German photographer Claudius Schulze traveled to the mysterious archipelago of Socotra. Pictured, distinctive Dragon Blood Trees, native only to Socotra.

A traveler is greeted by a boy in a secluded bay that can only be reached by boat or on foot. Socotra is a group of four isolated islands off the coast of Yemen.

Tribal leader Sheikh al-Ghaddafi in front of his house in Socotra. The tribal Bedouin people of Socotra live mostly from goat herding, date plantations and fishing.

A local fisherman arrives home with a baby shark. Schulze said: “With the formerly rich fish grounds around Socotra depleted by pirating Western factory trawlers, this fisherman caught nothing but a barely edible baby shark.”

Schulze said of Socotra: “It blew my mind,” he said. “It’s incredibly amazing and other-wordly. The landscape is bizarre, with mountains, valleys that cut 600 meters into the landscape, moon-like desert plains and huge sand dunes and endemic plants that are completely different from anything I’ve seen.”

Editor’s note: Each month, Inside the Middle East takes you behind the headlines to see a different side of this diverse region. Follow us on on Twitter: Presenter Rima Maktabi: @rimamaktabi, producer Jon Jensen: @jonjensen and writer Cat Davies @catrionadavies

(CNN) — Most people would struggle to place it on a map, but Socotra is one of the world’s last unspoiled island chains — an archipelago off the coast of Yemen that has wildlife so diverse it has been described as the Galapagos of the Indian Ocean.

Its isolation lends Socotra a bucolic serenity and has blessed it with an array of unique animals and plants. A third of Socotra’s 825 plant species, 90% of its reptile species and 95% of its land snail species do not occur anywhere else in the world, according to UNESCO, which added the archipelago to its World Heritage List for its natural beauty.

 Expandable map of Socotra

Expandable map of Socotra

German photographer Claudius Schulze had been fascinated by Socotra since reading about it in a magazine, but he was led there by an old proverb.

“I had a project that didn’t work out and we have a proverb in Germany about being ‘ready for the island’ if you are exhausted — so I thought it was time to go to Socotra,” he said. “I started looking up flights and applying for a visa straight away.”

When Schulze, 27, finally made it there he was captivated by both the scenery and the people he met.

“It blew my mind. It’s incredibly amazing and other-wordly,” he said. “The landscape is bizarre, with mountains, valleys that cut 600 meters into the landscape, moon-like desert plains and huge sand-dunes and endemic plants that are completely different from anything I’ve seen.”

The archipelago has four islands, of which one is uninhabited and two others have only 450 and 100 residents respectively. Schulze visited only the main island, also called Socotra, which covers an area of 3,625 square kilometers. He has published a book of photographs and the story of his travels, called “Socotra, an island.”

The tribal Bedouin people of Socotra live mostly from goat herding, date plantations and fishing.

The population of the islands is estimated at 44,000, according to the Socotra Governance and Biodiversity Project (SGBP). However, Schulze said there appeared to be far fewer people, with official figures including many who now live elsewhere.

Although the official language is Arabic, most people speak an unwritten Socotri language of pre-Islamic origin, according to the SGBP.

Also on Inside the Middle East: Qatar’s first female Olympians

Schulze received hospitality from the Bedouin people of Socotra, staying in their homes and eating with them, but said he was never quite able to bridge the cultural divide he felt.

“I discovered I was alien to the people and they were alien to me,” he said. “They were extremely hospitable, they welcomed me in their houses and I had tea with the village elders, but there was an invisible world of extreme cultural difference.”

Schulze said he also witnessed the devastating impact of industrial fishing on the island’s small boats.

“I was a guest of fishermen on the coast and there were days when they didn’t catch anything so there was nothing to eat but yesterday’s bread,” he said.

“They are often victim of pirate European fishing trawlers illegally depleting their stocks, because neither Yemen nor (nearby) Somalia has effective coast guard to stop them.

“I realized for the first time what overfishing means. It’s not about running out of tuna in 10 years’ time, it means people will starve now because they don’t get their daily fish.”

Also on Inside the Middle East: Auctions celebrate art of the Islamic world

He visited Socotra three times over a year, each time for three weeks, in order to see it in different seasons.

Schulze has been unable to return to Socotra with his finished book, and a lack of a postal system makes it impossible to send it there. However, he has presented the book to members of the Friends of Socotra, an international group composed mainly of scientists interested in the unique biodiversity and culture of the islands.

In addition to its endemic plants, reptiles and snails, Socotra has 192 species of land and sea birds, including many threatened species, and diverse marine life, according to UNESCO.

The SGBP says the local population has developed strong traditional rules to protect the island’s natural resources because of its isolated position and history of self-sufficiency.

Schulze’s book is available through his website and at selected bookshops listed on the site.

More than a decade ago, more than 265 chimpanzees — including Howard, pictured here in 2002 — spent their days at a New Mexico medical research facility being poked, prodded and confined to small cages. Then, the Save the Chimps foundation intervened. After nearly a decade of rehabilitation, the chimps were transported to a 150-acre sanctuary in Florida. CNN went along with the last group as they made the journey and experienced their first time outdoors.

Preparing the chimpanzees for their move was bittersweet for Save the Chimps employees, who spent years caring for the animals. “What am I going to do when I get up at 5 o’clock in the morning and they’re not here?” asked Debra Lovelace as she tearfully said goodbye to Bart, a 20-year-old chimpanzee. “It’s been eight years but it’s part of a dream.” That dream is to see these chimpanzees moved to a Florida sanctuary where they will have space to run and play.

Guilder rests as he begins the long journey to Florida, thanks to the sedation needed to get him into the transport cage. It is the final trip transporting the last nine of the 266 chimpanzees from the Coulston Foundation facility in Alamogordo, New Mexico.

The specially designed trailer that carries the chimps — a moving billboard for Save the Chimps — has windows allowing the chimpanzees to see out and the public to see in, says the group’s sanctuary director, Jen Feuerstein. The chimpanzees are often heard banging and hollering before they are seen through the tinted windows.

At a gas station in Slidell, Louisiana, cashier Denise Johnson runs out of the store to greet the chimpanzees. “I get to see them every time they come,” says Johnson, who has greeted most of the 27 groups of chimps as they make their cross-country journey. Realizing that this is the final group of chimpanzees, Johnson starts to cry. “Well I hope they’re happy where they’re going,” she says.

The trailer stops about every two hours so Feuerstein can check on the chimps, feed them and give them medication. Moesha, Alari and Sarah have to take birth control pills and Bart, Alari and Brody take medicine for anxiety.

After about 40 hours on the road, the final chimpanzees arrive at their retirement home in Fort Pierce, Florida. Roady and Bradley run around the cage hooting and hollering in excitement after being let out of their transport boxes. The chimpanzees are reunited with the others in their 19-member family. The Save the Chimps staff spent years creating family units for these highly social animals as part of their rehabilitation.

Fifteen-year-old JJ still finds security in his blankets. “We are basically taking responsibility for the lives that someone else created,” says Save the Chimps’ Feuerstein, who relies on donations to fund the sanctuary. Each chimpanzee will cost the sanctuary $15,500 every year to take care of, she says.

Sarah looks out the window at a much greener view than the one she had in New Mexico. She and her family members will have access to a three-acre island. The 150-acre sanctuary has constructed the islands in lieu of fences because chimpanzees will not go into the water.

Moesha is the first chimp to make it onto one of the islands. After a lifetime spent indoors, these chimpanzees can finally look up and see the sun. Feuerstein expresses her relief that the foundation’s 10-year rescue operation has come to a successful end. “It’s amazing what we’ve accomplished,” she says. “Nobody’s moved this many chimps over this many years and without incident.”

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Meet one of the oldest chimpanzees in captivity

For Moesha and many of the other chimps, this was a completely new experience. Moesha would rock back and forth and often scream for no apparent reason. She was pale, balding and anxious when Save the Chimps took over the facility. Moesha was immediately introduced to another chimpanzee, Alari, and soon after bonding with her, Moesha was introduced into a chimpanzee family. Her hair has since thickened and her skin darkened from the sunlight that peeked through the bars in her newly improved cage.

Feuerstein said it took a while for the chimpanzees to get used to each other. Some groups took up to a year to form.

“When a family was ready and an island was ready, then we would migrate a group to Florida,” she said. “Eleven groups were formed and migrated over a period of six years. We started doing large scale migrations in 2005, 2006.”

Chimpanzees as medical test subjects

The United States is one of two remaining countries — the other being Gabon — that legally allow chimps and other great apes to be used in invasive biomedical research, according to the Humane Society of the United States. However, other countries still contract the services of research centers that use chimps, according to Dr. Thomas Rowell Director of the New Iberia Research Center in Louisiana.

There are more than 930 chimpanzees at U.S. medical research facilities, most of them used for hepatitis testing, according to a report by the Institute of Medicine issued in December. The report stated that chimpanzees are not necessary for most biomedical research. The institute recognized two possible uses for chimps: one for cancerous tumors that are already part of ongoing investigations, and the other for a hepatitis C vaccine.

A panel of experts advising the National Institutes of Health on how to implement the the Institute of Medicine’s report is expected to issue its recommendations by the end of the year.

Read more about the Institute of Medicine report

A bill that would end invasive research on chimps and other great apes has been before Congress since 2008, reintroduced in subsequent years, most recently as the the “Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act of 2011.” A Senate subcommittee has the bill on its agenda for Tuesday.

Frederick Coulston began using chimpanzees for toxicology tests in the 1940s at Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Coulston, who died in 2003 at age 89, helped develop hepatitis vaccines and spent years working on a vaccine for AIDS, according to his obituary in the Los Angeles Times. But the use of chimpanzees in his research made him a target of animal welfare advocates.

In 1993, he established the Coulston Foundation in Alamogordo — considered the largest chimpanzee laboratory in the world — where he carried out his research on chimps and loaned them out to other laboratories, with the help of government funding. The facility was cited numerous times for violating the Animal Welfare Act and federal funding was withdrawn, forcing it to close in 2002.

That year, Coulston reached out to Save the Chimps founder Dr. Carole Noon, offering to sell the laboratory and donate all 266 chimpanzees to the organization, according to Save the Chimps. Nine years later, the chimps were ready to move from the former laboratory to the outdoor sanctuary in Florida.

Getting ready for the journey

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are handed out to Moesha and her family as they get ready for the 2,000-mile cross-country journey.

Moesha is one of the final 10 chimps heading to the sanctuary in Fort Pierce: 150 acres of former orange groves, transformed into islands where the chimpanzees will be permanently retired.

The islands keep the chimpanzees, who are afraid of water, on the property without the need for fencing.

It will be their first time living outdoors.

Before the specially designed trailer carrying the final 10 chimps departs New Mexico, tears fill the eyes of the Save the Chimps staff as they say goodbye.

The chimps are wheeled onto the trailer in small, single cages near the members of their family units.

Each chimpanzee has a window seat.

It is after dark when Alari, the last chimpanzee, is loaded into the trailer. She is placed next to Moesha and across from Taz.

As the staff takes pictures and says their goodbyes, high-pitched hoots and screams can be heard outside the trailer, which the chimpanzees aggressively rock.

This behavior is barely noticed; it is no different from the past 26 times workers have loaded a group of chimpanzees destined for Florida.

But this trip is different and Feuerstein’s thoughts are on the Save the Chimps founder, who passed away before the “Great Chimp Migration” could come to a happy end.

“I wish Carole Noon was here. She started it. All this was her project. This was her dream,” Feuerstein said.

As the truck pulling the trailer slowly drives out of the gate, a crowd of former and current employees gives a loud cheer. The last of the Coulston chimpanzees is heading for a new life far away from the former research facility.

Back to nature

The 2,000-mile road trip will take a day and a half, because of frequent stops to check on the chimpanzees. They are fed fruits and juice and medicine is administered. Moesha, Alari and Sarah are on birth control pills and Bart, Alari and Brody are given medicine for anxiety.

When the trailer arrives in Fort Pierce, Florida, the chimps are greeted by a cheering crowd of workers and volunteers.

After being reunited with the other nine members of their family that arrived ahead of them, Moesha and her traveling companions are let out onto the island.

It’s the first time these chimpanzees have felt grass under their feet and direct sunlight on their skin.

Feuerstein recalls how far Moesha has progressed over the past decade.

“Moesha is amazing,” said Feuerstein, with the emotion of a proud mother. “When she first came, she was the most scared, timid chimp.”

Showing no fear of her new surroundings, Moesha — unlike her other family members — confidently walks across the grass to the middle of the island.

There she sat for a few minutes, taking in her new green surroundings, soaking up the kind of life she never knew existed.

Chicago (CNN) — The road map out of the war in Afghanistan is expected to be drawn up by U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders when they gather Sunday at the NATO summit in Chicago.

Against a backdrop of massive protests — and a foiled, homegrown terror plot that targeted Obama and others — the summit will open with NATO countries trying to figure out how to meet a 2014 withdrawal from an unpopular war while shoring up Afghanistan’s security forces.

Security is expected to be tight at the summit following the arrest of three men, described by authorities as anarchists who plotted to attack Obama’s Chicago campaign headquarters and lob Molotov cocktails at police during the summit.

Police insist there are no imminent threats to the leaders of more than 50 nations gathering at the summit.

The leaders are expected to formally adopt a timetable to transition security from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force to Afghan forces, senior administration officials told CNN.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity as a matter of practice, said the plan will also lay out NATO’s training and advisory role after 2014.

One of the key issues to be considered by the NATO leaders is who will pay for the buildup of Afghan forces as ISAF draws down its troops. Afghan security forces are expected to total 350,000 by 2015, according to CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is attending the summit along with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, can only afford to cover a fraction of the cost of building up his country’s forces. The cost of building up forces is expected to total roughly $4 billion annually by 2014, Bergen said.

France’s new president, Francois Hollande, is widely expected to announce the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan by year’s end.

Also, at issue at the NATO summit, is Islamabad’s continued blockade of much-needed NATO supplies shipped over Pakistani roads to Afghanistan.

Pakistan closed the ground routes after a NATO airstrike in November killed two dozen of its soldiers. NATO insists the incident was an accident.

The United States and NATO are unlikely to reach an agreement with Pakistan at the summit, according to two senior U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the subject.

“There is no deal, and there won’t be one until President Zardari returns” to Pakistan, one of the officials said. “And even that is not assured.”

The goal, says the official, “is to get a deal. It’s less important as to when.”

Without a deal, the officials said Obama would not meet with Zardari at the summit. The two are scheduled to hold trilateral talks with Karzai on political reconciliation in Afghanistan. Pakistan’s support in reaching a deal with the Taliban is seen as critical in ending the war in Afghanistan.

Outside the summit, Chicago authorities expect to have their hands full with protests.

On Saturday, the eve of the summit, Occupy Chicago protesters accused police of running down one of their own with a patrol van. A video, posted online by a protester and picked up by news organization, appeared to show the van bumping a protestor.

But a spokesman for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel said the driver of the van was responding to an attack by the protester.

“The individual was attacking the van and trying to slash tires on it with a knife as the van was moving slowly through a crowd,” spokesman Bill McCaffrey told CNN.

He said the person successfully slashed the tires, and then fled.

CNN’s Greg Morrison and Chelsea J. Carter contributed to this report.

Editor’s note: Dov Seidman is the author of “HOW: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything” and CEO of LRN a company that helps businesses develop values-based corporate cultures. You can follow Dov on Twitter at @DovSeidman and join the HOW community on Facebook.

(CNN) — Our world has rapidly gone from being connected to interconnected to interdependent. When the world is tied together this intimately, everyone’s values and behavior matter more than ever, because our actions affect more people than ever and in ways they never have.

Such was the case when one banker exposed his company’s culture in the New York Times and as a direct result his bank reportedly lost $2.15 billion overnight in market value and a debate erupted on social media over banking industry practices.

Today, “how” we do what we do — our behavior individually and organizationally — not only matters more than ever, it matters in ways it never has before.

The fact that customers can instantly compare price, features, quality and service requires leaders to fundamentally rethink how their organizations operate and how their people conduct business.

Competitive advantage has shifted from what we do to how. Further, we are now asking more of our employees than we ever did in the past. We ask employees to represent their company and nurture its brand, not only when they’re on the job, but whenever they publicly express themselves in tweets, blog posts, emails, or any other social interaction.

We’re asking for distinctly human qualities and behaviors and how leaders elicit and guide those inspired behaviors must shift accordingly.

Here are steps you can take to become a more inspired leader.

Connect and collaborate, don’t command and control

The days of leading companies via a one-way conversation are over. Power has shifted and our leadership must shift with it. The old system of “command and control” to exert power over people is fast being replaced by “connect and collaborate” — to generate power through people. Leaders and managers cannot just impose their will.

Now you have to have a two-way conversation that connects deeply with your colleagues, customers and other stakeholders. Netflix found this out the hard way last year when they lost 800,000 subscribers after arbitrarily increasing prices and splitting up their distribution channels without explaining their actions.

Inspire, don’t only motivate or coerce

There are three ways to get people to do things: coercion, motivation or inspiration. Leaders need to focus more on inspiration and less on coercion and motivation, since external rewards and carrots and sticks have limitations, particularly in hard times when there are fewer carrots to go round.

See also: Want to be a leader? Act like one

Those who have flown on Southwest Airlines can testify how flight attendants are encouraged to flex their creativity and sense of humor when walking passengers through the mundane process of safety procedures. There is no rule book; rather Southwest’s culture inspires its employees to innovate in their behavior. Yet Southwest is the exception rather than the rule.

Business today faces an inspiration deficit as demonstrated recently by “The How Report,” an independent study that my company LRN conducted with the Boston Research Group and Research Data Technology.

The report found that CEOs are six times more likely than “average workers” to believe they work in a company where people are inspired. Employees said they were primarily coerced (84%) or motivated (12%) by carrots and sticks at work rather than inspired by values and a commitment to a mission and purpose (4%).

Yet the study reveals that companies that do inspire their people through values significantly outperform those who don’t. These companies experience higher levels of innovation, employee loyalty, and customer satisfaction, and lower levels of misconduct, employee fear of speaking up, and retaliation.

Behavior as offense, not defense

The most successful sports coaches have shown that behavior is no longer a defensive tactic. Instead, behavior is now an offensive strategy that inspirational leaders need to deploy all over the pitch to create the conditions that result in the game being won, not just being played. There are simply too many shots on goal for them to block in our radically interconnected world. The best defense is to keep the ball.

Behavior has become a powerful source of excellence and competitive advantage. Bosses can no longer get away with telling subordinates, “Just get it done — I don’t care how.” Today’s successful leaders are those who flip the switch and replace task-based jobs (which are about what people must do) with values-based missions (how we get things done).

Extend trust, don’t inspect for it

We live in an era when trust is the currency of the age and the key to a winning business strategy.

But the value of trust lies in finding ways to give it away. A New York City donut maker boosted his productivity and profits through trusting his customers to make their own change, illustrating in practice the inspired behaviors that flow from extending trust.

The extension of trust is the key enabler that inspires others to take the risks that are so essential to spurring innovation. It is in this innovation that real performance and, most importantly, real progress are seen. This is the basic formula for thriving in our hyperconnected, hypertransparent world.

See also: Why we pick bad leaders

Recognize and reward for “how” and not “what”

Leaders and managers should go out of their way to recognize employees for how they do what they do, not for what they do or how much they get done. This could consist of starting their next meeting not by asking “What is on the agenda?” but “How are we going to connect and collaborate to make a difference?”

Or it could be emphasizing a principled decision that a colleague has made for their company in the interests of long-term sustainability at the expense of short-term expediency. Today’s most successful leaders realize the need to relinquish traditional modes of control and set an example to their employees for how they lead, speak and manage performance.

Hire for character, not just skill

“Who” is an anagram of “how” and in a world where “how” matters more than ever, it takes “who” to do “how.” The Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, “Character is fate” and it is the responsibility of leaders to enlist employees who can contribute their full character and creativity to perform their best work and whose reason and purpose for going to work every day extends beyond their paycheck.

By inspiring their employees to pursue a higher, more meaningful purpose and achieve real sustainable value, leaders can achieve significance, not just long-term success.

Confucius said over 2,000 years ago: “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” The leaders who commit their companies to go on a journey to find new ways to innovate in “how” will be those whose organizations thrive, not just survive, in the 21st century.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Dov Seidman.

Chicago (CNN) — An Illinois judge set bail at $1.5 million for each of the three suspects accused of traveling to Chicago “to commit acts of domestic terrorism” during the NATO summit.

In court, prosecutors accused the three men of “preparing for violence and destruction” such as stockpiling Molotov cocktails and other weapons and planning attacks on police.

But the defense called those accusations “propaganda” and contended authorities “infiltrated” a peaceful group and set up the three men.

Brian Church, Jared Chase and Brent Betterly — all described as “out-of-state men” — were charged with criminal acts relating to terrorism, conspiracy to commit terrorism and possession of explosives, the Cook County State’s Attorney office said in a statement Saturday.

The judge set the three defendants’ next court date for Tuesday.

On Sunday, NATO kicks off its two-day summit in Chicago, and the war in Afghanistan is expected to dominate discussions. Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Zardari are both expected to attend the meeting.

NATO leaders are currently on a timetable to withdraw all of the alliance’s combat troops from Afghanistan in 2014.

CNN’s Paul Vercammen and Michael Martinez contributed to this report.

Real Madrid captain Iker Casillas lifts the Spanish Primera Division trophy after Jose Mourinho’s team defeated Mallorca 4-1 on Sunday. The 32-time Spanish champions finished the season with 100 points, a record amount.

Villarreal midfielder Marcos Senna cut a forlorn figure after a 1-0 defeat to Atletico Madrid condemned the 2006 European Champions League semifinalists to relegation from the Spanish top flight.

Manchester City beat archrivals and neighbors Manchester United to the English Premier League title on goal difference, after two goals in stoppage gave Roberto Mancini’s side a 3-2 victory against Queens Park Rangers.

Defeat in Manchester would have sent QPR down, if Bolton Wanderers had beaten Stoke City. But Owen Coyle’s team could only draw 2-2 at the Britannia Stadium, a result which ended Bolton’s 11-year stay in the Premier League.

Veteran striker Alessandro del Piero celebrated his final game for Juventus in style, scoring as the Italian champions beat Atalanta 3-1. Juventus were undefeated throughout the 38-game league season.

Filippo Inzaghi marked his final game for AC Milan in similar style to Del Piero, netting the winner in a 2-1 defeat of Novara. Milan finished second, four points behind Juve.

Borussia Dortmund were crowned champions of Germany for a second year in a row, with Jurgen Klopp’s side finishing eight points ahead of Champions League finalists Bayern Munich.

At the bottom of the Bundesliga, Hertha Berlin were relegated after losing a two-legged playoff against Fortuna Dusseldorf 4-3 on aggregate. The result means Fortuna, who finished third in Bundesliga 2, will return to the top flight next season for the first time in 15 years.

Manchester City scored two goals in stoppage time to beat Queens Park Rangers 3-2 and pip neighbors Manchester United to the English Premier League title on goal difference.

Fans celebrate Manchester City’s big win

Did City win the title – or did United lose it?

But in a dramatic finale Edin Dzeko and Sergio Aguero scored in the 92nd and 94th minutes to hand Roberto Mancini’s City a first championship in 44 years.

QPR were battling against relegation, but their top-flight status was secured after Bolton Wanderers could only draw 2-2 with Stoke City.

Bolton needed to win to remain in the division, but the draw meant they were demoted alongside Blackburn Rovers and Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Behind City and United, Arsenal beat West Bromwich Albion 3-2 to secure the third and final automatic qualification berth for next season’s Champions League.

Tottenham Hotspur finished fourth and Harry Redknapp’s team will play in Europe’s elite club competition next season if Chelsea, who placed sixth, lose to Bayern Munich in Saturday’s Champions League final.

Top goalscorer: Robin van Persie, Arsenal – 30

Italy

Champions Juventus finished with a 3-1 victory over Atalanta, a win which meant the Turin club were undefeated throughout the entire 38-game Serie A season.

Manchester City wins EPL

Rooibos, South Africa’s naturally caffeine-free tea, has become a popular choice for tea lovers across the world.

Its appeal has grown in recent years because of the drink’s health benefits.

Growing demand from outside South Africa has created an industry worth around $23 billion.

Rooibos, an Afrikaans word that means “red bush,” grows only in South Africa’s Western Cape province.

The industry, a major employer in the months of harvesting, is now trying to protect the rooibos name and its heritage.

South Africa’s Redbush tea trade

Read more: S. Africa ostrich industry hit by major bird flu outbreak

The increasing popularity of rooibos, an Afrikaans word that means “red bush,” has created an industry worth around $23 billion. Some 15,000 tons of rooibos are harvested every year and at least half of that is then exported to the increasingly health-conscious consumer.

 See where the Western Cape is

See where the Western Cape is

In Western Cape, the rooibos industry is a major employer during the summer months of harvesting. Under the hot South African sun, the workers, who are paid per kilogram, are constantly cutting down and piling up the tea to satisfy the increasing demand from abroad.

Read more: Is narcotic khat funding terrorism?

Once the bushes, which are actually green, are cut down into small pieces, they are laid out to dry. The intense sunlight in the Western Cape slowly then turns the rooibos into its rich dark red color .

After it has been processed and sterilized, the tea is ready for the consumer.

This trade has become so lucrative that the industry is now trying to protect the rooibos name and its heritage. Producers are lobbying for the tea to be given geographical indication status (see fact box) to protect this unique brand — a lengthy lawsuit with a U.S. company, which tried to use the rooibos name, went the way of the South Africans.

But farmers, like Engelbrecht, believe more should be done.

“There is not currently the legislation in South Africa to protect the word rooibos as a geographical indicator or G.I., similar to what exists in France, where the French government makes sure that champagne can only be used by the wine producers in the Champagne region of France,” he says.

“I think it is the responsibility of government to make sure that legislation come in place, because we need to protect our cultural assets,” adds Engelbrecht.

Read more: Rise of the ‘repats’: Africans shun crisis-hit West for jobs back home

But while the industry waits for government reforms, plans are already in place for further expansion into new markets, such as India and China.

As a result, laboratory tests are underway to develop new products to broaden the tea’s appeal and suit different palates across the world.

“We now have a vast array of different rooibos products, from the traditional unflavored tea to all the flavored tea, cappuccinos made from rooibos, cosmetics, rooibos used in cooking,” says Engelbrecht.

Back in Cape Town, customers are already enjoying some of these new products. There’s a whole new menu of fruit-flavored rooibos teas, rooibos cappuccinos and even espressos.

But despite this extensive range, the perfected traditional cups of rooibos remains the firm favorite.

“A $104 billion market capitalization puts Facebook at more than 100 times its trailing earnings,” wrote John Constine and Kim-Mai Cutler for technology blog TechCrunch. “That’s a big multiple to live up to, and it will likely need to add bold new revenue streams to justify the mammoth valuation.”

And it wasn’t just the pros weighing in. In fact, it seemed like everyone on the Internet had an opinion.

Business Insider posted a poll (obviously not scientific) asking readers where they thought the $38 stock would be by the end of the day Friday.

In early results, a pessimistic 17 percent said under $35. But the biggest cluster of respondents guessed somewhere between $40-55. (Thirteen percent said $40-45, another 13 percent said $45-50 and, yes, yet another 13 percent said $50-55).

A hopeful 8 percent predicted the stock would skyrocket at otherworldly levels, winding up over $90 a share.

On Twitter, many observers seemed to be rooting against Facebook and its early investors.

“Just me or anyone else really hoping for Facebook stock to take a nose dive and never come back up? I want to watch it drop like a rock,” tweeted a user who identified himself as Thomas Bryant from Austin, Texas.

“Facebook just raised $16 billion in its stock offering! Let’s all delete our accounts and leave investors high and dry!” tweeted Evil Wylie, the Twitter alter ego of New York author Andrew Shaffer.

On Thursday afternoon, shares were released to big-time brokers who have already agreed to buy them. Ordinary investors have to wait until Friday morning, when shares begin selling publicly

While the market opens at 9:30 am, Facebook’s shares won’t start trading until at least an hour or so afterward because it’s newly listed.

While opinions in the business and tech communities have differed on whether the massive social network is a good investment, analysts have largely been bullish on the stock. There’s been heavy demand, leading Facebook on Wednesday to announce it will sell about 25% more shares than it had originally planned, bringing its total to 421 million shares.

At CNN content partner Mashable, a blog that got its start focusing exclusively on social media and saw its popularity rise as Facebook’s did, the staff geared up by creating an IPO-inspired playlist on music site Spotify (which, perhaps not coincidentally, is accessible only through a Facebook account).

Making the list? “Mo Money, Mo Problems,” by The Notorious B.I.G., “Rich” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs,” “Money (That’s What I Want) by Barrett Strong and “If I Had $1,000,000″ by Barenaked Ladies, among others.

Even as tech and financial gurus (self-appointed and otherwise) waited with bated breath for the opening, opining either for or against the financial future of the site some had to face the hard truth: We have no idea what’s going to happen.

“Of course, much of this is speculative and depends on the market’s response to Facebook,” VentureBeat’s Jennifer Van Grove wrote in a post quoting analysts about the IPO. “For now, all we can do is wait and watch the clock in anticipation of tomorrow’s opening. Tick tock.”

CNNMoney and CNN’s Brandon Griggs contributed to this report.

Editor’s note: Each month, Inside the Middle East takes you behind the headlines to see a different side of this diverse region. Follow us on on Twitter: Presenter Rima Maktabi: @rimamaktabi, producer Jon Jensen: @jonjensen and writer Cat Davies @catrionadavies

Doha, Qatar (CNN) — Bahiya Al-Hamad is a 19-year-old college student and air-rifle shooter who is about to make history for her country.

When she travels to London to take part in the Olympic Games this summer, she will be part of the first group of Qatari women ever to compete at the Olympics.

Qatar is one of only three countries — the others are Saudi Arabia and Brunei — which have never sent female athletes to an Olympics Games. This year, three women will represent Qatar at London 2012. The others are swimmer Nada Arkaji and sprinter Noor al-Malki.

All three women have been given wild cards, but there is still a weight of expectation that is not lost of Al-Hamad.

“It’s an accomplishment for every Qatari woman,” she said. “I hope I can live up to their expectation.”

Training at her shooting club outside Qatar’s capital Doha, Al-Hamad added: “Every athlete’s dream is to reach the Olympics.”

Competing in London in July and August will be a high point in her life as well as a historic moment for Qatar. “I will be very excited to go see the atmosphere there and it will sure be one the most special days of my life,” she said.

Qatar’s first female Olympians

See also: Will Saudi women make Olympics debut?

One of her shooting club colleagues, Ali Rashid al-Mohannadi, 21, Gulf and Arab champion, and a senior engineering student, said he has nothing but respect for Al-Hamad.

“I think women now are better than us,” he said. “I’m very happy, because she’s a talented shooter. I’m very happy for her, and I hope she does well in the Olympic Games.”

However, not everyone in his socially conservative country feel the same.

“I feel men don’t realize the idea yet, but it depends,” said Al-Hamad. “Some of them are OK with it, some are not. They say ‘you’re a girl and you shoot?’”

She added: “Before, shooting was only for guys but now it became normal for females to an extent. When they saw women emerging in shooting they became a little bit more accepting.”

Also on Inside the Middle East: Iraqi artist inspired by George W Bush shoe thrower

Al-Hamad, who is in her foundation year at Qatar University, is now training two hours a day, five days a week with her Uzbeki coach to be ready to compete alongside the world’s greatest 10-meter rifle shooters.

“We participated in the junior Olympic Games in Singapore two years back but the result was not good,” said her coach, Ivan Shahov. “But I hope with this Olympic Games we have a chance.”

Song Byeok’s paintings are often about coming to terms with life outside North Korea. Behind him is the painting “Child Warrior,” depicting the curious North Korean custom of dressing children in military clothes on special birthdays. Song painted the boy with his eyes closed.

“I risked my life on this painting,” Song says of “Take Off Your Clothes,” which created a stir by putting the late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in a Marilyn Monroe pose. “In some ways, this picture represents me,” Song said. “I hope after North Korean society opens up, people will debate it.” It is used on this poster to promote Song’s recent exhibit in Atlanta.

North Korea built hundreds of statues of Kim Il Sung, founder of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. In “Beloved Father of Our Country,” women in drab military clothing pay tribute to their “Great Leader.”

It was only after he lived outside North Korea that Song began to understand freedom and why it was so important. This, Song says, is his main message as an artist.

Like much of Song’s work, this painting, “Hope,” is about the desire for a better future for his homeland. “Defectors naturally want to help things inside North Korea change,” he said. “My way of doing that is to paint.”

A work done in classic Tang Dynasty style, “Around the Tumen River” looks as if it could have been painted centuries ago. But an up-close view reveals the hard realities of life in North Korea. Farmers work without tractors, soldiers survive on fish they catch in a river, and people in hills scour for edible plants.

In some ways, it’s not a far jump from propaganda to pop art. In “Let Me Taste It,” Song pays tribute to Andy Warhol, freedom of expression and the difficulties of life in North Korea.

Before his death in December, North Korean society revolved around the Dear Leader. But in “General and Tribes People,” Song shows Kim Jong Il’s shadow shrinking to a taper when around people who don’t buy into the myth.

Like most North Korean families, Song’s parents didn’t want him to wear his shoes unless it was necessary. “Shoes cost parents three or four days’ wages,” Song said, “and children were expected to stitch their own repairs.” In “Barefoot Boys,” a T-shirt says “Nothing to Envy in the World.”

“Mass Game” depicts a trademark image of North Korea, where thousands participate in exercises of unity and patriotism.

It’s not uncommon for North Koreans to describe the Dear Leader as a surrogate parent. In “A Loving Father and His Children,” Song replaces the chubby, square-jawed children he painted as a propagandist with realistic images of child beggars found around many North Korean rail stations. Passers-by will sometimes pay them to sing; a popular song is “Our General is a Great Leader.”

In “Hillside Slums,” the painting on the left, an image of Song’s mother dominates the skyline over the house he grew up in. She told Song she was worried about Kim Jong Il’s health before she herself died in the famine of the 1990s. By putting Kim in drag in “Fall Into My Arms,” Song glamorizes all things foreign and wonders whether life would not be more exciting for North Korea if it was opened to the outside.

The girls in “Flower Children” are waving and posing for foreigners in the way they’ve been trained: brimming with confidence that they live in the world’s greatest country. Song painted them with their eyes closed, blind to the reality of their poverty.

Song says he feels a bond with people from other countries where basic rights are restricted. “Freedom” expresses his hope that people everywhere will break their chains the way he broke his.

Song takes a cigarette break with Greg Pence, an American who saw Song’s work in Seoul, was moved by its power and organized the funds for an exhibit in the United States.

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Editor’s note: This is part of look at North Korea from the vantage point of some of those who have escaped and defected. See an accompanying story about a family now living in the U.S.

Atlanta (CNN) — Song Byeok had every reason to be pleased with his success. A gift for drawing led to a prestigious career as a propaganda artist and full membership in North Korea’s communist party.

Then the food shortages started.

Like tens of thousands of other North Koreans in the mid-1990s, Song made forays across the Tumen River to find food in China. Despite witnessing a better material life across the border, he says, he never doubted that North Korea was culturally superior. He never considered leaving his homeland for anything more than food.

“I was a believer. I saw North Koreans as pure,” Song said. “And we needed the Great Leader to protect us from outsiders.”

Today, Song paints in Seoul, South Korea, his art haunted by his former whole-hearted belief in the North Korean regime. Song’s paintings chronicle a personal, often agonizing journey from child-like allegiance to the country’s founder and “Great Leader,” Kim Il Sung, and his son, “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il, to Song’s life today as a contemporary artist.

Defector paints Kim Jong il in drag

Ever desperate for hard currency, the official website of North Korea offers propaganda art for sale, including some of Song Byeok’s designs. Artwork promoting the North Korean regime is available on beer steins, clocks and even iPad and iPhone covers. The items are made in places as diverse and as far from North Korea as El Salvador and Pakistan. They are for sale in U.S. dollars and ship from California. This calendar sells for $5.99 and says “We must be determined to fight and win against imperialism.” You can also order this motif on an insulated bottle or can holder.

It may look like a nation at war, but in fact it’s a North Korean greeting card. The caption says “Happy New Year.”

Now available to foreigners on a coffee mug, Song Byeok painted this same design on three factory billboards inside North Korea. It says “Self-Reliance: This Is Our Only Belief.” The mug is made in China.

The bottom line on this lime-green T-shirt reads, “Let’s Build a Strong and Prosperous Country With the Power of Our Military.”

Song painted this design across the large exterior wall of a factory in North Korea. The gun and the dove dominate the scene, as the phrase beneath reads “Peace Through Fighting.”

This battery-powered wall clock sells for $16.49, and in addition to telling the time, it tells you, “Let’s Kick-Start the ‘Military First’ Policy.” This was Kim Jong Il’s policy of prioritizing the military’s needs over food during the famine of the mid-1990s.

The button on the right is emblazoned “All-or-Nothing War.”

If anyone were to think North Korean propaganda was relentlessly martial, this golf shirt (made in Pakistan) proclaims, “Let’s Ignite the Fire for Peace.”

This beer stein declares, “In Life, In Death, Red Is In Our Hearts.”

North Korean communism for sale

North Korean communism for sale

North Korean communism for sale

North Korean communism for sale

North Korean communism for sale

North Korean communism for sale

North Korean communism for sale

North Korean communism for sale

North Korean communism for sale

North Korean communism for sale

The painting created a stir in South Korea, where American Greg Pence saw it and raised funds on Kickstarter to exhibit Song’s work this winter in Washington and Atlanta.

Song is passionate and sometimes brooding when discussing North Korea but gracious and open about his deeply personal passage from propaganda artist to painter who anguishes over oppression in North Korea.

Obama: North Korea will achieve nothing with provocation

Song’s journey to disbelief began the moment he watched, helpless, as his father was caught in a current during a river crossing to China and drowned. Song was halfway across when his father was swept away; he swam back but was unable to rescue him. Despondent, Song searched for his father’s body along the riverbank but was captured by North Korean border guards.

Despite his rank as a party member, getting caught meant questioning and torture by North Korean guards to confirm that he was not working for the South Koreans or the foreign missionaries based in China who proselytize among defectors.

“There were no exceptions,” he said. “All who are caught are investigated.”

In North Korea, a brutal choice

The torment of not recovering his father’s remains was much greater than the broken teeth and beatings, Song said. The beatings were so harsh, he said, he was close to death, and he believes that he was released so he would not die in custody.

More than bones, the guards’ treatment broke Song’s belief in the regime. He describes the moment he left jail as if a veil had been lifted: He saw the world with a new clarity. As he hobbled through the streets, wondering how he’d get home, he decided he wanted a different life. He decided to defect.

In a country of 25 million, only about 20,000 have defected and settled in South Korea, according to the South Korean government. There are no precise figures for how many defectors live in hiding in China; estimates from governments, researchers and non-governmental organizations vary from 25,000 to more than 400,000.

“When people are picked up in China and repatriated, they face prosecution back in North Korea if they are believed to have met with South Koreans or missionaries,” said Marcus Noland, a North Korea specialist at the Peterson Institute.

China labels North Korean escapees “economic migrants” and forcibly returns them despite accounts of torture and execution. So those hoping to defect must make their way across China to a third country.

Of those North Koreans interviewed in China, only about one in 10 say they left because of a longing for freedom, according to W. Courtland Robinson, a public health expert at Johns Hopkins University who has studied the issue for more than a decade.

The vast majority who leave give the same explanation Song did for his pre-defector forays into China during the famine: the search for work or food.

“The (North Korean) system is so integral to who you are,” Robinson said. “People generally don’t say ‘I am frustrated, and I want out.’ “

Song’s paintings explore that theme: a devotion to serving North Korea’s leaders so strong that citizens view it as part of their identity.

“Flower Children” shows a gaggle of smiling, uniformed schoolgirls waving and holding North Korea’s standard reading primers, “The Story of Kim Jong Il’s Childhood” and “History of Kim Il Sung.”

The girls exude childish charm, but some faces show a weariness that only comes with age, and their eyes are all closed. Their shoes have holes.

“They believe they are happy,” Song said. “They believe they are so much better off than the rest of the world because of their two leaders, who are like two suns.”

Song can still recite some of the pages from those reading primers, and he remembers walking to school in similar shoes.

Such memories inspire him to paint, he says, and he hopes people find his interpretations of those memories compelling.

“Tumen River” is done in classical Chinese style. At first glance, with its brushed mountain landscape, the painting looks like it could be from the Tang Dynasty. On closer inspection, its subtleties portray North Korea’s crippling poverty. Peasants work fields with oxen while nearby, a broken-down tractor rusts. Soldiers fish for their dinner downstream from women doing laundry by hand.

In the hills above the river are billboards common throughout North Korea, with phrases such as “All Glory To Our Nation’s Agricultural Independence” and “All Glory to Our Nation’s Great Strength.” Near the billboards, peasants dig for edible roots, which are commonly steamed in a kettle before being eaten.

“The past and the present of North Korea are the same,” Song said. “There is no progress.”

Despite the large and absolute devotion of most North Koreans to their government, Song is optimistic about their future under Kim Jong Un, who recently inherited the country’s reins after his father, the Dear Leader, died.

In a nation where every decision flows from the top, a change of leadership can transform everything.

“Kim Jong Un will want to try something new,” Song said. “You can not change the nature of youth.”

If Kim Jong Un allowed the population access to television, websites and radio from Seoul, with its opulent lifestyle, change would be inevitable, and the emotional connection to the government would gradually wither, Song believes.

Meanwhile, being caught with foreign media can mean public execution or three generations of your family being sent to prison camp. So few people outside the party elite dare to smuggle radios or DVDs from China.

But if those punishments were ever removed, Song says, North Koreans would probably lose their devotion to the regime as quickly as their Japanese neighbors stopped worshiping their emperor after World War II.

It would take only a clear view of the poverty and oppression in their life to spark cataclysmic demands for change, Song says. The spectacular failure of its command economy has made North Korea one of the poorest nations on Earth. By one plausible account, teenage defectors of the past decade are 5 inches shorter and 25 pounds lighter than their South Korean counterparts.

“I feel a great deal of anger now that I understand the problems” in North Korean society, he says. “I never felt it when I was there.”

Cinco de Mayo must-haves

Cinco de Mayo does indeed mark a Mexican military victory over the invading French army on May 5, 1862, but it’s celebrated more in the United States because in 1862, U.S. Latinos of Mexican heritage parlayed the victory as a rallying cry that the Union could also win the Civil War.

That’s because the French sympathized with the Confederacy, and Hispanics sided with the Union in its fight against slavery and elitism, Hayes-Bautista said. France sought to impose a monarchy over democratic Mexico while U.S. foreign power weakened during the War Between the States.

Savor ‘the Mexico I know’

Hayes-Bautista, a UCLA professor of medicine whose family lore holds his great-great grandfather fought in the famous Cinco de Mayo battle, has just published a new book on the discovery, “El Cinco de Mayo: An American Tradition,” which one historian also at UCLA describes as “of great significance.”

Hayes-Bautista was culling Spanish-language newspapers in California and Oregon for vital statistics from the 1800s when he noticed how the Civil War and Cinco de Mayo battle were intertwined. He researches the epidemiology and demography of Latinos in California because he’s director of UCLA’s Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture.

“I’m seeing how in the minds of the Spanish-reading public in California that they were basically looking at one war with two fronts, one against the Confederacy in the east and the other against the French in the south,” Hayes-Bautista said in an interview with CNN.

“In Mexico today, Cinco de Mayo means the Mexican army defeated the French army,” he continued. “In California and Oregon, the news was interpreted as finally that the army of freedom and democracy won a big one against the army of slavery and elitism. And the fact that those two armies had to meet in Mexico was immaterial because they were fighting for the same issues — defending freedom and democracy. Latinos were joining the Union army, Union cavalry, Union navy.

“The French goal was to eliminate democracy, and remember that Mexico had democracy only for 30 or 40 years at that point,” he added. “Remember, Europe was ruled mostly by monarchs.”

French emperor Napoleon III “was no friend of the Union and was definitely a friend of the Confederacy and flirted with the Confederacy constantly with the possible recognition of the Confederate government,” Hayes-Bautista said. President Abraham Lincoln never referred to the Confederacy as a separate government: they were states in rebellion,” the professor said.

Napoleon III’s plan was to instill a monarchy over Mexico and “have that monarch cooperate with the Confederacy,” Hayes-Bautista said.

In early spring 1862, the Union army was unable to move against the Confederates, and American democracy was “apparently not doing too well,” Hayes-Bautista said.

The French entry into Mexico troubled Hispanics, Hayes-Bautista said.

“Latinos in California were reading about every single battle of the Civil War,” he said. “They were very well-informed, and they were reading with a three-week delay of similarly detailed reports from Mexico. So by early May, the French were about 60 miles from Mexico City as some Latinos feared that the Civil War might be over.”

But the Mexican army prevailed, and the Spanish-language newspapers in California reported the victory with such headlines as “HURRAH FOR MEXICO!!! HURRAH FOR INDEPENDENCE!”

In his book, Hayes-Bautista writes: “In town after town, camp after camp, mine after mine, ranch after ranch, Latinos eagerly absorbed the news. Those who could read shared the glorious details with their illiterate fellows, and up and down the state, Latinos savored the blow-by-blow reporting from the front lines of the conflict that had so riveted their attention.”

The Cinco de Mayo victory was then memorialized through a network of Latino groups called “juntas patrioticas mejicanas,” or Mexican patriotic assemblies, mostly in California but also in Oregon, Nevada and Arizona, with 14,000 members, Hayes-Bautista said.

The juntas celebrated Cinco de Mayo with monthly parades, speeches, dances, banquets and bull fights as a morale builder for Lincoln and Mexican President Benito Juarez, who, despite the Cinco de Mayo victory, was subsequently engaged in a three-year struggle against foreign occupation until 1867.

“From 1862 to 1867, the public memory of Cinco de Mayo was forged in the American West,” Hayes-Bautista said.

Briefly after the Civil War, veterans of the Union and Mexican armies would put on their uniforms and give speeches every Cinco de Mayo, he said.

But by 1890, the grandchildren of the veterans and juntas had to be taught about Cinco de Mayo, Hayes-Bautista said.

The meaning of the holiday changed over time, becoming a David versus Goliath tale among Mexican immigrants in the 1930s and embodying U.S.-Mexico unity during World War II and Chicano Power in the 1960s and 1970s, Hayes-Bautista said.

In his book, he described Cinco de Mayo’s “undeniable commercialization in the late 20th century, a fake holiday recently invented by beverage companies.”

In his interview with CNN, Hayes-Bautista stated: “Now it’s become this big commercial holiday and a wonderful opportunity to get services and products in front of the Latino market and it even got its own postage in 1996 and in 2005 President Bush even had a Cinco de Mayo celebration at the White House.

“But if you ask why is anyone celebrating, no one knows. And then you get some people who say it shouldn’t be celebrated at all because it’s a foreign holiday — and yet it’s as American a holiday as the Fourth of July,” he said.

“No one has seemed to link it to the Civil War,” he added about what he called groundbreaking research.

UCLA history professor Stephen Aron said Hayes-Bautista’s finding is significant.

“For the general public (and even for many historians), the California origins of the Cinco de Mayo holiday come as quite a surprise (since the holiday is so generally presumed to be a Mexican holiday that was only recently imported into the United States),” Aron said in an e-mail to CNN. “That Hayes-Bautista’s book ties these origins to the American Civil War is also of great significance.”

Rounding out the new research into Cinco de Mayo is Hayes-Bautista’s family legend that recounts how his great-great-grandfather Bartolo Bautista was part of local militia supporting the Mexican army in the Battle of Puebla.

His ancestor, who hailed from the town of San Miguel de Atlautla just below the snow line on the volcano Popocatepetl, was taken prisoner but was spared execution by a French army firing squad after it saw he had a birthmark over his heart.

The mark was in the shape of a hand with all five fingers clearly visible, Hayes-Bautista said. The French firing squad had told the prisoners to remove their shirts because the soldiers intended to use the clothing.

Superstitious of the birth mark, the French let the man go, Hayes-Bautista said.

On Saturday, 150 years later, Hayes-Bautista is scheduled to participate in a Cinco de Mayo celebration at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, a Smithsonian affiliate in downtown Los Angeles.

(CNN) — The father of a University of West Georgia graduate student infected with rare “flesh-eating” bacteria has told in heartbreaking detail of the moment when his daughter learned she would lose her hands.

On a Facebook page dedicated to Aimee Copeland’s recovery, Andy Copeland describes speaking with the surgeons who said that his daughter’s hands should be amputated to ensure her survival.

“The hands were endangering Aimee’s progress. As always, my decision was simple,” he writes in an entry posted Friday.

“Do whatever it takes to give us the best chance to save Aimee’s life.”

Second case of flesh-eating bacteria

Battling flesh-eating bacteria

Aimee Copeland Facebook page

Copeland’s bravery has touched the hearts of many Americans as her family has shared the ups and downs of her battle against the flesh-eating bacteria that have endangered her life.

The master’s student in psychology at the Carrollton school was with friends May 1 near the Little Tallapoosa River, about 50 miles west of Atlanta, when she grabbed onto a zip line. It snapped, and she fell.

The accident left a gash in her left calf that took 22 staples to close.

Three days later, still in pain, she went to an emergency room, where doctors determined she had necrotizing fasciitis caused by the flesh-devouring bacteria Aeromonas hydrophila. She was flown to Augusta for surgery.

Since then, doctors have removed part of Copeland’s abdomen and amputated a leg and will now remove her fingers, her father said. She has also had a tracheotomy to enable her to come off a ventilator.

Copeland, who has been on life support since May 4, regained consciousness a week later, the school’s website said.

Her father recounts how her loved ones have watched in horror as the disease attacks her flesh and seen the inevitability of amputation in the changing color of her hands from day to day.

“Some people may criticize my decision and say we should have prayed over Aimee and asked God to heal her hands. Trust me, this we have done every day,” he writes.

Aimee Copeland’s infection has raised public awareness of the bacteria in the United States.

The infection is fatal in about one in four cases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says on its website.

The bacteria are “remarkably common in the water and in the environment,” according to Dr. Buddy Creech, an assistant professor of pediatric infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University.

He said it was not clear how many cases occur in the United States in any given year. “For pediatrics, we only see two or three a year,” he said, referring to Vanderbilt.

Lana Kuykendall remained in critical but stable condition, hospital officials in South Carolina said late Wednesday

“When it gets into those deeper tissues, it has a remarkable ability to destroy the tissues that surround it in sort of this hunt for nutrition,” he said. “When it does that, those tissues die, and you see the inflammation and the swelling and the destruction that can be very difficult to control.”

A similar if apparently less severe case was reported by the husband of a 36-year-old paramedic and nurse from Greenville, South Carolina, who gave birth to twins May 7 at a hospital in Georgia.

After undergoing surgery, Lana Kuykendall remained in critical but stable condition, hospital officials in South Carolina said late Wednesday.

Toledo, Ohio (CNN) — Wanda Butts dropped the phone and screamed when she heard the news that her son was dead.

Josh had drowned while rafting on a lake with friends. The 16-year-old didn’t know how to swim, and he wasn’t wearing a life jacket.

“I couldn’t believe it, I didn’t want to believe it: that just like that, my son had drowned and he was gone,” she said, recalling the 2006 tragedy.

Butts had worried about her son’s safety when it came to street violence or driving, and she said she had always warned him of those dangers. But water accidents never crossed her mind.

“It did not occur to me that my son would drown because he didn’t know water safety,” she said. “Josh was never taught the basic life skill of learning how to swim.”

Josh was not alone in the black community. According to USA Swimming, 70% of African-American children cannot swim, compared with nearly 60% for Hispanic children and 42% for white children. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, African-American children between the ages of 5 and 14 are three times more likely to drown than white children in the same age range.

As Butts tried to make sense of her son’s tragedy, she realized she had passed her own inexperience to her son. Her father had witnessed a drowning when he was young and instilled in her a fear of water.

Giving kids a lifesaving skill

Because of this fear, Butts raised Josh without any exposure to water. But today, she is determined to prevent other mothers from doing the same. In 2007, she started the Josh Project, a nonprofit that provides low-cost swimming lessons for children in Toledo, Ohio.

“After losing my son, I wanted to do something to help other people, to help another mother not have to suffer the way I do every day from the loss of a child drowning,” she said.

To date, the Josh Project has helped more than 1,000 children learn how to swim.

“All children are at risk of drowning, but the majority of the children that the Josh Project serves are minority children, who we have found are more at risk,” Butts said.

Several cultural and historical factors can help explain why that is. One is the segregation of swimming pools during the 20th century, according to Jeff Wiltse, author of “Contested Waters: A Social History of Swimming Pools in America.” Relatively few swimming pools were built to serve the black community back then, so much of a generation was denied the opportunity to swim, Wiltse told the BBC.

Also, if parents can’t swim, their children are far less likely to learn how, according to a recent study conducted by the University of Memphis. The study, sponsored by USA Swimming, found that a fear of drowning and a fear of injury prevent many African-American parents from putting their children in swimming lessons. It also found that many avoid swimming for cosmetic reasons, such as the effect chlorinated water has on their hair.

Do you know a hero? Nominations are open for 2012 CNN Heroes

For some families today, it’s still tough to find an accessible pool.

“The public pools near our home have been closed in the past, and other places were not affordable,” said Lisa Haynes, whose 14-year-old son, Joshua, is one of 60-plus students in the Josh Project this season.

The swimming lessons take place at a local high school over four Saturdays for a total cost of $10.

“I am less worried if (Joshua) is near water because he has the basics of how to swim,” Haynes said. “And we’re thankful for that.”

Butts is doing much more, however, than just providing swimming lessons.

“She ups the awareness, and that is half the battle,” said Shaun Anderson, a swimming coach who was so inspired by her story that he created a Josh Project swimming program at Norfolk State University in Virginia. “Once these communities learn how to swim, they will pass it down, which results in future generations that know how to swim.”

Butts said she has two goals for the future: One is to change the drowning statistics of minority children, and the other is to have an aquatic center where the children can swim daily instead of just once a week.

“The joy on the faces of those children — when they see that they can learn, once they get it — they are so happy with themselves,” she said. “And it’s like all of them are my children. It’s like I didn’t lose my son.”

Want to get involved? Check out the Josh Project website at www.joshproject.org and see how to help.

Editor’s note: Omar L. Gallaga is a tech-culture reporter for the Austin American-Statesman and a technology contributor to CNN.com, NPR and Kirkus Reviews.

(CNN) — Flush with cash and drunk with power after its $100 billion IPO, Facebook could be caught secretly brainwashing millions of new users into signing up (mind-control hoodies, anyone?) — and still I might not quit the world’s largest social network.

Ridiculous scenario aside, I’m pretty serious. Despite ongoing privacy concerns and rumblings of a backlash, it would take something drastic to make me leave Facebook at this point.

More than just a daily habit, Facebook has become the place where I get important, often surprising glimpses into the lives of the 1,365 people with whom I’ve chosen to connect. (That’s not counting friends-of-friends, for Facebook’s tentacles are ever-extended).

I’m not always in love with Facebook, of course. I get frustrated with the social network like everyone else. Every six months, Facebook introduces some huge new design of its site or engages in privacy-eroding practices that send many of its users howling into the status-update box.

They threaten to shut down their accounts, write furious blog posts and organize ridiculous movements such as Quit Facebook Day, which got less than 40,000 people to commit to deleting themselves — a tiny fraction of the network even back in 2010.

But, in large part, the people who say they’re leaving Facebook don’t. Or they quit and come back.

Me, I’m staying put. At this point, complaining about Facebook is like grousing about the electric company while watching TV, or saying how lousy politicians are but forgetting to vote. Facebook just is. It’s become an institution — one that’s going to be around for a long while — and all the missteps it’s made in its young, eight-year life have never prompted significant user defection.

Facebook is on track to hit a billion users sometime this year. A billion people. With just a few exceptions, that includes nearly every person I have ever worked with, a big chunk of my extended family, most of my friends going all the way back to elementary school and probably all the kids who were in my nursery at the hospital where I was born.

There’s critical mass, and then there’s Facebook, the Death Star that deflects every effort to blow it up. Facebook has won the social-media wars because it’s where all the people are. Those who have been waiting for something else to take its place, the way Facebook siphoned off the population of MySpace about five years ago, are still waiting. MySpace, even at its peak, never had the mainstream acceptance and durability of Facebook.

Facebook’s rise to the top

Would-be competitors who have tried to take on Facebook have largely failed to gain traction. Path, which has a lovely interface and is more focused on smaller circles of friends, just hit 2 million users a few months ago. And Diaspora, the open-source, nonprofit that was supposed to threaten Facebook’s laissez-faire attitude toward privacy, has yet to crack half a million users.

Once Facebook has shareholders to answer to, things may change. But perhaps not as much as you’d expect. At a South by Southwest Interactive event in 2008, I saw Zuckerberg speak about his company to application developers. Even then, he stressed that the future of Facebook was not as a website or tool, but as a global communication platform upon which other things would be built. It’s been amazing to observe how little he’s veered from that vision during four years of astronomical growth.

If something is ever going to take the place of Facebook once the company gets so big and complacent that it loses focus, it will probably be something built on top of Facebook. Perhaps a mobile app that accesses the social network’s huge population, something Facebook-adjacent that takes what people like about Facebook and turns it into something more nimble and attractive than Facebook itself.

Maybe then I’ll think about pulling up stakes. Until then, I’m not leaving.

A group of 37 writers and artists spent five days in Gaza holding free public events, a concert and workshops for university students. Here some of the group visit the Beit Hanoun Crossing with Israel.

PalFest collected more than 1,500 books — including copies of an anthology of extracts from works by festival participants — which were distributed to cultural centers and university libraries.

None of the 37 writers and artists had previously been to Gaza. They traveled all around the territory, including to Old Gaza.

Editor’s note: Each month, Inside the Middle East takes you behind the headlines to see a different side of this diverse region.

(CNN) — After five years of trying, an international group of authors have achieved their aim of taking their Palestine Festival of Literature to Gaza for the first time.

The annual traveling festival, known as PalFest, was set up in 2008 to bring book readings and cultural events to Palestinians who otherwise had little access to the outside world.

Each year the literary festival has visited several cities in the West Bank, but has been unable to gain permission from Israel to visit Gaza.

Israel imposed an economic blockade of Gaza when Hamas took over in 2007, which it says is needed to stop the transit of weaponry to be used by militants in attacks on Israel

This year, the group of 37 writers, artists and community organizers applied instead to enter Gaza from Egypt through the Rafah crossing, which re-opened last year. After a two-week wait, they were granted permission from the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to enter Gaza.

Also on Inside the Middle East: Gaza music students find smart ways around travel ban

“We didn’t know if we would get in until the very last minute,” said Jamal Mahjoub, a British Sudanese author who traveled with PalFest. “We didn’t know if we would manage until we actually crossed the border.”

The group included Palestinians living in Jerusalem, West Bank and around the world, and prominent Arab authors including Egyptians Ahdaf Soueif and Khaled al Khamissi. None of them had been to Gaza before.

They spent five days in Gaza from May 5-9, running workshops for university students, free public events and visiting refugee camps.

Also on Inside the Middle East: Iraqi artist inspired by George W Bush shoe thrower

The 10-piece Egyptian band Eskenderella, which became well-known for playing in Tahrir Square during the Egyptian revolution, played its first concert in Gaza to a packed hall.

Omar Robert Hamilton, an independent filmmaker and founder of PalFest, said: “Coming to Gaza was a necessity. We have tried every year but always failed before. Everything was incomplete until we came.

“It was vital to come here because of the fact that it’s so divided and considered a separate entity, but at the same time totally connected to the West Bank.”

In total around 2,000 Gazans attended the PalFest events. In one event, each author had 10 minutes to give the message they had always wanted to say to Gazans.

Hamilton added: “It’s been pretty overwhelming. Everyone is so welcoming and pleased that we have managed to get there.

“They are very frustrated by the lack of access to the outside world. It’s been a very emotional trip, but overwhelmingly positive.

“We began PalFest as an attempt to help connect Palestine with the rest of the world. Lack of access to art, culture and education is a form of restriction.

“We wanted to do what we could to support cultural life in Palestine, and to put on a festival that would be taken for granted anywhere else.”

PalFest collected more than 1,500 books — including copies of an anthology of extracts from works by festival participants — which were distributed to cultural centers and university libraries.

Also on Inside the Middle East: Unspoiled island sanctuary caught on camera

Mahjoub said: “There was a real thirst for any books they could get their hands on: poetry, contemporary novels, books about history and politics. It’s hard for people and institutions to get enough books and resources.

“They are hungry for any kind of cultural life, as there are no cinemas and few concerts.”

He added: “The most important thing has been meeting people and talking on a cultural level, to hear about their experiences and their isolation.

“We have driven up and down the country and have tried to get as broad a picture as possible of what it’s like to live here. I didn’t come to lecture people about my literature, but to find out what their experiences are.”

PalFest organizers said that on Wednesday evening the closing event was shut down by the police, but added that police later apologized for the incident, saying it was an “individual error.”

PalFest is supported by organizations including the UK Arts Council and the British Council. Its patrons including Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe, British author Philip Pullman and British actor Emma Thompson.

This year’s festival also included one event in Ramallah in the West Bank and one in Cairo, Egypt, on May 11.

Song Byeok’s paintings are often about coming to terms with life outside North Korea. Behind him is the painting “Child Warrior,” depicting the curious North Korean custom of dressing children in military clothes on special birthdays. Song painted the boy with his eyes closed.

“I risked my life on this painting,” Song says of “Take Off Your Clothes,” which created a stir by putting the late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in a Marilyn Monroe pose. “In some ways, this picture represents me,” Song said. “I hope after North Korean society opens up, people will debate it.” It is used on this poster to promote Song’s recent exhibit in Atlanta.

North Korea built hundreds of statues of Kim Il Sung, founder of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. In “Beloved Father of Our Country,” women in drab military clothing pay tribute to their “Great Leader.”

It was only after he lived outside North Korea that Song began to understand freedom and why it was so important. This, Song says, is his main message as an artist.

Like much of Song’s work, this painting, “Hope,” is about the desire for a better future for his homeland. “Defectors naturally want to help things inside North Korea change,” he said. “My way of doing that is to paint.”

A work done in classic Tang Dynasty style, “Around the Tumen River” looks as if it could have been painted centuries ago. But an up-close view reveals the hard realities of life in North Korea. Farmers work without tractors, soldiers survive on fish they catch in a river, and people in hills scour for edible plants.

In some ways, it’s not a far jump from propaganda to pop art. In “Let Me Taste It,” Song pays tribute to Andy Warhol, freedom of expression and the difficulties of life in North Korea.

Before his death in December, North Korean society revolved around the Dear Leader. But in “General and Tribes People,” Song shows Kim Jong Il’s shadow shrinking to a taper when around people who don’t buy into the myth.

Like most North Korean families, Song’s parents didn’t want him to wear his shoes unless it was necessary. “Shoes cost parents three or four days’ wages,” Song said, “and children were expected to stitch their own repairs.” In “Barefoot Boys,” a T-shirt says “Nothing to Envy in the World.”

“Mass Game” depicts a trademark image of North Korea, where thousands participate in exercises of unity and patriotism.

It’s not uncommon for North Koreans to describe the Dear Leader as a surrogate parent. In “A Loving Father and His Children,” Song replaces the chubby, square-jawed children he painted as a propagandist with realistic images of child beggars found around many North Korean rail stations. Passers-by will sometimes pay them to sing; a popular song is “Our General is a Great Leader.”

In “Hillside Slums,” the painting on the left, an image of Song’s mother dominates the skyline over the house he grew up in. She told Song she was worried about Kim Jong Il’s health before she herself died in the famine of the 1990s. By putting Kim in drag in “Fall Into My Arms,” Song glamorizes all things foreign and wonders whether life would not be more exciting for North Korea if it was opened to the outside.

The girls in “Flower Children” are waving and posing for foreigners in the way they’ve been trained: brimming with confidence that they live in the world’s greatest country. Song painted them with their eyes closed, blind to the reality of their poverty.

Song says he feels a bond with people from other countries where basic rights are restricted. “Freedom” expresses his hope that people everywhere will break their chains the way he broke his.

Song takes a cigarette break with Greg Pence, an American who saw Song’s work in Seoul, was moved by its power and organized the funds for an exhibit in the United States.

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Editor’s note: This is part of look at North Korea from the vantage point of some of those who have escaped and defected. See an accompanying story about a family now living in the U.S.

Atlanta (CNN) — Song Byeok had every reason to be pleased with his success. A gift for drawing led to a prestigious career as a propaganda artist and full membership in North Korea’s communist party.

Then the food shortages started.

Like tens of thousands of other North Koreans in the mid-1990s, Song made forays across the Tumen River to find food in China. Despite witnessing a better material life across the border, he says, he never doubted that North Korea was culturally superior. He never considered leaving his homeland for anything more than food.

“I was a believer. I saw North Koreans as pure,” Song said. “And we needed the Great Leader to protect us from outsiders.”

Today, Song paints in Seoul, South Korea, his art haunted by his former whole-hearted belief in the North Korean regime. Song’s paintings chronicle a personal, often agonizing journey from child-like allegiance to the country’s founder and “Great Leader,” Kim Il Sung, and his son, “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il, to Song’s life today as a contemporary artist.

Defector paints Kim Jong il in drag

Ever desperate for hard currency, the official website of North Korea offers propaganda art for sale, including some of Song Byeok’s designs. Artwork promoting the North Korean regime is available on beer steins, clocks and even iPad and iPhone covers. The items are made in places as diverse and as far from North Korea as El Salvador and Pakistan. They are for sale in U.S. dollars and ship from California. This calendar sells for $5.99 and says “We must be determined to fight and win against imperialism.” You can also order this motif on an insulated bottle or can holder.

It may look like a nation at war, but in fact it’s a North Korean greeting card. The caption says “Happy New Year.”

Now available to foreigners on a coffee mug, Song Byeok painted this same design on three factory billboards inside North Korea. It says “Self-Reliance: This Is Our Only Belief.” The mug is made in China.

The bottom line on this lime-green T-shirt reads, “Let’s Build a Strong and Prosperous Country With the Power of Our Military.”

Song painted this design across the large exterior wall of a factory in North Korea. The gun and the dove dominate the scene, as the phrase beneath reads “Peace Through Fighting.”

This battery-powered wall clock sells for $16.49, and in addition to telling the time, it tells you, “Let’s Kick-Start the ‘Military First’ Policy.” This was Kim Jong Il’s policy of prioritizing the military’s needs over food during the famine of the mid-1990s.

The button on the right is emblazoned “All-or-Nothing War.”

If anyone were to think North Korean propaganda was relentlessly martial, this golf shirt (made in Pakistan) proclaims, “Let’s Ignite the Fire for Peace.”

This beer stein declares, “In Life, In Death, Red Is In Our Hearts.”

North Korean communism for sale

North Korean communism for sale

North Korean communism for sale

North Korean communism for sale

North Korean communism for sale

North Korean communism for sale

North Korean communism for sale

North Korean communism for sale

North Korean communism for sale

North Korean communism for sale

The painting created a stir in South Korea, where American Greg Pence saw it and raised funds on Kickstarter to exhibit Song’s work this winter in Washington and Atlanta.

Song is passionate and sometimes brooding when discussing North Korea but gracious and open about his deeply personal passage from propaganda artist to painter who anguishes over oppression in North Korea.

Obama: North Korea will achieve nothing with provocation

Song’s journey to disbelief began the moment he watched, helpless, as his father was caught in a current during a river crossing to China and drowned. Song was halfway across when his father was swept away; he swam back but was unable to rescue him. Despondent, Song searched for his father’s body along the riverbank but was captured by North Korean border guards.

Despite his rank as a party member, getting caught meant questioning and torture by North Korean guards to confirm that he was not working for the South Koreans or the foreign missionaries based in China who proselytize among defectors.

“There were no exceptions,” he said. “All who are caught are investigated.”

In North Korea, a brutal choice

The torment of not recovering his father’s remains was much greater than the broken teeth and beatings, Song said. The beatings were so harsh, he said, he was close to death, and he believes that he was released so he would not die in custody.

More than bones, the guards’ treatment broke Song’s belief in the regime. He describes the moment he left jail as if a veil had been lifted: He saw the world with a new clarity. As he hobbled through the streets, wondering how he’d get home, he decided he wanted a different life. He decided to defect.

In a country of 25 million, only about 20,000 have defected and settled in South Korea, according to the South Korean government. There are no precise figures for how many defectors live in hiding in China; estimates from governments, researchers and non-governmental organizations vary from 25,000 to more than 400,000.

“When people are picked up in China and repatriated, they face prosecution back in North Korea if they are believed to have met with South Koreans or missionaries,” said Marcus Noland, a North Korea specialist at the Peterson Institute.

China labels North Korean escapees “economic migrants” and forcibly returns them despite accounts of torture and execution. So those hoping to defect must make their way across China to a third country.

Of those North Koreans interviewed in China, only about one in 10 say they left because of a longing for freedom, according to W. Courtland Robinson, a public health expert at Johns Hopkins University who has studied the issue for more than a decade.

The vast majority who leave give the same explanation Song did for his pre-defector forays into China during the famine: the search for work or food.

“The (North Korean) system is so integral to who you are,” Robinson said. “People generally don’t say ‘I am frustrated, and I want out.’ “

Song’s paintings explore that theme: a devotion to serving North Korea’s leaders so strong that citizens view it as part of their identity.

“Flower Children” shows a gaggle of smiling, uniformed schoolgirls waving and holding North Korea’s standard reading primers, “The Story of Kim Jong Il’s Childhood” and “History of Kim Il Sung.”

The girls exude childish charm, but some faces show a weariness that only comes with age, and their eyes are all closed. Their shoes have holes.

“They believe they are happy,” Song said. “They believe they are so much better off than the rest of the world because of their two leaders, who are like two suns.”

Song can still recite some of the pages from those reading primers, and he remembers walking to school in similar shoes.

Such memories inspire him to paint, he says, and he hopes people find his interpretations of those memories compelling.

“Tumen River” is done in classical Chinese style. At first glance, with its brushed mountain landscape, the painting looks like it could be from the Tang Dynasty. On closer inspection, its subtleties portray North Korea’s crippling poverty. Peasants work fields with oxen while nearby, a broken-down tractor rusts. Soldiers fish for their dinner downstream from women doing laundry by hand.

In the hills above the river are billboards common throughout North Korea, with phrases such as “All Glory To Our Nation’s Agricultural Independence” and “All Glory to Our Nation’s Great Strength.” Near the billboards, peasants dig for edible roots, which are commonly steamed in a kettle before being eaten.

“The past and the present of North Korea are the same,” Song said. “There is no progress.”

Despite the large and absolute devotion of most North Koreans to their government, Song is optimistic about their future under Kim Jong Un, who recently inherited the country’s reins after his father, the Dear Leader, died.

In a nation where every decision flows from the top, a change of leadership can transform everything.

“Kim Jong Un will want to try something new,” Song said. “You can not change the nature of youth.”

If Kim Jong Un allowed the population access to television, websites and radio from Seoul, with its opulent lifestyle, change would be inevitable, and the emotional connection to the government would gradually wither, Song believes.

Meanwhile, being caught with foreign media can mean public execution or three generations of your family being sent to prison camp. So few people outside the party elite dare to smuggle radios or DVDs from China.

But if those punishments were ever removed, Song says, North Koreans would probably lose their devotion to the regime as quickly as their Japanese neighbors stopped worshiping their emperor after World War II.

It would take only a clear view of the poverty and oppression in their life to spark cataclysmic demands for change, Song says. The spectacular failure of its command economy has made North Korea one of the poorest nations on Earth. By one plausible account, teenage defectors of the past decade are 5 inches shorter and 25 pounds lighter than their South Korean counterparts.

“I feel a great deal of anger now that I understand the problems” in North Korean society, he says. “I never felt it when I was there.”

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) — Two Pakistani Air Force planes collided in midair Thursday, killing the pilots and injuring people on the ground, according to local police.

The crash occurred during a routine flying exercise near an air force base in the country’s northwest, said police spokesman Mohammad Hussain.

Each plane was carrying two pilots. All four died, Hussain said.

Debris from the collision fell on the village of Rakashai, inflicting serious injuries on 11 residents, and triggered a fire, he said.

Two children were among the injured.