World

Weekend Edition Sunday Host Rachel Martin speaks with Karim Sadjadpour, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, to learn more about new Iran's president-elect, cleric Hassan Rouhani.

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RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Google scientists have been testing a way to link computers to the internet in rural, war torn or disaster areas where high speed internet does not exist. We hear from Steven Levy, a senior writer with Wired magazine who was embedded with the Google team.

Weekend Edition Sunday Host Rachel Martin talks to Baghdad businessman Haider al-Jumaili about the growing violence in Iraq, where more than a thousand people died in May.

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RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Rachel Martin.

President Obama leaves tonight on a quick trip to Europe. He'll attend a G8 Summit of industrialized nations in Northern Ireland. He'll also pay a visit to Germany, where his plans include a public speech at the historic Brandenburg Gate.

NPR's Scott Horsley will be traveling with the president. He joins us now. Hi, Scott.

SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Rachel.

Weekend Edition Sunday Host Rachel Martin talks to Michael Young, the opinion page editor of the Daily Star newspaper in Beirut, about the spillover of Syria's conflict into Lebanon.

Middle East analyst Andrew Tabler talks to Weekend Edition Sunday Host Rachel Martin about the U.S.'s decision this week to arm the Syrian rebels.

Note: Our friends at Tell Me More recently started a series marking the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. Here's an update:

A string of deadly attacks that appeared to be coordinated car bombings and shootings killed at least 30 people and left many more wounded across Iraq on Sunday, the Associated Press reports.

The AP has more:

"Most of the car bombs hit Shiite-majority areas and were the cause of most of the casualties, killing 26. The blasts hit half a dozen cities and towns in the south and center of the country.

Each week, Weekend Edition Sunday host Rachel Martin brings listeners an unexpected side of the news by talking with someone personally affected by the stories making headlines.

Ryan Crocker is a long-time U.S. diplomat who served as ambassador in six Muslim countries. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian award, from President George W. Bush.

Born into a military family, Crocker says he was drawn to the foreign service because he grew up overseas and spent time traveling in the Middle East.

On-air challenge: Every answer is a familiar two-word phrase or name in which the first word starts SI and the second word starts with T. For example, given "unadorned set of facts," you would say, "simple truth."

Last week's challenge: Name a movie in two words — five letters in each word. Both words start with vowels. Take one letter in the first word, move it two spaces later in the alphabet, and rearrange the result. You'll get the second word in the movie's title. What movie is it?

Answer: After Earth

Amid the protests and clashes in Istanbul's Taksim Square, a pianist has been hauling in his instrument at night to entertain the crowds. Each time he does, the raucous crowd stills itself while he plays. In between tunes, chants rise up and he stands on his piano bench to conduct the crowd.

The White House is taking its first tentative steps toward arming Syrian rebels. Host Jacki Lyden speaks with James Fallows, national correspondent with The Atlantic, about the U.S.' ongoing struggle to determine when is the right time to intercede. They also discuss moderate candidate Hasan Rowhani's victory in the Iranian presidential election.

Google has launched — quite literally — a new idea to bring the Internet to some of the world's remotest places.

The tech giant's engineering hothouse, Google X, is testing the use of 12-mile-high helium balloons to get coverage in areas where it's impractical to put in conventional infrastructure.

Google said Saturday that it has 30 of the balloons, or "high-altitude platforms" (HAPS), flying over New Zealand as part of something called Project Loon. They will hover at about twice the altitude of a passenger jet.