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Syrian Opposition President: 21 U.N. peacekeepers safe
By Pete Burn and Michael Martinez
(CNN) - Twenty-one U.N. peacekeepers being held by rebels in Syria were taken from an area near the Golan Heights for their own safety, Syrian opposition coalition President Moaz al-Khatib said Thursday.
Khatib told CNN's Christiane Amanpour he wants the Red Cross to pick them up.
"There was a U.N. convoy at risk" in an area under bombardment for seven days, al-Khatib said.
The rebels are "ready to release them on the condition that the Red Cross come and receive them from the border," al-Khatib said. Injured civilians, including women and children, should also be rescued by the Red Cross, he added. FULL POST
Tracing the cover-up to the Vatican
By Samuel Burke & Juliet Fuisz, CNN
Pope Benedict XVI bears personal responsibility for not holding sexually abusive priests in the Catholic Church accountable, alleges the director of a new documentary, "Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God.”
“From 2001 to 2005, as cardinal, [Benedict] ran the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. And in that office, he looked over every sex abuse case that there was all over the world. So he's the most knowledgeable person in the world about this issue,” director Alex Gibney told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “Then, as pope, he presided, as more and more information about this came out. And he was pretty much utterly ineffective in being able to stem the tide.”
Gibney, whose documentaries have taken on complicated characters from Jack Abramoff to Dick Cheney, says Benedict took some positive steps: “He did make some apologies. He did blame some bishops. But he took no responsibility for the Vatican itself. So, in a way, I think this whole sex abuse crisis engulfed Benedict.”
“Mea Maxima Culpa” focuses on the case of Father Lawrence Murphy, an American priest who is accused of molesting as many as 200 boys at St. John's School for the Deaf. The film traces his case to the highest levels of Church power.
A former student at the school, Terry Kohut, told the filmmakers about a time he was alone in Father Murphy’s office. He says the priest asked him to take off his pants.
“I was looking at this man in a black suit with a white collar. I thought to myself, he's a priest and I'm supposed to obey him. So I took my pants down and he molested me. I felt sick and confused. Why would a priest do that to me?” Kohut described all these years later, using sign language.
The filmmaker believes that Father Murphy went after deaf children whose parents could not sign, so they could not even tell their families what was happening to them.
“But at the end of the day, there was no real punishment at all for Father Murphy, even though the deaf students and, indeed, one archbishop tried to reach out to then Cardinal Ratzinger to have this man defrocked. It never happened. And so he was buried in his priestly vestments. No punishment at all was meted out on him.”
Mea Maxima Culpa is Latin for “my most grievous fault.” There are no interviews with Vatican officials in the documentary, which is why Gibney says the subtitle of the film is "Silence in the House of God."
“Sadly, there was utter silence,” he told Amanpour. “And I not only went to the Vatican, but I also went to the most high-ranking prelate in the United States, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, and asked him over and over and over again to please speak to us. And once again, the answer that came back was silence.”
Many practicing Roman Catholics participated in the film. Gibney believes they took part because they hope to change the Church.
“It's a system-wide problem,” Gibney said. “Unless the church reckons with it, it's going to come crashing down."
READ MORE: How do cardinals pick a pope? 'You don’t pick your buddy'
Chavez' friend and adviser reflects on Chavismo
Venezuelan-American attorney and author Eva Golinger knew and advised Hugo Chavez. In the video above, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour speaks with Golinger, who is a staunch supporter of Chavez’ policies, about his contradictory legacy: easing poverty, unemployment and infant mortality, but leaving the country with soaring inflation and crime rates.
The tragic story you may have never heard of
Morocco's untold story
Actor Javier Bardem discusses his documentary about the Sahrawi people.
Morocco responds to documentary
Morocco's Ambassador to the U.N. responds to a documentary about the country's treatment of the Sahrawi people.
By Ken Olshansky, CNN
In the remote desert land on the northwest side of Africa, a nomadic people see their homes taken from them by an imperial power. Hundreds of thousands are driven away and forced to live as refugees.
It sounds like a story—but it’s real. This happened in the Western Sahara, a colony of Spain, one of the last colonies in Africa. In 1975 the Moroccans moved in, saying they were reclaiming a territory that had always been theirs. It is an important story that almost no one pays attention to or has even ever heard of.
The people who live there, known as the Sahrawis, were displaced. They now live under Moroccan rule in Western Sahara or in refugee camps in neighboring Algeria.
For years, they've said they're prisoners of a Moroccan occupation, living in dire poverty, sometimes thrown in jail, even tortured in their own country.
To break the stalemate over who controls the Western Sahara, the international community has called for a referendum, a chance for the Sahrawi to vote on independence. And even though Morocco agreed, more than 20 years later, the vote still hasn't happened. This terrible standoff also hasn't received much international attention.
But finally a spotlight is shining on this situation: Oscar-winning Spanish actor Javier Bardem has made a documentary film called "Sons of the Clouds: The Last Colony."
In the video above, Bardem tells’ CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that as a Spaniard he feels an obligation to set right the humanitarian crisis that his country left behind. Bardem was not able to get Moroccan officials to participate in the film, but in the second video above this story, Christiane speaks with Morocco’s Ambassador to the U.N.
CNN’s Meredith Milstein produced this piece for television.
Does HIV ‘cure’ for baby mean millions saved around the world?
Leading AIDS researcher Dr. Anthony Fauci speaks with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour about what doctors say is the first baby cured of HIV. Dr. Fauci discusses what the case may mean for adults with HIV and the regions of the world worst hit by the virus.
Investigating the Church of Scientology
The Church of Scientology is the famous American-born religion created by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard and well-known for celebrity followers like Tom Cruise and John Travolta.
The church claims millions of members here in the United States and around the world. Scientology is famously litigious, with a phalanx of lawyers keeping an eye on journalists, writers and media companies who set out to cover the church.
But now that a number of high-profile members have left and are beginning to tell their stories, we're getting rare insight into the inner workings of the church, from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lawrence Wright. His new book is called, "Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief."
The Church of Scientology says, "Lawrence Wright's book is so ludicrous it belongs in a supermarket tabloid. The book is an error-filled, unsubstantiated, bigoted anti-Scientology book."
In the video above you can watch CNN's Christiane Amanpour discuss the book with Wright.
The Church of Scientology's response is available in full here.
Cardinal Dolan for pope? You ‘might be smoking marijuana’
PART 1: Cardinal Timothy Dolan
On the day Benedict XVI left the papacy, Christiane Amanpour sat down with U.S. Cardinal Timothy Dolan.
PART 2: Cardinal Timothy Dolan
Part 2 of Christiane Amanpour's conversation with Cardinal Timothy Dolan, on the day Benedict XVI stepped down.
By Mick Krever, CNN
Cardinal Timothy Dolan is on many Vatican-watchers' short-lists as a papal contender, but he isn’t having any of it.
“I said people who say that might be drinking too much grappa or smoking marijuana,” he coyly told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an in-depth interview on Thursday. “I'm flattered that people think that, but I wouldn't bet the house payment on it.”
Cardinal Dolan spoke with Amanpour on the day that Benedict XVI – now pope emeritus – lifted off from Vatican City in a helicopter and left the papacy forever.
To choose his replacement, 115 cardinals, Dolan among them, will soon enter into a conclave.
It is the first time that Cardinal Dolan will vote for a Holy Father; Pope Benedict XVI elevated him to the College of Cardinals just last year.
Thursday afternoon, that group of scarlet-gowned men bid their final respect to the outgoing pope.
“It was very touching,” Cardinal Dolan said of his 15-second encounter with the pontiff. “And I don't mind admitting that it was kind of somber; it was kind of sad. I love him.”
Papal ruby shoes custom made, but not by Prada
While covering Pope Benedict XVI's final hours in the papacy, Christiane Amanpour cleared up a common misconception about the pope's ruby slippers - all live on CNN air. Watch above.
How do cardinals pick a pope? "You don’t pick your buddy"
By Mick Krever, CNN
Becoming the pope is not a popularity contest.
When 115 cardinals from around the world sit down to choose a new pope, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday, they are thinking about only one thing: what God wants.
“You have your ballot in your hand,” he said. “You’re going to put it in the urn, this ballot in which you have written a name down of one of the cardinals.”
Looming above the voting cardinal is Michelangelo's imposing fresco, “the Last Judgment.”
“Every time you do it,” Cardinal McCarrick said, “you feel that same thing. ‘Lord, am I doing the right thing? Have I picked the right man?’”
In other words, he told Amanpour, “You don’t pick your buddy.”
Cardinal McCarrick is the Archbishop Emeritus of Washington D.C. Though he attended Pope Benedict XVI’s packed final public address today, he will not be able to cast a vote for the next pope. He is, to put it politely, of a certain age – only cardinals under age 80 may vote.
Through those many decades in the Church, he has seen the ups and downs. As the Vatican prepares for a new leader, many Catholics around the world believe that the child-sex abuse scandal, among others, spell a reckoning for the Church as it has rarely seen before.
FULL POST
Iran nuclear negotiator: Talks taking 'realistic' turn
By Josh Levs, CNN
World powers did not push Iran to halt enrichment at its nuclear plants during secretive talks Wednesday, the country's chief negotiator said.
In an interview with CNN, Saeed Jalili said the six-nation bloc conducting the negotiations is taking more "realistic" steps, including "paying more attention to the rights of Iran."
The so-called P5+1 - the United States, France, Britain, Germany, China and Russia - did not release details of the meeting in Kazakhstan aimed at working toward a resolution of the international battle over Iran's nuclear activities. But negotiators acknowledged making some concessions.
Jalili, in an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour, also stayed mum about what was being offered. But he indicated that some previous requests may be off the table.
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