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Egypt's unraveling revolution
Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Gehad Haddad discusses Egypt's continued turmoil with CNN's Ali Velshi.
Millionaire teen app maker explains who helped him before sale
Money isn’t everything – but if you’re 17 and made $30 million overnight, it certainly doesn’t feel too bad.
Nick D'Aloisio is the 17-year-old wunderkind everyone is talking about since Yahoo announced the purchase of his two-year-old app, Summly.
In an interview with CNN’s Ali Velshi on Wednesday, D'Aloisio explained that though he was the “sole founder” of the company, he did get help from some big names before Yahoo’s purchase.
“I was fortunate enough for the Hong Kong billionaire Lee Ka Shing to just cold approach me,” D'aloisio said – he was fifteen at the time.
Lee’s team was trying to work out a date to meet with D'Aloisio, but when they realized he was still in school, they decided to fly out and meet the schoolboy in person.
D'Aloisio said though he developed the original algorithm, he wasn’t the only person behind the app’s engineering.
“We have a team of in-house scientists that have also been coding,” he said. “We worked with Sanford S.R.I. – they are the guys who did Siri, for example. So they actually generated brand new I.P. – it wasn’t licenses. They didn’t have any staff, previously existing. We built I.P. together, under an exclusive license. And then when we sold to Yahoo – all that I.P. was transferred over to them. So Summly and Yahoo owns 100% of the I.P.”
Russia on Berezovsky’s death
Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the Russian Duma's foreign affairs committee, speaks to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour about the death of Russian business oligarch Boris Berezovsky. Pushkov also discusses the allegation of chemical weapon use in Syria.
Guantanamo prisoners ready to ‘embrace death’
By Samuel Burke & Ken Olshansky, CNN
More and more detainees at Guantanamo Bay prison are joining a hunger strike to protest their conditions.
The U.S. government says 31 prisoners have now stopped eating. At least 11 of them have lost so much weight that they are now being force-fed.
Some of these detainees have been in detention for more than 11 years with no trial and no end in sight, even though many have long-since been cleared for transfer to their home countries, or to a third country.
The hunger strikes started in February, when prisoners claim that guards searched through their personal effects, including their Qurans — a practice they protested.
A military spokesman denies any mishandling of the prisoners' holy books.
In testimony earlier this month, the Marine Corps commander overseeing Guantanamo pointed to a more fundamental reason for the hunger strike.
“They had great optimism that Guantanamo would be closed,” Gen. John F. Kelly said. “They were devastated when the president backed off - at least their perception - of closing the facility.”
Carlos Warner is a public defender representing 11 Guantanamo detainees, two of whom are among are hunger strikers. One of them, a Kuwaiti named Fayez al-Kandari, has lost more than 30 pounds in recent weeks.
Warner just returned from Guantanamo, where he described the conditions as “dire” in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday.
A change in military commander at Guantanamo Bay sparked the current situation, Warner told Amanpour.
“Col. Bogdan lit the fuel on fire by his oppressive search of the men and taking away the things that they had grown accustomed to for years, like isomats,” which Warner described as a type of insulated bed mat the prisoners had been sleeping on. In the midst of that situation, Warner said the search of Qurans took place and became a rallying point for the detainees there.
“This is about frustration; this is about the Obama administration ignoring Guantanamo in every way, shape and form.”
Warner describes himself as a liberal who supported President Obama, but is disappointed that Obama has completely ignored Guantanamo and blamed Republicans in Congress – an argument Warner rejects.
“There's not one person in this administration that I can call and say I need to talk somebody in the White House about the hunger strike.”
Warner said there had been one person in the State Department, Daniel Fried, whose job was to oversee the closing down of Guantanamo; but now, his office has actually been closed down.
This leaves Warner’s clients in “indefinite detention” for life, he said. “It leaves them with the prospect of the only way we leave Guantanamo is death. And unfortunately, I think the men are ready to embrace this. And I don't see the military backing off.”
Warner told Amanpour the military rejected a possible solution his clients offered up: “The men wanted to voluntarily surrender the Qurans. They would rather not have their Qurans than have them searched in the manner that they'd been searched. This would get them eating tomorrow.”
This was previously allowed in Guantanamo from 2006 to 2007, according to Warner. He said the new command either is unaware of that; or is unwilling to go that step.
“That would not solve the problem. But it would get the men eating again,” Warner said.
Meet the rapper who says gay love is “Same Love”
By Samuel Burke, CNN
When it comes to accepting the American gay-rights movement, courts and politicians have lagged behind pop culture.
But hip-hop has remained one corner of the entertainment world where homophobia has strongly persisted. Now, even that appears to be changing.
A turning point came last year when singer Frank Ocean professed his sexual attraction to men and stunned the music world.
The American rapper Macklemore, whose real name is Ben Haggerty and is the voice behind the hugely popular song "Thrift Shop," has created his own sensation, with the his gay-rights anthem "Same Love."
The accompany music video went viral online, in which he raps, “If I was gay, I would think hip-hop hates me; Have you read the YouTube comments lately?”
Australia's lesson in gun control
By Mick Krever, CNN
In many countries, a mass-murder involving guns leads to a single thing: Stringent new laws limiting access to weapons.
A string of mass killings in the United States, including the murder of 20 children in Connecticut last December, sparked a new push for gun limitations from President Obama.
Australia had its own experience with a mass killing, in Tasmania, in 1996. A lone gunman killed 35 people in what came to be known as the Port Arthur Massacre.
The prime minister at the time, John Howard, explained how he dealt with the aftermath to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday.
“It was because that massacre was so terrible,” he said, “I was able to use the authority I had as a newly elected prime minister with a big majority to force the states that had the legal control over automatic and semi-automatic weapons to introduce a national ban.”
Howard was a conservative prime minister; nonetheless, he faced a large opposition, particularly in rural states. But he was able to force through the legislation by threatening to take the issue to the nation through a referendum, which he believes would have passed.
He was cautious to compare his country’s experience to America’s.
“I don't come here with any lectures,” he said. “We don't have constitutional guarantees in relation to these things,” and Australia started with a much lower gun death rate.
“However,” Howard added, “that doesn't alter the fact that our murder rate using guns has fallen and there's not much doubt in my mind that it's the availability of guns that causes such a high rate of murder using weapons.”
Father of Columbine victim: 'Have we not learned any lessons?'
Tom Mauser lost his son in the 1999 Columbine school massacre in Colorado. Now, every time he looks up at the news and sees another school shooting he says he thinks the same thing to himself: “Have we not learned any lessons? Why are we not doing something to reduce this terrible gun violence?”
Mauser’s home state of Colorado has just passed new gun reforms and he says he’s “proud” of that legislation, but says he will keep on campaigning for changes to gun laws at the national level in the United States.
In the video above you can see Christiane Amanpour’s full interview with Mauser on how the killing of his son propels him to keep on pushing for reform.
Senator: ‘I shudder to think what I’ll tell the Newtown families’
The families who lost their children in the Newtown school shooting have been travelling back and forth between Connecticut and Washington D.C. in hopes that there will be a change in guns laws in the United States, according to Connecticut Senator Christopher Murphy.
“Many of them are able to get up in the morning because they believe that this world is going to change as consequence of this tragedy,” Murphy told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday. “I shudder to think what I’m going to tell some of these families if we can’t even get background checks passed.”
Murphy told Amanpour that even if guns laws aren’t changed now in the wake of the Newtown tragedy, he will continue pushing for reform – citing the many attempts it took to pass previous gun reforms in the past.
“It won’t meant the fight is over, but many of these families believe that the only way they can live – on certain days and in certain hours – is to know that the laws are going to change and that other communities won’t have to go through this.”
You can see Amanpour’s full interview with Senator Murphy in the video above.
Facing death to report the story in Mexico
Torture, sexual assault, kidnapping and death threats have not silenced Mexican investigative journalist Lydia Cacho.
She has courageously reported on corruption, drug violence and sex trafficking in her home country for several decades, sometimes even exposing the corrupt practices of government officials and high-powered business people.
Fearing for her life, she was forced to flee Mexico last summer, but has now returned there to continue her work.
In the video above, Cacho tells CNN’s Hala Gorani why she continues her fight to report the truth, despite the horrendous challenges she faces.
A thorn in the Castro brothers' side: Blogger Yoani Sanchez
Yoani Sanchez has become one of the world's most popular dissident bloggers, taking on the Cuban leadership armed with a laptop and a cell phone.
Sanchez is a constant thorn in the Castro brothers' side – blogging her criticisms of the Cuban government to the entire world. Though on the communist island, very few people actually have access to her work. FULL POST
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