
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/07/06/intv.molavi.art.jpg caption="Middle East expert, Afshin Molavi does not take Iran’s President Ahmadinejad seriously."]
There is major dissension in the ranks within Iran. A group of clerics in Iran is declaring the country's recent presidential election invalid. Also, Vice President Joe Bidden made comments signaling the White House may be changing its position on the possibility of Israel taking military action against Iran.
Middle East expert and author of the new book "The soul of Iran." Afshin Molavi spoke to CNN’s Alina Cho Monday.
Alina Cho: An influential group of clerics declaring Iran’s presidential election illegitimate, invalid. Why is this significant and what should we take from this?
Afshin Molavi: In many ways the Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, he derives his legitimacy from clerical unity. Any time you see this kind of clerical dissention in the ranks, it's a chink in his armor it’s a chink in the armor of the entire Islamic republic. But the important point to remember however is the clerics are not as powerful as they were 10, 15, 20 years ago. What we've been seeing over the past ten years is the gradual security militarization of Iran. And once we saw cracks in armor of the security, once we see factualism among them then I think that will be much more serious for the republic.
Cho: I want to turn to two conflicting statements by vice president Joe Biden on Israel and Iran. I'll get your reaction on the other side. The first one is from April 2009 he said “I don't believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu would do that. I think it was ill-advised to do that. The second statement is from yesterday on ABC's this week saying “Israel can determine for itself the sovereign nation what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran or anyone else.” Is this Biden just being Biden or is there something deeper going on here? Does this reflect a possible shift in U.S. policy?
Editor’s Note: Each Friday in “Meet AM,” we introduce you to the people who get American Morning to air.
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/07/03/cumbo.gif caption="Michelle's responsibilities range from booking guests to segment producing."]
Today, we’d like you to meet Michelle Cumbo. Michelle is a producer/editorial producer. This means she’s always busy looking at guest segments, finding the best guests to illustrate the news for the day and crafting the questions and topics to be addressed with these guests. Michelle has a wonderful personality and is often cheering up people at the office with her singing. She’s been with AM for seven years.
How did you end up doing what you do?
I was always a better writer than a mathematician. I always had a love for the English language and writing. I got into television when my brother was in college taking a summer school course in TV production. He had to produce a how-to demonstration segment. So my mom said, “Why don’t you have your little sister cook?” I made these Italian cookies called pizelles. It was horrible. I was so nervous but I loved the production side, and got more involved from there. Now my brother is a freelance technical director who travels and works on sports material, and I’m at AM.
Describe your average day:
It’s always changing depending on what I do. Some days I anchor produce, some days I segment produce [crafting segments and suggesting questions for the next day’s interviews]. Some days I’m booking guests. I start off by reading all the newspapers and wires I can, getting familiar with what happened overnight or during the day, depending on when I come in. Then I go on to see what’s interesting for today, and pitch segments. I’ll get acquainted with the segments that I’m involved in – try and find best guests for a topic, researching guests, that kind of thing. I’m really thinking about pegging stuff to the breaking news of the day and who is the best guest to get the info across to people.
What's the hardest part of your job?
The hardest part is when there’s a breaking news story. Sometimes, every network is going after the same guest and you have to convince a guest why CNN is the best network to tell their story. There’s a competitive factor and it can be difficult.
What do you like most about working at AM?
It sounds cliché but I work with an amazing group of people. Aside from the people, it’s never boring working here.
What do you do outside of work? What do you do for fun?
I love to cook, bake and entertain. [Note: she is a really good baker!]
What else do you think people should know about you?
I love breaking into spontaneous show tunes. And I’m a HUGE supporter of my hometown, Buffalo – go Bills!
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - The battered U.S. labor market took a step backwards last month as employers trimmed more jobs from their payrolls in June, according to a government report Thursday.
There was a net loss of 467,000 jobs in June, compared with a revised loss of 322,000 jobs in May. This was the first time in four months that the number of jobs lost rose from the prior month.
The June job losses were also far worse than the forecast of a loss of 365,000 jobs by economists surveyed by Briefing.com.
The unemployment rate rose for the ninth straight month, climbing to 9.5% from 9.4%, and hitting another 26-year high. Economists had been expecting that the unemployment rate would hit 9.6%.
Nearly 3.4 million jobs have been lost during the first half of 2009, more than the 3.1 million lost in all of 2008.
Editor's Note: American Morning's Tuesday viewers were glad to see Madoff sentenced and none cared how he would fare in jail.
Do you believe Mr. Madoff should receive special protection in jail because of the nature of his crimes? Comment here or follow the story.
The pastor supporting guns in church was poorly received, as most felt church was no place for guns.
How would you feel in a church where everyone was openly carrying guns? With the recent shootings in churches, is this an appropriate alternative?
Editor's Note: With President Obama’s prime time health care address on Wednesday evening, American Morning’s Thursday audience intently scrutinized the health care segments. Bill Bennett was ardently rejected as an appropriate spokesman on the topic, as his statistics and credibility were called into question. Others remarked that conservatives were against health care because they can afford coverage.
How do you feel about Mr. Bennett’s comment regarding health care? Do you believe that health care quality will suffer under the universal plan being proposed by the Obama Administration?
The case has made international headlines – a father's desperate quest to get his son back. It's been exactly five years since David Goldman's wife, Bruna Bianchi Carneiro Ribeiro, took their then 4-year-old son to Brazil and never came back.
Since then, he's been fighting to be reunited with his little boy, Sean. And just when he thought it was over, another setback. Goldman joined Kiran Chetry on CNN’s “American Morning” Tuesday to talk about the case.
Kiran Chetry: Today you're marking an unwelcome anniversary. It's been five years since you had your son Sean with you. It looked like things were turning in your favor. The high court ruled they were going to honor the Hague Convention on International Abductions. Most of those in the court said your son should come back to you. So what's the delay right now?
David Goldman: Well, what was filed in front of the [Brazilian] Supreme Court was, in fact, if the Brazilian judicial system was going to honor the Hague Convention. If their government was still going to be a party to the Hague Convention where they receive children back under the Hague from America, as well. And they decided yes, we are going to honor the Hague Convention, we will return children. This particular case, a couple of them pointed out that Sean has been here way too long and this needs to be resolved.
And then they punted it back to the second level federal court where there was a stay because of an appeal from this Lins e Silva guy to keep my son there. Hopefully with the [Brazilian] Supreme Court ruling, with the 82-page report from the first-level federal judge ordering my son to be returned home immediately as well as Brazilian court-appointed mental health experts evaluating my son, saying he's been under psychological trauma, emotionally damaged from this family in Brazil, pointing he needs to be home.

