Follow Christiane on social media:
What time is Amanpour on CNN?
Check showtimes to see when Amanpour is on CNN where you are. Or watch online.
CNN on the ground in deteriorating Central African Republic
The Central African Republic, a country in rolling crises almost since its independence in 1960, is spinning ever closer to catastrophe.
Muslim and Christian vigilantes are locked in bloody battle. As civilians fear for their lives, a small contingent of French and African troops are trying to stabilize the situation.
Documenting this situation is exceedingly dangerous for journalists, but CNN’s Nima Elbagir was able to talk to Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday from Bossangoa, where tens of thousands of people are seeking refuge.
“Even just having spent a few hours here, you do get this sense of such a tense, tense standoff,” she said. “I’m from Sudan, and I covered Darfur for years, and this just felt so chillingly reminiscent.”
Click above to see her full report.
U.N. warns against another ‘never again’ situation in Africa
By Mick Krever, CNN
The U.N. Deputy Secretary-General warned on Wednesday against having once again to say “never again” over the on-going bloodletting in the Central African Republic.
“The Secretary General and I are rather, I would say, disappointed, that we so often use the term ‘never again,’” Jan Eliasson told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “The very fact that we repeat ‘never again’ I think is a sign that it’s about time that we act on serious human rights violations early on.”
“Serious human rights violations are the first signs of something that could turn into mass atrocities,” he said. “And now this time we are acting late, I must admit, but hopefully not too late.”
Le Monde editor explains opposition to proposed French prostitution law
By Mick Krever, CNN
A law in France that would criminalize paying for sex is an incursion into citizens’ private lives and decisions, Natalie Nougayrede, editor of Le Monde, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday.
“If you criminalize the client, basically you’re saying that any paid sex is wrong,” she said from France. “And that actually cancels any notion that a person – a woman or a man – may want to actually on his own or her own free will carry out this act of prostitution.”
Right now prostitution is legal in France. But on Wednesday, lawmakers in France’s lower house passed a bill that would make paying for sex – though not taking money for sex – a criminal offense punishable by a 1,500 euro fine, or 3,750 euros for repeat offenders.
On vacation, poverty is the new luxury
By Lucky Gold, CNN
“Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom” – the long-awaited biopic of the life of Nelson Mandela – opened last week to glowing reviews in New York and Los Angeles.
It is opening this week in London, and has already has broken the box office record in Mandela's homeland of South Africa.
It was sixteen years in the making; so much in the rainbow nation has changed that filmmakers had to find new locations for iconic sites like the infamous shanty-town of Soweto, where middle-class housing and shopping malls have replaced many of the dusty streets where Mandela once walked.
Now imagine a world where you can experience the old Soweto – complete with central heating, optional breakfast and Wi-Fi.
Emoya Luxury Hotel and Spa – a five-star game resort some 250 miles from the real Soweto – is offering a safe and sanitized shanty town experience for its wealthy tourist trade.
Picasso’s grandson raffles off painting, at 100 euros a ticket, to save ancient city
By Mick Krever and Claire Calzonetti, CNN
Pablo Picasso’s grandson is raffling off a million-dollar painting for the cost of a 100 euro raffle ticket – and it’s all to save an ancient Phoenician city in Lebanon.
50,000 raffle tickets are up grabs for a chance to win “The Man with the Opera Hat,” a cubist work nearly 100 years old. All proceeds will go to finance two arts and cultural projects in the UNESCO World Heritage city.
CNN’s Christiane Amanpour spoke with Olivier Picasso – the painter’s grandson and the public face of the initiative – sitting in front of the small canvas.
“It's something that normally you find in a museum,” Picasso said. Sitting next to it, in person, not seeing it in a book, is a whole different ballgame, he said.
“When you are in contact with something that my grandfather, that Picasso, touched, it's really a different feeling.”
Chance of China/Japan conflict growing, warns former State Department official
By Mick Krever, CNN
Tensions between China and Japan, at their worst in half a century, are making conflict “much more likely now than it’s probably been in years,” the former top U.S. State Department official for East Asia told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.
If a conflict were to break out, Kurt Campbell said, it would likely be a “small skirmish, probably easily contained.”
But the larger context, of "what is really the two great countries of Asia, China and Japan" is hard to ignore.
"Tensions between the two countries are greater now than they've been probably in a half century."
The two countries have long been loggerheads over uninhabited islands in the East China Sea – the Chinese call them Diaoyu and the Japanese call them Senkaku.
The heat was turned up, however, when China declared an “Air Defense Identification Zone” over the chain of islands.
The U.S. military responded by sending two unarmed B-52 bombers through the heart of the contested airspace.
America must make clear to China, Campbell said, that the drawing of a military air zone “is deeply provocative.”
'Ukrainians don’t want to live in [a] police country,' says boxer Klitschko
By Mick Krever, CNN
Champion heavyweight boxer and Ukraine’s foremost opposition leader Vitali Klitschko told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday that “Ukraine is [the] most corrupt country in Europe.”
Large crowds gathered yet again in Ukraine on Tuesday calling for the resignation of their government.
Earlier in the day, the opposition lost a no-confidence vote in parliament in an attempt to topple the government.
“Ukrainians don’t want to live in [a] police country,” Klitschko said from a noisy Independence Square in Kiev. Somebody must take responsibility for police abuse, he told Amanpour.
Battling AIDS in South Africa, and future of the Rainbow Nation
As a continent, Africa is affected by AIDS more than any other region in the world.
In South Africa, more than six million people - or 10% of the entire population - are infected with HIV. The United States is a big financial backer of AIDS-treatment programs there, and South Africa has the largest anti-retroviral program in the world.
Nonetheless, more people are now living with HIV in South Africa than 10 years ago.
CNN's Christiane Amanpour spoke on Monday with U.S. Ambassador to South Africa Patrick Gaspard about HIV/AIDS and the future of the Rainbow Nation; click above to watch their interview.
From kindergarten to Kindertransport
By Lucky Gold, CNN
Monday is world Kindertransport Day: the 75th anniversary of one of the great humanitarian missions of modern times.
Imagine a world where 10,000 children were rescued from the holocaust by the kindness of strangers.
Ukraine could destabilize if president fails to compromise, opposition warns
By Mick Krever, CNN
Massive protests by Ukrainians against their government – upwards of 300,000 by some estimates – will succeed in forcing political compromise or snap elections, opposition leader and former foreign minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk insisted to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Monday.
The opposition’s key demand, Yatsenyuk said, is for the Ukrainian parliament to pass a vote of no confidence in the president, Viktor Yanukovych. He hopes that that would force compromise.
“Otherwise the situation could be not as stable as today,” Yatsenyuk said from Kiev. “And it much depends on this president: Whether is he ready to negotiate and whether is he ready to reach the compromise.”
@camanpour on Twitter
