6:05 p.m. | Updated with Nick’s video from Cairo.

I’ve got a spare moment right now, while I’m waiting for demonstrations at Tahrir to heat up, so let me describe a bit of how I arrived and what I saw yesterday. I was in Davos and so flew from Zurich, and my plane to Cairo was just about empty. It was a huge plane (presumably because of the need to fly a lot of people out), but only a few scattered passengers. Some of the passengers were Egyptians trying to return to be a part of history – but most of the passengers were reporters pretending to be tourists. One American camera crew was pretending to be part of a wedding party, as a way to explain the cameras.

Some reporters have been turned back at the airport, but I had no trouble. The airport itself is jammed with foreigners trying to leave. People are sleeping on the floors, and at one point, when an announcement of a departing flight was made, a near riot broke out as people desperately crowded toward the gate.

I had dressed up for immigration, trying to look more like a banker than a journalist, and immigration hassled the person ahead of me but didn’t ask me any questions – just stamped my passport and let me go on. ATM’s weren’t working and the hotel counters were closed, and there weren’t many taxis at the airport. But I finally found one who took me to my hotel. That was my scariest moment in Egypt so far: my driver was a maniac.
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We in the news media aren’t always very good at covering issues of global disease like malaria, which kills about 850,000 people every year (about one every 38 seconds). But we’re amazingly proficient at covering celebrities. So when a marquee name is stricken with malaria, this is great news for the media…although, admittedly, not so great news for the celebrity in question. This is where I introduce you to my former travel buddy, who recently contracted malaria while on a trip to Sudan: George Clooney.

Nicholas D. Kristof/The New York Times Nicholas Kristof and George Clooney, who have both contracted malaria in Africa, experiencing happier and healthier times in Chad, 2009.

George was in South Sudan, one of the least developed places on earth, to call attention to the referendum there that may result in the region becoming an independent country — if warfare doesn’t break out first. George has put in place a satellite early warning system that aims to raise the cost of genocide or war crimes, and hopefully prevent them. Somewhere in Sudan, a mosquito carrying the parasite bit him, and he has just recovered. For my part, I suffered malaria in 1997 while reporting in eastern Congo. Note that malaria wasn’t a particular threat to either of us, because when treated quickly it is normally cured easily. But prevention and treatment don’t reach many people in poor countries.

Malaria is still so widespread and lethal partly because it never gets adequate attention — so this seems a chance to try to remedy that. So with your help, we’re going to do both right now. Send in your questions for George and me about malaria, either about his case in particular or about the problem in general — or about why it is that so many still die in places like Sudan of a disease that we know how to eradicate. We’ll go through your questions, and George and I will answer the best during the week of January 30-February 5 and try to shine a light on the problem. And that mosquito that bit George will realize that it took a bite out of the wrong guy.

My Sunday column is a show-and-tell of an experiment I conducted in Beijing to look for the boundaries of what is permissible on the Chinese Internet. A Chinese editor I much admired, Qin Benli, taught me a wonderful expression in Chinese, 擦边球, or cabianqiu, meaning a ping pong ball that just nicks the edge of table. It’s legal, but with no room to spare. Qin told me that that is exactly what a good Chinese journalist aims to do with each article. So I tried to construct a blog and micro-blog (the Chinese equivalent of Twitter) to find out where the cabianqiu are.  Below are pictures of a micro-blog and blog that I started in Beijing in December:

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I recently stumbled across a video the Times made in 1992, showing how the paper gets made. It includes this clip of my wife (Sheryl WuDunn) and I as Beijing correspondents for the newspaper:

Look at the computers, and you can see what a different age that was. We wrote our articles by computer, but then filed them by telex to New York. (We got our first modem, strong enough to overcome State Security’s phone taps, at the very end of 1992.) The other thing that stands out is: boy, I had a lousy Chinese accent!

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My Sunday column is about China’s education system — and it’s a challenging topic. You see, Americans (me included) tend to be quite admiring, and Shanghai’s success in the PISA tests would seem to ratify that. But the Chinese education system does have one important group of detractors: the Chinese themselves. As I noted in the column, so many Chinese whom I respect are deeply critical of their school system as too regimented and stifling, even though they do acknowledge that the Confucian reverence for education is deeply embedded and very positive.

In any case, it seems to me beyond doubt that China’s education system is improving dramatically — and I wish that we would rise to the challenge. We can certainly use some of the Confucian reverence for education, and a greater dose of equality in our system. It’s heartening that Education Secretary Arne Duncan has been sounding many of these same themes, and education reform in America is one of the few areas where Democrats and Republicans can still have a productive conversation.

So what do you think? What are the lessons we can learn from Chinese schools, and other Asian schools. And can we become just a wee bit more Confucian ourselves, at least in terms of elevating education in our priorities?

Deborah Hakes/The Carter CenterPointing to Juba.

This is a historic week in Sudan, with a referendum underway on secession for the south — and a process that is likely to lead to a new nation of South Sudan (although it may choose a different name for itself). Former President Jimmy Carter is on the ground there, monitoring the voting, and he has been answering questions from readers with me. Read the first and second batches of answers, and here’s the third and last installment.

Would there be any possibility of establishing truth and reconciliation commission in Sudan? — Rajesh KC

I see little chance of establishing a truth and reconciliation commission unless it is part of a comprehensive peace agreement to end the conflict in Darfur. Read more…

Deborah Hakes/The Carter CenterOn the way to a polling center on Jan 10.

Former President Jimmy Carter and I are taking questions from readers about Sudan, the referendum now underway, and the region’s future. We answered a first batch of questions a couple of days ago, and this is the second batch:

How do you foresee our international relations with this new government in the south region? How might the US use its influence (publicly or privately) in the establishment of the new nation? Thank you.
– David Mordkofsky

Where do we get the resources to intervene in Sudan either militarily or monetarily in the face of our huge budget problems?

– B

It is important that the U.S. and the international community have good relations with both North and South Sudan, both of which will be searching for ways to survive and to preserve a fragile peace. It is hoped and expected that, after peace is assured, military costs can be reduced in both nations. The north is heavily burdened with existing debt, and commitments of debt relief and financial aid will enhance constructive influence over the future policies of the regime. The new South Sudan is desperately in need of building its entire infrastructure, including government administration, education, health care, agriculture and transportation. A failed state because of inadequate support would adversely affect all of Africa and also the U.S. and other nations.

Even if an increase in total foreign aid from the U.S. is not financially feasible, assistance to Sudan should be elevated to a high priority, utilizing funds already allocated for such programs as agriculture, health and education.

— President Carter Read more…

Deborah Hakes/The Carter CenterLulogo Market polling station in Juba on Jan. 9, 2011. Nearly 5,000 people were registered to vote here.

Thanks for all the terrific questions about Sudan, for former President Jimmy Carter and myself. President Carter is in South Sudan at the moment, observing the referendum there, and I’m very grateful that he’s taking the time to answer reader questions. This is our first batch of responses — stay tuned for more in the days to come. And there’s still time to pose your own questions. Now let me kick this off by asking the first question of President Carter:

You’re on the ground in South Sudan, monitoring the voting – and you’ve seen more than your share of elections around the world. So what did you see today in Sudan? What’s the mood? And did the voting that you observed go smoothly? Read more…

My Sunday column looks at the rise of China, through the prism of the new women’s world chess champion, Hou Yifan. She’s a 16-year-old schoolgirl, and an astonishing phenomenon. Until now, there has only been one woman to crack the top 100 in chess rankings, and that’s Judit Polgar, by far the most impressive player in the history of women’s chess. Polgar, from an amazing chess-playing Hungarian family, peaked at no. 8 in the world and most recently was ranked 49. But Polgar is 34 and is unlikely to surge to the top of the rankings, while Hou Yifan is young enough that she could end up in the top few players worldwide over the next 10 or 15 years. (While Hou Yifan is the women’s chess champion, she still has a lower ranking than Polgar, who does not compete in women’s tournaments. Here’s the piece by my Times colleague and chess columnist Dylan McClain about Hou’s triumph.)

My larger point is that China is investing in human capital, and spreading opportunity, in ways that will profoundly shape the 21st century — and that should also shape us. We can and should learn from that commitment to education and spreading opportunity. Post your thoughts on the column here, and stay tuned for several more columns from China over the next couple of weeks.

Update: Read the first round of answers to readers’ questions »

Update: Read the second round of answers to readers’ questions »

Jan. 11, 6:23 p.m. | Updated We are no longer taking questions. Look out for the third and final batch of answers in this blog.

Here’s your chance to pose questions to a president about global issues.

The New York Times

The world’s eyes are focusing on Sudan, which on Sunday will hold a referendum on independence in the southern part of the country. The south, which holds more than 75 percent of the country’s oil, is expected to vote almost unanimously for secession, and that will start a process that could lead to the birth of Africa’s newest country. In the past, there had been a good deal of fear that the referendum might lead to renewed warfare, but so far the process has gone better than many had expected.

One of the observers monitoring the referendum on the ground is former President Jimmy Carter, who has long experience in Sudan and also monitored the 2010 elections there. The Carter Center is engaged in Sudan not only in helping the referendum go smoothly, but also in important development efforts — including an initiative to eradicate Guinea worm that I chronicled last year in a column and video.

So pose your questions about Sudan and the referendum and President Carter and I will attempt to answer them. You’re also welcome to ask about the implications for Darfur and the region, and about poverty-related issues like Guinea worm and illiteracy that also constitute Sudan’s challenges in the years ahead.

Just write your questions in the comments field below. We’ll answer a selection of them on this blog starting on Monday, Jan. 10th.

Very strange things are happening in Bangladesh these days. There seems to be a multi-pronged assault on Grameen Bank and on Muhammad Yunus, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his role pioneering microfinance.

Kimimasa Mayama/Bloomberg News Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of Grameen Bank, a microfinance institution that has recently come under attack in Bangladesh.

The Bangladeshi press has lately been full of denunciations of Yunus. On Tuesday, for example, one Bangladeshi news organization quoted an economist as saying of him: “A lot about him is just myth. [He] had never been selfless in any of his initiatives.” Meanwhile the Bangladeshi government has ordered a corruption investigation of Grameen after a Norwegian television documentary raised questions, even though the Norwegian government  said there was nothing to the charges.  There have also been (false) published reports that Yunus will resign and suggestions that he should retire for reasons of age. And it seems the government of Sheikh Hasina Wazed wants to revise the ownership of Grameen Bank so that it would be 60 percent government-owned. That was the situation in the 1980’s, but then the law was revised to state that ownership would be 75 percent by Grameen borrowers, and 25 percent by the government; in fact, despite the law, Grameen borrowers have paid in more capital, and so the government stake is down to 3.4 percent as of 2009. (An earlier version of this post had incorrect figures here).

Finally, a court has ordered Yunus to appear on Jan. 18 to face charges of defamation, apparently for saying in 2007 that politicians pursue only money. He could be arrested and tossed in prison for that. And given the timing, it sure looks as if this is an orchestrated campaign to take him out, and seize the bank for the government. If this is a concerted campaign, then presumably it could happen only with the approval of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. And she does seem to have changed her pitch: a former supporter of microfinance, she recently denounced it as “sucking blood from the poor in the name of poverty alleviation.”

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Paluku was standing at the edge of a patchwork field of sugar cane when it happened. “I saw the soldiers catch my wife,” he says, recounting what he saw, while in his daughter’s small pharmacy in a North Kivu village, which is still over-run with soldiers. The metal doors are mostly closed, putting the man in relative darkness, but I can still see the white speckles in his short beard and the flash of his eyes. “I saw how my wife screamed.”

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This is a good moment to think ahead of topics and issues that I’d like to focus on for the coming year. I always do that informally, sort of mumbling to myself, but let me also invite your thoughts. I won’t promise to follow your suggestions, but I will read them and consider them.

In terms of travels, I’m planning trips this year to Sudan, Congo, China, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Iran and North Korea (assuming I can get visas for the last two, which I think I can). And in continental Africa, the only countries I haven’t visited are Mauritania, Lesotho, Malawi and Angola, so I’d love to shorten that list (although Angola pretty much doesn’t give journalists visas). In South America, the only countries I haven’t visited are Chile, Paraguay, Guyana and Suriname — so I might try to figure out a way to get to some of those. There’s some risk of a new war between Israel and Lebanon, and so those countries (and of course Gaza and the West Bank) may be on my itinerary as well. And other places will pop up, and then there’s my win-a-trip journey with a student and a person over 60. Apply now if you haven’t – the deadline is in less than three weeks. And spread the word if you know someone who should apply.

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My Sunday column argues that as we debate budget cuts in the coming year, we should remember that we have invested enormously in military power and far, far less in diplomacy, education and other fields. If we’re trying to figure out how to raise our standard of living, or at least preserve it, the evidence is pretty good that we’ll get a better return on investment in early childhood education than in, say, a military base in Germany.

Yet what’s frustrating is that neither party seems willing to question the huge allocations of resources to the military and intelligence world. The Republicans seem actually to believe that these investments keep us safe, while Democrats are afraid that if they diverge, they’ll be seen as weak. Paradoxically, among the few who are critical are people with a military background. Read the column and post your thoughts.

My Sunday column is a variant of the gift guides that are proliferating everywhere in the news media — gift guides for electronics, perfumes, clothing, etc. I always find that the question I get asked the most is: What can I do? What’s a good group to support? So this column is an attempt to answer those questions, listing a number of little-known charities at home and abroad that I think do good work. Of course it’s far from an exhaustive list, omitting in particular the bigger and better-known groups. I also had a similar list a year ago, with different groups. And I’d also welcome your suggestions for other groups (or other humanitarian gifts) that should be on this list.