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Pakistan protesters set up camp
9/3/2014 6:53:19 PM
Protesters have set up a tent city outside Pakistani parliament and demand change. CNN's Saima Mohsin reports.
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Hot car case: Father on murder charge
9/4/2014 11:33:42 AM
- NEW: District attorney says he will decide whether to pursue death penalty within weeks
- Grand jury charges Justin Ross Harris with 8 counts, including murder, in hot car death
- Charges allege Harris caused 22-month-old son, Cooper, "cruel, excessive physical pain"
- Harris, who is being held without bond, has pleaded not guilty to murder and child cruelty
Marietta, Georgia (CNN) -- Whether the prosecution will seek the death penalty in Justin Ross Harris hot-car death case will be decided in two to three weeks, Cobb County District Attorney Vic Reynolds said Thursday.
Reynolds' statement came hours after the Georgia father was indicted by a grand jury on eight counts, including malice murder and two counts of felony murder.
"We're pleased with the pace and thoroughness of this investigation, which continues on today," Reynolds said. "The evidence in this case has led us to this point today. Whether it leads us to anyone else remains to be answered."
The next step will be to put Harris' case on Superior Court Judge Mary Staley's arraignment calendar, which should happen within three weeks, the prosecutor said. Motions will then be filed before the case goes to a trial calendar.
Reynolds declined to take questions or comment further, saying, "This case will be tried in a court of law," and not in the media.
If Reynolds seeks the death penalty, it will be for the malice murder charge, which alleges that Harris, who has claimed his son's death was an accident, premeditated the child's killing.
Harris' attorney, H. Maddox Kilgore, is expected to release a statement later Thursday.
The other five charges are: first-degree cruelty to children, second-degree cruelty to children, criminal attempt to commit a felony (sexual exploitation of a minor) and two counts of dissemination of harmful material to minors.
According to the indictment, the grand jury found that on June 18, Harris "did unlawfully, and with malice aforethought, cause the death of Cooper Harris ... by placing said Cooper Harris into a child car seat and leaving him alone in a hot motor vehicle."
The two felony murder charges allege that Harris killed his 22-month-old son while committing the felonies of first- and second-degree cruelty to children. One count states he killed Cooper "maliciously," while the other felony murder count says Harris killed him "with criminal negligence."
Harris faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison if convicted on any of the murder charges.
By leaving Cooper in the car, Harris caused the boy "cruel and excessive physical pain," the cruelty to children charges allege.
The criminal attempt to commit a felony and dissemination of harmful materials charges are not related directly to Cooper's death. They involve allegations that Harris requested a nude photo of a minor's genitalia and sent the same minor descriptions of "sexual excitement and sexual conduct," according to the indictment.
A Cobb County detective testified at an earlier probable cause hearing that while Cooper was in the car at his father's workplace, Harris was sexting with numerous women and sent one of them, who was underage, a photo of his erect penis.
County District Attorney Vic Reynolds will hold a news conference at 3 p.m. at the Cobb County Superior Courthouse to discuss details of the case.
Harris pleaded not guilty to murder and child cruelty charges in June. Cobb County Chief Magistrate Frank Cox signed off on the charges, stating Harris would've had to notice that "the stench in the car was overwhelming" when he got in it as he left work and "drove it for some instance" before stopping to check on the boy.
Charges filed in an indictment supersede the previous charges. Harris has been held without bond since Cooper's death this summer.
Authorities have painted Harris as a terrible father who, after admittedly looking up online how hot a car needed to be to kill a child, purposely strapped his son into his sweltering SUV to die.
His motivation? The prosecutor has characterized Harris as an unfaithful husband who wanted a childless life.
Kilgore has argued his client tragically forgot his child in the car. Friends described Harris as a doting dad, not a malicious one, who loved to show off his blond, bright-eyed boy and talked about him incessantly.
It all started simply enough: Harris left home with Cooper in a rear-facing car seat in the back of his 2011 Hyundai Tucson, then headed to his job as a Web developer for Atlanta-based Home Depot after making a quick pit stop at a fast-food restaurant for breakfast.
But he didn't follow through on his routine of stopping to drop the boy off at daycare.
Instead, according to a criminal warrant, Harris drove to work and left Cooper strapped in his car seat. He went back to his SUV during lunch, put something in the car, then returned to work.
All the while, the vehicle got increasingly hotter, with records showing the temperature topped 92 that day -- which can make the heat inside a closed vehicle soar past 100 degrees quickly.
Sometime around 4:15 p.m., seven hours after he'd arrived at work, Harris got back into his Hyundai and left work. Witnesses told police that, soon thereafter, they heard "squealing tires (as) the vehicle came to a stop" in a shopping center.
Cobb County Police Detective Phil Stoddard testified at the probable cause hearing that Harris got out of the car yelling, "Oh my God, what have I done?"
He then stood with a blank look, going to the other side of his SUV to make a phone call after someone told him that his son needed CPR, a witness told police, according to Stoddard.
Witness Leonard Madden testified that, upon leaving a restaurant, he noticed Harris was distraught and crying.
"He was hollering," Madden testified, recounting the father saying, "Oh, my God! Oh, my God! My son is dead!"
Harris had to be physically restrained once it became clear Cooper wouldn't make it -- at which time it was 88 degrees -- according to police.
Leaving his son alone in the car wasn't the only thing Harris did that day, authorities say.
While at work, he messaged six women besides his wife and exchanged explicit texts with some of them -- including the lewd photo that he sent to an underage female, Stoddard testified.
Yet even after these allegations surfaced, his wife Leanna Harris stood by her man.
She sat calmly through the probable cause hearing, and at Cooper's funeral flatly insisted she was "absolutely not" angry with her husband.
"Ross is and was and will be, if we have more children, a wonderful father," Leanna Harris said at the funeral in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, a gathering that her husband also addressed via phone from the Cobb County Jail. "Ross is a wonderful daddy and leader for our household. Cooper meant the world to him."
CNN's Eliott C. McLaughlin and Greg Botelho reported and wrote from Atlanta, with Devon M. Sayers and Stephanie Gallman reporting from Marietta. CNN's MaryLynn Ryan and Chelsea J. Carter contributed to this report.
Ebola outbreak is 'global threat'
9/3/2014 4:30:22 PM
- More than 3,500 people are infected, and more than 1,900 have died, WHO says
- International response to "global crisis" inadequate, Medecins Sans Frontieres says
- A nurse from the UK who had been infected leaves the hospital
(CNN) -- More than 3,500 people have been infected by the Ebola virus in Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria since the first documented cases in December, according to new figures released Wednesday by the World Health Organization. More than 1,900 people have died.
There is also a smaller, unrelated outbreak in Congo and at least one confirmed case in Senegal, according to WHO Director General Dr. Margaret Chan.
She characterized the outbreak as a "global threat" and encouraged the international community to do more to combat it. Chan complimented the United States for its "very strong support" through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden said the official numbers are lower than the actual number of cases, because families afraid of the stigma associated with Ebola do not report sick loved ones. Others are caring for patients in isolation.
READ: Human trial of experimental Ebola vaccine starts
Frieden characterized the outbreak as "spiraling out of control" Tuesday in a conversation on CNN's "New Day."
"What we're seeing is a ... hugely fast increase in cases that's harder and harder to manage," he said. "The more we can get in there and tamp that down, the fewer cases we'll have in the weeks and months to come."
Dr. David Nabarro, the senior United Nations system coordinator for Ebola, said that in observing the disease on the ground, he noticed that a number of the infections have spread between family members who are caring for the sick.
They must care for those infected with Ebola because there are not enough hospital beds, nor are there enough ambulances to transport people safely. If the patients do get to a health care facility, there is not a good system of infection control, nor is there enough protective equipment to go around.
Nabarro said there is a desperate need for personnel to help on the ground as well as for nurses, doctors and ambulance drivers in West Africa. The area also needs money to fight the outbreak -- at least $600 million, by some estimates.
The fact that airlines have stopped flying to the countries affected has kept people isolated and has inadvertently made the outbreak worse, making it harder for staff and supplies to make it there.
New cases in Nigeria
Nigeria's minister of health said there are three new confirmed cases of Ebola in Port Harcourt, the country's oil hub.
The ministry believes other cases will be confirmed there shortly.
Ebola initially arrived in Nigeria through an infected air traveler.
The passenger landed in Lagos on July 20 and died five days later. One person who was put into quarantine after he came into contact with the passenger fled the city and sought treatment in Port Harcourt. A doctor who treated him developed symptoms and died a little more than a week later.
Not knowing he was sick, the doctor treated other patients. He also came into contact with members of the community after family and friends visited to celebrate the birth of a baby and after members of his church visited him at the hospital.
Nigerian health leaders are monitoring the health of more than 200 people who may have had contact with the doctor. About 60 more are considered to have had high-risk or very high-risk exposure.
The other confirmed Nigerian cases now include the doctor's spouse, who is also a doctor, and a patient at the hospital where the doctor was treated. Staff members are being tested for Ebola.
With the help of the CDC and the WHO, an isolation facility has been set up to handle additional Ebola cases.
Civic unrest and security issues, coupled with the public's fear of Ebola, are among the concerns. The military has been called in to escort people to the clinic.
More need for help
Dr. Joanne Liu, the international president of Doctors Without Borders, spoke at a special United Nations briefing on Wednesday, criticizing the international community's "lethally inadequate" response to the global threat.
The group, also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres, has been on the ground fighting the outbreak since March.
Liu made what her organization described as an "unprecedented call" for U.N. members with the technology to intervene in a biological threat to do so immediately.
READ: American Ebola victim: "I felt like I was about to die"
"Six months into the worst Ebola epidemic in history, the world is losing the battle to contain it," she said. "Leaders are failing to come to grips with this transnational threat. The WHO announcement on August 8 that the epidemic constituted a 'public health emergency of international concern' has not led to decisive action, and states have essentially joined a global coalition of inaction," she said.
"The clock is ticking, and Ebola is winning," Liu warned. "The time for meetings and planning is over. It is now time to act. Every day of inaction means more deaths and the slow collapse of societies."
British patient gets better
Medical personnel have been particularly vulnerable in this Ebola outbreak.
William Pooley, a British volunteer nurse who cared for Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, was the first Briton known to be infected.
Doctors flew him back to be treated in an isolation unit at the Royal Free Hospital in North London. He stayed there for 10 days of treatment that included the experimental drug ZMapp, which was also used to treat two American medical personnel last month who have since been released from the hospital.
Pooley's doctors released him from care on Tuesday.
READ: Ebola contacts in Africa go missing
READ: 9 facts about the killer disease
Why ISIS flaunts its brutality
9/4/2014 12:16:00 PM
- ISIS militants are getting increasingly tech- and media savvy
- Some of their videos rival Hollywood features in production quality
- Beheadings by ISIS have increased after al Qaeda disowned the group
- "Our knife will continue to strike the necks of your people," a militant warns Obama
(CNN) -- One video shows more than 100 prisoners paraded across the desert in their underwear, then lying face down as militants unleash a hailstorm of bullets into their bodies.
Other images show crucifixions and public executions in towns overrun by terrorists.
And recent footage showing the beheading of a second American journalist proves that ISIS wants to world to know how brutal it can be.
The insurgents are experts at using footage of their crimes as propaganda to terrify those who disagree with their radicalism and to threaten foreign leaders. The visuals are as much a part of ISIS' terrorism as its bloody march across the Iraq and Syria.
In the video of American Steven Sotloff's decapitation, the executioner has a stern warning for the U.S. President:
"I'm back, Obama, and I'm back because of your arrogant foreign policy towards the Islamic State," the man says in the video, released just days after fellow journalist James Foley was beheaded.
"Just as your missiles continue to strike our people, our knife will continue to strike the necks of your people."
Even a 7-year-old child was photographed holding a severed head. The picture was reportedly taken in Raqqa, the ISIS stronghold in Syria, where the boy's Australian father had taken his family to join the fight.
More decapitations
Publicized beheadings had actually stopped in years past
A decade ago, al Qaeda -- the terror group that spawned ISIS -- made headlines with a series of decapitations, including those of Americans Nicholas Berg and Eugene "Jack" Armstrong.
Top al Qaeda official Ayman al-Zawahiri criticized the gruesome antics, and the decapitations stopped. But al Qaeda has since disowned ISIS, and al-Zawahiri has not condemned Foley's execution.
That means the beheadings could continue.
But it's not just Western captives who fall victim. Last week, a Kurdish man was executed in front of a mosque in Mosul in a video called "A message written in blood," notes Charlie Cooper, Middle East researcher at the Quilliam Foundation.
But because that message "was directed at the President of Iraqi Kurdistan, this particular piece of propaganda did not receive widespread coverage in the international media," Cooper wrote in a piece for CNN.com.
"They have shown their willingness to kill anyone in their path -- not just Americans, not just Westerners, but Iraqis of all faiths, of all sects," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said. "They've shown their complete barbarism in doing that."
The media's role
Cooper said the media has a responsibility to treat ISIS propaganda carefully.
"Every time a still or clip from an ISIS video is shown, the group gets what it wants: the oxygen of publicity," he wrote.
"Of course, it is necessary that people the world over are aware of the atrocities occurring at the hands of ISIS, but journalists must be careful not to do the jihadists' job for them."
The decision on whether to publicize parts of the recent beheading videos have even divided journalists.
International broadcaster Al Jazeera said it had decided not to show any images of Sotloff from the video -- a more conservative position than other TV networks.
"We suggest all media do the same," Al Jazeera's public relations account said via Twitter, using the hashtag #ISISmediaBlackout.
And while the video has been blocked from various video sharing platforms, they have also reappeared as many times, Quilliam senior researcher Erin Marie Saltman wrote.
She said that kind of trend "once again emphasizes that the new frontline for counter-terrorist practitioners is online extremism."
Glossy recruitment tools
Part of the problem is the radicals are extremely tech- and media savvy.
"We are way behind. They are far superior and advanced than we are when it comes to new media technologies, social media, when it comes to video production qualities, and in disseminating their propaganda over the Internet," said Maajid Nawaz, a former jihadi and author of "Radical: My Journey out of Islamist Extremism."
Some videos used by the terrorists rival the production quality of Hollywood films.
One hourlong video shows a collection of bombings, executions, kidnappings and beheadings. As one roadside bomb blasts a vehicle into the sky, two men in the background of the video chuckle.
The recruitment tactics can be both blatant and subtle.
For about $10, supporters can buy a shirt with ISIS' logo and phrases such as, "We are all ISIS" and "Fight for Freedom, Until the Last Drop of Blood."
And it may be no accident that a militant with a British accent fronted the video of Foley's death.
That kind of tactic could inspire more foreign jihadists, a former ISIS fighter told CNN.
"It is possible that the goal was to project the image that a European, or a Western person, executed an American so that they can showcase their Western members and appeal to others outside Syria and make them feel that they belong to the same cause."
READ: Inside the mind of an ISIS fighter
READ: Opinion: Why we must all challenge ISIS
MAPS: Where do jihadis come from?
CNN's Nic Robertson, Brian Stelter, Mohammed Jamjoom, Anderson Cooper and Samuel Burke contributed to this report.
Russia facing more pressure over Ukraine
9/4/2014 12:50:01 PM
- NEW: Russia has not taken one single step to make peace possible, NATO chief says
- World turmoil translates to a crucial moment for NATO, leaders say at the summit
- "Russia's aggression against Ukraine has been a wake-up call," NATO chief says
- The Middle East and Afghanistan are also on the summit agenda
Newport, Wales (CNN) -- The spread of brutal Islamist terror across Iraq and Syria and hundreds of deaths in a bloody struggle over Ukraine's future make this a pivotal moment for the NATO alliance, its leaders said Thursday.
"We meet at a crucial time in the history of our alliance," British Prime Minister David Cameron said. "The world faces many dangerous and evolving threats, and it is absolutely clear that NATO is as vital to our future as it has been in our past."
Cameron spoke at the outset of a two-day NATO summit to discuss the alliance's response to threats in the Middle East and Ukraine, as well as Afghanistan's future.
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the alliance "will take important decisions to keep our nations safe, to keep the vital bond between Europe and North America strong and to help build stability in a dangerous world."
The discussions come amid tenuous hopes for peace in Ukraine. A peace plan discussed by Ukraine and Russia is expected to be implemented Friday, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on his Twitter account Thursday.
A day earlier, Poroshenko's office said that in a phone call, he and Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed on a process that could lead to a truce between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian rebels. Putin also presented a seven-point road map to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine, although Russia denies having any involvement in the conflict.
Rebel leaders in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions said in a joint statement Thursday that they would be prepared to order a ceasefire as of 3 p.m. Friday "if agreements are achieved and Ukrainian officials sign a plan for a political settlement of the conflict."
The leaders of the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics will take part in talks in Belarus on Friday, the statement said, when they will present their proposals on ensuring compliance with the plan.
READ: NATO summit: What should we expect?
Doubts about the peace plan
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has dismissed Putin's road map as a disguised rescue plan for pro-Russian rebels.
NATO and the United States have also greeted Russia's words with skepticism. Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March and is accused of sending its troops into eastern Ukraine in support of pro-Russian rebels, a claim that Moscow denies.
The United States believes Russia now has three to five "battalion task groups" conducting military operations inside Ukraine, according to two U.S. officials. Each group can have as many as a thousand troops, the officials said.
The United States is preparing an additional round of sanctions on top of those already imposed on Russia by U.S. and European governments, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters.
"At the same time, if there is a peaceful de-escalation, that is preferable," he said. "Russia must continue to face costs."
Rasmussen called on Russia to end its disputed annexation of Crimea and withdraw from Ukraine.
"While talking about peace, Russia has not taken one single step to make peace possible," he said.
Earlier, Rasmussen said "Russia's aggression against Ukraine has been a wake-up call."
"It has ... reminded all of us that our freedom, security and prosperity cannot be taken for granted, that some are trying to redraw dividing lines in Europe with force and in blood."
Opinion: NATO's moment of truth on Ukraine
'Faster, fitter and more flexible'
As a result, the alliance must adapt to meet new challenges, Rasmussen said, including the re-emerging threat from Russia, which was a large part of the reason the alliance was formed in 1949.
"We will adopt a readiness action plan that will make our forces faster, fitter and more flexible, ready to address any challenges whenever they come and from wherever they come," Rasmussen said.
NATO members will be urged to prioritize defense, amid concern that defense spending is declining and some member states are not pulling their weight.
U.S. President Barack Obama arrived in Wales for the summit after a visit to Estonia aimed at reassuring nervous Eastern European nations that NATO's support for its member states is unwavering.
In a joint opinion piece published in the Times of London on Thursday, Obama and Cameron warn against isolationism.
"To the east, Russia has ripped up the rulebook with its illegal, self-declared annexation of Crimea and its troops on Ukrainian soil threatening a sovereign nation state," they wrote. "To the south, there is an arc of instability from north Africa and the Sahel to the Middle East."
The two leaders say that those who argue against addressing these threats fail to understand 21st century reality, adding, "the problems we face today threaten the security of British and American people, and the wider world."
Cameron: Bring killers to justice
Cameron told CNN ahead of the summit that NATO leaders also would discuss the "poisonous ideology" of Islamist extremism and that NATO members should agree on how to help Middle Eastern nations tackle the ISIS threat.
Any request by Iraq to NATO for aid in fighting ISIS would be "considered seriously," Rasmussen said.
NATO has not yet received such an invitation from Baghdad, Rasmussen said, but help could come in the form of new military training programs such as ones the alliance has held with Iraq in the past.
Cameron declined to rule in or out the possibility of the UK military carrying out airstrikes against ISIS forces, as U.S. forces have done in Iraq.
He said Britain had been "working exhaustively to identify all the people that are potentially involved" in the beheading of U.S. journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff but declined to share details.
"We share our information with our key allies and (are) making sure we do everything we can to bring these absolutely horrific people to justice," he said.
A British hostage was threatened at the end of the latest execution video, which features a militant with an English accent.
Afghanistan also on the agenda
The summit was originally expected to focus on Afghanistan, NATO's biggest overseas commitment of troops, before events elsewhere in the world seized the headlines.
While votes in the contested presidential election are still being audited, Rasmussen said that "time is of the essence" for the Afghan government to finalize a Status of Forces Agreement to protect NATO forces there as they switch to an advisory and training role.
But he did say he was "encouraged" that both candidates in the runoff vote, Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani, have agreed on the need for a new agreement.
READ: Ukraine crisis: NATO to create 'high-readiness force'
READ: Why NATO is such a thorn in Russia's side
CNN's Nic Robertson reported in Newport, and Laura Smith-Spark wrote and reported in London. Michael Pearson wrote from Atlanta. CNN's Barbara Starr, Alla Eshchenko and Brian Walker contributed to this report, as did journalist Victoria Butenko in Kiev.
Great White shark hits kayaks
9/4/2014 7:18:51 AM
- NEW: "I was talking to her and the next minute I'm in the water," woman says
- The shark was about 14 to 16 feet long, the harbormaster says
- "There's a very significant bite in the kayak," according to the harbormaster
(CNN) -- This was no near miss.
Just ask kayakers Ida Parker and Kristin Orr, who were hit by a great white shark and dumped into the water Wednesday off of White Horse Beach in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
The two women were 100 yards offshore, near an area populated by seals, when they were struck by a shark measuring 14 to 16 feet.
"I looked back at her and it came directly out of the water, underneath the boat, launched her backwards and flipped me over," Parker told CNN affiliate WCVB.
Orr told the affiliate it happened instantly.
"I was talking to her and the next minute I'm in the water and I just see a shark biting my kayak," she said.
Stefan Gustafson, the assistant harbormaster of Harbor Unit 10, said the great white came up from underneath the kayak.
"They screamed," he said.
It was those screams that alerted people to a problem, and three harbor units responded within 10 minutes, he said.
"We did not see the shark," Gustafson said.
While the women were OK, the kayaks suffered damage.
"There's a very significant bite in the kayak. The bite goes across the kayak," he said.
What devoured this great white shark?
The incident comes a week after a great white shark was spotted off the coast of Duxbury, forcing authorities to order more than 1,000 people out of the water and off the beach.
The shark, seen from a Massachusetts State Police helicopter, was about 75 yards from the beach. State police immediately notified the Duxbury Police and Duxbury harbormaster, according to the state police.
On Wednesday, Gustafson said the kayakers were "extremely lucky."
"We didn't think anything like this would ever happen here," he said.
Shark attack victim: 'I could feel the vibration of this entire shark gnawing'
One-ton shark headed to Texas coast
Lamenting phones on planes
9/5/2014 1:12:18 AM
- Hong Kong the latest region to open the door for extra phone usage on planes
- Alec Baldwin kicked off a flight in 2011 for refusing to turn off phone
(CNN) -- Unless you're traveling in first or business, or you're a child who's been plied with more toys and candies than you normally get in a week, air travel can be an uncomfortable affair.
It's cramped, the booze comes in bottles way too small and if you're not being reclined into, you're being shouted at for reclining.
Worst of all, you can't even play a game of Words With Friends while sitting on the runway.
Or you couldn't.
Aviation authorities around the world are starting to liberalize the regulations governing electronic devices on planes.
Last year Europe and the United States began to allow "gate-to-gate" use of phones, tablets and e-readers and in the last two weeks Australia and Hong Kong have followed suit.
For years people have called for the "nonsensical" rules barring the use of phones during takeoff and landing to be overhauled and now it appears they're getting their way.
But I for one won't be utilizing these new rules.
Liberation from the phone
Despite air travel's well known frustrations, it provides, at least for those few minutes either side of cruising, a break from the bleeps, bloops and jingles of the always-on generation.
For a few precious minutes the real world returns.
Books become things to read, rather than things you plan to read once you've written a few emails.
The window becomes a frame highlighting the outside, rather than something to avoid in case that annoying sunlight glares too brightly on the screen.
People who spend much of their time with heads bent toward their smart phones as if their necks have suddenly lost all strength, eyeballs flickering with the flashes, detonations, bursts and blasts of whatever game is in vogue that hour, resume a human posture, make eye contact, respond when spoken to.
Are we so addicted to our smart phones that we can't leave them alone for even a fraction of a fraction of a day?
Our sidewalks are already plagued by hordes of downward-gazing phone-walkers, eyes fastened to their screens with unwavering application.
Like a new race of tech-enabled humans, they navigate streets, escalators and public transport systems without ever lifting their eyes or crashing into each other -- a triumph of peripheral perception or perhaps evidence they're all connected in some kind of Borgian super-conscious dimension.
The plane cabin was one place we could escape this techno overload.
Could vs. should
To be clear, this isn't a complaint about the airlines, which are simply supplying an extra service to their customers.
It's a lament, and I suppose a challenge -- just because you can, doesn't mean you have to.
I always enjoy the liberating call from the captain: "Please turn off all electronic devices until we are at cruising altitude."
And I'm not alone.
In a study undertaken in 2013 by the Airline Passenger Experience Association and the Consumer Electronics Association, 40% of passengers wanted to use their devices from gate to gate, which means 60% did not.
The new regulations don't even extend to transmissions -- devices must remain in "flight mode" -- so is it even worth it?
I'll go further, and say it's not even worth taking your phone on the plane these days.
In-flight entertainment provides more movies, TV shows and other programs than you could watch during 10 flights. And don't forget those books.
Phones and tablets are also an extra inconvenience during the security checks.
British Airways is one carrier that now requires all devices to be powered up, and if you refuse or cannot, the device won't be allowed on the plane.
Traveling conjures enough headaches without adding "cell phone anxiety" to the mix.
What do you think? Do you want to use your phone from gate to gate, or do you enjoy a little "off time" on a flight?
James Durston is a senior producer for CNN Travel, and enjoys flying phone free.
What Joan did for misfit girls
9/4/2014 10:21:17 PM
- As a budding comic growing up in New Jersey, Judy Gold related to, adored Joan Rivers
- She says Rivers a role model to female comics, worked very hard, was fearless
- She says Rivers was a nurturing colleague, gave her advice on mothering, work
- Gold: Rivers not comfortable being told how beloved she was. But she was
Editor's note: Judy Gold is a stand-up comic, writer and winner of two Emmy Awards.
(CNN) -- When I was a little girl, I watched a lot of TV. I loved sitcoms and had a special love for talk and variety shows. I loved it whenTotie Fields, Moms Mabley and Phyllis Diller came on, but there was no one who affected me like Joan Rivers. Like every other misfit Jewish girl growing up in the suburbs of New Jersey, I may have adored Barbra, but I could relate to Joan.
She was a perfect stand-up comic. Self-deprecating without being self-deprecating. Her jokes were flawless. And she was always the smartest person in the room. Every time she came on TV, my mother would say, "You know she graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Barnard ... Ivy League." (My mother was obsessed with Jewish celebrities, and Ivy League graduates). But the best part of Joan was how she made me laugh. And I mean belly laugh. And if you know a comic, you know that we don't laugh easily.
Joan Rivers was a role model to comics everywhere, but especially to women. She got the first laugh and the last laugh. I learned from this. When the kids in school taunted me because of the way I looked (6-foot-2 at 13), my mother advised me to act like I couldn't hear them. I would come up with insults and retorts and play them out in my head, but those insults never came out of my mouth. I censored myself, something Joan had the courage to never do. Humor is the best way to get your point across and nobody got their point across better than Joan.
This tiny little loud-mouthed Jewish woman was my hero. When Joan Rivers walked through the curtain on "The Tonight Show," nobody in my house was allowed to utter a sound. Her gait was full of pep and purpose and her voice unmatched. Her first appearance was in 1965, when I was 3. Johnny Carson called her over to the couch and whispered, "You're going to be a star." She looked behind her to see if he was talking to someone else.
She never stopped. She kept working in clubs, opening for other celebrities, writing jokes and books, recording albums, and being a mother -- and eventually a single mother. She never revealed her pain and struggles, she just kept on working -- making other people laugh.
We all know showbiz isn't easy, but being a comic -- especially being a female comic -- can be quite punishing. Whenever it got rough enough for me to wonder, "Is this really worth it?" I immediately thought about Joan. It was she who made me never, ever give up.
She was sometimes vilified for saying exactly what she thought (something no one in our business had ever done before or has done since). Everything and everyone was fair game. She found humor in the most tragic, forlorn and traumatic circumstances.
Yes, she offended lots of people, but she laughed at herself first. She knew what you were thinking and trumped you with a joke every time. It's one thing to be able to say the thing everyone else wishes they could think of saying, but it's another thing to say it with aplomb, even as you know you're opening yourself up to recrimination. time. Whether it was her plastic surgery, her age or her weight, she beat you to it.
When I first met Joan, on this silly shopping show she was doing, I was so nervous. But she put me right at ease with her warmth and humility. Whenever I saw her after that, she would bestow loving, motherly, sage advice upon me.
After my first son was born, I told her I was worried that I was screwing up his sleep because he would always wake up in the middle of the night when I got home from a gig and we would end up hanging out until he fell back asleep. Said Joan: "Who cares! The most important thing is not what time it is when you spend time with your child - It's that you SPEND time with your child."
I told her once: "I hope you know all you have done for female comics. We wouldn't be here without you." "Oh baloney!! I did nothing," she replied. "You are funny. That's all that matters -- and that you don't let anyone take your hard-earned money!! Do everything yourself!" She would never listen to how great she was, but she would always make you feel like a million bucks.
Joan Rivers broke down barriers, advocated for free speech, and never apologized for who she was. Everyone knew how much she loved her daughter and her grandson. She loved the people she worked with. She loved her fans. She loved her friends. But just like every other Jewish mother, she was uncomfortable hearing about how much she was loved.
A few weeks ago, I emailed her and asked if her ears were burning because fellow stand-up Lynne Koplitz and I were up at the Montreal Comedy Festival talking with some other comics about how much we loved her and how good she was to us. She emailed back, "Adore you both. XXX"
She was so much more than a simple girl with a dream. She gave so many funny little misfit girls permission to dream. Thank you doesn't seem nearly enough. This is a really hard one.
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NATO's big problem on Russia
9/4/2014 10:21:43 PM
- After NATO's founding, it stood against Russia
- Now, the money and military aren't ready to do so
- Obama, Cameron and others say NATO can do it
- Analyst blames NATO, not Russia, for the crisis
(CNN) -- The future of Europe may rest on whether NATO can recover its roots.
With Russian President Vladimir Putin "land grabbing" and violating international law, the alliance is finding itself "brought back to its core," says Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO's former secretary general. But it isn't prepared.
When NATO was founded in 1949, its central task was to protect its members against military aggression and work to promote democracy -- which, in the years following, often meant standing against the Soviet empire.
The alliance declares success in achieving that goal peacefully, saying on its website that "throughout the entire period of the Cold War, NATO forces were not involved in a single military engagement."
But things changed after the Cold War. The focus was no longer on Russia. NATO says "new threats" emerged. The alliance got involved militarily in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s, and later in Macedonia. It established a military force in Afghanistan, and has forces in Somalia and some other parts of Africa.
Now, Russia is increasing its reach, and getting close to NATO terrain. It annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March and is accused of sending its troops into eastern Ukraine in support of pro-Russian rebels, a claim that Moscow denies. So, 55 years into its existence, NATO finds itself, as the Financial Times put it, going "back to the future."
Just how to do that is a central question as the alliance convenes its summit in Wales.
"The problem NATO has is it's not fully ready to be able to protect its own members," Robin Niblett, director of the think tank Chatham House, told CNN. NATO's military preparedness is "paltry compared to the kinds of steps the Russians are taking."
NATO wants each of its 28 member nations to spend 2% of their gross domestic product on defense. While the United States and Britain meet the target, 24 member nations don't. There has been a "sort of cozy mentality that the Cold War has gone and we can focus just on domestic investment," Niblett says.
Obama, Cameron: Spend more on military
U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron said they "believe that NATO can adapt to meet the new challenges."
In a joint Op-Ed in the Times of London Thursday, the two men wrote, "The changes we need are clear. With Russia trying to force a sovereign state to abandon its right to democracy at the barrel of a gun, we should support Ukraine's right to determine its own democratic future and continue our efforts to enhance Ukrainian capabilities." The military should "ensure a persistent presence in eastern Europe," they said.
The two leaders also called for a "multinational rapid response force, composed of land, air, maritime and special forces, that could deploy anywhere in the world at very short notice." In addition, they urged all NATO nations to meet the 2% target for defense spending.
But some countries, including Germany, are resistant to do so -- "not only because of the weak European economy but also not to aggravate the crisis with Russia over Ukraine any further," the Soufan Group, which tracks security threats, said in a briefing Thursday.
Still, Ukraine has sought NATO's help in the crisis. And while the country is not a member of the alliance, "its new leaders seek eventual membership" -- a move that angers Putin, the briefing noted.
Analyst: It's the West's fault
John Mearsheimer, political science professor with the University of Chicago, argues that it's actually NATO's expansion that set Russia off.
"The United States and its European allies share most of the responsibility for the crisis. The taproot of the trouble is NATO enlargement, the central element of a larger strategy to move Ukraine out of Russia's orbit and integrate it into the West," he wrote in Foreign Affairs. "At the same time, the EU's expansion eastward and the West's backing of the pro-democracy movement in Ukraine... were critical elements, too."
Obama and Cameron disagree. "Russia has ripped up the rulebook with its illegal, self-declared annexation of Crimea and its troops on Ukrainian soil threatening a sovereign nation state," they wrote in their Op-Ed.
'Pivotal moment'
As the summit convenes in Wales, "the United States, NATO, and free nations around the world confront a pivotal moment of truth," says Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-New Hampshire.
"By now, it should be clear to all objective observers that Russian President Vladimir Putin is not impressed by starkly worded statements and declarations, and if that is the only outcome in Wales, it could represent a historic failure of the alliance at a time when NATO's foundational purpose has renewed relevance," Ayotte wrote in a column for CNN.com.
The changes NATO needs to make are possible, says James Stavridis, a former Navy admiral who now serves as dean of The Fletcher School at Tufts University. "The capacity is there. It's a matter of re-gearing and doing... rotational deployments into bases in the east."
"We'll have to exercise much more frequently," the former NATO secretary general, Scheffer, says of the alliance's troops. "We'll have to bring forces on the ground in Poland and in the Baltic region to show Vladimir Putin that NATO means serious business."
As NATO holds its summit in Wales, talk of an action plan is front and center. Part of that means a focus on money.
"More important than the amount spent is where it's spent," says Niblett. "Not enough is being spent on new equipment, modernized capabilities -- new capability surveillance, precision munitions, aircraft defenses."
Still, even if NATO undergoes a makeover to confront Russia, experts agree: Wresting all of Ukraine back from Putin's grip is a very long shot.
Leaders hold pivotal NATO summit as threats of ISIS, Russian aggression loom
NATO: What should we expect?
EU ponders Russia sanctions as Ukraine truce talks held
9/5/2014 4:14:24 AM
- NEW: Fighting continues around Donetsk airport and Mariupol, a Ukrainian military official says
- EU member states are handed a new round of proposed sanctions against Russia
- The West accuses Moscow of arming pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine
- The rebels will meet Russian and Ukrainian officials to discuss the ceasefire deal
Moscow (CNN) -- European Union nations are considering new sanctions against Russia amid cautious optimism that a ceasefire will go into effect Friday in eastern Ukraine.
A new round of proposed sanctions has been handed to member states, EU spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said.
"A decision on implementing them will only be taken in light of developments on the ground," she said. "If there is a ceasefire agreed in Minsk today, member states would look at how serious it was and decide whether to go forward."
Minsk, the capital of Belarus, is where pro-Russian rebels will hold ceasefire talks Friday with Ukrainian and Russian officials.
A ceasefire deal would be a major step in ending a nearly five-month conflict in eastern Ukraine, where Kiev accuses Moscow of sending troops to aid pro-Russian separatists -- a claim Moscow denies.
Rebel leaders in Ukraine's self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk republics say they will order a ceasefire Friday if Ukraine signs "a plan for a political settlement."
Ukraine is being represented at the talks by former President Leonid Kuchma.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who received the firm backing of NATO leaders Thursday at their summit in Wales, said on Twitter, "Ukraine's territorial integrity and independence are not up for negotiations. They remain as they are."
Russian President Vladimir Putin this week set out a seven-point peace plan that included a halt by both parties of "any offensive military operations" in Donetsk and Luhansk, international monitoring of the ceasefire, prisoner exchanges and the opening of a humanitarian corridor to allow aid to reach civilians.
Ukraine: Fighting continues
Despite the looming peace talks, the conflict in eastern Ukraine showed no sign of abating Friday.
Col. Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the National Defense and Security Council, said that there had been 27 clashes in the past 24 hours, including at Donetsk airport, and that shelling from Russian territory continued.
There is increased fighting in the area of Mariupol, a southeastern port city, where Ukrainian forces have been bolstered to fight off a rebel advance, he said.
A CNN team in Mariupol witnessed shelling Thursday that indicated rebel forces were moving closer. The rebels seized the nearby Ukrainian border town of Novoazovsk last week, allegedly with the help of Russian forces, and have been threatening to advance on Mariupol.
"According to preliminary intelligence information, overall Russian losses over the period of the conflicts are about 2,000 killed," Lysenko said. It was not clear if he was referring to Russian citizens or troops.
Lysenko added that the number injured could be four times as many, and they are being treated in hospitals in Russia.
Since the conflict began in mid-April, 846 Ukrainian soldiers have died and 3,072 have been wounded, he said.
NATO warning
Russia's alleged incursion and the threat that its forces could move deeper into Ukraine have caught the attention of the West.
"This is the first time since the end of World War II that one European country has tried to grab another's territory by force," NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said. "Europe must not turn away from the rule of law to the rule of the strongest."
Putin has voiced sympathy for the separatists, many of whom are ethnic Russians. But he denies that Russia has armed and trained the rebels, or sent Russian troops over the border.
In July, U.S. President Barack Obama and the European Union announced sanctions against Russia's state-owned banks, weapons makers and oil companies, along with Putin's top cronies, an extension of previous sanctions against targeted individuals and companies.
Moscow responded by banning imports of fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, milk and dairy products from the U.S., Europe, Australia, Canada and Norway.
In what may be another retaliatory move, Russia's federal consumer rights protection service banned all confectionery imports from Ukraine, Russian state news agency ITAR-Tass reported Friday. It said the ban was imposed to protect consumer rights.
Last month, the United Nations said more than 2,200 people had died in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
READ: NATO: An amusing show for Putin?
READ: NATO's moment of truth on Ukraine
CNN's Matthew Chance reported from Moscow, while Faith Karimi reported and wrote from Atlanta and Laura Smith-Spark from London. CNN's Radina Gigova and Alla Eshchenko contributed to this report. Journalist Victoria Butenko also contributed from Kiev.
Volunteer to have Ebola test vaccine
9/4/2014 11:18:24 AM
- A third volunteer will receive a dose of an Ebola vaccine Thursday
- Food and Drug Administration approves the start of an Ebola vaccine human safety trial
- This is the first test of this type of Ebola vaccine in humans
- 20 healthy volunteers will get the vaccine at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland
(CNN) -- Tests of an experimental Ebola vaccine began this week at the National Institutes of Health, amid mounting anxiety about the spread of the deadly virus in West Africa.
On Thursday, a third volunteer will receive a dose of the vaccine. The first volunteer, a 39-year-old woman, received a dose Tuesday; the second volunteer, a 27-year-old woman, received her dose Wednesday. Seven more will be given the vaccine next week.
The NIH hopes to have 20 volunteers enrolled and vaccinated within three weeks.
After an expedited review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, researchers were given the green light to begin what's called a human safety trial, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, or NIAID.
It is the first test of this type of Ebola vaccine in humans.
The experimental vaccine, developed by the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline and the NIAID, is being given to the three healthy human volunteers at first to see if they suffer any adverse effects. If deemed safe, it will then be given to another small group of volunteers, ages 18 to 50, to see if it produces a strong immune response to the virus. All will be monitored closely for side effects.
The vaccine will be administered to volunteers by an injection in the deltoid muscle of their arm, first in a lower dose, then later in a higher dose after the safety of the vaccine has been determined.
Each volunteer is being paid approximately $1,700 for their time and inconvenience, the NIH said. The government agency expects to spend around $1.6 million on the trial overall.
Some of the preclinical studies that are normally done on these types of vaccines were waived by the FDA during the expedited review, Fauci said, so "we want to take extra special care that we go slowly with the dosing."
The vaccine did extremely well in earlier trials with chimpanzees, Fauci said. He noted that the method being used to prompt an immune response to Ebola cannot cause a healthy person to become infected with the virus.
Still, he said, "I have been fooled enough in my many years of experience ... you really can't predict what you will see (in humans)."
The NIH says the vaccine will also be tested on healthy volunteers in the United Kingdom, Gambia and Mali, once details are finalized with health officials in those countries.
CDC director raises Ebola alarm
Trials cannot currently be done in the four countries affected by the recent outbreak -- Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria -- because the existing health care infrastructure wouldn't support them, Fauci said. Gambia and Mali were selected because the NIH has "long-standing collaborative relationships" with researchers in those countries.
According to the NIH, officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are also in talks with health officials from Nigeria about conducting part of the safety trial there.
Funding from an international consortium formed to fight Ebola will enable GlaxoSmithKline to begin manufacturing up to 10,000 additional doses of the vaccine while clinical trials are ongoing, the pharmaceutical company said in a statement. These doses will be made available if the World Health Organization decides to allow emergency immunizations in high-risk communities.
Two candidate vaccines
The GSK/NIAID vaccine is one of two leading candidate vaccines. The other was developed by the Public Health Agency of Canada and licensed this month to NewLink Genetics, a company based in Iowa.
According to the NIH, safety trials of that vaccine will start this fall.
Ebola victim: 'I felt like I was about to die'
Earlier this month, the Canadian government shipped what it said was "800 to 1,000" doses of that vaccine to Liberia, at the government's request. It's not clear whether it has been given to health workers or anyone else there.
Worth noting: In 2009, an earlier version of the vaccine was given to a lab worker in Germany after he thought he had pricked himself with a needle tainted with Ebola. He did not develop the disease.
While there is no proven treatment for Ebola beyond supportive care, government agencies and small biotechnology firms have been scrambling to speed up development of several potential therapies and vaccines.
A third vaccine, also developed by the NIH, was recently tested in primates and found to protect them from infection; it was given in combination with Depovax, an adjuvant that has been used with other vaccines and cancer therapies to boost the body's immune response.
Drugs for treatment of Ebola
While vaccines might be given to prevent infection among health workers or other people thought to be at high risk, development has also been sped up on drugs that might be given to patients who already have the disease.
The drug that's received the most attention is ZMapp, which has been given to at least seven people in the current outbreak, including two American missionary medical workers, Nancy Writebol and Dr. Kent Brantly.
The drug has never been formally tested in humans, and while the results in human patients are encouraging -- five of the seven known to have received it are still alive -- experts say there is too little data to say whether it played a role in their recoveries.
Are myths making the Ebola outbreak worse?
Earlier versions of ZMapp, which received backing from the U.S. and Canadian governments as well as from biotechnology firms, have shown some ability to protect rhesus macaque monkeys more than two days after they were infected with the virus.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced Tuesday a $24.9 million, 18-month contract with ZMapp's manufacturer, Mapp Biopharmaceutical, to accelerate the development of the medication.
Mapp will make "a small amount of the drug for early stage clinical safety studies and nonclinical studies" to gauge how the drug works on people, the HHS department said in a news release. The various new steps "will contribute to increasing the amount of product potentially available to treat patients with Ebola."
Another drug, Tekmira's TKM-Ebola, has been tested for safety in a small number of humans. That trial was put on hold in January, after one volunteer developed moderate gastrointestinal side effects after receiving a high dose of the medication.
Last month, the FDA modified the hold to a "partial clinical hold." In effect, this means that Tekmira could be allowed to give the drug to doctors or hospitals that request it, on an emergency basis. There's no indication that the company has received any such requests.
The vaccine going into trials this week is based on an adenovirus -- a type of cold virus -- that's found in chimpanzees. The virus delivers genetic material derived from two species of Ebola virus, including the Zaire strain that's responsible for the current outbreak. Those genes are meant to trigger the development of antibodies in the person who receives the vaccine, antibodies that can specifically defend against Ebola.
Another trial, using a version of the GSK/NIAID vaccine that uses only the Zaire strain of Ebola, will be launched in October, the NIH said.
All participants in the trial will be evaluated nine times over a 48-week period. The NIH expects to reveal the results of the trial by the end of the year.
If it's approved for widespread use, the first priority will be to give the vaccine to health care workers or lab workers who are fighting the spread of the virus, Fauci said. It will then be considered for people in the communities where outbreaks occur.
Nine things to know about the killer disease
What happens when you survive Ebola?
CNN's Jacque Wilson contributed to this report.
ISIS struggles to control oil riches
9/4/2014 5:27:26 PM
- ISIS controls several oil fields in Iraq and Syria, which it is using to finance its terror operations
- However running refineries is difficult and ISIS has suffered setbacks in areas such as Baiji
- It is estimated to be earning more than $3 million a day in black market oil sales
- It may be struggling to increase that -- but the funds are plenty to finance its terror operation
Editor's note: John Defterios is CNN's Emerging Markets Editor and host of Global Exchange, Marketplace Middle East and One Square Meter. Follow John on Twitter.
(CNN) -- ISIS videos are part of today's new reality. One of the many to hit social media has the viewer hearing a recitation of Quranic verses describing a jihad in the battle for Syria's Al Omar energy facility. Syria's largest oil field is one of a handful now under the firm grip of the terrorist organization.
ISIS may not be operating the type of polished pipeline infrastructure one would find in southern Iraq around Basra, but Iraqi oil ministry officials say an old fashioned truck network for this crude is active and serving distribution needs.
And now, after nearly three months of heated battle in Iraq, one can see a clearer picture of where ISIS stands as an energy player.
It popped up on the global radar in June by seizing assets in Iraq, but building on those early gains, according to a number of energy sources, is proving difficult. August was not a good month for ISIS.
It lost its battle for one of Kirkuk's big fields, with potential production of 600,000 barrels a day, and could not keep control of Iraq's largest refinery at Baiji, on the main road to Mosul.
What they do hold, Iraqi officials suggest, will need maintenance. So far, it is getting that work done only through intimidation of on-site engineers who are not loyal to the ISIS cause. ISIS' income from oil is falling as they struggle to control the personnel within refineries, according to Assim Jihad, a spokesman at Iraq's Oil Ministry.
"At first they got a large sum of money by seizing inventories, but this cannot last," he added.
The Iraq Energy Institute estimates ISIS is producing about 30,000 barrels a day in Iraq and 50,000 daily in Syria. On a black market price of $40 a barrel, it is earning $1.2 million a day in Iraq and $2 million in Syria.
Energy traders and regional security specialists tell me supplies are being funneled into regional oil importing countries of Jordan, Turkey, and Syria.
"They use oil tank trucks instead of oil pipes. There are about 210 oil tank trucks smuggling oil to Turkey and other places every day," Hussein Allawi, Baghdad manager of the Iraq Energy Institute told me.
The transport may be rudimentary, but this network of black market traders stretches back to the days of Saddam Hussein, when Iraq was under UN sanctions in the 1990s.
"We are not talking about people who own a couple of trucks and tanker trucks," said Kate Dourian, senior editor at the Middle East Economic Survey. "We are talking about certain market-oriented people who have organizations that trade in illegal oil."
ISIS has taken a page from Hussein's war playbook, when he left Kuwait. Still pictures of fields torched have emerged this week of fields outside of Mosul when it was pushed out by Iraqi forces.
Oil strategists say Iraq's national military and the Peshmerga forces of the Kurdish region are trying to strike a fine balance. They want to keep ISIS out of their prized fields and refineries, but they don't want to destroy infrastructure which would take years and millions of dollars to rebuild.
While ISIS has clearly suffered setbacks, there is also a stark reality.
The organization may be falling short of designs to become a "state" oil company, but revenue of over $3 million a day can certainly finance its operation of terror.
READ MORE: How Iraq's black market in oil funds ISIS
READ MORE: Sotloff's courage praised
READ MORE: Obama: ISIS killers will not intimidate U.S.
Ukraine President: I will try to stop the war
9/4/2014 6:08:43 PM
- Ukraine's president meets with the heads of NATO countries in Wales
- Ukraine is bolstering its military partnership with NATO, Poroshenko says
- He says he's "ready ... to stop the war," hopes talks with rebels lead to peace
- NATO's chief cautions that earlier Moscow's remarks on peace went nowhere
(CNN) -- Pulling Ukraine closer than ever militarily to NATO, the embattled nation's president affirmed Thursday his desire to combat "Russian aggression" while expressing cautious optimism that peace, even if it's temporary, could soon be in reach.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko spoke from the NATO summit in Wales about new steps strengthening his country's security partnership with the European-North American alliance following months of fighting against what he claims are Russian-backed -- despite Moscow's denials -- rebels.
This fighting has gone on for months in spite of rhetoric preaching peace from all sides and a host of diplomatic initiatives, the next of which is a meeting Friday in Belarus' capital that will include representatives from Ukraine, the rebels and Russia.
"As president of Ukraine, (I am) ready to do my best to stop the war," Poroshenko said. "And ... I have, I can say, a careful optimism for tomorrow's meeting ... in Minsk because beforehand (Russian and rebel leaders said) they are ready for an immediate ceasefire."
Standing alongside Poroshenko, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that "the best way forward would be to find a political solution." But he expressed reservations that Moscow's latest public comments on its desire for peace will be an different than its past ones, after which the violence has ratcheted up rather than slowing down.
"What counts is what is actually happening on the ground," said Rasmussen, who accused Russia of having thousands of troops inside Ukraine who have fired on Ukrainian military positions. "Previously, we have seen similar statements and initiatives. And they have actually just been smokescreens for continued Russian destabilization."
Rebels: Open to ceasefire with 'a political settlement'
Rebel leaders in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions said in a joint statement Thursday that they would be prepared to order a ceasefire as of 3 p.m. Friday "if agreements are achieved and Ukrainian officials sign a plan for a political settlement of the conflict."
These heads of the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics will take part in talks in Belarus on Friday, the statement said, when they will present their proposals on ensuring compliance with the plan.
Russian President Vladimir Putin recently presented a seven-point road map to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine, though that plan was quickly dismissed by Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk as a rescue plan for pro-Moscow rebels.
Putin and other Kremlin officials have voiced sympathy for separatists, many of whom are ethnic Russians, while harshly criticizing the Kiev-based government for what they say is a heavy-handed military assault that's killed innocent civilians and contributed to a humanitarian crisis that's affected many others.
But they say they haven't sent Russian troops into the war-torn region in eastern Ukraine -- a claim that Poroshenko, Rasmussen and their allies aren't buying.
The United States believes Russia now has three to five "battalion task groups" conducting military operations inside Ukraine, according to two U.S. military officials. Each group can have as many as a thousand troops. Many more Russian troops control the border with Ukraine for thousands of miles -- from Rostov to Donetsk, the U.S. officials say.
NATO offers funding, military assistance to Ukraine
The reported incursion into Ukraine, and the threat that Russian forces could move even deeper into the country and perhaps into neighboring ones, has caught the attention of many in the West.
"This is the first time since the end of World War II that one European country has tried to grab another's territory by force," said Rasmussen. "Europe must not turn away from the rule of law to the rule of the strongest."
To curb this push, NATO isn't sending troops to the front lines in Ukraine, but it is bolstering its partnership with the Kiev government.
That includes a focus on improving the Ukrainian military's cyber-defense, logistics and command and control capabilities, as well nearly $20 million in NATO funding for Ukraine on top of other monetary contributions from its member states, Rasmussen said.
Furthermore, Poroshenko said there's a push to achieve "full interoperability between Ukraine and NATO" plus systemic reforms that could lead to Ukraine some day formally joining the alliance. That would be significant because all NATO forces are obliged, per the terms of the alliance, to come to the defense of any other NATO member country that's been invaded.
"A friend in need is a friend indeed," Poroshenko said. "And (what NATO countries have done so far) was a very strong demonstration of solidarity with Ukraine."
President: 'Ukraine ... pays the highest price, every single day'
While the sides offer divergent views about who is involved and who is to blame, there's no doubt the violence -- for now, at least -- is in full swing.
Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council spokesman Andriy Lysenko told reporters Thursday that Russia continues to fly reconnaissance drones over its territory and shell Ukrainian military positions.
In the town of Debaltsevo, for instance, Ukrainian troops are being shelled and are nearly surrounded, Lysenko said from Kiev.
A CNN team in Mariupol saw a large plume of smoke from artillery fire less than three miles from the main Ukrainian checkpoint heading out of the southeastern port city toward the border town of Novoazovsk, which Kiev said last week was seized by Russian troops.
Another CNN staffer with a Ukrainian spotter unit about six miles east of Mariupol witnessed sustained artillery bombardment of the area, with firing on a wide front and coming from the Russian border area.
This indicates that the rebel positions are now are much closer to the city than they were previously.
Poroshenko said ending the conflict -- which since mid-April has cost the lives of about 840 Ukrainian troops, with over 3,000 more injured -- will require Russia to pull back its troops from Ukraine and from the border.
"Ukraine (is the) object of the aggression, and we have have to do our best (to) immediately stop the aggression," the President said. "Why? Because it is exactly Ukraine that pays the highest price, every single day."
CNN's Nic Robertson, Diana Magnay, Tim Lister, Jason Hanna and Barbara Starr, as well as journalist Victoria Butenko, contributed to this report.
Sotloff family: 'ISIS violated Islam'
9/4/2014 9:54:11 AM
- Effort to defeat ISIS will take time and go beyond this administration, official says
- "We will not allow our enemies to hold us hostage," the Sotloff family says
- The U.S. goal is to "degrade and destroy" ISIS, U.S. defense secretary says
- ISIS video released Tuesday shows second beheading of a U.S. journalist in two weeks
(CNN) -- The family of American Steven Sotloff had a message Wednesday for the notorious leader of the terror group ISIS, asking him to answer for the sin he committed with the beheading of the journalist.
Sotloff's family broke its silence the same day U.S. intelligence officials said the videotaped execution was authentic.
"I have a message for Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi," family spokesman Barak Barfi told reporters in Arabic, reading from a statement. "Where is your mercy?"
"Wayluk," Barfi said, using an Arabic phrase that roughly translates to committing a great sin.
The statement went on to cite passages from the Quran, asking al-Baghdadi why he violated the tenets.
"I am here debating you with kindness. I don't have a sword in my hand, and I am ready for your answer," according to the statement read by Barfi.
In English, Barfi told reporters gathered outside the Sotloff family's home in Miami: "Today, we grieve. This week, we mourn. But we will emerge from this ordeal ... We will not allow our enemies to hold us hostage with the sole weapons they possess, fear."
'We will not forget'
The statement came just hours after President Barack Obama said the United States will not be intimidated by the killers of two American journalists.
"Those who make the mistake of harming Americans will learn that we will not forget ... that our reach is long and that justice will be served," Obama said during a news conference in Estonia, where he was meeting with leaders of the Baltic nations.
The killing is the second beheading of an American journalist in two weeks, and the militant group said it's a result of Obama's decision to conduct airstrikes in Iraq against ISIS, which calls itself the Islamic State.
The goal of the United States is to "degrade and destroy" the capabilities of ISIS in Iraq and Syria, "it's not contain," Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told CNN's Jim Sciutto.
"It makes you sick to your stomach, but it again reminds you of the brutality and barbarism that is afoot in some places in the world," Hagel said. "... It won't just recede into the gray recesses of history until we stop it."
Journalists most at risk
Hagel: Options on the table
All options -- with the exception of a ground invasion -- are on the table to address the threat posed by ISIS, Hagel said.
Those options include possible airstrikes in Syria, where ISIS has established a stronghold in and around the northeastern city of Raqqa.
But there is a question of just how long it will take to defeat ISIS.
"This, as the President has said, is going to have to be a sustained effort. And it's going to take time, and it will probably go beyond even this administration to get to the point of defeat," Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken told CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
Vice President Joe Biden added his own voice to the calls for justice, saying the United States will pursue the killers "to the gates of hell."
"As a nation, we are united, and when people harm Americans, we don't retreat, we don't forget," he said at an appearance near Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
"We take care of those who are grieving. And when that's finished, they should know we will follow them to the gates of hell until they are brought to justice, because hell is where they will reside. Hell is where they will reside."
The video
The video of Sotloff's execution was posted online Tuesday.
In a scene eerily similar to an earlier video of the death of U.S journalist James Foley, Sotloff kneels in the desert, dressed in an orange prison-style jumpsuit. A masked "executioner" lords over him, wielding a knife.
"I'm back, Obama, and I'm back because of your arrogant foreign policy toward the Islamic State," the executioner says. "Just as your missiles continue to strike our people, our knife will continue to strike the necks of your people."
The executioner appears to be the same person, and the location of the two killings appears to be similar, probably in or around Raqqa, one of the safest areas for ISIS, said Peter Neumann, a professor at King's College London.
"It is almost the exact same choreography," Neumann said.
The journalist speaks; the executioner speaks. Then the victim is beheaded.
In the video released Tuesday, a British hostage is shown after the beheading of Sotloff, just as Sotloff was shown in Foley's video.
British rescue attempt
The UK said it attempted to rescue one of its citizens held by ISIS "some time ago" but failed.
UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond provided scant details of the rescue attempt or any other plans in the works.
"You wouldn't expect me to discuss various options that we will be considering," he said. "But I can assure you that we will look at every possible option to protect this person."
Britain echoed the same sentiment as Obama.
"This country will never give into terrorism ... a country like ours will not be cowed by these barbaric killers," Prime Minister David Cameron said.
This summer, several dozen of the most elite U.S. commandos flew into Syria but couldn't find the hostages, including Sotloff and Foley, a U.S. official told CNN last month.
'Degrade and destroy'
Speaking Wednesday, Obama addressed his much-criticized statement last week that he has no strategy on ISIS. He said he was referring to a military strategy in Syria that "might" require congressional approval.
"Our objective is clear. That is to degrade and destroy (ISIS) so it's no longer a threat," he said. "We can accomplish that. It's going to take some time, it's going to take some effort."
Obama said the world needs a regional strategy to defeat the group.
"We've been putting together a strategy that was designed to do a number of things. ... What we have to make sure is we have a regional strategy in place," he said.
How will Obama respond to ISIS?
Remembering Steven Sotloff
Maps: Where do jihadis come from?
CNN's Susan Garraty, Carol Jordan, Ali Younes, Michael Pearson, Jim Acosta and Dana Ford contributed to this report.
Aboriginal AFL star calls out racists
9/4/2014 7:53:12 PM
- Adam Goodes is a leading AFL player who has battled against racism
- He is the most-capped indigenous player in the Australian sport
- The 34-year-old has won two AFL titles and been named top player twice
- Goodes has helped Sydney into 2014 playoffs as minor premiership winner
CNN's Human to Hero series celebrates inspiration and achievement in sport. Click here for times, videos and features
(CNN) -- "A 13-year-old girl called me an ape."
Adam Goodes was not impressed. One of the most successful proponents of a sport that is more Australian than any other, a hero in a country where its stars are gods, he was not going to take such an insult lightly.
"I stopped, I called her out, got her escorted out of the ground, and from that point the awareness and the conversations that have been had around racism in this country have just skyrocketed," he tells CNN's Human to Hero series.
Goodes is a star of Australian Rules Football, best described as an often-confusing mix of the two rugby codes, basketball, and its close Gaelic football cousin.
"Aussie Rules," also known as AFL, reflects the nation's continuing battle with the aftermath of its colonial past.
On one hand it sometimes highlights appalling attitudes towards indigenous peoples -- after the incident with the girl, the president of the host team's club joked on radio that Goode should be used to promote a stage production of King Kong, effectively ending their friendship.
On the other, it has made great efforts to welcome indigenous players; there are 68 registered at the 18 Premiership teams this year, and their 9% total of the sport's overall list is greater proportionally than the 2.5% they make up of the country's total population.
So it was all the harder for Goodes to accept being abused during a game that was part of the AFL's 2013 "Indigenous Round" -- and played at arguably the country's most iconic sporting venue, the 100,000-capacity Melbourne Cricket Ground.
"I hope I'm a person people look up to and say, 'I remember the day Adam Goodes did that at the MCG. Today is the day I'm going to stand up for myself or stand up for somebody else who might not have a voice for themselves,' " he says.
"Since last year, a lot more cases have come through, and I think that's what needs to happen for it to improve. A lot more people need to call it out, need to say no to racism ... and we're going to improve as a community from there."
In recognition of his work helping Aboriginal youth and battling racism, Goodes was named "Australian of the Year" in January, the same month he turned 34.
"It's a very humbling experience," he says. "It's been an amazing platform for me this year to talk about things I'm passionate about -- like eliminating domestic violence and trying to get recognition in the constitution for Aboriginal people.
"It was quite dumbfounding for me to find out that we weren't part of (Australia's) constitution -- this is a document that's over 112 years old that doesn't recognize its first people."
When European settlers came to Australia in the 1800s, they took land from the indigenous people and forced the nomadic tribes to accept new ways of living, often splitting up families under a government policy of "assimilation" -- as highlighted in the acclaimed 2002 film "Rabbit Proof Fence."
Australian politicians have since apologized for the past mistreatment, but Aborigines remain disadvantaged socially and economically compared with the overall population.
Goodes, like many modern Aborigines, is from a mixed-race family, with a father of British descent.
Born in South Australia, his tribal name is Adnyamathanha -- the people who live in the Flinders Ranges, the largest in Australia. His place of birth (Wallaroo, on the York Peninsular near Adelaide, first settled by Europeans in 1836) means he is also Narungga.
"Growing up, I didn't know what it meant to be Aboriginal," Goodes recalls. "My mum was taken away from her family when she was five years old and we weren't really taught anything about what it meant to be Aboriginal -- no language, no culture, no ceremonies, no nothing.
"What we did know was where we came from, and that was Adnyamathanha and Narungga, so I've had to do a lot of that journey, to find out information about that, in the last 10 years.
"So for us, growing up, we just thought we were just like any other normal family. We didn't really see ourselves as mixed race. I copped stuff from people at school because of the different color and whatnot, but I had good support that helped me get through those tough times."
Exciting news @mcg tonight. @TonyAbbottMHR and the Australian government committed $500k to #GOfoundation #education pic.twitter.com/QcKIiftXBm
— Adam Goodes (@adamroy37) May 31, 2014 His parents separated when he was young, and he moved state to Victoria with his mother in his early teens, and they settled in another small country town.
Up until that stage, Goodes was a big fan of basketball star Michael Jordan, while his own talents were in soccer.
However, there were no teams in his new hometown -- so his mum suggested having a go at AFL.
"I was very athletic, so the running part of it was good," he says. "Grabbing the ball was quite difficult because it could bounce everywhere, but I was able to pick that up pretty easily."
The main premise of AFL is simple: kick the oval-shaped ball between the two central posts to score maximum points; if it goes through the two outside posts, the score is lower.
It results in basketball-size scorelines, and with 18 players on each team -- wearing sleeveless tops known as "guernseys" and notoriously short shorts -- all kicking, passing, running, jumping and jostling at high intensity for two hours, it can be a confusing spectacle, as Goodes admits.
"You might come and watch a game and not know what's going on. That's because the players, the coaches, the supporters and even sometimes the umpires don't know what's going on either," he says.
"I still think that I'm learning things and improving because it is a game that you can never truly master."
While it was started by European settlers in the 1850s, the game has strong links to an ancient Aboriginal sport known as Marngrook.
"We used to play a game where we'd have a possum skin filled with charcoal and they'd kick it around, hand-pass it around, 50-a-side, up and down these massive bits of land, and they would play for days," Goodes says.
He has won two AFL titles, once as captain, and twice been awarded the game's highest individual honor, the Brownlow Medal.
His biggest challenge becoming an AFL player, he says, was not being an Aboriginal in a white man's world, but having to uproot from his family at the age of 17 and chase his sporting dream in Sydney, where he had been drafted by the city's AFL club the Swans.
"In the first year, I didn't look even close to playing in the senior side, I played reserves all year," Goodes says.
"It was really a tough year for me and it wasn't until the next year that I actually really committed and decided, 'this is what I want to do, this is what I wanted to be.' I started to make those real sacrifices and really working hard, making all the right choices to be a professional athlete."
He was inspired by Aboriginal teammate Michael O'Loughlin, nearly three years his senior.
"The way our kinship system works, he's actually my nephew -- something I only just found out recently," Goodes says.
O'Loughlin was the first Sydney player to pass 300 games, and Goodes broke his club record in 2012 when he made his 304th appearance. He is now the most-capped indigenous player, having beaten Andrew McLeod's record of 340 games for Adelaide this year -- the most by any player is 426.
"To have him there to help mentor me, and show me the way, has just been an ideal situation for me and that's what I would want for my brothers and any other people when they go to a football club," he says of O'Loughlin, who retired in 2009.
Jealous"@MickOLoughlin: Great to catch up with my brother & NBA Champ @Patty_Mills today ! @sydneyswans #almostaswan pic.twitter.com/oyC42oFcjN"
— Adam Goodes (@adamroy37) July 17, 2014 Having had a long spell on the sidelines with injury last year, missing the club's run to the preliminary final, Goodes says he is determined to extend his career for as long as possible.
"I know I can still improve and I think that is what drives me," he says ahead of this weekend's opening playoffs, where Sydney will take on Fremantle after finishing the regular season as the top team.
"A lot of people would say I'm past it, but I still believe I have a lot to offer."
When he finally hangs up his boots, Goodes aims to focus on the foundation he set up with O'Loughlin, which provides school scholarships for Aboriginal children in Sydney.
"I've committed a lot of my time to my sport and there's going to be a big void for me to fill," he says. "It'll be nice to have a bit more spare time for me."
Read: Death's door to golden gladiator
Read: 'Warrior runner' who wouldn't quit
Brides trafficked for Indian grooms
9/4/2014 2:37:48 AM
- Employed schoolteacher seeks to purchase bride and with the intention of sharing her with unmarried brothers
- Bride trafficking is part of a vicious cycle that aborts females and causes a shortage of women
- Fewer than 800 girls are born for every 1,000 boys in certain Indian states leaving male-heavy villages
- Shortage fuels bride trafficking where women are kidnapped and sold
Editor's note: Carl Gierstorfer is a journalist and filmmaker with a background in biology. He has produced and directed documentaries for German public broadcaster ZDF, Discovery Channel and the BBC. His work on violence against women in India was supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
The Freedom Project is a CNN project focusing on modern human trafficking.
(CNN) -- Even for an employed schoolteacher like Narinder, it is hard to find a bride these days.
Narinder is a shy, slender 36-year old with a certain anxiety about him -- as if he has resigned to a fate that he is unable to change. He is very polite and at first, reluctant to talk about his situation.
Narinder is one of four sons and only one of his brothers has managed to get married. In his district in the state of Uttar Pradesh, there are only 858 girls born for every 1,000 boys, a ratio that doesn't occur naturally without medical intervention. The northwestern state of Uttar Pradesh is home to one of the largest skewed sex ratios in India.
INFOGRAPHIC: India's gender gap
"Only the rich and men with government jobs manage to get a bride these days," he says. "Anyone who earns less cannot find a bride here anymore."
In India's conservative society, remaining a bachelor is not an option.
A new bride would help his parents, he says. "They would have had an easier life. They would have had someone to cook and to take care of them."
She should clean. She should run the household. She should bear children. And Narinder plans to share her with his two unmarried brothers, who live in the same house.
But he cannot find a bride in his village, where so few exist. So, he contacted an agent to find one from another state.
Narinder may be a victim of the heavily-skewed male sex ratio in his community; more broadly, the desire to buy a bride is also fueling bride trafficking.
Decades of sex-selective abortion have created an acute lack of women in certain parts of India. Traffickers capitalize on the shortage by recruiting or kidnapping women ensnared in poverty to sell as brides. It's a cycle influenced by poverty and medical technologies, but one that ultimately is perpetuated by India's attitude towards women.
India grapples with rape and sexual violence
Where India's trafficked brides come from
Across the country, in the northeastern state of Assam, the sobs of a couple fill a hut made of mud and bamboo.
An aging couple cannot hold back their tears when they look at a passport-sized image of a dark-haired teenager, whose expression is washed out by water spots. This faded photo is all what's left of Jaida, their 16-year-old daughter.
Jaida's family ended up in the village of mud houses at a safe distance from the Brahmaputra River, after floods had destroyed their livelihood. The family retains a few of their possessions: pots, pans, a few goats and two Indian daybeds. They had no access to farmland and Jaida's father earned a living by weaving baskets and mats out of straw.
Jaida disappeared more than two years ago from their makeshift settlement along the Brahmaputra River. She was last seen talking to a stranger on a rainy day.
Her parents' hopes rest with Shafiq Khan, a human rights activist, who has come to find out why more than 3,000 women went missing in the state of Assam in 2012. The National Crime Records Bureau estimated in 2012 that about 10 women are kidnapped in Assam every day. Some of these women are found again. Some go missing forever.
Eastern Indian states like Assam, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Odisha turn into source areas for bride trafficking, because they have much more balanced sex ratios. Meanwhile, India's northwestern states are more conservative and also more affluent, meaning they're able to afford ultrasound scans and selective abortions.
Halida, a 14-year-old girl, lives in a neighboring village, near Jaida's family.
In December 2012, as a violent gang rape in Delhi shocked the world, Halida was fetching water when she was kidnapped by a man on a motorbike. He took Halida to a house, locked her up and raped her over two days. Only when the man said that he would sell her in Delhi, did Halida muster the courage to escape.
Opinion: India can learn respect for women
While Halida managed to escape her captor, she could not escape the blame her community cast on her.
Tasleema and Akhleema, trafficked women
When her village found out about the attack, children started to tease her, making school a nightmare. Nobody would hire her father, a day-laborer, so he has to venture ever further afield in search of work.
During the interview, Halida's mother sat quietly in a corner, but didn't hide her opinions: That her daughter had brought shame on the whole family.
Shafiq Khan, the human rights advocate, says there is a cruel logic to this: Rape is a means for the trafficker to exert power over their victims. And the social stigma attached to rape puts the victim in an even more vulnerable situation.
India's northeastern states have all the ingredients for turning poor women into traffickers' prey. The question is why?
Opinion: Where have India's females gone?
When everyone wants a son
India's preference for sons transcends all religions and castes.
"As fertility declines, people choose not only the number of children they have, but also choose the sex of the child," says Poonam Muttreja, a prominent campaigner for women's rights and an adviser to the government. "And everyone wants a son."
Poonam Muttreja, campaigner for women's rights
The skewed sex ratio is due to what Puneet Bedi, a Delhi suburb gynecologist, calls "mass murder on an unprecedented scale." Census data shows some districts in India have fewer than 800 girls born for every 1,000 boys, leaving male-heavy villages.
A maverick amongst India's medical community, Bedi accuses his colleagues of helping parents use ultrasound scans to determine the sex of the baby and abort females, because of a cultural preference for sons. If this practice doesn't stop, Bedi fears the worst for the future of India.
"The social fabric of society we accept as normal is unimaginable when a good 20 or 30% of the women are missing," he says.
Opinion: How terrible is it to be born a girl?
Why such a strong preference for sons exists is a matter of heated debate. Some point out that it is expensive to marry off daughters, because of the practice of dowry. Although dowry is outlawed in India, this practice persists. Others maintain that daughters only look after their in-laws, instead of their birth parents, when they grow old.
Muttreja calls this pure myth. Women have been shown to be much more reliable when it comes to looking after relatives or using their earnings responsibly, she says. "While working women send money back to their families, men hold back money for liquor, cigarettes and perhaps going to sex workers, too," she says.
The middle-class especially selects for sons, suggesting that economic development isn't likely to solve the problem, according to recent census data.
Read: Men respond to rape crisis in India
When brides are sold
Although women are outnumbered by men in northwestern states, trafficked brides do not arrive into their new homes as prized wives. They have a name for the purchased brides -- paro -- which is derogatory for foreigner or stranger.
We met 32 of them in a village of less than 1,000 people in the northeastern state of Haryana. Tasleema and her sister Akhleema are originally from Kolkata. Their family was so poor, they decided to sell them to a trafficker.
The sisters are married to two brothers in a dusty village in Haryana. During their childhood in Kolkata, they recalled, on a few lucky days, there was money to go to the cinema. After being sold as brides, their lives are spent cooking, cleaning and working in the fields. They tell us of beatings and abuse.
"Even the village children talk to us like dogs," the sisters say.
Faced with the allegations, the husbands maintain they paid more than $2,000 to traffickers, before they married the sisters. They emphasize that the men are stigmatized too, because they didn't manage to find a bride locally and instead had to buy one of the "paro" women.
"Patriarchy is so entrenched in our society. Girls are unwelcome visitor(s) in our own homes, and that's how they are treated," says Muttreja, the activist.
The men and women alike speak of their situation with surprising frankness.
The public outrage after the Delhi rape case has shown India's ability for self-criticism and the willingness of a significant part of its society to leave behind a deeply entrenched patriarchy.
But this vicious cycle of aborting girls, kidnapping women and selling off brides continues -- the byproduct of a culture that sees sons as a blessing and daughters as a curse.
Read: No quick fix for India's rape crisis
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