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Diamonds are forever. Government secrets, it seems, are not. The CIA just released its “Family Jewels”—nearly 700 pages of Cold War documents detailing plots of political assassinations, illegal wiretaps, and domestic spying. Secrecy expert Steven Aftergood tells FP what the release means for the Agency and for the future of American democracy.

As the planet warms, leaders from Washington to Beijing are pushing nuclear power as a clean alternative to coal. But this new strategy for fighting climate change has a fatal flaw: It can’t possibly work.

Is free trade doomed? U.S. President George W. Bush’s trade negotiating authority is soon to expire, Congress is on the warpath, and global trade talks are imploding. In this List, FP looks at the U.S. trade deals whose futures are now anything but certain.

She’s one of the most famous women in the world. And in A Mighty Heart, Angelina Jolie plays another famous face: Mariane Pearl, who transfixed the world when her husband Danny, a journalist for the Wall Street Journal, was kidnapped and murdered by Islamic extremists. FP spoke recently with Jolie about the experience.

Six months ago, Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, went to Iran to visit her ailing mother. She never returned home. Instead, Esfandiari was thrown into prison and accused of endangering national security. FP spoke with Shaul Bakhash, Esfandiari’s husband, about the detention of his wife and three other Iranian-Americans.

Everywhere you look, it seems, the Middle East is in flames. Yet, almost unnoticed by outside observers, the most conservative country in the region has embarked on a historic journey of reform.

Wars, famine, and poverty drive hundreds of thousands of people each year to pull up stakes and head for greener pastures. But those seeking a better life don’t always find themselves welcome in their prospective homes. For this week’s List, FP takes a look at the dangerous routes migrants are using in order to stay one step ahead of the authorities.

As attorney general of Switzerland and now as chief prosecutor for the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Carla del Ponte has taken on some of the world’s worst bad guys: Cosa Nostra of Sicily, the Russian mafia, and the butchers of Rwanda and Yugoslavia. For this week’s Seven Questions, FP spoke with Ms. del Ponte about her past investigations and the prospects for bringing the last few Serbian war criminals to justice.

Alarmist pundits prophesy that a secular Europe risks being overcome by its fast-growing Muslim population. Yet for all we hear about Islam, Europe remains a stronger Christian fortress than people realize.

Most countries seem to have finally whipped inflation—at least for now. But not everyone is celebrating the world’s impressive economic stability. In today’s List, FP takes a hard look at the soft currencies of some of the most unstable economies on the planet.

A vast rift yawns between the three players that matter most when it comes to stopping climate change: Europe, China, and the United States. The efforts of German Chancellor Angela Merkel to move the debate forward seem doomed to failure. Is there any hope? To get some answers, FP turned to Eileen Claussen of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change for this Seven Questions.