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Kids Pick the President
Barack Obama wins the U.S. presidential election … or rather, he would, if America’s children were the voters.
“According to the children of America, President Barack Obama will be around for another four years,” said Linda Ellerbee, who for more than 20 years has asked viewers of her “Nick News” program to weigh in on the presidential election.
Obama, said Ellerbee, got 65% of the vote, to Romney’s 35%. The children in Ellerbee’s informal poll have correctly predicted the winner in five of the past six presidential elections.
As part of the election coverage on “Nick News,” President Obama answered children’s questions. Governor Mitt Romney did not participate – only the second candidate not to answer questions in the segment’s history.
“We take to the candidates a few very kidlike questions, like have you ever had your heart broken, or how do you always know the difference between right or wrong?,” Ellerbee said. “Sometimes they'll ask a question that gets you - you sort of get a little glimpse of the human being beneath the ‘Teflon’ facade of the candidate.”
CNN’s Ken Olshansky produced this piece for television.
Lebanon in the pocket of Assad, says Former P.M.
By Mick Krever, CNN
In the wake of a bombing that killed Lebanon’s intelligence chief, that country’s former prime minister is calling on his government to step down, saying that it is in the pocket of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.
“This government has failed. It is practically dead in the real sense of the word,” Fouad Siniora told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an exclusive interview. “This is the best solution in order to save Lebanon from instabilities and from any attempt of the Syrian regime to create a sedition.”
Siniora has allied himself with demonstrators who blame Prime Minister Najib Mitaki for failing to prevent the attack Friday that killed Lebanon’s intelligence chief, Wissam al-Hassan.
“This government is in the hands of Syria and Iran at the same time,” he said. FULL POST
Obama wins ... among U.S. children
Linda Ellerbee, of Nickelodeon's "Nick News," announces to Christiane the winner of her recurring "Kids Pick the President" poll.
Bin Laden 'would have to have been naked and on the ground'
Risks of the 'air option' to kill OBL
Christiane talks to author Mark Bowden of "The Finish: The Killing of Osama bin Laden," about the OBL raid.
Decisions behind the bin Laden raid
Christiane Amanpour talks to "The Finish: The Killing of Osama bin Laden" author Mark Bowden about the bin Laden raid.
by Lucky Gold, CNN
With foreign policy surprisingly front and center in the U.S. presidential election, the Obama administration’s signature foreign policy victory, the killing of Osama bin Laden, could prove a major factor.
Mark Bowden, journalist and author of Black Hawk Down, the blockbuster book and film about America’s debacle in Somalia, has just written The Finish: The Killing of Osama bin Laden. In researching his subject Bowden had unprecedented access to one incomparable source – the man who ordered the attack, President Barack Obama. FULL POST
More than 1,000 women running in Palestinian elections
By Samuel Burke & Claire Calzonetti, CNN
This Saturday, Palestinians in the West Bank will hold elections for the first time in six years, voting for municipal leaders.
It takes place against a backdrop of a deep sense of frustration with the split between Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah, the stalled economy, and the stalemate with Israel over final statehood.
What's so unusual about this election is the number of women running. FULL POST
The Libyan who knew too much
By Samuel Burke & Claire Calzonetti, CNN
Libya has come to the forefront in the U.S. presidential election campaign. The attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi last month has turned the deaths of the American ambassador, Chris Stevens, and the three other U.S. officials into a political football.
Ali Tarhouni served as Libya’s interim prime minister after playing a key role in marshaling international support and funding for the revolution that overthrew Moammar Gadhafi last year.
But he says he refused to run for prime minister in the recent election because he doubted the new leaders wanted to swallow the tough security medicine that he was prescribing in order to confront and rein in the militants.
“When I outlined what I wanted to do, the National Transitional Council at the time said that that's too tough of a medicine.” FULL POST
The case for a no-fly zone in Syria
By Samuel Burke, CNN
Britain’s former foreign secretary admits that though a major intervention in Syria is not a possibility for the West, a case could be made for a NATO-enforced no-fly zone.
“Although Syrian air defenses are strong, they're not strong enough to overcome those of the United States and NATO,” Jack Straw told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour Wednesday.
Straw served for 13 years in top cabinet positions under Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and played in key role in setting the West’s agenda in Afghanistan, Iran and other parts of the Middle East. His new memoir is called “Last Man Standing: Memoirs of a Political Survivor." FULL POST
Fond memories of Ambassador Stevens
Former Libyan Interim Prime Minister Ali Tarhouni shares memories of his late friend, U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.
Syria’s children search for hope and a place to live
By Samuel Burke, CNN
More than half of those fleeing for their lives in Syria are children. Some arrive with their families, while others are war orphans who arrive alone.
The numbers are exploding. Turkey says 100,000 refugees have now flooded that country and the government says it cannot build camps fast enough to house the vast numbers.
Human rights groups say right now at least 15,000 Syrian refugees are stranded at the border. Turkey won't let them across, leaving them as sitting ducks for Bashar al-Assad's artillery and his air force.
Turkey isn’t alone – tens of thousands of other refugees are flowing into Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan – countries with even fewer resources to deal with them. FULL POST
The U.S. election and the price of sitting out Syria
This is part of a series on foreign policy issues Christiane Amanpour is analyzing in the-lead up to next week’s presidential debate on foreign affairs.
By Christiane Amanpour, CNN & ABC
For the last 19 months Syria has fallen deeper and deeper into civil war. What started in March 2011 as another offshoot of the Arab Spring, the demand for freedom and reform, was met so brutally that ordinary Syrians decided that Assad had to go.
Left to fester, with the United Nations deadlocked over how to end the fighting, the death toll has reached 29,000 according to the Syrian opposition, and the most horrific massacres of women, children and old men have taken place. Extremists and foreign jihadists are joining the battle. With 1.2 million people displaced, the approaching winter poses as much of a threat as the relentless violence.
As worrisome as this is, recent history has shown us that when people are battling for survival, they end up taking help wherever it’s offered. When I covered the 1990s genocide in Bosnia, the people pleaded for years for the West to help. They did not. Instead the U.N. imposed a similar arms embargo that only ensured the superiority of the better-armed. So all sorts of foreign Mujaheddin came in. The parallels are eerily similar in Syria.
Will whoever wins the U.S. election make any changes to this policy of ‘Sitting Out Syria?’ FULL POST
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