TEL AVIV – Wafaa Younis is a woman whose heart is in the right place; she is an Israeli Arab who has made a real effort to help Palestinian children in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank.

She started with the boys; she wanted them to put down their stones and learn the violin, in the hope that they would not grow up and pick up a gun. I first met her three years ago when she finally persuaded the Israelis to allow the Palestinian children to leave the West Bank and go to her home in the Israeli town of Ara for violin lessons.

Tara Todras-Whitehall / AP file

Palestinian children from the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank play a concert for Holocaust survivors in Holon, Israel on March 25.

She even took them on trips to the coast; even though they grew up 30 miles from the Mediterranean, they had never seen the sea. Her first attempts to teach a few boys the violin grew into a small orchestra of boys and girls. She even rented an apartment in Jenin so that she could teach them there, because it was easier for her to cross into the West Bank than it was for them to leave.

Then Younis had an idea; as part of Israel’s annual Good Deeds Week, she would arrange a little concert in Holon, near Tel Aviv. Her young musicians from the “Strings of Freedom” orchestra would entertain Holocaust survivors. They would play their favorite classics, and also some songs of peace; a way to bridge the divide between Palestinians and Israelis.

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A report by the Government Accountability Office, says the U.S. pullout of 140,000 troops from Iraq will be a “massive and expensive effort.” The GAO says that the withdrawal will likely increase Iraq-related costs over the next several years rather than decrease expenses.
NBC News’ Steve Wende reports on the cost of packing-up all of the troops and equipment.

VIDEO: Iraq pullout will be ‘massive and expensive’…(read more)

BEIJING – When American laser-graffiti artist James Powderly was arrested and jailed for six days in Beijing during the Olympics last August for plotting to project the words “Free Tibet” on a building near Tiananmen Square, he probably wouldn’t have imagined that half a year later Greenpeace China would be allowed to do something similar – only this time with the message: “Time is Running Out to Stop Global Warming.”

On Monday Greenpeace China turned Yongdingmen, one of Beijing’s ancient city gates, into a gigantic countdown clock ticking down to the United Nations’ Climate Change Conference to be held in Copenhagen in December. 

Greg Baker / AP

A security guard looks at the Greenpeace China countdown clock projected onto Yongdingmen Gate in Beijing on March 23.

The group also called on China to play a leadership role at the meeting with strong emission control commitments, urging President Hu Jintao to personally attend the Copenhagen meeting.  “As the largest global greenhouse emitter, China can and must take a leadership role in tackling global warming,” Greenpeace campaigner Li Yan declared at the event.

But while Greenpeace China, which was allowed to set up shop in Beijing in 2002 (albeit only as a “branch” of the Hong Kong- registered organization), has enjoyed greater leeway than most non-governmental organizations, that doesn’t mean the floodgates of public protest are now open to all comers. Rather, the group’s environmental message happens to dovetail nicely with the Chinese government’s growing recognition – spurred by public worries – of the importance of environmental protection.

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QUETTA, Pakistan – The 11-year-old girl blushed as she walked into the car dealer’s showroom on Quetta’s Adalat Road in southwest Pakistan. Her 17-year-old cousin, eyes fixed to the ground, followed her. When the younger girl asked the owner for five rupees (6 cents), he pointed to the back room and told both girls to follow him. 

A stocky man in his mid-forties with sallow skin and puffy eyes, he told the girls to lift their shirts – he wanted to see. ”Very nice,” the owner said. “They are getting bigger,” he told the 17-year-old as he touched her. 

The 11-year-old was excited as she told us the story; we had followed them inside the showroom pretending to be customers interested in renting one of the Land Cruisers parked inside. The owner had given them 10 rupees (12 cents), the girls told us, more money than they had asked for. Then, giggling, they ran away.

It’s dangerous to be seen following these girls – some of their clients are wealthy feudal land barons and powerful politicians, others are ordinary shopkeepers who will give money to the poor, but want to get something in return.

The girls are part of an alarming problem that gets little attention in Pakistan.

“Prostitution is rampant in all the big cities throughout the country,” said Senior Superintendent of Police, Raja Shahid, who heads the police investigation unit in Rawalpindi, a city close to the capital Islamabad.

“There are loopholes in the laws that need to be changed. For example, in order to nab the culprits, we need to conduct a raid – but we cannot conduct a raid without permission from a magistrate. By the time we get the permission we have missed our chance,” he said.

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With violence drastically reduced in Iraq, car sales are taking off – dealers are reporting up to a 300 percent increase in sales from last year.
As NBC News Steve Wende reports, with all sales in cash and demand high – particularly for Humvees – there is little room to bargain prices.

VIDEO: Car sales swift in Baghdad …(read more)