U.N. Beefs Up Syria Presence; Culture of Corruption
KAYE: Let's get back to the Syria story for a moment now. As I told you earlier, the United Nations has upped the ante, approving an increase from 30 to 300 peace plan monitors. But U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Susan Rice, says more needs to be done.</s>SUSAN RICE, U.S. AMBASSOR TO THE U.N.: Precious little progress has been made on the issue of humanitarian access, with an estimated 1 million civilians still in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. The United Nations Security Council has called upon the government to take concrete actions. The Syrian government has ignored this council. In the United States, our patience is exhausted.</s>KAYE: Joining me from Abu Dhabi is Rima Maktabi. Rima, good morning to you. So, how will the presence of now 300 U.N. observers stop the violence?</s>RIMA MAKTABI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, these 300 unarmed military observers are supposed to look after the cease-fire. They have to ensure that the cease-fire is happening. However, with all the decisions that have been made in New York yesterday, today just before noon four people have been killed already in Syria, and there has been violence and shelling in one of the suburbs of Damascus, the capital. The city of Homs was under shelling and even the state news agency reported an attack on a train carrying bread, wheat, and six were injured in one of the cities in Syria. So far, violence is still carrying on.</s>KAYE: And, Rima, any reaction to all of this from the Syrian government?</s>MAKTABI: Well, we have heard from the ambassador, Syrian ambassador to the U.N. He said that the Syrian security forces will maintain maximum self-restraint. However, he said they will attack and defend the country and attack any terrorist groups. And this has been the problem with the Syrian government. How do they define terrorist groups? The opposition says political dissidents are not terrorists, and they're just they just want freedom -- whereas the government accuses some of them of being terrorists and Islamists. So, it's still vague. And the Syrian government has really a chance with the national community to make the peace plan work.</s>KAYE: Rima Maktabi -- Rima, thank you very much for that update. A political scandal is brewing in China and it could be one for the history books. One of the country's top leaders is now out of a job and his wife -- she is under suspicion of murder. I spoke with "New York Times" columnist Nick Kristof, who is the author of the paper's "On the Ground" blog, about the controversy China's history with corruption and why a new leader may turn things around.</s>NICHOLAS KRISTOF, NEW YORK TIMES: This is the biggest political scandal in China in two decades and it has real implications for the power struggles that are always unfolding in Beijing. This politician who was implicated Bo Xilai was a member of the politburo until he was kicked off and he was a contender -- he was really campaigning to be on the top organization, the politburo standing committee. Now, all of a sudden, he's out of his job, his wife is under investigation for murder. His son, who has been in the headlines for after wild parties at Oxford and now he's at the Kennedy School of Government, has mysteriously vanished. I mean, if you made a movie about this, the script would be rejected as just totally implausible.</s>KAYE: What would her motive have been?</s>KRISTOF: The rumors -- and, you know, everything at this point is a rumor. The rumor is that Bo Xilai's wife was trying to move millions of dollars outside China, move her ill-gotten money out of China and this British businessman Neil Heywood was doing that for her. That they disagreed about his cut and he to get leverage threatened to expose her and she in turn ordered people to poison him.</s>KAYE: You also write about how you have watched as how China has grown steadily more corrupt over the years. Can you give us some examples? I mean, what have you seen?</s>KRISTOF: Sure. Well, China is very impressive in the caliber of the officials, the intelligence of the officials whom it appoints, but those officials have also become steadily more crooked. And one friend of mine is a judge in white collar criminal cases, and I was always a little surprised by his wealth. I gradually realized that even though he was a judge in corruption cases, he was making a living off of taking bribes from defendants in those corruption cases. And this is just so widespread. Everywhere you turn, there are these extraordinary stories. When I lived in China 20 years ago, corruption might be a cop taking a $10 or $20 bribe. These days, the average take in one central bank report, the average amount stolen by officials was $7 million.</s>KAYE: China though has been and is one of the most successful economies in the world. So, is it buckling under pressure? I mean, is it crumbling?</s>KRISTOF: That's a fascinating question. There have been other countries like Taiwan, like South Korea that were fantastically corrupt, but because they were delivering the goods, they were raising living standards, the leadership was able to get away with it. And until now, that has also been true of China. But it does seem to me that China's greatest success maybe has been in educating the country and creating a modern middle class. And in doing so, I think it's sowing the seeds of its own -- of the demise of the authoritarian system. The urban middle class now, you know, they're not content with a system that is catastrophically corrupt.</s>KAYE: So, what does all of this mean? Everything that we've talked about -- I mean, what could all of it mean for the U.S. and the U.S. economy?</s>KRISTOF: China has really been kind of unmoving. It's been in a political stalemate for the last 10 years under Hu Jintao, the present supreme leader. That is going to change in a few months. A man called Xi Jinping is going to take over as sort of the de facto of China. We don't know a lot about him but there's some reason to think he may be more of a reformist than China has been lately, and I think that in the long run, it would be good for China and also good for the U.S.</s>KAYE: And my thanks to Nick Kristof for another fascinating conversation. You can read his latest column, "A Body of Scandal in China," at NewYorkTimes.com. A first of its kind -- a film that includes footage from every country on the earth and it's being shown in more than 160 nations on this Earth Day. I'll talk live with the men behind it, next. But first, it is a beautiful day in Washington, D.C. Certainly looks like it's shaping up to be one there. Nice shot of the capitol. Good morning from U2. Good morning from us at CNN. We'll be right back.