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Rail tragedy reveals safety holes
8/19/2014 9:54:33 PM
- The Lac-Mégantic rail disaster of July 2013 killed 47 people,
- Canadian safety agency report faults railroad, government and train itself
- TSB: Accident may have been avoided if any one of 18 factors were not present
- Recent spike in rail shipments of oil surprised even government regulators, says TSB chair
(CNN) -- Eighteen errors lines up to cause last summer's catastrophic derailment of a runaway train in the Quebec town of Lac-Mégantic, Canadian accident investigators said Tuesday, concluding an investigation that has revealed serious safety lapses in the transport of crude oil through Canada and the United States.
Among the factors: a "weak safety culture" in the railroad that transported the oil; a government agency that required safety plans from industry but did little to check them; and a train that consisted almost entirely of substandard tanker cars.
Those tanker cars -- known as DOT 111s -- still carry the bulk of the oil from the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota to ports on the east coast of the United States and Canada, although both countries -- spurred by the Lac-Mégantic tragedy -- are taking steps to phase them out.
The Lac-Mégantic derailment was among the most disastrous in modern North America. Forty-seven people died, some 40 buildings were destroyed and 53 vehicles were demolished when the 63 tank cars and two boxcars derailed and erupted in flames. About 2,000 residents of the community were evacuated.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) listed 18 factors contributing to the disaster, but declined to say whether any were more serious than the others. The accident may have been avoided if any one of the 18 factors were not present, the TSB's Jean Laporte told reporters.
"Accidents never come down to a single individual, a single action or a single factor. You have to look at the whole context," said TSB Chair Wendy Tadros.
Crude oil shipments by rail have increased dramatically in the past decade as oil companies have perfected technologies to extract oil from shale. The increase took a number of people by surprise, including government regulators, Tadros said.
Police: Evidence criminal act may have led to crash
In Canada, rail shipments of oil have increased from a mere 500 carloads in 2009 to 160,000 in 2013. In the U.S., shipments have increased from 10,800 carloads to 400,000 in the same period.
Tadros and Laporte said Transport Canada has taken measures of phase out the use of DOT-111 tankers -- one of three recommendations made in January in an unprecedented joint recommendation by the safety boards of both countries. But they sidestepped questions about whether newer, stronger tankers would have remained intact in the Lac-Mégantic derailment. TSB investigator Don Ross said there are "not enough data points" to determine whether newer tankers would have survived the incident.
The incident occurred July 6, 2013, when an engineer for the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway (MMA) parked the train for the night on a descending grade.
Runaway train devastates Canadian town: The route, the damage, the aftermath
Investigators said the engineer set seven of the train's hand brakes, far fewer than the 17 to 26 needed to prevent the train from rolling. The additional holding power of the train's air brakes kept the train secure at first. But when a fire broke out in the lead locomotive because of a mechanical problem, the locomotive was shut down, an no additional air was provided to the air brakes.
A slow air leak led to the failure of the air brakes, and the unattended train rolled down the incline, reaching a top speed of 65 miles per hour before derailing seven miles away at a curve in Lac-Mégantic.
Many of the cars were split open, releasing large amounts of crude oil, which ignited, causing large fireballs and a pool fire.
The TSB said the railroad cut corners on engine maintenance and training, and that crude oil trains "ran largely unchecked" by Transport Canada, the Canadian equivalent of the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Opinion: Stop shipping volatile oil by rail
MMA filed for bankruptcy after the disaster. The railroad's Canadian assets have been sold.
Investigators also discovered that the oil was improperly described in shipping documents. It was labeled as a "Packing Group II" product, but was shipped as a less volatile Group III product.
Following the Lac-Mégantic disaster, the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) issued a safety advisory and announced an operation to conduct unannounced inspections and testing of the crude oil that is being shipped by rail.
Tadros, the TSB chair, said governments and the rail industry have made improvements, but more needs to be done.
Canada "still allows trains to be left unattended on a descending grade," she said. The government needs to do more than rubber-stamp companies' Safety Management Systems, which are intended to detect and address safety issues.
"It's not enough for a Safety Management Systems on paper; that SMS has to work, to do what it was designed to do," she said.
Loss, now anger, fuel a town forever changed
Ukrainian refugees flee to Russia
8/19/2014 9:30:45 PM
Thousands of Ukrainians are crossing into Russia to flee the fighting in their country. CNN's Amara Walker reports.
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Zoo animals caught in Gaza crossfire
8/20/2014 12:58:54 PM
- Zoo in Gaza nearly destroyed during recent Israel-Hamas conflict
- Many of the zoo's animals were killed -- and the survivors are struggling from lack of food and water
- CNN understands the Israeli military believes Hamas may have had rocket launchers in vicinity of zoo
- Hamas says the park is a civilian area, but CNN crew saw metal cases that looked like destroyed rocket batteries
Jabalya, Gaza (CNN) -- The sights at the Gaza zoo couldn't be sadder.
In a tiny cage, a baboon sits, picking seeds off the floor, desperately eating whatever he can find. Next to the baboon, the carcass of his mate and five offspring lay in the pen, decomposing in the August heat.
"Eight to 10 monkeys were killed," says Abu Sameer, the zoo's chief veterinarian. "Also a peacock, a gazelle, a lion, and a fox."
The carcasses of dead animals, mostly monkeys, lay scattered across the scorched grass between the pens. In one of the cages, a dead peacock lays in front of two hungry lions. In another, a crocodile lounges in the hot sun; there is almost no water in the enclosure, which also holds a pelican and a duck.
The zoo, part of the Al-Bisan recreational park in Jabalya, northern Gaza, was hit multiple times during the recent conflict between Israel and Hamas militants.
Many of the animals seem weak and traumatized. Staff members say that on top of the injuries some of the animals sustained during the violence, many also have not eaten in days because the zoo lacks funds to buy food, and they're getting virtually no assistance.
"The situation is very bad," said Sameer. "We can't get the animals out to clean the cages. Many of them are getting sick because they are weak and it is dirty. But we don't have any alternative places."
The situation is most dire for the lions, according to Sameer. One was killed during the conflict and three remain in the zoo. Sameer says he does not have the funds to buy them the meat they need.
"They have not eaten for 10 to 15 days," he said. "We could not reach them during the fighting. When it got calmer at least we could bring them some water."
To help, at least a little, the CNN crew bought six chickens at the local market for the zoo's staff to feed to the lions.
It was clear to see how hungry the lions were. They ran toward the edge of the cage and began roaring the moment they saw us approaching with the dead chickens. Once we handed them over, they would take turns -- one lion would eat while the other kept an eye on us. When we got too close to the cage, the lions would charge and roar again, warning us to back off.
Al-Bisan Park is run by Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that governs Gaza and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel. Built in 2008, it was supposed to be a tourist attraction for Gazans. It includes a soccer field, an amusement park with carousels, and several buildings, most of which were flattened by airstrikes during the recent conflict.
An Israeli military spokesman told CNN that there is an investigation under way into allegations the zoo had been hit by airstrikes, and said he could not go into more detail due to legal reasons.
But CNN understands from Israeli sources that the military believes there may have been a number of Hamas rocket launchers in the area of the zoo, and that the zoo might have suffered collateral damage in strikes targeting those rocket launchers. Hamas says the park is in a civilian area, but our crew did see several charred and mangled metal cases that looked like destroyed rocket batteries.
The zoo staff says its main task for now is saving the lives of the animals.
"The first step has to be providing food," says vet Abu Sameer. "Then we must rebuild the place and make it suitable for them to live in again."
But with more than 2,000 people killed and many homes destroyed in the recent fighting, most people in Gaza and the international community have more pressing problems than the plight of zoo animals.
In the meantime, the lions, crocodiles, monkeys and birds who survived the hostilities at the zoo now face the danger of succumbing to hunger and disease in the aftermath of this man-made war.
Talal Abu Rahma contributed to this story.
Obama: World 'appalled' by ISIS killing
8/20/2014 1:59:44 PM
- NEW: U.S. hits ISIS around the same time as President's remarks on killing of James Foley
- NEW: Pentagon considering request to send more troops to protect U.S. personnel in Baghdad, official says
- Obama says the journalist's life and values stand in stark contrast to those of his killers
- Video of Foley's killing also appears to show missing journalist Steven Sotloff
(CNN) -- There was no suggestion in President Barack Obama's remarks Wednesday about the terrorist beheading of an American journalist that the United States was backing down in its airstrikes in Iraq.
The President blasted ISIS and said that the world was "appalled" by the videotaped execution of James Foley that surfaced Tuesday.
Around that time came word that U.S. military forces struck ISIS in Iraq by employing fighter, remotely piloted and attack aircraft, unleashing 14 airstrikes near Mosul Dam.
U.S. airstrikes critical in capture of Mosul Dam
ISIS had controlled the dam, one of the most economically important spots in Iraq, but that control was seized this week by Kurdish forces who has received assistance from the U.S.
In the video, which CNN is not showing, Foley is seen on his knees and a man cloaked in black stands behind him.
A voice speaking in English with an apparent British accent says: "Any attempt by you, Obama, to deny Muslims liberty and safety under the Islamic caliphate will result in the bloodshed of your people."
Foley is then executed.
Another captive, believed to be another American journalist, is also shown.
On Wednesday, Obama was brief and pointed.
"They have rampaged across cities and villages, killing innocent, unarmed civilians in cowardly acts of violence. They abduct women and children and subject them to torture and rape and slavery," he said. "They have murdered Muslims, both Sunni and Shia, by the thousands. They target Christians and religious minorities. Driving them from their homes. Murdering them when they can. For no other reason than they practice a different religion."
ISIS "speaks for no religion," he said, and that their victims "are overwhelmingly Muslim."
"No just God would stand for what they did yesterday," he added, referring to Foley's execution. The video showing the death was authenticated by U.S. intelligence officials Wednesday.
ISIS 'ideology is bankrupt,'" the president said.
Later Wednesday, a U.S. official confirmed to CNN that the Pentagon is considering a request from the State Department to send more troops to protect U.S. government personnel in Baghdad. If approved, there would be no more than 300 troops sent, the official said.
Who is the ISIS?
Grieving family
Foley grew up in New Hampshire and graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism in 2008.
Like some other young journalists working after the September 11 terror attacks, Foley was drawn to Iraq, Afghanistan and other areas of conflict.
Friends described Foley as fair, curious and impressively even-tempered.
"Everybody, everywhere, takes a liking to Jim as soon as they meet him," journalist Clare Morgana Gillis wrote in a blog post about him in May 2013, six months after he disappeared in Syria.
"Men like him for his good humor and tendency to address everyone as 'bro' or 'homie' or 'dude' after the first handshake. Women like him for his broad smile, broad shoulders, and because, well, women just like him."
Foley disappeared on November 22, 2012, in northwest Syria, near the border with Turkey. The militant group seeking an Islamic caliphate stretching from Iraq into Syria have claimed credit and U.S. intelligence said Wednesday that the video is real.
His parents, flanked by one of Foley's brothers, talked to reporters Wednesday.
"Jim has a big heart ...we pray that Jim's death can bring our country together," his mother Diane said. "He would never want us to hate or be bitter."
His father John broke down several times.
"We beg compassion and mercy" for those believed to be holding the other American journalist shown in the video, The Time and Foreign Policy contributor was kidnapped at the Syria-Turkey border in 2013.
"They never hurt anybody," John Foley said. "They were trying to help. There is no reason for their slaughter."
"Jim was innocent and they knew it," Diane Foley said. "They knew that Jim was just a symbol of our country."
Foley had previously been taken captive in Libya. He was detained there in April 2011 along with three other reporters and released six weeks later.
Afterward, he said that what saddened him most was knowing that he was causing his family to worry.
His parents talked about how they tried to persuade him not to go back to conflict zones.
"Why do firemen keep going back to blazing homes?" his father told reporters. "This was his passion. He was not crazy. He was motivated by what he thought was doing the right thing...that gave him energy to continue despite the risk."
His mother remembers him telling her, 'Mom, I found my passion, I found my vocation.'"
Searching for clues
In the video posted Tuesday on YouTube, Foley reads a message, presumably scripted by his captors, that his "real killer'' is America.
"I wish I had more time. I wish I could have the hope for freedom to see my family once again," he can be heard saying in the video.
ISIS has carried out executions, including beheadings and other horrific acts against people in Iraq as the group led a quick and intense advance in the country. ISIS -- which refers to itself as the Islamic State -- has videotaped executions and posted them online.
U.S. and British counterterrorism analysts are examining every frame and piece of audio of the video for clues about where it took place and who the executioner is, U.S. officials told CNN. The voice in the video seems to have a British accent so they're trying to match any individuals known to the British government who may have gone to Syria to fight in that nation's civil war.
The analysts are looking at clothing, climate, terrain, language and wording and whether there are any National Security Agency or UK phone intercepts matching the voice, officials said Wednesday.
What to know about ISIS
French journalist who was held with Foley shocked
French journalist Nicolas Henin had been held with Foley in northern Syria, but Henin was released in April, he told France Info radio on Wednesday.
The French Foreign Ministry confirmed that Henin was taken hostage June 22, 2013 while on assignment for Le Point magazine and the TV channel Arte.
Henin said he has never before spoken about his experience because he didn't want to jeopardize Foley or other captives' safety.
The French journalist collapsed when he heard about Foley's death, he said.
Henin said he was held hostage for 10 months in Syria, seven of those months with Foley, and described the American journalist as a great friend. Foley was someone with "enormous generosity" who has "extraordinary human qualities..." Henin said. "He was always available to help others, to bring up our spirits."
Hostages were held in groups. At one point, he shared a cell with Foley.
Foley "was in a difficult state," said Henin. "He already suffered a lot during his first months (of captivity) and thankfully we shared a phase (in our detention) that was less difficult."
Foley told Henin he had been initially kidnapped by a group of jihadists who were fighting in Syria.
At that time, ISIS did not exist and the group that was holding them eventually became part of the ISIS movement, the French journalist said.
Henin said that Foley told him he was never held by the Syrian regime or any group associated with the Syrian regime.
Henin and a French photojournalist, who was captured at the same time were freed along with two other French journalists in April.
Journalists targeted
U.S. Official: ISIS 'credible alternative to al Qaeda'
The Committee to Protect Journalists estimates there are about 20 journalists missing in Syria, many of them held by ISIS.
Among them is American Austin Tice, a freelance journalist who was contributing articles to The Washington Post. Tice disappeared in Syria in August 2012. There has been no word of from him since his abduction.
The CEO of the Associated Press said in a statement that the news service is "outraged" by Foley's killing and "condemns the taking of any journalist's life."
"We believe those who kill journalists or hold them hostage should be brought to justice," Gary Pruitt said. "Further, we believe the assassination of a journalist in wartime should be considered an international crime of war. The murder of a journalist with impunity is a threat to a free press and democracy around the world."
Previous brutal killings of Americans
Foley's killing recalled the murder of Daniel Pearl, The Wall Street Journal correspondent who was kidnapped while reporting in Pakistan in January 2002. His killing was captured on video and posted on line by al Qaeda.
Pearl's mother, Ruth Pearl, responded to Foley's death with a tweet issued from the Daniel Pearl Foundation account that reads, "Our hearts go out to the family of journalist James Foley. We know the horror they are going through."
Foley's death also harkened to the videotaped beheadings of Americans Nicholas Berg, Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley carried out by al Qaeda during the height of the Iraq War.
Beheading of American journalist James Foley recalls past horrors
CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq, Raja Razek, Kevin Liptak, Mayra Cuevas, Brian Stelter, Jethro Mullen, Elise Labott and Leslie Bentz contributed to this report.
Obama: No faith teaches this
8/20/2014 12:15:21 PM
President Barack Obama comments on the brutal murder of American journalist James Foley by ISIS militants.
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Can Lance Armstrong be forgiven?
8/20/2014 4:46:09 PM
- Lance Armstrong faces multiple challenges as he seeks to restore his fortunes
- Cyclist has been forgiven by some of his victims, but others are still hurting
- Some say his apologies in past 18 months do not repair the damage
- American is also taking on U.S Federal Government in high-stakes court case
Editor's note: This is the second installment of a two-part look at the legacy of the Lance Armstrong's doping. In the first installment, Armstrong gives his side of the story.
(CNN) -- He fought cancer and then won the world's toughest bike race seven times -- albeit with the help of a myriad of drugs -- before a precipitous fall from grace.
Worshiped, then demonized, few people polarize opinion quite like Lance Armstrong, perhaps even more so as he seeks rehabilitation in the court of the public view.
"It would be an incredible story of redemption and second chances if he puts himself in a position to deserve that," says Travis Tygart, CEO of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), whose report led to Armstrong losing all his sponsors and cost him millions of dollars.
"He hasn't done it ... yet but, when it comes to second chances, I'm always hopeful," Tygart told CNN.
No longer 'untouchable'
It could be a long road to redemption given Armstrong's bubbling resentment towards those who brought him down.
In Juliet Macur's 2014 book "The Cycle of Lies," Armstrong says: "I hated those motherf***ers -- the Betsys, the LeMonds, Walsh, I still hate him ... I still hate them."
The disgraced Texan was referring to his former teammate Frankie Andreu and his wife Betsy, three-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond and Irish journalist David Walsh, all key architects in his downfall.
More than two years on from his report, Tygart comes across as a modern-day Elliot Ness.
Though Ness and his "Untouchables" used guns, Tygart deployed testimonies from many of those closest to Armstrong to bring down the previously untouchable cycling superstar.
The American lawyer repeatedly held out an olive branch to Armstrong with offers to confess his sins and serve the same six-month suspension dished out to his former teammates.
Armstrong never came to see him, but Tygart still hopes the day will come.
"It takes time," Tygart says. "Floyd Landis (himself a former Tour winner later exposed as a drugs cheat) denied it and attempted to take us down for doing our job.
"It was a couple of years after he served his sanction that he decided to come in and be truthful. Hopefully Lance Armstrong can and will move on.
"Everyone comes around to the rules and when you're living your life as a fraud and stealing from people and not living an open and transparent life, that's not the way to do it.
"To err is human, that's a big factor in our world. Absolutely, we can forgive and we should offer the opportunity for second chances.
"It's what we're about but that second chance has to be earned, it has to be more than just cheap lip service, a real attempt to make amends."
Tygart's position is admirable given that during his quest, there was immense pressure on him to halt his investigation, attempts to bankrupt USADA and bring down the organization, even personal threats to the lawyer.
"I don't like hate mail and death threats but shame on us if you don't have the courage to set that aside and move on," he says. "The evidence was so overwhelming beyond any doubt that we had to just move on regardless."
'He needs to stop being an asshole'
Armstrong's former teammate Scott Mercier is another to demonstrate a generous willingness to forgive.
In 1997, at the age of 28 and in the prime of his career, the U.S. Postal rider was handed a detailed drugs regimen by the team's doctor (who has since been banned from the sport from eight years despite his denials) and told to stick to it.
Mercier's decision not to dope was the day his cycling career ended.
At a similar crossroads to Armstrong -- who would join the team the following year -- and so many others, Mercier opted to not cheat, and walked away instead.
It makes it all the more surreal that Mercier, who lives about a two-hour drive from Armstrong in Colorado, regularly drives to a halfway point between the pair's respective homes, where they unpack their bikes and go for a ride.
Rode up to #maroonbells with @ScottMercier1 and some of his buddies. Beautiful but brrrrr!! http://t.co/54y7rVHoV7 pic.twitter.com/0yDbSlrTsJ
— Lance Armstrong (@lancearmstrong) August 14, 2014 "I have to recognize that Lance is 80% gray, 10% white and 10% black," says Mercier.
"I think there are three camps in the U.S.: those that absolutely hate him and will never forgive him, those that overlook everything that he did and those that are a bit indifferent.
"I think he'll be forgiven but he needs to keep doing what he's doing. He's showing some humility, he needs to stop being an asshole and be nice. He has regrets. He's spoken about the bullying and I know he regrets that."
Mercier admits there have been times when he's grown concerned for his friend, with the magnitude and rapidity of his fall from grace.
"I don't think he'll ever get back to the perch that he was on. He was deified for 10 years and now he's demonized but he's just a human being. I think part of the problem is that he can't get over the USADA decision against him."
'Lying bully'
Not everyone is prepared to forgive, let alone believe that Armstrong deserves another chance.
His best friend when he first broke onto the European circuit in the early 1990s was fellow American Frankie Andreu.
The pair were tight -- Frankie and Lance -- an American double act, living together and trying to break into the notoriously inhospitable ranks of continental racing.
Andreu and his wife Betsy were in the hospital room in October 1996 when a then cancer-riddled Armstrong admitted to doctors the cocktail of drugs he had ingested as a professional cyclist.
Fast forward to 2014 and Andreu is reluctant to discuss Armstrong.
"There is no rehabilitation for Lance Armstrong as long as he keeps telling lies and continues to bully and slander people," Andreu said in a two-line email sent to CNN.
"I don't even know how you would make a program (or write an article) about something that does not exist."
Armstrong rang the Andreus the night before his very public mea culpa on Oprah Winfrey's TV show.
Frankie was not keen to take his call. He said to his wife: "When he doesn't follow through on anything, I will say 'I told you so.' "
Betsy, though, decided to give Armstrong another chance and initially thought he was genuine. He said sorry to her on air and they arranged to meet to talk things through, but she says Armstrong pulled out of the meeting.
"For three months I talked to him: texts, email and telephone," she recalls.
"He then completely canceled on me, saying 'Sorry, I can't meet you,' but then he tells people I rebuffed him.
"Sometimes I get sick of it and wish he'd just leave me alone, to leave me out of it, but he still mentions my name. It's his mess but if he is to lie about me and go after me, I will fight back."
She is a formidable woman.
Forced to testify in Armstrong's case against SCA Promotions, which had paid him millions, the cyclist painted a picture of a bitter and twisted woman.
She may have lacked the financial clout of Armstrong but her fight is a match for anyone, with a very clear view on what's right and wrong.
"In 2013, he said I had no credibility but he's a pathological liar," she says.
"What am I supposed to do after that rant in Juliet Macur's book? His actions to this date are not of someone who wants to make amends.
"Everything that he's done, it's just the same Lance. He's talking about people and he's trying to deceive the public, and thinks that if he says sorry it's enough.
"But sorry is just a word. After everything he did to me, I extended an olive branch and he snapped it. That was a hard thing to do after all the lying and smearing of me."
So is he just the same Lance of always?
"I think he always will be," Betsy Andreu says. "He will fight and draw out the court cases as long as he possibly can.
"A tiger doesn't change its stripes. I really think he needs help and I hope he gets it. Maybe then he would stop the lying and could be on his way to healing. An authentic sorry means making amends, not just saying the words."
When 'sorry' is not enough
Greg LeMond, cycling's dominant force in the late 1980s, was another who faced the wrath of Armstrong's legal team -- and that of the bike manufacturer Trek -- due to an interview with Walsh for Britain's Sunday Times in 2001.
"If Lance is clean, it is the greatest comeback in the history of sports," LeMond, the only American now recognized as a Tour de France champion, told the paper. "If he isn't, it would be the greatest fraud."
It effectively sounded the death knell at the time for his own business and it led to him staying away from the sport that made him a star.
Legal action is potentially looming from LeMond's side. "I'm looking at all the options -- nothing is closed to me," he tells CNN.
"Some of this has been awful -- it was scary at times. I was running out of money with legal fees," he adds.
"For a lot of people it was scary having someone so focused on destroying you for so long. I feel relieved that that's all partly over but you never know, I've ruffled a lot of feathers at Trek.
"What goes around comes around. There is still much stuff that has never hit the news. I'd have a hard time. I couldn't even begin to explain what was happening. It's hard to put into words and even describe the people."
LeMond admits he has no sympathy for Armstrong and also believes that the former rider is not about to admit the error of his ways wholeheartedly.
"I never say never, but I don't think he's ready to be totally honest," he says.
"I don't think he ever will be. We'll see. But I think he has a lot of problems with the government."
'Too much baggage'
Sunday Times chief sports writer Walsh wrote a book about his battle to expose Armstrong, "Seven Deadly Sins," which led to the newspaper being sued for $1.5 million by Armstrong for daring to suggest he was doping.
Walsh's sympathy lies with the cyclists who opted not to cheat.
"I feel sorry for the people who rode clean and got screwed, the Christophe Bassons and Filippo Simeonis of this world," he tells CNN.
"There are some people that believe he should be given back his Tour titles as there was no-one legitimate to take them, but that would merely legitimize what they did.
"I'm sorry but I think he should get hung up. Armstrong getting back into cycling is a nonsense."
Armstrong met with the Cycling Independent Reform Commission (CIRC) in May, but the details of that meeting have not been made public.
As for last year's Oprah interview, Walsh says: "I think he was sincere to the point that he wanted to be."
So how does he see Armstrong at this point, and what is the way forward for him?
"What I see is a guy struggling with the reality of now being irrelevant," adds Walsh. "He had some very significant people when he won all those Tours, and in the years after, that wanted to be in his presence.
"He was an iconic figure. That's gone. I'd like him to get on with his life and move forward, to spend time with his kids, have an enjoyable personal life and play golf. But he should stay away from public life -- there is too much baggage."
Taking on the state
More legal wrangling lies ahead for Armstrong.
The biggest and potentially most costly is a case against him by the U.S. Federal Government over its sponsorship of Armstrong's former U.S Postal Service team. Should he lose it will be a more costly day than when he went on Oprah.
"I think if he can win this case it will be bigger than winning seven Tours de France, and I think he stands a chance of winning," says American journalist Reed Albergotti.
The Wall Street Journal reporter, with fellow journalist Vanessa O'Connell, penned the 2013 book "Wheelmen: Lance Armstrong, the Tour de France and the greatest sports conspiracy ever."
"The U.S. Department of Justice doesn't like to go to trial unless it thinks it has a good chance of winning and jurors have tended to side with athletes, and that could happen here," Albergotti suggests.
"The one thing we can count on is that he's gearing up for another fight."
Albergotti argues that the fight that made Armstrong such an impressive cancer survivor and such an impressive cyclist has been to his detriment as he tries to recover his own reputation while he remains persona non grata in the U.S.
His and O'Connell's greater interest was not so much in the doping but in the conspiracy not just of Armstrong but those around him.
"If he was truly contrite and really felt bad about what he did to people like Greg LeMond and the Andreus, he would be acting differently," says Albergotti.
"But he's still trying to paint LeMond as this crazy boozer, and made Betsy Andreu look like a hysterical woman. He's tried to destroy people's reputations and it's not something he's really addressed.
"He doesn't seem to be humbled at all and you want to see that from someone in his position. He's acted almost as though he lost a bunch of time in the Tour de France and has to make it up and he can do the same thing he's always done.
"It doesn't work that way. People want to see his heart.
"He thinks he can win and he still wants to beat everyone if he can. You see it in the way that he's taking on the U.S. Department of Justice right now.
"I've heard he's telling people he wants to go to trial and beat them -- it's as though this trial is a bike race. He needs to start becoming a better person and there's nothing to stand in his way apart from him."
It's Armstrong's move next.
Four Illinois hostages rescued
8/21/2014 5:57:27 AM
- 4 remaining hostages rescued Wednesday morning, nearly a day after situation began
- Police: 2 officers responding to Tuesday's robbery were shot in Harvey, Illinois
- The suspects took people hostage inside a home, police add
- Law enforcement from around Illinois converged on the residence
(CNN) -- Law enforcement officers forcefully but safely ended a two-day hostage situation at a suburban Chicago house Wednesday morning, rescuing two children and two women while taking two suspects into custody in a raid on the home, authorities said.
The move -- made after four other hostages were released the previous night -- finished a roughly 20-hour standoff that police say began with a robbery attempt at the home in Harvey, Illinois.
The hostage-takers shot and injured at least one police officer when the standoff began Tuesday, but no shots were fired and no one was hurt when police moved into the home Wednesday, having determined negotiations were no longer progressing and that tensions were rising.
"We're very happy that there's been a peaceful resolution," Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart told reporters.
The four rescued hostages, including a 6-year-old child and a 12-year-old girl, were "traumatized" but unharmed, Dart said.
Police knocked down a first-floor door and rushed up to the second floor, where they found the hostages and the suspects. Authorities decided to move after round-the-clock negotiations "were getting a little bit more on the dicier side," Dart said.
"It was the (proper) time to act," Dart said.
Started with robbery attempt
The incident began at about 12:45 p.m. Tuesday when two people tried to rob the home, Dart said.
Inside the home when the suspects arrived were four children from one immediate family, plus two children who are related to them, and the two women, Dart said.
Police were called, and one responding officer was shot in the arm but is OK, Dart said. Another officer was injured and also is OK, Dart said, without elaborating.
Sometime afterward, law officers from all over Illinois surrounded the residence and began the negotiating process.
Four hostages -- children ranging in age from 1 to 12 -- were released Tuesday night and were not injured, police said.
Dart said the talks persisted for hours and proved to be a "very thoughtful approach" to hostage negotiations. Then, the back-and-forth stalemated and "the time had come for certain action," Dart said.
"At this juncture it was the prudent thing to do, which was to enter the house and to secure the hostages to make sure they weren't being harmed," Dart said.
Asked if police and the suspects were in a struggle, Dart answered: "They didn't surrender themselves."
There's no indication that the suspects had any connection to the hostages before Tuesday, Dart said.
Harvey Mayor Eric Kellogg had asked residents to stay inside their own homes as police, who blocked off nearby streets, dealt with the situation.
A city of about 25,000 people, Harvey is about 20 miles south of Chicago.
CNN's Bill Kirkos and Greg Botelho contributed to this report.
Is ISIS a threat to the U.S.?
8/21/2014 2:14:15 AM
- U.S. officials now see ISIS as a credible threat, on a par with al Qaeda
- Peter Bergen: Some lawmakers have exaggerated the current threat to U.S. from ISIS
- He says the problem is a potential issue, but few have been charged so far
- Bergen: Clearly ISIS is a potent force that must be countered in Middle East
Editor's note: Peter Bergen is CNN's national security analyst, a vice president at the New America Foundation and the author of "Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin Laden -- From 9/11 to Abbottabad." David Sterman is a research associate at the New America Foundation.
(CNN) -- U.S. officials are claiming that the terrorist group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, is "now a credible alternative to al Qaeda."
But what does that really mean in terms of ISIS' potential threat to the United States? After all, al Qaeda hasn't pulled off a successful attack in the States since 9/11, or indeed anywhere in the West since the London transportation bombings in 2005.
This month, Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, criticized the airstrikes in Iraq ordered by President Barack Obama directed at ISIS as too limited, telling CNN's Candy Crowley, "That is simply a very narrow and focused approach to a problem which is metastasizing as we speak. Candy, there was a guy a month ago that was in Syria, went back to the United States, came back and blew himself up. We're tracking 100 Americans who are over there now fighting for ISIS. ISIS is attracting extreme elements from all over the world, much less the Arab world. And what have we done?"
The case McCain alluded to was that of Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, who grew up in Vero Beach, Florida, and who conducted a suicide bombing in Syria in May on behalf of the Nusra Front, al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate. According to The New York Times, Abu-Salha had returned to the United States after being trained by Nusra and then went back to Syria to conduct the suicide operation in which he died.
McCain asserted on CNN that 100 Americans were fighting with ISIS. In fact, according to U.S. officials, 100 is the total number of Americans believed to have fought or attempted to have fought with any of the many Syrian insurgent groups, some of which are more militant than others, and some of which are even aligned with the United States.
According to a count by the New America Foundation, eight people from the United States have been indicted with crimes related to trying to join ISIS or the Nusra Front. (By contrast, some 240 U.S. citizens and residents have been indicted or charged with some kind of jihadist terrorist crime since 9/11.)
Some of the Nusra Front cases are far from threatening. On April 19, 2013, Abdella Tounisi, an 18-year-old American citizen from Aurora, Illinois, was arrested and charged with attempting to provide material support to Nusra. However, he was caught in a sting operation and described his fighting skills thusly: "Concerning my fighting skills, to be honest, I do not have any." Tounisi pleaded not guilty and awaits trial.
Other cases appear more serious. In December, Sinh Vinh Ngo Nguyen, a U.S. citizen from Southern California, pleaded guilty to a charge of attempting to provide material support to al Qaeda. Between December 2012 and April 2013, Nguyen had traveled to Syria, where, he stated, he fought alongside the Nusra Front. On his return, Nguyen discussed with an informant his intent to participate further in jihad.
In August 2013, Gufran Mohammed, a naturalized American citizen living in Saudi Arabia, was charged with attempting to provide material support to the Nusra Front in Syria, by facilitating the recruitment of experienced fighters from al Qaeda's Somali affiliate to Syria.
He pleaded guilty last month.
Opinion: How Iraq's black market in oil funds ISIS
Yet so far no U.S. citizen involved in fighting or supporting the Nusra Front or ISIS has been charged with plotting to conduct an attack inside the United States despite the fact the war in Syria is now in its fourth year and the war in Iraq is in its 11th year. Indeed, some Americans who have traveled to Syria have ended up dead apparently because they have no combat experience to speak of; for instance, Nicole Mansfield from Flint, Michigan, was killed in Syria last year by forces loyal to the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Further, ISIS' predecessor, al Qaeda in Iraq, never tried to conduct an attack on the American homeland, although it did bomb three American hotels in Jordan in 2005.
And it's also worth noting that in none of the successful terrorist attacks in the States since 9/11, such as the Boston Marathon bombings last year or Maj. Nidal Hasan's massacre at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009, did any of the convicted or alleged perpetrators receive training overseas.
Returning foreign fighters from the Syrian conflict pose a far greater threat to Europe, which has contributed a much larger number of foreign fighters to the conflict than the United States, including an estimated 700 from France, 450 from the United Kingdom and 270 from Germany.
Unlike in the United States, European countries have reported specific terrorist plots tied to returning Syrian fighters. Mehdi Nemmouche, a suspect in the May 24 shootings at a Jewish museum in Brussels, Belgium, that killed four people, spent about a year with jihadist fighters in Syria, according to the Paris prosecutor in the case. But Nemmouche's case is the only instance of lethal violence by a returning Syrian fighter in the West.
Still, the United States must consider European foreign fighters returning from Syria as more than a European problem because many of those returning are from countries that participate in the U.S. visa waiver program and can enter the States without a visa.
Moreover, experienced al Qaeda operators are present in Syria. As one senior U.S. intelligence official put it to us, these are veteran members "with strong resumes and full Rolodexes." The wars in Syria and Iraq allow such longtime fighters to interact with members of other al Qaeda affiliates. For example, in July, the United States adopted enhanced security measures at airports based on intelligence that bomb-makers from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula were sharing their expertise in making bombs capable of evading airport security with members of the Syrian Nusra Front.
Despite these dangers, however, the threat to the United States from foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq remains only a potential threat.
The administration's airstrikes in Iraq are properly focused upon the more imminent threats to U.S. government employees and American citizens in the Kurdish city of Irbil who are threatened by ISIS advances and the humanitarian catastrophe befalling the Yazidi population in areas controlled by the militant forces.
The last time there was a similar exodus of American citizens and residents to an overseas holy war was to Somalia following the U.S.-backed invasion of Somalia by Ethiopian forces in 2006. More than 40 Americans subsequently went to Somalia to fight with Al-Shabaab, an al Qaeda-affiliated group.
Opinion: ISIS beheading -- what should U.S. do?
Just as is the case today in Syria, for a good number of the Americans who went to fight in Somalia it was a one-way ticket because 15 of the 40 or so American volunteers died there either as suicide attackers or on the battlefield.
In 2011, Rep. Peter King, R-New York, then-chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, warned of Americans fighting in Somalia. "With a large group of Muslim-Americans willing to die as 'martyrs' and a strong operational partnership with al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan and in Yemen, al-Shabaab now has more capability than ever to strike the U.S. homeland."
As it turned out, those Americans who returned from the Somali jihad did not attempt or carry out any kind of terrorist attack in the States.
Now King is back at it again, telling NBC last week, "ISIS is a direct threat to the United States of America. ... They are more powerful now than al Qaeda was on 9/11."
ISIS is surely a major problem for Iraq, and its tactics and strategy are abhorrent, as demonstrated by the beheading of American journalist James Foley, its use of crucifixions and its genocidal attacks on the small Yazidi minority. But that doesn't mean it is a serious threat to the American homeland.
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Police and community can fix Ferguson
8/21/2014 6:26:04 AM
- British MP says Ferguson will need outside help to heal
- He represents area of London hit by riots in 2011 after black man killed by police
- David Lammy says healing goes far beyond rebuilding trust between police and community
- And he says riots are a sign of the fractures in our societies
Editor's note: David Lammy is a British Member of Parliament. He grew up in, and now represents, Tottenham in London where riots broke out in 2011. He is the author of "Out of the Ashes: Britain after the Riots," which examined the causes of the disturbances, and what should be done to repair the damage they caused. You can follow him on Twitter @DavidLammy. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely his.
London (CNN) -- Three summers ago, my wife and I were settling into a short summer holiday when I received an unexpected phone call from the police chief in Tottenham, the part of North London where I grew up and now represent in the UK Parliament. Phone calls from police officers are not uncommon in my line of work, but when the chief's number appeared on my screen I knew this was serious.
I was right. The voice at the other end of the phone informed me that a black man had been shot dead by armed police in my constituency. His name was Mark Duggan. I knew immediately that I had to return home, and jumped on the first train back the following morning.
I arrived back in time to watch as fire and unrestrained violence tore through my favorite local cafes and shops, and shattered glass covered the streets I have walked on all my life. The High Street just yards from the house in which I grew up was engulfed in flames, with homes set alight and buildings ransacked.
This was the start of four nights of rioting, looting and widespread disturbance that made international headlines and wreaked havoc in communities across England.
Watching the live footage coming out of Ferguson, Missouri, has brought these memories flooding back.
5 things to know about the Michael Brown shooting
While there are differences between the Tottenham riots and events in Ferguson, the similarities are stark. Michael Brown is not Mark Duggan, but he is yet another black man controversially shot dead by police.
The police officers have different uniforms and the rioters different accents, but the sense of distance and distrust between them is all too familiar.
And the human cost of rioting -- the businesses destroyed, homes damaged and relationships shattered -- transcends all borders.
Soon the violence will stop, the streets will empty and the broken glass will be quietly swept away.
As a degree of normality returns to this Missouri town, journalists will drift away and the TV cameras will move on.
What will be left is a deeply scarred and divided community. The distrust and anger that is compounded by these type of events endures long after public attention has turned away. Healing these divisions will take time, money and commitment.
What is crucial is that Ferguson is not left to deal with this alone. When a community so publicly fractures in the most devastating of circumstances, it needs outside help to heal.
After the violence in London stopped, the Mayor and the Government committed to a series of reviews, commissions and repair funds that would take place over the coming months. While these were not entirely effective, they did ensure that the needs of the community were not simply forgotten.
A damaged community being left to its own devices, with no one to mediate the anger and accusations between different parties, is not a recipe for progress.
Much of this work will focus on repairing the relationship between the police and the communities they operate in. Police forces can operate only with the consent of those that they are policing; deep distrust in the police puts that at risk.
The first part of this process will involve establishing the truth about what lead to Michael Brown's death, and bringing any wrongdoers to justice. But the protesters on Ferguson's streets know that Michael was not the first young black man shot dead in controversial circumstances, and nor will he be the last. Deeper, more long-term fixes are required.
This will require serious effort on both sides to rebuild and move forward. London's current police commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, knew this when he committed to virtually abolishing the controversial and divisive practice of stop and search. So too did New York Mayor Bill de Blasio when he focused his election campaign on the problems caused by its transatlantic cousin: stop and frisk. Similar leadership will be needed in Missouri.
My experience suggests that, with time, police-community relations can be rebuilt. In Tottenham, problems remain but the divisions are nowhere near as deep as they once were.
The solutions, though, must go deeper than police reform.
What became clear from speaking to those who had been involved in the August 2011 UK riots was a sense of alienation -- an awareness that these people felt they had nothing to lose. They were rebelling not just against the local police but against a society they felt they had no stake in. It was, on the whole, those without a job, an education or the hope of a brighter future who were most likely to risk a jail sentence for the sake of a new pair of Air Max trainers.
More must be done, through employment, education, urban regeneration and community programs, to integrate these groups with the rest of society.
So, too, should we address the problems that have arisen from the social revolution of the 1960s and the economic liberal revolution of the 1980s. Liberalism has made our societies fairer and more tolerant, but in excess it leads to a hyper-individualism that trumps our shared interests and makes us aware of our rights but not our responsibilities.
Both in Tottenham and in Ferguson, legitimate protesters were joined by an opportunistic minority. In London, people who had never heard of Mark Duggan rushed down to Footlocker to grab whatever looted trainers they could lay their hands on. Whole families were caught on CCTV making off with widescreen televisions robbed from electronics stores. This sense of entitlement, together with an absence of responsibility or the ability to delay gratification, was also present in pre-crash Wall Street and in the Enron boardroom; it has been very visible in recent years at both ends of society.
Since the 2011 UK riots, similar disturbances have taken place in Sweden, Italy, Belgium, Spain, France and the USA. While the immediate anger usually forms around a particular event or a specific government policy, all of these events stem from much deeper and more fundamental issues that continue to rumble below the surface in communities across the developed world.
Every now and then we see an eruption, as in Ferguson. It is a sign of the fractures that have emerged in our societies. We should not allow ourselves to think that they are nothing more than isolated events.
Full coverage of shooting, unrest in Ferguson
Magazine: The Aftermath in Ferguson
Read more about the flash point in the Heartland at CNN.com/US
Foley killing 'a message to London'
8/20/2014 11:05:26 PM
- ISIS releases video showing the beheading of journalist James Foley
- Furedi: The executioner in the video appeared to have a London accent
- Furedi: Many radical British Muslims reject, loathe cultural values of British society
- Furedi: British leaders failed to define common purpose that can unite all parts of society
Editor's note: Frank Furedi is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent, Canterbury. His book "First World War: Still No End In Sight" is published by Bloomsbury. The views expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
(CNN) -- It was a gruesome act performed atop the stage of the global theater -- the grotesque image of a masked man, dressed all in black, beheading an American journalist in a production intended to strike terror into the hearts of millions around the world.
This act of sadism was horrific enough on its own. But what some will also find deeply disturbing was that the jihadist executioner communicated his threat with a distinct London accent. The realization that there are people who grew up in Britain who are prepared to engage in such barbaric acts of depravity makes James Foley's murder feel more intimate than if it was perpetrated by a foreign-sounding killer from a different society.
Propaganda films from ISIS -- the Sunni militant group that has seized large tracts of land in Syria and Iraq in recent months -- regularly feature British recruits to demonstrate the group's capacity to influence young Muslims living in Europe. Earlier this week another threatening video from ISIS featured a group of jihadists speaking with British accents as they interrogated a Japanese hostage. Some of them weren't even hiding their faces.
The beheading of Foley was staged as a "Message to America," but it constituted a direct warning to Britain. It served as a reminder that the killing of a young English soldier Lee Rigby on the streets of south London by two home-grown jihadists last year was not an isolated event.
There has been a dramatic shift since September 11, 2001 in the way that the risk of terrorism is perceived in Britain and Western societies. Western governments have been forced to confront an unexpected and deeply disturbing reality -- that it is sometimes the people already living in these societies who constitute the greatest security threat.
The emergence of the "home grown terrorist" raises the fundamental question -- why do these radicalized jihadists reject the values and ways of life of the societies they inhabit?
Thankfully only a small fraction of a minority of young radical Muslims turn into hardened executioners of innocent victims. But a far greater number reject, even loathe, the cultural values of British society.
Many radical Muslims aren't fervent ISIS supports -- but some do regard the war to establish a global caliphate as a cause worth supporting. Their response is integral to an uncomfortable reality that British society ignores at its peril.
Losing the battle of ideas
Since the terrorist bombings in London in July 2005, the challenge of winning hearts and minds has been evident to policy makers. At the time, British Prime Minister Tony Blair declared:
"It's important, however, that those engaged in terrorism realize that our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people in a desire to impose extremism on the world."
Unfortunately very little progress has been made in upholding and explaining the values and way of life that are at stake -- and the shallowness of this statement was exposed a few years year later when the government's plans to launch a British Day had to be quietly abandoned.
The idea for organizing a British Day was a direct response to the London bombings. At the time, Chancellor Gordon Brown stated:
"We have to face uncomfortable facts that while the British response to July 7th was remarkable, they were British citizens, British born apparently integrated into our communities, who were prepared to maim and kill fellow British citizens irrespective of their religion.
"We have to be clearer now about how diverse cultures which inevitably contain differences can find the essential common purpose also without which no society can flourish."
Sadly the government failed to give meaning to the idea of this "common purpose" and gave up on the idea. The very attempt to celebrate "Britishness" only revealed an absence of clarity of what it was that ought to be valued and celebrated.
The answer to the question of what it means to be British continues to elude policy makers. Prime Minister David Cameron has called for teaching Britishness in school, in response to recent allegations about radical Islamist influence in the classroom. But if political leaders find it difficult to explain what Britishness represents, then how can teachers be expected to instruct their pupils?
Unless British values actually mean something in public life they cannot be taught. This is a challenge that has been evaded during the past decade. After the tragic murder of James Foley, this challenge must no longer be avoided.
READ: Foley's beheading recalls past horrors
READ: ISIS: Is it really a threat to the U.S.?
The views expressed in this commentary are solely those of Frank Furedi.
Liberia cannot cope with Ebola
8/20/2014 2:46:15 PM
- On Wednesday, protesters clashed with police over mass quarantine in Liberia
- Cerue Garlo: People are angry and scared; infrastructure is struggling
- She says some of her extended family members have died from the Ebola disease
- Garlo: Liberia is suffering during this terrible Ebola outbreak and needs help
Editor's note: Cerue Konah Garlo is senior program officer at the International Research & Exchanges Board, based in Liberia. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
(CNN) -- On Wednesday, angry residents of West Point, one of the poorest slums of Liberia, clashed with police when they discovered that the government has quarantined the entire area in an effort to contain the spread of Ebola. This comes on the heels of another incident at West Point a few days ago, when people attacked an Ebola clinic, releasing patients and taking bedding and other items. When the international community heard about the incident, it could not understand such reckless behavior in the face of a deadly outbreak. But living here in Liberia, we understand.
Through my work as a peace activist during the wars of the 1990s and early 2000s, and now as an organizer with communities throughout Liberia, I know how skeptical Liberians feel toward the government and international aid, given prior bad experiences.
The majority of citizens do not trust the government, which they view as corrupt, so they could not believe the whole story about Ebola when it started being told. A friend of mine said, for example, "Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (president of Liberia) and her minister of health want to pocket money, so they have come up with a new tactics to collect money and share."
As the months went by, many radio talk show hosts led discussions about Ebola. People from all walks of life in Liberia still denied the existence of Ebola, including many at the waterside, one of the biggest markets in Monrovia, the capital. When I spoke about Ebola, people accused me of working for the government, which was bad enough. But when I showed them my work ID, I made the matter even worse. They said that I work for an American non-governmental organization, and we all are supporters of Ma Ellen and can't see the wrong she is doing.
Now, too late, everyone is talking about the invisible enemy -- the one you cannot see. I remember during the war days in Liberia, you could get news of where the enemies were coming from and take cover either in the bushes or some other hiding place.
But the Ebola virus is different. I have extended family members who have died from the virus or been quarantined for observation and testing. It is overwhelming to hear of people whom you have spoken to in the past six weeks, who are now dead from a disease that could have been prevented.
9 things to know about Ebola
Liberians are social and community-oriented. We greet people with handshakes and hugs, eat together using one bowl, sleep together in one bed and bathe dead bodies to honor them.
Some people are trying to put aside these cultural practices to save lives. I have noticed that a few people have started to wear gloves and long-sleeve shirts. Many businesses and homes have buckets with water and bleach for people entering and coming out to wash their hands.
A colleague of mine called and told me about a health administrator whose mother had contracted the Ebola virus. The administrator took his mother to the hospital in Tubmanburg, capital of Bomi County, where my colleague works as a nurse and social worker for people living with HIV/AIDS.
My colleague told me that the administrator was in complete denial that his mother had contracted the virus. He broke all the rules that the hospital had put in place: no visitors for people who have shown signs and symptoms of Ebola. Every day, he brought a new family member to visit his sick mother. In the end, his mother died, he died, and so did all seven family members he brought to the hospital to visit.
Another day has come, and I got a call from a friend who is a social worker in one of the closed government hospitals in western Liberia. She said families that have been quarantined in some communities do not have basic food supplies and other items they need. Even though they are not showing symptoms at the moment, they go out to fetch water and food. They go to faraway markets and hand-pump water and do not tell others that they have been quarantined for fear of stigma. Another colleague says she took food and water to an Ebola quarantine, but she was turned down and told that no food or drinks were allowed.
Ebola facility in Liberia attacked; patients flee
People are scared for a reason: Liberia's infrastructure cannot cope with Ebola. With poor health facilities and a low number of health workers, it's obvious that the government needed help months ago.
Heath centers are filled with suspected and actual Ebola cases. But the call centers, set up for people wanting help treating Ebola victims, do not answer. This has led to people dumping dead bodies on the streets. Some patients who showed symptoms were abandoned or fled to unknown locations.
Tracing people who have come in contact with sick Ebola patients is a huge task for the Ministry of Health. It has become very difficult to trace people who have moved from one community to another, making it tougher to contain the spread of the virus.
The Ebola crisis is making many people think about what kind of health policies we have in place. Do we need to develop new ones? Every part of Liberia has been affected: the economy, politics, social and religious life. The economy seems to be dying slowly. Employees from large companies have left Liberia, as have staff members of international non-governmental organizations. The biggest iron ore company in Liberia has sent its experts out of the country.
After a decade of international aid to Liberia and the emergence of a democratic government, what are we left with? Liberia is not strong as it could be. Liberia is suffering during this terrible Ebola outbreak. We need help.
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No, the Pope didn't call for a crusade
8/20/2014 12:46:33 PM
- Asked about bombing in Iraq, Pope Francis says it is "licit to stop the unjust aggressor"
- David Perry says those remarks aren't a call for a new crusade, as some have suggested
- He adds that the Pope is trying to balance lessons of the ancient and modern
Editor's note: David M. Perry is an associate professor of history at Dominican University in Illinois. He writes regularly at the blog: How Did We Get Into This Mess? Follow him on Twitter. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
(CNN) -- Pope Francis' trip to South Korea memorialized the atrocities of the last century. On the way home, the Pope became embroiled in controversy about a conflict raging in the current one.
During a lengthy discussion, Francis remarked on the spread of cruelty and torture before being asked about violence against religious minorities in Iraq, and whether he approved of the U.S. bombing campaign aimed at stopping the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. With what seemed careful deliberation, Pope Francis said: "In these cases where there is an unjust aggression, I can only say this: It is licit to stop the unjust aggressor. I underline the verb: stop. I do not say bomb, make war, I say stop by some means. With what means can they be stopped? These have to be evaluated. To stop the unjust aggressor is licit."
This response -- and the reaction to it -- says much about the complexity of running an organization that is at once modern and ancient, religious and political, international and parochial. But what exactly did he mean? Was he, as a few excitable writers suggested, calling for a new crusade? Certainly, much of the media response quickly fixated on what seemed to be approval for a military campaign and how a Pope -- the leader of the Catholic Church -- was seemingly sanctioning war against an Islamic caliphate.
Actually, he wasn't.
Crusading, as defined by most historians, generally involved taking religious vows to head east and assist in military expeditions against Islamic powers in exchange for spiritual rewards (redemption from sin). Historians have identified major campaigns as the First, Second, Third, etc. Crusades. In response to these conquests, the local Islamic powers leveraged the idea of jihad to rally disparate Muslim groups together.
Yet although the Crusades featured not just plenty of violence but also peaceful cross-cultural exchange, they aren't an example Francis wants to invoke. In fact, he isn't saying that anyone should take vows and go off to fight. Instead, Francis is making the point that taking action to stop evil is just.
This idea of justified violence, even from Catholics, chiefly emerged from the writing of St. Augustine (354-430). As Matthew Gabriele, associate professor of medieval studies at Virginia Tech, writes: "Augustine argued that war was never desirable but was sometimes necessary. We must protect those who suffer from unjust aggression. If that could be accomplished without war, so much the better, but force could be used by legitimate authorities as a last resort. The end goal, however, was always -- and simply -- lasting peace."
That's the context for understanding the ancient part of Francis' response.
The modern context emerged in how he concluded his answer. "One nation alone cannot judge how to stop an unjust aggressor," Francis said. "After the Second World War there was the idea of the United Nations. It is there that this should be discussed. Is there an unjust aggressor? It would seem there is. How do we stop him? Only that, nothing more."
Such pursuit of multiple perspectives to ward off bias is also Augustinian. In "On Christian Doctrine," St. Augustine argued that reading the Bible required special training because though the book contains all the truths of the universe, humans (flawed creatures that we are) are far too likely to assume that whatever we think is good is also what God thinks is good. To counteract this, St. Augustine prescribed a strict intellectual diet of the best liberal arts and science education the late Roman world could provide.
Multiple perspectives help us discern what is truly just from what might just be convenient. In a way, that's what Francis is doing with his words, too. He's concerned that any individual leader or nation is far too likely to assume that someone with whom they disagree is unjust, and thus the principles of stopping unjust action instead becomes a tool for warmongering. Instead, he argues, we should try to find consensus before acting, collectively, to put an end to atrocity.
"We must also have memory," Francis said. "How many times under this excuse of stopping an unjust aggressor the powers (that intervened) have taken control of peoples, and have made a true war of conquest."
History teaches us all about the dangers of mission creep. And it also makes clear that when two sides engage in the rhetoric of religious war, things can deteriorate rapidly. Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, for example, both routinely railed against the West as "crusaders," an accusation that gained traction in the Islamic world after President George W. Bush called for "this crusade, this war on terrorism" after 9/11.
Francis doesn't want to make a similar mistake. Indeed, while he named himself after a medieval saint who lived during the era of the Crusades, that St. Francis didn't actually go to war. Instead he went on mission, seeking (at least as we remember it today) dialogue and understanding. And that's certainly been Pope Francis' path so far. But when there is great suffering in the world, as is being inflicted on religious and ethnic minorities in areas controlled by ISIS, then Francis says one must act, while also drawing on both the ancient idea of justified war and the modern concept of international cooperation.
The question, of course, is whether in a digital age -- when misinformation and misunderstanding spreads so fast -- Pope Francis can somehow find true harmony between old and new. His ability to do so will determine the lessons his papacy ultimately hands down for posterity.
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Boston bomber friend plea expected
8/20/2014 10:13:05 PM
- The friend is charged with removing a backpack and computer from dorm room
- It was the room of accused Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
- Dias Kadyrbayev is charged with obstructing justice and conspiracy
- He is expected to plead guilty to those federal charges on Thursday
(CNN) -- A friend of accused Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is expected to plead guilty Thursday to charges in connection with removing a backpack and computer from Tsarnaev's dorm room after the Boston Marathon bombing.
Dias Kadyrbayev will be changing his plea in a federal courtroom Thursday, his lawyer, Robert Stahl, told CNN, adding that he'll have more to say after the hearing.
The charges stem from actions after bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. Three people were killed and more than 200 were injured.
Kadyrbayev is charged with four counts including obstructing justice and conspiracy for allegedly throwing Tsarnaev's backpack into a dumpster after discovering it contained fireworks with gunpowder, and removing a jar of Vaseline and a computer thumb drive. The backpack was later recovered at a landfill by investigators.
Kadrybayev, a Kazakh national, also allegedly took Tsarnaev's computer to his off-campus apartment, where the FBI later seized it.
In July, Kadyrbayev's roommate Azamat Tazhayakov was convicted of conspiracy and obstruction charges in the same case and has filed an appeal. He faces up to 25 years in prison at his sentencing in October.
In that case, prosecutors told jurors Tazhayakov knew the identity of the suspected bombers -- Tsarnaev and his older brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev -- before the public found out, allegedly texting Kadyrbayev: "i think they got his brother," hours before the public knew their names or their relationship to one another.
The friends recognized the Tsarnaev brothers after authorities released video and still photos asking for the public's helping finding the two men in the aftermath of the bombings, prosecutors said. Kadyrbayev told his friends that he believed Dzhokhar Tsarnaev "used the Vaseline 'to make bombs,' or words to that effect," an indictment against him reads.
The government said Tsarnaev texted Kadyrbayev after the bombings and told him he could go to his dorm room and take what he wanted. Kadyrbayev showed that text to Tazhayakov, the government alleged.
Who is Dias Kadyrbayev?
Emmys to honor Robin Williams
8/20/2014 6:47:38 PM
- Robin Williams to receive tribute at Emmys
- Billy Crystal to present
- Williams died August 11 at 63
(EW.com) -- Monday's Emmy tribute to Robin Williams will be presented by a fellow famed actor-comedian: Billy Crystal.
Executive producer Don Mischer announced the programming decision on Tuesday morning, having previously promised that the award ceremony would honor the late performer with "the proper and meaningful remembrance he so well deserves."
Williams will be honored during the "In Memoriam" portion of the show. Sara Bareilles will handle the musical accompaniment to the segment. Bareilles recently dedicated her song "Hercules" to Williams (though the song choice for the segment has not yet been announced).
Last year, Williams honored Jonathan Winters during the same Emmy segment.
The 63-year-old was found dead in his home on August 11.
The 66th Primetime Emmy Awards airs August 25 on NBC.
Complete coverage on Robin Williams
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Barcelona transfer ban upheld
8/20/2014 6:47:47 PM
- FIFA rejects Barcelona's appeal against a transfer ban
- The Catalan club will be unable to sign new players until January 2016
- The ban was meted out after FIFA ruled Barca had breached rules relating to youth players
- Barca intends to appeal the ban at the Court of Arbitration for Sport
Follow us at @WorldSportCNN and like us on Facebook
(CNN) -- Luis Suarez could be the last big-money signing top European club Barcelona makes for quite some time.
The Spanish football club has seen its appeal against a ban on buying new players rejected by the sport's global governing body FIFA.
Barca plans to appeal the sanction, which prohibits the club from signing any new players until January 2016, at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS.)
The punishment was meted out in April, when FIFA ruled Barca had breached rules relating to the transfers of players under the age of 18.
"Barcelona announces that it shall continue defending its interests before the highest sporting authority, in this case the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS)," read a statement from the club.
"Barcelona may not in any way share a resolution that is an affront to the spirit of our Masia (its youth academy,) a world renowned example of academic, human and sporting education."
Barca was allowed to sign players during the current transfer window, which closes on September 1, after FIFA suspended the ban while the appeal was in progress.
The Catalan team spent a reported $128.5 million to sign Uruguay international Suarez from Liverpool. The striker is currently serving a ban for biting Italy's Giorgio Chiellini while playing for Uruguay at the World Cup.
Belgian defender Thomas Vermaelen was brought in from Arsenal for a fee of euros $25m while French defender Jeremy Mathieu and Chilean goalkeeper Claudio Bravo were signed from Valencia and Real Sociedad respectively.
Croatian midfielder Ivan Rakitic from Sevilla joined Barca for a fee of $23.9m with the club also paying $3m to Dinamo Zagreb for Alen Halilovic.
Read: Luis Suarez unveiled by Barca
Read: Suarez's biting ban upheld
Support for officer behind U.S. shooting
8/20/2014 2:20:34 PM
- Rallies in support of Officer Darren Wilson are being organized on social media
- Funding for the officer and the family has taken off
- Friends defend Wilson's actions
(CNN) -- While the nation is watching and hearing the angry protests in support of black shooting victim Michael Brown, a different kind of support is being voiced for the white police officer who fatally shot the unarmed teenager.
In a first account of its kind, a caller to Radio America's "The Dana Show," who identified herself only as Josie, told listeners a detailed account of Officer Darren Wilson's side. A source with detailed knowledge of the investigation told CNN it accurately matched what the officer has told investigators.
"He said all of a sudden, he just started to bum rush him," she said. "He just started coming at him full speed, and so he just started shooting and he just kept coming."
"I can even say without speaking to Darren, without even having heard his statements, that at that moment in time, he was scared for his life, I am 100% positive of that," Wilson's longtime high school friend Jake Shepard told CNN.
But accounts of exactly what happened between Wilson and Brown vary widely.
Witnesses have said they saw a scuffle between the officer and Brown at a police car before the young man was shot. Several witnesses said Brown raised his hands and was not attacking the officer.
Complete coverage of Ferguson shooting and protests
Facebook support
In a rally organized by the "Support Darren Wilson" Facebook page, more than 100 people gathered Sunday in downtown St. Louis to show their support for Wilson, CNN affiliate KSDK reported.
The Facebook group is gaining attention on social media and has received more than 29,000 likes since its creation on August 9. A second Facebook page, "I Support Officer Wilson," is almost at 33,000 likes since its creation Friday.
According to the "Support Darren Wilson" page, another rally was set up over the weekend on a bridge that connects Illinois and Missouri. And in a recent post on the page, the group is preparing for another rally this week.
The posts on both pages express frustration about not being heard in the media and allege a lack of support for Wilson and law enforcement.
A recent post on the "I support Officer Wilson" page says, "We started this page to be the voice that law enforcement did not have." Another post from the same page says that Wilson has overcome a rough childhood himself and that becoming a police officer has helped him to overcome that.
"It has been brought to my attention that Officer Darren Wilson had a very hard childhood and was able to rebound from that childhood becoming a police officer. ... This man is a hero now and has always been a hero," one post reads.
Wilson, 28, who has six years on the force with no disciplinary issues on his record, is on paid administrative leave. If he returns to duty, he will have to undergo two psychological evaluations, authorities said.
Shepard told CNN the officer was the "nicest guy in the world."
"I could never imagine him even in that situation taking someone's life, let alone taking someone's life with malicious intent," he said.
A post from the "I support Officer Wilson" page says that Wilson is struggling with what he's done. "This incident and the death of Michael Brown has been very hard for Officer Wilson and he is not handling it well," it says.
Support from friends, families
Many who say they are wives of law enforcement officers have posted stories about their husbands facing similar situations. Others who say they're friends of fallen officers have also posted about the grief they have seen when an officer is killed in the line of duty.
KimC shared her support on the St. Louis Police Wives' Association blog: "Thank you from a Ferguson resident and friend of the officers here in the community. ... Thank you for the meals, donations to Darren and constant prayers. God bless you all."
A crowdfunding campaign for the officer is also gaining traction via fundraising websites. A Gofundme.com campaign raised over $10,000 in less than 24 hours and now has a goal of $100,000. And a Teespring campaign, which sells T-shirts to help raise funds, has sold 1,007 T-shirts, breaking its goal of 1,000 T-shirts.
The outpouring is modest when compared with that for the Brown family. A memorial campaign fund set up by Brown's parents has raised over $82,363 in the last five days, breaking an $80,000 goal.
What we know about Ferguson
Read more about the flash point in the Heartland at CNN.com/US
Police and community can fix Ferguson
8/20/2014 2:35:22 PM
- British MP says Ferguson will need outside help to heal
- He represents area of London hit by riots in 2011 after black man killed by police
- David Lammy says healing goes far beyond rebuilding trust between police and community
- And he says riots are a sign of the fractures in our societies
Editor's note: David Lammy is a British Member of Parliament. He grew up in, and now represents, Tottenham in London where riots broke out in 2011. He is the author of "Out of the Ashes: Britain after the Riots," which examined the causes of the disturbances, and what should be done to repair the damage they caused. You can follow him on Twitter @DavidLammy. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely his.
London (CNN) -- Three summers ago, my wife and I were settling into a short summer holiday when I received an unexpected phone call from the police chief in Tottenham, the part of North London where I grew up and now represent in the UK Parliament. Phone calls from police officers are not uncommon in my line of work, but when the chief's number appeared on my screen I knew this was serious.
I was right. The voice at the other end of the phone informed me that a black man had been shot dead by armed police in my constituency. His name was Mark Duggan. I knew immediately that I had to return home, and jumped on the first train back the following morning.
I arrived back in time to watch as fire and unrestrained violence tore through my favorite local cafes and shops, and shattered glass covered the streets I have walked on all my life. The High Street just yards from the house in which I grew up was engulfed in flames, with homes set alight and buildings ransacked.
This was the start of four nights of rioting, looting and widespread disturbance that made international headlines and wreaked havoc in communities across England.
Watching the live footage coming out of Ferguson, Missouri, has brought these memories flooding back.
5 things to know about the Michael Brown shooting
While there are differences between the Tottenham riots and events in Ferguson, the similarities are stark. Michael Brown is not Mark Duggan, but he is yet another black man controversially shot dead by police.
The police officers have different uniforms and the rioters different accents, but the sense of distance and distrust between them is all too familiar.
And the human cost of rioting -- the businesses destroyed, homes damaged and relationships shattered -- transcends all borders.
Soon the violence will stop, the streets will empty and the broken glass will be quietly swept away.
As a degree of normality returns to this Missouri town, journalists will drift away and the TV cameras will move on.
What will be left is a deeply scarred and divided community. The distrust and anger that is compounded by these type of events endures long after public attention has turned away. Healing these divisions will take time, money and commitment.
What is crucial is that Ferguson is not left to deal with this alone. When a community so publicly fractures in the most devastating of circumstances, it needs outside help to heal.
Complete coverage of Ferguson shooting and protests
After the violence in London stopped, the Mayor and the Government committed to a series of reviews, commissions and repair funds that would take place over the coming months. While these were not entirely effective, they did ensure that the needs of the community were not simply forgotten.
A damaged community being left to its own devices, with no one to mediate the anger and accusations between different parties, is not a recipe for progress.
Much of this work will focus on repairing the relationship between the police and the communities they operate in. Police forces can operate only with the consent of those that they are policing; deep distrust in the police puts that at risk.
The first part of this process will involve establishing the truth about what lead to Michael Brown's death, and bringing any wrongdoers to justice. But the protesters on Ferguson's streets know that Michael was not the first young black man shot dead in controversial circumstances, and nor will he be the last. Deeper, more long-term fixes are required.
This will require serious effort on both sides to rebuild and move forward. London's current police commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, knew this when he committed to virtually abolishing the controversial and divisive practice of stop and search. So too did New York Mayor Bill de Blasio when he focused his election campaign on the problems caused by its transatlantic cousin: stop and frisk. Similar leadership will be needed in Missouri.
My experience suggests that, with time, police-community relations can be rebuilt. In Tottenham, problems remain but the divisions are nowhere near as deep as they once were.
The solutions, though, must go deeper than police reform.
What became clear from speaking to those who had been involved in the August 2011 UK riots was a sense of alienation -- an awareness that these people felt they had nothing to lose. They were rebelling not just against the local police but against a society they felt they had no stake in. It was, on the whole, those without a job, an education or the hope of a brighter future who were most likely to risk a jail sentence for the sake of a new pair of Air Max trainers.
More must be done, through employment, education, urban regeneration and community programs, to integrate these groups with the rest of society.
So, too, should we address the problems that have arisen from the social revolution of the 1960s and the economic liberal revolution of the 1980s. Liberalism has made our societies fairer and more tolerant, but in excess it leads to a hyper-individualism that trumps our shared interests and makes us aware of our rights but not our responsibilities.
Both in Tottenham and in Ferguson, legitimate protesters were joined by an opportunistic minority. In London, people who had never heard of Mark Duggan rushed down to Footlocker to grab whatever looted trainers they could lay their hands on. Whole families were caught on CCTV making off with widescreen televisions robbed from electronics stores. This sense of entitlement, together with an absence of responsibility or the ability to delay gratification, was also present in pre-crash Wall Street and in the Enron boardroom; it has been very visible in recent years at both ends of society.
Since the 2011 UK riots, similar disturbances have taken place in Sweden, Italy, Belgium, Spain, France and the USA. While the immediate anger usually forms around a particular event or a specific government policy, all of these events stem from much deeper and more fundamental issues that continue to rumble below the surface in communities across the developed world.
Every now and then we see an eruption, as in Ferguson. It is a sign of the fractures that have emerged in our societies. We should not allow ourselves to think that they are nothing more than isolated events.
The views expressed in this commentary are solely those of David Lammy.
Official: U.S. attempt to rescue Foley, others failed
8/20/2014 7:51:58 PM
- NEW: A source tells CNN that Foley was held in Aleppo, Syria, for a time
- The United States attempted a rescue in Syria, official says
- Foley's family received an e-mail from the kidnappers, the GlobalPost CEO says
- The e-mail stated their intention to execute the journalist, the CEO says
Washington (CNN) -- A recent attempt to rescue American James Foley and others in Syria failed, a U.S. official told CNN on Wednesday, a revelation that came as new details emerged about the journalist's final days in the hands of ISIS militants.
The U.S. Department of Defense confirmed a rescue attempt was carried out this summer in Syria, but did not say whether Foley was among those U.S. officials had hoped to free.
"Unfortunately, the mission was not successful because the hostages were not present at the targeted location," Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby said.
But the U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the mission was to free Foley and other American hostages.
The news broke a day after ISIS released a grisly video that showed Foley being beheaded and warned a second American journalist would be killed if the United States did not end its military operations in Iraq.
Hours earlier on Wednesday, it was revealed that Foley's family was told a week ago in an e-mail sent by his captors that the journalist would be executed.
"The message was vitriolic and filled with rage against the United States. It was deadly serious," said Philip Balboni, CEO of the online publication GlobalPost, which employed Foley.
"Obviously, we hoped and prayed that would not be the case ... Sadly, they showed no mercy."
In the video, which CNN is not showing, Foley is seen on his knees as a man cloaked in black -- his face covered -- stands behind him.
Foley is then executed.
The video of his killing also shows another U.S. journalist, believed to be Steven Sotloff. The militant in the video, who speaks English with what sounds like a British accent, says the other American's life hangs in the balance, depending on what President Barack Obama does next in Iraq.
Who is the ISIS?
Source: Foley was held in Aleppo
Foley, a freelance journalist, was on assignment for GlobalPost when he disappeared on November 22, 2012, in northwest Syria, near the border with Turkey.
ISIS, the militant group seeking an Islamic caliphate stretching from Iraq into Syria, has claimed credit and U.S. intelligence said the video is real.
A source who claims to have been held last year with Foley told CNN's Bharati Naik that he, Foley and another journalist were held from March to August 2013 in a prison in the Syrian city of Aleppo near Masha al-Adfaa hospital.
At the time, the source -- who spoke on condition of anonymity -- said they were being held by al-Nusra Front, a Syrian rebel group with ties to al Qaeda in Iraq.
At one point, according to the source, there were almost 100 people -- including other European journalists -- in the prison.
The source believes Foley and the other journalist, who was not Sotloff, were transferred to an ISIS training camp.
Foley and the other journalist, according to the source, were tortured in prison -- mostly beaten.
Foley and the other journalist, who the source declined to identify, said they gave him contact numbers and e-mail addresses to pass on message to their family members.
The source told CNN he lost the contacts and did not get in touch with the families. He says he did, however, give the information about the journalists to Western government authorities in November 2013, including details about where Foley was being held.
Messages from Foley's captors began last fall, Balboni of GlobalPost said.
"The captors never messaged a lot. There was a very limited number with a very specific purpose ... They made demands," he said.
Some messages were political, and some were financial, Balboni said.
Then came the message sent to Foley's family last week. "There was no demand," he said.
Foley's family, according to Balboni, responded in an e-mail, pleading for mercy and asking for more time.
They never heard back.
"Jim Foley was an incredibly brave journalist and an incredibly brave man, right to the horrible end of his life. We are devastated by his loss," Balboni told reporters.
'Jim was innocent'
In the video posted on YouTube, Foley reads a message, presumably scripted by his captors, that his "real killer'' is America.
"I wish I had more time. I wish I could have the hope for freedom to see my family once again," he can be heard saying in the video.
Foley's parents, flanked by one of his brothers, talked to reporters about their son's plight.
"Jim was innocent and they knew it," Diane Foley said. "They knew that Jim was just a symbol of our country."
His father, John, broke down several times.
"We beg compassion and mercy" for those believed to be holding the other American journalist shown in the video. Sotloff, a contributor to Time and Foreign Policy magazines, was kidnapped at the Syria-Turkey border in 2013.
"They never hurt anybody," John Foley said. "They were trying to help. There is no reason for their slaughter."
Foley previously had been taken captive in Libya. He was detained there in April 2011 along with three other reporters, and released six weeks later.
Afterward, he said that what saddened him most was knowing that he was causing his family to worry.
His parents talked about asking him why he wanted to return to conflict zones.
"Why do firemen keep going back to blazing homes?" John Foley told reporters. "This was his passion. He was not crazy. He was motivated by what he thought was doing the right thing ... that gave him energy to continue despite the risk."
His mother said she remembered him telling her, "Mom, I found my passion, I found my vocation."
Foley, 40, grew up in New Hampshire and graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism in 2008.
Like some other young journalists working after the September 11 terror attacks, Foley was drawn to Iraq, Afghanistan and other areas of conflict.
Friends described Foley as fair, curious and impressively even-tempered.
"Everybody, everywhere, takes a liking to Jim as soon as they meet him," journalist Clare Morgana Gillis wrote in a blog post about him in May 2013, six months after he disappeared in Syria.
"Men like him for his good humor and tendency to address everyone as 'bro' or 'homie' or 'dude' after the first handshake. Women like him for his broad smile, broad shoulders, and because, well, women just like him."
What to know about ISIS
Searching for clues
U.S. and British counterterrorism analysts are examining every frame and piece of audio of the video for clues about where it took place and who the executioner is, U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told CNN.
The voice in the video seems to have a British accent so they're trying to match any individuals known to the British government who may have gone to Syria to fight in that nation's civil war.
The analysts are looking at clothing, climate, terrain, language and wording and whether there are any National Security Agency or UK phone intercepts matching the voice, the officials said.
French journalist Nicolas Henin told France Info radio he had been held with Foley in northern Syria prior to his release in April.
Henin, who has never before spoken about Foley because he didn't want to jeopardize him, said he was held for seven months with the American journalist.
Hostages were held in groups. At one point, he shared a cell with Foley.
Foley "was in a difficult state," said Henin. "He already suffered a lot during his first months (of captivity) and thankfully we shared a phase (in our detention) that was less difficult."
Foley, according to Henin, said he had been initially kidnapped by a group of jihadists who were fighting in Syria.
U.S. Official: ISIS 'credible alternative to al Qaeda'
The Committee to Protect Journalists estimates there are about 20 journalists missing in Syria, many of them held by ISIS.
Among them is American Austin Tice, a freelance journalist who was contributing articles to The Washington Post. Tice disappeared in Syria in August 2012. There has been no word of from him since his abduction.
Previous brutal killings of Americans
Foley's killing recalled the murder of Daniel Pearl, The Wall Street Journal correspondent who was kidnapped while reporting in Pakistan in January 2002. His killing was captured on video and posted online by al Qaeda.
Pearl's mother, Ruth Pearl, responded to Foley's death with a tweet posted by the Daniel Pearl Foundation Twitter account that reads: "Our hearts go out to the family of journalist James Foley. We know the horror they are going through."
Foley's death also harkened to the videotaped beheadings of Americans Nicholas Berg, Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley carried out by al Qaeda during the height of the Iraq War.
Beheading of American journalist James Foley recalls past horrors
Barbara Starr reported from Washington, and Chelsea J. Carter reported and wrote from Atlanta. CNN's Evan Perez, Ashley Fantz, Dana Ford, Raja Razek, Kevin Liptak, Jethro Mullen, Elise Labott and Leslie Bentz contributed to this report.
Crane used in Pakistan protests
8/20/2014 2:21:26 AM
- Supporters of ex-cricketer Imran Khan and cleric Tahir ul Qadri march on Islamabad
- Many protesters have entered high-security "red zone" to approach parliament
- Security forces, protesters have so far avoided clashes
- Protesters calling for government to stand down amid corruption, vote fraud claims
(CNN) -- Anti-government protesters have managed to breach a high-security zone in Pakistan's capital, despite the presence of thousands of security personnel.
A blackout had been enforced overnight Tuesday in Islamabad's "red zone," a heavily guarded area of the city containing key government buildings, as the marchers drew close. In the darkness policemen thumped their shields with batons in anticipation of a possible confrontation.
However they told CNN orders had been given not to react or use force.
For the past few days, thousands of supporters of cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan have joined a march on Islamabad from Lahore to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif amid claims of vote-rigging during last year's election.
They've been joined by followers of outspoken cleric Tahir ul Qadri, who declared the protest a "revolution march." Qadri led protests against the government last year that brought the capital to a standstill, and has accused Sharif of corruption and campaigned for more to be done for the country's poor.
OPINION: Qadri: My vision for Pakistan
Sharif has denied the accusations against him, and has offered to set off an investigation into last year's vote.
Parliament reached
Many of Khan and Qadri's supporters were equipped with gas masks and swimming goggles and carried thick wooden clubs. By late Tuesday, many had managed to get beyond barricades made up of barbed wire and steel shipping containers -- with some even using a hijacked crane -- to reach parliament without provoking a reaction from security forces.
At one point a number of female protesters approached soldiers and appeared to shower them in flower petals.
Officials had previously warned protesters not to enter this area, prompting fears of violent clashes. Earlier this month, at least five people died when supporters of Qadri clashed with police in the northwestern Punjab province.
However a spokesperson for the military released the following statement on social media Tuesday: "Buildings in the Red Zone are a symbol of the state and are being protected by the Army. Therefore the sanctity of these national symbols must be respected. Situation requires patience, wisdom & sagacity from all stakeholders to resolve prevailing impasse through meaningful dialogue in larger national and public interest."
Qadri told CNN that this "green revolution" had been "peaceful and democratic." He added: "This is a march for democratic reforms. We want rule of law. We want true participatory democracy in our country. We want to fight for human rights, for minority rights, for women rights and to eradicate corruption from society."
At around 1 a.m. local time on Wednesday, a handful of supporters of Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) political party were the first to breach the final container blocking access to the front of the prime minister's secretariat. They edged past police lines, some appearing stunned that they'd made it into the capital's fortified red zone.
Planned Malaysia attacks 'ISIS-like'
8/20/2014 2:03:58 AM
- Police: 19 people arrested on terrorism charges in Malaysia not linked to ISIS
- They share a similar ideology with ISIS and other terrorist groups such as Boko Haram, police said
- The group, which has not been named, planned to attack bars around Malaysia's administrative capital
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (CNN) -- There are no immediate links between the 19 people arrested on suspicion of planning terror attacks on Malaysia's administrative capital, Putrajaya, and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), police said Wednesday.
"These individuals, however, share a similar ideology with ISIS and other terrorist groups such as Boko Haram and Jemaah Islamiah. They come from a Salafi-Jihadist movement," the Asian country's counter terrorism deputy chief, Ayob Khan Pitchay Mydin, told CNN.
Al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah (JI) was behind the 2002 Bali bombings, which left 202 people dead and other bombings in South East Asia, while Boko Haram is the Islamist militant group waging a campaign of terror in Nigeria.
However, Malaysian police believe the individuals concerned were making their way to join ISIS in its war in Syria after investigating their travel plans.
"We know they planned to join ISIS through their travel itineraries," said Ayob Khan.
The 19 suspects -- 17 men and two women, who were arrested in operations between April and July -- had planned flights to Istanbul, Turkey before going to Syria over land via Turkey's Hatay province, the counter terrorism specialist said.
Seven people have already being charged in court for various terror-related activities.
Bars targeted
During their investigations, police say they uncovered plans by the group to bomb bars and other alcohol-related establishments, including a brewery, around the city.
"They were also using Facebook to raise money for their activities under the guise of humanitarian efforts in the Middle East," said Ayob Khan. He declined to reveal how much money had already been raised, or to identify the group's name, as they are still investigating its links with other groups.
In June, 26-year-old Ahmad Tarmimi Maliki became the first Malaysian suicide bomber linked to ISIS.
The factory worker, who was behind an attack that killed more than 20 elite Iraqi soldiers at their base in al-Anbar in May, was identified after reports surfaced on an ISIS-linked website. His photograph was also featured.
READ: U.S. official: ISIS 'credible alternative to al Qaeda'
READ: Could ISIS retaliate against the West?
Iceland's Bardarbunga volcano threat
8/20/2014 10:37:32 AM
- Icelandic authorities say there's increased seismic activity around Bardarbunga volcano
- But there's no sign yet of magma moving to the surface or ash spewing into the sky
- Iceland has posted an orange aviation alert, indicating "increased potential of eruption"
- The eruption of Eyjafjallajokull in 2010 caused disruption to millions of travelers
(CNN) -- In 2010, an Icelandic volcano with an unpronounceable name spewed an ash cloud into the skies that disrupted travel for millions of passengers and cost airlines a small fortune.
Now another Icelandic volcano is rumbling, prompting fears of a repeat of the travel chaos that afflicted northern Europe when the Eyjafjallajokull volcano did its worst.
Its name -- Bardarbunga -- is a little less daunting, but it could still cause trouble.
Something is brewing
While there's no sign yet of magma moving to the surface, according to Iceland's Meteorological Office, something's definitely up beneath the Earth's surface.
In what the Meteorological Office describes as an "intense earthquake swarm," scientists registered some 2,600 earthquakes between early Saturday morning and Monday evening.
And after the strongest earthquake since 1996 was measured in the area early Monday, an orange aviation alert was posted by Icelandic authorities -- indicating "heightened or escalating unrest with increased potential of eruption."
"The reason we are reacting in this way is that this one is bigger and more powerful than we have seen in a long time in this area," said Vidir Reynisson, of the Iceland Civil Protection Agency, of the earthquake swarm.
Scientists have noticed an increase in seismic activity around the volcano, located in the northwestern region of Vatnajokull glacier, one of Europe's largest glaciers, over the past seven years, the Meteorological Office said.
The level dropped a little after the eruption of another volcano on the same glacier, Grimsvotn, in 2011, but has since picked up again.
Earthquakes may signal eruption
As of Monday evening, the majority of earthquakes measured were at a depth of 5 to 10 kilometers. There's more potential for a volcanic eruption if magma movement occurs at less than 10 kilometers' depth.
According to the Smithsonian Institute Global Volcanism Program, Bardarbunga last erupted in 1910.
If it should blow its top again, it could be bad news for travelers.
Volcanic ash can be a serious hazard to aircraft, reducing visibility, damaging flight controls and ultimately causing jet engines to fail.
The Eyjafjallajokull eruption forced the cancellation and diversion of thousands of flights per day at the peak of the problem.
"It was causing problems for millions of passengers, the airlines themselves were losing lots of money because they could not fly," Paul Charles, former director of communications for Virgin Atlantic and Eurostar, told CNN.
"And the customer relations departments of airlines were really suffering because they were taking huge numbers of complaints and they had no solution."
Air travel still smooth
Europe's air authority, Eurocontrol, said Tuesday it was monitoring the Bardarbunga situation but that there is no impact at this time on European aviation. It also insists that changes have been made to help avoid the kind of chaos seen after Eyjafjallajokull erupted.
"Europe is more prepared to deal with volcanic ash these days; we have better mechanisms in place than we did in 2010. Every year, volcanic ash exercises are conducted and we learn from them: the latest one was held in April this year," it said.
"However, volcanic ash is still a hazard for aviation and does have the potential to cause disruption. Safety is, as ever, our primary concern."
Road melts at Yellowstone National Park
Heimaey: The Icelandic town frozen in time by a volcano
CNN's Jim Boulden and Brandon Miller contributed to this report.
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