• China river's dead pig toll passes 13,000 but officials say water quality is 'normal'

    Str / AFP - Getty Images

    A dead pig is seen in a dirty tributary of the Yangtze River, in central China's Hebei province, some 750 miles from the city of Shanghai, in a photo taken on March 12, 2013. The number of dead pigs found in the Huangpu River, which runs through China's commercial hub Shanghai, has reached more than 13,000, state media reported on March 18.

    By Ed Flanagan, Producer, NBC News

    BEIJING – To the chagrin of Shanghai city residents, there’s more “pork chop soup” on the menu for the foreseeable future. 

    More than a week since authorities in Shanghai started pulling thousands of dead pigs from one of the city’s major waterways, the Huangpu River, municipal authorities in that city of 23 million are continuing to pull hundreds of carcasses from its waterways each day, bringing the total since last week to over 13,000. 

    Workers on Sunday pulled nearly 500 pigs from the Huangpu, bringing the total found from that river alone to over 9,500. The Huangpu River supplies over a fifth of Shanghai’s drinking water.

    As the pig tally creeps up, Shanghai government officials have been struggling to put a positive spin on the ghoulish images popping up each day from the city’s waterways. 

    Shanghai is in the process of burning some of the 13,000 pig bodies found in a major waterway. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.

    A report Monday in People’s Daily, the official newspaper of China’s ruling Communist Party, focused on the stepped up food and water quality tests across the city. It also earnestly noted that not only have the numbers of pigs being pulled from the rivers dropped, but the size of them too.

    Citing a report from Shanghai’s city government, the paper stated that two thirds of the most recent carcasses found were piglets, suggesting that the worse may have passed.

    Social media outrage
    Still, the daily sight of carcasses being pulled from the city’s waterways for disposal has angered the public and sparked a spirited discussion on China’s Twitter-like service, Weibo. 

    Reports that many of the pigs found have tested positive for porcine circovirus, a virus that has killed large numbers of pigs in the region in recent months, has also raised suspicions about the safety of Shanghai’s water supply.

    “The water must have been polluted [by these dead pigs],” wrote one user named Lujun, “Authorities are being dishonest and trying to hide something.”

    “The government is as corrupt as these dead pigs,” another user using the name Ziyoudeweini wrote disgustedly. “I feel so cold. Who can we count on?” 

    “Water quality in the Huangpu River has been normal up to now,” one official at the Shanghai Information Office assured NBC News Monday. He also stressed that porcine circovirus cannot be contracted by humans. 

    Where are they coming from?
    Shanghai officials have stepped up surveillance for dead pigs around the Huangpu River and have called upon local government in the nearby city of Jiaxing in Zhejiang Province to step up their own searches. 

    Just northeast of Shanghai, Jiaxing is believed to be the source of many of the dead pigs floating down into Shanghai. Shanghai’s Information Office officials declined to speculate on whether Jiaxing was the sole source of all the pigs, but told NBC News that the prefecture was the focus of a joint Shanghai-Jiaxing investigation.

    An official at the Jiaxing Environmental Protection Agency declined to comment on the progress of the investigation late Monday.

    But steps were being taken in Jiaxing to curb the continued dumping of pigs into the region’s waterways. The city’s local newspaper, Jiaxing Daily, reported that leaflets had been passed out to farmers in the region, urging them to properly dispose of dead pigs with local authorities rather than quietly dumping them into the river.

    Jiaxing is likely not the only community to be dumping dead pigs into its waterways, as reports indicate that porcine circovirus has spiked across farming communities this winter, killing more pigs than usual. Many have speculated that farmers have been attempting to discretely dispose of the sick pigs rather than reporting them to authorities and risk investigation.

    NBC News’ Danny Zhang contributed to this report.

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  • Online outrage over fruit seller's run-in with China cops shows power of social media

    nandu.com

    Law enforcement officers tackle fruit seller Li Shengyan in Guangzhou, China, in an incident that turned into a public relations nightmare for the authorities.

    By Le Li, Producer, NBC News

    Cops in China charged with fighting petty crime have become so notorious for their abuse of power that their official name, Chengguan, has become slang for thuggishness. “Don’t be too chengguan,” one might admonish another, meaning “don’t be such a bully.”

    That reputation was given more fuel Wednesday when a newspaper ran pictures of an officer tackling a diminutive fruit vendor in the southern boomtown of Guangzhou as her 16-month-old daughter looked on. During the incident, he grabbed Li Shengyan's neck and wrestled her to the ground after a dispute over a fruit knife.

    Once such incidents would have provoked little comment and the authorities did not need to fear the court of public opinion.

    nandu.com

    After Li Shengyan was arrested, her 16-month-old daughter gave her a hug.

    But the popularity of social media websites has changed all that. Users of China’s two most popular Twitter-like services had commented on the pictures some 7 million times by Friday, many expressing their disgust at the police.

    There are now signs that those in power are being forced to take people power seriously, even if the eventual outcome is much the same.

    One expert on Chinese social media said that while officials’ first instincts were “to cover up and distract attention” from controversial events, they now faced losing their jobs if they handled them badly.

    Wednesday’s incident – as described by the report in the Southern Metropolitan newspaper -- started after officials confiscated her fruit knife. One officer, Ao Dating, then threatend to take away her fruit and the cart.

    Pomegranate thrown
    Li then yelled at Ao and hurled a pomegranate at him. This enraged Ao and he grabbed her by the neck.  The officer then forced her to the ground. His colleagues eventually dragged him off Li.

    One picture showed Li with her hands tied -- unable to comfort her daughter as the young girl hugged her.

    After the confrontation, Li was arrested and taken to a police station along with her daughter. Her cart was confiscated.

    By Thursday, the story had become an internet sensation. 

    “Brute!” one blogger posted.

    “Can’t you be a little more civilized? Do you know how much it will traumatize the girl,” another said.

    The traditional response given by officials to international press enquiries about events like this is: “I do not know.” 

    However, this time, a spokeswoman for Guangzhou’s City Urban Administrative and Law Enforcement Bureau was surprisingly forthcoming.

    “Our bosses are investigating the incident and will inform the public once we find out,” she said. “We are waiting for the results too.”

    Jeremy Goldkorn, an expert on Chinese media and Internet culture, said local governments were increasingly held to account by higher authorities for issues raised on the blogosphere.

    “If they do not react, these lower level officials like city urban management police could lose their jobs,” he said.

    “The first reaction of these types of officials is just to try to cover up and distract attention from the case. Because of the speed and growth of the social media, it becomes more and more difficult for that kind of distraction happen,” he added.

    Investigation blames Li
    After its investigation, the law enforcement bureau said officers had been suspended and there was a report Li had been given an apology as she was released from custody.

    However, the investigation blamed it on Li, accusing her of attacking officials, injuring one. A picture of Li throwing the pomegranate was also released.

    The original report in the Southern Metropolitan was taken down and other websites commenting on the incident also disappeared.

    Li's cart was returned, but she was left unhappy.

    “They (the officials) said ‘The girl, and her parents were well taken care of by the police,” she posted on a Tencent Weibo account which was registered to her. “It was just a show. My girl’s diaper was not changed in 24 hours … the police should face what they have done instead of writing a nice article to make themselves look good."

    Huang Pei, of NBC News, contributed to this report.

    Related:

    Chinese ex-police detained while trying to stamp out corruption

    Communist Party honcho's airport rage caught on camera

    Chinese official booted after account of lurid affair emerges

  • How the Harlem Shake is being used to push for change in Egypt

    Youth activists gathered in front of the Muslim Brotherhood's headquarters in Cairo to dance the Harlem Shake in protest of Egypt's ruling party. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.

    By Charlene Gubash, Producer, NBC News

    CAIRO -- It is the latest Internet phenomenon that has the world laughing, but in Egypt the Harlem Shake has caught the imagination of revolutionaries who are using it as a new way to challenge the country's new Islamist rulers.

    "It’s a funny way to protest how [the Muslim Brotherhood] have taken control of the country,” said law student Tarek Badr, 22, who was one of more than 100 thrusting their hips in front of the political movement’s Cairo headquarters on Thursday. "People won’t be silent. They will protest in all ways and this is a peaceful way."

    One of his fellow white-clad protesters wore a Mickey Mouse head mask.

    The unusual protest captured the attention of Egypt’s protest-weary press corps -- who almost outnumbered the gyrating protesters -– as well as a dozen stern-faced members of the Muslim Brotherhood. The movement's figurehead Mohammed Morsi was named president in June after the country's first democratic election in decades.

    Organizer Noor al Mahalaawi, a 22-year-old engineering student, and three friends started a group that they have dubbed the "Satiric Revolutionary Struggle".

    Charlene Gubash / NBC News

    A protester wearing a Mickey Mouse mask dances the Harlem Shake in Cairo on Thursday.

    The group intends to stage innovative weekly protests in front of the party headquarters, which will be posted on its increasingly popular Facebook page.

    "People are very supportive,” Mahalaawi said. “It’s a change from violence to sarcasm and it’s peaceful. There has been enough blood, enough arrests, enough trials.”

    He said the message to the party was that many Egyptians “do not like their way of rule… with human-rights violations every day."

    After their Harlem Shake ended, participants took up the new revolutionary chant:  "The people want the fall of the ‘Murshid’ [the supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood]."

    An impromptu conga line snaked through crowd shouting, "Leave, leave, leave.”

    One onlooker, wearing red velvet devil horns, cheered them on. "The Muslim Brotherhood are the friends of the devil," explained Iman Abdul Munim, a women’s rights activist.

    A handful of the Muslim Brotherhood's supporters somberly kept guard. They ushered journalists and onlookers off the thin strip of grass in front of the gated building.

    "It’s not allowed to stand here," said Wala’a Mohamed Omar, a 35-year-old telecom employee, who heard about the event and came to protect party headquarters. "I have not been paid to do this, I came for the sake of God."

    Move over, PSY and Carly Rae Jepsen: There's a new video craze that has exploded online. The Harlem Shake involves massive dance parties breaking out to a catchy beat seemingly out of nowhere. TODAY's Matt Lauer reports, and the TODAY anchors and staff show off their Shake skills.

    He was visibly unamused by the Harlem Shake antics, but conceded: “Everybody is free to express themselves as they wish. We are all Egyptians and don’t differ. We respect our opinion and theirs. That is what the two-year revolution was all about.”

    But in Egypt, the rise of Islamists to power has changed the fabric of society, now sharply split between fundamentalists, who favor the implementation of Islamic law, and moderates who want secular government.

    Many young Egyptians feel their freedom is under siege and the Harlem Shake protest is one small way to reclaim it. "It is all about freedom of expression," insisted Mohamed Mostafa, a 19-year-old law student. "We are free people and we will do what we want."

    Despite the end of the military state, Egypt’s police were accused in January of a return to Mubarak-era abuses after a video showed riot police stripping and beating a middle-aged man.

    And a series of missteps by Morsi -- including a bid to grab sweeping powers even before the dust had settled on the country’s constitution – has brought protesters back onto the streets.

    On Tuesday, a coalition of leftist and liberal parties known as the National Salvation Front announced it would boycott upcoming parliamentary elections, claiming Morsi is driving through an Islamist agenda and breaking a promise to govern on behalf of all Egyptians.

    Anis Mili / Reuters

    Students from Tunis Carthage Private University dance the Harlem Shake on Wednesday in Tunisia.

    The Harlem Shake protest idea has also taken on elsewhere. In Tunisia, the Harlem Shake dance became a rallying cry for high school and university students after the Minister of Education Abdellatif Abid threatened  to expel Tunisian high school students at a high school where it was performed and to sack complicit staff.

    Tunisian Salafists - Islamic extremists - clashed with students on Wednesday as they tried to film the dance at a university.

    Related:

    Egypt's liberals ponder return to military rule

    Meet Omar, the face of Egypt's 'unfinished revolution'

    Egyptians fear decades of Muslim Brotherhood rule, warn Morsi is no friend of US

    This story was originally published on Fri Mar 1, 2013 6:56 AM EST

  • Vatican unveils Pope's Twitter handle: @pontifex

    Max Rossi / Reuters

    Pope Benedict XVI arrives to lead a Vespers mass in Saint Peter's Basilica at the Vatican.

    By Philip Pullella, Reuters

    The secret's out. Pope Benedict's new handle on Twitter will be @pontifex, beating out other contenders that had been considered to showcase the thoughts of one of the world's most visible leaders.

    Benedict already has 1.2 billion "followers" in the standard sense of the word but next week he will have another type when he enters what for any 85-year old is the brave new world of Twitter.

    The Vatican said on Monday that the pope will start tweeting on Dec. 12.

    "The handle is a good one. It means 'pope' and it also means 'bridge builder'," said Greg Burke, senior media advisor to the Vatican.

    Among the other handles that Vatican officials had reportedly considered was @BenedictusPPXVI, but they opted for something that was linked to the office of the papacy.

    But don't expect tweets about how the pope is feeling or which soccer team he is praying to win a derby.

    The papal tweets will be spiritual, Burke told a news conference, and the pope will tweet when and how often he wants.

    And, even though Benedict is not the kind of person who walks around with a Blackberry or iPad, Burke said "all the pope's tweets are the pope's words. Nobody is going to be putting words into his mouth."

    The first papal tweets will be answers to questions sent to #askpontifex.

    The tweets will be going out in Spanish, English, Italian, Portuguese, German, Polish, Arabic and French. Other languages will be added in the future.

    Primarily the tweets will come from the contents of his weekly general audience, Sunday blessings and homilies on major Church holidays. They will also include reaction to major world events, such as natural disasters.

    Benedict will be pushing the button on his first tweet himself on Dec. 12 but in the future most will be written by aides and he will sign off on them.

    But while the pope will be one of the world's most high-profile tweeters and have many followers, he will not be following anyone himself.

    "This is the new market of ideas and the Church has to be there. We want to use any method to spread the message. It's cost-effective and not very labor intensive and it is aimed at young people," Burke said.

    Pellets of wisdom
    The Vatican said precautions had been taken to make sure the pope's certified account is not hacked. Only one computer in the Vatican's secretariat of state will be used for the tweets.

    Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, head of the Vatican's communications commission, said while he himself was not a big twitter fan he understood its importance and its possibilities for the Church.

    "Reducing the pope's message to 140 characters is definitely a challenge but we have seen that a profound thought can also be expressed in a brief Biblical passage," Celli said. "We can see this as sparks of truth or pellets of wisdom".

    And are there any fears that it could create problems with a type of social media that generates so much discussion?

    "I think the risk would be not to go there because you are afraid of going there. Then you would leave vacant a space that is important to spread the pope's teachings," said Monsignor Paul Tighe of the Vatican's communications commission.

    The pope's Twitter page is designed in yellow and white — the colors of the Vatican, with a backdrop of the Vatican and his picture. It may change during different liturgical seasons of the year and when the pope is away from the Vatican on trips.

    The pope, who still writes his speeches and books by hand, has given a qualified blessing to social networking.

    In a document issued last year, he said the possibilities of new media and social networks offered "a great opportunity", but warned of the risks of depersonalization, alienation, self-indulgence, and the dangers of having more virtual friends than real ones.

    In 2009, a new Vatican website, www.pope2you.net, went live, offering an application called "The pope meets you on Facebook", and another allowing the faithful to see the pontiff's speeches and messages on their iPhones or iPods.

    The Vatican famously got egg on its face in 2009 when it was forced to admit that, if it had surfed the web more, it might have known that a traditionalist bishop whose excommunication was lifted had for years been a Holocaust denier.

    (Reporting By Philip Pullella, editing by Paul Casciato)

    (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Check for restrictions at: http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp

  • Wall-to-wall coverage of superstorm Sandy provokes controversy in China

    Slideshow: Sandy slams into East Coast

    Superstorm Sandy made landfall Monday evening on a destructive and deadly path across the Northeast.

    Launch slideshow

    By Ed Flanagan, NBC News

    BEIJING – As Hurricane Sandy barreled down on the Eastern Seaboard this week, a nation's eyes were glued to the extensive media coverage of the storm.

    We're talking about China, of course.

    Yes, the major American networks gave viewers non-stop updates of the storm's movements and the damage left in its wake, but Chinese state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) was also in the game.

    With already more than 150 employees in Washington, D.C., alone – about a third of them Chinese nationals – CCTV boasts the means to provide extensive coverage of major events outside of its home country.

    However, just because CCTV can offer wall-to-wall coverage of Sandy – already being called the costliest storm in U.S. history – doesn't mean its audience is prepared to watch.

    Certainly not at the cost of local stories that Chinese viewers want to hear about.

    Trending topic
    As the storm played out and CCTV provided near-continuous coverage, comments on China's popular Twitter-like service, Weibo, exploded – over 6 million at this point, making it easily the biggest trending topic on the site. Many were overwhelmingly negative and criticized CCTV's handling of superstorm Sandy.

    Their complaint: CCTV was so singularly focused on coverage of the American storm that the Chinese state broadcaster had stopped covering news in China, ironically transforming instead into what many here called mockingly "the conscience of the United States."

    Or as a popular online cartoonist who goes by the pen name "Murong Aoao" sardonically put it: "CCTV is an excellent American media company."

    Courtesy Murong Aoao

    Murong Aoao's cartoon about Chinese TV coverage of Sandy.

    In a cartoon that has been shared more than 50,000 times on Weibo, Murong paints what appears to be a CCTV reporter or government employee pointing to what is assumed is the United States while calling out, "Look! His house is on fire!" all while he himself is ablaze.

    Asked why he drew the cartoon, Murong simply told NBC News: "It wasn't a big deal, it was just a way to ridicule the coverage."

    The cartoon encapsulates the anger that has been laced through much of the online dialogue over CCTV's coverage.

    China considers end to unpopular one-child policy

    Much of the frustration conveyed in Murong's cartoon is rooted in the fact that CCTV's reporting on the storm and other American disasters in the past often superseded local stories here in China that netizens believe demand coverage. Most noticeably, a week-long protest in the eastern city of Ningbo over local government plans to build a controversial chemical plant there has been ignored.

    In the eastern Chinese city of Ningbo officials have halted the planned expansion of a chemical plant, following days of public protests. ITN's China Correspondent Angus Walker reports.

    State media was allegedly warned not to cover the story and when thousands flocked to the streets of Ningbo to peacefully protest the plant, only foreign media could be seen in the city reporting on the gatherings, sparking applause from grateful locals.

    "CCTV sends lots of correspondents to the U.S. to report on Sandy," complained one irate user. "Why don't they have time for Ningbo, but plenty for America?"

    "Because the leaders' relatives are in the U.S., they care!" went the chorus of replies to the poster.

    NYT report: China leader's family has amassed billions in assets since '98

    Indeed, this notion that CCTV's Sandy coverage was more for the benefit of Chinese government officials – many of whom are known to have their family members and financial assets in the U.S. – than everyday people was a persistent joke underlying many of the posts in recent days.

    Aerial footage reveals devastation from New York City to North Carolina's Outer Banks in the wake of superstorm Sandy.

    "CCTV is not to blame, there are so many leaders' children and relatives studying and working in New York and the East Coast," wrote one Weibo user. "If CCTV does not report on these huge hurricanes when they happen, how will the leaders who don't speak English find out what's going on with their loved ones?"

    The secret to a perfect smile? Chopsticks, Chinese officials are told

    Despite the biting cynicism, frustration and humor conveyed by Web users about CCTV's Sandy coverage, the overwhelming message on Weibo was concern and support for those who had suffered due to the storm.

    One day after Sandy slammed into the East Coast, NBC News' Lester Holt reports on the record-breaking hybrid storm system that swamped neighborhoods, paralyzed the nation's biggest city, and left millions of families from the Carolinas to Ohio without power.

    Messages from families and friends attempting to reconnect with loved ones in the affected areas and heartfelt posts of support for Americans coming out of the storm were continuing well into Wednesday.

    They reveal a friendly, empathetic connection between China and the United States that all too often is lost in the often daily rounds of political bashing from both sides of the Pacific.

    NBC News' Yanzhou Liu and Johanna Armstrong contributed to this report.

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  • Can social media propel 'rock star' politician Imran Khan to power in Pakistan?

    Wajahat Khan / NBC News

    Imran Khan, seated at right, prepares to take part in his - and Pakistan's - first ever Google Hangout.

    By Waj S. Khan, NBC News

    ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- In a country known for its constant chaos, nobody can make a crowd stop and listen quite like Imran Khan.

    Whether commanding a rally of hundreds-of thousands in a Lahore park, a roundtable of experts in an Islamabad hotel or a garden of politicized housewives in a Karachi country club, Pakistan's legendary former cricket captain exudes charisma. Even his unfinished "peace rally" to protest hugely unpopular U.S. drone strikes - which Pakistani officials halted before it reached its destination in South Waziristan - earned him headlines around the world.

    Khan, 60, is widely seen as one of the country's most popular politicians as well as its most eligible bachelor.  And if opinion polls are to be believed, he will play a key role in the formation of Pakistan's next government. 

    But Khan is not business as usual for Pakistan.

    He commands serious star power despite not belonging to the landed or industrial dynasties that have ruled the country since its birth in 1947. Nor is he part of the country's military, which has governed the Islamic Republic for more than three of its six and half decades. Instead, he shot to fame as a star of cricket, a game that has a near-religious following in Pakistan.  On his way, he married - and divorced - glamorous British socialite Jemima Goldsmith.

    He does not appear to court the traditional media, although it certainly chases him. 

    The waiting list for television anchors and reporters hoping to snag a one-on-one with Khan is around two months long. He has written-off Pakistan's rambunctious mainstream and privately owned media as "prone to being corrupt" and "marginal to vested interests."

    So what is the secret to Khan's success in projecting his political agenda across Pakistan?  In short, it's what he calls the "democratic and incorruptible" forces of Twitter, Facebook and other forms of social media.

    Despite security concerns, presidential candidate Imran khan leads an anti-drone rally, including 30 Americans, into Pakistan's badlands. Amna Nawaz reports.

    Khan's messages -- which almost always hinge on his apparent anger over the United States' demands on Pakistan -- make him the country's most-followed presence on Facebook and Twitter.  He is particularly popular among Pakistan's wired urban youth.  But while Khan's popularity online cannot be contested, whether it will translate into victory at the ballot box remains the big question. 

    'Taliban Khan'
    Critics contend that Khan is simply bitter about criticism he's received from established members of the media.  In particular, journalists and commentators question the former cricket star's popular but difficult to implement policies -- an end to official corruption within 90 days, cessation of all hostilities with militants, halt to CIA drone attacks and rejection of American aid.

    Especially since the assassination attempt on 14-year-old education activist Malala Yousufzai, Khan's refusal to wholeheartedly condemn all militancy and terror has prompted his critics to call him soft on terror. 

    While Khan's ideas have earned him the teasing but telling moniker "Taliban Khan" from members of the Westernized elite, they have proved wildly popular online.  

    Pakistan's Generation Y battles to shape country's future

    There is the official Facebook page for Khan (with about 487,000 'likes'). Its fans outnumber his party's official page by more than 100,000 members.

    The "We Want Imran Khan to be the next Prime Minister of Pakistan" page also has more than 525,000 likes.

    Wajahat Khan / NBC News

    Badar Khushnood (foreground), a consultant with Google Pakistan, and a small army of Imran Khan's advisors and assistants tweet, shoot and text their way through the Hangout.

    Khan also has about 400,000 followers on Twitter -- along with several assistants handling his and attached accounts -- tweeting rants, pictures and quotes from Pakistan's founders around the clock.

     

    If social-media popularity equaled election results, Khan would already have a few terms under his belt.  In fact, so pervasive is his online persona that his detractors have branded him a virtual politician.  

    However, while Khan might be the country's most popular political figure, he is hardly the Islamic Republic's most powerful; he boycotted the last election and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) or Movement for Justice party, has no presence in a parliament.

    US, Pakistan should 'divorce,' ex-ambassador to Washington says


    Wired, but do they vote?
    Whether Khan can translate online support into victory at the ballot box is highly contested. (When new elections will actually be held hasn't been decided although many expect them to be held in spring or summer 2013.) 

     

    "Imran Khan's base, his core support, is urban, middle class and educated -- precisely the cohort that has access to the Internet and spends time online," Cyril Almeida, who pens one of Pakistan's most-read columns for Dawn newspaper, told NBC News. "Hence, his substantial online support. ... PTI is building a voter base starting from the social media."

     Almeida acknowledges that former President Pervez Musharraf -- who led the country from 2001 to 2008 and now lives in exile in London -- also has a substantial online following but "wouldn't win a local councilor seat if he stood for one."

    "Imran is somewhere in between," Almeida said. "His rock star status online is wildly more exaggerated than his real-world support -- though he will win at least some seats come election time."

    Thousands rally for Malala, girl shot by Taliban

    Others, like Fahd Hussain, a primetime anchor at Waqt TV, which belongs to one of Pakistan's oldest and most conservatively aligned news conglomerates, says the Internet could still generate a Khan "tsunami."

    "[The] social media support base of Imran should not be ignored," Hussain said. "It's massive and growing and creates political momentum."

    Others question what online popularity will translate into, if anything.

    Gibran Peshimam, the political editor of the Express Tribune newspaper, says that while Khan may be a heavyweight on the Internet, he is more of a lightweight offline.  

    "The percentage of Pakistan's population that has access to the Internet barely breaks the double-digit barrier," he told NBC News. "In any case, the majority percentage of those who have this access to the Internet, and hence social media, is a non-voting sector. The well-to-do generally do not vote in Pakistan. They talk about voting, but barely any of them are even registered to vote."

    "Large-scale support on the Internet in Pakistan does translate into numbers, given the youth bulge, but it certainly does not translate into large numbers -- unlike, perhaps, in the U.S.," he added.

    Wajahat Khan / NBC News

    Dr Awab Alvi is Imran Khan's social media guru. A part-time politico, Alvi is an Ivy-League trained orthodontist by day, and the brains behind the powerful outfit that is Khan's social media machine by night.

    Echoes of Obama '08?
    The comparison to the United States is a common one in Pakistan, and linked to the Khan camp's obsession with President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign in which social media played a key role in fundraising as well as getting younger Americans out to vote. So-called Khanophiles constantly point to the Obama '08 template as one that can be replicated, with some qualifications and modifications, in the Islamic Republic.

    Two such Khanophiles are Awab Alvi and Faisal Javed.

    Alvi is a tall, soft-spoken and self-declared geek who signs his emails as BDS, MSc & TED Senior Fellow.

    Although Alvi, is a University of Pennsylvania-trained orthodontist who says he does not hold any office in the burgeoning PTI, the 36-year-old's non-stop Twitter feed gives him away as Khan's constantly-connected social media wizard.  His user ID, Teeth Maestro, one of the best known in Pakistani cyberspace, hints at both his full-time hospital job in Karachi and his part-time political potency.

    His blogs generate as much revenue as a successful small business, and the official site of the PTI that he helps administer often crashes because of the high traffic his online events generate.  Alvi says the PTI has a 25-strong social media team featuring "volunteers scattered all over the globe."

    More Pakistan coverage from NBC News

    Faisal Javed, 31, is a telecom executive by day and a PTI deputy secretary by political leaning. He spends Monday to Friday at the chic Islamabad headquarters of Telenor, leading the Scandinavian cellular giant's advertisement buying and content strategy for Pakistan.

    Wajahat Khan / NBC News

    Faisal Javed is Imran Khan's deputy information secretary and acted as moderator for the Google Hangout. Javed's full time job is as a telecom executive, but he moonlights as a politico.

     But his evenings and weekends are reserved for the PTI.  Javed, who opens rallies for Khan, is known nationally as Khan's "stage secretary," introducing him to crowds across the country. His easy confidence and broadcaster's voice make him one of the more prominent young faces of Khan's media-savvy corps.

    Behind the scenes at Khan's first Google+ Hangout, the zeal to replicate Obama's PR accomplishments was obvious.  As soon as Khan rolled in (along with a small army of assistants, advisers and bodyguards), Alvi and his team adopted a very American, no-nonsense mood that is not typical of Pakistani culture.

    They kicked out all people dubbed "non-essentials" and started what seemed like a haphazard pre-battle briefing.

    "How many people are watching me?" Khan asked.

    "Thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions might be watching," said Alvi and his lieutenants speaking over each other.

    Khan: "What does this mean, 'Google Hangout'?"

    Alvi/his geeks: "People submitted questions, and then voted in the most questions. In three days, 15,000 questions were submitted and 13,000 questions were crowd-sourced via (text messages)."

    Khan: "Is this live?"

    Alvi/his geeks: "Yes! Obama has done it too! Ten people from all over the country and the world will interact with you. The questions and questioners have been chosen. All you have to do is answer them."

    Americans ignore great risks, travel to Pakistan to protest US drone strike

    The audio wouldn't connect for 20 minutes after the Hangout was scheduled, and even as the event went online, some anchors on Pakistan's infamous conspiracy-theory driven national television denounced the event as a "drama" which was "staged" and "not live," much to Alvi and his team's chagrin.  

    A small Twitter/Facebook skirmish between the Khan camp and his detractors later ensued, where both sides argued over the "reality" of the Hangout. The online battle lasted about a week.

    Imran Khan, the man who wants to be the next prime minister of Pakistan says the "war on terror is creating militants." Khan also referred to Pakistan's army as a "hired gun" and said it must stop fighting the Taliban in Pakistan. ITN's Mark Austin reports.

    But overall the Hangout event went pretty much as planned. Khan waxed eloquent about the economy, militancy, America, education and Pakistan's several other existential crises. He promised to raze the walls of governors' mansions, pledged to make them public libraries and explained progressive taxation to a female college student.

    In what was perhaps the most important sign of success, the event caused #HangoutwithIK to trend on Twitter. But what really made political history in Pakistan was that the national conversation of the country was fully online and not broadcast on television and radio for the first time. 

    In Pakistan's largest city, 'Old Glory' is flammable and profitable

    Later, Javed unwound with a Marlboro.

    "You know why he did it? You know how he handled all those questions? Because he's neat and clean and has nothing to hide," he said.

    What of the rural heartland?
    Still, even if Khan's PTI wins seats in parliament on the back of his social-media campaign, he is still a long way from power, some analysts say. 

    "The next step, to premiership, goes through the dusty, deceitful and a whole-lot-less-plugged-in territory of Pakistan's rural heartland," political editor Peshimam says.

    Most of Pakistan's civilian power players have traditionally relied on the country's teeming rural areas for their support-bases.

    Asif Ali Zardari's Pakistan People's Party, which leads the current coalition government, is entrenched in rural Sindh  -- the country's second-most populous province. Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (N) has always relied on, and thus come to dominate, the lush swathes of central and northern Punjab.

    Aid workers become targets in Pakistan

    While Khan is pushing hard to topple the de facto but unofficial two-party system by becoming a third force via social media, Pakistan remains a poor and rural-majority country where just 20 million of its 180-million people are connected to the Internet.

    Wajahat Khan / NBC News

    Members of Imran Khan's press corps at work.

    "Several polls show that as a leader Imran Khan is very popular," says Raza Rumi, director of policy and programs at Islamabad-based think tank The Jinnah Institute. "(But) there are methodological problems with such surveys and often their urban bias has also been called into question.

    "Khan will emerge as a political player in the next parliament but it would be premature to say what would be the strength of his party," Rumi added. "His huge presence on social media is linked to a substantial following, especially in the young segment of population. There is a strong relationship here. But to assume that Facebook or Twitter rankings will result in electoral gains across Pakistan would be wrong."

    But Khanophiles like Javed, the telecom executive, aren't discouraged by such such sober assessments. 

    "We can't ignore this medium.  There are two million of us [supporting PTI on social media]. And those two million have millions of friends and family members," he said during preparations for the Google+ Hangout session. 

    A group of 32 American anti-drone activists will join a march to Pakistan's tribal areas, where U.S. strikes have killed thousands of people over the last eight years. NBC News Amna Nawaz spoke to some of them.

    "And while you may be right again that those two million are largely in the cities, they are a degree or two away from spreading our message to the towns and villages. And that's good enough for me."

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  • In Bahrain, Twitter tells the story of police, protesters and Formula One race

    Hamad I Mohammed / REUTERS

    An anti-government protester pulls Zaynab al-Khawaja, daughter of Bahrain human rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, as riot-police arrive in the main market in the capital Manama during an anti-government protest. Crowds of masked protesters hurled petrol bombs at police who fired tear gas back in Bahrain on Saturday.

    By Isolde Raftery, msnbc.com

    Attendance may have been low at the prestigious Formula One Grand Prix Race in Bahrain, but once Sebastian Vettel clinched the title, Bahraini officials took to Twitter to express their satisfaction with the race. They did not mention the violent, ongoing protests taking place around the island state.

    "F1 cars will never Stop .. Neither will Bahrain inshAlla :)" Khaled H. Alkhalifa, Bahrain's foreign minister, tweeted. He has more than 78,000 followers and describes himself as a "reader" and "bon vivant." The general secretary of the Bahrain Olympic Committee posted a picture of the revelry.

    Outside the arena, however, protesters painted a less chipper portrait of a country in turmoil, where mostly Shiite protesters have been demanding more rights in this Gulf monarchy since last year. Their tweets, organized under the same #Bahrain hashtag that government officials were using, included pictures of protesters walking peacefully and a woman kneeling in traffic.

    Their images were also gruesome -- of tear gas flooding streets and of men whose backs were ravaged with bruises, welts and wounds from being shot with shotgun pellets.

    Non-protesters described a scene fraught with tension. A woman who identified herself as Fatima Haji wrote: "My 3yrs old son, my husband and I are suffocating in our flat in Bani Jamra as security forces are shooting tear gas in Duraz!!"

    Dr. Ala’a Shelabi, a leader among the protesters, tweeted, ominously: "Under arrest. Surrounded by" without finishing her tweet. 

    The foreign editor for Channel 4 News in England tweeted that he and his crew had been arrested, and that his driver had been dragged out by security forces, bleeding from slashes to his arms.

    Alkhalifa, the foreign minister, took to Twitter to express his disdain: "Channel 4 news crew admit to working without accreditation .. Not acceptable. Laws of the land should be respected."

    Non-sports reporters had been denied visas into the country.

    A man identifying himself as RedBelt boldly replied to the foreign minister: "Your excellency, that link says local driver was beaten and taken away. He had nothing to do with their accreditation."

    To which Alkhalifa replied, "Well that’s what they say! Do you and I know the full story?"

    The tension did reach at least one Formula One team. A bomb exploded next to a car carrying four team members of Force India on Wednesday. Two team members returned to the UK the next day.

    Force India members became increasingly anxious when protester Salah Abbas, 37, was killed by shotgun pellets fired by riot police on Saturday.

    The team felt the wrath of race organizer Bernie Ecclestone when they didn’t show up to a practice out of concern for their safety. Their car got little coverage on the main television feed, prompting angry calls to networks from around England, the Guardian of London reported.  

    Ecclestone, irritated by the team’s decision, told the Guardian: "None of the other teams seem to have a problem." 

    More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

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  • Online coup rumors spark China crackdown on social media websites

    China has been shutting down internet and social media sties that have been fuelling rumors of a military coup, ITV's Angus Walker reports from Beijing.

    China's government shut down some social media websites this week after photos of tanks on the streets were posted online. The images sparked false rumors of a coup. 

    ITV News' Angus Walker reports from Beijing.

    Check out more China coverage on msnbc.com's Behind The Wall blog.

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    Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

  • Man arrested in Kuwait for insulting Prophet Mohammad on Twitter

    By Reuters

    Kuwaiti authorities arrested a man late on Tuesday for insulting the Prophet Mohammad via his Twitter account, the Interior Ministry said, in a rare case of alleged blasphemy in the Gulf Arab state using social media.

    Blasphemy is illegal in Kuwait under the 1961 press and publications law, but it is not punishable by death as in neighboring Saudi Arabia, where the case of a columnist facing similar accusations has drawn international attention.

    The man, whose name was not disclosed, defamed the Islamic faith and slandered the Prophet Mohammad, his companions and his wife, the ministry said in a statement issued on state-run news agency KUNA. He is being interrogated ahead of court proceedings.

    The ministry "regretted the abusing of social networks by some individuals to offend basic Islamic and spiritual values, vowing to show zero tolerance in combating such serious offences," it said in the statement.

    In September a Kuwaiti court convicted a man for insulting Gulf rulers and posting inflammatory sectarian comments on social media, but he was released immediately because of time already served while awaiting trial, according to a human rights activist.

    Twitter is very popular in Kuwait, with many politicians, journalists and other public figures using the micro-blogging site to debate current events and share gossip. Popular figures can have hundreds of thousands of followers.

    Kuwaiti media carried comments from the man denying the accusations. "I will never attack the Holy Prophet," he was reported as saying and added that someone must have hacked his account to post the comments.

    His remarks, carried by several of Kuwait's main newspapers, were not immediately verifiable.

    Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

  • South Korea man charged for re-tweeting North, says group

    By msnbc.com staff

    Amnesty International on Thursday called for the release of a South Korean activist accused of breaking security laws by re-tweeting messages from the North Korean government’s Twitter account.

    The human rights campaign group said Park Jeonggeun, an activist with the Socialist Party, intended to lampoon North Korea's recently-deceased dictator by re-posting the message “long live Kim Jong-il” to his own followers.

    The New York Times reported that Jeonggeun, who it said was a photographer who specialized in taking pictures of babies, was detained last month on charges of violating the National Security Law which bans undefined “acts that benefit the enemy”.

    It reported that the Twitter account Mr. Park was accused of re-tweeting is run by the North Korean government Web site, Uriminzokkiri.com, which South Korean news media regularly cite for their stories.

    Amnesty International said it had spoken to Jeonggeun, who was formally charged on Wednesday. It said he has been held at Seoul Detention Centre since 11 January and could face up to seven years in jail.

    Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific Director, said: “This is not a national security case, it’s a sad case of the South Korean authorities’ complete failure to understand sarcasm.

    “Imprisoning anyone for peaceful expression of their opinions violates international law but in this case, the charges against Park Jeonggeun are simply ludicrous and should be dropped immediately.

    “Park is a member of a party which openly criticises North Korea but the absurd case against him is not an isolated one. For too long South Korean authorities have been using the National Security Law to restrict basic freedoms and gag civil society in the name of national security.”

    In an article on its website, Amnesty International quoted the activist as saying: “My intention was to lampoon North Korea's leaders for a joke; I did it for fun. I also uploaded and changed North Korean propaganda posters on Twitter - I replaced a smiling North Korean soldier’s face with a downcast version of my own face and the soldier’s weapon with a bottle of whisky.”

    The article also said that, "despite the end of military rule in South Korea, authorities have increasingly used the [law] to harass critics of the government’s North Korea policies since 2008".

    The New York Times reported that 151 people were interrogated on suspicion of violating the security law in 2010, up from 39 in 2007.

    Msnbc.com's Alastair Jamieson contributed to this article.

  • Tourists banned from U.S. over Twitter jokes?

    By Rosa Golijan

    Almost everyone realizes that saying certain words — such as "bomb" or "explosion" — in an airport can lead to awkward conversations with security inspectors at this point. By now is it not commonly understood that cracking similar jokes on publicly viewable social networks could potentially have similar results?

    According to the Sun and the Daily Mail — daily tabloids published in the United Kingdom — a handful of ominous-sounding Twitter jokes got 26-year-old Leigh Van Bryan and 24-year-old Emily Bunting kicked out of the United States before they could even begin their long-awaited vacation. 

    When msnbc.com contacted a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesperson, we received confirmation that, though unidentified, a couple matching these circumstances was in fact declared "inadmissible," and "returned to their country of residence." 

    Before the two British tourists flew into Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) last week, Leigh posted several Twitter messages about their trip, reports the Sun. In one tweet, addressed to a fellow Twitter user who goes by "@MelissaxWalton," he wrote "free this week for a quick gossip/prep before I go and destroy America?"

    In another Twitter post he announced "3 weeks today, we're totally in LA p****** people off on Hollywood Blvd and diggin' Marilyn Monroe up!" He tagged a Twitter user named "@ELB_1987" in that message.


    According to the Daily Mail, it was because of those tweets that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) flagged Bryan and Bunting as "a potential threat." Upon arriving at LAX, the two pals were "detained by armed guards," explains the publication:

    Despite telling officials the term 'destroy' was British slang for 'party', they were held on suspicion of planning to 'commit crimes' and had their passports confiscated. ... Federal agents even searched [Bryan's] suitcase looking for spades and shovels, claiming [Bunting] was planning to act as [Bryan's] 'look out' while he raided Marilyn's tomb.

    The two were quizzed for five hours before being "put in a van with illegal immigrants and locked up overnight," writes the Sun. They were then kept in separate holding cells for 12 hours before being put on a flight home.

    When we reached out to the appropriate authorities for more information about this incident, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spokesperson confirmed that two individuals were in fact denied admission to the U.S. under vaguely similar circumstances:

    Based on information provided by the LAX Port Authority Infoline — a suspicious activity tipline — CBP conducted a secondary interview of two subjects presenting for entry into the United States. Information gathered during this interview revealed that both individuals were inadmissible to the United States and were returned to their country of residence.

    When I questioned whether tweets posted by either individual had anything to do with the incident, I was told that the details of the detainment/expulsion were protected by privacy laws. The same reply came when I inquired whether the individuals were temporarily or permanently barred from entering the U.S.

    The CBP spokes person did explain that the agency "denies entry to thousands of individuals each year on grounds of inadmissibility, some of which include: improper travel documents, prohibited activities or intent, traveling under the Visa Waiver Program without qualifying for participation in that program, smuggling of contraband or prohibited goods, criminal activity or history, immigration violations such as prior overstay, attempting to gain entry with fraudulent documents or posing as an imposter, and national security concerns, among others."

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    Want more tech news, silly puns, or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on Twitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+. 

    If you're more interested in Sam Spratt — the guy who made the cute Twitter bird illustration above — then you'll want these Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr links instead.

  • Twitter users react to death of Kim Jong Il

    By Rosa Golijan

    Dmitry Astakhov/Pool via EPA

    The death of 69-year-old Kim Jong Il was confirmed on Monday. As soon as the news of the longtime dictator's demise broke, Twitter users began doing what they do best — rushing to beat each other to every punchline.

    And the punchlines were certainly likely to flow. In life, the mysterious — often reviled — North Korean dictator was the butt of many jokes, due to eccentricities of appearance and behavior. When the state media explained that the leader died of "great mental and physical strain" during a train ride, the Internet's denizens couldn't help but snicker. Those who knew who Kim Jong Il even was, that is.

    I took the time to round up some of the early reactions and jokes posted by Twitter users below. You'll notice that they include what can now be considered a standard mix of responses — the obvious puns, the confused users, and the complaints over the overabundance of jokes.

    Related stories:

    Want more tech news, silly puns, or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on Twitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.