ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – The Taliban is on a public relations drive. The militants fighting on fronts from Afghanistan to Pakistan fear they are losing the propaganda war among their own people. So, the leadership is doing something about it, releasing a new "code of conduct" for fighters in the field.

This is a how-to guide as to what is acceptable and what is not. For instance: "A brave son of Islam should not be used for lower and useless targets." What does this mean? Crudely, kill soldiers and other "high value" targets and avoid civilian casualties.

There is to be a reduction in suicide bombings, again to avoid killing civilians; Taliban fighters are not allowed to discriminate against people based on tribal roots, language or where people are from.

This code also reinforces a strict hierarchy: only provincial commanders can agree to prisoner exchanges and prisoners must not be released or exchanged for money.

Only Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar, or one of his deputies, can give the order to execute NATO soldiers, senior Afghan army officers or government officials.

And so it goes on. You get the meaning. This code of conduct is to show that the Taliban is a disciplined force, instead of a brutal force, one fighting for the people.

This isn't new of course: the Taliban has issued similar codes in the past. What is interesting is that this new one is being issued at this time.

Now, most of this is aimed at Afghanistan - but it applies equally to Taliban in Pakistan. Indeed the booklet was produced and released from Pakistan.

Personally, I have heard from people who have turned away from the Taliban. Locals who may have had sympathies with the militants have grown tired of the reign of terror and violence.

Look at Pakistan's Swat Valley: I have seen the images of beheaded bodies being displayed in the town square, of women publicly beaten. Hardly behavior that meets this code of conduct.

The lesson of insurgencies the world over is: "If you don't win the people you don't win the war."

But already there are reports surfacing that some "hardliners" in the Taliban want to continue doing business as usual, rejecting the code.

Now, here's another interesting point: this code comes as Afghanistan heads to a new presidential election in August and the U.S and others begin to reach out to the so-called "good Taliban" - the militants they can work with.

Undoubtedly there are more moderate elements among the insurgency, there are some who have split from the Taliban.

But this is an intricate network of tribes, kinship and shared allegiances, motivated as much by money and revenge as often as ideology. Where is the "code" for separating the "good" from the "bad" Taliban?

Beijing, beautiful one day, polluted the next, and the next, and the next...

I guess I filed the story about Beijing's blue skies a little too soon. 

It is true the city has had a record run of blue sky days. It is true the pollution levels had been coming down... But since that story went to air, the old grey haze is back. Sods law.

In fact the US embassy air monitoring station which tracks the smallest and most hazardous pollution says the air on Thursday was "very unhealthy" and at times "hazardous". To be fair it's just one station, and not indicative of the entire city, but at least it gives you an idea.

This could be just a bump on the road, or maybe its an unwelcome sign China's economy is picking up steam.

Some brokers will tell you the color of China's sky is a better economic indicator than the share market or the governemt's statistics.

I was told recently that some of the smaller steel works have now fired up again because prices have steadily risen.

If this is true, then maybe unhealthy air is a good measure of the health of the economy, and sadly it seems they're inversely related.

OUTSIDE PESHAWAR, Pakistan – General Nadeem Ahmad is about to make a stunning and frightening admission. In a crowded relief camp outside Peshawar in Pakistan’s northwest, he admits he may well be handing over money to Taliban fighters posing as refugees.

General Nadeem is coordinating relief funds, with 4 billion rupees (about $500 million) being handed out so far.

People queue for hours to have their identities checked and receive their money. It is a painstaking and cautious process - but not foolproof.

It is certain that some of those receiving the money are militants, ready to return home and wreak havoc.

This is the complex problem facing General Nadeem and others fighting an enemy they often cannot see.

He is the man in charge of resettling the almost three million Pakistanis who have fled the fighting between the army and the Taliban.

It has been an extraordinary effort: tent cities appearing overnight, and providing food, water, shelter and medical treatment for the young and old, men and women.

These people are refugees in their own country, victims of a war they did not start and mostly want no part of.

But there are others lurking here. The Taliban have vanished back into the population.

They look the same, they dress the same: Men with beards in traditional Pakistani dress, the shawal kameez – making for an invisible enemy.

The people he says are now emboldened; identifying the militants in their midst and informing police.

But how many go undetected?

For the Pakistan military, fighting the Taliban is like wrestling with a column of smoke: once detected it simply changes shape and moves.

It is a matter of history now that the Taliban was spawned and promoted here in Pakistan. Back then, they were handy foot soldiers for the war with the Soviets in Afghanistan.

But Pakistan has a tiger by the tail.

The Taliban has threatened large parts of Pakistan, and actually managed to gain control of some regions close to the capital Islamabad.

This comes after years of insurgent violence. Since the 9/11 attacks in 2001 in the U.S., Pakistan has suffered around 6,000 terrorist attacks.

There have been more suicide bombings in Pakistan than either Iraq or Afghanistan. Former Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated in an attack.

Terrorism has drained the economy: estimates of the cost to Pakistan runs to at least $40 billion. That far outweighs the estimated $13 billion the U.S. has given Pakistan for its role in the war on terror.

Soldiers earning only $100 a month are now fighting and dying to turn back the Taliban.

In parts of the country, the army is claiming victory.

But as many Taliban are being killed, many others are simply vanishing.

General Nadeem flies me over the war-torn Swat Valley, from our helicopter he points to the mountains: “That’s where they have fled to,” he said.

Beyond that is Afghanistan, where U.S. and NATO forces are also trying to oust the militants from their strongholds.

But the Taliban can so easily cross the border into Pakistan, and there they vanish. More invisible fighters in what many Pakistanis admit is "a battle for our soul."

LONDON, England - Boris Johnson cycles frequently and when you’re in his city, he wants you to do the same.  As the Mayor of London he’s introduced a hopeful plan aimed at making the streets of London more bike-friendly: Expanding biking lanes, creating a cycle hire program and raising awareness of cycle safety.

But when I ventured out to get reaction from pedestrians, couriers, bus and taxi drivers I discovered one major problem – they all battle each other vigorously on the narrow London roads.

Cyclists share lanes with double-decker buses, but say they’re frequently side-swiped. Black Cab taxi drivers say pedestrians don’t look where they’re going when crossing streets. And when I interviewed courier Greg Hill he described one harrowing road accident in which he was sent to the hospital with a back injury.

To get an up close view of what really happens on the road we equipped Greg’s bicycle with a flip-cam. It took him only ten minutes to ride out and come back with first-person footage of this road madness. This did nothing to improve my confidence to shoot a piece to camera while riding a bike – my helmet strapped on tightly.

Safety concerns are paramount with Boris Johnson’s transportation advisor, who we interviewed. Especially after he and the Mayor witnessed a truck smash into a car next to them – while they were on a cycling tour of possible biking routes!

What does it say about a city when the Mayor and his officials cannot safely take a bike tour? And what does it say about a city when a courier believes he is safer without his helmet because drivers are less aggressive with him?

It says London cannot be a true "Cycle City" until the bikers, drivers, and pedestrians get along, move along and do so without knocking each other out.

Watch my report on cycling in London

BAGHDAD, Iraq - "One of them did tell me a story of a woman who went back with her children and the children were killed," Angelina Jolie said during our interview.

We could all imagine the story. We've heard similar tales of such sheer horrific acts over and over again.

And frankly we were relieved that Jolie was back, that she saw what she saw and heard the tales of the plight of so many Iraqis.

It's no secret that there is a sense that the world would like to forget about Iraq, that in many minds the war is over, when in reality its not. We see that everyday.

With Jolie here in Iraq as UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador once again, we're able to throw the refugee and internally displaced crisis back into the headlines.

We asked her why she felt that it was important to keep spotlighting what's happening here.

"It seems like such a crazy question doesn't it?" she responded shaking her head. "To imagine that someone would think that it's not important."

She was out at a complex in northwestern Baghdad, home to some 12,000 internally displaced Iraqis, most from former Sunni insurgent strongholds in the western suburbs of the capital and Abu Ghraib to the west.

We had interviewed Jolie the last time that she was in Iraq, about 18 months ago.

Yes, there has been progress since then, small grains of it, but still as we know so well, so much more needs to be done.

"So it’s a very bleak picture ... you can talk about it, cry about it." She told us: "You meet with so many little babies that are malnourished, so many little kids that have infections from things that with minor medicine would be OK. Parents saying, why, our children didn’t do anything, they are so little, they are innocent, we just want some dignity, aren’t we people?"

We have heard those words countless times. Now hopefully the world will listen once again.

YANGSHAN ISLAND, China – As the countdown began, my producer Jo Kent sighed. "This might be the most anticipated anti-climax ever." Clouds threatened to ruin the longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century, until the very last minute.

After much deliberation and intense consultation with eclipse chasers across Shanghai, we decided to post ourselves on Yangshan Island, a suburb of Shanghai. The chasers heading in this direction were very convincing. On the island, they said we'd have a lower chance of clouds and city pollution. And hundreds of them were going there. It was hard not to get swept up in the group mentality.

But by the time we arrived, it was raining. Not just raining, but thundering and lightning. I went to bed listening to thunder claps, petrified that we would miss out on the eclipse of my lifetime (and also my first ever).

Despite a dream that the heavens miraculously cleared, we woke to cloudy skies. Dark, cloudy skies. Still, the crowds there said we should stick it out.

In the elevator, one man told me: "I'm renewing my belief in God right now."

After all, the total eclipse itself wasn't happening for another couple of hours. Charles Fulco, a middle-school astronomy teacher from New York, confidently claimed he would stay optimistic until the end.

Personally, it was difficult to keep doubt from "clouding" my mind. I knew I had to stay positive for our viewers. After all, there's nothing compelling about a correspondent predicting the worst over and over again.

I was trying to put on a happy face for my next live shot when I heard "oohs” and “ahhs" in the background.

I was so flustered, I forgot to put on my eclipse glasses before I looked up. A partial eclipse was shining down on us all like a gift from Mother Nature.

The rush was undeniable. I was amazed, shocked, and most of all, relieved, that we had something to show the world.

Clouds quickly swooped in, completely eliminating any chance of seeing totality - that treasured moment when the sun is completely hidden behind the moon and its outer atmosphere (the "corona") is visible like a halo around the moon's shadow.

Nonetheless, Yangshan Island was swiftly shrouded in darkness. I mean, it happened in minutes and suddenly we were all pitched into black. The air grew cold. Hundreds of dragonflies that had been swarming for hours disappeared.

I was reporting the entire time, but wished I could take a breath and soak in this awesome, haunting feeling. The sun had literally vanished in midday.

And just as the skies started to brighten again, the clouds relented one last time. We saw another flash of light at the end of totality. It looked like a crescent moon in an evening sky, but in fact it was a sliver of the sun - the sun rising for the second time at the end of one of the most unnatural-seeming natural wonders.

Of course, there were a lot of disappointed eclipse watchers who'd traveled thousands of miles, spent thousands of dollars, to see this from beginning to end.

But these fleeting glimpses were enough for me. Our days of eclipse chasing - the cynicism, the science, the insanity of gambling to see the solar system in action - was exhilarating, even though we only witnessed a slice of astronomical glory.

HONG KONG, China – Ten years ago, I experienced a total solar eclipse in northern France. It was as if someone had turned off the lights on a Hollywood set and we were in the blackest of nights. The sky turned purple and I saw some stars. It became cooler and a breeze picked up, though it was late morning.

When I was heading out on the train to the rural area where I watched the eclipse, I met people who had traveled from across the world to see it. I did not know then what the appeal was, but afterward, I vowed to make it to any other eclipses that I could.

Fast forward to one week ago when I learned I was living in the path of another total solar eclipse. It reminded me of that feeling of witnessing the power of Mother Nature - to turn day into night, then back into day – and in the process play a little game with humans and animals with the sudden switching on and off of the lights.

Today, I went out to a primary school in Hong Kong, where sky gazers gathered in droves. They were armed with sun goggles, telescopes, binoculars, a large solar filter and even a homemade eclipse viewer.

The air was charged with enthusiasm, and I was swept along with it. I knew we were only getting a partial eclipse of 75 percent, and so it would not equal my earlier experience, but the skies were unusually sunny for what has been a very rainy typhoon season in the southern Chinese enclave.

Hong Kong is a typically busy financial hub, cluttered with skyscrapers and block after block of apartment buildings. Even if it had not been raining, the city could have been covered in an all-too-frequent haze that blocks out the sun.

At the school, I spoke with parents who made their daughter a homemade eclipse viewer, a woman who brought her family and her housekeeper, a 13-year-old astronomy enthusiast who asked his teacher to join him, among others.

The astronomy enthusiast, Louis Chung, told me: "City folks wouldn't usually be able to see this."

"Nature is wonderful. It is awesome to know that nature can provide such spectacular sights," said Chung, a member of the Hong Kong Astronomical Society.

Yolanda Yip, 12, came with her parents to the school. Her father, Frankie Yip, fashioned a homemade way to see the eclipse: He took a shoe box and put aluminum foil at one end - with a small hole poked in it - and cooking paper on the other. He said he wanted Yolanda to learn more about the solar system.

"We love the Earth, we want to know more about it. The sun eclipse is one of the rare phenomenons about the sun, the Earth," said mother Sammie Chan, noting that she thought the eclipse was "gorgeous."

As the moon slowly passed over the sun, I grabbed my own solar viewer to watch. Even though the sky did not darken - it was though the lights had been dimmed - I still marveled at the show that Mother Nature had to offer us on this day.

There are many things we can try and control in life, but this is one of those moments that we need to step back and watch nature conducting a grand performance for us.

SHANGHAI, China - Charles Fulco, a middle school astronomy teacher, never thought he would come to China.

But his passion for one of nature’s grandest spectacles compelled him to travel 7,000 miles from New York to Shanghai, to watch the longest total solar eclipse of the century.

"I'm getting goose bumps just thinking about it," says Fulco. “The last one I saw was 10 years ago and it’s like it happened yesterday."

Unfortunately, Mother Nature may have something very disappointing in store for him. Yes, forecasters in Shanghai are predicting rain.

The weather on the day of an eclipse is always a gamble, and it’s frustrating too. As the CNN team sent to Shanghai to cover the big event, we’re just as desperate to find a hole in the clouds as eclipse-chasers from around the world. We don’t want to miss it either.

So, we’ve consulted the experts, multiple tour groups, all with different strategies about how to beat the clouds. We've heard words like "air convection," "cloud count" and "land temperature" thrown around.

Fulco’s team is headed to Yangshan Island off the coast of Shanghai. The theory: The closer you are to a large body of water, the less dense cloud cover will be.

But others say being locked on an island is dangerous. The most important thing is mobility. So a group of MIT and Princeton alumni have chosen a spot on the Chinese mainland, along a manmade lake.

Yet a third group of 260 Americans with Sky and Telescope Magazine, are too difficult to keep up with. They seem to change their plans by the hour, determined to move in any direction last-minute, to ensure their view is not obscured. They are entertaining both coastal and inland options. When last we talked to them, they said would make their final decision after an intense discussion at dinner.

We’ve been warned about this kind of behavior. Veteran eclipse-chasers say if you change your plans too much, you risk missing the eclipse altogether.

Nevertheless, anxiety lingers as much as anticipation.

We’ve neared our final decision, but you’ll have to watch us live tomorrow morning (Shanghai time) to find out where we landed.

SHER GARGH, Pakistan – This is cruel. Women, old people and young children – many of them babies – sweltering in blistering temperatures. Their convoys have converged into a massive traffic jam: gridlock. The cars, trucks and buses stretch as far as the eye can see. They are among the millions of refugees who have fled months of fighting between the Pakistan military and the Taliban. Now their government is telling them to go home: it is safe they say. But where is the planning? How can tens of thousands of people, carrying all they own, take to the roads without chaos?

Today, it seems there is a breakdown in communication at the roadside checkpoints. The army is blaming the police for incompetence. But as in this war, it is those caught in the crossfire that are paying the price.

One man screams at our camera that he has no food, no water; his children are crying. Another man dips his screaming child into the polluted water of a nearby canal for relief. The boy already has terrible sores all over his head; this won't help. Other children lie comatose in trucks, and old women look pleadingly at me as I give them what water I have.

Remember, when they get home they return to a battleground: houses destroyed, businesses shut, army patrols, the Taliban still lurking. Their lives, like this traffic jam; trapped and no relief in sight.

JAKARTA, Indonesia - I was experiencing an unsettling sense of déjà vu while rushing to the airport in Bangkok.

Once again a bomb had put Jakarta top of the news bulletin. Not for the first time, I was juggling flights, connections and traffic to make a seemingly impossible deadline.

I'd been half-expecting this phone call to come for a while. During the filming of a World's Untold Stories on the Bali bombers I'd been immersed in the world of Jemaah Islamiyah.

All the experts we interviewed warned that while JI was on the back-foot, after months of pressure from Indonesia's elite Detachment 88 anti-terror group, JI should not be written off.

One of their most notorious disaffected former members is Noordin Top.

Experts think he's formed a sort of ultra violent splinter cell, after the mainstream of JI decided to turn its back on violence and try to achieve their aims of an Islamic caliphate across south-east Asia through preaching and politics.

Noordin is linked to the previous attack on the Marriott in 2003 which left 12 people dead.

I know this because his friend, convicted terrorist Abu Dujana told me he met Noordin shortly before the attack.

I interviewed Dujana a couple of years ago and he dodged and weaved as he tried to evade answering questions about Noordin, who he described as a "brother in Islam."

Noordin is also linked to the 2005 Bali bombing, as well as an attack on the Australian Embassy in 2005.

In short, Noordin has a track record of hitting western targets and he's been lying low for four years.

Some had thought that was a sign he was no longer capable of organizing another "spectacular" or that perhaps he was dead.

We still don't know for sure Noordin is linked to this latest attack but the evidence is mounting.

The police say the type of explosive used is almost identical to a cache of explosives found a couple of weeks ago in a house in west Java, which police believe was linked to Noordin.

The police will also doubtless be chasing down leads found in room 1808 of the Marriott where they believe the terrorists were checked-in posing as guests.

Among the possessions they found a bomb ready for detonation.

Together with crucial security video footage which may show one of the bombers wheel his deadly charge towards the breakfast room of the Marriott, the police will have plenty to work on over the next few days.

But until they catch Noordin Top, I doubt sadly this will be the last time the phone rings and I have to run for a plane bound for Jakarta.