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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.”
An American eyewitness in Benghazi
Ethan Chorin was in Benghazi, Libya on the day that American Ambassador Christopher Stevens was killed.
In fact, he was due to meet with him the next day.
In the video above, Chorin breaks down American policy mistakes in Libya after the fall of Gadhafi.
New direction for traditional faith
Father Thomas Rosica speaks with CNN's Christiane Amanpour about the new directions Pope Francis is taking the Catholic Church.
Former Gitmo chief prosecutor to Obama: 'Man up'
By Mick Krever, CNN
Hearing Colonel Morris Davis speak, it’s easy to forget that he used to be the chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay.
“We used to be the land of the free and the home of the brave; we’ve been the constrained and the cowardly,” he told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday.
President Obama promised to close the Guantanamo detention facility when he took office in 2009; four years later, it’s still open.
A majority of the detainees, over 100, have been on hunger strike for more than three months to protest their detention; the military has resorted to force feeding them.
Eighty six of the detainees, Davis said, have never been charged with a crime. Many of those who were convicted of crimes were sent back to their home countries, and many are now free.
“It’s a bizarre, perverted system of justice,” he said, “where being convicted of a war crime is your ticket home, and if you’re never charged, much less convicted, you spend the rest of your life sitting at Guantanamo.”
A scant six years ago, as chief prosecutor at Guantanamo under President Bush, Colonel Davis sounded like a true believer.
For pope, 13th-century name with 21st-century domain
Pope Francis has a 13th-century name, but thanks to a Chicago man, he has a 21st-century domain.
Christiane Amanpour explains in the video above.
Fleeing Bahrain: A blogger's desperate escape
By Mick Krever, CNN
Thor Halvorssen started with an idea: “We need to get him out.”
The target: Bahraini activist Ali Abdulemam, who for years had been in and out of government detention for his reform-agitating website.
Halvorssen, founder of the Oslo Freedom Forum, realized that the only way to get Abdulemam out alive would be to smuggle him.
“It wasn’t so much as having one plan, as it was having a plan that would have many, many options built in,” Halvorssen told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Monday.
He and his team consulted a member of the Danish Special Forces, he said.
Their original plan bears a striking resemblance to the Oscar-lauded political thriller Argo: Send an entourage of celebrity entertainers to Bahrain, get Abdulemam into the mix, and sneak him out on a private jet.
Pakistan: Now comes the hard part
In a historic election – the country's first handover of power from one elected government to the next – Pakistanis have chosen to return Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to power.
In the video above, Christiane Amanpour speaks with Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s former ambassador to the U.S., about what the election means and the challenges facing the new government.
Bahrain government statement on escaped activist
The following is a statement from the Bahraini government on escaped Bahraini activist Ali Abdulemam, as obtained by CNN.
Ali Abdulemam was not tried in court for exercising his right to express his opinions. Rather, he was tried for inciting and encouraging continuous violent attacks against police officers. Abdulemam is the founder of Bahrain Online, a website that has repeatedly been used to incite hatred, including through the spreading of false and inflammatory rumors.
Educating the world for free
One man is trying to educate the entire world for free.
It all started in 2004, when financial analyst Salman Khan posted some math tutorials for his cousin on YouTube.
About ten years later, his teachings have become known as Khan Academy, a website with more than 4,000 lessons on subjects ranging from basic math to economics – even art history.
Six million people visit the site each month and now Khan wants to reinvent the way children learn in classrooms around the world.
In the video above, CNN's Christiane Amanpour takes one of Khan's tutorials.
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