Journalist Fareed Zakaria will host CNN's new weekly show on foreign affairs. (Jason DeCrow/Associated Press)

Former British prime minister Tony Blair will be the first guest on a new weekly CNN talk show devoted to international issues.

The show will be hosted by Fareed Zakaria, a columnist and editor of Newsweek International, who has been critical of the lack of international news on U.S. networks.

Zakaria is author of The Post-American World, a study of the rise of countries such as India and China, which argues that the U.S. is becoming politically irrelevant.

His show Fareed Zakaria — GPS (for Global Public Square) is aimed at engaging Americans with the rest of the world.

"The only show I want to do is one that fills in the huge gaping hole in American television, which is 95 per cent of the rest of the world," Zakaria said.

The show will have a centrepiece interview of about 20 minutes, followed by panels and documentaries exploring world events.

Blair, now an international peace envoy, will be on the first show this Sunday,

Zakaria said he'd like to interview Afghan President Hamid Karzai together with Pakistan's new leader to discuss problems between the two countries.

Zakaria said he's frustrated by the endless discussions about why Hillary Clinton should or shouldn't leave the presidential race that he hears on the U.S. networks.

There is much more legitimate news elsewhere, he said, but Americans aren't interested because they get so little of it.

Zakaria said he hopes to lend perspective to news events with interviews and panels that explore the implications of what has happened.

For example, the earthquake in China might lead to a discussion about what the tragedy means to the country's economy or politics.

The show's executive producer, Liza McGuirk, called Zakaria "the rare journalist who always looks right past the obvious, to get at what a story really means."

With files from the Associated Press