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Is Iraq unraveling?
By Samuel Burke, CNN
Iraq is seeing some of the worst violence since the civil war of 2006.
Hundreds of people have been killed over the past few weeks –dozens died on Monday alone in a wave of tit-for-tat bombings targeting the Sunni and Shiite communities.
However, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari insists the country is not unraveling.
"We are worried indeed because of this increase in the number of terrorist attacks and also the rise of sectarian tension," Zebari told CNN's Christiane Amanpour in an exclusive interview on Tuesday. "But really, the country is not sliding into civil war or sectarian war."
However, in the unusually frank conversation, Zebari acknowledged the many failures of his government, led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and its inability to rise above sectarian differences. FULL POST
The world's tornado hot spots
CNN's Christiane Amanpour looks why the American Midwest and certain other parts of the world are susceptible to twisters.
No tornado shelters for Oklahoma school children
The mayor of the city of Moore tells CNN's Brian Todd that there were no shelters at the schools that a tornado pulverized in Oklahoma.
Myanmar: A revolution in progress
By Samuel Burke & Juliet Fuisz, CNN
It is known as the Myanmar miracle.
Or that is the hope for the country of almost 50 million people tucked between Asian powerhouses India and China. Just three years ago, Myanmar was being brutally led by one of the world's most repressive military regimes; today, it is a fledgling democracy.
For decades, Myanmar, which is also known as Burma, was best known for the heroic struggle of Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who spent more than 15 years under house arrest, separated from her husband and sons by her military jailers.
But she kept up the struggle to reform her beleaguered country and now her vision is becoming reality at a breathtaking pace.
She may be the icon of democracy in Myanmar, but her country now calls someone else the icon of reform: President Thein Sein. He is in the United States for meetings with President Obama Monday– the first time a Burmese leader has visited the White House since 1966.
"I myself am amazed at the speed of the improvement of our bilateral relations,” President Thein Sein told CNN's Christiane Amanpour in a TV exclusive on Sunday. “But there are no permanent friends or permanent foes in international relations." FULL POST
Democratizing art, one photo at a time
French artist JR wants to help democratize art.
In the video above, JR tells Christiane Amanpour how his latest project, Inside Out, allows participants around the world to create street art out of photographs of ordinary people.
A documentary on JR, "Inside Out: The People's Art Project," premieres May 20th on HBO.
Is Iran's next president the face of its nuclear program?
By Mick Krever, CNN
Iran holds presidential elections on June 14, and Saeed Jalili, Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, is hoping to get the top job; he appears to have the support of Ayatollah Khamenei.
In a country with an ayatollah, it’s nice to be a favorite.
The Ayatollah is hoping for a smoother election that in 2009, when the country erupted into protests among allegations that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won the election fraudulently.
Scores of reformists and activists have been arrested ahead of next month’s vote, but it the last-minute entry of two more major candidates that may have the biggest effect on the race.
Former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, who very publically supported the 2009 election protests, threw his hat in the presidential ring last week.
And Ahmadinejad’s hand-picked successor, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, is contesting the race. Ahmadinejad, who is term-limited and cannot run again, has fallen out of favor with the Ayatollah in his second term; so too has protégé, Mashaei.
In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Thursday, Jalili seemed unfazed by his new competition.
“Iran is a democratic, religious system of government,” he said through an interpreter. “The more participation we have, the stronger the system will be.”
Iran’s system of government requires that all presidential candidates be vetted by a Guardian Council before they can actually participate in a presidential election.
“I myself, or other candidates – all candidates for that matter – have to be vetted by the Guardian Council, and we have to abide by the letter of the law,” he said. “One of its duties is to determine the competency of would-be candidates.”
Ayatollah Khamenei’s public disagreements with Mashaei and Rafsanjani, Jalili said, will have no effect on the race.
“His Eminence does not prefer one candidate over another,” he said. “So we are going to, Inshallah, God willing, have a vibrant race.”
Before Jalili can concentrate on his desired new post, however, he must deal with the biggest issue facing Iran on the world stage: its nuclear program.
As chief nuclear negotiator, he is responsible for convincing the world that Iran’s nuclear program is purely for civilian purposes.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran has always stressed that for peaceful purposes, we believe enrichment is our right,” he said.
Iran, as a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, does indeed have the right to the civilian use of nuclear energy.
According to Jalili, his country’s participation with the agency that is tasked with preventing the spread of nuclear weapons is extensive.
“The cooperation we have had with the agency, dare I say, is unprecedented and unique,” he told Amanpour. “Thousands of man-hours of inspections have been carried out and all the activities of Iran are under the monitoring supervision of the agencies.”
Iran will soon vote to replace a president who has taken a hard line in nuclear negotiations; how it votes, and what Jalili will do should he be elected, will have far-reaching implications for its economy, its place on the world-stage, and its people.
Former Guantanamo prisoner befriends jailers
By Mick Krever & Juliet Fuisz, CNN
Moazzam Begg was taken from his home in the middle of the night.
He would not see freedom for more than three years. His captor was the United States Government. He was taken from his home in Pakistan to Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan; soon, he found himself thousands of miles away, at Guantanamo Bay Prison in the Caribbean Sea.
The Americans accused Begg, who is a dual Pakistani-British citizen, with aiding the Taliban and al Qaeda. He denied the charges, and was never formally charged or prosecuted.
He spent three years at Guantanamo – two in solitary confinement – before the British government successfully lobbied for his release.
President Obama's bad week
Will a week of scandal stymie U.S. President Barack Obama’s second-term agenda?
In the video above, Christiane Amanpour examines the issue with CNN Senior Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin.
Amanpour to girls: It's time to power the world
By Christiane Amanpour, CNN
Dear Girls of the World,
There are more than 7 billion people in the world. Half of them are women and girls.
Just imagine the whole world rising, as it will, when all women and girls are empowered.
It has to start with education. All the number crunchers have it right on this one: education = empowerment, from here in the United States to Uruguay and Ulan Bator.
The United Nations, the World Bank and any organization you can think of say that an educated girl is a girl who can get a job, become a breadwinner and raise herself, her family, her village, her community and eventually her whole country. All the stories and statistics show that a healthy society is one whose women are healthy and productive.
Look at what women and girls are achieving for Rwanda, 19 years after the genocide there. The country leads the way in Africa in every way: education, health, the economy, the environment and in elected politics, powered by the force of its women. It is an amazing story. In contrast, the Arab world, which is so rich in natural resources such as oil and gas, is way behind in all development indicators, because half their populations, their women, are denied basic rights. It's why the Arab Spring must liberate and fully empower women, for the good of those countries.
Did you know that if female employment were to match male employment in the United States, gross domestic product would rise by 5%. And in developing countries that figure soars by double digits - for instance, GDP would rise 34% in Egypt if women and men had equal employment opportunities.
And this is where education comes in. According to a 2004 report co-authored by Gene Sperling (now a senior economic aide to President Barack Obama), a woman can expect a 10% to 20% rise in earning power with every additional year of primary education beyond average. Another economist, Paul Schultz, found that number increased to 15% to 25% higher earning power with each additional year of secondary school.
So educate our girls if you want to reduce infant mortality, stabilize population growth and reduce cases of HIV/AIDS.
In rural areas, the United Nations says wages, agriculture income and productivity all improve when the female workers are educated.
It is time to end the discrimination against girls in education. According to the U.N., around 35 million girls are not enrolled in primary school and that has to end.
Almost 800 million people worldwide are illiterate; two-thirds of them are women and girls. Imagine a world where they could actually read and write and do basic math for accounting - that is how the world will change. Women are much more likely than men to use their earnings for the good of the family, rather than spending it on alcohol or other things for themselves.
Just ask the great microfinance pioneer Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh's Grameen Bank - women are the best bet. You lend them a little, and they pay back in spades. He has known this for 30 years.
It's high time the rest of the world caught on. Go girls! Power the world! We can do it.
From Russia, with wig
By Mick Krever, CNN
It’s a Cold-War story with a touch of Monty Python.
An American man, wearing a blond wig and sunglasses, was detained by the Russian security service on Tuesday and accused of being a spy.
Among his possessions was a piece of paper – an open letter allegedly intended for a member of Russian intelligence – pledging $100,000 for “experience, expertise and cooperation.”
How should they get in touch? “A new Gmail account.”
It all seems a bit unbelievable; but a consummate Russian insider, Alexei Pushkov, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday that the story is self evident.
“The American embassy did not protest, it did not deny anything, and we did not hear any denial from the State Department neither,” he told her. “An American spy who was working under the cover of a diplomat was caught red-handed.”
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