Looking back at my first impression of Nujood Ali and her incredible act of defiance, I was very naive.

Nujood Ali rebelled against culture, religion and government.

Like Nujood herself, I thought the mere act of demanding a divorce and getting one would 'fix' her life and allow her to return and remain in the embrace of her family.

The complexity of Nujood's life is quite daunting to fathom now. At the age of 10, she defied her husband, his family and crucially, her own family to divorce her husband and return to the innocent life she so missed.

But after following Nujood's story for more than a year now, it is far from a simple portrait of victory and triumph.

The key to Nujood's life now is that she lives very much like an outcast in her community. The fame and the media attention have made her a choice topic for gossiping neighbors.

The fact is, some in Yemen see nothing wrong with marrying off a 10-year-old girl. And so what she did, and the notoriety that followed, was seen by some as a threat to how things are and how they should stay.

While we in the Western media celebrated Nujood's courage, some in her own extended family questioned her rebellious act.

Nujood has said that her father, her brothers and her uncles have all expressed their displeasure at having her story exposed and publicized.

So where does all this leave Nujood now? I'm not quite sure. CNN producer Elwazer Schams has followed Nujood's story now for months.

In repeated calls to concerned human rights campaigners, lawyers, the judge involved in the case and government officials there has been precious little clarity about Nujood’s future.

Apparently, there is some type of a scholarship fund set up for education, but Nujood's school attendance has been sporadic in part because, her attorney says, her family has not supported her education whole-heartedly.

It's clear Nujood and her family believed being famous would earn them a fortune. It hasn't. Some have said to me that Nujood has been victimized twice by her family.

First, Nujood was forced into an early marriage she did not want and later into a publicity frenzy that her family believed would make them thousands of dollars.

Whatever the truth, Nujood has been hurt and very little in her life has changed for the better.

This has been a difficult but important story to tell for all these months. Verifying the facts of what happened to Nujood has been daunting but it has been insightful.

At its core, though, this is a real and gritty story about what it means to rebel against cultures, religion and government.

Nujood is very confused and angry and is far from living out the childhood all young girls deserve.

L'AQUILA, Italy - It’s a dirty little secret among the journalists here: What would we do without Silvio? His perpetual personal scandals are the only spark of this summit.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd talks to German Chancellor Angela Merkel behind U.S. President Barack Obama at the G-20 summit.

Please forgive the "watching paint dry" cliché, but that’s exactly what most of these summits are like.

The G-20 a few months ago in London was refreshingly different. But after a couple days at this Italian G-8, the cliche is back to haunt us all.

In terms of relevancy, the G-20 set a new standard in not just consensus, but practical policy. The sheer scale and scope of the crisis cut through the usual grinding negotiations and there was real action on stimulus, financial oversight, trade and more money for the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

But this summit has gone back to the same old slog, a fog of declarations and details that amount to sound and fury signifying something that won’t happen for months, even years.

The issue of climate change is a perfect example of what is sure to make this summit forgettable.

Going into the summit, environmental groups and eager policy hawks were optimistic, hoping this meeting could break new ground on climate change.

But within hours it was clear that any concrete progress would have to wait until yet another meeting at the end of the year in Copenhagen.

Greenpeace was especially critical saying it had hoped for more leadership at this summit, especially from U.S. President Barack Obama.

“I don't think President Obama has gone much further than Clinton. It's easy to compare him to Bush, who denied the science. The big problem now is President Obama actually accepts the science. He accepts this is a big problem and still he's doing very little to nothing to lead on the issue. I don't know what's worse: Not believing in it and not doing anything, or knowing how bad the problem is and not doing anything,” said Phil Radford of Greenpeace USA.

After seeing an advance copy of the declaration, it was clear it would be even more diluted than first thought.

There are no set goals for decreasing emissions, just a promise to decide on one by the end of the year.

As with so many issues on the table at this summit, and there is quite a laundry list, there is very little substantive policy development taking place and very little detail I is on offer.

Just a few years ago that might have been acceptable. Not today.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is hosting this week's G8 summit.

The pressing issues of the economy and climate change are a big talking point not just at summits but at dinner tables around the world.

Many here were hoping for more than the usual declarations and photo-ops that litter these summits.

HARARE, Zimbabwe – The calm and tightly controlled streets of the capital city here, Harare, are hard to fathom. Why aren’t we seeing protests in the streets, panic at the banks and brawls in the food lines? When I asked one young Zimbabwean about it he explained, ‘It’s like a person, on the outside we look healthy, but inside we’re rotting,” he said.

A Zimbabwean woman harvests pumpkins. Food shortages in the countryside have left many people starving.

On a rare, undercover journey into the Zimbabwean countryside, we tried to find ‘the rot’ and we didn’t have to look long. We passed several police checkpoints, dodging police all the way along our route before we joined a journey made by millions here each day, an all-consuming hunt for work and food.

Some of the farm labourers we meet have come from a neighboring province. “We hitched a ride, closed in like dogs on trucks,” one female farm worker says before adding they have no choice but to roam and scavenge for a job for as little as $3 a month. They say the farm they had been working on wasn’t even paying them enough to buy their own food.

One U.S. dollar is now worth 40 million Zimbabwean dollars. But here on the land, they rate the country’s hyper inflation not by some ridiculous number, but by hunger.

We can’t say how we managed to talk to these people, but their stories lay bare Mugabe’s rural ruin. We passed mile after mile of Africa’s richest soil, most of it uncultivated. As one man bitterly remarked, “We grow grass here in Zimbabwe now.”

In contrast, one farm we passed had immaculate, perfectly tended citrus groves and much more. It was the Zanu-PF farm, where Mugabe’s party plants and harvests food of its own, to distribute as it pleases.

But on many ordinary black-owned farms, the government isn’t even tilling the fields for farmers like it used to. We also spoke to a white farm owner. Farmers here said they were grateful all had been quiet so far, but they were still apprehensive about what would happen next.

“As long as they’ve left us with something, it’s worth our fighting for, “ he says, adding that the government had already taken three-quarters of his farm. “No one expects anything fancy, just a bit of stability, we want to know what’s happening tomorrow,” he adds, unwilling to give his name and asking us to withhold the location of his farm.

In 2000, Mugabe’s regime ordered the expropriation of thousands of white-owned farms, sometimes by force. About sixty white-owned farms have suffered through "invasions" in the last week. Most of the properties are now back in the owners' hands, but farms remain a key political battleground for Mugabe. He claims to be defending Zimbabwean land and preventing the opposition from giving black land back to whites.

There is fear in every rural corner here; fear that is now reinforced by Mugabe’s militias. In the farming hub of Bindura, once a guaranteed Mugabe stronghold, we spotted Zanu-PF loyalists making their presence felt in the town.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change, or MDC, claims this district turned its back on the regime during the elections, electing an MDC politician.

Diplomatic sources inside and outside Zimbabwe tell CNN that more than 200 party militia have been dispatched to places like Bindura. Their mission is clear, sources say: they have been tasked with intimidating those who voted against President Mugabe.

What surprised me though was that even in this toxic environment, we found people expressing the kind of defiance that could finally replace their all-consuming fear.

“You know the people of Zimbabwe are so stupid” said one mango vendor we spoke to. He was referring to Mugabe and his party. He wants the "old man" to retire. After all, he adds, the opposition has guaranteed the president won’t be tried or exiled.

But, from another vendor, a shrewd if depressing observation: “We are dying, slowly, slowly in Zimbabwe, but I think it’s now faster than before.”

We relied on courageous Zimbabweans to guide us on our rare journey through the country's rural heartland. Hope there has lost out to hunger. So far, democracy has failed utterly to transform their despair.

Watch my report from inside Zimbabwe.