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Afghanistan's future must include the Taliban, says top former UK General
By Madalena Araujo, CNN
Afghanistan’s political future needs to include the Taliban, a top former British General told CNN's Michael Holmes, in for Christiane Amanpour, on Monday.
“It's not for a soldier or even a retired soldier, I think, to get into what needs to be done politically. But if I can offer an opinion as Citizen Jackson rather than General Jackson, it would seem to me, in the long term, the politics of Afghanistan need to include those who call themselves the Taliban,” General Sir Mike Jackson, Former Chief of General Staff of the British Army, said.
Jackson’s comments come a day after Britain closed its last military base in Afghanistan, bringing an end to the 13-year-campaign that has claimed the lives of 445 British soldiers.
Assessing the possible future role of the Taliban is “beyond my experience,” the General added, but “it seems to me, only in that way will you encompass the big tent of Afghanistan as a whole and move on to that stable and secure Afghanistan, which we would all want for the Afghanis themselves and then in the wider world, in that very turbulent region. A stable Afghanistan, to me, is a must.”
Nigerian government has failed to protect women from Boko Haram, says new report
By Madalena Araujo, CNN
The Nigerian government has failed to protect its women from a disturbing range of abuses by Boko Haram, the author of a new Human Rights Watch report told CNN's Michael Holmes, in for Christiane Amanpour, on Monday.
From being forced into marriage and even to commit murder to rape in captivity, dozens of former hostages have described the extent of the abuse suffered at the hands of the Islamic militant group.
“What has happened now is that those girls, those students have failed to return to school because they are afraid of being re-abducted and so the failure to protect also fuels the violations of other rights, including the right to education and the rights to live in a secure environment,” Mausi Segun, Nigeria Researcher for Human Rights Watch, said.
The group’s largest single attack took place in April, when 270 schoolgirls were taken from Chibok in the northeastern state of Borno.
To illustrate the authorities’ seeming inaction, Mausi recounted one episode where the police did not request a potentially valuable testimony from a girl who managed to escape her kidnappers.
Ebola containment within reach, says Sierra Leone President
By Mick Krever, CNN
Despite a slow international response and a country struggling to emerge from war, Sierra Leone may soon be able to control the outbreak of Ebola, President Ernest Bai Koroma told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Thursday.
“The response we had expected was not in on time, and that created a situation [in] which we had the virus way ahead of us. We are now trying to cope.”
“There has been an increase in international response. And I believe the structures we are now putting in place – very soon we will get to the point wherein we will be able to contain the virus.”
The World Health Organization estimates that there have been 3,706 Ebola cases in Sierra Leone and 1,259 deaths since the outbreak began.
Ebola “transmission remains intense in Sierra Leone,” WHO says, and has now documented cases in every district of the country.
The government has come under criticism for not treating patients in their homes, and only at large facilities.
“We don’t treat people at home as a matter of government policy. In fact, we do appeal to families to bring out sick people. And what we have a challenge on is limited bed capacities in our treatment centers.”
Children's author unites generations with his war stories
By Madalena Araujo, CNN
It is rather unusual for a children’s author to fill his books with war and violence, but for beloved writer Michael Morpurgo, conflict became the common thread in his creations.
“I care about war because I'm a war child. I was born in '43 and grew up with the Second World War, the damage that had wrought on people and societies and families and buildings… and I've played in bomb sites. I grew up with all that world of war around me,” he told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an interview that aired Thursday.
His best-selling novel-turned-blockbuster and stage play War Horse, which is about the First World War, only became a phenomenon 25 years after the book was written in 1982.
"The National Theatre picked it up really because Tom Morris discovered my book. In fact, his mother said one day, 'Tom, you should read this book. It’s quite good'. And luckily he listened to his mother, made the play,” Morpurgo said.
The First World War is also the subject of his latest novel, Listen to the Moon, a powerful journey based on the sinking of the American civilian liner the Lusitania.
‘No evidence at the stage’ Ottawa shooter had wider Jihadi ties, says Canadian foreign minister
By Mick Krever, CNN
There is “no evidence at this stage” that the suspect in Wednesday’s shootings in Ottawa had connections to a wider group of Jihadis, Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Thursday.
“Obviously there’s an investigation going on, and we hope to learn more in the, in the coming days,” he said.
Amanpour asked whether Canada had “ruled out” Michael Zehaf-Bibeau’s ties to a network of Jihadis.
“I think that’s something the authorities are looking at right now,” he said.
Several American sources have told CNN that Zehaf-Bibeau had “connections” to jihadists in Canada, though it is not clear how deep those connections might have been.
Beijing as perplexed as the West by Kim Jong Un’s disappearance
By Madalena Araujo, CNN
Chinese authorities were just as bewildered by North Korean Kim Jong-Un’s mysterious absence from public life as the rest of the world, a former Chinese ambassador who now advises the Foreign Ministry told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday.
“We don't know what happened - he disappeared and then he appeared again. We don’t know what happened in the meantime,” Ambassador Wu Jianmin said with a laugh.
After remaining out of the spotlight for over a month, Kim Jong-Un made an equally mysterious reappearance and offered no explanation for his prolonged absence. Wu said he found the 32-year-old leader “quite mysterious”.
“The Chinese leader has had no direct contact with him apart from the vice president, Yuanchao. He went to Korea, he met with him, and Xi Jinping had no meeting since,” he said.
Wu has previously served as ambassador to France and the United Nations in Geneva. He now sits on an advisory panel for the foreign ministry, and is an associate at the London School of Economics' "IDEAS" program.
World Bank President says restricting travel for Ebola-affected countries not the solution
By Mick Krever, CNN
The world has coalesced around a “much better strategy” in the Ebola fight, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday, but emphasized that there should be no move towards restricting travel to and from the most-affected West African countries.
“It’s extremely important not to isolate these three countries,” he said. “One of the things as a medical doctor – and especially for Ebola – one of the greatest tools we have is to elicit what we call a ‘travel history’ – where have you been.”
“And if we isolate these three countries then we’re going to lose the travel history, because there’s going to be such a temptation to lie about where you’ve been, especially if you’ve been in these three countries.”
Saudi Arabia could aid talks with ISIS in hostage situations, says veteran negotiator
By Madalena Araujo, CNN
Saudi Arabia could have a role in hostage negotiations with ISIS militants, former U.N. hostage negotiator Giandomenico Picco told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday.
Picco conducted many high-profile negotiations in Lebanon that led to the release of several Western hostages in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
He told Amanpour that if asked to engage in open talks with the terrorist group, he would have a “conversation… with somebody in Saudi Arabia”.
The veteran diplomat also stressed that it was equally important to open a channel of communication with “a military arm in ISIS which is actually led by the deputy of President Saddam.”
He said he would attempt to focus negotiating efforts on that wing of the group rather than on the ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who “may have been able to catch the hostages, but may be unable to negotiate their release.”
Governments tend to ask desperate families to stay quiet and trust them to get their loved ones back, but John Foley, whose son U.S. journalist James Foley was brutally murdered by ISIS in August, told Amanpour that he and his wife Diane Foley regret having remained silent.
Scooters banned from Rome's city center
Imagine a world without scooters zipping through the center of the Eternal City. Christiane Amanpour has the story.
Click above to watch.
Identity politics drive criminal justice systems, from South Africa to America
By Mick Krever, CNN
The trial of Oscar Pistorius highlights the power of identity politics, an American civil rights lawyer who defends the disenfranchised told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday, as Pistorius was sentenced to five years in prison.
“It's a dynamic that we see frequently,” Bryan Stevenson said. “When people come into the criminal courts with another identity, with another status, they tend to fare much better.”
“This young man was a respected Olympian, an athlete who was well respected and adored and that meant that he was going to get the presumption of innocence that we offer, that we say we give to everybody but that not everybody gets.”
That is particularly true of the many disenfranchised and often innocent people Stevenson represents in the U.S., a country with its own very troubled relationship to race and justice.
The organization he founded, the Equal Justice Initiative, is headquartered in the heart of the American South – Montgomery, Alabama. His new book, “Just Mercy,” is a memoir told through the stories of the cases he has fought.
“Our system treats you better if you're rich and guilty than if you're poor and innocent, and that's because wealth, not culpability, tends to shape outcomes."
@camanpour on Twitter
