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World
11:00 am
Mon October 29, 2012

Is Religious Violence In Nigeria The Whole Story?

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Originally published on Mon October 29, 2012 1:50 pm

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MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

I'm Michel Martin and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. Coming up, just in time for Halloween, a new book for kids and tweens offers some fun facts and some frights about the great ghost stories of history. That's just ahead.

But, first, we take a look at the work of building education and fostering peace in Nigeria. You might have followed the stories about an anti-Western terrorist group called Boko Haram that had been blamed for a series of deadly bombings and other assaults mainly in Northern Nigeria.

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China: Change Or Crisis
10:34 am
Mon October 29, 2012

China's New Leaders Inherit Country At A Crossroads

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Credit Louisa Lim / NPR
"The Defense of Yan'an" re-enacts a 1947 battle to protect Mao Zedong's Communist stronghold during the Chinese Civil War from the Nationalists, who fled to Taiwan.
Credit Louisa Lim / NPR
A new attraction at Yan'an is a blockbuster stage show called "Nursery School of the Red Capital." It tells the story of an orphanage the Communist Party set up in Yan'an, and it cost $5.5 million to produce.
Credit Louisa Lim / NPR
Tourists can dress up and take part in "The Defense of Yan'an," a re-enactment of a 1947 Chinese Civil War battle to protect the revolutionary base from the Nationalists, who fled to Taiwan.
Credit Louisa Lim / NPR
Other tourists wear the mustard-colored uniforms of the Nationalists led by Chiang Kai-shek, the Chinese Communists' opponents in the country's civil war.
Credit Louisa Lim / NPR
Traditional Shaanxi folk dances also lighten the mood during "The Defense of Yan'an," which ends with a rendition of "Socialism is Good" that the audience joins.
Credit Louisa Lim / NPR
"The Defense of Yan'an" is a whizbang performance that includes lots of fighting, an antique tank and a plane zooming down a zip wire.
Credit Angie Quan / NPR
When a Chairman Mao lookalike appears (on left), the crowd of tourists applauds loudly.
Credit Louisa Lim / NPR
The former revolutionary stronghold of China's Mao Zedong has become a tourist spot exalting the communist cause. This "Red Army" is actually a team of top Chinese salespeople from Amway, the U.S.-based direct sales company. They have earned a three-day trip to Yan'an, the "Revolutionary Holy Land," as a reward for hitting sales targets.
Credit Louisa Lim / NPR
A statue of Mao — who spent 13 years in Yan'an building up support for the communist revolution — stands in front of the Yan'an Revolutionary Memorial Hall, which cost $80 million to build and opened in 2009.
Credit Louisa Lim / NPR
At the Yan'an Revolutionary Museum's huge gift shop, a bevy of Mao statues await the party faithful. Tourist numbers in Yan'an have tripled in five years, exceeding 20 million in 2011.
Credit Louisa Lim / NPR
A tourist with a passing resemblance to Chairman Mao put another visitor in a stress position known as the "airplane," which was often used on "class enemies" during the mass upheaval of China's Cultural Revolution, from 1966 to 1976.
Credit Louisa Lim / NPR
A tourist models communist chic.
Credit Louisa Lim / NPR
As a tribute to Mao, enthusiastic tourists have thrown cigarettes onto the bed in his former cave dwelling.
Credit Louisa Lim / NPR
Guo Haiyun, 46, and his wife in their cave home, not far from the revolutionary stronghold of Yan'an. He says he probably only has two or three yuan in cash at home, while he has taken out bank debts he can't return to pay for his daughter's university education.
Credit Louisa Lim / NPR
He Fang, 90, is a former revolutionary who wonders where the Communist Party went wrong. "Our purpose was to achieve freedom and democracy," he says. "But now there is neither freedom nor democracy."
Credit Louisa Lim / NPR
Guo limps across the yard of his cave home, which has no running water. He says he is a big supporter of the Communist Party, but admits he envies city folk, who "live and eat and do everything better than us" country folk.
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Originally published on Tue October 30, 2012 9:53 am

China is about to get new leaders for the first time in a decade, and it comes at a sensitive moment for the world's most populous nation. Economic growth, which surged for decades, has slowed. Demands for political reform have increased and the Communist Party has been hit by scandal. In a series of stories this week, NPR is examining the multiple challenges facing China. In our first story, Louisa Lim looks at how the Chinese view the Communist Party in the place where it took shape.

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China: Change Or Crisis
10:31 am
Mon October 29, 2012

At 79, Ex-Party Official Lambastes Chinese Leaders

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Once a top Communist Party figure, 79-year-old Bao Tong was kicked out after he sympathized with the student protesters in 1989.
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The frail 79-year-old in a pale brown shirt with close-cropped hair sitting at a fast-food restaurant table looks absolutely unremarkable. But Bao Tong has a lightness in his eyes, a confidence that speaks of a man whose conscience is clear, a man with nothing to fear.

"I have become my own person," he says. "When I was a Communist Party member, I had to follow party discipline. When they threw me out of the party, my brain was set free."

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New In Paperback
10:21 am
Mon October 29, 2012

New In Paperback Oct. 29-Nov. 4

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Originally published on Mon October 29, 2012 1:17 pm

Fiction and nonfiction releases from Matthew Quick, Anthony Horowitz, Darrell Hammond, Craig Marks, Rob Tannenbaum and Regis Philbin.

Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Political Junkie
10:12 am
Mon October 29, 2012

Republicans On Path To Retaining Control Of The House

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A bicyclist rides through the plaza on the east side of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.
Credit Ken Rudin collection
McGovern was elected to the House in 1956, the Senate in 1962, and was the Dem prez nominee in 1972.
Credit Ken Rudin collection
Among the most vulnerable House incumbents are Jim Matheson (D-Utah), Charlie Bass (R-N.H.), John Tierney (D-Mass.) and Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.).
Credit Ken Rudin collection
Credit Ken Rudin collection
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Originally published on Sun November 4, 2012 11:34 am

The 2010 elections, in which Republicans had a net gain of 63 seats in the House, was one for the record books. It was the most impressive showing by the GOP since 1938, when their net House pick up was 80 seats, and the best showing by any party in the House since 1948, when the Democrats added 75 seats. The sweep of two years ago more than wiped out the gains made by the Democrats in the House of 2006 (31 seats) and 2008 (20 more).

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