you enjoy your super bowl sunday. you can find today's interviews as well as analysis, web exclusives and much more at our website, cnn.com/sotu. and be sure to join me tuesday night for cnn's coverage of the republican nomination contests in minnesota, colorado and missouri. but up next for our viewers here in the united states, "fareed zakaria gps." this is "gps," the global public square. welcome to all of you in the united states and around the world. i'm fareed zakaria. we've got a great show for you today. to start, a true all-star panel on american politics and the world. joining me at the roundtable today, david brooks, peggy noonan, david remnick, chrystia freeland. and then would you like to meet a man who runs a nation with a 2% rate? it is singapore, and you'll want to hear what the prime minister has to say. also, why we should stop

worrying so much about the stumbling revolutions in egypt, tunisia and around the arab world. but first, here's my take continue now that mitt romney is once again the front-runner, his campaign focus is returning to president obama. and he's probably going to start repeating a line that he's used often in the past. >> this is a president who fundamentally believes that this next century is the post-american century. >> now, i leave it to the president to describe what he believes, but as the author of the book "the post-american world," i'd like to clarify the phrase. at the very beginning of the book, i note, "this is a book not about the decline of america but rather about the rise of everyone else." throughout the book, i'm optimistic about america, and i'm convinced it can prosper in this new world and remain the most powerful country on the planet. but i argue that the age of america's singular dominance, its unipolarity, has ended.

for a quarter century after the collapse of communism in the soviet union, the united states dominated the world with no real political or economic competitors. mitt, we're in a different world now. in 1990, china represented 2% of global gross domestic product. it has quadrupled to 8%, and it's rising. by most estimates, china's economy will become the world's largest between 2016 and 2018. and this is not simply an economic story. china's military capacity and reach are also expanding. beijing's defense spending is likely to surpass america's by 2025. it's not just china that's rising. emerging powers on every continent have achieved political stability and economic growth and are becoming active on the global stage. let's do a then and now. 20 years ago, turkey was a fragile democracy. dominated by its army. constantly in need of western economic bailouts.

today, turkey has a trillion-dollar economy that grew 6.6% last year. since april 2009, turkey has created 3.4 million jobs. that's more than the entire european union, russia and south africa put together. look in this hemisphere. in 1990, brazil was emerging from decades of dictatorship and was racked by inflation rates that reached 3,000%. today brazil is a stable democracy steadily growing with foreign exchange reserves of $350 billion. i could go on, mitt. barack obama has succeeded in preserving and even enhancing u.s. influence in this world precisely because he has recognized these new forces at work. he has traveled to the emerging nations and spoken admiringly of their rise. he replaced the old western club and made the group of 20, the central decision-making forum

for global economic affairs. by emphasizing multilateral organizations and international legitimacy, he got results. it was chinese and russian cooperation that produced tougher sanctions against iran. it was the arab league's formal request last year that made western intervention in libya uncontroversial. mitt, by and large, you have ridiculed this approach to foreign policy, arguing that you would instead expand the military, act unilaterally and talk unapologetically. but chest thumping triumphalism won't help you secure america's interests or ideals in a world populated by powerful new players. you can call this new century whatever you like. but it won't change reality. after all, just because we call it the world series doesn't actually make it one. let's get started.

let's get right to it with today's terrific panel. to start, two davids. david brooks is the columnist for "the new york times." david reamnick is editor for "te new yorker," peggy noonan is columnist for "the wall street journal" and chrystia freeland of reuters. welcome. so if mitt romney gets the nomination, what happens to the conservative base? will it reluctantly accept it? will it feel like jon stewart said, you know, that's the chocolate in the chocolate box nobody ever wanted to eat but eventually they'll eat it and like it in >> they'll like it. when obama ran against clinton, you got 40% of democrats. that's going to vanish. that will always vanish. i think what the tea party should be asking ourselves -- >> when you say ourselves -- >> they should be asking themselves. >> you were about to out

yourself as a tea party. >> i've always been partial. it's been obvious. and they should say, listen, we have all this energy, all these ideas. we've mobilized so many people and produced mitt romney. why couldn't they produce a leader and change the party? if romney wins, the three most important people in washington will be mitch mcconnell, john boehner and mitt romney. that's the republican main street establishment. the tea party will have limited effect. >> doesn't the tea party have an answer? isn't the tea party's answer that as usual, the vile elites still control the political process and are not letting us in? >> my definition of the republican elite is that anybody who knows what newt gingrich is really like. the people who worked with him, those are the so-called republican establishment, and they want anybody but him. >> doesn't this debate period wear away at the image of romney? does it all disappear? this debate period is pretty hideous. there's so many, the gaffes are so frequent, the cruelty so

cruel, in fact. doesn't that wear away? >> everybody's negatives are going up. it's true. it will take some time, i think, to be able to look back at these debates and figure out if they were a net plus or a net minus. i think at the moment, they look a little bit net minusy because of the clown car indy 500 aspect, you know. but there's also the sense, i think, that first of all, they're really learning how to debate. one of these guys is going to go up against obama. and he's not going to bend to the rodeo for the first time. second of all, they're all -- all of these candidates are asked really serious questions just about half the time. in these debates. and that's a good thing. and i think people will be able to contrast that somewhat with the inevitable approach of a press corps towards a president

who is always more protected and less available to them and gets a lot of less tough questions. i also think it's interesting that while the republicans are killing each other, the president's numbers -- i hate to fall back on words like numbers -- but the president's numbers are not going up as you might expect as the republicans look more and more like a clown car. >> what i notice, you know, we talked about the gaffes in the debates and the campaign. the one -- romney has this new gaffe of, you know, the comment about the poor. i feel as though in some ways the guy can't get a break because if you look at the previous gaffe where he talked about i like to fire people, he wasn't talking about firing people. he was talking more about firing insurance companies. it's absolutely clear. and here he says, i'm not so concerned about the poor. they have a safety net if it has holes, i'll repair it. i feel as though the media here has sort of said yes, yes, but if we take this entirely out of context, it really sounds like he's being very mean to the

poor. it just feels like yeah, but you just took it entirely out of context. >> i think you're giving mitt romney a safety net here. it's true that the comment was more extensive than the cartoon of the comment. there's no question. but if mitt romney has spent five minutes on the campaign trail discussing poverty, it would be a lot. i think it's emblematic of his attitude toward it. >> and i think it's emblematic of the kind of person he is. i think what it gets back to, which it will be interesting to see how it plays in the general election if he's the canned date, is that old huckabee comment. he's more like the guy who's going to fire you than the guy you would be working with. and i think that's going to be the big question for him. can he persuade people that his ceo and managerial strengths outweigh that, you know, lack of common touch and common experience? >> first of all, i haven't heard too many democrats talk about poverty either. >> absolutely. including obama. you're absolutely right.

which is shameful. >> right. and so that probably won't be an issue. i notice all his faux pass have to do with money. the guy has a -- as victorians were to sex, he is to money. >> guilt. >> i don't think he's guilty at all. i think he's guilt free where money is concerned. >> no, no. it's not about guilt, is it, peggy. it's just that he lives in a really different universe from most americans. and that's where he finds it hard. and that's why the $10,000 wager was such an issue. or i didn't make that much money on speeches. >> i have a different sort of psycho analysis which is he looks like a watch, so we project onto him the villain from "the great gatsby." but in fact, he's a jew. the mormons have an exodus story. his family has a story in which they have perpetual poverty from which they're perpetually

climbing out of it. a sense of we just have to work hard and make it. and i think he has that sort of drive and immigrant experience. out of the mormon experience which he cannot talk about because it involves mormonism and polygamy. >> i want to know what he really believes. i think this is important in wo voters and their relationship to candidates. and this has always been the problem with romney. and yes, it's made into more of a cartoon because he's so handsome. he's just comically handsome in a certain kind of way. >> rugged good looks. >> yeah. but what does he really believe? when you hear it come out of his mouth, is there an instant where you think, ah, this is the core of his conviction. when you hear him talking about obama and foreign policy as in retreat and somehow like neville chamberlain, you know that he doesn't believe a word of it, not a word of it. when you hear him talk about safety nets and the poor, he

doesn't care a bit about it. and when you look at his real record, in his one political success, his term as governor in massachusetts, his single achievement, he is running away from it, and everybody sees that. so yes, it's true that everybody to the right of a certain point is going to vote against obama. but will they come out in droves to do so is another question. >> all right. we've got to take a break. we will come right back. we will talk about american politics and a little bit about what's going on around the world when we come back. that was me trying to be discreet

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...we inspected his brakes for free. free is good. free is very good. my money. my choice. my meineke. and we are back with our all-star panel. david brooks, david remnick, peggy noonan, chrystia freeland. let's talk about the obama administration, hhs, did on this issue relating to contraception and post-abortion pills. you think this is going to be a big problem for the president. >> yeah. it's a complicated story. and it's also abstract. and so it hasn't captured

people's attention in a big way. certain in the political class. but i feel like it is a bomb that went off in the past week that the political class in america has not noted. the catholic church has been told by the obama administration that it must understand the regulations of obama's health care initiative to mean that the churches affiliated institutions, catholic charities, the hospitals, the schools, must, in their new health care insurance, provide and pay for services that the church itself feels are morally abhorrent from contraseptembcepo sterilization procedures. the church finds it unacceptable. the church says it will not do this. the church is left either with the choice of closing down its great institutions or if the

church defies the directive, being fined ruinous fees in the millions of dollars which catholic charities can hardly afford, and catholic hospitals. the administration, i think, thinks only conservative catholics will be offended by this. and conservative catholics we don't have anyway, they are misreading the catholic church. leftist catholics are offended by this. catholics in the middle. there are 77.7 million catholics in america. they all heard last sunday -- or rather about 75% of them heard last sunday -- speaking from their priest during the mass against this obama directive. i think it is huge. period. >> is it worth noting, though, to move slightly beyond what you're talking about, the nature of conservatism and catholicism

in america today have become so intertwined? i mean, the fact that you have the five supreme court justices who are conservatives on the court are all catholics, what does that tell us? is it an appropriate question to ask? >> oh, sure. >> i think it's a great good-news story. i'm covering the south carolina primary. among the top three, we have two catholics, a mormon and i guess ron paul is profit statestant. >> but catholics attract evangelicals. santorum is seen as the candidate in some way. >> there used to be a lot of anti-catholic prejudices. and because of jerry falwell, a lot of that was driven away. >> i thought that in the head-to-head matchups, obama is beating all the republicans. >> there has definitely been a move in the last six months.

there's definitely been a move up to about parity. that's dependent upon a couple thichk things. first, the opposition has been making fools out of themselves. second, the economy. if you look at projections for next year from the cbo, that's not expected to continue. who knows if they know what they're talking about. but unemployment will shoot back up in the higher 8s or even 9. i think obama would be foolish given what's happening in iran or europe or greece, to assume he can coast on the rising economy. i don't think the campaign really expects that either. >> before we go, since we have you, david, i want to ask you about russia. it feels like -- it seemed as though there was no question that putin was assured victory, that things were going to go smoothly, that there was a few interesting dissents here and there. but you're hearing more and more of them. is there anything going on in russia that makes you think that you could actually see the beginnings of social change? >> chrystia was also there for a long period of time. i think we'll agree that putin will rough it out and win.

and to me, the question is, to what degree does he come back into office, if he ever left it, as president in the spirit of vengeance or in a recognition of the need for reform. because there are a lot of liberals around who are on the streets, who are fearing that, in fact, they might go to a more chinese route where it comes to freedom of expression, for example. right now the internet is more or less free as opposed to china. there aren't tens of thousands of people shutting down, monitoring, filtering out the internet, which is the field of play, the really important national field of play in terms of press. will putin come back and take vengeance on it, or will he recognize it in order to survive he needs to be a little less putinish in years to come. >> i agree with david. the only extra thing i would say is they have an election coming up, right? and so the protest movement and the awakening of the affluent middle class has happened at exactly the wrong time for them, right?

it didn't happen during the election. it happened a few months beforehand. people are organizing. people are thinking. and the big question for me is how much cheating is there going to be during the election, and how much are people going to catch them cheating? and that -- you know, there is a transformation. the transformation within the elite is very important. i totally agree with david. but civil society really is waking up in russia. and that, personally, i think is fantastic. but the consequences are very hard to predict. >> one of the things i've been wondering about is syria and russian role comes into play. i've asked this question openly because i don't think anyone has any special expertise here. but here you have this regime that seems to be, you know, facing all of these challenges. and it has responded, unlike many of the regimes with no concessions, no bribery, just brutal repression. so far it's managed to hang on. my sense is, you know, tiananmen

square worked. you know, this kind of brutal brutality works better than people think, and maybe we'll be having this conversation six months from now. >> the paradox is the worse the dictator, the more secure they seem to be. in part because they've carved out all opposition and they can just kill people. we've all covered, when they lose self-confidence, they will fall. >> the only question is will they run out of money? they're not an oil-rich state. can they keep doing this? but the russians are there. >> the russians are stalwart in their support for the worst kind of autocracy. >> and they're worried about what you've just been saying. i think they're scared, and they're scared about what happens if they have to try to shoo. and for them there's a lot of money that they're worried about. >> putin was first scared when he witnessed what happened in ukraine. and again and again and again, the pattern of rhetoric is out of fear for this kind of thing

happening on red square. and they see what's happening in the middle east. and they're scared as hell yet again. >> and imagine facebook once it has $100 billion. we'll have to leave it there. david brooks, david remnick, neglectgy noonan, chrystia fr freeland. up next, egypt gets its bloodiest swrooutbreak of viole. for fastidious librarian emily skinner, each day was fueled by thorough preparation for events to come. well somewhere along the way, emily went right on living.

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dozens of egyptians were killed in a soccer staid yadiuml last week. this was the deadliest since hosni mubarak was ousted exactly one year ago. it didn't stop at the stadium, and it begs the question, what has egypt gained since its revolution? take a step back and ask what has the arab spring achieved in the past year? has power failed the people? what in the world is going on? in egypt, the military might be more entrenched than before. meanwhile, a quarter of the seats in parliament have gone to a group of ultra-conservative islamists. only 2% have gone to women. consider libya. is veering towards annarchy.

the local militias that helped topple gadhafi have reneged on a pledge to give up their arms. look at tunisia. you'll remember that a fruit vendor there sparked the arab spring by setting himself on fire. well, now there are reports of many more such incidents of self-imolation. democracy has unleashed turmoil and long-suppressed expressions of islamic fundamentalism. perhaps some will say the arab world didn't fully understand what it was getting into. perhaps others will argue after years of living under tyranny, arabs just don't know how to rule themselves. i say let's look at some history. democracy has never been easy. consider what so many democratic revolutions looked like a year or two after they started. take america after the revolutionary war. the country was in economic, political and social turmoil. by 1779, inflation was at close to 400%. per capita income had halved.

remember the armed shays rebellion of 1786? it was seen by many as evidence that people power would go awry and upend the union. or consider france. after the onset of the french revolution, things got really bad. the symbol of the revolution became not liberty but the guillotine. or look at india, the world's largest democracy. it welcomed freedom in 1947 after centuries of foreign rule. and yet the ensuing months brought with it mass riots over partition, the deaths of millions of hindus and muslims. five months after freedom, the father of the nation, gandhi, was assassinated. in indonesia in the 1990s, a year after he fell, b.j. habibi became president amidst economic collapse and rising islamic radicalism. his presidency lasted exactly 17 months. now, we remember the eastern european revolutions of 1989.

but those are really the exceptions that prove a much more messy rule. the process of becoming democratic has always been chaotic. mistakes are made. lives are lost. and in the most dire moments, people have always doubted that there would be a good outcome. we need to keep that in mind when we assess the arab spring. democracy might be messy. it's certainly complicated. it takes a while to consolidate. but for the first time in perhaps a millennium, the arab people are taking charge of their own affairs. so let's cut them some slack. it's only been a year. and we'll be right back. up next, a fascinating world view from the east. my interview with singapore's prime minister. stay with us.

singapore, the tiny nation state at the southern tip of malaysia may not be at the top of your mind, but it should be. consider this. it is, according to the world bank, the easiest place in the world to do business. did you know it is on the verge of beating las vegas against the odds perhaps to become the second biggest gambling market in the world? 15% of its households have more than $1 million in assets. the highest percentage in the world.

and it is a longtime friend of the united states but has to maintain close relations with china as well, a complicated balancing act that it does well. it is, in short, the little nation that could. and we could all learn a lot from singapore. i had a chance to do just that when i sat down with the nation's prime minister in davos. it is a great pleasure to have with us the prime minister of singapore. welcome, prime minister. >> hello. >> you have always been a very careful watcher of the chinese economy. i want to start by asking you, one of the great concerns people have, looking out this year, is that the chinese economy is going to slow down. that it has built in certain excesses that in order to get out of the financial crisis, the government overspent, overlent and that these excesses are now going to bring some kind of a tough landing, if not a hard landing, in china. what do you think? >> i'm an optimist on this fund

ment amentally. i think in the long term the trend will be up. they've built a lot of inf infrastructure, capacity in many industries, some in the electronics industries. but it's an economy which is growing very rapidly. urbanizing very rapidly. needing a lot of facilities whether it's roads, hospitals, schools, houses by the millions. and every year 1% of the population is moving into cities which means 13 million people are needing all this infrastructure. so i think that there may be a rough landing, but they will get through it. >> let's talk about the other super power in the pacific. the united states. the united states has went through a flurry of diplomatic activity, political activity, over the last three months. the east asian summit, asean, the proposal for this new trade area. >> the transpacific partnership. >> the transpacific partnership.

and a kind of military cooperation arrangement that could be described as a military base in australia. now the philippines is talking about perhaps having american troops back. do you think these moves are stabilizing the asia-pacific region? >> we fundamentally think that it's good that america is interested in asia and in the asia-pacific region. and since the second world war, it's been a tremendous benign influence. it's provided peace, stability and predictability and enabled all the countries to profit including china. i think it's good that the u.s. continues to take a close interest in the region, not only to security issues but economic issues and cultural and on a broad range of areas. but it cannot be for a few months at a time in a spasmodic

style, really over many administrations and decades. and america has got many preoccupations around the world, so we hope on your busy plate, asia doesn't fall off the edge. but we are naturally very happy that president obama and hillary clinton have made the effort and have put asia quite high on their agenda. we hope it will be sustained. >> is there any prospect of american troops in singapore? >> we don't have -- well, we actually have american -- we actually host facilities in singapore and american ships and aircraft stop by from time to time and use those facilities. that's different from having a naval base. >> and a naval base would be a bridge too far? >> a naval base would be twice as big as singapore. it can't be done. >> you reclaim lots of land to build casinos. you could probably build a naval base. but let me ask you about the

chinese reaction. the chinese reaction to this same flurry of diplomacy and these new agreements has been somewhat cautious, and some cases hostile. >> the official position is that they are very happy to have more members join the east asia summit and america is welcome to join, and russia is welcome to join, and europe is welcome to join as well. and the more the merrier. >> that's the official position. >> the private position probably is wariness. they are watching. they think that there would be people in america who are not quite happy that china is prospering and would like to hinder that process. and they don't -- they will not want to let those people succeed. so i think that there's cooperation, but there's also watchfulness on both sides. >> do you think that barack obama has pursued a successful foreign policy on the part of the world you care about? >> he think he has put a lot of attention on it.

and the outcome has been constructive. these are areas -- these are issues which need long-term management. and the most important item to be managed is america's relationship with china. and it hasn't come to blows, although there have been tensions. and that's a positive. >> do you think china will be trusted as the dominant power in asia? if you look at the last year where china made these pushes in the south china sea with japan, with that episode with the ship, it seemed like it provoked a very strong backlash in asia. >> well, every superpower or big country has to be looked on with a certain careful respect by others not quite so huge. even the united states. but the united states, after 60-plus years in the pacific since the war, is still welcome and is still considered benign. and that's really a good example for the chinese to seek to

emulate. >> what keeps you up at night? >> well, i think asia will boom. there will be ups and downs. they'll be affected by europe if europe goes bump in the night. but if it doesn't, there's a certain momentum in the countries in china and india and southeast asia which will help to carry us forward. what worries us in singapore is not that the world will not prosper, but in the ups and downs of the world, a small boat like singapore with not very much room to maneuver, can you make sure that every time you catch a wave head on and you are not flipped over. because once we are flipped over, that's it. >> as captain of the good ship singapore, the prime minister did something virtually unheard amongst world leaders. he took a pay cut, shaving off more than one-third of his salary. why? we'll talk about that and much more when we come back.

singapore is one of the least corrupt nations in the world. why? well, many say one of the chief reasons is that the nation's political and bureaucratic leaders are paid salaries commensurate with similar work in the private sector. last year, for example, prime

minister lee made around $2.5 million. he just took a pay cut. and this year he'll make around $1.75 million. that's about four times what president obama makes. even with his new salary, prime minister lee is still the highest paid elected official in the world. that made him a perfect person to discuss the topic on everyone's mind in davos, inequality. the world economic forum has this list of global risks. and i was struck by the fact that the number one risk on its list is rising inequality. and it's happening, of course, in the united states where there's this big -- >> all over the world. >> but it's happening everywhere. and i was wondering if you would reflect on what it means and what you can do about it because you yourself have had to deal with this in singapore where you've had to cut the salaries of public sector employees, including your own. >> no, no, only of the ministers.

not of the civiler is vantd ers. >> you must pay commensurate with a responsibility of the job and commensurate with the quality of the person you are looking for to do that job. and the job is vital because you make a wrong decision, it's billions of dollars. you put the wrong man in, it's a disaster. and anybody who comes in must make a calculation, must think, what are the financial implications not just for him but for his wife and children or spouse and children. but when you're talking about salaries which are $1 million or $2 million, to the man on the street earning a few thousand dollars a month, it's an incomprehensible sum. i mean, it's defensible. he cannot wrap his mind around it. so it became an issue in the elections. and after the elections, i appointed a committee to review it and look at it dispassionately. and they decided that the

principles were sound. you have to treat -- you have to pay competitively, but they recommended a different benchmark and a different number, and we've accepted that. i don't think it will be the last word on the matter. but it's a very difficult issue because it is important to get the right quality of people into government. >> what do you do about inequality in singapore? you have your top people are world class. they make millions and millions of dollars. at the bottom, your workers are facing pressures from india and china. >> it is a problem like it is in india and china, like it is in every other country. first of all, we make sure that everybody gets very good education. so no matter which school you go to, you get a first-class education. and if you are bright and able, you have every chance of rising all the way to the top. never mind what your background is. secondly, through our public housing program, through other public subsidies, particularly on health care and education, we make sure that everybody starts

with some chips in life. you don't start zero. so if you're poor in singapore, it's no fun. but i think we are less badly off than if you are poor nearly anywhere else in the world. including in the united states. thirdly, i think that we have to encourage people to try their best to not be satisfied with where they are but to upgrade themselves. not just in school or while studying but all of their lives. >> let me close by asking you a couple of questions that are slightly more personal. you are the son of a prime minister and the son of really the founder of your nation. what is it like to follow in his footsteps? i realize it was not an immediate succession, but still, what is it like to have that legacy or shadow? >> well, i don't know. i've never not had it. it is tough enough, but you get to live with it.

>> well, i have had the honor of meeting your father many, many times. he's been on this program several times. he would strike me as an extraordinary leader, maybe a tough dad. was he somebody an extraordinar strikes me as a tough dad. was he a strict disciplinarian. >> he had expectations. he left me to do my own thing, debate push me into this, neither would it have worked had he done so. i had to make up my mind if i wanted to go this way or not. my siblings didn't decide to go this way, i did. >> do you think your children are likely to go into politics. >> they will have to decide. if you ask me now, i think the odds are not on it. it's a different generation. it's a new world. there are so many opportunities in singapore, opportunities abroad. for the talented, the whole world is an oyster. if you're an ivy league university in your first year you're talent spotted, in your

first vacation you're already offered internships. after your internship, you're offered more or less, here you are, when you graduate call this telephone number. if you're working in wall street or silicon valley or one of the stock ops, you feel like you are the cat's whiskers, because ice cream any time of the day is the least of the perks. the need talent and they treat talent well. singaporeans have been well educated, going in numbers in these directions. we have many students studying in america in the best institutions. we have many students in ox bridge, some on the continent. i'm sure many of them will be tempted by these opportunities. >> and you --

>> it is a great challenge in singapore in this situation to make sure enough decide despite this we will be in singapore and make the system work. >> and with your children, you still maintain the high expectations? >> they have to find their own path in life. >> prime minister, pleasure. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. when i grow up,

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the super bowl is the all american game, right? well, it's becoming less so. in this year's edition there are five, count them five foreign born players. that brings me to my question of the week. which of the following questions is not fielding a player in super bowl xlvi? is it a, canada, b romania, c jamaica, or d germany. stay tuned. we'll tell you the correct answer. go to cnn.com/fareed for ten more questions. check out offerings on global square website. there's always fresh content, insight and analysis about what's going on in the world around you. don't forget you can follow us

on twitter and facebook. if you ever miss a show or love an episode so much you want to keep it for ever you can find full episodes for sale on itunes store. type itunes.com/fareed in your browser. for the book of the week, "the unquiet american." essays by and on the late richard holbrooke. holbrook was a force of nature. ambitious, aggressive, always determined to have an impact as he did when he made peace in bosnia almost single handedly. mix of writings and personal reminiscence, reflection of others adds up to a smart, moving portrait, fascinating larger than life diplomat who was working what was certainly the american century. now for the last look. thirty-three years ago this week

eye khamenei. they made a cardboard cutout of his body and had it carried by big sunglass wearing iranian army men, off the plane, down the steps to review the troops and to a waiting truck where a smaller one substituted for the larger one standing. this could barely see over the dashboard. two interesting things i noticed. the plane from from he emerged back in 1979 and today, a boeing. the truck in which he was transported, then and now, a gmc. an all american arrival ceremony. the correct answer to gps challenge question was a, canada has no players in the super bowl this year. great britain has two, jamaica, romania and germany have super

bowl bound footballers. thanks for joining me for my program this week. i will see you next week. hello, everyone. i'm fredricka whitfield with a check of our top stories. a massive crowd packing the city in syria. these are funerals taking place for people killed in the last few days. witnesses say syrian troops shelled residential areas killing hundreds of civilians. a freak winter storm hits london's heathrow airport. fewer flights flying in and out causing problems and travel delays across europe. in australia the problem is flooding. thousands have been told to evacuate in towns across queensland and new south wales. an angry, frustrated parent in new york wants answers. almost four