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Elizabeth Joseph – journalist extraordinaire!
The team all met up outside of work after Friday's show and here's a snap with a great journalist from the program, Elizabeth Joseph:
Divided Loyalties: An Incredible Situation
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/03/24/sister.jpg caption="Sister Joan Chittister"]
By Joan Chittister
For all the certainty about the facts of the case, there is still an aura of discontent everywhere about the situation surrounding clerical sex abuse in the Church. No one disputes the data now; everyone disputes the nature of the problem. And worse than that, the data simply keeps piling up on all sides.
First, the world called it an “American problem.” As in, those Americans are a wild bunch anyway, what else can you expect?” The Vatican went so far as to dismiss the issue as simply another demonstration of American exaggeration–what the Irish call the American tendency to be “over the top.”
Then Ireland found itself engulfed in the problem and suddenly the outrage was no longer seen as ‘over the top,’ On the contrary, it became a display of integrity. Nor were the numbers seen as being exaggerated by the media. On the contrary, the numbers of child victims, the world began to understand, had, if anything, been minimized.
Now, the boil has broken in Europe, too: in the Netherlands, in Austria, in Germany, and, oh yes, in the Vatican, as well.
Now, the United States is no longer seen as being hysterical about a non-problem but early in its confrontation of it, also a decidedly American trait.
But what, precisely, is ‘it?” What is the real problem?
Note well: After stories of the first few high-profile cases of serial rapes and molestations and their unheard of numbers died down, the focus shifted away from individual clerical rapists to the unmasking of what was now obviously a systemic problem. This prevailing practice of episcopal coverups, of moving offenders from one parish to another rather than expose them either to legal accountability or to moral censure in the public arena, occupied the spotlight. It was a practice that saved the reputation of the church at the expense of children. It traded innocence for image.
Ben Affleck launches initiative for Congo aid
By George Lerner; Producer, AMANPOUR.
(CNN) - Actor Ben Affleck on Monday launched a grassroots initiative to assist communities ravaged by war in one of the most troubled places on earth, the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Affleck, who just returned from a trip to the DRC, told CNN's Christiane Amanpour that he had long heard about the crisis in Congo, which has left more than 5 million people dead over the past 12 years, but only came to understand the scope of the humanitarian crisis after repeated visits to the country.
"The more I traveled, the more I was struck about it, the more I fell in love with the people, the more I was horrified by what was happening. And the more I did, I started to develop this idea of partnering with the Congolese people and wanting to empower community-based organizations there that were doing extraordinary work," Affleck said.
Affleck on Monday announced the launch of the Eastern Congo Initiative, an effort to support community organizations working to help rape victims and to rebuild from a decade of war.
"There are folks who are working to protect those who are suffering from gender-based violence, who help child soldiers to advance the educational needs of the citizens there." Affleck told Amanpour. "There are people who live in the communities, who are from there, who understand the relationships there, who are Africans finding solutions to African problems. And when I was there, what I saw was that those were, in my view, the most effective folks at meeting those goals."
One of those groups, Affleck said, was an organization known as LAV, the French acronym for "Let Africa Live," which taught practical trades, such as carpentry, auto mechanics and textile production, to reintegrate both former soldiers and victims of the violence back into society.
Affleck cited the case of one woman whom he met on his trip last week. She had survived a horrifying ordeal at the hands of a militia in Eastern Congo.
"They, in her words, treated her like an animal and a slave. She was a bush wife to six men who raped her. She became pregnant. She eventually escaped by asking basically permission to take a bath and making a mad run for it," he said. "She barely escaped with her life. She walked for a week and made it back to the city. She was homeless, pregnant, and destitute in the city. She was discovered by folks from (LAV). They took her in. They brought her into this community."
Through the work of LAV, the woman is now attending to law school, with plans to practice and teach law, Affleck said.
"She's an extraordinary woman, and (LAV) was the kind of group that we want to partner with and support so that we can broaden their capacity to do more."
Congo analyst Jason Stearns, who worked in Eastern Congo's war zones with the International Crisis Group and the United Nations, said the problems in Congo could be traced to two sources: the ongoing after-effects of the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the collapse of the Congolese state.
"We're not going to have a solution to the problem - and to the rapes, for that matter - until we have a Congolese state and army that serves the people, rather than preys on the people," Stearns said. "Four billion dollars is currently the amount the international community gives to the Congo for various things, and they've done a great job in emergency stuff, in feeding displaced people, but really a very poor job in reforming the state institutions that would prevent such a crisis in the future."
Congolese human rights attorney Sylvie Maunga Mbanga said the government needed to focus attention on ending a culture of impunity towards rapists, especially when those rapes are committed by members of the Congolese army.
"We need to punish the perpetrators of sexual violence against women," she said.
Eastern Congo may have received far less international attention than the crisis in Darfur, but Affleck called on Washington to do more to address the humanitarian situation in the DRC.
"The United States really needs to develop a comprehensive policy towards Congo as a whole, much in the same way it did toward Sudan in late 2009, which it doesn't have toward Eastern Congo, despite what a sort of mess the place is," Affleck said.
Ben Affleck on Eastern Congo
A law and a life unto herself
By Christiane Amanpour
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/03/22/marmothcnn.jpg caption="CNN camerawoman Margaret Moth"]
Editor's note: CNN camerawoman Margaret Moth, who died of cancer Sunday in Rochester, Minnesota, was renowned for her gutsiness, striking appearance, distinctive humor and sense of fun. Barely surviving a sniper's bullet in Sarajevo in 1992, she battled back to continue working around the world, impressing all with her determination and attitude.
Margaret was a law and a life unto herself. Before I actually worked with her, I was quite intimidated by the idea of Margaret MOTH! The woman who had changed her name to that of a small plane, who even leapt out of them! The woman who wore black clothes and heavy black eye makeup, who was goth before it was cool. The woman, who I discovered under siege in Sarajevo, wore her heavy black boots to bed, just so she could be ready if the shelling started.
Bosnia, summer 1992, was my first assignment with Margaret, the latest in a string of distinguished women who changed my life on and off the road. She was wonderful, funny, hardworking, brave, tireless and fiercely private.
After a few weeks there, I had taken a break. I think it was July 14, I remember leaving her at the Sarajevo airport shooting a Bastille Day celebration day for the French UNPROFOR troops. I got on a plane to see my family. She didn't want to take a break, she wanted to stay on the next rotation. Three or four days after I left, she was shot in the face.
I remember flying off to the Mayo Clinic to visit her with Parisa Khosravi. I remember walking down the corridor to her room. Luckily, there was a picture of her on the door, because lying in bed, her face swollen and swathed in bandages, she was unrecognizable except for her hands. It's the only way I knew it was her. At some point that very day, I had to make a decision to go back to Sarajevo or not. The International Desk called me from Atlanta and asked whether I would go back. I looked at her in bed ... holding back tears. ... I quickly said yes into the telephone. I think I knew if I didn't say yes then, I might never go back.
She was remarkable. She came back to the battle zones as soon as she could. She endured all those endless surgeries, she had to learn to eat and drink and talk again. She had to endure people's embarrassed, curious stares. She got hepatitis C from the initial blood transfusion in Sarajevo that saved her life. And later, she got cancer, fought the good fight for longer than anyone could imagine, and died. Life battered and brutalized her, but she remained unbowed and happy. She was a survivor, a unique soul, and she bore all that came her way with a remarkable sense of calm and equanimity. She loved music, antiques and animals. She taught us so much about what it means to be a real person, the consummate professional.
She deserves to finally rest in peace. Now she can.
An exciting new adventure
I'm deeply touched by outpouring of support as I start an exciting new adventure: taking all that I have learned, experienced and reported about the world during nearly 27 years at CNN, to This Week. It’s a magnificent Sunday morning news program, rich in the tradition of serious journalism. I look forward to the rare... opportunity to explore important U.S. and international issues & policy, and how each vitally affects the other.
I've read all your wonderful comments and I'm truly touched, grateful & overwhelmed by your support. I've always hugely respected & appreciated CNN’s audience of caring, curious, inquiring people around the U.S. and all across the globe.
It's been my privilege to be your eyes and ears around the world. At this powerful platform for nearly 27 years, I've tried to stand for the pursuit of truth, the search for fact-based information for reporting news and without fear nor favor.
I'll continue at CNN until the end of April, and then I will take this mission to ABC This Week. Thank you and stay tuned on TV, online via Twitter and Faceboook and on the podcast as the journey continues.
Expert: Tackle Pakistan poverty
By Tom Evans; Sr. Writer, AMANPOUR.
(CNN) - One week before top-level U.S.-Pakistani talks in Washington on security and aid, one of Pakistan's leading development experts said it's vital to tackle poverty in her country to fight terrorism.
"I personally think that addressing poverty, which is Pakistan's biggest problem today, is going to combat in some ways the issue of security that we face," Roshaneh Zafar, founder and president of the Kashf Foundation told CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Thursday.
"We worked with 1 million poor families across Pakistan, and we've seen what happens, the change that happens." She said even small increases in family incomes can transform society, because parents can then put their children in private schools.
"[By] putting in micro-finance, which is the most sustainable way of providing aid to low-income households, we are beginning to see a silent revolution take place both in terms of children going to school, their ability to actually transcend their social backgrounds and become professionals," she said.
Pakistani journalist Mosharraf Zaidi, a former adviser to the British Department for International Development, said he disagreed with the idea that poverty fuels terrorism.
"The evidence from a substantial body of work that's pre-9/11 as well as post-9/11 [suggests] the link between terrorism and poverty or terrorism and literacy is tenuous at best," he said.
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