, to the north of India. Indian territory itself, including the western part of Kashmir which is often attributed to Pakistan, is not in question. Furthermore, the area between China and India, which in China’s version belong to China, now lies within Indian territory.

Finally, compare these two version to the standard version of Google Maps:

Here, all disputed boundaries are indicated by a dotted line.

These border disputes predate the Internet — and are unlikely to go away any time soon.  Google has at least managed a temporary diplomatic resolution in cyberspace.

Google has customized their Maps application to reflect border disputes around the world. While border disputes predate the Internet — and are unlikely to go away any time soon — Google has at least managed a temporary diplomatic resolution in cyberspace. http://worldfocus.org/files/2009/11/th_china_map.jpg http://worldfocus.org/files/2009/11/th_china_map.jpg ]]> http://worldfocus.org/blog/2009/11/03/for-google-maps-diplomacy-trumps-geography/8021/feed/ http://worldfocus.org/blog/2009/11/02/is-polygamy-good-for-women/8100/ http://worldfocus.org/blog/2009/11/02/is-polygamy-good-for-women/8100/#comments Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:04:59 +0000 Worldfocus http://worldfocus.org/?p=8100 A proposal last week by Malaysia’s Islamic party argued that polygamy can be beneficial for women.

The conservative Islamic party has called for Muslim men in the country to marry single mothers instead of “young virgin girls,” said a state official. Al-Arabiya news channel quoted Wan Ubaidah, head of women, family and health affairs in a northern state,  remarking that although Malaysian men usually prefer young and virgin girls as their additional wives, this new proposal would help single mothers and widows who are finding it hard to raise their kids.

Muslim men in Malaysia are allowed to marry up to four women under the approval of the Islamic courts but it’s not widespread in the country. The proponents of the practice say it helps disadvantaged women like single mothers and widows and discourage adultery and prostitution. But many women’s rights activists condemn it as an unequal and unjust practice against women.

The debate over polygamy has been going on in Malaysia for awhile now. In August, a “polygamy club,” was founded in the country to promote polygamous marriages. The aim is to help “single mothers, reformed prostitutes and women who feel they are past the marrying age” find the appropriate spouse to marry. The club claims to have 1000 members of which 700 are women.

A possible opening of a branch of the club in the world’s most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia, has provoked outrage among some religious leaders and women’s rights groups in that country. According to the Associated Press, analysts believe the number of men who prefer to marry more than one wife is rising in Indonesia,  and includes some religious leaders and political figures.

Islamic law allows for a man to marry up to four wives under the condition that he can provide for all four of them fairly and equally. The practice is especially common in traditional Arab countries like Saudi Arabia. But it’s prohibited in more secular predominantly Muslim countries such as Turkey, Tunisia and Bosnia-Herzegovina,  and abhorred by many women’s rights activists.

Explore the legal status of polygamy with this interactive map.

Map of polygamy worldwide, courtesy of Wikipedia user Zombieisland09

The Times reporter conducting an interview. Photo: Tomas Munita for The New York Times

Edward Deitch is the consulting producer and head writer at Worldfocus. He looks at how one reporter describes an ordeal in Afghanistan and Pakistan — and what it may mean for U.S. policymakers.

It was unfortunate, even heartbreaking, how David Rohde gained first-hand knowledge of the Taliban. The New York Times correspondent went to Afghanistan last November to research a book, but before getting very far he was kidnapped by a Taliban commander who had invited him for an interview.

Held for more than seven months across the border in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas, he lived to write about his experience. It’s the kind of story that no one would have wished for but that few will turn away from.

In a series of Times articles this week, Rohde recounts his experience and those of two Afghan colleagues abducted with him. You can see a related video segment from this Worldfocus partner in tonight’s broadcast.

Rohde’s perspective on the Taliban is particularly relevant. Pakistan is conducting a large-scale offensive against the insurgents in South Waziristan, one of the areas where Rohde was held. And President Obama is pondering whether to commit more troops to the effort against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

There will most certainly be a book and, inevitably, a movie. But I doubt Hollywood will do justice to the material. Rohde’s ordeal, in his own words, is the kind of story you can’t make up.

There have been countless dispatches on the fight against the Taliban from the American and British points of view. Following the troops in Afghanistan for a few days or weeks is routine for reporters, whether they are from The Times, American television news outlets, or foreign broadcasters such as Australia’s ABC or Al Jazeera English, whose reports we have featured on our program. Al Jazeera English has also provided glimpses into the Taliban side, especially in Pakistan.

By contrast, David Rohde, without a choice in the matter, experienced what might be described as the ultimate embed with the Taliban, and some of his revelations are worth noting as U.S. policymakers confront the growing dangers in Afghanistan and Pakistan:

• The group that held him “oversaw a sprawling Taliban mini-state in the tribal areas with the de facto acquiescence of the Pakistani military.”

• U.S. drone attacks on Taliban targets “killed many senior commanders and hindered their operations. Yet the Taliban were able to garner recruits in their aftermath by exaggerating the number of civilian casualties.”

• The Taliban “were more sophisticated than I expected. They browsed the Internet and listened to hourly news updates on Azadi radio, a station run by the American government. But then they dismissed whatever information did not meet their preconceptions.”

Even the surreal moments are instructive. Rohde was baffled, he tells us, by how his guards liked to sing with him, and their favorite song was none other than “She Loves You” by the Beatles. He recounts how he would sing the first verse and the guards and his fellow captives would join in for the chorus. “’She loves you – yeah, yeah, yeah,’ we sang, with Kalashnikovs lying on the floor around us.” One can only imagine it.

I’ve barely scratched the surface of Rohde’s story, with all its twists and turns. It is a thriller set in an unfolding and deepening conflict with no end in sight. It provides a rare and raw look at just what the United States and its allies are up against. It’s difficult to read but hard to put down.

- Edward Deitch

Megan in her sauna tracksuit.

Megan Thompson is a producer and editor at Worldfocus. She blogs about how she films such stunning shots for her signature stories - and about unexpected rainfall in Morocco while shooting An unusual weapon in the war against extremism.

Who knew it rained in Morocco?

We certainly didn’t, and woke up to a downpour on our one and only full day of shooting in the storied Moroccan city of Fez. Between the four of us, there was just one tiny raincoat – the one I’d brought for the camera.

We were in Fez to cover a festival of Sufi culture, and needed to capture the surrealistic beauty of the city itself. Looking out the window at the sheets of water, it was hard to imagine how. But imperfect circumstances are the norm rather than the exception in this line of work, so we just had to figure out how to make it happen. And first, we needed to find me something to wear.

We ran to a Moroccan version of Walmart, where they apparently didn’t appreciate the abnormal weather either, as there was no rain gear to be found in its vast aisles. But then we spotted something that could fit the bill. A metallic silver, two-piece, plastic “sauna suit” used for sweating off the pounds in the sauna. If it keeps water in, it could keep it out, so we bought it and headed for the door.

It’s pretty rare in foreign countries to see women operating television cameras. It’s even more rare in Morocco to see a blond camerawoman running through the streets in a shiny, billowy outfit meant for weight loss.

The valley outside the Moroccan city of Fes.

But we ignored the stares and went to work, capturing the sights and sounds that fill Fez’s ancient walls – donkeys piled with leather goods, men selling sweet mint tea, children filling water jugs from the tiled fountains, carts of fresh oranges and mosque after beautiful mosque. And then came our reward:  the sun appeared and delivered a brilliant afternoon.

Since that trip, I’ve never left home without rain gear. And I’ll admit it: I wore the sauna suit back in New York City during a rainy bike ride.  Turns out, it’s actually great at keeping the rain off, and breaks the wind too.  Who knew?!

- Megan Thompson

The coast of Antigua. Photo: Flickr user rgtmum

Megan Thompson is traveling around the world for a series on climate change and small islands. She filed this report from Antigua and Grenada.

On Thursday night, during dinner at the family home of our Antiguan guide, conversation turned to the powerful currents that pull the Atlantic waters westward from Europe and Africa to the eastern Caribbean.

I asked – half-joking – if they’d ever found a message in a bottle.  Without hesitation they replied, “Of course!”  They pointed to a large ceramic pot filled with notes and letters they’d found along the beach, from hopeful, faraway souls – most begging for a reply, some acknowledgment that their message was received.

But along with the bottled notes comes a lot of other foul stuff – trash from Africa and Europe. Neon signs, hard-hats – you name it, it winds up on the Antiguan beach.  Other people’s careless actions, wreaking havoc on a distant environment, cause a mess on a Caribbean beach that Antiguans are left to clean up.

The feeling on climate change is much the same:  we didn’t cause this problem, but we now must deal with the consequences.

During our two days in Antigua and Grenada, we saw and heard a lot about how the environment is changing.  Coastal erosion is a huge problem – whole beaches have disappeared and what’s left is often held up with rocks and retaining walls. Barrier reefs are dying, leaving the weak coast even more vulnerable.  Locals also say the weather is changing.  It’s unpredictable, and when it comes – as Hurricane Ivan did in 2004 to Grenada, which rarely sees hurricanes – it causes indescribable destruction.  Tourism dominates the economies of both countries.  But bad weather and no beaches mean no tourists, and that spells trouble.

Both countries admit that they’ve caused a lot of damage themselves.  Sand mining in Grenada and intense development in Antigua have done their fair share to beat up the beach.  Many scientists we spoke to said these factors — along with El Nino — make it that much harder to pinpoint the effects of climate change.   But whatever the cause, these governments feel they need to start cleaning up their acts, and urge the rest of the world to do the same.

Small island nations all around the world have banded together to make some waves before the Copenhagen climate talks in December.  Their slogan is “1.5 to Stay Alive – a catchy phrase, but a dead-serious message.  They say if the world’s temperature increases more than another 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), the seas may rise so high that many of their nations could literally disappear underwater.

During interviews, government officials were polite and optimistic about their campaign.  But off-camera, many admitted that achieving the goals of the “1.5″ campaign would require emissions cuts too drastic for many other world players to accept.  They seethed especially at the United States, which they see as too beholden to its domestic politics to negotiate seriously.

But their message is desperate, and these countries don’t want to be ignored.  They say it’s a matter of survival.  They have packaged their campaign with press conferences, slick videos, publicity stunts, and this trip for international journalists.  In December, they will travel across the oceans to the Copenhagen summit,  hoping their message will be heard and acknowledged, and not lost like a floating bottle, swallowed by the ever-warming seas.

- Megan Thompson

Megan Thompson is traveling around the world for a series on climate change and small island nations. She filed this report about the ill effects of climate change in Antigua and Grenada. http://worldfocus.org/files/2009/10/th_antigua_beach.jpg ]]> http://worldfocus.org/blog/2009/10/19/message-in-a-bottle-reporting-from-antigua-and-grenada/7847/feed/ http://worldfocus.org/blog/2009/10/19/somali-pirates-behind-the-news/7781/ http://worldfocus.org/blog/2009/10/19/somali-pirates-behind-the-news/7781/#comments Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:55:33 +0000 Worldfocus http://worldfocus.org/?p=7781

Somali Pirates

Connie Kargbo is an associate producer at Worldfocus and a native of Sierra Leone. She writes here of the story behind Somali piracy.

There is news today that Somali pirates have hijacked a Chinese fishing vessel in the waters off the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean — a move that seems to be expanding their reach to the east.

Last week, Somali pirates who had hijacked a Spanish fishing vessel with 36 crew members on board in early October demanded a ransom of $4 million in exchange for the release of the hostages.

The ransom demand is average — pirates these days usually request between $2 and $6 million for the release of ships and hostages. The difference is that the pirates are calling the $4 million a payment for illegally fishing off the coast of Somalia.  It may come as a surprise to some but this little-known dispute about Somalia’s fishing industry is at the root of the ongoing pirate situation today.

When Somalia’s central government was overthrown in 1991 the country quickly deteriorated into what many are now calling a failed state.  With the lack of central leadership and ongoing clan warfare, law enforcement took a backseat to the violence.

This lawlessness spread to the coast of Somalia with the arrival of  illegal foreign fishing vessels.  Many of these vessels did not have the proper rights to fish in these waters, but the lack of regulation made it easy for them to fish to their hearts content. Some of these ships were owned by countries now patrolling the coast of Somalia, the country’s police chief said Wednesday.

This illegal industry in turn began to hurt local Somali fishermen who were dependent on the fish they caught. Competition from foreign fishermen depleted fish resources and also brought toxic waste to Somali waters.

Fearing for their livelihoods, local fisherman began patrolling off the coast of Somalia and fining ships that were found to be illegally fishing in the area. Just as some illegal foreign fishing vessels found an untapped and lucrative zone to make money, in time the Somalis who patrolled the coast exploited their newly found money-making opportunity.

What began as a way for Somalis to protect their livelihood eventually became the livelihood.  Reprimands and small fines for ships found illegally fishing became hijackings and million dollar ransoms on any ship that was caught, regardless of whether or not the ships actions were illegal.  And so pirates were born off the coast of Somalia.

Nowadays most Somali pirates are not former fisherman but stealth businessmen looking to make a buck. And while illegal fishing vessels have largely been replaced by foreign navies patrolling the coast on the lookout for pirates, within Somalia the problems of rampant violence and insecurity still persist.  Until there is an overhaul of the country’s fundamental problems, crime along the coast of Somalia will largely be a reflection of the country’s internal conflict.

- Connie Kargbo

Kazan Kremlin Mosque. Photo: Flickr user pirateparrot

Clinton swung by the predominantly Muslim autonomous republic at the end of her three-day trip to Russia this week. After visiting the Kazan Kremlin, the Blagoveshchensk Orthodox Cathedral, and the newly built Kol Sharif Mosque, one of the largest in Europe and Russia, Clinton praised the republic as a “model for tolerance and coexistence between Muslims and Christians.”

Tatarstan is one of more than 20 ethnic republics in the Russian Federation. Located between the Volga and Kama Rivers some 500 miles east of Moscow, it is home to two million Turkic-speaking Tatars — the largest non-Slavic minority group in Russia. Chuvash, Udmurt, and Mordvin are among the other ethnic groups, alongside ethnic Russians, that make up the rest of the population. Slightly more than half of residents are Muslim.

Tatars are proud of their heritage, and their independent roots run deep. In the 15^th century, they had their own medieval state—the Kazan Khanate, which ruled for more than a century, until Ivan the Terrible brought the khanate under Moscow’s dominion in 1552.

The Sunday before Clinton’s visit, more than 400 people demonstrated in the capital city Kazan to mark the anniversary of this very conquest. Demonstrators took the opportunity to protest Moscow’s policy of “Russification”—targeting a new education law passed this year that advances the use of Russian—and call for the national independence of the Tatars.

Claims to Tatar independence are not new. During the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1990-91, Tatarstan was one of many ethnic minority republics within Russia demanding full-fledged sovereignty. Chechnya’s attempts to break away resulted in two wars, and violence continues to flare there periodically.

Blagoveshensky Cathedral, Kazan. Photo: Flickr user LostBob

Tatarstan was luckier. While its attempts to gain independence failed, no blood was shed. Due in part to President Mintimir Shaimiev’s savvy negotiating, Tatartstan walked away with more autonomy than any other republic in the Federation, including a significant degree of control over its economic resources.

Today, Tatarstan is, as the official website boats, one of the most economically developed parts of Russia. Rich in oil, it is also a manufacturing hub. Some of the biggest and most successful Russian companies are based there: the KamAZ truckmaker, for one. Shaimiev’s been successful in creating special economic zones and attracting foreign investment. Both Iran and Turkey, two big investors, have consulate generals in Kazan.

After Moscow and St. Petersburg, Tatarstan is said to be the most prosperous region of Russia. And, despite the prevalence of numerous ethnic groups and religions, and occasional pan-Tatar strivings for independence, actual strife is rare.

While the Tatar President’s claims to educate Secretary Clinton on foreign policy issues may be a bit far-fetched, it’s not that surprising the US State Department selected the region to showcase.

Or perhaps it was the republic’s unofficial motto that served as the decided factor: “We Can!”

Sound familiar, Obama?

- Christine Kiernan

Clinton swung by the predominantly Muslim autonomous republic at the end of her three-day trip to Russia this week. After visiting the Kazan Kremlin, the Blagoveshchensk Orthodox Cathedral, and the newly built Kol Sharif Mosque, Clinton praised the republic as a “model for tolerance and coexistence between Muslims and Christians,” writes Christine Kiernan. http://worldfocus.org/files/2009/10/th_russia_kazan.jpg ]]> http://worldfocus.org/blog/2009/10/16/what-hillary-clinton-could-learn-from-tatarstan/7825/feed/ http://worldfocus.org/blog/2009/10/16/israel-condemns-turkish-tv-drama-for-incitement/7808/ http://worldfocus.org/blog/2009/10/16/israel-condemns-turkish-tv-drama-for-incitement/7808/#comments Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:47:07 +0000 Worldfocus http://worldfocus.org/?p=7808 Gizem Yarbil is a producer at Worldfocus and a native of Turkey. She blogs about a controversy over a Turkish television program.

Only a few days after Turkey excluded Israel from a joint NATO war exercise, a new crisis is brewing between the two Middle East allies.

The problem is a television drama series that Israel condemns as state-sanctioned “incitement.”

“Separation,” a 13-part TV series that aired on Turkey’s state-run television channel for the first time on Wednesday, has several controversial scenes. In one, a Palestinian father holds his new-born above his head in front of Israeli soldiers at a check point. A few seconds later, one of the soldiers shoots the baby dead. In another scene, Israeli soldiers kick and beat elderly Palestinians on the streets and one soldier shoots a teenage Palestinian girl on her chest.

Here is an excerpt from the television drama “Separation:”

The drama outraged Israel. The Foreign Ministry summoned the deputy chief of mission at the Turkish embassy to complain and protest. “Such a drama series, which doesn’t even have the slightest link to reality and which presents Israeli soldiers as murderers of innocent children, isn’t worthy of being broadcast even by enemy states and certainly not in a state which has full diplomatic relations with Israel,” said Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

The coordinator of the Turkish drama replied by saying that none of the incidents in the show were “imaginary.” “It is possible to find photographs of what Israelis did to Palestinians on the Internet,” said Bulent Erdinc, the series coordinator.

The Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu also shrugged off angry Israeli protests over the show saying the Turkish state “has no right to comment on the quality of broadcasts or the opinions expressed in them.” This statement should be met with some skepticism as Turkey’s record on freedom of speech issues is not known to be very high.

The controversial scenes in the drama are subjective. I’m sure some people will think they’re simple propaganda and some will think them a reflection of reality. In general, Turkish films, especially TV dramas and soap-operas, do tend towards exaggerated melodrama.

But a broader question here is whether filmmakers should care about the sensitivities of those they depict.  For example, should the producers and writers of the drama series “24″ have taken into consideration the fact that their depiction of Muslim terrorists may have possibly led to suspicion against ordinary Arab-Americans?

The TV drama is airing on Turkey’s state-owned channel, TRT. This channel, according to law, has to be “autonomous and impartial.” However, since the Islamist-based ruling AK party came to power in Turkey, TRT has been criticized for its religious/conservative programming, and also for appointing party sympathizers. I think it’s quite possible that the government officials knew what this television drama, which has been advertised in Turkey for a long time, was going to entail. And I imagine they could foresee the reaction it would draw from Israel.

In that case, considering the already strained relations between the two “allied” nations, the question becomes, is the Turkish government interested in enlarging the rift between the two countries? And if so, what would this say about the future of the Middle East?

- Gizem Yarbil

South Yemenis in favor of secession from the North protested around the world this week on the anniversary of an uprising against former colonial power Britain.  In New York, a few hundred vocal Americans of South Yemeni descent demonstrated outside the United Nations building.

South Yemen was an independent nation after the British left in 1967. North and South Yemen unified in 1990 and a new country- the new Republic of Yemen  - was born with Ali Abdullah Saleh as its leader and San’a as its capital.  But the union has been uneasy and southerners have complained of being marginalized.

“We are a nation living under occupation,” said Hamza Saleh Meqbel, Vice President of TAJ (Southern Democratic Assembly), a South Yemeni political organization based in the United States.
Mr. Meqbel says the central government in the capital Sanaa has reneged on all commitments it promised and signed with the south upon unification.

“The unification treaty is invalid because the regime in Sanaa has lost its credibility. It was supposed to be a partnership, but the north has turned to occupiers and we no longer want a part of this unity.”

Ahmad al Muthana, the President of TAJ, claims that his group represents the majority of people in the south. “We are constantly in communication with our brothers in the south, we fully support them in their struggle,” he says.

So far the separatist South Yemenis have resorted to peaceful means in their quest for independence, including marches and protests. But al Muthana says, “if the regime keeps oppressing and killing our people, we will turn to arms.  We have no choice.”
That sentiment was echoed by many of the protesters. On Friday, Yemen’s interior ministry banned demonstrations in the south.

The problem in the south is not the only challenge for the Yemeni government.  Its forces have also been engaged in a military confrontation with Shiite rebels in the north.  The Yemeni government accuses the rebels of being loyal to Iran.

An unstable Yemen may spell disaster for the rest of the world.

Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility on several attacks in Yemen against tourists and U.S. interests, most notoriously the attack on the USS Cole in 2000 in the Red Sea port of Aden.

Yemen’s intelligence and military apparatus are busy with rebels in the north, as well as the separatists in the South, which makes it easier for Al Qaeda members to operate inside the country.

- Mohammad al-Kassim

Worldfocus producer Megan Thompson is traveling the globe to report on the effects of climate change on small island nations.

Megan will take 16 flights and log 35,000 miles on the trip, which is a collaboration between United Nations Environment Program and the Alliance of Small Island States.  She is posting blogs and photos along the way. Read Megan’s post from Grenada and Antigua here.

Worldfocus, the Arabic language station Al Arabiya, the Chinese news service Xinhua, and a reporter from the Italian newspaper Quotidiano Nazionale all have representatives on the trip. They will go to five countries - Antigua, Grenada, Maldives, Seychelles and Tonga - to see for themselves what’s going on and what these countries are doing about climate change.

As environmental leaders around the world gear up for the Copenhagen talks in December, AOSIS says their member nations - some only a few meters above sea level - will be the first to go if sea levels rise as high as they are predicted to. Many are already seeing the effects of erosion, erratic tides, unpredictable weather, soil contamination and other phenomena, which they say are caused by global warming. If the sea continues to rise, many of these islands may become completely uninhabitable.

Sanchez and her husband used the blog, Generation Y, to provide searing criticism of everyday life in Cuba. She started the blog in 2007, and it receives more than one million hits every month. Here is one of her entries:

“History Ignored,” from October 9th:

“History cannot be ignored, that is why it is so hard to understand that a process accused of betraying revolutionary ideals may be worthy of being on the list of the ones who “kept the banner of socialism aloft”.

“History cannot be ignored. What kind of merit does an army have, other than that of imitating Hitler, in marching at 115 goose steps per minute? How funny is it for a civilian population to conduct itself like a beehive, emulating, along its armed compatriots, the ability to achieve a high level of mass organization?”

Mohammad Al-Kassim is an associate producer at Worldfocus. He blogs here about the popularity of soccer in Egypt.

Football, or soccer as it’s called in the U.S., is considered to be one of the most popular sports in the world. Millions of people make time during the month-long World Cup — which takes place every four years — to watch the matches.

I grew up playing football as a kid in Kuwait and Jerusalem. We kids played on any vacant lot we could find, in our neighborhood or our school’s dusty field. I have many scars and a few broken bones from playing the game. Football is a game without any class separation. For me and my friends, football was and still is the cheapest game out there.

My best childhood memories are those spent with my father — who was an avid football fan himself — watching the game. It was the only time he would set aside his worries and be transformed into a kid again.

Most nations around the world (with the possible exception of the U.S.) take the game very seriously.

In 1969, following the second North American qualifying round for the 1970 FIFA World Cup, Honduras and El Salvador engaged in a brief war following their intense soccer match. It wasn’t the only reason — but the tensions surrounding the game didn’t help. 

Egyptians are no exception; it is no secret to how much Egyptians love their local football teams, especially the Ahli, and Zamalek. But their passion and devotion to their national team borders on insanity.

The Egyptian national football team’s win in the African Cup last year sent thousands of flag waving Egyptians into the streets hugging and kissing each other.

Football brings a lot of emotions out in people — emotions that they themselves may not have known they had. It’s about national pride and identity. It’s when small countries show off their muscles, playing the “bully” big countries.

Currently, Egypt is hosting the FIFA U-20 World Cup, where its team is playing in the tournament. The regular World Cup, which will be held in South Africa,  is still a year away — so passionate football fans, especially the Egyptians, are getting their football fix by watching the under-20 tournament.

This story from Al Arabiya TV caught my eye.  It’s about a wedding that almost didn’t happen because it was scheduled for the same night Egypt was playing in that under-20 tournament.  The bride and groom found a novel solution.

I’ve translated it from Arabic.

Please view the original post to see the video.