By Karim Hilmi, NBC News
BAGHDAD  — Concrete blast walls and armed paramilitaries carrying AK-47 assault rifles still guard the street leading to Baghdad’s Virgin Mary Cathedral.
But despite the danger that comes with being a Christian in Iraq, Father Azeria Warda Benyameen refuses to accept any bodyguards.
“I believe the mighty God is the supreme protector and He gives life and He is the only one who takes it,” Benyameen says with a smile.
Benyameen, who is in his late fifties, is the church’s senior priest. He offers sermons and services in Aramaic, the ancient language featured in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.
Although he isn’t convinced Baghdad is secure he refuses allow the terror attack to drive him out of the capital’s Camp Sarah neighborhood.
“Security stability is not yet 100 percent achieved in Baghdad and government needs to exert more efforts to get rid of armed groups, murderers and sleeping terrorist cells,” Benyameen said.<…(read more)

by Ann Curry, NBC News

CHAD/DARFUR BORDER — We traveled to the Chad/Darfur border with New York Times columnist Nick Kristof and actor/activist George Clooney, two men you might not guess have much in common, but both are smart and funny – and care deeply about Darfur.

Today in a refugee camp on the Chad side, we found in one refugee camp, a school house named for the President Obama.  

School house named after President Obama | Photo by: Ann Curry/NBC News

The students told us Obama made them believe anything was possible, that they could rise from the sands of this desert, where they don’t even have shoes, and become anyone they wanted, maybe even a president. That these children, who are among humankind’s most suffering living in one of the world’s most hopeless places, could imagine such greatness… now that is the audacity of hope.

…(read more)

By Ann Curry, NBC News
SOMEWHERE IN CHAD — Our NBC News team has landed in Africa and is again heading to the edge of Darfur, gearing up to report a pivotal moment in this tragedy.Anytime now the International Criminal Court will announce whether to issue an arrest warrant for the president of Sudan for the atrocities in Darfur, a region of Sudan.About six years after a war between the government of Sudan and a rebel group unleashed systematic rapes, mass killings, and the burning of hundreds of…(read more)