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The world's largest solar power plant, made up of thousands of mirrors focusing the sun's energy, has officially started operations in Nevada's Mojave Desert.

The $2.2 billion 400-megawatt Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, which covers five-square miles near the Nevada-California border and has three 40-story towers, where the light is focused, is a joint project by NRG Energy, Google, and BrightSource Energy. The project received a $1.6 billion federal loan guarantee.

The plant, which went online Thursday, is to power 140,000 homes. It was dedicated by U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.

The San Jose Mercury News' Siliconbeat blog says:

"Unlike the photovoltaic solar panels that are common on the roofs of homes and commercial buildings, solar thermal technology concentrates the sun's rays to boil water and generate steam. Solar thermal, also known as concentrating solar power, or CSP, is land-intensive, requires access to transmission lines and typically faces several environmental reviews and permitting hurdles before projects can be built in the desert."

Iran's economy may be struggling, but that doesn't mean everyone is suffering.

In a downtown Tehran restaurant, a well-dressed young man who asks to be identified only as Ahmad sits with a friend enjoying a water pipe of flavored tobacco.

Ahmad is a bit vague about what he does – first he says he's in the petrochemical business, then describes himself as an independent trader. He shares the general consensus that President Hassan Rouhani has brought a better atmosphere to the country, but no real economic changes.

Ahmad's own problems, however, might not elicit much sympathy from most Iranians.

"The regulations definitely need to be changed," he says. "Take importing cars to Iran: The tariff is 105 percent on each car. I wanted to import two Mercedes, but you can only think about one."

Income inequality is one problem Rouhani faces, but the Iranian president says better economic times are coming for his country. Iranians are desperate to believe him, but beyond the marginal improvements that come with greater confidence in the new administration, very little has changed on the ground.

Iranians are pinning their hopes on a nuclear agreement and better relations with the outside world — achievements seen as difficult at best.

Another major problem that Rouhani faces in lifting Iran's economy is the opposition of entrenched interests who profit from Iran's isolation. For instance, the powerful Revolutionary Guard is a major economic player.

One graduate student who gives only his first name, Arman, says things hit a low point under former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Related NPR stories

Middle East

Iran's President Rouhani Gets The Benefit Of The Doubt, For Now

The nominee to be U.S. ambassador to, say, Hungary should be able to explain what the U.S. strategic interests are in that country — right?

But Colleen Bell, a soap opera producer and President Obama's appointee to be U.S. envoy to that European country, struggled to answer that simple question during her recent confirmation hearing.

"Well, we have our strategic interests, in terms of what are our key priorities in Hungary, I think our key priorities are to improve upon, as I mentioned, the security relationship and also the law enforcement and to promote business opportunities, increase trade ..." she responded, grasping for words, to a question by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on Jan. 16. (You can see the full hearing here.)

As McCain tweeted later about the confirmation hearings that day: "You can't make this up."

President Obama used to say that he wanted to rely more on career diplomats to serve as U.S. ambassadors. But the State Department's professional association, the American Foreign Service Association or AFSA, says that he has named a higher percentage of political appointees than his predecessors. He's given plum assignments to political donors such as Bell, who have made headlines recently with embarrassing gaffes at their confirmation hearings.

The AFSA has been so worried about how ambassadors are chosen that it's drawing up a list of basic qualifications for the job: knowing, for example, what U.S. interests are in the country where they are going to work.

The report, to be released later this month, comes at a time when there's been increased scrutiny of Obama's picks.

The AFSA, which keeps track of appointments, says in his second term so far, Obama has named a record number of political appointees, more than half, as compared to other recent presidents, who tend to name donors and friends to about one-third of the ambassadorial posts.

Ronald Neumann, president of the American Academy of Diplomacy, doesn't have anything against political appointees: His father was one.

However, unlike some of the campaign "bundlers" — wealthy fund-raisers who bundle contributions from a variety of donors — getting nominations in the Obama administration, Neumann's father was a professor of international relations, who had traveled and written extensively about the Middle East before serving as ambassador to Afghanistan, Morocco and Saudi Arabia.

"He was an enormously competent appointee who served four presidents, three embassies and two parties, which is kind of unusual," Neumann says of his father. The two men used to joke that they "came into the foreign service together" — his father at the top and Neumann at the bottom.

So Neumann, who like his father served as ambassador to Afghanistan, tries to take an even-handed approach, saying all ambassadors, whether political appointees or career diplomats, need to be vetted properly.

"There is a law, which both parties ignore, about ambassadors needing to be qualified: the Foreign Service Act of 1980," Neumann points out. "People still get through even if they are manifestly not qualified."

There have been some particularly tough confirmation hearings lately, though. The same day McCain quizzed Bell, the Arizona senator was also perplexed when the nominee to become ambassador to Norway, hotel executive George Tsunis, described a party in that country's ruling coalition as "a fringe element." And then there was the recent grilling of Obama's pick for ambassador to Argentina.

At times it's a good idea to have someone with the president's ear out in key countries around the world. But Robert Silverman, president of the AFSA, says most other major powers don't do things this way.

"They send us career professional diplomats as ambassadors," he says, suggesting that "those countries know that career professionals are the people most likely to further their country's interests in the United States. It is a simple matter of sending the right people to the right jobs."

That's why he asked a group of former ambassadors — five political appointees and five career diplomats — to draw up the soon-to-be published list of the basic qualifications for U.S. ambassadors.

Last year, Muslim militias helped overthrow the country's Christian president of the Central African Republic and marauded through Christian areas. Today, the circumstances are reversed, with Christian militias terrorizing Muslim communities and prompting a mass exodus.

French and African peacekeepers have mostly failed to stop the violence as the isolated country of 4 million continues to unravel.

Wazili Yaya, a Muslim, has witnesses the recent violence.

He has been custodian of the Ali Babalo Mosque in the capital Bangui since a wealthy merchant built it 19 years ago. Its painted arches are a testament to a Muslim community that makes up a minority of the population in this mainly Christian country — yet account for the vast majority of its traders and merchant class.

An unlocked door opens on a low white basin. This is where we prepare the corpses, he says. There were 40 this week. He pulls out his cell phone to show photos.

All the bodies show signs of violence far beyond what was needed to kill: castrations, decapitations, machete wounds to the head.

Each time he gets a body, he takes a photo of it.

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