Pakistan: Taliban Key Challenge for Next President
BY Joe Rubin

In this interview with our correspondent in Pakistan, she paints a bleak picture of the Talibanization of her country and the foreign policy challenges facing the next U.S. president.

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China: Beijing's Vanishing Hutong
BY Dan Eckstein

Some of Beijing's historic hutong neighborhoods date back to the 13th Century.

Since 2004, photographer Dan Eckstein has traveled to Beijing four times, chronicling the city's massive renovations in preparation for the 2008 Olympic Games. "I keep coming back to Beijing because you never know what is going to be here next time you come," he says.

Almost by chance, he found himself staying in a hotel in one of Beijing's historic hutong neighborhoods, some of which date back to the 13th Century. Their narrow, jam-packed alleyways and streets are filled with traditional courtyard homes.

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Georgia: Tbilisi's Mayor Draws a Red Line
BY Joe Rubin

As U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates warns Russia to stop its aggression in Georgia or face lasting consequences, iWitness talks with Gigi Ugulava, the young mayor of Georgia's capital Tbilisi and a close confidant of President Mikhail Saakashvili.

Tbilisi faces a mounting refugee crisis as Georgians flood in from Gori and other towns bombed by the Russian army.

Ugulava describes the mounting refugee crisis facing his city as Georgians flood in from Gori and other towns bombed by the Russian army, and how the city is reacting as Russian tanks remain less than 40 miles from the capital. Ugulava tells FRONTLINE/World that when it comes to Tbilisi, Georgians are drawing a red line. "If Russia will succeed here, they will be halfway to reestablishing the Soviet Union and nobody can stop them then."

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Georgia: Putin's Other Plan?
BY FRONTLINE/World Editors

Vladimir Putin and his hand-picked successor President Dimitri Medvedev.

Despite the fact that Vladimir Putin is no longer president of Russia, his decision to send the military into Georgia dramatically underscores how, as prime minister, he is running the country -- not his hand-picked successor Dmitri Medvedev. Earlier this year, just before the presidential election, FRONTLINE/World documented Putin's systematic suppression of all political opposition and his assumption of a powerful role for himself as prime minister. Watch the video story Putin's Plan and read related features and interviews about his political grip on the country.

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Obama: Awakening the African Vote
BY Edwin Okong'o

ELECTION 2008

Al Constantino displays Obama T-shirts for sale outside the African International Mall in the Cedar-Riverside area of Minneapolis, a neighborhood predominantly inhabited by African immigrants.

The candidacy of Barack Obama has galvanized a small but rapidly growing group that had previously avoided any involvement in American politics: African-born immigrants to the United States.

There are now at least 1.3 million African immigrants living in the United States, and Obama's rise has reminded some that as they settle in America and raise their children here, they have a civic duty to participate in politics. Since I moved to Minneapolis a year ago to take a job editing and writing for a paper aimed at the African diaspora in America, I have had a front-row seat for watching the entry of Africans into American politics.

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