“It was the most terrible thing.  I was the first person to go in after there had been fighting consecutively for about twenty six days.  There was no one left.  There was no one for us to go in and support and help.  I kept asking the question:  Where have the people gone?”

That's what Valerie Amos, United Nations Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs, about her recent visit to Homs.  Amos has been an eyewitness to the human cost of the ever widening civil war in Syria.
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On Tuesday Christiane has the second part of her interview with Mariela Castro on CNN International. The niece of Fidel Castro and daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro, discusses Cuba's political future and her fight for acceptance of gays in that country.

(CNN) - The daughter of Cuba's president supports the re-election bid of U.S. President Barack Obama, but believes he could do more were it not for the pressures he is facing, she said in an interview broadcast Monday on "CNNi's Amanpour."

"As a citizen of the world, I would like him to win," said Mariela Castro Espin, daughter of Raul Castro, in the exclusive interview, which was conducted Friday in New York. "Given the choices, I prefer Obama."

The 49-year-old gay rights advocate said that Obama has been constrained in his ability to effect change. "He wants to do much more than what he's been able to do," she said. "That's the way I interpret it personally. I don't know if I'm being objective."

Still, she said, "I believe that Obama needs another opportunity and he needs greater support to move forward with his projects and with his ideas, which I believe come from the bottom of his heart."

Asked if Obama would lift the half-century-old trade embargo on Cuba if he could, Castro said, "I believe that Obama is a fair man. And I believe Obama needs greater support to be able to make these decisions. If Obama had all the political support of the American people, then we could normalize our relationships, as good or better than we had under President Carter."

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By Lucky Gold

(CNN) – The massacre in Houla has been perceived by some as “the tipping point” in Syria – an atrocity so horrific that it will surely lead to the end of the Assad regime.  But Syrian President Bashar Assad remains in power and the opposition rebels are asking the world to declare the peace initiative of international envoy Kofi Annan officially dead.

Britain’s U.N. Ambassador, Mark Lyall Grant, isn’t prepared to pull the plug: “Clearly it is on life support but it isn’t dead, yet.”

Appearing Thursday on Amanpour, Ambassador Grant remained committed to the process:  “We are directing all our efforts into trying to make it work.  But I think to make it work we’re going to need to increase the international pressure on the Syrian regime… so that they begin to comply with the six point plan that Kofi Annan has set out.  But it isn’t dead yet.” FULL POST

By Lucky Gold

(CNN) - George Papandreou, the former Greek Prime Minister, was indignant:  “Many people have been pontificating, and patronizing, and moralizing, and scapegoating, saying you Greeks, you are the problem.  I would say we Greeks have a problem.  We are not the problem.”

On the Amanpour program, Papandreou fired back at those who believe Greece is a tax-evading drag on the European Union:  “If we were the problem, it would be very convenient – kick Greece out, everything’s fine.  What would happen to Spain, what about Portugal, what about Italy, what about the whole of the eurozone?  We need more cooperation and less simplification and prejudice.”
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By Mick Krever, CNN

Syrian defenses under a western attack would “collapse right away,” a former Syrian general told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour Tuesday.

Akil Hashem dismissed as “just excuses” the idea, promoted by Western intervention skeptics, that Syrian air defenses are very sophisticated.

It was an idea articulated by Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, in testimony before the U.S. Congress in March.

“They have approximately five times more sophisticated air defense systems than existed in Libya,” Dempsey said. “All of their air defenses are arrayed on the western border, which is their population center.”

Hashem refuted this.

“They know more than me that this is not the truth,” he said. “It is good to face civilians…but when it face a superior power, it will collapse right away.”
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