U.S. Presidential Contenders Hit Campaign Trail A Week Ahead of Iowa Caucus; President Rouhani Makes First State Visit To Europe in 16 Years. Aired 11:00a-12:00p ET
LYNDA KINKADE, HOST: Ready to do business: Iran looks to update its aging fleet of commercial planes. And President Rouhani has landed in Italy making the first state visit to Europe by an Iranian leader in 16 years. A report from Tehran coming up. Also ahead, one week to go. U.S. presidential contenders hit the campaign trail hard just seven days before the crucial Iowa caucuses. We'll be live in Des Moines later in the show. Also ahead...</s>STAN GRANT, JOURNALIST: My people die young in this country. We die ten years younger than average Australians and we are far from free.</s>KINKADE: An impassioned speech by a prominent Australian journalist. We'll have more on the viral video about his country's record on indigenous rights coming up this hour.</s>ANNOUNCER: Live from CNN Center, this is Connect the World.</s>KINKADE: But first we start with the war in Syria and peace talks between the warring parties were supposed to get underway in Geneva on Monday. But the UN special envoy now says they have been pushed back and will start Friday. He says discussions are continuing over who should be invited to represent the opposition. On the ground, the violence rages on and so does the human suffering. These images are said to show the aftermath of recent fighting in the city of Aleppo. CNN's Nick Paton Walsh has been following the Syrian conflict and joins us now from Beirut in neighboring Lebanon. And The UN special envoy for Syria is said that every day lost is a lost day for a ceasefire. How challenging is it to bring the relevant parties together to find a political resolution?</s>NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this really was kind of the zero hour where many felt that increasing international pressure and perhaps increasingly similar scripts bar the fate of Assad between Washington and Moscow here might yield something, but last-minute hurdles, everybody seeming to disagree on who should be the invitees list. Now what we heard today from Staffan de Mistura, the special envoy, was basically a message that said this train is going to leave anyway on Friday. Either you're on it or off it. And if you're off it, you might not be able to influence where it goes. So, the notion, really, I think, is that they will pretty much invite everybody apart from those groups listed by the UN security council as terrorist organizations, and then hope that they are worried about being left out of the process. But some may not show, some may walk out. He's using very vague language about quite where this is supposed to go. Here's what he said.</s>STAFFAN DE MISTURA, UN SPECIAL ENVOY TO SYRIA: We are going to aim at the proximity talks starting on the 29th and ongoing for six months on a staggered chronological proximity approach. That will be the way we try to make it different from the past. This is not Geneva III, this is leading to what we hope will be a Geneva success story if we are able to push it forward.</s>WALSH: Now, what does that mean? Proximity talks? Well, it means that you're probably not going to see the different groups, even perhaps those in the opposition who don't agree with each other necessarily in the same room or even the same hotel. It might simply mean that they are brought to the same area Mr. de Mistura will shuffle between them trying to work out common ground. And the first three weeks, that will be the most intense approach that I hope perhaps certainly John Kerry, the U.S. secretary of state hopes that maybe the process will begin to define itself and people will be scared to be left out. But the key question is who is going to attend, meeting tomorrow in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, between opposition groups. That may solidify their position, but there have been such many last-minute changes of position or new red lines drawn that I think many are concerned you may see key parties not show up on Friday and that could undermine the process overall.</s>KINKADE: And Nick, speaking of John Kerry, the U.S. secretary of state, did reach out to foreign ministers from both Russia and Saudi Arabia. Do you have any indication about how those talks are going or what was said?</s>WALSH: Well, there was a lot of last-minute closed door telephone calls made. There were indications, certainly, from people I was talking to ahead of this announcement that perhaps they may not know when it was going to occur at all, when the talks were going to occur at all, but it seems to have been last-minute phone calls between John Kerry, Sergei Lavrov, his Russian counterpart, that may have been to design pressure or perhaps sent to be on the same page. Let's just hold the talks and see who is willing to show up and invite pretty much everyone that we can. But the key question you have to ask yourself is what has this last ground standing done to those who will actually attend? There's been criticism reports that perhaps John Kerry pressured some of the Syrian opposition into attending. Maybe they didn't like that. We know certainly the Russians don't want to be at the same table as Jaesh al-Islam (ph), one of the key opposition groups who they consider to be terrorists. It's a frantic mess, but I think the notion here is they believe if they push forward and just start a process, maybe people won't want to be left out of it and will show up -- Lynda.</s>KINKADE: OK, Nick Paton Walsh in Beirut, Lebanon. Thank you very much. Well, now to an historic visit that is as much about deals as diplomacy. Iran's president has started his first foreign trip since international sanctions were lifted on his country just over a week ago. Hassan Rouhani arrived in Rome accompanied by more than 100 business leaders and ministers amid high hopes on both sides of multibillion dollar contracts being signed. CNN's senior international correspondent Frederik Pleitgen is covering us from Tehran. And Fred, it's just over a week since the sanctions were lifted. It seems Iran is moving rather quickly to build business relationships.</s>FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, they certainly are. They are moving extremely quickly. And if you see that this is a very fast trip by President Hassan Rouhani where he's trying to get these business relationships going. There's talks, for instance, medium to small-sized Italian businesses investing in Iran, also a lot of French oil companies apparently try to get in on the hydrocarbon sector. This is certainly something where the Iranians are trying to move foreign investment into this country along as fast as possible. Now, one of the sectors that the Iranians have identified as being in dire need of foreign investment is their airline sector. They want to buy planes. They also want foreign investment, for instance, in their airports. But they also want additional airlines to fly over here into Iran. For the very first time in a long time there has been an international airline conference that took place here in Tehran with people from the industry from around the globe. And here's what happened there.</s>PLEITGEN (voice- over): A high end video produced by Iran's Civil Aviation Authority. As the country looks to drastically modernize its air travel sector in a CNN interview, the Transport minister outlined ambitious goals.</s>ABBAS AHMAD AKHOUNDI, IRANIAN TRANSPORT MINISTER: I'm seeing that Iran Air will compete within five to seven years with all the regional airlines.</s>PLEITGEN: Years of sanctions have devastated Iran's airlines and even its aircraft are old and unsafe because of a shortage of spare parts. But at one of the first major international airline conferences in Tehran, companies from all over the world are scoping out what they hope could be a dynamic new market. (</s>On camera): Iranian authorities believe that they will need hundreds of new planes in the coming years. Not just to meet the demand of its citizens, but also for the millions of tourists they believe could be coming here soon. (</s>Voice-over): Iran is looking to buy more than 100 aircraft from both Boeing and Airbus and the minister in charge says that is just the beginning.</s>AKHOUNDI: We think we need about 100 short-range fleet for our local flight. And for national flight and international flight about 400 fleet that can do the -- long-range air flights.</s>PLEITGEN: But because Iran's economy is highly dependent on oil, the drop in international crude prices could hamper Iran's plans for a large scale modernization of its air, road and rail infrastructure. While some believe that could also affect development of the tourism sector, Iran's Tourism minister tells me the country will be ready for a major influx of foreign visitors. "The price of oil has a big effect on our economy," he says. "But 90 percent of our investment in tourism is done by the private sector and the private sector started investing even during the sanctions." For years, international sanctions have made Iran's airlines some of the most unsafe in the world. Now Tehran is keen to leave behind its troubled aviation past and get its fleet and airports up to speed.</s>PLEITGEN: And if you look at the amount of delegates that were there and the amount of companies from which delegates were there, you can see that many of these international companies do view Iran as a possibly very, very dynamic market going forward. And one of the other interesting things, Lynda, that happened on the sidelines of that conference is that the transport minister also announced that Iran was seriously looking into direct flights between Iran and the United States. Of course, that would be a gigantic step considering the political situation that still is the reality between these two countries - - Lynda.</s>KINKADE: Yeah, that would indeed be a huge move, Fred. And just in terms of the businesses that do strike a deal with Iran, what's the risk? What sort of problems could they encounter if Iran fails to comply with any of the conditions of the nuclear deal?</s>PLEITGEN: Well, I mean, you're absolutely right. What essentially the businesses that are coming here right now -- and there are a lot of people who are flying in. I can tell you the flights into Iran are packed with business people mostly from Europe, also a lot of them from China as well. They're essentially making a bet on the future. They believe that the political situation here will remain stable and they believe the economic situation will improve and that the nuclear deal will hold. And that of course is the big risk. Will it hold? Will the relations get better? Or could there be some sort of miscalculation on any of the sides that are part of this nuclear agreement that could put these political gains at risk. Right now, what many people are looking forward to is for Iran to be able to do electronic banking again, to be part of the swift agreement again, to make sure that people can just do business here without having to take in sacks of money into the country. Certainly, these are things that they say have to happen very quickly in order for businesses to be able to conduct business here in this country and certainly every stage of the way they look at the political situation and they hope that it will hold and certainly they do see that there could be a risk that if it doesn't hold that all of the headway that's made because of the nuclear agreement could be put at risk.</s>KINKADE: Yeah, certainly a big gamble for those businesses. Frederik Pleitgen in Tehran, thank you very much. ISIS has released a gruesome new propaganda video. The 18 minute tape is highly produced and edited. It shows the faces and names of the nine men ISIS claims carried out a wave of attacks in Paris last year. And some of them can be seen executing ISIS prisoners. It also contains an audio message from the suspected ringleader of those attacks. Abdelhamid Abaaoud. The messages of the other attackers were filmed in what appears to be a desert. Now for more on this, I'm joined by our international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson who joins us live from London. And Nic, this propaganda video really seems to strike at the heart of France.</s>NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's very slickly produced. And certainly, it's an intention, if you will, to score a double propaganda victory not only the attack in Paris late last year, but to come back and haunt the French, try to intimidate them in a way by rerunning in this montage, this slickly produced montage, rerunning news clips of that night of the attack happening. But also as you say, the comments that are made by the nine attackers, the people that ISIS says are responsible for the attack. Three of them they say are French, four of them Belgian, two of them Iraqi. Aa brutal executions of the style that we have seen ISIS make before. But here the people that are executing are almost being used as sort of stage extras in a very horrible, very macabre, very despicable way for each of these individuals to make statements. One of the statements talked about there will be attacks at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. Another one says on the Champs Elysees next, of course that famous boulevard, big, wide boulevard in the center of Paris leading up to the Arc de Triomphe, very famous. So this is what it appears that ISIS is trying to do. It says that Baghdadi, the head of ISIS, you know, said that the attack should go ahead, gave it authority, and very clearly they are trying to sort of put these attackers in the battlefield in Iraq and Syria, show them as somehow authentic figures. They're clothed in very new battle uniforms clearly they don't appear to have been to the front line. They are just involved in these executions. So, it's carefully staged here to show that these men didn't just turn up in Paris from nowhere, that they came from ISIS's command in Iraq and Syria.</s>KINKADE: And Nic, they seem to indicate that the next target could be the UK. Is that a serious threat? What should we make of it?</s>ROBERTSON: Well, certainly, the British say that they are looking at this, but they call this video a desperate act. What you see towards the end of those almost 18 minutes is a clip from the House of Commons where David Cameron, the British prime minister and other parliamentarians are discussing British air force joining the United States and others in strikes over Syria. And what the narrative is, is that these will -- this is a mistake that you're the enemies of Islam. If you attack us, we will attack you. It's a very clear indication that they say that they will try to threaten the UK. It's terror, it's intimidation, the British are looking at it. We know that the British authorities here have stepped up their readiness for this type of terror attack. They've put a significant number more armed British police on the streets of London, because of the reality of what everyone saw in Paris -- Lynda.</s>KINKADE: OK. Some great analysis there. Nic Robertson in London, thank you very much. Well, still to come, the three Democratic candidates for U.S. president are getting ready for one last appearance on the same stage before Iwa voters get the chance to weigh in on the race. Also remember these scenes? Five years after the revolution launched from Cairo's Tahrir Square, we will be asking what the Egyptian uprising achieved.