The Deputy President of the ANC on tackling inequality, corruption in his party, and his future in South African politics.
Check showtimes to see when the program airs on CNN where you are. Or watch online.
By Samuel Burke, CNN
For half a century, British filmmaker Michael Apted has been conducing one of the world's greatest sociological experiments on film.
He has chronicled and recorded the lives of ordinary people who come from sharply different ends of the British class spectrum.
He started filming the “Up” series when the characters were seven years old, and he has revisited them every seven years since.
Apted was a young researcher when he started working on the project, which he said was never meant to last this long.
“It was a one-off. It was just a quick snapshot of England in 1963-1964 to see whether the English class system was alive and well,” he said in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.
The series took on a life of its own, becoming a cultural phenomenon. “56 Up,” just released in the United States, is the eighth installment in the series.
Apted said that when he chose the young characters he was not particularly interested in their personalities – there was no time to be selective.
“If I was going to do it now, I'm sure I'd vet them and audition them,” Apted said. However, he believes that all of the people in the series turned out to be compelling characters, proving that everyone has a story to tell.
As the children have grown up it has been increasingly difficult to get them to return every seven years. Some of the participants characters became more reluctant as they became more recognizable to the public. Others were dissatisfied with the fact that seven years of their life was compressed into less than 20 minutes on film.
At one point a participant, Suzy, was adamant that she would not return to the series. But upon forming an email relationship with one of the other subjects in the film, Nick, she proposed that the two sit down for the next interviews together.
The filmmaker had to accept their proposal.
“I suppose I have this ridiculous sense of loyalty to it, even though I hate it,” Suzy told Apted in the latest series.
“I think [Suzy is] wonderful. And it's been a real pressure on me to try and keep her in the film, because she never liked doing it. And she's very difficult to interview,” Apted said. “But she's incredibly valuable in the film, because she's a middle class girl; the rest of the women tend to be working class girls. So she's very valuable to me.
Apted does not mind that the participants have exerted themselves more in the how they are filmed as the series has matured.
“They own it more,” he said. “And to me, that's great. So they tell me what they want to do rather than me telling them and since it's about them – that's good.”
The highs and lows of the characters lives have been chronicled in often gut-wrenching moments on the screen. At seven years old, a young smiling boy named Neil looked at the camera and said that he never wanted to have kids because they make a mess in the house. But decades later a clearly nervous Neil said he still does not want to have children, but this time he for very different reasons.
“Children inherit something from their parents and even if my wife were the most high-spirited and ordinary and normal of people, the child would still stand a very fair chance of being not totally full of happiness, because of what he or she will have inherited from me,” Neil said looking down.
Apted says that Neil was the “roller coaster” in the series. By 28, Neil was homeless. Apted wondered if he would ever see him again.
“There is a medical issue with him,” Apted said, “But he's always refused to confront that.”
Neil’s life made a positive turn, and the series chronicles his current life as a church deacon and a local politician in his neighborhood in northwest England.
As many aspects of the characters’ lives changed throughout the series, Apted remained one of the constants.
“I think they would call me a therapist,” Apted said. “But as we got older, we became collegial. And by now we’re equals as it were. So our relationship has changed: the dynamic in the interviews has changed. It's got much more intimate, much more emotional. Like life, the whole series is a very fast-moving thing.”
CNN’s Meredith Milstein produced this piece for television, CNN’s Ana Bickford served as Editorial Producer.
By Lucky Gold & Richa Naik, CNN
Never has the Pentagon been led by a common foot soldier, President Barack Obama said when he nominated the new Secretary of Defense Monday.
“Chuck Hagel’s leadership of our military would be historic. He’d be the first person of enlisted rank to serve as Secretary of Defense.”
The story of Chuck Hagel has become the stuff of legends.
Chuck and his younger brother, Tom, fought together in the jungles of Vietnam. The two are believed to be the only brothers to fight side by side there in the same unit.
While on patrol, they were hit by an exploding booby trap. Chuck was badly wounded and Tom was also hit. But Tom stopped his brother from bleeding to death and helped him to safety.
A month later, their armored vehicle struck a mine. Though he was badly burned, Chuck pulled Tom from the wreckage and saved his life.
However, Vietnam also drove the brothers apart. Tom began protesting against the war and Chuck defended it.
Eventually, the two reconciled and even returned to Vietnam together in 1999 to visit the very places where they had been wounded.
Chuck Hagel still carries the shrapnel and battle scars, but he may need all his battle skills in the confirmation fight to come.
He also carries the knowledge of the price of war. That’s one major reason why President Obama chose this ex-foot soldier to lead America’s armed forces.
MORE: Israeli diplomat: ‘Attacks on Hagel are vile and vicious’
By Samuel Burke, CNN
Opponents of President Obama’s pick for defense secretary, Chuck Hagel, characterize him as an enemy of Israel and a friend to Iran.
“That’s total and utter nonsense,” former Israeli diplomat Alon Pinkas told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Monday.
Pinkas said Hagel’s statements and voting record suggest the exact opposite.
“I think that those going after his record are after President Obama rather than after Senator Hagel. And I think these attacks are vile, vicious, ugly and unfounded.”
Pinkas attributes the storm to a group of people who are unwilling to except Obama’s electoral win as president in 2012 and he believes that they are using the subject of Israel to garner media attention. FULL POST
By Mick Krever, CNN
Increasing concerns about the long-term aims of certain Syrian opposition forces may now be leading the international community to “turn off the tap for the rebels.”
That is according to NPR Foreign Correspondent Deborah Amos, who has just returned from five-weeks of reporting in and out of Northern Syria.
“I think what is happening is there is some sort of arrangement so that [the rebels] don’t exactly win the war, but they push the regime enough to make them talk,” she told CNN’s Fionnuala Sweeney.
The West is concerned about rebel groups like al-Nusra, which the U.S. branded a terrorist organization last month. But most analysts say that al-Nusra is among the best fighting forces trying to overthrow the regime.
By Samuel Burke, CNN
The men accused in the brutal multiple-rape and killing of a 23-year-old Indian woman have been formally charged in a New Delhi court, but a leading Indian lawyer and women’s rights activist is calling attention to how Indian authorities commonly handle rape cases.
“Investigation by the police is extremely shoddy.” Kirti Singh tells CNN’s Fionnuala Sweeney. “They may not collect proper evidence.”
Police often carry out obscene physical exams on rape victims.
Singh says there is fairly widespread practice of using a two-finger vaginal examination to determine whether a woman was previously engaged in sexual intercourse and courts even look at evidence submitted from this type of assessment.
By Lucky Gold & Richa Naik, CNN
When Rita Levi-Montalcini was born in Italy in 1909, girls were expected to marry and have children, but Levi-Montalcini wanted to be a doctor.
Despite her father’s opposition, she graduated from medical school, ready to devote her life to science and research.
However Levi-Montalcini, who was Jewish, was banned from pursuing that dream when Benito Mussolini and the fascists came to power. But that didn’t stop her.
She turned her bedroom into a laboratory, risking her life to conduct research in secret. Levi-Montalcini’s solitary work led her to see what other scientists had missed – a crucial factor that allows cells to grow and develop.
After the war, she came to America to continue her research, creating a new way of understanding conditions like cancer and Alzheimer’s.
In 1986 Levi-Montalcini shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. She continued to work even after her hundredth birthday, making her the oldest living Nobel Laureate.
“At one hundred, I have a mind that is superior, thanks to experience, than when I was twenty,” she said.
Rita Levi-Montalcini died this week at the age of 103. She never married or had children, but leaves behind a legacy of courage and discovery.
By Ananth Guruswamy, special for CNN
Ananth Guruswamy is director of Amnesty International in India. As the organization's chief campaigner, political advisor, strategist and spokesperson, he leads efforts to end human rights abuses in India and the region.
New Delhi (CNN) – The tragic case of the 23-year old woman who was brutally attacked, raped and left for dead by six men in New Delhi on December 16 has highlighted the unacceptable reality millions of women in India are facing. Violence against women is endemic - more than 220,000 cases of violent crimes against women were reported in 2011 according to official statistics from the Indian government, with the actual number likely to be much higher.
If there has been a silver lining to this horrendous case, it has been the enormous outcry from Indian society. What started as student-led protests in New Delhi has grown to encompass Indians from all walks of life and from the whole political spectrum. Tens of thousands have taken to the streets with the clear message that something has to change, and that women should no longer have to live in fear. <<READ FULL ARTICLE>>
Prominent U.S. House Democrat Barney Frank speaks to CNN's Fionnuala Sweeney about the dysfunction of U.S. government.
The fiscal cliff exposed that the U.S. Congress might actually be one of the biggest threats to the U.S. economy.
By Mick Krever, CNN
Like a browbeaten partier slowly facing up to reality on New Year’s Day, the U.S. Congress on Tuesday relented and passed a bill to step back from the fiscal, and possibly recessionary, cliff.
There is still a serious question facing American government as a new year begins: Is the U.S. congress capable of governing?
It was just one year ago that the U.S. stepped to the edge of another cliff, defaulting on its debt payments, and another such deadline is just around the corner. President Obama will begin his second term in under three weeks with a long list of goals, of which tackling the deficit is just one.
Joe Manchin, a conservative Senate Democrat, summed up the frustration succinctly just before the Fiscal Cliff deal was passed.
“Something has gone terribly wrong when the biggest threat to our American economy is the American Congress,” he said on the senate floor.
By Lucky Gold & Richa Naik, CNN
The U.S. Congress narrowly averted going over the fiscal cliff, all the while ignoring the dire needs of a natural disaster.
Just a little over two months ago Superstorm Sandy devastated Northeastern United States and President Barack Obama along with other politicians promised that the country would not forget.
“We are here for you, and we will not forget. We will follow up to make sure that you get all the help that you need until you’ve rebuilt,” he said after touring the devastation caused by the storm.
The U.S. Senate approved $60 billion in emergency relief, but the Republican-led House of Representatives adjourned this week without even bringing the bill to a vote.
Outrage has been swift and passionate.
“There are Republicans who are deeply grieved by this action and there are Democrats on this floor deeply grieved by this action. This is not the right thing to do,” U.S. House Democrat Steny Hoyer said.
“Dysfunction, Mr. Speaker, in this Congress shouldn’t result in punishing victims of Sandy in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. This is a sad day,” U.S. House Democrat Nita Lowey said.
With President Obama also demanding action, House leaders now say they will take up the bill once the new congress is sworn in.
Meantime winter temperatures keep falling in the areas where Sandy’s victims are waiting for the richest nation on earth to keep its promise.
When large-scale protests for reform and democracy began in Bahrain nearly two years ago, the government clamped down with the help of troops from Saudi Arabia and neighboring Gulf states. The clashes and the daily demonstrations continue, but largely outside the capital of Manama and the ruling al-Khalifa family has yet to introduce meaningful reforms, despite repeated promises.
Bahrain recently hosted an international security conference and renewed more such pledges. At the same time, however, the court kept one of the nation's most prominent human rights activist in jail, though it reduced one charge and slightly reduced his sentence from three years to two.
Many of the activists have had their citizenship revoked and even doctors and nurses who treated victims of government violence have been convicted of crimes against the state and given lengthy prison terms.
Bahrain is a Persian Gulf state, directly facing Iran. It is also home to the U.S. 5th Fleet, a key strategic asset in a critical neighborhood. Activists accused the United States of largely sitting on the sidelines. Christiane Amanpour recently spoke with Maryam al-Khawaja, a member of one of Bahrain's most prominent activist families, about the ongoing stalemate. She also spoke with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner who recently visited Bahrain. To see their conversation, click on the video above.
The Amanpour program has repeatedly invited Bahraini government officials onto the program, with little success so far. We did receive an email statement from the Bahraini ambassador to the United States, Houda Ezra Nonoo, which you can click here to read.
CNN’s Meredith Milstein produced this piece for television.
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