ivan watson has that part of the story. >> he has a secret.here in the olive groves of turkey, just a stone's throw away from the syrian border, he's hidden away several styrofoam boxes. their contents are deadly. unexploded land mines. if you put pressure on the black trigger, he tells me, it will explode. experts say this is a pmn 2 antipersonnel mine. probably manufactured decades ago in the soviet union. but turkish authorities say syrian troops began planting these in new mine fields along the border earlier this winter. soon after he and several activist friends started digging the mines up. they removed more than 300 he claims in the last three months. >> nobody taught you how to pull this kind of mine out of the ground, right? >> translator: no. no. >> reporter: and this is why he's risking his life to remove land mines. several weeks ago a mine blue off his right foot as he was trying to flee with his family from syria to turkey. >> translator: i protested against the syrian regime and then the security forces came to try to arrest me

over the weekend ivan watson crossed into syria.nd in one town where not only is the opposition not backing down, they actually control the town. >> reporter: the journey to syria starts with a brisk walk through olive groves. you get into syria through a hole in the fence. this is a country of rich rolling farmland that's in open revolt. in many towns the rebels are now in complete control. in one village, a rebel occupies the desk where the police chief used to sit. the rebels claim they forced out the security officers from this police station nearly two months ago. and since then, they've been using it as a mini barracks for sleeping quarters. they are also storing aid. some of which are being stored here in the prison cell. it's here that we meet fatma, a homeless mother in mourning. three of her sons were killed in recent months while defending their sons from the syrian army. a surviving son was shot in the leg. the family's now homeless. soldiers torched our house, fatma says and shot our livestock. but the syrian government

cnn's ivan watson has just returned to turkey after being in syria. ivan, what did you see? >> reporter: well, fredricka, we just got back from syria a couple of hours ago. and what is striking is that it's 15 months now that syrian have said protesting and conducting this uprising against their government. we have seen incredible amounts of violence, by conservative estimates, more than 9,000 -- people killed, with artillery and tanks and helicopters against opposition demonstrators. and they have grown increasingly armed. and despite that incredible loss of life, there is no sign in sight that the population is willing to give up this rebellion. you have people proudly flying the flag of the opposition. we met rebels that are -- that look to be better armed than we've seen in months past. they have better uniform than they've ehad in the past. they seem to be better mobilized as well, to preparing for what they think may be the next phase in the fighting there. and we also talked to some of the civilians who have suffered. i talked to a mother who had lost three of her son

cnn's ivan watson reports from the border that separates syria from turkey. >> reporter: fredricka, the syrian government held state funerals for some of the more than 50 victims from a massive bombing that took place thursday at the capital of damascus outside the headquarters of one of syria's intelligence and security department. now, a shadowy group that identifies itself claims responsibility for the blast in a web posting. they previously claimed responsibility for other large explosions in syria. meanwhile the syrian government has claimed to have foiled an attempted suicide truck bombing in the large city in the last 24 hours. meanwhile the families of two turkish journalists are celebrating right now. they went missing in syria nearly two months ago. they weren't heard of at all until about a week ago and many feared they were dead. well, it turned out they had been held at a sear yaus prison and a turkish islamic charity has helped negotiate their release. they were flown there earlier today. it appears as part of a prisoner swap. syrian rebels released to turkey two captive i

ivan watson, cnn, turkey. >>> venezuelan president hugo chavez is back home and he said his latest round of cancer th r therapy in cuba was successful. there were rumors he was too weak to walk. he has been tight lipped about his health. he's running for re-election this year. >> how far would you go to study foreign exams. taking ivy drips to stay awake longer for tests. is this an example of why china leads in international testing? >>> suits meet the hoodies. mark zuckerberg gets rock star treatment on his company's road show, but should he get your money when his company goes public? facebook will price at $28 and $35 a share. >> wait about a month after the stock has been released. the mooutual funds and financia investors will be buying up the stock. i believe it's going to come in between $90. maybe $100 when it gets released. let the hype go down, let the euphoria go down. >> because a lot of rich people get in before you ever will. investment banks underriding the ipo gets the first crack at shares. they sell them to their best clients. hedge funds, big money managers and inside

. >> that was ivan watson reporting from syria back in february before the u.n.rokered the so-called cease-fire that was never never more than mere words. the killings, of course, have continued unabated, and the syrian government is still telling the same lies that we've been reporting on for more than a year now. they're still refusing to grant visas to international reporters to travel freely throughout the country so that we can see for ourselves what's really happening. the closest we've gotten recently or i got recently was when i visited a refugee camp along the turkish/syrian border. 20,000 syrians have taken refuge in turkey alone, and tens of thousands have fled to other countries. nic, ivan, arwa, and bob baer. it was interesting to see ivan's report about back in february the so-called free syrian army. have the forces changed over time? >> i think what we're beginning to see now is a growing fringe element of radical forces. >> jihadists you're talking about? >> islamist forces, whatever you want to call them, the sort of third entity that has emerge

. >> that was ivan watson reporting from syria back in february before the u.n.so-called cease fire that was never more than mere words. the killings, of course, have continued unabated, and the syrian government is still telling the same lies that we've been reporting on for more than a year now. they're still refusing to grant visas to international reporters to travel freely throughout the country so that we can see for ourselves what's really happening. the closest we've gotten recently or i got recently when i visited a refugee camp along the turkish/syrian border. 20,000 syrians have taken refuge in turkey alone, and tens of thousands more where fled to other countries. nic, ivan, arwa, and bob baer. it was interesting to see ivan's report about back in february the so-called free syrian army. have the fors changed over time? >> i think what we're beginning to see now is a growing fringe element of radical forces. >> jihadists you're talking about. >> islamist forces, whatever you want to call them, the sort of third entity that has emerged if you want to s

our ivan watson introduces us to tom and misha. >> reporter: meet tom and misha.nose dolphins on a remarkable journey. originally captured in the wild and now after years in captivity, they're about to get their freedom. >> what we're trying to do is right a wrong. we're trying to bring them back and give them an opportunity to be wild again. hi, thomas. >> reporter: they first attracted the attention of animal rights activists two years ago. they were being kept at this turkish resort where tourists paid to swim with the dolphins in a shallow filthy pool. >> the bio load and fecal material was growing up and the water was turning green. they were living in their own feces. >> reporter: they rescued the dolphins and brought them to this sea pen off the turkish coast. for more than a year the animals have been in the care of a team from the wildlife conservation group born free led by marine mammal expert jeff foster. how did they look when you first met them? >> they were really thin. >> not nearly as strong. you can feel how muscular they're becoming. >> reporter

ivan watson, cnn, in northern syria. >> i want to bring in mohammed from lebanon. first of all, ivan was in these places that the rebels hold. what is it like in those syrian cities where the government is clamping down? >> reporter: well, suzanne, we keep getting more and more reports just horrific stories, mortars raining down on these towns, storming by army personnel of these villages, mass arrests. just today the syrian observatory for human rights tells us at least 46 people killed across syria as the army continues to raid more and more of the towns and villages where there is resistance. let's talk about one town that is in idlib province. this is amateur video. we can't confirm it. very disturbing. it purports to proprotesters very close to army personnel, then the army, you see there, very close to the protesters, start firing on the protesters. we heard there were multiple deaths in the city. this is a city, in fact, that today u.n. monitors were in. there is video that we have that shows u.n. monitors. we have reports from the u.n. mission in syria that

i want to bring in ivan watson from istanbul.n, let's talk about what is taking place on the ground in syria. you know you have u.n. officials there, u.n. officials other places saying they are getting tougher, they're kicking out these enjoyvoyenvoys. is there anything taking place inside syria to actually quell the violence? >> reporter: absolutely not. i mean, what you have is a 300-man united nations unarmed observer mission. these are not peacekeepers. they have become the eyes and ears of the world to some degree and the deputy envoy to syria is going to brief the united nations security counsel -- council on what they're saying. in light of this atrocity committed in houla, these observers were able to bring us firsthand accounts. there have been repeated calls and demands and criticisms from the international community for this syrian government which has the most powerful fighting force on the ground to stop fighting, but it clearly is not doing that, and now you also have an increasingly weaponized rebel movement there,

ivan watson, cnn, istanbul. >> there's hope. commonwealth university. the president on his first official day of campaigning. obviously there's going to a lot of this, a whole heck of a lot of this. everybody's campaigning. i'm don lemon at the cnn headquarters in atlanta. "the situation room" with mr. wolf blitzer begins right now. >> you're in "the situation room." we go behind the scenes of president obama's clandestine trip to afghanistan this week and a closer look at the extraordinary precautions and extraordinary risks of taking a president into a war zone. also osama bin laden and documents recovered from the house where he was killed by u.s. forces one year ago this week. plus, mitt romney courting skeptical social conservatives. i'll talk about that and more with this former rival who just dropped out of the race newt gingrich. we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." >>> formally this week, satellites would have been dominated by the race for the white house an

we'll have a full hour of coverage from this camp along with ivan watson, senator john mccain and professorjam mee. now back to piers. >>> i'm back now with michael jackson's mother katherine jackson and his friend brett livingstone strong. my youngest son was eight years old. and he suddenly began playing michael's music. over and over for weeks and months. he'd never heard of mnl before. it was amazing to me a whole new generation and it was the one positive i could see coming out of his awful death was that actually a whole new generation of kids fell in love with michael jackson again and played his music and realized how phenomenal he was. amazing thing. brett, let's talk about two things i want to wrap up with. one is what are you going to do with this art? >> well, michael spent a good part of 25 years making this art. and it was like a private world for him. while a lot of the public thought he may have been doing things that they thought he shouldn't be doing, he was actually creating art. and it was like adoing, he was creating art. it was a world for him to treat into where he wo

. >> ivan watson for us on the border in turkey. thank you very much. e hits in ivan's live shot there because that's such a difficult and remote area to get the story out to you. we did want to make sure we were able to bring it to you. >> it's a big day for one group of college graduates and their commencement speaker. mitt romney speaks to the class of 2012. we're going to bring you his comments live. >>> and if you were leaving the house right now, just a reminder, you can continue watching cnn from your mobile phone, your gadget. you can also watch cnn live from your desktop. just go to cnn.com/tv. we asked the furlow family to bring in their favorite dvds cause we want to show them something new. you ready? let's go. walmart can now convert your favorite dvds from disc to digital. no way. if hulk smash disc... it's no big deal. now you'll never break them, scratch them or lose them. we can use that. you'll never break them. so what do you guys think? we love it. it's only two bucks per disc. that's cool. that's the walmart entertainment disc to dig

ivan watson is joining us from istanbul. describe for us if you will, you've got a diverse group of demonstrators where you are. >> reporter: that's right. people with tens of thousands of people with diverse messages, we have everything from leftists and com muist parties to laboren unions, to fans of soccer teams, to gay lesbian bisexual transgender groups, kurdish nation nationalist, even a group that could be described as islamic communists coming out to protest against capital ism. the agenda was diverse. protesting against abuse against women, against restricting labor rights here. against u.s. foreign policy in the middle east. and against turkey's government as well. for the most part this was a peaceful and festive rally, suzanne. and this has been a traditionally a politically tense holiday in turkey. these rallies were banned for 30 years and just made legal a couple of years ago. we didn't see any major instances of violence. a lot of people coming out to criticize their own government which is interesting when y

cnn's ivan watson is monitoring developments from istanbul, turkey. he joins us live.is the latest there? >> reporter: zoraida, we have the japanese foreign minister accusing syria of inhuman acts of violence, of killing children in houla last friday and declaring syria's ambassador persona non grata. that's at least 11 countries that have expelled syrian diplomats in the last 24 hours. take a look at what the united nations spokesman says about the grisly details of that massacre on friday, which he's blaming on pro-government syrian militias called shabiha. take a listen. >> a small number appears to be killed by artillery shelling and tank fire, which took place over a period of 12 hours. but the majority appear to have been the result of house to house summary executions of armed men getting into houses and killing men, women, and children inside. what is clear is government forces were involved. they were shelling, using tanks and artillery, and it appears to be shabiha militia entering the houses and slaughtering people in what is really an abominable crime that

ivan watson monitoring developments for us in istanbul. the u.n.'s to blame for that houla massacre. >> reporter: absolutely not. the u.n. giving more detailless of what happened here in the 15 months i've been covering the event, the grizzliest atrocity since it began. a u.n. human rights spokesman saying that pro-government militias went house to house in village of houla friday night killing people. >> a fairly small number of shelling artillery and tank fire over a period of more than 12 hours. but the majority of appear to have been the result of house to house summary executions, armed men going in to houses and killing men, women and children. inside. >> reporter: and kyra, 109 people at least killed friday night and early saturday morning in that village of houla. at least 49 of them children under the age of 10. of course, syrian government is denying any connection whatsoever to this violence. >> translator: during this time, syria has not done a single violation of annana's plan. at the same time, the other party not committed to a singl

. >> that's ivan watson reporting. monday night, anderson cooper reports live from the syrian region as well. watch "ac 360" at the syrian border with turkey, monday night 8:00 eastern time. >>> students at boston university are mourning today. overnight a candlelight vigil took place for three students killed in a crash in new zealand. the three were killed when the van they were traveling in swerved off a road, and then rolled over saturday. five other students were injured. the group of study abroad students was visiting locations in new zealand where the lord of the rings movies were filmed. >>> right now, in arizona, crews are battling three wildfires. one fire now covers more than four square miles. and it's growing. for a time last night people had been forced to evacuate near press cot but have since been allowed to return to their homes. another fire which is spreading across 2,000 acres can be seen from phoenix. >>> yahoo!'s embattled ceo is out. a new guy is set to take over the web company. scott thompson g

ivan watson, cnn, turkey. >>> top of the hour. i'm suzanne malveaux.cal records show the man who shot trvon martin had a broken nose, two black eyes, and a bloody head. some say this evidence from george zimmerman's family doctor could bolster zimmerman's claim that he shot the unarmed teenager in self-defense. the exam was taken one day after the shooting. a lawyer for trayvon martin's family says the family has questions about this medical report. >>> and the man known as the butcher of bosnia went on trial today. former general ratko ma laddic

ivan watson, cnn, turkey. >>> top of the hour. i'm suzanne malveaux.cal records show the

ivan watson, cnn, istanbul. >> there's hope. commonwealth university. president on his first official day of campaigning. obviously there's going to a lot of this, a whole heck of a lot of this. everybody's campaigning. i'm don lemon at the cnn headquarters in atlanta. "the situation room" with mr. wolf blitzer begins right now. >> you're in "the situation room." we go behind the scenes of president obama's clandestine trip to afghanistan this w

but cnn's ivan watson did manage to get in, and i asked him what he saw there. >> reporter: there is no sign in sight that the population is willing to give up this rebellion. you have people proudly flying the flag of the opposition. we met rebels that are -- look to be better armed than we've seen in months past. they have better uniforms than they've had in the past. they seem to be better mobilized as well, and preparing what appears to be for what they think may be the next phase in the fighting there. >> monday night anderson cooper reports live from the syrian region. watch "ac 360" live monday night 8:00 eastern time. >>> back in the u.s. big events for president obama and presumptive republican presidential nominee mitt romney this week. >> coming up, what you and athena were talking about, coming off president obama's announcement he supports same-sex marriage. he will attend a fund-raiser in new york on monday. that event will be hosted by singer ricky martin, who is currently on broadway. on tuesday, meanwhile, the president plans to sit down for an interview with the wom