Graduation is just a month away and millions of college students in China are expected to hit the streets during what is the country’s tightest job market in decades.

In anticipation of keen competition, most of this year’s 6.1 million graduates have been searching high and low for work the past few months.  But they join an estimated two to three million graduates from previous years who still haven’t found jobs.

VIDEO: China’s graduates face grim job prospects

The graduate glut isn’t simply the result of a slowing economy. It’s the product of increased college enrollment and the expanding number of campuses. In 1998, there were 3.4 million college students in China. Last year, there were just over 20 million.

It’s been a tremendous investment in human capital, as one economist put it, but it hasn’t quite turned out the way the government’s hoped.  Aside from unemployment concerns, many students – and prospective employers – complain that the new graduates haven’t got the right training or skills.

And for the millions of parents who save and scrimp to put their child through university, it’s hard for them not to wonder whether it was worth it – would their child have been better off entering the job market straight out of high school?

Click on the video link above to see more of Adrienne Mong’s report from Beijing.

…(read more)

As the war in Afghanistan morphs into a drug war, the U.S. is shifting its tactics by trying to develop alternative crop programs for the world’s top opium producer. NBC News’ Jim Maceda reports.

VIDEO: Planting seeds of change in Afghan drug war…(read more)

TEL AVIV – America has always related to Israel with the carrot, but now Israelis fear the stick will be President Barack Obama’s implement of choice. Maybe not right away, but soon.

As Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (also known as “Bibi”) and Obama meet on Monday for the first time since each assumed office, Israel’s media, fed by government sources, are reaching a crescendo of hysteria: Is this the end of Israel’s special relationship with America?

One analyst hoped so – writing that the only American president who really helped Israel was, the now much reviled here, Jimmy Carter.

He helped cobbled together Israel’s peace treaty with Egypt by brow-beating then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin into giving up on his promises not to cede an inch of land. As a result of the Camp David Accords, Begin eventually gave up all of Sinai – winning a peace agreement with Egypt that stands firm today and is in no serious jeopardy.

So there are mixed feelings in Israel. On the one hand, nobody likes or wants to be bullied by America; while on the other many analysts accept that it is only by having its figurative head knocked together with the Palestinians’ that any progress towards peace is likely.

…(read more)