QUES: (CNN) -- As Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited the U.N. General Assembly in New York last month, the spotlight was once again on Iran. And true to form, the Iranian president made his fair share of provocative statements for the Western media. But while Ahmadinejad's mercurial rants captured our media's attention, back in Iran a coordinated strategy against the women's movement continued. On the eve of Ahmadinejad's arrival to New York, Shiva Nazar Ahari, a prominent young female defender of human rights, received a heavy sentence of six years in prison on charges including the vague crime of "waging war against God" -- a convenient catch-all offense for anyone who criticizes the regime and its human rights record. There's no denying it -- Iran's women have had a bad year. Nazar Ahari joins a steadily increasing number of other women's rights activists who are in prison for no greater crime than their attempt to fight for the rights of the women. Hengameh Shahidi, Alieh Eghdam Doust, Bahareh Hedayat and Mahdiyeh Golrou have all been sent to Tehran's notorious Evin Prison on trumped-up charges related to their activism. And while Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, arguably the most internationally recognized Iranian women's rights activist, remains unable to safely return to her country, the government is targeting those affiliated with her for arrest and imprisonment, including her lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh and her former aide Jinous Sobhani. Since the 2009 disputed elections and associated government crackdown on the overall reform movement, the government has increasingly targeted women activists. The reasons behind this go well beyond the misogynist nature of Iran's religious leadership. Rather, it is more part of a deliberate and calculated strategy of the Iranian authorities to strike at the heart of the regime's greatest vulnerability -- internal legitimacy with its own people. See more CNN.com opinion articles Iran's government recognizes and fears the broader power of the women activists who have been on the front line of reform in Iran for more than a decade. One can roughly draw an analogy between the women's movement in Iran to movements of religious groups in Burma or Tibet, or the labor "solidarity" movements in the former Eastern bloc and associated labor-Roman Catholic solidarity in Poland -- all advocating initially for the freedoms of a specific group but which provoked government fears for their transformative power to promote broader human rights progress. While the outside world occasionally reacts to the most egregious manifestations of Iran's repression of women -- such as the international condemnation associated with Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian widow sentenced to stoning on charges of alleged adultery -- these events are often portrayed simply as a consequence of the regime's archaic viewpoint about gender.
Do you have any questions?
MY QUESTION: When Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made his provocative statements where was he visiting in New York?

QUES: (CNN) -- Horror-meister, Stephen King calls George Pelecanos "perhaps the greatest living American crime writer." His stories are set in Pelecanos' hometown of Washington, D.C., but this is not the side of the U.S. capitol that you see portrayed on TV with white marble monuments, lawyers and lobbyists. Pelecanos is more interested in working families struggling to get by, the racial tensions in its ethnic neighborhoods and the low-lifes on the edges. His crime-writing peers call Pelecanos the "undisputed poet" of Washington's gritty side. The best-selling and award-winning author is out this week with his 17th and latest novel, "The Cut." It's the first in a new series featuring Iraq war veteran and private investigator Spero Lucas. When he's not working for a Washington defense attorney, Lucas recovers stolen property for a 40% cut. Now, a high-profile crime boss hires Lucas to find out who's been stealing from him, and it could turn out to be Lucas' biggest payday or an untimely end. While Pelecanos made his bones in the noir tradition, there's a definite "Western" feel to "The Cut." The new novel takes place in a morally gray and often violent world. It's peppered with pitch-perfect dialogue and captures the sights, sounds and taste of Washington in rich detail. In short, Pelecanos reads like the real deal. Pelecanos knows a thing or two about capturing the authenticity of urban America with an ethnically and socially diverse cast. In addition to his success as a novelist, Pelecanos is a producer and writer for HBO's New Orleans-set, "Treme." He was previously a producer and Emmy-nominated writer on the hit series "The Wire" and the miniseries "The Pacific." Read an excerpt from "The Cut" CNN recently spoke to Pelecanos about his new novel. The following is an edited transcript. CNN: Tell me more about your new character, Spero Lucas.
Do you have any questions?
MY QUESTION: As a private investigator, who does Spero Lucas work for in Pelecanos newest novel, "The Cut"?

QUES: Bin Laden and his aides did not need a very large sum to finance their planned attack on America. The 9/11 plotters eventually spent somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000 to plan and conduct their attack. Consistent with the importance of the project, al Qaeda funded the plotters. KSM provided his operatives with nearly all the money they needed to travel to the United States, train, and live. The plotters' tradecraft was not especially sophisticated, but it was good enough. They moved, stored, and spent their money in ordinary ways, easily defeating the detection mechanisms in place at the time. The origin of the funds remains unknown, although we have a general idea of how al Qaeda financed itself during the period leading up to 9/11. General Financing As we explained in chapter 2, Bin Laden did not fund al Qaeda through a personal fortune and a network of businesses in Sudan. Instead, al Qaeda relied primarily on a fund-raising network developed over time. The CIA now estimates that it cost al Qaeda about $30 million per year to sustain its activities before 9/11 and that this money was raised almost entirely through donations. For many years, the United States thought Bin Laden financed al Qaeda's expenses through a vast personal inheritance. Bin Laden purportedly inherited approximately $300 million when his father died, and was rumored to have had access to these funds to wage jihad while in Sudan and Afghanistan and to secure his leadership position in al Qaeda. In early 2000, the U.S. government discovered a different reality: roughly from 1970 through 1994, Bin Laden received about $1 million per year-a significant sum, to be sure, but not a $300 million fortune that could be used to fund jihad. Then, as part of a Saudi government crackdown early in the 1990s, the Bin Laden family was forced to find a buyer for Usama's share of the family company in 1994. The Saudi government subsequently froze the proceeds of the sale. This action had the effect of divesting Bin Laden of what otherwise might indeed have been a large fortune. Nor were Bin Laden's assets in Sudan a source of money for al Qaeda. When Bin Laden lived in Sudan from 1991 to 1996, he owned a number of businesses and other assets.
Do you have any questions?
MY QUESTION:
What did U.S. government erroneously believe about Bin Laden's ji-had?