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Hong Kong protests may not stay in the streets, but “like a bad penny, I'll keep turning up”
By Mick Krever, CNN
While the street protests in Hong Kong may need to end, democracy advocates in Hong Kong have put themselves on the map and will continue their fight, Emily Lau, Chairwoman of the Hong Kong Democratic Party told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday.
The protesters “can't stay in the streets all the time. But we are not going to go away. Like a bad penny, I'll keep turning up. Many of us will keep turning up. So there is no way Beijing can just shut us out.”
Leaders of the Occupy Central movement turned themselves into the police Wednesday, urging protesters to end the months-long occupation of downtown Hong Kong; they insisted that their push for democratic autonomy from China would continue.
“This is the beginning of the end of this phase,” Lau said. “They are sending out a signal to Hong Kong, particularly to the protesters, that maybe it's time to call this part of the movement to a close.”
To free 36 million modern slaves, ‘hit it at all levels,’ says Head of the Church of England
By Madalena Araujo, CNN
Governments, businesses, and NGOs all need to play a role in the fight against modern slavery, Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Head of the Church of England, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday.
“You have to hit it at all levels. There needs to be government involvement; we’ve seen the French and British governments are leading the way with anti-slavery laws, which are going to have an impact. They change the culture, they also give the police powers to deal with things. There’s a hard edge to dealing with this, it’s a policing matter.”
Welby’s comments followed a landmark event at the Vatican where, for the first time, leaders of the world’s major faiths gathered together to sign a joint declaration to end modern slavery by 2020.
The panel, which Amanpour MCed, included Pope Francis, the Archbishop of Canterbury as well as leaders of Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, and Shiite and Sunni Islam.
Besides government involvement, Welby explained, modern slavery’s “business edge” needs to be tackled.
Pope: Modern slavery becoming worse
Pope Francis on Tuesday said that modern-day slavery is a "crime against humanity" and is "unfortunately become worse and worse every day."
"This takes place in hiding," he said through an interpreter, "behind closed doors, in private homes, in the streets, in the cars, in factories, in the fields, in fishing boats, and in so many other places. This takes place both in cities and in villages – in villages of the richest and the poorest nations on earth."
His remarks came as part of a panel of faith leaders, MCed by CNN's Christiane Amanpour, who have signed a joint declaration to end modern-day slavery, hosted by the Global Freedom Network at The Vatican.
You can watch Pope Francis' full remarks here.
CNN is joining the fight to end modern-day slavery by shining a spotlight on the horrors of modern-day slavery, amplifying the voices of the victims, highlighting success stories and helping unravel the complicated tangle of criminal enterprises trading in human life. Find out more about the CNN Freedom Project here.
Hong Kong MP praises students’ cause, but criticizes tactics
By Madalena Araujo, CNN
The Chairwoman of Hong Kong's Democratic Party urged pro-democracy protesters on Monday to “exercise maximum restraint” following hours of violent clashes with the police as they tried to encircle government headquarters.
“I think people are getting frustrated because we do not get any response from Beijing and from the Hong Kong government. But the students want to escalate the action and their confrontation with the police, and [this is] resulting in police brutality,” Emily Lau told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.
“But I hope the people will exercise maximum restraint. We want to conduct the struggle in a peaceful and non-violent way."
"I think they are beginning to realize that [if] you keep escalating the action; you keep having confrontation with the police, you will lose the support of the Hong Kong people and the international community.”
The renewed violence came after the student leaders’ call for an escalation of their civil disobedience actions, a move that marked a shift in the so-far largely peaceful “Umbrella Revolution.”
‘Israel is democratic towards Jews and Jewish towards Arabs,’ says Arab-Israeli MP
By Mick Krever, CNN
With a controversial nationhood bill on hold and the governing coalition wobbling, a prominent Arab-Israeli politician decried what he described as “inflammatory declarations and bills” aimed at gaining right-wing votes.
“There are two or three pyromaniacs in the Israeli cabinet,” Ahmad Tibi told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday.
“The nationality bill is totally proof of what I said during the last decades: that in Israel, Israel is democratic towards Jews and Jewish towards Arabs.”
A proposed bill, backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, passed a hurdle when it was approved by Israel’s cabinet during a testy meeting last week.
It would enshrine Jewish teachings as the basis of the Israeli legal system and would give Arab Israelis individual rights, but not the “national” rights Jewish Israelis would have.
“Jewish and democratic, the definition of the State of Israel for the last thirty years, is an oxymoron,” Tibi said. “You cannot be democratic, believing in equality between all citizens, and define yourself as an ethnic definition, ‘Jewish.’”
Why The New York Times wants America to open up to Cuba
By Madalena Araujo, CNN
It is time for the Obama Administration to improve the long-strained relations with Cuba, Ernesto Londoño, a member of the New York Times' editorial board, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an interview that aired Thursday.
“I think we've entered a new era and I think the months ahead represent an opportunity for the Obama Administration to take a pretty bold move and to move this relationship in a direction that I think the president himself has long wanted to take it.”
The New York Times, arguably America's most important newspaper, has taken a very public stand calling for the end of the decades-old economic blockade of Cuba.
“I think reforms in Cuba and the political landscape in the United States offer the right conditions for this relationship to move on a healthier trajectory, for the two countries, for instance, to think about resuming formal diplomatic relations.”
Londoño joined Amanpour from the Cuban capital Havana, following a series of editorials Cuba-focussed editorial in the paper. The more than 50-year embargo was a Cold War measure implemented by the U.S. in 1960 when Fidel Castro, a friend of the then-Soviet Union, came to power.
In horrific year for journalists, some of most courageous honored for their work
It has been a horrific year for journalists.
As long as reporters have done their work, people have tried to stop them from doing it; but the dangers of the profession have been especially apparent this year.
In Iraq and Syria, the Muslim extremist group ISIS has captured and executed journalists in horrific fashion, starting with the beheading of James Foley.
The Committee to Protect Journalists says that 42 journalists have been killed this year alone; last year, 211 were jailed.
Every year, that same organization puts a spotlight on those who, as the Czech leader Vaclav Havel said, strive for “living in truth.”
CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, who hosted this year’s awards ceremony on Tuesday, spoke this week with two of the honorees – Mikhail Zygar, a Russian journalist struggling to keep the country’s only intendant TV news station on the air, and Siamak Ghaderi, who served four years in an Iranian prison and received 60 lashes for his work.
Click above to watch.
Bishop: Obama’s action on immigration a ‘real relief’ for millions
By Madalena Araujo, CNN
President Obama’s new action on immigration will provide “real relief” for millions of families who are just trying to find “a better life,” Bishop Eusebio Elizondo, Chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday.
“I am very welcoming… [of] his move, his action, of course, because [it] will benefit at least five million people to really legalize their statuses here, and especially for all those adults who have already children, U.S. citizens born here.”
“And so it will be great for them to have a legal status and work here normally. And for them it's a real relief.”
Last week, through an executive order, the U.S. President announced that he intends to grant large numbers of undocumented immigrants protection from deportation; The Migration Policy Institute estimates that more than five million people could be protected.
In America, ‘equal justice under law’?
By Madalena Araujo, CNN
The grand jury decision not to indict police officer Darren Wilson over the death of an unarmed black teenager Michael Brown has angered many Americans, who feel that equal justice under the country’s law system is failing.
So is that the case? CNN’s Christiane Amanpour put the question on Tuesday to Vincent Warren, Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and to CNN’s Senior Legal Analyst and Former Prosecutor Jeffrey Toobin.
They started by looking into how prosecutor Robert McCulloch handled the investigation into Brown’s death, which sparked protests in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson in August. The demonstrations have since spread across the country.
“I would draw a distinction between the process and the result. I actually think the result – no charges – is defensive, but I don’t think the process he [McCulloch] followed was appropriate,” Toobin told Amanpour.
“The best thing the criminal justice system can do is treat everyone the same, and the process the prosecutor used, using a grand jury, which is rarely used in any kind of setting and throwing all the evidence, rather than a selection of it before the grand jury almost seemed to dictate the result, which was an exoneration."
Civil rights heroes honored 50 years later
Fighting for equality can lead to a death sentence, but this week it also led to recognition.
Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman - who were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in 1964 - were honored this week by President Barack Obama with America's highest civilian honor, the Medal of Freedom.
Christiane Amanpour has the story.
@camanpour on Twitter
