fred de sam lazaro: in downtown beijing on the 20th floor of a high-rise, one of china's senior environmental reporters is becoming a buddhist. oorbell ngs] liu jianqiang: hi. fred: hi. liu: fred? hi. fred: good to meet you. liu: nice to see you. fred: likewise. liu jianqiang is an investigative journalist. his first story about the environment was an exposÉ about illegal dam construction on the upper yangtze river. it made national headlines. his hard-hitting stories eventually got him fired, so he continued his work as the beijing editor of china dialogue, an online international journal. [liu speaking chinese] fred: but after 10 years of reporting, he was feeling burnedut. [liu speaking chinese] translator: i think that our environmental activists and those who work for public welfare need more powerful spiritual support. why? every day what we do may be good deeds which give us positive energy, but meanwhile what we are facing is the darkest side of the world. every day what we see is polluted air, polluted rivers, and the slaughter of wild animals. this kind of negative energy attacks us

for the pbs newshour, i'm fred de sam lazaro, in manila. >> ifill: now to a newshour essay.the week, we heard what it was like to live through the wave of terrorism in turkey from eliott ackerman, a decorated marine veteran in iraq and afghanistan, author of the new novel "green on blue." tonight, ackerman examines the legacy of a revolution, and the deep wounds-- but often strong bonds-- forged by war. >> five years ago this past december, the arab spring started when a man poured a can of gasoline over his head and lit himself on fire. he was protesting a corrupt government official seizure of his fruit cart. in the months that followed across egypt, libya, yemen, and most disastrously syria, revolution spread. today, there is no revolution left in the arab world. only war. yet, the revolutionaries remain. they are particularly prevalent among sir yeah's growing diaspora. when the arab spring began i was in afghanistan on my last deployment, ending combat service that started in iraq seven years before. instead of returning home, i returned to the middle east, writing abou