assaulting a hotel maid, but prosecutors dropped those charges because of questions about his accuser's credibility. strauss-kahn was widely expected to challenge french president nicolas sarkozy in the country's presidential elections. polls show most french voters don't want him to run. what may be the largest protest in israel's history took place in tel aviv and other cities last night. the demonstrations were over the high cost of living. the protests had been going on for the past six weeks. thank you so much for watching state of the union, i'm candy crowley in washington. next week i'll be at ground zero to bring you live coverage of the tenth anniversary of 9/119:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. eastern. eastern. up next, fareed zakaria, gps. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com this is gps.

i'm fareed zakaria. we have a terrific show today, filled with some of the most interesting thinkers in their fields. first up, a new way to think about the role of women in the world with a terrific important panel. then a first for gps, i will have a robot as a guest. you will want to meet my new friend data. next, a man who made me think differently about innovation. the world renowned architect, frank gehry who designs buildings like you've never seen before. how do you capture the essence of a world leader? i'll talk to the acclaimed and innovative photographer platon. finally, think you can't sell chopsticks to china? think again. first here is my take. these are the dog days of summer. in this hot sweltering weather most americans are busy working. i know i know not you folks in the hamp tons, but the others. meanwhile, most europeans are

busy vacations. thus it has ever been, only it's getting worse. nowadays the average european gets about three times as many days of paid vacation as his counterpart in america. italy has the most with the average worker there getting 42 paid days off according to the world tourism organization. next was france with 37 days, germany with 35, brazil at 34, the uk at 28, canada 26, korea and japan both with 25. the united states was near the bottom of the list with the average worker getting 13 paid days off. why do we do this to ourselves? the conventioned answer is this attitude towards work makes the american economy the envy of the world. america is a hectic turbo charged system that builds, destroys, rebuilds all at warp speed. it's what created the information revolution, silicone valley, biotechnology and so on. no time for lollying at the

beach. it's not clear at all that working for a few extra weeks in the summer is what makes a nation's economy hum. take a look at these numbers from ipsis a consulting firm on the percentage of citizens that actually use all their vacation days. the french lead the pack. 89% take all their days. 75% of the germans and their economy is strong, take their allotted days. 70% of indonesians use all their days, but only 57% of americans take advantage of their days. we have fewer paid vacation days than almost any other major country. even with those just 13 days off, only 57% of americans take them all. to remind you again, 89% of the french use all their days off. if you're worried that working less will mean america lags behind, don't worry. america's growth historically has been fueled mostly by investment, education, productivity, innovation and

immigration. the one thing that doesn't seem to have anything to do with america's growth rate is a brutal work schedule. after all, we were working hard during the very slow years of the 1970s. we're working hard now. in fact, some experts believe that working harder might actually depress productivity numbers because the additional showers worked rarely generate strong out put. we are not as productive at 8:00 p.m. as we are at 9:00 a.m. so take a break. go to the beach. read a book. watch tv. wait a minute. you're already watching tv. so well done. let's get started. i wants to spend a little time today talking about an absolutely crucial issue, the role of women in the world. one of the most important indicators, for example, of how the revolutions in the middle

east will go is how well they will treat women. throughout the arab world and in africa, women remain second class citizens beholding for life to a male relative. is this changing? how fast? what else is happening with women in the world? we brought together a terrific panel to talk about this issue. let's turn to "new york times" columnist nicholas kristoff who with his wife, the journalist sheryl wudunn together wrote "half the sky" ch one of the great stories of that book is of zainab salbi from women for women international. how much of the treatment of women is culture? how much is religion and how much of it is islam in particular? >> there's no question that organized religions in general tended to take a social hierarchy that typically had men very much in top and sank phied it, client of placed the stamp

of god on top of it. this is true of a number of religions. on the other hand, if you look around the world, the places where women are most likely to run into terrible problems are predominantly muslim countries. my own take is that has much less to do with the koran and islam as such as rather more to do with culture and that the insecurity, the violence, the social conflict has less to do with the koran and rather more to do with a cycle of not educating girls, marginalizing women which leads to very high birth rates which leads to a very high demographic cohort of young people age 15 to 24 which is the most destabilizing thing a country can have. the way out of that is to educate girls. the reason that bangladesh is so different from pakistan today, even though they started as one country in part is that

bangladesh has done a superb job educating girls and now has more girls in high school than boys. >> and both countries are 99% muslim. >> both are muslim countries, and they read the same koran, but pakistan is a real mess and bangladesh is not. >> what about china? to me when you hear about the treatment of women, if you go back 100 years in china, women's feet were bound which people have to understand that basically meant you were breaking the feet of every woman -- >> absolutely. 100 years ago china was probably the worst place on earth to be born female. my grandmother's feet were bound. what gives me an extreme amount of hope is that in one generation that was eradicated. this is a centuries-old practice. that's because they had people inside and outside china who were foreign missionaries who thought this was horrendous. they got together and formd a strategy. they were able to basically

launch a counterattack against this practice and in one generation eradicate it in china. what mao did, he said education for everybody including girls. so that meant girls could go to school with the boys and it was just mandatory education for everybody in the country. but what was even more important, and this is a critical fact, especially for places like saudi arabia and japan, the girls were not only educated but able to work in the formal labor force. the soes so it accepted them. they could get jobs, they could work in factories. that was the beginning of china's economic revolution. light industry which employed women making the cloegs we wear, the shoes we wear, the bags we carry. they were made by women and that jump-started china's economic revolution. >> i think china is a good anecdote to the way we tend to psych ourselves out about the muslim world. yes indeed, in a number of harder line muslim countries,

because of culture, women don't have opportunities but culture is not immutable. culture can change. china is the best evidence of that. another thing is i think we tend to psych ourselves out and say isn't it a little imperialist for us to be telling other countries how to treat women? isn't that a value we should leave to them to decide? i think again, sheryl feels so fortunate that there were outsiders who were willing to push against the practice of foot binding. i think there are some practices that you just have to say are not acceptable. >> in india, there used to be a hindu practice that the woman was tossed on the burning funeral pire of the man as a sacrifice. the british just outlawed it and said this is abhorrent and i don't care what people think and it caused riots and all that. talk about islam.

we come back to saying it's islam, and until you change the religion really,out can't change anything. >> no, i don't believe that. because christianity at one point had that. judaism had that. every religion had the pat arky and treatment of women. >> it is true the muslim world -- >> it's our dark ages. i think muslim world is living in the dark ages. if we look at it historically it makes historical sense. i do believe we can evolve and that we can do that in a few things. a, i think revival of her circle characters in islam such as ha deej gentleman. mohammed's life was 20 years older than him, a very successful business woman. she hired him as her employee, chose to marry him, and she was the first one who helped him believe in god's message. the revival of characters like ha deej gentleman, if he was alive today, to quote president clinton when he went to saudi arabia, she probably would be

the biggest business woman in history. we need tomorrow vooif her in a much more vibrant way. they do believe in the possibility of a cultural and religious evolution as all religions went through this historical period. we'll be back in a moment with more from the panel including why international aid groups now realize it is much smarter to give money to women than men. why when we come back. >> between 50 and 110 million females are missing around the globe, an astonishing figure. it means in any one decade more girls are discriminated against to deaths than all the people who died in all the genocides in the 20th century which is a staggering scope. i'm good about washing my face. but sometimes i wonder... what's left behind? [ female announcer ] new purifying facial cleanser from neutrogena naturals.

removes 99% of dirt and toxins without dyes, parabens, or harsh sulfates. so skin feels pure and healthy. [ female announcer ] new from neutrogena naturals. [ doorbell rings ] hello there. i'm here to pick up helen. ah. mom? he's here. nice wheels. oh, thanks. keeps me young. hello there, handsome. your dinner's in the microwave, dear. ♪ where do you want to go? just drive. [ engine revs, tires screech ] mom? ♪ [ male announcer ] they'll see you...before you see them. cops are cracking down on drinking and riding. drive sober, or get pulled over.

i was told to begin my aspirin regimen. i just didn't listen until i almost lost my life. my doctor's again ordered me to take aspirin. and i do. [ male announcer ] be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. [ mike ] listen to the doctor. take it seriously. [ mike ] listen to the doctor. male announcer: be kind to your eyes with transitions lenses.

transitions adapt to changing light so you see your whole day comfortably and conveniently while protecting your eyes from the sun. ask your eyecare professional which transitions lenses are right for you. female announcer: are you a vsp member? your satisfaction with transitions lenses is guaranteed. visit specialoffers.vsp.com/ transitions or ask your vsp doctor. it is a truism in the the world of international development that if you give an aid dollar to a man, he is likely to spend it at the bar or on guns. if you give that same aid dollar to a woman, she will buy

necessities, food or diapers or invest it in the family or a moneymaking venture. we're back with nick kristoff, sheryl wudunn and zainab salbi. nick, when you look at the statistic, why do you think that's true? >> that's the part that we really don't know. some people think it's nurturing instinct. other people tend to think it's the way we're socialized. what is true across traditions women are more likely to take income they have and also if they have titled-over assets. if they have financial assets, more likely to convert those to the benefit of their children and to invest in small businesses. >> have you seen this in action? are there there stories where you actually can see this

vividly? >> there many different ways that this surfaces. micro finance, a typical way that many people have gotten involved in this issue, if you give a loan to a woman she really tends to take it far. when you give a loan to a man, he can take it somewhere, but often the repayment rates are much lower. big micro financing institutions like rah mean and brack which basically started these things in bangladesh, they didn't want to be discriminatory, but they found women were just repaying at much higher rates than men. they were losing money by giving micro loans to men. they've switched to 97% of lending to women. >> zainab, what do you think about this? do you see this on the ground, that the women put the money to work productively? >> very much so. statistically women spend 97% of their income or their investment

on family compared to men who spend 40% on their families. i was in afghanistan a few months ago and i met a woman who was promised to be married of 6, married at 15, a widow and single mother at the age of 16. she talks about how her life led and what she's done with it. during the taliban she was very poor. the taliban beat her up for working in the streets with the very shoes, the only shoes she owned. they broke her shoes and she was very bitter and sad about that. when i met her, she is working, earning $450 a month which is very significant in afghanistan. she's sending her daughter to school and determined that her daughter will not get married until she finishes college. she's going back to her own school, finishing her own education. there's a correlation, if you want to change practices from child marriages to wimg education and women working and the economy, there's a correlation between that and investing in their mother's. that mother in her case knows

that i will not repeat to my daughter what i've gone through? she is changing that culture of practice in afghanistan or the behavior practice in afghanistan. there's no better investment in talking about afghans as an example than investment in women who gets it, my money goes to my daughter who will go to college, will get a better life. >> what is the most successful place in which you've operated? you deal with women in distress in so many places. what's your big success story? >> all of them are successful. we work from congo to rowan dough to sudan to afghan and iraq. >> started in bosnia. >> we started in bosnia. a couple of things is, one, we're noticing the first investment women make in terms of how they hire is actually their husbands or sons, the first decision they make. all of them -- in africa women tend to actually run with that $1 investment and do so much with it. that seems to be the most vibrant place in terms of change. i recently met a woman in congo,

as we speak right now, hundreds of thousands of women are getting raped in congo. it's the same story usually, she displaced, doesn't have anything, poverty. her husband doesn't know how to deal with the situation. she went through a woman international program. part of what we do is teach vocational and business skills to help them stand on their own feet and she learned soap making. he was cynical. she gave him samples to show it to his friends. he started believing in her soap. instead of her running a separate business of shoep making, she actually made him a partner, but a different kind of partner in which he goes and sells, gives her the money back, she's the one managing the money. i'm enter oefted in the changing of social patterns. she changed the relationship from her giving him all the money and she spends it, as you mentioned erldier on alcohol, cigarettes, prostitution or weapons. now she reverses it. he goes and works, brings her

the money. their ooer sending their kids to school, better housing and better life conditions for both of them. i would say africa in general actually where the investment goes triple the way than other countries. >> there's a lot of good news in this book, but there's also a lot of bad news in the sense that -- paint the picture of just how bad it is for women in many parts of the world. >> maybe the best gauge of the discrimination against women and girls is that how much of it is lethal. we don't tend to think of discrimination, gender discrimination as being legal. in much of the world it is. you can look at the population ratios. in india, for example, for the first year of life male and female mortality rates are very similar. they're depending on the breast. the breast doesn't have a preference. age one through five, there is a son preference, the girl doesn't

get the same access to food and health care. the upshot is differential levs of mortality that mean between 50 and 110 million females are missing around globe. this means in any one decades, more girls are discriminated against the world than all the people who died in all the genocides of the 20th century. it's a staggering scope. >> finally, what can people do? >> first of all, people have to care. they have to say this is unacceptable as zainab was saying. once each individual can actually say that and take a step, then the politicians will start beginning to notice this is something -- an issue that the voters care about. it really does start with individuals and a mass of individuals to join a movement to create change. it isn't just something that the government does from the top down. the governments have to play the role as well. you also need bottom up. you need grassroots bottom-up movement that starts to change

perception and attitudes around the world. >> thank you very much. we will be right back. i am just a --

now for our "what in the world" segment, a very special one. you've probably heard of watson the computer that went head-to-head with humans on jeopardy. you know robots are increasingly used in manufacturing around the country and the world. have you ever heard of a robot sketch comedian? well, meet data. also joining us is data's handler, heather knight, a doctoral researcher in robotics at carnegie-mellon who studies the intersection of entertainment and robotics. data, take it away. >> hello, everybody. can you hear me? all right. the volume is good. okay. thanks. excited to be here. let's get started. gosh, i love saying that. it makes me feel like some kind of superhero, but actually, i am just a mediocre robotic

comedian. great to neat you, fareed. get ready for some action. >> i am. >> show me a postcard. >> what data wants here is a postcard of one of three neighborhoods in new york about which he has some comedy sketches prepared. i think of the three neighborhoods, times square, west village and brooklyn. i'm going to choose times square and show him the card. >> good choice. on my way over here, i passed through times square. have you seen the naked cowboy? ♪ i'm the naked cowboy >> he plays the guitar in his underwear in a cowboy hat. ♪ i'm the naked xou boy. you got to do what you got to do ♪ >> just shaking his naked booty. tourists love that guy. i had two video cameras installed on my face. well, that's all i got.

did i do okay? be honest. >> no, not really. i was really trying. >> his ego needs some help. >> it's not so bad. >> am i doing a good job? >> yes. >> they love me. they really, really love me. now i can go home happy. >> heather, that was pretty amusing. mostly just fascinating. we should tell the audience that you wrote -- >> catch you later. >> you wrote the routine for data, but his reactions are sort of natural. he senses -- and if there were an audience there, he would actually -- the sensors work so he can sense the audience's reaction. explain how that works. >> robots can learn through lots of data. in some of my work i've been

using each member of the audience as kind of a data point for machine learning. a rebot can learn to be more charismatic and more effective communicator and shape a performance for an individual group of people. there can be visual feedback which is kind of conscious or make an iphone app forgiving feedback along the way. i love that joke, you could rate things more like netflix style. >> and the robot, in effect, would incorporate the information and tell more of the jokes that you like and fewer of the ones -- sort of like pandora with the thumbs up or thumbs down. >> absolutely. or try telling jokes with a different set of gestures and see it's ten times as funny for an audience. >> all this can be filed under artificial intelligence. earlier this year, watson, the i xwfrnlthsm super computer beat its human competitors in jeopardy. how sophisticated are we getting here? >> i think those two projects

are actually great tandem projects. watson is great at searching databases. one of the things i'm trying to do is generate the databases and specifically generate them around social expression so a machine can know how to communicate effectively with us so we don't have to adapt to using a screen or keyboard. they can learn how to work the way that we do. >> now, there are people, of course, who worry about something called the singularity. that is the moment where robots will actually become smarter than humans and we'll be able to learn and keep learning. is that really going to happen? >> do all parents feel that way about their children? i wonder sometimes. i do feel like the way we raise technology and the applications we use them for and the storytelling we think about in the creation of new technology will help us shape the direction. we're not on the cusp of singularity at this very moment. i do think when you put people and robots together in teams, we can achieve much more than either of us can do alone.

we're still very unique. >> heather knight, data, thank you very much. >> thanks for having us. >> we'll be right back. y cereal? yummy. that's yours. lower cholesterol. lower cholesterol. i'm yummy. lower cholesterol. i got that wrong didn't i? [ male announcer ] want great taste? honey nut cheerios. want whole grain oats that can help lower cholesterol? honey nut cheerios. it's a win win. good? [ crunching, sipping ] be happy. be healthy. can i try yours? [ male announcer ] they'll see you...before you see them.

cops are cracking down on drinking and riding. drive sober, or get pulled over. riding the dog like it's a small horse is frowned upon in this establishment! luckily though, ya know, i conceal this bad boy underneath my blanket just so i can get on e-trade and check my investment portfolio, research stocks, and set conditional orders. wait, why are you taking... oh, i see. hey max, would it kill you to throw a guy a warning bark? [ dog barks ] you know i wanted a bird. [ male announcer ] e-trade. investing unleashed. everything you need to stretch out on long trips. residence inn. ♪

everything you need to stay balanced on long trips. residence inn.

time for a check of today's top stories. tropical storm lee has triggered tornado warnings along the gulf coast and is pounding southern louisiana with heavy rains and high winds.

the slow-moving storm is expected to drop as much as 20 inches of rain by tomorrow night. as officials keep an eye on tropical storm lee, president obama travels to patterson, new jersey, today to survey the damage from hurricane irene. the state's governor chris christie will join the president on the tour of patterson's flooded areas. a typhoon in western japan left at least 18 people dead and dozens more injured. the storm which struck yesterday also caused massive mudslides. at least 50 people are missing. doc dominique strauss-kahn is back in france. he's been under house arrest in new york after being accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid. prosecutors dropped those charges because of questions about his accuser's credibility. strauss-kahn was expected to challenge french president nicolas sarkozy in the country's presidential elections next year.

polls show most french voters don't want him to run. those are your top stories. now back to "fareed zakarka gps." think for a second about the most innovative thing you've seen. i bet whatever comings to mind was probably a technological innovation, a gee whiz gadget or a joke-cracking rob bot. the question is it comes in in different areas, from business practice to tarts, literature, painting, design, architecture. the finest artists have often the most innovative. think of charlie parker's bbop. one of the finest architects in the world fits that model. he's frank gehry, perhaps best known for his undulating waves at the guggenheim among others. he joins me now. thank you form joining us. >> thank you. >> how do you come up with an idea? so much of what you have done was not conventional, was not

the way buildings were build or the way people conceived of things. where did stuff come to you from? >> i'm very thorough which people probably don't realize. i do a lot of research. i spend a lot of time with the clients, with the site, with the program and invent as i go along ideas that respond to those. and in that process with the client involved and a clear understanding of budget and engineering and what can go on, we vet some directions together and they're complicit which i love because in the end when it looks strange, it want them -- they've been part of it. >> but the strangeness comes from where? >> well, i don't know why -- to me it's not strange. it looks like everything else is

strange. and so stuff starts to unfold and little models and ideas and sketches. there are about 50 to 100 models made in that process. >> it's very deliberative. >> yes. then when i understand it completely, when i think i know, then i kind of put it away and then i call that the candy store. i call that when i know the problem, everything about it that i can imagine. and then i start to make the real design and the ideas. so the language comes from -- of the curves comes from history. it's not just invented out of whole cloth. if you look atrophy day yus's marbles, they express motion in the marble. you see the soldiers pushing

their shields, and it's palpable. you feel it. if you look at the indian sheba figures moving and i've studied those. there's movement with inert materials. so it's from history, it's possible. >> so the famous story that you took a piece of paper and crumpled it and looked at it and that was the disney hall in l.a. >> that's a famous story because the simpsons had me to do. >> we asked frank gehry to build me a concert hall. >> clients say kruchl a piece of paper, we'll give you $100 and then we'll build it. >> but in fact, it was a long, long -- >> no, no. that was just a fun thing. it has haunted me. people who see the simpson's believe it. >> when you design a building,

is your principal concern to make something dazzling beautiful? or is your principal concern to have it so it functions exactly the way it's meant to be, an apartment building with all the apartments? >> yes, to function is first and to get it build, it has to be on budget. so you have to deal with technology and the culture of construction. and that's complicated. and i think it's very important and then to bring something to it other than just -- and it doesn't cost extra. that's the interesting thing. we've proven that over and over again. so a building should engender some kind of emotional response. if you go to disney hall, the key issue was the relationship between performer and audience. i worked my butt off to make that special. i think it helps the --

psychologically, it's psycho acoustic, we call it. if the orchestra feels the audience, you speak better. you feel it. that happens in a performance and i think it happens in everything. >> what about this new building in new york? it's a big apartment building. what did you see as the crucial thing there to get right. >> the pro former for the apartments was a t-shaped building. it's a given in new york, it's a new york model. we made it a little higher and added the stairsteps like the historic buildings in new york. we didn't have to do that. we could have been straight up. so that was the declaration, if you will. it was my trying to fit a building into new york. and then i added the folds. folds are like when your mother holds you in your arms, i think. it's very basic and primitive that people respond to folds. that's why great artists in

history focus so much on it. so i wanted to have that warmth, that feeling in the city that this building was accessible and that it -- by adding the folds it was somehow timeless. it wasn't exactly a modernist slab. it had some kind of thing to it. >> do you think when you look at american architecture, creativity right now, does it feel like we're still at the top of the world? does it feel like 1950s, abstract expressionism taking the world by storm? where is america in today's kind of landscape? >> i think in architecture we've been through a very expressionist period where there's a lot of money, people are doing things, and it's coming to a screeching halt by the culture around architecture. there's kind of a backlash and

they're saying focus on sustainability, focus on the social issues and the architecture should be -- should come secondary. it seems like so thoughtless to eliminate the baby with the bath water kind of -- use those other things. it becomes a manter for less talented people to get their way probably. >> frank gehry, thank you. we will be right back. i thought in the last 15 seconds, i owe it to myself to do the picture i really believe in. so i said to him, mr. president, will show me the love? up to fou. or choose aleve and two pills for a day free of pain. way to go, coach. ♪

i am an american. i am an american. i am an american. i am an american. i... i... i... i am... ...an american. i am an american. i am american. i am an american. voice: i'm an american. voice: i'm an american. voice: i am an american. voice: i am an american. voice: i am an american. i am an american. i am an american.

vrnlths most people with one-word names are rock stars, bono, madonna, cher. my next gem particular ton is not a rock star in the traditional sense but is a star photographer. his special ality is capturing the essence of world leaders in a single frame. welcome. >> good to be here, fareed. >> you worked before with a lot of celebrities, george clooney, al pacino, yoko ohno. so who are more difficult to

deal with? mega stars or world leaders? >> there's actually formula with people. and the moment you start to fake it and apply a formula, it's endsville. every person is totally different and you have to go in in a very humble, raw, open state of mind. what i do is maybe 3% photography. the rest is complete psychology and people skills. >> tell me about a few of these. there's a great shot of putin, a difficult man to photograph only in the sense he rarely agrees to be photographed. >> to my knowledge, it's the only formal portrait he's ever done outside the kremlin. i was flown to moscow, photographed him in his private dasher. i was let into his room where they essentially dissolved the soviet union. i said i'm massive beatles fan,

are you. the first thing he did was take out his earpiece, ushered all his advisors out of the room. it was me, him, 15 security guards. it was very cozy and he said let's talk. he spoke perfect english. i said, well, i want to know if you like the beatles. he said i do like the beatles. i said what's your faifr writ song? he said "yesterday." i said i can't believe i'm talking to you about the beatles. the interesting thing is that connection allowed me then to get close and he allowed me in. i think probably when i took the picture i was about an inch and a half away from his nose. >> probably the most famous shot of yours, i have to say, is probably the bill clinton shot which was during the lewinsky scandal. it's called the crotch shot. >> yes, it was. >> did you think when you did it, you know what? this is going to come out with a rather emphasized crotch? >> i had no idea. it was my first presidential

portrait, and it should probably have been my last. the magazine actually said to me, whatever you do, don't use that lens. you've got eight minutes with him. i spent seven and a half minutes doing a very elegant head shot of clinton. i thought in the last 15 seconds, i owe it to myself to do the picture i really believe in. so i said to him, mr. president, will you show me the love, and at that point i think some of his advisors winced. he knew what i wanted. he said, i know what he means. he put his hands on his knees and he gave me that clinton charisma. >> you have two photographs, one of obama and one of bush. they couldn't be more different. in a way, at least, they conform to the conventional view of obama is cold, as cerebral, very elegant. bush as warm, folksy.

is that how they came across to you? >> no, actually. it's very interesting because in this project obama was photographed on the rise to power. it was during his presidential election campaign. bush was photographed after he left office. so bush was rather -- had a reflective view on the whole sitting. obama is obviously very charismatic as we know as a speaker. i remember saying to him though as i was taking the picture that my mom really hopes you make to it the white house. he leaned forward and said, tell your mamma i said hi. there are moments of this wonderful natural people skills that just overflow with obama. with bush, it was quite a challenging shoot, one of the hardest i've ever had. he walked in the room and i remember he said to me, you better be photographing a guy who is happy and not some kind

of snarler. >> bb netanyahu, how did he strike you? >> he has a very powerful confidence. he came over to me and he put his hand on one shoulder, on my shoulder and he took my hand with the other hand very firmly. he looked into my ideas and he said, platon, make me look good. >> perhaps your most famous shot is gadhafi. i don't know if it's the most famous. it's the most grand. >> gadhafi chose arguably the worst moment to sit for me. again, at the general assembly in new york, i was just a few feet away from the podium where obama was actually speaking. it's a very confined space. at the end of the corridor i saw this giant crowd swell of about 200 people coming towards us. in the middle of the crowd well was gadhafi. and he was marching in slow motion with this defiant spirit. he was surrounded by deem plael

bodyguards dressed head to foot in green military clothing. it was a scene from a james bond movie. >> the amazonian guard. >> yeah. he walked right up to me and sat for me as if saying, i will sit for a portrait on american soil right under the nose of the american administration while obama is actually making the speech. that's when we did it. >> the wild clothes. >> the regalia. >> he wore this hat that tamed his wild hair. he had these incredible chocolate robes. people say to me, is he crazy? is he mad? he may well be those things, but he also may well be the smartest person in the room. and i don't think he's to be underestimated. >> what makes a photograph great? people sometimes wonder, they look at photographs and they think, well, i could take photographs. is it the moment? is it the lighting?

you say it's a lot of psychology. >> i think it's all the things working together. sometimes the stars are aligned to create a happening. you may laugh at my foolish optimism, but i do passionately believe in the human condition, and i believe in the dignity of the individual, and in many ways this is perhaps a feeble attempt to appeal to this international power community to come together to solve the world's problems. >> platon, pleasure. >> thank you so very much. >> and we will be back.

there's been a lot of talk recently about the economic strength of the u.s. dollar. our gps question this week concerns the physical strength of the dollar. the question is, how long does the average $20 bill last? how long is it in circulation? a, six months, b, two years, c, six years or d, ten years. stay tuned, we'll tell you the correct answer. >> make sure you go to cnn.com/gps for ten more challenging questions.

check out gps to find interviews and takes from many experts you've seen on the show. you'll also find the show itself if you missed it. don't forget you should also follow us on twitter and facebook. this week's book is called "half the sky." it's filled with up lifting stories of women defying tods, breaking through oppression and repression and it reminds you of just how tough it is for women in so many parts of the world. now for the last look, they say you shouldn't send coals to newcastle or sell ice to eskimos. how about selling chopsticks to the chinese? think it's a bad business ute? jay lee is here to built you wrong. he's built a chop stick factory in georgia. he employs 100 people. perhaps his best worker is this chop stick chopping machine. it runs 24 hours a day, six days a week and it makes two