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NATO Condemns Syria; Mexicans Pick New President Sunday; Bombs Kill at Least 10 in Iraq; Russian President Vladimir Putin Meets with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu

Aired June 26, 2012 - 12:00   ET

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

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to NEWSROOM INTERNATIONAL. I'm Suzanne Malveaux. We're taking you around the world in 60 minutes.

Here's what's going on now.

A landslide in Uganda has killed 18 people and rescuers fear the death toll will rise. Heavy rain sent mud crashing down on villages, pretty much burying everything in its path. Landslides have been a problem in eastern Uganda because of heavy logging that has left the land stripped of trees and vegetation.

Hundreds of people lined the streets of Northern Ireland town to get a glimpse of royalty. Queen Elizabeth, she's on a two-day tour celebrating her diamond jubilee. She began it by visiting Enniskillen. It is a town, once the scene of a devastating IRA bomb attack that killed 11 people back in 1987.

For decades, Irish nationalists fought a bitter war against British rule but public outrage over the attack spurred IRA chiefs to start signing peace accords with Great Britain. Tomorrow, the queen, she's going to meet and shake the hand of former IRA commander, Martin McGuinness.

Tough talk, no action coming from NATO today. The alliance is not considering military retaliation against Syria for shooting down a Turkish fighter jet. It just happened last week. Both sides say the jet strayed into Syrian airspace, crashed into the Mediterranean and its two pilots are still missing.

Turkey insists the warplane accidentally crossed into Syrian airspace and quickly corrected.

Ivan Watson is joining us live from Istanbul.

And, Ivan, first of all, Turkey says it's going to street any future approach from Syria's military as a threat. How serious do you take it?

IVAN WATSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's -- well, they've announced they're changing the rules of engagement, and Turkey shares a very long border with Syria. And that has been a turbulent border over the course of the Syrian uprising over the past year and a half, with battles erupting between Syrian rebels and Syrian security forces there.

The Turkish prime minister alleged that on five occasions, just this year, Syrian helicopters crossed into Turkish airspace. Turkish officials tell me in the past, the Turks have not escalated in the cases of those violations.

But Syria has defended its decision to shoot down a Turkish military plane, saying that it was self-defense after the plane crossed into its airspace. Now, the Turks may make the same ruling if a Syrian helicopter happens to stray into Turkish airspace or any other similar situation.

MALVEAUX: So, Ivan, are these two countries closer to a confrontation today than they were yesterday?

WATSON: I -- I think it's fair to say. I mean, the Turks have not invoked Article 5 of the NATO charter. They invoked Article 4, which allowed them to summon an emergency meeting of all the NATO alliance partners in Brussels today where they made a show of solidarity against Syria.

The Turks have made clear -- they did not invoke Article 5 which says an attack on one member is an attack on all, because they don't want to go to war. I think what they want to do is to show a muscular response, show Syria, if you do this again, expect something to happen. We just won't say what -- Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: All right. Ivan Watson, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Immigration isn't the only big story this week for many Mexican- Americans. They're also watching an important vote in Mexico, where that country is going to pick a new president.

Miguel Marquez, he's explaining why Mexico's oldest political party is now experiencing a resurgence.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Enrique Pena Nieto, the youthful 45-year-old presidential candidate of Mexico's oldest political party, the PRI.

(on camera): This is life on the campaign trail for the front- runner Enrique Pena Nieto. We are in the state of Pueblo. He has a crowd here of about 10,000 people. He is now glad handing here, trying to shake every hand he can before election day.

(voice-over): Pena Nieto, who worked in local and state government and party politics his entire life is promising some privation of Pemex, the massive government oil monopoly, ands to reduce violence nationwide, rather than focus solely on capturing drug cartel leaders.

"Our proposals will stabilize Mexico with respect to the rule of law and institution," he says. "With us Mexicans, will have better options."

Not everyone here is convinced.

At a recent campaign event, his convoy was pelted with rocks by students who feel Pena Nieto has been given a free pass by the media.

The presidential hopeful under fire for his close ties with the ultra powerful broadcasters Televista and Azteca, which together control over 90 percent of the market here.

"We're a political party that's changed because Mexico has changed," he says. "We're prepared for the election and will be judged by our results."

In 2006, as governor in the state of Mexico, he was criticized by the heavy-handed approach taken by state security forces to clear protesters from a public street. Two people died, hundreds arrested. Pena Nieto has defended the operation.

Amnesty International accused police of unlawful killings, sexual assault, and torture.

During this bruising election, he admitted fathering two kids out of wedlock, while married to his first wife, Monica Pretelini, who died in 2007 after suffering a seizure. In 2010, Angelica Rivera, best now for her role as the domineering tequila maker in the telenovela, "Destillando Amor," "Distilling Love."

FRANCISCO ABUNDIS, POLITICAL POLLSTER: In Mexico, we don't mix public life with private life which is something quite different to the U.S.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): "He has great proposals for Mexico," she says. "With Pena Nieto, the country will change for the better.

Pena Nieto promising responsive government, more democracy and less corruption, a massive to-do list. All he needs now, a mandate to govern.

Miguel Marquez, CNN, Mexico City.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: Miguel is joining us now.

First of all, looking at the popularity of the candidate, about PRI, what does it say about Mexico and how Mexico has changed?

MARQUEZ: It's changing enormously. What Mexicans want out of this election, no matter who wins the election, is to move from a developing country to a country that's completely part of the world and is now an emerging economy in this market and in this world.

The country is growing very fast. The middle class is expanding slowly. The economy is changing. Those grand institutions, those oligarchies in Mexico, are changing slowly.

And young people are getting more educated more than ever. They want to be part of the world. They want more technology. They want a better economy. They want more opportunity for everybody.

So that's what they're looking at in Mexico and that's what the election is all about.

MALVEAUX: And, Miguel, you've actually done a great job at reporting and CNN has been reporting about the young people and their role in this election. How has it changed?

MARQUEZ: It has changed enormously. You know, the young people there are more educated than ever. They are more active than ever.

There has been an ongoing movement throughout this election against what they see as sort of large institutions -- whether it's media, whether it's telecommunications, whether it's politics. And young people there now want change at a level they haven't seen before.

What that student movement is doing now is expanding, and trying to become a movement past the election so that in an Occupy-style protest they can keep the government's feet to the fire and keep change happening there. It is something that Mexico really hasn't experienced before. And it's like a new chapter of democracy opening. It's pretty amazing.

MALVEAUX: Miguel, also one of the things we talk a lot about, cartel wars in Mexico. Could a new president actually de-emphasize going after these drug cartels?

MARQUEZ: That has been a lot of talk -- although they aren't talking specifically about that. What all the candidates are talking about is focusing on the violence that everyday Mexicans are experiencing on the streets.

What they want to do is at some point get the military out of the policing game. Build a state or federal police force that will allow them to be more professional, better educated, better paid, less corruptible. And then replace those military units with a police force that isn't just reactive, but can both take it to the cartels and also ensure that people in the streets aren't experiencing --

MALVEAUX: All right.

MARQUEZ: -- the sort of violence and petty crime they've had in recent years.

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

Here's more of what we're working on for this hour. NEWSROOM INTERNATIONAL artist at war with their government in Brazil. Weapon of choice: spray paint.

And imagine horseback riding, soccer games, all set in a beautiful European island, right? Sound like a vacation? It is actually prison for some Norwegians. We're talking about guys doing time for crimes as serious as murder. So how might a system like that actually deal with this mass killer?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: A bomb hidden inside a bus carrying young soccer players explodes in Iraq. The attack killed at least six people, most of them from the soccer team.

The bombing was one of two separate attacks within the latest 24 hours, left 10 people dead. It helped make June the deadliest month in Iraq since U.S. troops left in December. And the other attack, a roadside bomb exploded near an outdoor market in Baquba.

Now, Michael Holmes is joining us to talk about the violence, the political tensions inside of Iraq.

What does this say first of all about the security forces and their ability here to make sure this does not devolve into some sort of sectarian war?

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR & CORRESPONDENT: Which is a big fear, of course. It says bad things about their ability to handle this. We've seen this happen every month this year. We've seen these sorts of attacks -- Sunni extremists wanting to cause instability in Iraq.

What -- where they're lacking in terms of security forces is any source of real success when it comes to intelligence, counterterrorism. This is where the failures seem to be. They've got the guns. We've trained them in how to be on the battlefield.

They're missing our intelligence and counterterrorism.

MALVEAUX: Do they have any intelligence?

HOLMES: Oh, yes.

MALVEAUX: They have anybody who's actually trying to help them out here figuring out how to sort all this out?

HOLMES: Well, this is something I think would be -- I don't know if Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, would do this, but I wouldn't be surprised if at some point they come to the U.S. and say, can we have help back you were giving us before you left last December and help beef up their ability to stop these attacks before they even get started.

MALVEAUX: In covering President Bush, one thing that was so frustrating was dealing with Nouri al-Maliki. I mean, they really did not think he was a very effective leader in Iraq and they pushed and pushed and pushed.

What has he become now?

HOLMES: Well, you know, the problem with him, he's very problematic when it comes to democratic reform. That's putting it nicely.

One of the central planks of what we left behind was a system where they'd be power-sharing - power-sharing between the majority Shia, the Sunni, the Kurds, the others, the Turkmen s well.

And quite frankly, that just hasn't happened. In fact, the opposite has happened. Nouri al-Maliki has been accused of centralizing power, consolidating his own position. In fact, you know, putting criminal charges against politicians from the Sunni bloc, that sort of thing.

And people on the ground there are saying, what we have now is an authoritarian figure, it's looking like Saddam lite.

MALVEAUX: Saddam lite. Is that an overstatement? Saddam lite there?

HOLMES: Well, Saddam lite. He's not Saddam, but Saddam lite.

In terms of the consolidation of power, where this is meant to be an open sort of democracy, and there's views now that it's not that anymore. It is Nouri al-Maliki's government. And there's all sorts of political problems associated with that.

Nothing's getting done. It's an inept parliament. They apparently can't pass a law of any meaningful import. And even rule a law is hard to get traction in Iraq.

What the real problem here is the people who elected this democratic government, the ones who had the faith in what we created there, and went out and voted, if they lose faith in their government, the violence continues. The security forces can't help them out. The wedge goes in between the people and the government and they lose faith in what is really a nascent democracy. This is a baby democracy here.

MALVEAUX: And, of course, as President Bush and President Obama would say, would argue, you know what, democracy takes time. It's an ugly, messy business. It's going to take a lot more time before they sort that out.

HOLMES: Yes, worrying, though, it's just incremental. You know, every month is more and more dead people. Just don't want this to explode as something more sectarian in nature.

The key to that is the Shia militias haven't yet responded in the way we saw happen in '06, '07. That's (INAUDIBLE) in power, they don't feel they have to do that. With that to tip over into retaliation, the tit for tat, game on.

MALVEAUX: Game on. Obviously, the Obama administration does not want to send back U.S. troops to try to sort it out.

HOLMES: Oh, no. But some advice --

MALVEAUX: Yes?

HOLMES: Maybe.

MALVEAUX: OK. Thank you, Michael. Good to see you.

HOLMES: Good to see you.

MALVEAUX: She used to run the country. Now she's on trial for crimes the West says she did not commit. The case of Ukraine's ex- prime minister.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Tens of thousands of people have been forced from their homes in southern China because of torrential rains. In Gansu province alone, authorities say 1,700 homes have been destroyed. China says the flooding has already cost $150 million.

Some, they're comparing her to Sarah Palin, an attractive woman with a strong political following and powerful voice against the president. Yulia Tymoshenko, former prime minister of Ukraine. Now, she is serving prison term for abuse in office and now she's being tried again, this time for alleged tax evasion.

The trial and her conviction have caused outrage among many European nations.

Hala Gorani is here to explain a little bit more against her.

She's a very popular figure -- can you explain why? What is her appeal?

HALA GORANI, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR & CORRESPONDENT: Well, her appeal is that she's very charismatic. She was one of the heroes of the 2005 so-called Orange Revolution in the Ukraine.

But you mentioned how European countries are outraged at some of the legal cases that have been mounted against her. In fact, as some of out viewers may know, some soccer fans, Euro 2012 is going on right now. And some European officials have said it's being hosted by Ukraine and Poland, have said, you know, the case against this woman, Yulia Tymoshenko is outrageous enough we're not going to go to the games that are hosted in the Ukraine, we're boycotting the games.

MALVEAUX: That's pretty serious, though, because people over there are crazy about that game.

GORANI: Believe me. As am I. I watch all the games.

But here's the thing -- it is politically, as far as critics are concerned, motivated, these cases against her. Because she has in the president of the Ukraine, which is an ex-Soviet republic, Viktor Yanukovych, a huge rival and a political foe and people are saying that these cases against her, one of them is related to a gas deal with Russia in 2009, another is charges of tax evasion in the 1990s -- that they are politically motivated and this, some are calling it, selective justice.

MALVEAUX: Do people think she's going to get a fair trial or essentially think she's going to be thrown under the bus?

GORANI: Her lawyer doesn't. She certainly doesn't. She is now in a hospital.

She's not attending her own trial because she's suffering, according to her lawyer, from debilitating back pain. She doesn't even trust the doctors in the Ukraine. So, a team of German doctors has actually looked at her condition and said she's not fit to stand trial.

Those two cases have been postponed until after the Euro 2012 Games because this could be an embarrassing coincidental, two cases that happen at the same time as the Euro 2012. So, we'll see after all this is done what happened.

But, certainly, people are saying she probably -- those with the critics of the current government -- will not be able to get a fair trial.

MALVEAUX: Do you think she'll get any help from Western nations, from the United States, or anybody else who will come to her aid and say, we don't think this is right?

GORANI: No amount of pressure so far, including the renegotiation of certain deals between the European Union or the Ukraine, or shelving of some of the agreements has put pressure on the current government of Ukraine. So, so far, that has not worked.

MALVEAUX: All right. But she's getting a lot of publicity, a lot of press.

GORANI: Yes, she's -- you know, you see her -- I mean, part of it is also her physical appearance. This is someone you notice, physically.

MALVEAUX: She looks like a model.

GORANI: Blond, the trademark braid that she wears over her head, that kind of thing.

MALVEAUX: We were talking about that braid, too. It's caused a lot of conversation. People are like, how does she wear that braid?

GORANI: Not quite sure. Definitely part of what makes her memorable is her appearance, to be fair. I'm not sure she would be getting as much attention if she were, say, an older graying man.

But it is a very serious political problem for her. She's 51. She's in jail, sentenced to seven years, trying to appeal these cases. This is a woman who was named by "Forbes" as one of the most successful women in the world, certainly very, very rich. And who served as prime minister of the Ukraine. And now a dramatic fall from grace for her.

MALVEAUX: We're going to follow this obviously and see how it goes. Thank you very much, Hala.

GORANI: Thank you.

MALVEAUX: Just because she's married to the prince doesn't mean she's tops at Buckingham Palace. We're going to tell you where Kate Middleton falls in the royal pecking order.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: All right. We've all kind of struggled with etiquette a bit. We're of course, not alone. But imagine this, right? Being the duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton. Queen Elizabeth issued what is an equivalent of a royal ranking guide.

Kate, she's gotten a bit of a demotion here. Here's an example. Let's say Kate, she's alone, without Prince William, and she meets up with Prince Andrew's daughters. That's them. The Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.

Prince Andrew, as Queen Elizabeth's son, making the girls blood princesses. Well, Kate, she'd have to curtsey to them.

But let's say if Prince William is with her, the roles are reversed. Kate resumes her rank and the princesses, they've got to curtsey to her.

Richard Quest, he joins us in London to explain all this to us.

Because, you know, we're not in habit of curtseying, but, you know, this sounds like a little bit of family drama to me, Richard. What does this mean to her?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: It is. It is. Well, let's put it in terms you'll understand.

MALVEAUX: Please.

QUEST: When great Auntie Bessie comes for Sunday lunch and Uncle Tommy's there and cousin Martha and Little Johnny, who sits where and who carves the turkey and who does what?

This is just -- that's on a much grander scale. The reason you have these so-called rules of precedence or laws of precedence is so that everybody knows where they stand in the pecking order. Nobody's left wondering, hang on, who's that? Oh, no, it's -- everybody knows.

Unfortunately, noses get put out of joint because now we know that Kate Middleton, who will one day be queen, has to curtsey when she's on her own to the blood princesses. But if she's got her hubby next to her, that's a different kettle of fish.

Now, this -- the rules were last changed in 2005 when Camilla joined the family firm. And Camilla had to bow. And it was the principle of the blood that the queen introduced back in 2005.

MALVEAUX: So, now, that all this has changed here, is it fair to say this is a demotion? Is that right?

QUEST: No.

MALVEAUX: No?

QUEST: Well, no, not really. No, you see, because it's not really because she's merely been put in the position that the queen says the princesses of the blood come first. Eventually, of course, Kate will be queen and, therefore, will ride over the other laws.

And also, when Charles is king, she goes up a notch. So it's not really -- the only thing I think you really need to know is that whenever your eye meets any of them, we're always at the bottom of the heap.

MALVEAUX: That's for sure. I make no mistake.

QUEST: Here's another thing. Here's another thing. Here's another thing. You just started me now. You're not going to stop me this side of lunchtime.

And when you go to the White House, for example, there's very strict protocol, who comes into the room first, the president, the first lady. And then you start working down through the secretary of state, the speaker of the House, all the -- the chief justice of the Supreme Court.

Protocol is there for a reason. It's so that everybody knows what to do correctly. Now, you and I, if I meet the queen, she doesn't care whether I bow, curtsey, or fall over. However, when they are amongst themselves, these are the little rules that make their lives tick along really well.

MALVEAUX: I'll give you an example here on this side. When you're traveling on Air Force One and guess where the press is, all the way in the back of the plane. That's right, near the restrooms. So we know our pecking order there.

And, Richard, we were curtseying our bosses earlier today. So we think that -- we might be warming them up a little bit.

QUEST: No, that's just called crawling for a pay raise.

MALVEAUX: Whatever you call it. You know, we're shameless here.

Richard, thank you. Very interesting story.

One of his first trips as the newly elected Russian president is the Holy Land. We're going to tell you what Vladimir Putin wants from Israel.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: To the Middle East now. Russian President Vladimir Putin shoulder to shoulder with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Putin voiced support for Palestinian statehood, praised Abbas for what he called a responsible position in negotiations with Israel. Elise Labott, she is in Jerusalem and she is joining us to talk a little about the Israeli/Palestinian negotiations. Elise, we both know they've been frozen now for four years. What does Putin expect?

ELISE LABOTT, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS REPORTER: Well, Suzanne, he expects to have a bigger role. He thinks if Russia could play more of a diplomatic role in these negotiations maybe they would go somewhere. So what he's pushing is a conference, he's brought up this idea before, a conference in Moscow to jump-start the negotiations. Obviously President Abbas was saying that he's all for the idea. Prime Minister Netanyahu yesterday when he met with him wasn't, you know, all that thrilled with the idea. He was pushing more issues about Syria and Iran, but both recognize that perhaps Russia could play a bigger role in this process. You know, the U.S. has been that honest broker for so many years. Not so much success. So Russia thinks exercising a little Russian muscle there.

MALVEAUX: What do we think about how those talks went regarding Syria and Iran? Is there a sense that Russian policy is really going to be become more robust in the region, that is really is going to play a much greater role?

LABOTT: Well certainly that's what Prime Minister Netanyahu is hoping. If you look at the Middle East right now, two of the biggest countries that Israel's having problems with, Iran and Syria, Russia is the one that has all the influence, of course, they're supporting Iranian regime through these negotiations. And also supplying weapons to the Syrians. So what Prime Minister Netanyahu is asking him, listen, put pressure on Bashar Al Assad to get this political process going and step down and also trying to get Iran to accept this international deal from the west to give up their highly enriched uranium and also close their nuclear facility. President Putin said it was noncommittal. He obviously talked about more cooperation. Russia having a bigger role. But basically didn't say much about what he was prepared to.

MALVEAUX: All right. Elise Labott breaking it down for us. Appreciate it.

He's a young journalist from Afghanistan and he is dodging bullets to bring the horrors of the fighting to light and doing it using twitter.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

Want to dip into Mitt Romney, he's campaigning in Virginia. He is specifically talking about health care reform, obama care, of course, what is going to be a ruling in the supreme court that is going to take place on Thursday. I want to listen in a little bit.

(BEGIN LIVE FEED)

MITT ROMNEY, R-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He couldn't turn around the economy, within three years he'd be a one-term president. And so he gave a speech the other day trying to convince people that he had turned the economy around. He said the private sector is doing just fine. And your voice, just like the voice of 23 million people around the country who shouted out and said, we're not so happy, this private sector is not doing so fine. When people who were promised that if they let the government borrow $787 billion that unemployment would stay below 8 percent, they screamed out, no, unemployment has never been below 8 percent since. They saw an economy that grew at less than 2 percent in the first quarter of the year. People in this country recognize the economy is not doing just fine, so the president had to change his tune. Now he says, no, look, my programs are working fine. They just take a long time to be effective, so give me four more years. We're not going to let him turn a one-term proposition into an eight-year proposition. Let me ask you, do you think obama-care is working just fine to get Americans back to work? Do you think that shutting down that keystone pipeline from Canada is helping the American people? Do you think that raising taxes on small businesses like this are going to put American people back to work? And what do you think about that avalanche of new regulations? Is that helping Americans get good jobs? No, look, this president's out of ideas, and he's out of excuses, and in November we're going to vote him out of office. Now, one thing -- one thing he said in that speech of his, he said that every American deserves a fair shot. And I agree with him. Every American should know that if they work hard and get an education and have the right kind of values, they have a fair shot for a bright future and be able to provide for their families a fair shot to realize their dreams. But then I stopped and I looked at this president's record. Let me ask you some questions about these things. Do you think when we passed trillions of dollars of our debts on to the next generation that this president is giving the next generation a fair shot? Do you think that when 50 percent of the kids who graduate from college this year can't find jobs, jobs commensurate with their skills, that's giving our college kids a fair shot? Do you think that when the president puts the interests of the teachers unions ahead of the interest of the teachers and the kids that gives them a fair shot? Do you think that when he takes tax dollars from you and then uses it to give guarantees and investments into some of the businesses of his contributors, does that give the American people a fair shot? How about when he closes down coal mines and says no to developing our oil resources and gas resources. Does that get the people who work in those industries and other industries that are energy dependent, does that give them a fair shot? Let me tell you, if there's ever been a president of the United States that has not given a fair shot to the middle income families of America, it is President Obama and that's why he is going to be replaced in November.

(END LIVE FEED)

MALVEAUX: You're listening to Mitt Romney out of Salem, Virginia, at a campaign spot. Next hour we're going to catch up with president obama as well on the campaign trail in Atlanta. We're going to take it live. His speech set to begin at 1:25, eastern.

Now I want to go to Kabul, Afghanistan where on Friday insurgents armed with guns, rocket propelled grenades, explosives, rushed a hotel. They opened fire on guests who were eating there killing 19 people, holding hostage others. During an 11-hour siege. While this went on, three journalists rushed to the scene, sending out a stream of harrowing tweets as the insurgents fought Afghan and NATO troops. One of those journalists is a 26-year-old Afghan born, his name is Mustafa Kazemi. He sent powerful short messages describing the action. These are his tweets, he says people pray for us, heavy gunfire all around, several bullets cross over head, hundreds of shots flying toward us. Mustafa, he's joining us now. Mustafa, I think it's kind of hard for people to understand who are not journalists -- when I was in Afghanistan the U.S. embassy was attacked. You go running to the streets, go running to the gunfire. It's your job. So when you went running to that hotel, to that dining area, what were you thinking?

MUSTAFA KAZEMI, JOURNALIST: I had an idea of what it was going to be like on the ground especially close to the scene because this was not the first time I would attend and cover a combat, a live combat coverage. I could understand there will be a lot of casualties and I could -- because there's no standard during the night to protect the life of the hostages. I was expecting there will be a bloody combat during the day when the security forces attack the insurgents and started releasing the hostages.

MALVEAUX: Sometimes you think about the fear and you think about what could happen afterwards. Were you thinking at all? Were you afraid, were you fearing for your life as you were reporting as it was happening this gunfire?

KAZEMI: There's no time to think you might survive or not. You have to just concentrate on the work, provide the coverage as well as look for your safety. There's two minute or one minute of time when you move out of the home and head straight toward the area of the attack when you think you may not come back alive. It is not a new feeling to me, because throughout several past years when I went to a combat coverage, I did think before leaving home that I may not come back alive. I come back home alive. You will think that you may not survive seeing the situation down on the ground.

MALVEAUX: How did you do this, Mustafa? How were you actually live tweeting as this attack was going on?

KAZEMI: I went there to provide coverage on twitter as well as to -- because I'm an independent journalist, media does not have journalists in Afghanistan. I had my telephone, my iphone. I unfortunately ran out of battery and I could tweet as well as tweet the televisions or any paper or media outlet that would call a get for updates.

MALVEAUX: Were you actually --

KAZEMI: My nokia telephone through texts.

MALVEAUX: Were you actually behind anything? were you able to take cover as you were tweeting out what you were seeing and experiencing?

KAZEMI: The cover was not really strong. We could not rely on that. It was 40 centimeters tall stone wall and we were trying to stick to the ground as far as possible because there were dozens of stray bullets. You could not see who was hitting who and the bullets without any direction or any target, bullets were flying all around. Stick to one place, find out if it's safe, stay there. If not, if you see bullets coming toward you, change your position. Go to somewhere safer. But for us, it was the safest place. Although it was not every safe we had a lot of bullets landed close to us, machine gun bullets as well as assault rifle bullets, but it was for us the safest place we could cover as well as have an eye on the combat scene on the hotel that was going on.

MALVEAUX: I'm sure you were probably not checking if anybody was reading your tweets at the time or responding to you. Afterwards, did you see if people were actually responding to you as this was happening, as you were under attack? were people tweeting back?

KAZEMI: People did actually. They appreciated the coverage as well as it was very useful for them. Previously my audience, my followers were not as big in terms of number as this time. And people were happy they were having solid information from the ground because if they would have waited for a wire or tv, it would have taken them a while. They did tweet back to me. They were happy. They thanked me.

MALVEAUX: You're a young guy, and I imagine your parents are kind of worried about you when they see this kind of thing happening live. I don't know if they tweet or not, but I certainly called my parents when I was in the middle of all of that mess there. Did you talk to them? Are they concerned? telling you, come home, what are you doing?

KAZEMI: My family is living in another part of the country. I'm living alone here in Kabul. But they usually, when they get to know about an attack from tv, they have a sense of me going to the attack, so the first thing they do is they call me up on telephone saying, do not go to the attack scene, just stay at home and do the coverage. I tell them, I'm not going, I'll be here only. I switch off my home telephone and go straight to the attack scene. I can't risk staying at home and miss all the updates and the news. So I do go there. They get to know -- they will not like me for that, but this is my commitment, this is my job. I have to do this.

MALVEAUX: You certainly are committed. yes. Sometimes you ignore the parents, you to your job, do what you have to do. Mustafa, we appreciate you. We appreciate your bravery in bringing that story to us through live tweeting. Thanks again, Mustafa.

KAZEMI: Thank you.

MALVEAUX: Riding horses on a European island, to us, of course, sounds like a dream vacation. To these norwegian criminals, it's prison.

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MALVEAUX: This could be a twitter first. United Arab emirates is deciding on a new logo to promote their country. The Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid took to twitter to encourage citizens to choose the best design. So he tweeted, the UAE nation brand logo will promote for the UAE and tell its story to the world. I want all of you to choose the design you think is best. Pretty cool.

In august, a court in Norway is going to issue its verdict in the trial of Anders Breivik. You might remember Breivik admitted killing dozens of people last year. He bombed government buildings in Oslo before shooting young labor party supporters at a camp on an island. Breivik has said he considers the killings a service and a message of impending danger to the community. If convicted he could face a long time in prison. But as Diana (inaudible) show us, some of Norway's prisons actually drastically different from the prisons here in the United States.

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DIANA MAGNAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There are no walls, no wire, no handcuffs here on Bastoy Prison Island. Just the water all around. But few try to escape.

MAGNAY (on camera): There are 115 inmates on the island and competition for spaces is fierce. You have to apply, you have to show motivation. And it doesn't really matter if you're convicted for a minor crime or if you're a murderer.

MAGNAY (voice-over): This man, who does not want to be identified, is here for drug-related offenses. He's taking courses in computing to prepare himself for life outside.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE). You will be locked up many times and there maybe -- you have only one hour to go outside, you know, for something like fresh air, something like that. You go to work, you come back (INAUDIBLE). You go ask for fresh air for one hour, then you come in -- come back. Maybe you have some food, something (INAUDIBLE). They lock you around 8:00. But here nobody locks you.

MAGNAY: Tom Cristensen spends his day tinkering with machines. His only fixed appointments, the roll call four times a day.

TOM CRISTENSEN, BASTOY PRISON INMATE: You can fix your own food. You can buy it in the store here. And you almost live here as you do outside.

MAGNAY: But prison officers say some inmates do have trouble taking ownership of their lives, after years in strict jail regimes elsewhere in Norway.

JOHN FROYLAND, TEAM LEADER BASTOY PRISON: Some people come here and they can't take it. You know, it's too much freedom. It's overwhelming. They want to go back to the high security prison.

MAGNAY: Inmates here know they're lucky. This is as good as prison gets. Probably the world over. Though even Norway's high security prisons treat their inmates with the same basic respect.

MARIANNE VALLON, HEAD OF PRISON ADMINISTRATION FOR NORWAY: We aim at gradually progression towards freedom. And we believe the only thing that prisons are deprived of is their liberty. So the everyday life in prison should be as much like everyday life outside prison because we believe that gives society the best security.

MAGNAY: And it seems to work. Just 20 percent of prisoners in Norway reoffend once they're out. Well below those in the U.K. or U.S., where more than half of all prisoners are back behind bars within a couple of years of their release.

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MALVEAUX: Diana Magnay, she's joining us from Berlin.

This is such a fascinating report, Diana. I mean, really, that one thing that he said, one of those prisoners, he said, it's too much freedom. Sometimes too much freedom. A lot of these folks go back to the high security prisons. That really is amazing. That says a lot about what they're doing there.

MAGNAY: Yes, Suzanne, it is a strange concept because really they're saying you have to take control and responsibility of your own life. And people are often very scared of doing that, especially once they've spent decades, perhaps, inside a high-security prison. You know that really is too much responsibility for them. But the penal system there says -- the prison authorities say, you know, this is the best way to reintegrate them back into society because they're taking responsibility for themselves, then they can walk back into real life and do the same thing there.

MALVEAUX: And so what about a guy like Breivik, right. I mean here, mass murder. Is he -- would he be going to a facility like that, with that kind of freedom and space and chance to do what he wants to do?

MAGNAY: No, you can be -- you can be pretty sure he's not going to end up there. I mean, first of all, because the other inmates -- he would be at serious danger from them. You know, he's a reviled figure across the whole of Norway. And, secondly, because you can imagine there would be a huge sort of revolt amongst the population if he ended up on this very unique place.

But we do know quite a bit about where he will end up. And, Suzanne, it is actually in comparison to the American system still fairly luxurious. He's in isolation. And if he's convicted and remain -- he will remain in isolation in this cell.

MALVEAUX: OK.

MAGNAY: But it's actually 8 meters squared. It's quite big.

MALVEAUX: OK.

MAGNAY: He can use TV, radio. He doesn't have an Internet.

MALVEAUX: All right.

MAGNAY: He has his own separate office. He has a gym, because he's not allowed to go and sort of work with the others. So he's got a lot of good things going for him.

MALVEAUX: All right. All right. We've got to leave it there. Diana, thank you so much. Fascinating story.

Young Brazilians, they're angry. They're taking their anger out on the country's walls.

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MALVEAUX: All right, some folks think graffiti is crude vandalism. Others, an art form. But gangs in Brazil, they are using spray cans for another reason, to wage a political war. Shasta Darlington, she's got the story.

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SHASTA DARLINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Armed with black paint, they scrawl their signature on a wall in the middle of the night. The more daring scale buildings. "Help me up," says one man. "I don't think I can go any higher."

These are Sao Paulo pichadores, or taggers. Marginalized youth who compete to leave their mark on a city they feel has turned its back on them. One of the city's more outspoken pichadores and gang leaders, Cripta Djan, calls it class warfare. "Our society is very capitalist. You're only worth what you own," he says. With picha (INAUDIBLE), you can invert the values. You don't have to have money to be recognized, you just need paint to write your name all over the city."

Pichadores live in poor suburbs but their preferred target is seedy downtown Sau Paulo. In wealthy neighborhoods, they say, their signatures would disappear in a day.

DARLINGTON (on camera): It's Thursday night in downtown Sau Paulo and, as you can see, there are a lot of people here. This is usually an abandoned part of the city. It's really run down. But on Thursday nights, you can get 200, 300, 400 people right here. And that's because this is where the pichadore artists come together. They have drinks and smokes and they talk about their plans for the week. And it's pretty interesting because these are rival gangs, but they can do this because they no longer take it out in the streets. Instead, the competition is up on the wall.

DARLINGTON (voice-over): They spray the names of their gangs on walls and compose rap songs. This one is about Brazil's culture of consumption. Picha (INAUDIBLE) emerged in the 1980s in Sao Paulo. A sprawling city of 20 million people where the division between rich and poor is vast. They're mostly young men, but these women formed an all female gang. "It's adrenaline art, freedom of expression," she says. "You have an idea and you want to rebel."

Just don't call it graffiti. Pichadores say they don't want to be confined as street artists. Part of the thrill is breaking the law. "Picha (INAUDIBLE) doesn't respect anything, public or private," he says, which means they don't have many fans.

"Those guys are vandals," says this downtown office worker. "We should have harsher laws and better education," says another.

We recently followed a group of pichadores on the prowl. After 40 minutes of walking, they find what they want -- a well-lit underpass where their work will get a lot of attention. Before they can finish, a patrol car pulls up. Most of them rush into traffic and get away. One woman is caught. But they tell us they went back later that same night and finished the job.

Shasta Darlington, CNN, Sao Paolo.

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