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U.S. has ‘failed’ narcotics fight in Afghanistan, says inspector general
By Mick Krever, CNN
Despite spending $10 billion in reconstruction money fighting narcotics in Afghanistan, the U.S. has “failed,” the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, John Sopko, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Monday.
“If you look at production, if you look at cultivation, if you look at breaking the tie between the drug culture, the drug production, and the insurgency – if you look at all three of those indicators, we failed.”
Sopko is behind a damning new report alleging that corruption and incompetence in Afghanistan is putting a billion dollars in government assistance at risk.
Of the 16 Afghan ministries that the Inspector General examined, not a single one could be counted on to properly secure funds, the report says.
He alleged that of the litany of fixes to the aid program that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) proposed, 90% were ignored.
Indeed, he said, in Afghanistan’s case USAID waved most of its normal good governance requirements for aid.
“Our fear is that this money is at risk because of the waiver of their requirements.”
Playing for time with human lives
By Christiane Amanpour and Lucky Gold, CNN
In his state of the union address on Tuesday, U.S. President Barack Obama spoke of diplomatic pressure that has forced Syria to surrender its stockpile of chemical weapons.
Now imagine a world where dictatorship, terror and fear – and 95% of those chemical weapons – remain in place.
The United Nations-backed Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) – winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize and charged with locating and destroying those caches of sarin and mustard gas – now says "only a small portion" of the stockpile has been shipped out; perhaps only 5%
As cargo ships wait to transport these weapons to their eventual destruction, the Assad regime is dragging its feet and failing to deliver. It is now eight weeks behind schedule.
Viktor Yushchenko: Ukraine opposition does not control streets
By Mick Krever, CNN
The Ukrainian opposition does not control the street protests that have raged for months in the country’s capital, Former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Thursday.
“I don’t think that the political opposition of Ukraine has the control of the entire situation on Maidan,” or Independence Square, Yushchenko said through a translator.
The opposition, he said, has not provided a “comprehensive pact” that would satisfy the demands of the protestors.
The opposition is concerned with “the fight for power,” but less with “the strategic course of the country.”
Thought you had a big vocabulary? Think again
By Mick Krever, CNN
If you thought you had a big vocabulary, think again.
The average English-speaker knows between 25,000 and 40,000 words, Oxford English Dictionary Chief Editor Michael Proffitt told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Thursday.
His organization – which bills itself as the “definitive record of the English language” – has recorded 800,000 words and counting, he said.
“Even people who are doing 40,000, at the highest end, it’s about five percent of what we’ve got in the OED,” he said. “And that’s not all the words in the language.”
Proffitt has just taken over the helm of the OED, the first succession in 20 years, and he faces a unique challenge.
How will the revered dictionary stay relevant in a 21st century world of Tweets and text messages?
‘Civilized future’ of Ukraine at stake, says acclaimed Ukrainian writer
By Mick Krever, CNN
After months of protests, the very “civilized” future of Ukraine is at stake, acclaimed Ukrainian writer Andrey Kurkov told CNN’s Hala Gorani, sitting in for Christiane Amanpour, on Wednesday.
“There are lots of things at stake,” he said from Kiev. “The European, or the civilized, future of Ukraine; but most of all, actually, is the question of rule of law.”
“For 23 years there was no rule of law in the country, nobody was respecting the laws, and actually the laws were used to punish the enemies.”
President Yanukovych, in power since 2010, is using those same tactics to punish his enemies, Kurkov said.
There is no sign that protestors, hunkered down since November in far-below-freezing temperatures, are ready to quit.
Obama promises action on inequality, but proposals are ‘modest’ says John Cassidy
By Mick Krever, CNN
In his most important scheduled speech of the year, U.S. President Barack Obama called for a “year of action” – with or without Congress.
At the center of his agenda was not the deficit, or the national debt, but inequality.
According to two UC Berkeley economists, 95% of income growth during the economic recovery went to the top 1% richest Americans.
But Obama’s actual proposals, said John Cassidy, economics writer for The New Yorker, were “very modest if you looked at it closely.”
Among those “modest” proposals – enacted without Congress – are raising the minimum wage for new federal contractors.
There appears to be popular support for taxing the super rich more heavily, he said, but that has not translated into government action.
Inequality “has produced some anger,” he told CNN’s Hala Gorani, sitting in for Christiane Amanpour, “but for whatever reason the political system doesn’t seem to be able to respond to it.”
Click above to watch Gorani’s full conversation with Cassidy.
In bloody Central African Republic, top imam and archbishop urge peace
By Mick Krever, CNN
The top Muslim imam and Catholic archbishop in war-ravaged Central African Republic are coming together to advocate for peace and urge their communities to stop their brutal fighting.
“We are together to first prove to international opinion that the crisis is not religious,” Oumar Kobine Layama, president of the C.A.R. Islamic Community, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an interview that aired Tuesday.
“Religious temperament has been used for some people in order to reach their objectives, which is power,” he said.
Chaos struck the Central African Republic last year after a coalition of rebels dubbed Seleka, a predominantly Muslim coalition, ousted President Francois Bozize – the latest in a series of coups since its independence.
Christian groups, called anti-Balaka, sprung up in response.
They have continued their vicious vigilante fighting despite thousands of French and African peacekeeping troops, and the election last week of a transitional president.
Egypt government suppressing ‘any voice of dissent,’ says targeted academic
What is going on in Egypt?
What is going on in Egypt? Christiane Amanpour explains, and speaks with NPR Cairo Bureau Chief Leila Fadel.
By Mick Krever, CNN
Three years to the week since Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak was forced from power, the country seems to have come full circle.
As the country’s first democratically elected leader, Mohamed Morsy, faced a Cairo courtroom months after he was forced from power, Egypt’s generals gave their blessing for Field Marshall Abdul Fatah el-Sisi to run for president.
Mubarak’s military-backed rule may, three years later, become el-Sisi’s military rule.
“In order to implement its [roadmap] they are suppressing any voice of dissent, mine included,” Egyptian academic Emad Shahin told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday.
Shahin himself is an exemplary case of the state of Egypt today.
He was accused two weeks ago of espionage and conspiracy to undermine national security, but says he has not seen any concrete charges.
Mexico's position as an emerging market
CNN's Christiane Amanpour speaks to Mexican Finance Minister Luis Vildegaray about why Mexico's economy looks promising.
Ballet legend Carlos Acosta winds down classical dance career
At the top of the dance world sits Britain's Royal Ballet; and at the top of that sits Principal Dancer Carlos Acosta, from Cuba – the first Cuban to ascend such heights.
Amanpour first met him when he joined back in 1999, and he has since gone on to take his sensational athleticism and classical moves to every major ballet company in the world.
But for how much longer?
Acosta tells Amanpour that the time has come for him to hang up those ballet slippers; he may only perform one more season.
After a career that started in the slums of Havana, where his father enrolled him in dance school when he was nine just to keep him out of trouble, he's a family man now with an infant daughter and soon-to-be-wife.
And he has just written his first novel "Pig’s Foot,” about a dysfunctional dynasty in Cuba which debuted to great reviews.
Click above to watch their full interview.
@camanpour on Twitter
