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Around the World

Former CIA Spy Says Westgate Could Have Been Prevented; Kidnapping Survivor Michelle Knight Speaks to Dr. Phil; CNN Film Examines Nuclear Power; Twitter Ups its IPO Price; Blackberry on Decline

Aired November 04, 2013 - 12:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: CNN can reveal how and why they even hooked him up with Al Qaida in Yemen before they tried to kill him.

MORTEN STORM, FORMER CIA SPY: I was offered a million Danish krone, which is equivalent to $200,000, if I could lead the Americans to kill him.

ROBERTSON: Ikrima?

STORM: Yes.

ROBERTSON: Storm, a former Danish biker turned jihadist, turned double agent, says he was working under cover when he first met Ikrima.

STORM: I met him in 2008 in Nairobi. I was working on a mission from the Danish intelligence, and the British and the Americans.

ROBERTSON: The CIA?

STORM: The CIA, and also the British MI-5.

ROBERTSON: Ikrima was not a fighter. He was to rise through al- Shabaab's ranks with the help of Storm and the intelligence agencies he worked for.

This is one of the places they used to meet, a shopping mall in the heart of Nairobi at a nondescript hotel tucked away inside, Storm, he says, handing over material to Ikrima, material, he says, that intelligence officials knew all about.

STORM: He had been asking me for money, he had been asking me for equipment, and I had been giving him what he asked for.

ROBERTSON: Why?

STORM: That was to gather intelligence information and to maintain our network in Somalia.

ROBERTSON: And this essentially builds him up because he has money, he can provide --

STORM: That's right.

ROBERTSON: Money and equipment wasn't all Storm gave Ikrima. He was introducing two major Al Qaida franchises.

STORM: This is an e-mail sent the 23rd of February, 2010, where Anwar al-Awlaki is asking me to pass on an e-mail to Ikrima.

ROBERTSON: These e-mails and dozens of others, Storm says, evidence he connected Ikrima to Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, AQAP, to the American cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki killed in a U.S. drone strike last year.

Together, he says, Ikrima and al-Awlaki plotted attacks on the West.

STORM: Ikrima and Anwar al-Awlaki had been in touch and had agreed to send people from Somalia to Yemen to receive the training and then AQAP in Yemen would have arranged the traveling to the West, and that would be for terrorist attacks over there.

ROBERTSON: Storm lost touch with Ikrima last year when he retired from spying, and he blames intelligence services for building him up and leaving him at large to perhaps be involved in the Kenya shopping mall attack.

STORM: I get really frustrated to know that Ikrima had been maybe involved in the Westgate terrorist attack and also is a high-rank person within that organization. It frustrates me a lot, so --

ROBERTSON: Because it could have been stopped.

STORM: It could have been stopped.

ROBERTSON: Stopped if Western intelligence had fully understood who they were dealing with.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: That was Nic Robertson reporting.

Now the CIA has declined to comment on CNN's story.

Still to come, Cleveland kidnapping survivor, Michelle Knight, she is now speaking out. She is talking to Dr. Phil. She and two other young women were held for a decade in the Cleveland home of Ariel Castro. A look at what she told Dr. Phil about her ordeal, up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Cleveland kidnapping survivor Michelle Knight will be on the Dr. Phil show this week. And she's now revealing details about the abuse that she endured. She was locked in the home of the late Ariel Castro.

And Martin Savidge, he's joining us with a preview of all of this. And tell us, essentially, why now, and what is she revealing?

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Suzanne.

Well why now? Thirty-two-year-old Michelle Knight is, of course, the oldest of the three girls held captive. She was also held the longest.

She has been the most outspoken, but this is really the first time that she is talking and describing the conditions under which she had to struggle, and it is horrifying to hear.

Take a listen to this excerpt from Dr. Phil.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. PHIL, TV HOST: So he gets you in this room. What did he tie you up with?

MICHELLE KNIGHT, KIDNAPPING SURVIVOR: One of those orange extension cords. I was tied up like a fish. And ordered me on the wall. That's the only way I can describe it. I was hanging like this. My feet and I was tied by my neck and my arms with the extension cord going like that.

DR. PHIL: Oh, God. So he tied your hands and feet, and also around your neck. And hung you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: It's just so awful.

SAVIDGE: Yes, it is.

MALVEAUX: I mean -

SAVIDGE: I mean, we had a sense of this, of course, from the investigation and the details that began to come out, but to hear it from Michelle Knight, to hear it from her own experience, is so powerful.

This young woman, I have to say, is such an inspiration to so many people, because if you remember, we saw her at the sentencing of Ariel Castro and she delivered that very powerful condemnation against him. She was also there, as you see, at the demolition of his home. She has been empowered and come out of this so strong and so inspiring.

MALVEAUX: Is this part of her healing process, to talk about the details, to talk about what she endured?

SAVIDGE: Well, you know, I'm not a psychological expert, but yes, this is something that she's deemed is part of her role now, is to speak out, that she has become an inspiration. She knows that. And I think this is something that she's openly spoken to. I've talked to her, I've seen her and been with her a couple of times.

And she's made no bones about the fact that she would like to make this kind of her life's message now, that she could be an inspirational speaker, that there can be good derived out of the horrors that she endured. And that's just a sample. MALVEAUX: And what about the other young women? How are they doing?

SAVIDGE: They're doing very well. We're talking about Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus. They've been nowhere near as public as we've seen from Michelle Knight. We do know they're working on a book deal and that book deal is currently being marketed around.

Their attorneys make no bones of the fact that they're trying to generate an income, because a they say, their clients are so psychologically damaged, so physically damaged, they'll never be able to have normal lives.

So this is creating a trust fund for four people, because remember, there was a child born in that captivity, that they will have to use to live off of.

MALVEAUX: All right, Martin, thank you so much.

She's just so incredible. It is so brave and it is so difficult just to hear what she's been through, but you are empowered to know that she's on the other side of this.

SAVIDGE: Yeah. It is so nice to see her because of what she is and what she's become.

MALVEAUX: All right. Thank you, Martin. Appreciate it.

And, of course, we want to let our viewers know Anderson Cooper is going to sit down with Dr. Phil about this exclusive interview with Michelle Knight. You're going to want to watch that. That is tonight on "AC 360," 8:00 Eastern.

And "Pandora's Promise," this is something, as well, that you're going to want to see. This is a documentary that airs exclusively on CNN this week, and it really takes a look at the nuclear energy's impact around the world, and the controversy around it, as well.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Assuming that the world continues to develop, and that China and India and Brazil become rich countries over the next half-century or century, how much energy is the world going to use?

When you start running those numbers, it's a sobering exercise.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: The debate over the survival of the planet, up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: A powerful new CNN film is stirring up controversy over nuclear power.

"Pandora's Promise" focuses on those who once were against using nuclear energy, but now believe that it is should power our growing energy needs.

So will nuclear power save the planet? Just listen to part of this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It turns out that the United States has been buying up nuclear warheads from the Russians for over 10 years now, 16,000 nuclear warheads, and we're recycling all these nuclear warheads into energy, electricity, nuclear power. And so, nuclear power is doing more to de-nuclear weaponize the world than any other thing that we do.

Poetically, it's rather beautiful. The very things that were designed to blow up our cities, are now lighting up our cities.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Want to bring in Michael Shellenberger who tells his story in the film of becoming a pro-nuclear for nuclear power. He's joining us from Berkeley, California. And he's also the president of the Breakthrough Institute New York. We have Dale Bryk who joins us. She is a senior attorney director of director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Energy and Transportation Program, an anti-nuclear group.

Welcome to you both.

So we've all seen this. It is controversial. It is fascinating to watch. And it really takes you through from the very beginning, the development of nuclear energy. So, Michael, I want to start off with you, because one of the things that struck me about this is really how personal this is to many of the people who are in this documentary. And you've got the protester who opens up screaming that this is a death industry, a cancer industry, a bomb-making industry, talking about nuclear industry. Now you describe, you visit this power plant in high school. You later become a consultant for the green groups, fiercely against nuclear power. You change your mind. Why?

MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER, PRESIDENT, BREAKTHROUGH INSTITUTE: Well, we really got clear about how much energy the world is going to consume over the next half-century and century. So most of the world is not rich. China, Brazil, India, they're not asking our permission to use the earth's resources and to consume energy. So good estimate is somewhere between we're going to double the amount of energy we consume by mid-century, triple and quadruple it by the end of the century.

Now, I love solar and wind. I always have. Last year in the United States, solar provided less than 0.1 percent of our electricity. Wind provides more, but whenever the subsidy that it depends on comes into question in Congress, all new wind projects come to a halt. Nuclear provides 20 percent of our electricity in the United States. In some places like France it provides 80 percent. We have a long track record of using it. And once you get over a lot of the irrational fears that a lot of us had about it and you really read the scientific literature, you discover that it's the safest alternative that we have to coal.

MALVEAUX: And, Dale, I -

SHELLENBERGER: And we need to do something about climate change -

MALVEAUX: Go ahead.

SHELLENBERGER: Sorry. Go ahead.

MALVEAUX: Yes, yes, Dale, I want to bring you into the conversation here because you watched this film as well. You believe a lot of it is simply propaganda. You called it a love song to the nuclear power industry. Specifically, what are the things that you think are not accurate that speaks to you?

DALE BRYK, NATIONAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL: Yes. Well, I mean, nuclear is moving forward in some countries where they -- where the energy sector is a centralized, planned economy. But in this country, we really want the market to help choose the winners and losers. And the main facts that are absent in the film are the costs of nuclear power.

Nuclear power -- the nuclear renaissance is not being realized in this country, not because the environmental community is stopping individual nuclear power plants, but because the market is not choosing nuclear. Since the movie came out, since the beginning of this year, since the movie was filmed, five -- the industry itself is shutting five nuclear plants purely for economic reasons and it's scrapping plants to re-rate (ph) - to get more nuclear power from existing plants at another five locations.

MALVEAUX: And, Dale, what's -

BRYK: And that's not because of ideology or bias; that's because of the inability of nuclear to compete in the marketplace against cheaper, cleaner resources like energy efficiency and renewable energy.

MALVEAUX: I want you both to address this point because they talk about this as a humanitarian issue. That the more countries that have power, electricity, a steady flow of energy, they're able to power up clinics and schools. All of a sudden they have a refrigerator, they live longer. How to provide that kind of power? Because we're not -- we're not using less power. We're not conserving energy. We're actually using more power. So where does that power, that energy come from when you look at the needs of people around the world?

SHELLENBERGER: Suzanne, I think that's a great question.

BRYK: Right. Well, I mean, we -

SHELLENBERGER: I mean what's happening around the world is that the world is moving heavily towards coal. And it's a little disingenuous for the NRDC, which is a major lobby, it's, you know, each of the big environmental groups have budgets around $100 million a year. They have actively sought to block nuclear for the last several decades. It's a little disingenuous to hear Dale say, oh it wasn't us that's responsible for keeping nuclear at only 20 percent instead of being able to take it to much higher levels.

In fact, if the wind - you know, it's funny to hear her talk about wind and solar. If the subsidies for wind and solar came to an end, there would be no wind and solar deployment. And Dale knows that.

MALVEAUX: Dale, I want you -

SHELLENBERGER: So the county -- the world is going to coal and the alternatives are not actually solar and wind. The alternatives are more coal or nuclear. And that's what this comes down to if you care about the climate. Four of the world's top climate scientists yesterday just came out with an open letter to environmental groups. If environmental groups weren't in the way, why would the climate scientists send an open letter to environmental groups, including NRDC, asking them to halt their opposition to nuclear -

MALVEAUX: All right.

SHELLENBERGER: And support the development of a new generation of plants.

MALVEAUX: I've got to get Dale back in here to at least - at least answer Michael's criticism there.

BRYK: Yes, well, and I'd love for him to answer the challenges about the -- of the costs, the economic challenges that the industry faces. But, of course, we want to solve global warming and stop the climate crisis in the cheapest, fastest way that we can. And that's why we're focused on energy efficiency and renewables as the best solution. But the solution is to internalize the pollution cost, especially the carbon pollution cost, which we have not done in this country, and then allow resources to compete against one another.

And if we do that, if nuclear competes against efficiency and renewables on a level playing field, we are absolutely confident that they will continue to win as they have been doing over many years. Not because of ideology or bias or because we're -- you know, '70s radical who don't read science, but because of market forces and technology -- the way technology has developed. And these other resources are better. So why not have a level playing field and allow nuclear to compete against efficiency and renewables, they're winning.

MALVEAUX: We've got to leave it there. We're running out of time. I'm sorry. We're going to continue this debate throughout the week because this is a fascinating discussion and it really is a very provocative program and we recommend that everybody see it and you guys have seen it, we've all seen it at this point. "Pandora's Promise" airing Thursday night at 9:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN. Thanks to our guests. We appreciate you both weighing in.

And also coming up, the president uses it to help start a revolution in the Middle East. Well, coming up, how you can actually own a piece of this. We're talking about Twitter going public.

Then, soccer fans out of control in Serbia. How they started this huge fire during a heated match.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: In world business news, the most anticipated public offering of the year comes to market this week. We're talking, of course, about Twitter. But even though millions of us use it all the time, tweeting, we might not be able to buy the stock at the initial price, that's between $23-$25 a share, that's because most of the offerings are going to go to employees and big institutions. CNN's chief business correspondent Christine Romans, she's got the preview.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Suzanne, two major corporate stories today, one about a company ascendant, Twitter, the other a company in decline, Blackberry, whose ubiquitous products could go the way of the typewriter and the record player. First I'll start with Twitter.

Twitter boosted the price of its shares it will sell to the public to $23 to $25, up from $17 and $20 a share. So the range boosted to $23 to $25. It's a sign Twitter sees big demand for its shares. What promises to be a big day for the company's founders, who will take home hundreds of millions of dollars each.

Now, the company plans to raise up to $1.8 billion by going public. Insiders and big investors get the IPO price, likely Wednesday. Then ordinary investors, you and me, can start buying and selling the stock on Thursday. In most tech IPOs, only about 20 percent of share goes to ordinary investors. It's why often with IPOs it pays to wait.

Let me give you a recent example. Remember Facebook? The biggest tech IPO ever quickly became one of the biggest flops. The stock debuted at $38 a share. But three months later, you could get it for half that price. Today it trades for about three times its low.

Now, right now, the early wagering is that TWTR shares, Twitter shares, will rise when they start trading, but there's no way to know for sure.

Which brings me to Blackberry. In 2008, Blackberry stock traded at $147 a share. Today, Blackberry is in the single digits. Big news this morning that Blackberry has abandoned its plans to sell itself. It's now in the hands of private equity investors. They've got to figure out how to salvage what's left. The chief executive who tried to save the company is out. A new turn-around artist is in.

But it may be too late for the crackberry as Apple, Google and Samsung out smell -- outsell and outsmart it. What that means for Blackberry users is still unknown, but it could be a big headache for corporate IT departments who still need to support these devices.

Suzanne, this is one of those company tales that will wind up in business school textbooks.

MALVEAUX: All right, thank you, Christine.

Soccer fans, known of course for being really passionate. But in Serbia, things getting out of hand. All right. This is Saturday's match between Red Star Belgrade and Partisan Belgrade. Fans starting this large fire in the stands. You see it there. Well, Red Star took a 1-0 lead early in the game and Partisan fans, well, they were growing restless, so they started throwing these flares and eventually multiple parts, you know, of the visitors section on fire. Fire crews eventually got control of the situation. And, you know, really something else when you think about it. A lot of passion and hopefully nobody hurt in that incident.

Well, thanks for watching AROUND THE WORLD. CNN NEWSROOM starts now.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Right now, a return to normal at Los Angeles International Airport three days after a fatal shooting. Investigators there are looking for more clues in the attack and what led a lone gunman to target TSA officers.

Right now, the candidates in the Virginia and New Jersey governors' races, they are making a final push for votes. We're taking a closer look at what tomorrow's elections could tell us about the 2016 presidential race.

And right now, we're waiting for today's White House briefing to get underway. The press secretary, Jay Carney, likely to face a lot more questions about Obamacare and the political tell-all book "Double Down."

Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer.