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Syria: 'Torture of the worst kind'
By Lucky Gold
(CNN) - Ivan Simnovic, Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations for Human Rights, says the Syrian government has reached the “threshold” of committing war crimes: “They are widespread and committed in a systematic manner,” said Simnovic.
Speaking Thursday to Christiane Amanpour, he stated that “there is unselective shelling; there is deliberate targeting with live munition of protesters.” Then he added, “There is systematic torture going on in prisons – and this is the torture of the worst possible form.”
Asked to be more specific, Simnovic said, “I will not go into details, but it includes physical torture as well as psychological threats – threats such as raping members of family, direct torture involving putting people in unnatural positions for a long time, torturing them by burning them and so on and so on…It’s appalling.” FULL POST
Olympic Games virus
by Lucky Gold.
(CNN) - While the world waits to see if Israel will attack Iran’s nuclear program, is it possible that the United States is already at war with Tehran?
David Sanger, Chief Washington Correspondent for the New York Times and author of “Confront and Conceal,” said Wednesday on Amanpour that it all began “in a quiet meeting between him (President Obama) and President Bush just days before the inauguration, in 2009, when President Bush said, ‘Look, there are two programs you’re going to want to hold onto. One of them is drones, the other is Olympic Games.’”
“Olympic Games,” said Sanger, “is an effort to get into the Iranian centrifuge system with a computer worm that was a very elaborate effort to get through the defenses the Iranians had built up…send in a worm that would speed up or slow down those centrifuges until they began to blow up.”
FULL POST
Syria: "Where have the people gone?"
“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.
FULL POST
Raul Castro's daughter Mariela speaks about Alan Gross case
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."
Annan peace plan 'clearly on life support, but not dead yet'
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
Papandreou: We are not the problem
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.”
FULL POST
Air strikes would wreck Assad, says former Syrian general
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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Harry Belafonte on civil rights & non-violence resistance
Part 1: Harry Belafonte on non-violent resistance The singer and activist on civil rights in history and today. Part 2: Lyndon B. Johnson and Civil Rights CNN's Christiane Amanpour talks to historian Robert Caro about President Johnson. Part 3: Photos of President Lyndon B. Johnson A look at intimate yet forceful photos of President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Harry Belafonte: Non-violent resistance
Singer and activist Harry Belafonte on civil rights and non-violence resistance, in history and today.
Lyndon B. Johnson and Civil Rights
CNN's Christiane Amanpour talks to historian Robert Caro about President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Photos of President Lyndon B. Johnson
A look at intimate yet forceful photos of President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Episode #29: Monday, May 28, 2012
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/33361489 w=400&h=300]
'Sing Your Song' is film that looks at the singer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte. He was born in New York and raised in Jamaica, but returned to Harlem in his early teens where he discovered the American Negro Theater and began his life as a performer. Many people know him for his music, but he has also been a champion for human rights. The movie looks at his life in the arts, but also chronicles what it was like to be black singer in a time of Jim Crow laws. The film delves into his involvement in the Civil Rights movement, to which he not only gave his money but also gave his voice. Today, Belafonte is 85 years and remains politically active. You can see more about his film here and read the first pages of his book by clicking here.
CNN’s Meredith Milstein produced the interview with Harry Belafonte for television.
CNN’s Ken Olshansky produced the interview with historian Robert Caro for television.
Turkey's President on Egypt, Syria & Israel
By Lucky Gold, CNN
President Abdullah Gul of Turkey attended the NATO Summit in Chicago this week and appeared Friday on Amanpour. He was asked about the presidential elections in Egypt and whether Egypt’s military would willingly relinquish its power.
“The military is well aware that they cannot continue forever,” said President Gul.
“I went to Egypt,” he added. “I talked to all the military leadership, and they know that it is not their job to run the country. They are going to hand off the authority to the civilian government - but I think it needs some time.”
How much time, remains to be seen. However, he added, “I think the Egyptian army is ready to hand over the authority when the time is preferred.”
FULL POST
U.N. Secretary General: 'We don't have a Plan B'
By Mick Krever
(CNN) – Despite U.N. monitors’ struggle to contain violence in Syria, the U.N. Secretary General told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour Thursday that there was no fallback.
“At this time, we don’t have a Plan B,” Ban Ki-moon said.
The nearly 300 monitors deployed across five Syria cities are making “all possible efforts to stop violence” and have had “some dampening effect,” Ban said.
But, he conceded, “We were not able to completely cease the violence.” FULL POST
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