Indian Gang-Rape Convict To Be Released; Kerry Hosting International Talks on Syria; Displaced Syrians Living Near Russian Airbase; Indian Government Opposes Release of Rapist
ZAIN ASHER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello, everyone. Welcome to the INTERNATIONAL DESK. So glad to be with you. I'm Zain Asher. Let's get you straight to your top stories. An Indian man convicted of brutally raping and murdering a woman when he was a teenager is now about to be released from a juvenile detention center. The victim's mother is now saying that crime has won. The man was 17 when he participated in the gang rape of a 23-year-old woman on a bus in New Delhi. An Indian court rejected an effort to keep him in custody longer than his original three-year sentence. Our New Delhi bureau chief Ravi Agrawal joins me live now from the Indian capital. So, Ravi, this is a case that really stunned the world. It was in international headlines everywhere. The young man has been released rather quickly. What's been the reaction there in India?</s>RAVI AGRAWAL, CNN NEW DELHI BUREAU CHIEF: The reaction has really been one of surprise, shock also. A number of the Indian TV channels, which I should remind you, where the ones that first brought this to light, ran the story for months and months, really bringing attention to this very important story here. Well, they're the ones who are now saying, well, what happened? How did he get released so quickly? They're running interviews with the victim's parents, with commentators, with legal analysts. This is big news in India. You said it's big news around the world but it's much bigger news here in India. It was back then and it is right now and it will be over the weekend, especially leading up to Sunday, when this juvenile rapist will be released. So it's a shock here and I should add, though, that the reason why he is being released is that he has served his three years and, according to Indian law, a juvenile, for almost any crime that one could commit, the maximum amount of time that you can be held is three years. He served those three years and today what we saw at the high court in Delhi is the judge is essentially saying that government may want to keep him in, the police may want to keep him in but we can't change the law so we have got to let him go.</s>ASHER: Right, and Ravi, what do we know about this convicted rapist? Because we still don't know his name. But what happens to him now? Does he go into hiding?</s>AGRAWAL: We actually know very, very little about this particular rapist. So there were six rapists involved in this absolutely heinous and disgusting crime. Of those six, five were adults. After they were named guilty, we learned their names. They were outed, their pictures were all over the Indian media and on CNN because we did a documentary on this very story. But the sixth rapist, because he was a juvenile, and only by a few months; he turned 18 just a few months after the events of December of 2012, simply because of that, he has enjoyed the protections of Indian law, which means that his name is not allowed to be disclosed. We don't even know what the name is. So very little is known about this person. And on Sunday, he will be free even then; as of now we know very little about where he's going to go, what he's going to do. It may be that the police could say that they need to keep an eye on him. There is a -- what is known as a management committee here for juveniles. They will be monitoring this person. But we don't know if we're doing to see this person, if we'll ever even learn his name.</s>ASHER: And the fact that we don't know his name is a topic we're going to explore a little bit later on in the show with an Indian legal expert. But it's interesting because we don't know the identity of the attacker but we do, however, Ravi, know the identity of the victim. How common is it in India to have a rape victim named publicly?</s>AGRAWAL: It's rare. There are instances when there are rape victims who are alive and come out openly and talk about their experiences. They write about it, they come on Indian TV and talk about it. And those are the instances where you learn of the names. But if the victim does not want to disclose her name -- or even his name I should say -- then that's the way it is. The media cannot do so. The police cannot do so. And so it's all kept a secret. In the case of Nirbhaya or Braveheart as she came to be known, her own mother outed her name on Wednesday. Wednesday was the -- it marked three years since the events of that horrific day in 2012. And her mother came out and said, quite publicly, that it is not our family that should be ashamed. It is not I who should be ashamed but it is the rapist should be ashamed. Their names should be named and for what it's worth, she went out named her daughter's name. Indian media has been also running with that name. So it is now well in the public domain across Indian media, on TV, on newspapers and --</s>AGRAWAL: -- also the international media. We can now name her as well. Her name is Jyoti Singh.</s>ASHER: Right, a courageous act for the mother to name her own daughter in all of this. But I do want to ask you, after the victim died, India actually passed the 2013 anti-rape bill, basically to change the way sex crimes are punished. So that aside, how much have things on the ground there actually changed in India? Is that enough of a deterrent?</s>AGRAWAL: Well, you know, we see rapes here all the time. So clearly, it is not enough of a deterrent. There are -- you know, the sheer number of rapes that you see here, living here, it's in the newspapers every single day. A few measures have been taken by the government, as you say. It has sort of increased the scope of the definition of rape. It has made the punishments tougher. The government says that it is making it easier to process these crimes to make the police more aware of how to treat victims with a bit more kindness and compassion. There are GPS monitoring services on buses, on auto rickshaws but you have got to ask the question, is it enough? Rapes still continue to take place here at great rates. And that continues to be a reason of great shame for New Delhi, the city that I live in, and for India at large.</s>ASHER: And, Ravi, the anti-rape bill is just one step in the right direction. As I mentioned, we will have a lot more on the legal aspects later a little bit later on in the show with a lawyer there in India. Ravi Agrawal, thank you so much. Appreciate that. The U.S. and Russia -- the U.S. and Russia in New York are in talks to try and end the war in Syria. Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and several foreign ministers are joining U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in New York. Today's meeting comes a few days after Kerry's trip to Moscow, where he offered hints of compromise from the U.S. on the future on Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. CNN global affairs correspondent Elise Labott, joins me live now from New York, where the talks are taking place. So Elise, one of the big sticking points in all of this, as you know, has been what is going to happen to president Bashar al-Assad. Even though Washington has been very clear in the past they want Assad to go, they have toned down their rhetoric in recent weeks. Does that mean that U.S. and Russia are now more aligned in their objectives, do you think?</s>ELISE LABOTT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think, Zain, a couple of things going on. First of all, you have to consider where Secretary Kerry was, he was in Moscow and I think a lot of that rhetoric to placate a little bit his Russian host. But the U.S. position on Assad has been evolving. I mean, the U.S. ultimately feels he has to go. But realistically, they know that that's not going to happen any time soon. And that's why there's this real urgency to try and get this political process going between negotiations between the regime and the opposition groups on a political transition. And the hope is that Bashar al-Assad will be gone at the end of that transition. Certainly that's not a guarantee. You know, the Russians are making a little bit of signals that they may be open to that towards the end. But certainly that's the elephant in the room. But today, there certainly is some momentum on this political process. You saw in Vienna last month this 17-nation international Syrian support group endorsing this plan. A six-month negotiations on cease-fire, that would lead to more talks led by the U.N. on negotiations for drafting a new constitution and also towards electing a new government. They hope later to enshrine all of these talks, all of these plans into a U.N. Security Council resolution later today, which would also be very significant because you know U.N. Security Council has taken action on chemical weapons, on ISIS, on other things but has never been able to agree on a political process. So if they were to agree on a resolution today, certainly it's not going to end the bloodshed any time soon but it definitely would be a significant step in the right direction.</s>ASHER: Yes, the goal as you mentioned in all of this is a cease-fire, certainly very ambitious when you consider that you can't exactly bring ISIS and Al-Nusra Front to the table. Elise Labott, thank you so much, live for us in New York. We appreciate it. Russia has granted CNN extraordinary access to its military operations in Syria. Today our Matthew Chance toured a camp near Russia's air base in Latakia, where thousands of displaced Syrians are now living. He tells us how they ended up there and why they don't want to leave. Take a listen.</s>MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the game for Syria, Russia's Putin and Bashar al-Assad are on the same side. "This is thanks to Russia," the poster reads. We were brought to this, the "Sport City" camp in Latakia to see how the Syrian --</s>CHANCE (voice-over): -- government and Kremlin backers say they give refuge. One government sanctioned aid worker told me how and why these people are here.</s>CHANCE: What have these people been through, to drive them to become refugees?</s>ZEN HASAN (PH), AID WORKER: These people just don't have any homes. They don't have any families. So horrible stuff. Kids here, I hear stuff from kids about killing, about death about -- you know? It's really hard on them. They live horrible, you know. They're just pretty safe here. They don't want to leave the land. And they don't have the money to pay for the trip to Europe, which anybody can do. It's not the other side.</s>CHANCE: Is that why these refugees are here, being protected essentially by the -- by President Assad? Because they couldn't afford to go to Europe?</s>HASAN (PH): No, no; I'm not saying they want to stay here -- there with President Assad, you know, but they just didn't want to leave.</s>CHANCE: Well, the authorities tell us that housing at least 5,000 or 6,000 people in this one camp, just a fraction, of course, of the millions made refugees by Syria's brutal civil war. One of the reasons we have been brought here is to illustrate that not every Syrian wants to escape the clutches of the Syrian government and its president, Bashar al-Assad. Some feel much safer under his control.</s>CHANCE (voice-over): Some like Aisha Adbulraheem and her family, who fled Aleppo earlier this year. Her husband is in the Syrian army, she told me. Rebels behead family members of Syrian soldiers, she says. For some, the choice between the evils of Bashar al-Assad and the rebels who oppose him is simple to make -- Matthew Chance, CNN, in Latakia, Syria.</s>ASHER: Russian Investigators are analyzing the flight recorder from the warplane shot down in Turkey last month. The Russian defense ministry says the memory card is damaged but experts are still able to retrieve information from it. Turkish officials say the plane was warned repeatedly over airspace violations. Moscow denied it crossed into Turkish territory and Russian president Vladimir Putin has lashed out at Ankara over the incident. The number of people forced from their homes by violence is now reaching record numbers. We'll tell you about a new report from the U.N. Refugee Agency and why the agency's leader says now is a time for compassion, tolerance and solidarity. Also ahead, what's described as miraculous news from the Vatican about Mother Teresa. We'll explain coming up.