HONG KONG, China – My recent interview with Aki Ra, a Cambodian dedicated to landmine removal after being forced as a child by Khmer Rouge to plant mines, reminded me of my own close brush with unexploded ordnance.

A Cambodian woman walks past a landmine awareness sign near the Thai border in July 2007.

I was on a reporting assignment in former Khmer Rouge turf in northern Cambodia.

After hours riding on a bumpy road, nature called. We were in an area that had just reportedly been cleared of landmines and the government was resettling military families there.

Some villagers came out to greet us. We asked for a bathroom but there was none. Instead, they pointed to a path that still had a sign warning about the presence of landmines. You can never be sure if the mines are all gone, they said, so just stay on the path and find a spot along the way.

There were no trees and I juggled modesty with safety as I hesitatingly inched down the path. I turned back a few times and saw the dozen or so villagers standing on the road, watching my progress.

I finally got my business done and briskly returned along the path to our car.

But I have never forgotten that moment. It made me think of the risks that Cambodians, and others living in such heavily-mined countries - Iraq, Colombia, Afghanistan - take everyday to go about their daily lives: Tilling a field to cultivate crops, walking to school, rounding up the family's livestock or even finding a spot for a community outhouse.

As a reporter for an international news agency in the country for more than two years, I encountered many Cambodians - old and young - whose futures in one of the world's poorest countries were literally hobbled by these weapons of war.

They all made do with their challenging situations in a country where physical fitness is part of daily survival, since many Cambodians are doing some type of farming or fishing to put food on the table.

Meeting Aki Ra, who has now started his own non-profit group to rid the country of mines, reminded me how much this sad legacy of decades of conflict will continue to linger on for Cambodians until the last mine is cleared. Read the article on Aki Ra

HONG KONG, China – Details of Sarah Palin's trip to Hong Kong - in what is being billed as her first speech outside North America - have been kept under wraps.

When I interviewed a spokeswoman for the event she will speak at, the 16th CLSA Investors' Forum, she said she didn't know when Palin would land in Hong Kong or when she would leave, and the former Republican vice presidential candidate's keynote address would be closed to the media.

Contacts put me in touch with people attending the speech, and I asked if I could interview them afterward about what Palin said: They both declined, though one was open to it if it was off the record.

CLSA head of communications Simone Wheeler told me: "She (Palin) has chosen to come here to speak to our clients on the condition that it would be closed to media so she could therefore have a candid conversation with investors as opposed to using this as a PR trip to promote herself globally."

She had earlier said: “She is coming to present to our investors, not to seek publicity. I think she really understands the value of presenting to a room of 1,000 global fund managers who really can influence the markets. We are really glad that she sees the value of that and that she’s not using this as a publicity-seeking exercise.”

I wondered, “Why the secrecy?” What do you think?

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.

A girl peers through a telescope Wednesday in Hong Kong to witness the solar eclipse.

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.

LONDON, England – The biggest gathering in central London during the Michael Jackson memorial service was not to pay tribute to the King of Pop - but another icon of popular culture.

The biggest gathering in London during the Michael Jackson memorial service was to celebrate another pop culture icon - Harry Potter.

Fans of all ages massed in celebration of “Harry Potter” at the premiere of the sixth movie in the series "The Half-Blood Prince."

Some of the most fervent camped out all night, then braved showers and hail to snare the perfect position next to their idols on the red carpet at Leicester Square, home to London movie premieres.

There was little evidence of Michael Jackson's memorial service, which was going on almost simultaneously in LA - and several Potter fans said it was not a hard choice to make.

“No contest, it’s Harry Potter,” Megan Southey, 38, from Bournemouth, southern England told CNN. “You know, his funeral will carry on. I can watch it on TV later.”

Although most people said they were fans of Jackson’s music, the overarching feeling among the crowd was that events in Jackson’s later life had overshadowed his talents.

“I liked him when he was younger, probably,” said Vicky McKinley, 52, from Chicago. “Then later on, I didn’t like some of the stuff he was doing. All the plastic surgery and that kind of stuff.”

Catherine, 18, from Bromley near London echoed her sentiments saying, “I think he was a bit before my time, and all we’ve known him for are controversial issues.”

“He wasn’t so much famous for his music, he was famous for other things like holding the baby out of the window and stuff,” added her friend Emily, 18.

“I’ve got mixed feelings. He was very strange in later life,” said Amelia Robinson, 15 from New Hampshire in the U.S.

Of course, for younger fans like 19-year-old Faith Bradley from Cambridge, Harry Potter inhabits a place in pop culture that Michael Jackson holds for people who grew up in the 1980s.

“We’ve grown up with Harry Potter,” Bradley added.

HONG KONG, China - No compulsory drug testing in schools. Free Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. End corruption in the property sector. Give Hong Kong universal suffrage in 2012. Include domestic workers in minimum wage legislation. Save a radio station from government ownership.

CNN's Miranda Leitsinger with Leonard So,who painted his body white to support freedom of expression.

The demands from the crowd at Victoria Park in Hong Kong on July 1 were many. I had been sent to the park for the second time in a month to cover an anniversary – this time the handover of the city by Britain to China in 1997.

I did not know what to expect –- would it be a parade, a march or a protest? - but did not have to look far to find out. People approached me on some issues, while I – intrigued by the many multi-colored banners, stickers, T-shirts and activists jockeying about with megaphones and collection boxes – approached others.

“First of July is the day for Hong Kong people to speak out what they want!” said Cindy Leung, 52, who came from three hours away to join the protest with her husband. “Different groups, different aims; actually we group together to demonstrate.”

Leung supports universal suffrage in Hong Kong for 2012 – a date pushed back by the government last year to 2017. She was upset with the fact that they could not elect their own leader.

“For many years, Hong Kong people, we were just concerned about our living standard, maybe money, but after 1989 (Tiananmen Square crackdown) we put our concern on to our country, and after 1997 (Hong Kong handed over to China) we put our concern on to our own place. Yeah, that’s good, we improve.”

“Among us, we got something to say, to speak out, to express.” See more photos of protests

And speak out they did. There were young people, parents toting children in their arms, students and the elderly (Since I arrived here in 2007 I have always been impressed by the number of senior citizens I see marching through the streets of Hong Kong in support of one cause or another – especially during the searing heat, which on this day reached 32 degrees Celsius).

As I looked around at the thousands of people, I realized once again – just like with the Tiananmen vigil – that this is the one place in China where these types of protests can happen freely. When I covered the vigil, I met a girl from southern China who told me there was one line in her textbook about the Tiananmen crackdown, and that her history teacher told students about it – but only outside the classroom walls.

She said in Hong Kong she could find books about Tiananmen and learn about the country’s dark chapter, and she wanted to join the vigil because it might be the only time she could.

Mak Yin Ting, chairwoman of the Hong Kong Journalists’ Association, whose organization was collecting signatures for the release of the dissident Liu, echoed those comments.

“If China cannot remain open, Hong Kong as part of the special administrative region of China, it may be affected, too. That’s why the self-censorship of Hong Kong became more serious after the handover,” she said. “You can see the interaction between the two places. So that’s why I say asking for the release of Liu Xiaobo is also a very important message and the meaning behind is that we are angry with the suppression of freedom of expression in China.

“Opposing the suppression of the freedom of expression in China also helps to maintain the freedom of expression in Hong Kong.”

Leonard So, a 21-year-old originally from Hong Kong who has spent 10 years living in New Zealand, painted his body white to support freedom of expression in Hong Kong.

"My main purpose is to support the Hong Kong people to hold on to freedom and democracy while they still have it," he said. "We got to hold on to it and speak what we want to speak while we have freedom."

I had wondered since I moved to Hong Kong from Puerto Rico (a U.S. territory with strong activism) whether or not people here were concerned about democratic freedoms or what issues they were passionate about.

What I found on this day was, yes, there does seem to be quite a few who have something to say on issues they feel strongly about – and I was fortunate to learn about them.

LONDON, England – The call came at 10:30 p.m. Thankfully (for our editor), a bunch of us were chatting in a bar nearby work. We rushed back to the newsroom, the whispered rumour snapping at our heels as we raced through the backstreets of Soho. “Is it true? Is it true?”

Yep, it was true. We hit the news desk as Michael Jackson was confirmed dead.

The team got on the phones and the social networks for immediate reactions. Did they know at Glastonbury? Did they know on Twitter?

I headed out to the central London streets. At Oxford Circus underground station, the workmen were nonplussed. “Didn’t like his music.” “He was a pedophile,” they told me.

On London’s Regent Street, fans were kinder. While Samuel told me it was a stunt - “I heard he got bankrupt and all that so I thought he’d done a Tupac [Shakur].”  His girlfriend, Amber, said, “I was so upset it was unbelievable. I had tears in my eyes.”

Outside the Lyric Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue, the home of “Thriller Live,” Jackson fan Asmara told me the American singer’s music had meant a lot to her family. “Our parents listened to it, our parents’ parents and us, so it’s a tragedy,” she said.

Heading toward Leicester Square, London’s late-night hub, we met Jenny, a Jackson fan from Houston, Texas, and her friend, Julie, from Michigan. Jenny was keen to defend Jackson against the allegations that had slurred his career. “I think he had a horrible life and people wanted to twist it around. I think Michael Jackson’s innocent.”

Julie told me, “Michael Jackson was a great person … he was the ‘80s. It’s sad that he’s gone. He’ll be missed.”

Then my cameraman’s ears pricked up: Someone was playing “Billie Jean” nearby. We headed to Lisle Street, where Luis Carlos Ameida and friends were playing Jackson tunes from their car, in tribute to the fallen star. Luis had tickets to see Jackson at his sold-out run at the O2 stadium in London. Sending his condolences to Jackson’s family, he told us how much he’d been looking forward to seeing the pop superstar in the flesh.

“That would be the first time I ever met Michael Jackson, you know. I was going to scream,” he said. “But he will always be in our hearts. Every music he played. It will be remembered by us.”

SEOUL, South Korea – “Never eat a hippopotamus,” said Boris Johnson the distinctive blond-haired Mayor of London at his opening gambit at a press conference in Seoul on Monday. In town for the C40 Cities Summit on Climate, he’d recently heard the Korean saying, believing it means never bite off more than you can chew, and thought it apt for London, faced with the Olympic Games in three years and cleaning up the city in the process.

Mayor of London Boris Johnson attends the C40 Cities Summit on Climate in Seoul, South Korea.

As a politician, Johnson is known for his charm, scruffy hair and occasional gaffs, qualities that divide many Londoners on his suitability for mayor, but make him one of the most recognized public faces in the UK.

He served up a few trademark “golly gosh” Boris-isms during press questions on London’s Olympic preparations and environmental plans: “Shall I shut up now?” he asked to the mostly local press as he realized his answers had to be translated; “Gosh, did I really say all that,” when it was; as well as asking what “bosquey glades” was in Korean.

Bashing on with his earlier metaphor to say that London is in the process of “eating the hippo” in its staging of the Olympics (“we’ve probably consumed about one leg of it”) he also stated his plans to make London the “cleanest, greenest city in the world.”

Bold aims, but as mayor of London his duties are municipal at home, but as much about good PR and promoting the city for investment and tourism when abroad.

As for his green policies, in the past he’s been criticized for not having a coherent environmental vision for London: his former Mayoral rival Susan Kramer called his policies “window box environmentalism” and Johnson has previously been something of an environmental skeptic.

But the practicalities of office have changed that and it was in building retrofitting that he said his big green hopes lie for the capital and the plan to reduce London’s CO2 emissions by 60 percent by 2025. So much so that he mentioned retrofitting six times during the short press conference.

Yet it was still hard for the eloquent politician and former journalist to add his usual enthusiasm to his big ticket green policy. “God, it is boring talking about retrofitting, people’s eyes glaze over” he admitted later to CNN, but recovered with a ready line: “No more lagging in lagging, we must be leaders in lagging.”

Electric vehicles were another big area for the Mayor’s greening plans and the Olympics was a means to drive that, turning the city’s municipal vehicles electric and creating more low-carbon public transport. 

He touched on a number of other green ideas, that were maybe just that rather than fixed policies – training and creating building retrofitting jobs, manufacturing electric batteries, building a network of cycle lanes, planting 15,000 trees in the capital, unearthing covered rivers in London as they have in Seoul.

He admitted that poor air quality in the capital was caused by vehicle emissions, but dismissed the role of the London Congestion Charge in cleaning up the London air, calling it “infinitesimally trivial” in comparison with introducing low carbon vehicles. Last year Johnson scrapped plans to extend the area of London where congestion charging was in place.

How would he tell if his term in office had been a success in terms of making London greener?

“I would he happy if the bike hire scheme has been a success, if the cycle highways have gone well, we’ve been able to plant our 15,000 trees; I’ll be happy if we’ve defeated plans for a third runway at Heathrow, which I think we will and winning on the big ticket items which is retrofitting, changing the way we think about buildings.”

He was able to call on some statistics (so popular with the Korean press, who asked where London ranked in terms of air quality among other things) to back up his plans as well as others for entertainment: “London’s a wonderful city where it doesn’t rain 94 percent of the time.”

By turns looking serious, attentive and slightly distracted during translated answers, he looked aghast at one claim that public transport was too expensive. He replied that transport in London is good value before continuing to do his bit for the London tourist board saying how London is now ten percent cheaper for South Koreans thanks to recent devaluation.

The Games open in the summer of 2012, when Johnson’s first term as mayor would be over. Was he planning on attending as mayor? “If things are going well, I’d be crazy not to run again. At the moment I’m very happy the way some things are going. I’m doing a job that is very demanding and gluts the appetite for power” he said downplaying the continuing speculation that he has designs on the conservative party leadership and one day Prime Minister.

As for the C40 Cities conference that was set up by Johnson’s predecessor in 2005, Johnson was looking for “more than warm words and hot air” as “the problems of the planet are urban problems.”

Press duties over on his whirlwind tour of the city, there was time for a quick chat with one of his policy advisors on his speech at a business lunch. Apparently he’d slightly fluffed the Hippopotamus saying, so that was going to be off the menu.