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Nigeria’s uphill battle to spread the country’s wealth
By Samuel Burke & Claire Calzonetti
Africa's most populous nation, Nigeria, is full of promise. But fulfilling that promise is often a struggle.
Plagued by corruption and mismanagement, the resource-rich country has a poverty rate of over 50%.
Maternal mortality is shockingly high and more than half of Nigerians don't have access to electricity, according to the World Bank.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is the country’s finance minister and the former World Bank official has been lauded as the reformer Nigeria needs.
But she too isn't immune from Nigeria's problems – her own mother was kidnapped for a terrifying five days before being released.
President Goodluck Jonathan promised to address corruption in the country. Nevertheless, a former governor – an ally of Jonathan – has been convicted of embezzling million in public funds and has since been pardoned.
“Nigeria does have a problem with corruption and so do many other countries,” Okonjo-Iweala told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an interview that aired Tuesday. “I don’t like the fact that when people mention the name Nigeria the next thing they mention is corruption.” FULL POST
Piecing together the clues from Boston
By Mick Krever, CNN
Who did it, and what was their motive?
Those are the two questions being asked by Americans, even President Obama, on Tuesday, the day after a deadly bombing at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.
Don Borelli, a former senior FBI official, said it was too early to draw any conclusions, but suggested that the nature of the attack has him leaning towards domestic – instead of international – terrorism.
“These devices were not the typical type things that [are made by people] that have been trained in Pakistan or Afghanistan,” Borelli, who is now Chief Operating Office of The Soufan Group, said.
“These were more crude, pipe-bomb-type explosives, possibly with black powder, with shrapnel. Plans to make these are readily available on the internet.”
FULL POST
The U.S. and China’s 'complex' military relationship
The former head of U.S. Pacific Command, Admiral William Fallon, describes the "complex" U.S.-Chinese military relationship to CNN's Christiane Amanpour.
Capriles calls Maduro 'illegitimate president'
Venezuela's opposition candidate Henrique Capriles calls Nicolas Maduro an 'illegitimate president.'
The culinary travels of Anthony Bourdain
Christiane Amanpour talks with her newest colleague, Anthony Bourdain, who host the new culinary show 'Parts Unknown' on CNN International.
Daughter of Sandy Hook victim still calls her mom's phone
By Samuel Burke, CNN
Erica Lafferty lost her mother, Dawn Hochsprung, in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.
Her mom was the principal who, instead of running from the gunfire, rushed toward it, to try and protect her students. She paid with her life.
Erica told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Thursday that she still finds herself calling her mother’s cell phone – forgetting she’s not there to answer – only to get the voicemail message.
In the wake of the shootings, her daughter began to email and call U.S. senators, hoping to encourage a change in America’s gun laws. None of the senators replied and as a last-ditch effort she took to Twitter. She sent the politicians tweets asking them to, at the very least, bring the legislation to a vote. Slowly senators started to respond – some by Twitter, other with phone calls and meetings.
On Thursday, Erica flew to Washington D.C. and watched as gun control legislation made it to the floor for debate for the first time in more than a decade.
“It’s the first step. It’s a victory – a small one – but a victory,” she said.
Erica said she won’t stop trying to rally for changes to American gun laws.
“I know we are not going to stop, so people are going to get really sick of us” she said, “because it’s absolutely something that needs to be addressed.”
How America unleashed its secret killers
By Samuel Burke & Ken Olshansky, CNN
The story of how America's Central Intelligence Agency got back into the killing business after September 11th has, for the most part, been kept under wraps.
The secret weapons, targets and killings have had little-to-no oversight by the U.S. Congress, the courts or the press.
Now, New York Times correspondent Mark Mazzetti has uncovered key moments of America's shadow war. In his new book, "The Way of the Knife," the Pulitzer Prize-winning author reports on how the CIA morphed from an intelligence agency to a paramilitary force, and the complicated route to get it back again.
In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday, Mazzetti said the name of the book came from analogy originally used by John Brennan – now the CIA director – formerly President Obama's top counterterrorism adviser.
Brennan gave a speech in which he compared some CIA practices to using a “scalpel,” implying a clean surgery without complications. However, Mazzetti’s book examines the very complicated risks and ramifications of this kind of warfare.
President Bush authorized drone strikes, but his use of them was minimal – at least compared to Obama’s. There were 37 targeted airstrikes in 2008, compared to 121 in 2010, according the Long War Journal.
It all began in 2004, when the CIA was trying hard to get armed drones into Pakistan. The U.S. managed to kill a militant named Nek Muhammad, using a drone in June of that year, according to Mazzetti. Despite being affiliated with al Qaeda, Mazetti reports that Muhammad was actually more of Pakistan's problem than the United States’.
“There was a deal that was cut between America and the Pakistani spies to kill Nek Muhammad,” Mazzetti told Amanpour, paving the way for these types of killings to commence.
It took a few years for the program to ramp up, but it was not until the end of the Bush administration in 2008 that the strikes really escalated.
Then President Obama took office, embraced the strikes and expanded the program even further.
“As we found in Pakistan and also in Yemen, the groups that get hit are not just al Qaeda senior leaders,” Mazzetti said. “And to be honest, in Pakistan, there are very few of the original al Qaeda leadership as it existed on 9/11.”
According to Mazzetti, the CIA is also targeting members of the Haqqani network and the Pakistani Taliban – so while Pakistan says it is against the drone program, the government is willing to bless some strikes because the U.S. is hitting enemies of Pakistan.
Now, Brennan has hinted he might move the program to the Pentagon, allowing the CIA to revert back to being an intel-gathering spy machine – though that transfer might be easier said than done.
Peeking behind the North Korean curtain
By Samuel Burke, CNN
Journalist Mike Chinoy is one of the few Americans who knows North Korea and its leadership well.
He met the late Kim Il Sung and he has visited North Korea on fifteen occasions.
Chinoy has been closely watching the unfolding situation in the peninsula and in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday he said that the current situation boils down to the fact that North Korea has made a determination that they want to be treated as a nuclear power.
“They are taking steps to show that they won't be intimidated by U.N. sanctions’ resolutions, by American displays of force like B-52s or B-2 stealth bombers conducting mock bombing missions over Korea, and that they are prepared to stand their ground,” he said.
Chinoy traveled with President Carter when war nearly broke out between North Korea and the United States in 1994, but was averted through negotiations.
Some argue that is the approach that should be taken now, while others say that would be rewarding North Korea even though they’ve broken deals made in the past.
However, Chinoy contends that it is actually not so black and white. FULL POST
1998: North Korean basketball dreams
A 1998 report looks at how relations between the U.S. and North Korea affected the dreams of the world's tallest man at the time.
Can this woman restore the South African dream?
Graca Machel, the wife of former South African President Nelson Mandela has called her country "an angry nation."
She was responding to a spate of infamous rape and murder cases and police beatings that shine a very harsh light on the country's culture of violence, signs that her husband's party, the ruling African National Congress, may have lost its way.
Now, another woman, Dr. Mamphela Ramphele – the activist, medical doctor and businesswoman – believes she can renew the Rainbow Nation.
Ramphele has a fascinating story that's closely tied to South Africa's story. It starts back in the 1970s, when Mandela was still a prisoner on Robben Island. Ramphele joined the fight against apartheid. Along with Steve Biko, whom she called the love of her life, she helped to lead the black consciousness movement.
In 1977, Ramphele was forced into internal exile by the apartheid government. While she was there, her partner, Biko, was beaten to death in prison by police, leaving her to raise a child on her own.
She has stayed out of politics since then. She moved on to a varied and prominent career as a medical doctor, a World Bank official and a corporate leader, becoming one of Africa's richest women.
But now as she considers the violence, the inequality, the illiteracy, and the corruption of today's South Africa, Dr. Ramphele is determined that her country and its youth deserve a new beginning and she plans to try to lead the way.
In the video above you can see Christinae Amanpour’s full interview with Ramphele about her new political party and whether it has any hope of taking on the deeply entrenched African National Congress.
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