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Negotiators Draft Final Climate Agreement; Geneva Police Identify "Possible" ISIS Cell; Majority Oppose Trump's Muslim Ban; Divers Search California Lake; Defense Rests in First Officer's Trial; Paris Delegates Negotiated for Nearly Two Weeks; Kobani Residents Vow to Rebuild from ISIS Destruction; U.S. Stocks Tumble as Oil Prices Plummet; American Accused of Running Child Sex Ring in Peru; Lupita Nyong'o on "Star Wars" Cast Diversity. Aired 4-5a ET

Aired December 12, 2015 - 04:00   ET

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


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ISA SOARES, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Climate consensus, a historic agreement with an aim to save the planet will soon be on the table at the global climate talks.

But will all nations sign on?

The Taliban claim responsibility for a suicide attack in Afghanistan's capital. the Kabul attackers have since been killed. We have the latest.

And Kobani rises. How a Syrian city is rebuilding after driving out ISIS.

Hello and a very warm welcome to our viewers in the United States and right around the world. I'm Isa Soares in London. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM.

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SOARES: I want to begin in Paris this hour where we are getting closer. The French foreign minister presenting a global proposal to combat climate change. Now negotiators have nailed down a plan after two weeks at the conference.

Laurent Fabius believes the plan will be approved, saying in part -- this is what he said -- "I hope that all parties will be committed to shouldering their responsibilities and seize this opportunity, as the agreement will be positive for every single country and will give the whole world a chance, for the ultimate goal of this agreement is quite simply to allow humankind to live decently."

Earlier we heard from the head of the Chinese delegation. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Today China will fully show its constructiveness and flexibility to ensure that all COP 21 parties work together. Our final goal is to achieve the agreement to convince people around the world that the mechanism still works.

All parties should fully deliver their opinions to make the agreement comprehensive, balanced, powerful and ambitious with restrictions. The agreement should also adapt to the requirements of all parties.

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SOARES: That's the head of Chinese delegation speaking there. I'm going to take you live to Paris, where we find our senior international correspondent Jim Bittermann for the very latest.

And, Jim, we know from previous occasions that a deal tends to be watered down.

Is that going to be the case this time around?

What are you hearing this hour?

JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SR. INTL. CORRESPONDENT: Well, at this point we're not hearing very much. The fact is that, this morning around dawn, they finally came to a conclusion on text that they're going to present at 11:30 local time; that's about an hour and a half from now.

And that text has been changed considerably from when it started two weeks ago but also just considerably in the last 48 hours, as brackets within the text were eliminated, as consensus was found on certain issues. And, of course, a couple of big issues are the question of financing, who is going to pay.

The question of restrictiveness, can they put in the agreement, for example, that the 2 degrees that we've been talking about, will that actually appear in the agreement?

We don't know at this point. It's top secret. After it was agreed upon, it's now being translated into six different languages and we passed out and handed out drafts to the press at about 11:30 our time.

So when we see it, we'll have a little better idea but, even then, it's a real question of what happens after that, do the countries, are they going to really stick with it?

There will be a vote at some hours; we're not sure exactly what the timing will be but some hours after the text is released, there will be a plenary vote. It's an all-or-nothing vote. You either take it or leave it.

And, of course, if you leave it, you're going to stand out. I mean, that's one of the things that's probably the only power of enforcement of any sort, is that if you are not part of this agreement, then it's going to be very obvious to the whole world -- Isa.

SOARES: Now you mentioned there, Jim, there have been some significant issues, of course, that have been raised throughout these two weeks. In particular, that of funding. Talk us through some of the disagreements about funding in particular.

BITTERMANN: Well, this -- a lot of developed countries believe they should get a whole lot of aid because they're not going to be allowed to use carbon fuels the way the industrialized countries have over the last century.

They believe that in order to bring our economies up to par, they have got to do a lot in the way of carbon fuel management and they should be paid and reimbursed for that.

And the kind of figure that has been talked about by the lesser developed countries is something like $100 billion each year over the next few years until 2020. Whether that kind of money is going to appeal in this document, it remains to be seen.

We've heard that perhaps it won't, that in fact there'll be a commitment to perhaps assure that kind of funding but not a real commitment to guarantee it.

One of the things that President Hollande and the French negotiators have said from the beginning is that they wanted to see a document that is ambitious and -- [04:05:00]

BITTERMANN: -- restrictive, restrictive in the sense that it guarantees the countries actually do something; it remains to be seen exactly how far that will go, how far the ambitions of the world will go -- Isa.

SOARES: We'll wait to see the details of the proposed agreement, Jim. No doubt there will be plenty of bleary-eyed delegates there in Paris. Jim Bittermann for us there in Paris, thanks very much, Jim.

Well, whatever deal emerges from the climate conference will have repercussions right around the world. COP 21 hopes to produce the first-ever legally binding plan to combat global warming. The agreement would essentially be a legally enforced successor to the protocol that you know as Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2020 and excludes top greenhouse gas emitting countries.

Now in 2009, attempts to reach a similar agreement in Copenhagen, well, that failed, meaning all eyes really on COP 21 for really a lasting solution, many people waiting for this, this, perhaps, this is the moment for a deal.

With news of a potential agreement, it's important to remember significant climate milestones reached this year. Meteorologist Derek Van Dam joins us now.

And, Derek, walk us through the milestones for us.

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Isa, two important milestones for 2015. Firstly, we reached global temperatures of 1 degree Celsius or 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit above the global average temperature before we started to basically mess with our climate system. That would be pre- industrial era times.

And we also reached a milestone to my right of 400 parts per million of that carbon dioxide output that we talk about so frequently. This is part of the global greenhouse gas, that almost heat-locking gas that allows for global warming to take place. And we reached that milestone over the month of March this year.

This has ramifications on our climate system across the planet, including the amount of moisture we have available to us in the atmosphere. That could increase the frequency and the intensity of heavy rain events. And also with this increase in our warming temperature, we have the potential of melting glaciers as well as Arctic Sea ice raising sea levels.

A very familiar sight behind me, this is currently Westminster, the River Thames in London. This is what it looks like now. But if we were to continue this warming trend to, say, 2 degrees or perhaps 4 degrees of warming, you can see how this will impact the coastal cities.

And it's not just London. We have got Sydney as well as Shanghai. Remember, 44 percent of the world's population lives within 150 kilometers of the sea. So a lot of susceptible cities thanks to the sea level rise and we certainly want to maintain that perhaps 2 degree climate cap or 1.5 degree climate cap that they're talking about in Paris, which we'll see in this final amendment coming out later in a couple of hours.

Now this is the average temperature across the United States. We've had the warmest fall on record from September to November. And the warm weather will continue into this weekend.

Is it global climate change?

I'll let you be the, well, purveyor of that information but it sure looks like it has the climate fingerprint written all over it -- Isa, back to you.

SOARES: And Derek, before you go, you were talking about the 2 degree climate cap or perhaps the 1.5 climate cap, that 0.5 difference, what difference does it really make on the climate?

VAN DAM: It matters so much and how much moisture we have available in the atmosphere, also just how much our seas will continue to rise, has ramifications on all kinds of climate patterns.

SOARES: Derek Van Dam there for us, thanks very much, Derek. Speak to you next hour.

Now in Afghanistan, the Afghan interior ministry says a siege in the capital that started on Friday is over and police special forces have killed all the attackers. The Taliban are claiming responsibility for the suicide attacks.

A source says a car bomb exploded near the Spanish embassy in Kabul. Spanish officials say two of their police officers died and clashes continued into the night in the embassy quarter. This comes as the Afghan government tries to revive peace talks with the Taliban.

Guards carrying machine guns are standing watch this hour over the United Nations complex in Geneva. It's one of many unusual security precautions underway in the Swiss city; that follows an American warning of a possible terror plot. Authorities are also searching for two people linked to the Paris attackers. More now from CNN's Nic Robertson.

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NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: To that heightened threat level here already leading to one security situation on Friday at Geneva airport. Part of the airport in a security lockdown for about 20 minutes while police investigated two suspicious pieces of luggage.

One was discovered to be a piece of lost luggage. The other one was destroyed by a controlled detonation. That really gives you an indication of the heightened security alert that this area is under right now.

Why is this happening?

Because Swiss authorities have received three pieces of information --

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ROBERTSON: -- one of them coming from U.S. intelligence saying that they picked up chatter among four ISIS operatives inside Syria, indicating they were potentially planning an attack in Geneva. Those four ISIS members, their whereabouts now are unknown.

Also in the past few days a vehicle, a van with Belgian registration plates driven into Switzerland; when the Swiss authorities investigated it they found that the owner of that van was associated, connected with some of the Paris attackers from last month. That's given them additional cause for concern.

And also another one of the Paris attackers, his identity is now clear. He was recruited to ISIS by a radical who lived in this area. That radical is now in jail in France. However, another associate of his in Syria went to join ISIS, is now back, his whereabouts unknown. He's a Swiss national.

So all of these three pieces, do they add up to anything?

Are there connections?

That's what the authorities here are looking at. U.N. right behind me there, the biggest U.N. headquarters outside of New York. The guards there, bigger automatic weapons in their hands today than you would normally see. So this is a city very worried right now about its security -- Nic Robertson, CNN, Geneva, Switzerland.

(END VIDEOTAPE) SOARES: (INAUDIBLE) U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump isn't backing down from his call to ban Muslims from entering the United States.

However, a CBS News poll shows 58 percent of Americans don't agree with the Republican's proposal; just 38 percent of Republicans are against it, meaning really a slim majority support it. CNN host Fareed Zakaria says Trump's views on Muslims abhor him as an American. Zain Asher spoke with Fareed about the election so far. Take a listen.

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ZAIN ASHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You've written a fascinating op-ed in "The Washington Post" about being a Muslim American. When you hear Donald Trump's proposal, this idea that he wants to ban Muslim from the U.S., it is certainly unlikely that that would happen.

When you hear that kind of rhetoric, Fareed, what do you fear the most?

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST: What I fear is that the damage is done, Zain, whether or not the proposal ever happens. If Donald Trump is not going to be president, this proposal is not going to get enacted.

But what it does do is it paints a whole community with this very broad brush and it makes our mainstream Americans suspicious of them. It makes the community, Muslim Americans, more fearful, it makes it more likely that they will isolate themselves, self-segregate.

Look, I've seen this around the world when I've traveled. You know, the Balkans in the 1990s, Iraq before the civil war there, in the India that I grew up in. You can -- it's very easy for communities that have lived together to start getting very fearful and mistrusting each other and self-segregating.

And then all it takes is a spark and you can get a very mighty conflagration.

ASHER: And they feel so isolated, especially in the wake of remarks that are so controversial.

But why do you think that someone like Donald Trump, who says such controversial things and somewhat racist things, to be honest, how can someone like that still be so popular in the United States?

He's polling right now at 35 percent.

ZAKARIA: Yes, 35 percent of likely Republican primary voters. So I don't know what the math works out to but it's something like 10 percent of Americans. So it's not as high as it sounds.

But look, Trump is a genius at one thing: he has figured out that there is a large group of Republican primary voters for whom the -- they are voting with their gut. They're not voting with their heads. They're not even, frankly, voting with their hearts, it's their gut. What I mean by that is he doesn't even have an economic plan. He is a

business man running for president. If you asked his supporters --

ASHER: It's very visceral.

ZAKARIA: Right.

He's -- what is his economic plan?

He has no economic plan. He just knows how to get at their gut.

Mexicans, Muslims, to a certain extent he talks about the Japanese and Chinese. But mostly now it's Muslims. You know, he touches these buttons to figure out what's going to get the biggest charge. And right now in the wake of these terror attacks, it's been Muslims.

ASHER: And even when he does talk about proposing to ban Muslims from the United States, he doesn't even ever say how that's actually going to work. But one of our anchors, Alisyn Camerota, sat down with Donald Trump's supporters. Let's listen to what they said to her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: The reason it's controversial is that he singled out Muslims. He didn't say terror suspects. He said Muslims.

What do you think of that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think that's unreasonable to do, because we need to make sure that the people here are safe. And until we can figure out who is allowed into the country and coming in and if we don't know who they are, then we need some sort of protection.

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ASHER: So Fareed, when you hear ordinary Americans saying that that is not unreasonable --

[04:15:00]

ASHER: -- what is your reaction?

ZAKARIA: Well, look, these are probably good people. They're scared. They're fearful. I don't blame them for having anxieties. They're thinking, as I said, they're responding at a gut level. But I blame politicians like Trump for taking advantage of that anxiety and fearmongering.

Look, the task of leadership in moments of crisis is to really appeal to the better angels within us. We all have dark sides. We all have anxieties. It's very easy to think of some group as "the other," you know, and to despise them. The task of leadership is to show people how they can live together, not to show how you can blame everybody else for your troubles.

(END VIDEOTAPE) SOARES: That was Zain Asher, speaking to Fareed Zakaria. For more on

Fareed's take on Trump and his anti-Muslim rhetoric, why don't you go to our website, cnn.com, there you find more of his opinion.

Right here on CNN, a friend of one of the San Bernardino terrorists makes a startling admission. Up next right on CNN, find out what he claims he built with Syed Rizwan Farook.

And CNN got exclusive access to the place where the U.S. puts weapons that it has taken from its enemies. We'll take you there after this short break.

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SOARES: Welcome back.

Investigators in San Bernardino, California, tell CNN that a friend of attacker Syed Rizwan Farook has admitted to making pipe bombs with the killer but Enrique Marquez said he had nothing to do with the devices investigators found at the killer's home and the attack site.

Investigators are also searching a lake in San Bernardino as they try to piece together the events surrounding last week's attack. CNN's Kyung Lah has more on that very search.

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KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: As far as we know, this doesn't look like something that they are going to abandon, the FBI says that they are going to be here for days and what they are looking for is a very meticulous search, they're scouring the very bottom of this lake. They're looking for items that were missing from the Farook home.

You mentioned the hard drive. It's a hard drive that was missing from the computer inside the home. They're trying to find electronic evidence that helps them build a case, that helps them understand the picture here. The reason why this lake is so important to them is that there was a report that the two killers were here on the day of the massacre.

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SOARES: Fourteen people, of course, were killed in the San Bernardino attack.

Now the U.S. is keeping a close eye on how terrorists are getting their weapons. Our Jim Sciutto got exclusive access to America's own rocket program and he saw their collection of dangerous foreign weapons. It's a stash they say might come in handy as they try to stay a step ahead of ISIS.

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JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A passenger plane headed from the Netherlands to Malaysia suddenly falls from the sky. Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 brought down near the Ukraine-Russia border by Russian-backed rebels, using this surface-to-air missile system known as the Buk.

The ramifications of the strike far-reaching and incredibly alarming because of who may be trying to obtain similar missiles now.

SCIUTTO: Is there any concern today that terrorist groups would have their hands on something like this?.

MARK CLARK, DIRECTOR, DIA MISSILE & SPACE INTELLIGENCE CENTER: UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's probably safe to assume that, at some level, there are efforts underway.

SCIUTTO: Folks back home are immediately going to say, my god, look at that missile.

Can a group like ISIS get their hands on it?

CLARK: It would not be impossible, but we would certainly say that there's going to be some needed training involved.

SCIUTTO (voice-over): Mark Clark is the director of the Missile and Space Intelligence Center, a branch of the military's own intelligence operation, the Defense Intelligence Agency, or DIA, located far from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan in Huntsville, Alabama, the home of America's own rocket program.

Filling the agency's grounds are a rogue's gallery of dangerous foreign weapons, some captured, some purchased, some acquired by means the DIA won't reveal.

SCIUTTO: So to help train pilots and other warfighters who might come into contact with a weapons system like this in a combat situation, they keep these systems operational.

This is still a fully functioning Scud missile.

SCIUTTO (voice-over): Proliferation of missile technology preoccupies analysts here more than any other threat.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have greater concerns about the smaller missile threats and the likelihood of the proliferation of those.

SCIUTTO (voice-over): Small only in size, but not in capability.

SCIUTTO: OK, so this is the SA-7, one of the most common shoulder- fired missiles you'll see out in the world today. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, there has been well over a million MANPADS produced, not only of this one, but of other kinds and there's still hundreds of thousands of others of them out there.

SCIUTTO (voice-over): Today shoulder-fired missiles have targeted some 60 civilian aircraft and you can buy them on the black market for just a few thousand dollars.

SCIUTTO: One of the main dangers of a missile like this is both speed but also ease, that someone like me with no experience can put it together and acquire a target in less than a minute.

Sights go up, power goes on, you find your target in the air and you fire your missile. It's incredible.

SCIUTTO (voice-over): Often the agency here comes into action after rather than before an attack. This is the first time a reporter has been allowed inside the center's technical analysis room.

SCIUTTO: So it's a CSI for the combat space?

RANDY JONES, CHIEF SCIENTIST, DIA MISSILE & SPACE INTELLIGENCE CENTER: It is the CSI forensic sort of capability, similar to a crime scene investigation sort of thing, a little bit of DNA here and a fingerprint there begins to piece together a pretty compelling story.

SCIUTTO (voice-over): Within minutes of MH17's crash, analysts here sprang into action desperate to as quickly as possible determine the cause of the crash. As luck would have it, they had visitors that day who could help.

JONES: A group of representatives from across the intelligence community who do just --

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JONES: -- this kind of analysis, we had them here in the building.

SCIUTTO: So all those experts happened to be here?

JONES: It just happened, timing wise, to work out that way.

SCIUTTO (voice-over): As the outside world debated the cause, the DIA already had a very likely suspect.

JONES: Within an hour and a half, we were confident that it was a missile that shot it down, a surface-to-air missile that shot it down. We had a fair idea which one, although we still had some homework to do.

SCIUTTO (voice-over): Homework done at lightning speed. Within hours they were confident they had pinpointed the murder weapon and the perpetrators, telling President Obama that Russian-backed separatists had fired a Russian-made missile that sent nearly 300 people plunging to their deaths.

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SOARES: Exclusive look there from our chief national security correspondent, Jim Sciutto.

Now the defense for the first of six Baltimore police officers to be tried over the death of Freddie Gray has rested its case in a Maryland courtroom on Friday.

Character witnesses described Officer William Porter as "caring." He has pleaded not guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter and second degree assault. Authorities say Freddie Gray broke his neck on April the 12th while being transported by Porter in a police van, shackled but not wearing a seat belt. CNN's Miguel Marquez reports now from Baltimore.

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MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: After eight days of testimony, 16 witnesses for the prosecution and 12 witnesses for the defense, this first trial in the death of Freddie Gray, that of Officer William Porter, will soon be in the hands of the jury.

The defense arguing very strongly that it wasn't Officer Porter's responsibility to put Freddie Gray into seat belts. They're also arguing using experts, medical experts, that Officer Porter dealt with Freddie Gray only before he was critically injured.

The prosecution hitting back very hard, saying it was Officer Porter's responsibility all along and that it was he himself who acknowledged that Mr. Gray was having trouble breathing, that he was clearly ill, and still did not get him a medic.

On Monday, they will go to closing arguments very quickly, and then the jury will have it. We expect that the jury could come back with a verdict by Tuesday or Wednesday -- Miguel Marquez, CNN, Baltimore.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SOARES: A crucial plan years in the making finally appears to be complete. The latest on the climate agreement set to be released soon and analysis from an environmental activist.

Also in Syria, the town of Kobani stands in ruins because of ISIS. Coming up, we'll return to the border town where people are determined to bring it back to life. This is CNN NEWSROOM.

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SOARES (voice-over): You are watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Isa Soares. Let me bring you up to date on the top stories we're following for you this hour. (HEADLINES)

SOARES: We're going to get more on this top story we're following. And Michael Brune is the executive director of the Sierra Club, a grassroots environmental organization and he joins me from Paris.

Michael, thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us here on CNN.

As our viewers will know from the last half hour, no details of the proposed agreement have been released so far.

But from what you're hearing on the ground, do you get a sense that a deal perhaps is going far enough?

MICHAEL BRUNE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SIERRA CLUB: What we're hearing is optimism from almost all quarters. It's about an hour before we see the final text. But what we are hearing from almost everybody is that what the final text will do is it will bind every country in the world to reducing their own emissions and then also to improving those emissions every five years over time.

So we are cautiously optimistic that what we will see is an agreement that won't solve the climate crisis but will make more progress on climate change than anything we've ever seen.

SOARES: We know there have been sharp divisions right along the way and we will know the details once we have the agreement.

But what have you made of the cooperation this time around between China and the U.S.?

It does seem the U.S. wants to make sure China holds up its end of this.

What are your thoughts?

BRUNE: Yes. Well, the breakthrough that we saw was, of course, about a year ago, when the U.S. and China announced their first agreement to reduce both countries' emissions. And what we've seen in the last year or so is significant progress on monitoring and reporting and verification of those emissions reductions, not just in the U.S. and China but for all countries.

So what we're looking for is an agreement that, in which every country is contributing; we want transparency and the ability to strengthen those agreements every five years, starting before 2020 and an opportunity for each country to review the progress and hold each other accountable.

We're not yet sure whether or not there will be a significant transparency in this agreement and, of course, we're also looking for climate financing agreements that will help developing countries to accelerate their transition away from dirty fuels and towards clean energy. SOARES: Well, let's break that down. You talked about financing. You also talked about transparency. Let's focus first on funding because that's been a crucial issue, isn't it, between the developed and developing nations.

And at stake here really is the terminology which countries are developing and which countries are developed --

[04:35:00]

SOARES: -- because one will pay for the other.

What are your concerns regarding this?

BRUNE: What we want to see is a significant amount of funding, of course, both between now and 2020 and then after 2020. The floor, what has now been established as the floor, should be $100 billion every year coming from richer developed countries and transferring into those developing countries.

We also want to see funding, both for mitigation for reducing carbon emissions and accelerating the transition to clean energy as well as funding for adaptation, to help those countries that are already feeling the effects of climate change, to make sure that they're protecting their own communities and their own families.

We are again cautiously optimistic that we'll see a significant amount of funding and an opportunity to expand that funding over time. But, again, we won't see the final text for about another hour.

SOARES: OK. Well, perhaps we can touch base with you in an hour to see whether the cautiously optimistic has changed at all. Michael Brune for us there in Paris, thanks very much, Michael.

Now Syria's president says he will not hold political talks with any armed groups. Bashar al-Assad is accusing Washington of wanting what Mr. Assad calls terrorist groups to join next month's planned negotiations. The U.S. and Russia helped organize the planned peace talks, which include members of more than a dozen rebel factions.

The goal is to peaceful political transition in war-torn Syria.

Now the Syrian town of Kobani is a major casualty of the Assad government's war with ISIS. Before coalition-backed Kurdish forces reclaimed Kobani, months of siege by ISIS left the town really in ruins. Now a CNN senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman discovered the people there are determined to rebuild it.

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BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Seventeen-year-old Hamula (ph) sends his pigeons flying over his hometown of Kobani, flying over a town of ruins and rubble but where hope lives on.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking foreign language). WEDEMAN (voice-over): "What makes me happy now is that I am home, despite all the destruction around us," he says.

For five months, from September of 2014 to January of this year, an intense battle raged between ISIS and Kurdish fighters, accompanied by heavy airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition. ISIS is gone and many of the town's residents, like Mustafa Kouaz (ph), have returned to find homes damaged almost beyond recognition.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking foreign language).

"Daish fighters were upstairs on the second floor," he tells me, "and the Kurdish fighters came in from below. There was a battle here."

He lived here with his wife, married sons and their families, 19 people in all. Now he's hoping just to make one room livable.

But there is life among the ruins. Kobani took a beating, but shops are open. Some areas are a wasteland or, to the children, a very rocky playground, where they reenact with stones the battles of just a few months ago.

WEDEMAN: More than 70 percent of the buildings in Kobani were either damaged or destroyed. Despite that, there is a will to rebuild this town. The challenge is finding a way to do it.

WEDEMAN (voice-over): Abdulrahman Hamul (ph) is the general coordinator for Kobani reconstruction.

"We're building this new neighborhood for people who have lost their homes," he says, "but as you can see, we've stopped because we can't import any cement from Turkey."

Wary of Kurdish ambitions to build a state on the ruins of Northern Syria, Turkey has closed the nearby border crossing. As a result, desperately needed building materials are in short supply. Rebuilding this town could take a very long time, but like a phoenix rising from the ashes, it will rise again -- Ben Wedeman, CNN, Kobani, Syria.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SOARES: Fascinating look there at Kobani.

Now for the first time ever, women in Saudi Arabia are voting in the country's municipal elections, happening right now. There are also woman running for office.

This milestone is being marked as a significant step toward equal rights there. Officials say there are 979 women candidates; however, critics say restrictions make it difficult for female voters, who have complained of difficulties in proving their identities and female candidates are not allowed to speak to male voters.

U.S. and Peruvian police work together to crack a --

[04:40:00] SOARES: -- child sex trafficking ring. An American suspect insists he's innocent. CNN's Freedom Project looks at the investigation -- that's coming up. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM.

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SOARES: Now if you've been keeping a close eye on the markets, you've noticed that there has been quite a rough week for investors, particularly in the U.S. market. Friday was especially gut-wrenching. The Dow Jones industrial average took a big dip on fears of economic weakness as crude oil slid to just over $35 a barrel, that's a new seven-year low. Richard Quest recaps Friday's fall for us.

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RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: The markets have closed down 310 and change. And it's off nearly 1.75 percent.

And what drove that market lower was the energy stocks, which were hard hit as crude oil prices dropped. The selling was broad based. If you take a look, you can see the Nasdaq was down 2.2 percent, S&P was off nearly 2 percent, the Dow industrials were off. And to put this in perspective, its the third triple-digit loss this week.

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SOARES: Quite a shock for all those you saw. Well, investors are waiting to see whether or not the Federal Reserve raises interest rates next week. That's all the markets care about now. If it does, experts say stocks could potentially bounce back.

Now Peruvian and U.S. authorities say an American man has been running a child sex tourism ring out of the city of Lima for several years with children as young as 4 being caught in the horrifying web. As part of CNN's Freedom Project, our ongoing efforts to raise awareness of modern-day slavery, Rafael Romo brings us all the details.

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RAFAEL ROMO, CNN SR. LATIN AFFAIRS EDITOR (voice-over): An early morning operation targeting a foreigner accused of trafficking underage girls in Peru, 64-year-old Joshua David Brown, an American --

[04:45:00]

ROMO (voice-over): -- from New Hampshire, was still in bed at his Lima home when officers stormed his bedroom.

Peruvian and U.S. authorities say Brown facilitated sex tourism and exploitation of children. The raid was the result of a joint Peruvian and American operation. UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): The American police informed us that the American citizens were traveling to Peru, seeking to have sex with underaged boys and girls. That's what prompted our investigation.

ROMO (voice-over): Police targeted Brown's home as well as eight other houses where five additional suspects, all Peruvian nationals, were detained and now face charges of human trafficking, pimping and pandering.

Authorities rescued 36 victims, including 11 minors. None of the victims were found at Brown's residence.

ROMO: One of the girls rescued was only 4 years old, a victim police say was being offered online for $7,000. Police executed nine search warrants in total, which yielded large amounts of child pornography.

Officers with the Peruvian national police also seized one gun and an unspecified amount of drugs.

ROMO (voice-over): The drugs were found at different locations. Authorities say Brown legally commercialized sex merchandise in Peru and had been living in the South American country for 14 years. He was under surveillance for the last four months. Brown says he's innocent.

JOSHUA DAVID BROWN, SEX TRAFFICKER (through translator): I know exactly what's happening. A person whom I trusted has been trying for weeks to get me in trouble. But I have nothing to do with this.

ROMO (voice-over): CNN has been unable to reach Brown's attorney in Peru. Police say Brown told them he's not a trafficker, although sometimes acted as matchmaker for friends visiting from the United States.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Brown insists that he was not making money doing this. He says that he has some American friends who will visit. He will introduce them to some Peruvian friends.

Peruvian girls, little friends, and that in more than one occasion, his American friends, who were in a better financial situation, will have a romantic relationship with those little friends and will marry them and go live with them in the United States.

ROMO (voice-over): The rescued minors are now in the custody of authorities.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): They were very scared at first about what was happening. Some of them knew and others didn't know what was happening because they didn't know why they were there. They were told they were invited to a party. That's what they were told.

ROMO (voice-over): The crime of human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation carries a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison in Peru. Brown may also face charges in the United States under the PROTECT Act, a law that seeks to protect children from sexual predators -- Rafael Romo, CNN.

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SOARES: To find out more about how people around the world are making a difference in the fight against modern day slavery and learn, of course, what you can do to help, go to the CNN Freedom Project home page at cnn.com/freedom. We'll have much more CNN NEWSROOM after this short break.

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SOARES: Now the new "Star Wars" film, "The Force Awakens," has its world premiere on Monday and, as you can imagine, millions of fans can hardly wait. Our Isha Sesay talked with one of the film's stars, Lupita Nyong'o.

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ISHA SESAY, CNN HOST: What on Earth is it like to be joining the "Star Wars" mega franchise?

LUPITA NYONG'O, ACTOR: It is a trip --

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NYONG'O: -- to a galaxy far, far away.

It is a trip. It's kind of crazy and beautiful and fun and exhilarating to be a part of this franchise.

SESAY: Tell me about the character you play, Maz.

NYONG'O: Yes. Maz Kanata, she is a pirate and she runs a bar. And she's been around for a while.

SESAY: Tell me about playing her and the actual experience of playing the character, the technology and just what that experience was like for you as an actress.

NYONG'O: Yes, I had wanted do it because it was a unique acting experience, I thought, that not many actors get to have, where you are not restricted by your own physical circumstances. The opportunity to play something completely different than yourself, than how you experience the world physically.

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NYONG'O: I was very lucky to be a part of principal photography, though. So I was actually on the real set.

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SESAY: -- ask you that.

Did you actually get the opportunity to engage with the other actors?

NYONG'O: I did.

SESAY: Or were you just on a green screen?

NYONG'O: No, no, no. I was a part of principal photography, which was really, really a blessing because I got to be part of the galaxy far, far away.

I remember being on set and looking around at the set and just feeling like I was on another planet because there was so much artistic detail to everything, even to the way things felt was specific to that world.

It's been an interesting journey, very different from what I did right before, which was "12 Years a Slave."

For me, why I wanted to be a part of this is because it was a complete departure from Patsy in "12 Years a Slave." That role was so much about my body and here is a role that is completely not.

And I like that departure. It offered me a new challenge, something to really sink my teeth into and learn about a totally different thing that is motion capture.

SESAY: Another thing that J.J. is getting a lot of praise for, if you will, is the fact that it is such a diverse cast and there are so many strides being taken in this film.

NYONG'O: That is a reflection of who J.J. is and what he's interested in. He's interested in the spectacle of the truth and that's what it is.

The world we live in is that colorful. It is that diverse. And J.J. very organically -- it's not effort for J.J. It's just --

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NYONG'O: -- the way things are. And to have that kind of matter-of- fact casting culture is great. It's beautiful. It's what we need.

So true to what George Lucas created, you know, and it's a seamless continuation of that story.

And it embraces the old and the new and integrates new technology and new cultural ideas, you know, or more accepted cultural ideas.

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SOARES: That was Isha Sesay, talking Lupita Nyong'o. As you may remember -- you saw a clip there last year -- last year Nyong'o won an Oscar for her role in "12 Years a Slave."

Now a personal flying machine, that is what students at the National University of Singapore are working on.

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SOARES (voice-over): Take a look at this. It's called Snowstorm. This is a prototype. The person flying it can control it or it can be steered remotely. It uses solar power and right now it can fly for only about five minutes. The students say they are trying to make it go longer.

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SOARES: Now today would have been the 100th birthday of this man who did it really his own way, Frank Sinatra. I'm a big fan of his. Around the world the singer and Oscar-winning actor is being toasted with Rat Pack parties, radio and TV retrospectives and movie marathons. The Chairman of the Board died in 1988 at 82.

From all of us here, happy birthday, Old Blue Eyes.

And that does it for us for this hour. Thank you very much for joining us. I'm Isa Soares and back with another hour of CNN NEWSROOM right around the world. Do stay right here.